Steph Gray

"Can you promote this on the website?" always seems to come with an A4 poster attachment. I'm loving building personal AI utilities to shortcut gruntwork. My v1 was a tool to crop and create social media captions; v2 is a drag-drop WordPress plugin to turn the poster in publishable content

@positivehelpbot.bsky.social City of Sanctuary UK

@positivehelpbot.bsky.social shout out to Oxfam

Q: Do you know of any #public or #community owned conference venues in #Manchester that can host 250 people and have at least 8 breakout rooms, please? Dates needed are either Saturday 16 or 23 January 2027. @ukgovcamp.com 2027 ( #ukgc27 ).

@acjsissons.bsky.social Sorry to trouble you, is info@visitaheatpump.com still the best way to get website technical support? I'm having issues changing pics.

'Can I have change for a barn owl?' Puffins, barn owls, bumblebees and hedgehogs will grace redesigned bank notes, the @bankofengland has announced. The decision comes after 2.5m votes were cast by Brits on what wildlife should replace historical figures on cash. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today on creepy Marketplace finds: give the kids both a treat and a veiny nightmare to remember with this retro piece. £10. Spoon for scale.

This is a super-clear, super-helpful explanation of the pension triple-lock and the wider context. I genuinely look forward to @hannahritchie.bsky.social's newsletter landing in my inbox: hannahritchie.substack.com/p/uk-triple-...

Me to Claude Code: I have a couple of changes to make Claude: That's four changes Me: Well, some are quite minor Claude: [tuts for 20 minutes about how much there is to refactor, then does a bang up job] Are we sure there aren't real human devs behind AI?

Some good news, turns out @reachvolunteering.org.uk has found the funding it needed and will be staying open: reachvolunteering.org.uk/closure People I mentioned it to were shocked by the news and had no idea how to plug the gap, so this sounds like a Good Thing for the voluntary sector.

I've been enjoying getting Claude to help me create right-click Quick Actions on MacOS to do fiddly repetitive stuff. Here, it takes a bunch of generically-named images, describes them and uses the <255 character descriptions as filenames. Result: better default ALT text when I upload to WordPress.

Nice online experience for the Bayeux Tapestry by the British Museum with full and highlights modes depending on how much of a tapestry nerd you are. h/t @janeparsons.bsky.social www.britishmuseum.org/bayeux-tapes...

Today on Marketplace. Just £1!

This feels like some solid analysis. There's lots of reasons to worry about or object to AI, but I've not found much evidence that the terrifying environmental impact of datacentres is the slam-dunk some people reckon it is.

One for the Net Zero Dads/Mums: older wireless charging pads or ones without the magnets to snap devices into alignment are probably wasting more energy than you realise and risk damaging the battery. But does wired charging wear out the ports faster though? www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhKV...

Sad to hear that @reachvolunteering.org.uk is to close, as funders' priorities shift away from national and infrastructure bodies. I've found several good digital volunteering and trustee roles on the platform, and I hope someone is able to take the excellent service forward in some way.

My son loves buses! I made an app called buslens that shows you all the places you can get to by bus from near your current location, or any other location: rupertlinacre.com/buslens/ github.com/rupertLinacr...

Drive an electric vehicle? The EV Association is running its annual driver survey and looking to hear what the barriers and priorities are for EV drivers (or those looking to get one) to inform their policy work: www.surveymonkey.com/r/HV3TCS5

Had something similar last night too when the electronics tutor held up a Nokia 3310 to the room as an example of ancient tech. Dude, that was my third phone 👴

Had an elderly Millenial moment of wistfulness at the forlorn Post Office counter at the back of our grungy ex-WHSmith this morning. I remember when both were beacons on the high street, bustling, exciting places to go. I know rationally how it’s the result of our choices etc etc, but still 😢

Today in Weird Things On Marketplace:

Absolutely banging edition of Quantum of Sollazzo this week - lots of fascinating links in there (thanks @puntofisso.bsky.social) buttondown.com/puntofisso/a...

I'm on the receiving end of an increasingly unhinged AI-fuelled sales spam email thread. I really liked "P.S. Totally fine to ignore if not a fit." Also, the idea that government procurement has now adopted fastest finger first.

Saw Princess Di's SL500 at the Stuttgart Mercedes-Benz museum today (next to the original Popemobile - it's quite a museum). She had to reluctantly return it less than a year later, following an outcry from government and unions. I'm not sure how much soft pressure to 'buy British' helps, tbh.

#RepairDay is our annual chance to celebrate repair 🔧⁠ ⁠ If you have something planned to mark the occasion, add it to the map now ⁠ And if you need some inspiration for how you could get involved, explore our toolkit ⁠ It's all at RepairDay.org 🚀⁠

Interrailing to Davos today. Can’t not picture this figure of my 1980s nightmares. He probably goes to the World Economic Forum these days, repping AI

As the Railway 200 team wind up their work I've written down some of the ways which made it such an enjoyable campaign to work on: stephgray.com/2026/08/the-...

“It’s not so much that the past is a different country, more that the past was a different future. It turned out that the future did have a lot more screens in it (but less carpet on the walls).”

So I'm pretty excited by the recognition that traditional consultation doesn't cut it any more, in the Rewiring the State Cabinet Statement. 1/3 www.gov.uk/government/p...

I'm late to this from the @dxw.com blog but it's excellent and refreshingly uncertain about how junior developers and AI will work together in an agency environment: www.dxw.com/2026/06/what...

I like the granularity of this calculator by @dantaylorwatt.com of your personal AI environmental footprint. I find the moral panic about AI on ecological grounds a bit tiresome so it's good to have some apparently well-sourced data to work with: www.dantaylorwatt.com/ai/ai-enviro...

Bittersweet to mark the Fourth while a tyrant presides over and degrades our nation. But you can play The World in 1776 and remember that all over the world people have always resisted tyranny and in the long run, we will win. worldin1776.org.uk

"Hmm, what's that large file called rr.mp4 sitting on the server?" I asked myself... and then proceeded to rickroll myself. Well done, me from the past.

It's Smith-mas Eve here at @uofgsocsci.bsky.social! Our celebration of The Wealth of Nations 250th kicks off tomorrow, focusing on slavery, empire, monopoly and justice. www.gla.ac.uk/explore/adam... A little video, chatting Smith with my colleagues, to get you in the mood:

Dylan, on life in your 80’s, is incredible. @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/o...

Good to have a professional technical term for this: daringfireball.net/2026/05/what...

Some blogging from me: on working with impact drivers vs phoning a builder and sharing my experiences developing software with Claude: stephgray.com/2026/06/impa...

It's coming up to 30 years since I (ahem, loosely) studied it, and 250 since it was written: this has been a fun project to work on for the University of Glasgow. I'm so impressed how thorough and yet accessible @maharafiatal.bsky.social and team's storytelling is. worldin1776.org.uk

My take on AI is, essentially, everybody who’s against is too against it and everybody who’s for it is too for it.

@gilestur.bsky.social I see where you're coming from - often 'comms' does seem like this, but 'broadcasting positive achievements' is to mature communication what 'web design' is to digital services - a tip of an iceberg. Proper Comms is behaviour change; spin or no spin. gilest.org/notes/2026/o...

Thrilled that @policycamp.bsky.social, a one-day unconference for policy practitioners, is happening! - Thursday 23 July, 1000-1630 - University College London Apply for tickets now: policycamp.org.uk A massive thank you to everyone who helped shape our thinking. Please share widely!

Record number of overseas applications for British passports in early 2026 - presumably because the Home Office began insisting that dual nationals need one to travel to the UK (rather than using their Australian or Canadian passport, say)

Corporate power today is scary, but not new. In WHEN COMPANIES RULE, I recount its 400-year history from the East India Company to Amazon, what motivates the oligarchs who would be kings, and what we can do about them. Out in November, pre-order now: cup.columbia.edu/book/when-co...

NEW project: a #dataviz of #Eurovision lyrics. The question: was "do #ESC lyrics follow world news"? TL;DR sort of, but not quite :-) The result is this #scrollytelling article, inspired by @puddingviz.bsky.social 's style. Methodology and code linked. puntofisso.net/eurovision/

Not now, Facebook memory from 8 May 2015. The subsequent twists and turns were a whole lot scarier.