James Abley

James Abley

@jabley.bsky.social

Ghost in a meatsack. Opinions model's own. Occasionally useful. Won’t speak on all-male/-white panels. Anti-fascist. (He/him) #BLM

179 followers252 following51 posts

James Abley reposted

Kevin J. Kircher
@kevinjkircher.com

Read this thread if you're interested in land-use issues related to farming and solar photovoltaics.

John Smillie@johnsmillie42.bsky.social

Thread on solar vs. farmland debate: 1/n Enviro writer Bill McKibben: "“If you care about the future of agriculture on this planet,” he added, ​“you should be focused on driving down carbon emissions so we will still be able to grow things.”" www.canarymedia.com/.../lowell-v....

canarymedia.comcanarymedia.com

James Abley reposted

Aliette de Bodard
@aliettedebodard.com

This is worth a read because it eviscerates the narration of "AI solved complex mathematical problems, we can now retire mathematicians" that's currently being pushed by the AI companies. (and in general please remain sceptical of any claims to independent thinking or intent by LLMs)

Aliette de Bodard@aliettedebodard.com

An article on the solving of the Navier Stokes equations by a mathematician who knows what's going on bms.ulb.ac.be/data/uploads... (Yes it's in LateX I am sorry)

bms.ulb.ac.bebms.ulb.ac.be

James Abley reposted

Terence Eden
@edent.tel

New blog post: Book Review: The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' by Sidney Dekker ★★★★☆ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/book-review-the-field-guide-to-understanding-human-error-by-sidney-dekker/ This is such a useful book. It makes the case that there's no such thing as "human error" …

shkspr.mobiBook Review: The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' by Sidney DekkerThis is such a useful book. It makes the case that there's no such thing as "human error" - instead most catastrophes are caused by system issues, misaligned incentives, and unrealistic processes. You are not the custodian of an otherwise safe system that you need to protect from erratic human beings. By its nature it is a little repetitive. I suspect it's the sort of book students and…

James Abley reposted

Emma Monk
@monkemma.bsky.social

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

James Abley reposted

Leo Hickman
@leohickman.carbonbrief.org

++BREAKING++ Leading climate scientists in the UK have written to senior editors in broadcast media - and OFCOM and IPSO: "To express our concern about recent media coverage of extreme weather, climate change and net-zero and to urge you…to inform public audiences of the scientific links"

James Abley reposted

Heather Burns
@heatherburnstech.bsky.social

Fun fact: the magical child safety solution which Jess Philips cited in her resignation letter is a vendor-specific offering, which benefited from an intense PR and lobbying campaign, and was previously praised by ... Prince Andrew. I always keep the receipts. heatherburns.tech/2026/02/20/t...

heatherburns.techThe Prince, The Paedo, The Palace, and the “Safety Tech” app – Hi, I'm Heather Burns
Jim Pickard@pickardje.bsky.social

Breaking: Jess Phillips resigns as safeguarding minister just ahead of the 1pm news bulletins

James Abley reposted

jenn da joker
@jennschiffer.com

”An engineering team at a large AI vendor decided that the user's machine is a deployment surface to be optimised for the vendor's product roadmap, not a personal device whose owner is the legal authority on what runs there.”

Lady Talia@djtalia.bsky.social

Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking. It is the weights for Gemini Nano, Google's on-device LLM. Chrome did not ask. Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it. www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-...

thatprivacyguy.comGoogle Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user del...

James Abley reposted

Jacky Alciné
@jacky.wtf

BREAKING: Claude Mythos discovers 60-year old computing bug, PEBCAK, that's been silently plagued the tech industry for years. It suggests resolving it by eliminating the entity in the middle and replacing it with a more efficient model.

James Abley reposted

Rachel Coldicutt
@rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social

I am casting a beady eye at all the UK commentators who, this time last year, wrote clickbaity treatises on the need for a UK DOGE, and note that position lost no important men any credibility, while the reality of the implantation cost many, many lives

James Medlock@jdcmedlock.bsky.social

"The purpose of a system is what it does" is often not a great heuristic, but it's hard not to look at the output of DOGE and wonder if they were optimizing for the most harm they could possibly inflict without improving efficiency or costs. Moneyball for utility monsters.

James Abley reposted

derek guy
@dieworkwear.bsky.social

how ironic to see the state protect two people who sought to strip the state while working under the direction of elon musk, who has made it impossible to seek recourse when people get death threats and harassment on twitter

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James Abley reposted

Ed Newton-Rex
@ednewtonrex.bsky.social

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer. 🧵 1/5

James Abley reposted

Grady Booch
@booch.com

I do not fear the rise of superintelligence. I do, however, fear the rise of billionaires, organizations, and world powers who seek to use computing to maximize their power, influence, and control.

James Abley reposted

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

300,000 children face 10-year wait for settled status under UK plans, says IPPR The consultation closes on Thursday. What is being proposed is dreadful. Can I encourage you to engage with the consultation and put your dissent on record?

share.google300,000 children face 10-year wait for settled status under UK plans, says IPPRThinktank analysis says proposed ‘earned settlement’ changes could trap families in prolonged insecurity
Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

Over the weekend the government consultation on earned settlement crossed my feed thanks to @jdportes.bsky.social and @danielsohege.bsky.social. Filling it out made me very sad. So sad that I've written something far too long (as usual) but if you'd like to read them they're here.

bm.wel.byWhat ‘earned settlement’ tells us about belonging, character, and the country we are becoming - bmwelby's blogOver the weekend I spent some time responding to the Home Office consultation (it closes in mid-February) on proposed changes to settlement and what it calls “earned residence”. I didn’t rush it. I di...

James Abley reposted

Arieh Kovler
@ariehkovler.com

On 1 May 1517, xenophobic mobs, riled up by preachers who were in turn pressured by wealthy broker John Lincoln, rioted in London. They claimed that foreigners were stealing their jobs and welfare. Thomas More, then under-sheriff of London, tried to stop the mob with an empassioned speech.

Omg. WTF is Happening?@lalahaenzy.bsky.social

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

James Abley reposted

Mark Grimshaw
@markgrimshawtism.bsky.social

So, just to confirm, the BBC can’t keep Robin Ince on the air because his trans allyship brings the organisation into disrepute, but they can keep David Walliams, who performed Nazi salutes at the recording of this very show, on the air despite him being predatory towards women. Cool. Very normal.

James Abley reposted

Open Web Advocacy
@open-web-advocacy.org

The 🇬🇧UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially designated Apple as having Strategic Market Status (SMS). After four years investigating Apple’s restrictions on browser engines and web apps, the CMA now has statutory authority to enforce a code of conduct. 1/12

James Abley reposted

Dafydd Vaughan
@daivaughan.uk

A bit of a holiday rant... We need to stop designing "target architectures." They're a fantasy. A waste of money. An approach that forces decisions too early, kills speed, and guarantees you'll never fix legacy tech. A utopian plan that's an anchor, not a map. dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/th...

dafyddvaughan.ukThe bridge to nowhere: Why your ‘Target Architecture' won’t ever deliverStop funding fictional target architecture blueprints and start funding empowered, long-lived teams. The traditional, rigid approach is too slow for the age of AI and will never solve your real-world ...