The thing that eventually kills off all innovation won't be AI. It'll be Cyber Security teams desperate to lock down every corporate computer to exactly 3 applications. So they can hit some randomly numbered standard and post about it on linkedin.
The workaround? Do it on a personal machine and upload it or email it. Facepalm.
My favourite one: Liverpool John Moores University banned USB mass storage devices from connecting to their machines, for security reasons. So now my colleagues there can’t download images from a drone, camera, or get data off an SD card.
Hammer is 63 years old now.
He’s actually older than the execrable Nigel Farage, who despite his old-man persona is a mere 61.
My response was “how do you know who MC Hammer is?” and of course the answer is “YouTube”
On the flip side, yesterday I was in a primary school talking about polar science, and part of the lesson involves dressing several kids up in polar clothing, which is usually a few sizes too big for them. One 9-year-old put on these massive trousers and said “I look like MC Hammer!”
The one I associate with this is “Allo Allo”, which was a 1980s parody of oh-so-serious dramas about the Resistance, notably one called Secret Army that was made in the late 70s.
They are very lovely goats.
Did you have those cupboards installed just as a teaching aid?
I spent an enjoyable morning at Albert Primary in Penarth talking about polar science to 7-11 year olds as part of British Science Week. Dressed several pupils (and some staff!) in polar clothing too! #bsw26 #stemambassadors
On the back of being quoted I was contacted by a research administrator at a different Uni. She wants to stay anonymous. She has worked on this call all weekend. She didn't feel able to say no. Nor did the researchers. Unlike them she will not benefit in any material way if her Uni wins this money.
I’m a few pages in and definitely feeling the connection… the year I lived in Croydon (Addiscombe, to be precise) was the year I came out.
@grindrod.bsky.social got your book sir! Looking forward to it!
Who called it homeopathic medicine and not dilutions of grandeur?
Who doesn’t love seeing a supraglacial channel in winter? The ice shapes are amazing — frozen flows, bright blues, and patterns that show how glaciers move and melt. Nature at its coolest. #Glacier #Science #Glaciology
that Michael Young was responsible for the creation of the two unalloyed goods for British life of Which Magazine, the Open University *and* also Toby Young will never cease to astonish
The adorably bonkers CitizenM with its giant bed and walk-through toilet pod is definitely worth a look.
Is it bad that I immediately recognised the CD player? It's an SL-PG590. I still have its cheaper brother the SL-PG490 (basically the same, minus a few buttons) which I bought with money earned from my first proper job in 1998. It still works.
She's got a ticket to Ryde, and she don't care...
Thanks! Reminds me of a spoof management book, Parkinson's Law, which includes a chapter on what Parkinson calls "injelitance" - a portmanteau of "incompetence", "jealousy" and "elitism" - which is exactly what you describe in the US: insecure leaders appointing loyalists who don't threaten them.
I am standing outside in front of a lorry, making a sour face and shrugging. On the van it says “bof”. (This is a French slang word that’s a bit like “meh” in English)
“Comment vas-tu, Mike?”
ah THE COMPLETE HOMOSEXUAL HANDBOOK, one of the lesser known late TSR products.
Between 1992-2025, large areas of the grounding line of #Antarctic glaciers have retreated. The largest changes have occurred in W. Antarctica, where grounding lines have retreated 10-40+ km, driven by incursions of warm water masses along deep bathymetric troughs
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
❄️🧪🌊
For what it's worth this is my full quote. I would love to understand from @ukri.org why this call has been restricted to 4 weeks (with no advanced warning) going against it's own EDI commitments. The response so far doesn't explain why only 4 weeks nor why not 8 weeks.
NEW ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 2.4% in 2025 as coal fell to a 400-year low. Incredibly, we used less coal last year than than in 1600, when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing Hamlet.
All the details in our article: www.carbonbrief.org/...
9am start time is allegedly something to do with horse bus timetables in 19th century London…
I thought having sat next to Princess Anne for dinner in Antarctica was quite good going, but it’s nothing on this…
hashtag leadership
The worst one though was when GPRS came out - I ran up an unexpected £60 bill the first time that I let my desktop PC go on the internet via my mobile. Ouch.
Later I'm pretty sure I had a phone that supported HSCSD, which ganged together multiple 9600 connections to give you something more like landline dialup internet speed. But it was expensive so I rarely used it.
