Alan Milburn’s position on @therestpolitics.bsky.social, that young people out of work is a system problem rather than a young people problem, got me. So I built a way to see the system: follow today’s 16-year-olds to 40, change the support, see what happens. justin.stach.uk/neet
Justin Stach
Justin Stach
@stach.uk
I make things better. Undertint – colour for watercolourists: https://www.undertint.app The Water Dictionary – https://www.waterdictionary.net Markset – Markdown previews in Finder: https://www.markset.app
1.4K followers500 following947 posts
I wanted to see what changing the UK tax bands around would mean, which of course meant I needed to make a fantasy HMRC simulator... justin.stach.uk/tax/?a=12570...
Justin Stach reposted
The Europe of the Long Good Friday. youtu.be/RXFIsPGPl2k?...
Great investigation work from a horribly under resourced Environment Agency. A record fine of £8M against South West Water. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
Fuck me sideways, Meta really is a fucking toxic business. Totally ignoring the privacy and hoovering 187,000 lines from a journalist’s Messages database, despite Full Disk Access being off.
I can understand why the features of a supposed AI assistant are compelling. I kinda wanna try it too. But I know too much about how these things work. Do not give a cloud-based agent access to your shit. Especially one from the big tech companies.
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This might mean Gove was right.
2) England is a rare exception. During the 2010s many other countries (including the other 3 UK nations) changed tack, experimenting with ideas like transferrable skills instead of focusing on tried-and-tested disciplines and methods. It looks like those experiments have failed.
Very odd hearing my weird, side project The Water Dictionary being talked about by @andrewhunterm.bsky.social as I walked the dog. overcast.fm/+AALJPD3wP_I...
I’m so spreadsheet people I built my own horribly niche spreadsheet. b2.stach.ltd
if spreadsheet people was ever meant as an insult, i am reclaiming it. my columns and rows are beautiful even if others don't see what i see within them
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Long time no sea: finding the seahorse emoji blog.gingerbeardman.com/2026/07/17/l... *So it wasn't a dream!* I'm really happy to have found this, and Happy World Emoji Day. 🎉
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New favourite account - eviscerated job adverts from the bleaker end of late stage capitalism 👇
"Having someone in the room caring about language is what lets the company tell itself it still cares about language, while it automates all the care and craft away - it’s a decorative conscience of a role." open.substack.com/pub/bob18826...
I wanted to visualise the colours that commonly available #watercolour palettes are able to reach (part of a feature I'm working on for my app Undertint). For fun, I've made a tool to compare them side-by-side. I think they're rather lovely in their own right. justin.stach.uk/palette-spac...
Justin Stach reposted
Justin Stach reposted
another big one for me is how extreme wealth inequality less a moral issue and more a security risk so much money that you're insulated from every conceivable fuckup demonstrably makes you stupid like the power to drag the entire world off a cliff with you and be the only one with a parachute
what makes wealth inequality destabilizing in the baseline case is the ultra-rich siphon off attention from productive and useful ends and divert it to their idiot vanity projects and then when they run out of trinkets to buy, the only thing left is political outcomes
Solid and thoughtful. And I couldn’t agree more with, ‘Any platform that uses an algorithm more complex than ‘people you follow in chronological order’ to be treated as a publisher, and held to account for content’.
The social media ban doesn’t have to stop every under 16 from using social media - if it stops most of them using it, and causes those who still do to use it less, that's a big win. 10 responses to common objections to the ban. www.edrith.co.uk/p/social-med...
Justin Stach reposted
Justin Stach reposted
My latest project, “Tatebanko” (Mac, iPad, iPhone) to create interactive paper dioramas. Shown is a Hokusai tatebanko from @mfaboston.bsky.social Author shapes and folds, then build! Trace-to-cut, pinch-to-fold, and drag-to-position in an adjustable 3D scene. Sugoi!
Got App Store approval for v1.2 of my watercolour tools app Undertint. If you’re learning how to paint and have grown out of tutorials it might be of interest. It helps you learn how to mix the colours you see. Free, with lifetime one-time purchase Pro features. apps.apple.com/gb/app/under...
My fellow North Devonians will be interested to know this beauty was tested on Westward Ho! beach.
Pour one out in particular for the lads who worked tirelessly to ensure nobody was chased up, across, or in any other essentially unguessable direction across the beach by the Panjandrum. Primarily by repeatedly demonstrating the untameable terrors lurking within this deceptively simple idea....
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When someone starts talking about unorthodox ways to deal with tax, you can be sure there’s Freemen of the Land or Sovereign Citizens coming up next. And sure enough…
A company called Liberty Rock claims you can pay your tax with a magic cheque. They'll make all your tax go away, for the small, small fee of 30% of the amount. The only problem: it's a fraud. We’ve obtained the documents and are naming the names. Thread:
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Replying to @grumpy-bloke.bsky.social
I agree. He's made silly mistakes but the actual data proves that the economy is improving (despite a world in turmoil), immigration is down (despite what reform would like you to believe) and we're building closer ties to the EU. Not extreme enough for the left or the right though.
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EQer is my app that customises your system audio based on your hearing profile, allowing you to enjoy music at its fullest. Recent improvements: - improved processing - transition audio on changes - passthrough mode - new Outputs layout apps.apple.com/app/apple-st...
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Beyond surreal for a *Green* party to be advocating for fossil fuel subsidies that would directly harm the poorest people in the world.
Zack Polanski says blanket support for everyone for fuel and energy costs, and then claw back through wealth taxes for those who don't need it This is simple, pragmatic and the least bureaucratic way of ensuring everyone who needs support gets it, in the fastest possible way 👏
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