Richard Harris

With lots of new folks coming on board, a brief summary of me: I'm co-founder of BlueGlobe, a geospatial data intelligence platform, focussed on data-driven understanding, planning, forecasting and monitoring for environmental resilience & Climate Change response. More at: blueglo.be/news/everyth...

This was how Shelley saw the corruption, misrule and violent suppression that was England in 1819. It could just as easily be titled, “USA in 2026”.

Storm Boelo still doing its thing here – if anything, the wind continues to rise. Lots of trees down, water fairly high, and lots of willing locals with chainsaws keeping the roads open. #stormboelo #balquhidder

The mists of Autumn are here… #Scotland #Balquhidder

@xkcd.com summed it up perfectly: the public internet began as a collaborative effort by its community. Every commercial behemoth built since has had a free ride on the backs of those continuing contributions. So we are now in the FO stage of the internet. More popcorn, please…

Governments continue to treat a clock that is not just ticking but accelerating as fungible - something interchangeable in the mix of short- and long-term priorities. This is beyond incompetence and into wilful denial and cowardice, for which we are all paying. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cw...

"Insulating Britain’s homes and investing in heat pumps would do more to cut the cost of living, create jobs and boost the UK’s economy than drilling for new oil, research suggests."

This blatant blackmail serves only as further proof to that the USA has fallen into criminal kakocracy, and not to be trusted under any circumstances. It must also further spur the RoW into rapid decoupling from US products and services. The American Century is over. english.nv.ua/nation/u-s-t...

America, are you watching?

We’ve had nearly two months of worry & sleepless nights looking after this guy, dealing with his unexplained chronic Rhinitis. Got him on a new steroid treatment yesterday and we have a new cat (or, rather, the old one back) - eating, drinking, playing & chatty. #caturday #oakley #mainecoon

This was such a great answer from Abdul El-Sayed about his previous criticisms of President Obama.

I have never paid to see a politician talk. But bought a ticket for Barack Obama's talk in Glasgow tonight. Unfortunately, because of a sick cat, I can't go. I'm absolutely gutted, but it's the measure of the man and the hope he inspires that my ticket resold in 30 seconds flat. #Obama #Glasgow

Good showing from the Spirits of the North tonight…

Unlike humans, cats are obligate nose breathers. In both species though, mouth breathing is a sign of a serious problem. In cats, it indicates respiratory distress. In humans, it’s a tendency to vote Republican, Reform or AfD. Both need to be tackled, as a matter of urgency. #caturday #democracy

“That was a long shower…” “Yes, dear - I was steaming the cat” Poor Oakley has had rhinitis for six weeks now, and part of his treatment is putting him in steamy atmospheres. #caturday #mainecoon

genuinely one of the most important people of the 20th century -- not just pioneer, not just moon landing programmer, but also a programmer on the project that first discovered chaos in the 1950s

If you haven’t already ‘upgraded’ your iPhone to iOS 27, DON’T

"We see the same tendency at the individual level, with greater faith in technological solutions going hand in hand with less engagement in climate action. Yet technology cannot substitute for the broader societal changes and large-scale shifts in consumption that are also needed"

never the wrong time for this classic

Finally cracked: put part of the heating on. Managed a week later than last year at least.

Dropped bike off with Ducati mechanic in Leith, excellent coffee had, now on brand new Ember.to electric bus directly home to the highlands. Fast, quiet, 100Mb/s+ from WiFi - if it weren’t for Edinburgh’s sub-third world roads, this could be the 21st century…

‘Leith Walk’ it says, so walk Leith I did. Leith reminds me of SF in the 90s: low-rise, a tad shabby, with lots of good local coffee & craft shops, community enterprises & a counterculture vibe. Entirely unlike the Corporate Concrete Wastelands of the centre of Edinburgh. Long may it stay that way

Authoritarian insanity at its most egregious…

If ‘godlike’ is in the Greek or Norse sense, then there’s a comparison to be made: pantheons of capricious, selfish, venal beings who reflect the worst and - occasionally - the best of humanity: because that’s what we train them on… www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Great analysis from Dan 🤣

It’s a truism that society lags science, legislation lags society and bigots lag everything, including compassion. Nowhere is that more evident than in trans legislation. So, in an otherwise fairly facepalmish LibDem conference, this is a small ray of hope www.libdems.org.uk/news/article...

Lest we forget: there are still real journalists at the BBC. Global Eye demonstrates that, and Steve Rosenberg does a masterly job of reporting from Russia, treading the line twixt factual journalism and being summarily thrown out of the country. youtu.be/SebfRk_0jzg?...

The UK completely ignored the opportunity whilst in the EU to be the bridge between it and those former UK colonies with whom we still had good relations. Extremely ironic that Canada/Australia/NZ are moving closer to the EU, while the UK locks itself out in the cold. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man, conducted by the man himself. Really looking forward to this… #karljenkins #glasgow

Belated #caturday post: I am being forced to lie in, as I have a large, convalescent twerp athwart me. He’s had cat flu for a month, is just starting to emerge from it and is knackered, poor lad.

Burnham so far: the UK government is still acting like a rabbit caught in the headlights: different rabbit, same headlights.

Something of a record today: I paid £1.945/litre for E5/99 Octane. E10 is £1.75 and regular diesel is £1.959. I’m very, very glad that I only need petrol for the bike - car has been EV for 7 years. BTW, that’s $9.84/US gallon. I guess that most of Europe is about the same

Police have made 2,700+ arrests under terrorism laws in the UK for protesting peacefully against the banning of Palestine Action. This can't go unchallenged. The UK’s chief pr... www.amnesty.org.uk/get-involved...

Look at the semiotics of the BBC reporting here: note, "The Nationalist leaders of…" rather than "The First Ministers of…" or any reference to the fact that none are Nationalists - they're all Internationalists, which distinguishes the three nations from the one. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This. Very much this. Whether it ultimately leads to independence for each, Irish reunification and/or triggers fundamental constitutional reform of this so-called 'Union' remains to be seen. But the status quo is not an option, and never will be again. www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/devolve...

There’s a basic paradox of LLMs: for them to be effective at language, you throw everything you can at them. To make them effective at analysis and recommendation, you need curated data. Right now, we’re trying to wrestle sense out of the whole panoply of human intelligence and human stupidity.

“Guys, they want us to go home.” 🔥 🇫🇷 French short film about what would happen to society if all the immigrants listened to angry old racist white men and left (aka the Republican agenda)

This: Using the example of mathematics, this letter encapsulates both the potential of LLMs as adjuncts to human discovery and the peril of regarding the headline claims of its more swivel-eyed adherents which suggest that LLMs are a substitute for inspiration, talent and insight. mathandai.org

I was in the US over 9/11, with friends who were frantically trying to contact loved ones. NATO (& others) rightly responded to support America. And I’ve now watched the US throw away all of that goodwill, betray its allies and damage itself far more than 9/11 ever did. It’s a long road back.

So, self-determination is of utmost importance to Ukraine, The Falklands, Gibraltar, but not for Scotland. That is the definition of a controlled colony, not of a union of nations. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Getting a ridiculous level of AI-generated junk mail, v obviously derived from crawling of our web site. What on earth makes any of these shysters think for one nanosecond that we’d ever deal with a company that stooped to those tactics? My contempt for the marketing industry continues to accelerate

“Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?”, whilst ignoring the actual terrorists: the masked thugs of the far right. Utterly pathetic.