Suw

Hello, lovely new followers! I'm Suw, and I post about whatever catches my eye. This might include, but is not limited to, volcanoes, cats, the Welsh language, science, cats, books and publishing, writing, Wrexham AFC, women in STEM, cats, crafty stuff, ecology, nature, and my various newsletters.

"The Wisdom of the Crowd" relies on the principle that people who are wrong are equally likely to guess over as under. Wrong answers cancel out and leave a weak signal of rightness behind. This works for stuff like "how many jellybeans in the jar" but not for emotionally charged outcomes.

As ever, three quarters of "look at this asshole" is always "look at this". Don't do PR for the fash. Don't give free advertising to the worst bastards. There is no dunk witty enough to warrant amplifying their hate.

Ooh, a newsletter! The Ted Lasso storytelling video from Shannon Jenkins is focused on corporate comms, but she pulls out some really important lessons that frankly all writers should be reminded of once in a while. wordcounting.substack.com/p/word-count...

Just had my covid and flu jabs. Hopefully won't get knocked for six by them, though I know people have.

This is great

Counterpoint: CEOs should look at their companies as if they needed to provide a service for every citizen, constantly renew their social licence to operate, and plan for the long term wellbeing of the whole country. www.ft.com/content/8255...

While the election result in #Brazil is obviously good news, we should remember that countless American wannabe-fascists poured $billions into achieving the opposite result and now have nothing to show for it, so it's not just good news, but also objectively hilarious.

I just assume that business lobby groups are lying when they drum up worst-case figures to oppose new policies. Like the private school lobby wildly inflating the number of pupils who would leave due to VAT on fees

Sometimes, I just really like using old school emojis. :D

This was published on 23 October 2026 i.e. today, and gives a clue on where we are regarding drought status.

Now that's what I call a lede. ftav.substack.com/p/of-spacex-...

Three years ago, my dad said that all fish are the same shape. Out of spite, I decided to draw all 478 families of bony fish listed in Nelson 2016. There's still some stuff I need to edit and some fish I want to redraw but, after 985 days, I finished my big dumb fish project last night.

Bluesky hivemind: Recommendations of a short story of speculative/science fiction that is specifically about discovering life on another planet? I'd like to avoid the fantastical and find more hard science stories. Thanks!

The question was why there was no public information campaign here, as there is in most European countries, about what simple steps people need to take and provisions to keep, in case of some disruption; why is the British public so peculiarly infantilised on this issue? Today we have our answer.

Sad shoutout to this tweet that I used to share with every PhD student whose code and data were a mess, but is unfortunately in the bad place

I'm really surprised by the reaction to the general advice of 'if you can, hold a few days worth of food and water'. I've been cut off from water a couple of times, and my city was without electricity for a week in the middle of winter (I was away).

Oh boy, *another* reason to say ‘fuck Colossal Biosciences’?!

Missed opportunity not calling the second storm Brontë.

Congratulations to everyone who said it would get this bad. Your prize is watching everyone who disagreed now claim no one could have predicted it would get this bad.

It’s funny how this never features in the cultural memory of 1995, or even my own memories. I actually did not know it was the year of maximum crime

I have stayed in many hotels but never one where the bathroom made this kind of racket. Did it last night at midnight as well, but this is going on for way longer.

It was a lovely, sunny day out this morning, and quite toasty in the sun, but obviously today I am in a windowless room which is fucking freezing.

Dan ni wedi methu dau ddiwrnod pwysig yr wythnos 'ma: • Diwrnod Pryf Genwair y Byd (neu Ddiwrnod Mwydyn neu Ddiwrnod Llyngyren Ddaear...) • Diwrnod Afal y Byd. Roedd y ddau yn digwydd ddoe, ond dydy o ddim yn rhy hwyr i ddathlu! Bwytwch afal heddiw, a gobeithio nid pryf genwair ynddo fo!

“There isn't an easy exploit for this PHP vulnerability · Elias Taylor” https://eliastaylor.com/noexploit/ > In non-php terms, their exploit chain requires the server to already have a severe code-level vulnerability.

“Sean Allen on X: "🚨 Going out of business sale 🚨” https://x.com/seanallen_dev/status/2112167799132979389 > iOS dev course sales plummeted due to AI. More evidence of the complete destruction of the developer training industry. (Via my feed reader. Are all the X mirrors really all gone?)

I'll never understand why hotels put all the light switches on one side of the bed, and just the bedside light switch on the other. If you're going to bother putting light switches by the bed at all, give both sides full control.

Calling @batconservation.bsky.social!

Again! Again!

The BBC Charter states that BBC is supposed to provide programmes that no one else does. They don't have to be the favourite of all as long as they're the favourite of some. You can get podcasts anywhere. We want our beautifully curated Radio4 Extra.

Wearing ankle boots for the first time since spring and a) they are no longer waterproof and b) the ankle I broke really, really does not like them. I had no idea that might be an issues after ten months.

What I really didn't need this morning, when I have limited time to get out of the door for my train, was a poop explosion that required cleaning Grabbity's bottom.

details leaked. this vulnerability is a full unauthenticated unconditional remote code execution exploit against any service running on a PHP version from 5.4 until latest yeah if anything deserves CVSS 11, this is it. this is CATACLYSMICALLY bad.

PHP is terrible and also briefly made the good web possible and I think you should treat a potential extinction event for the PHP-driven internet the way you would treat an extinction event for your favourite wild animal.

Very glad that the rain stopped just before we came out to the vet.

Recovered from Peterborough STEM Festival 2026? A massive THANK YOU to everyone who made our 10th anniversary event possible including: 🚀 STEM Adventurers 🚀 Sponsors and supporters 🚀 Exhibitors and speakers 🚀 Volunteers 🚀 Venue ARU Peterborough and their team Liz, Dan, Andy and Jonathan (DPiP CiC)

It is absolutely pissing down with rain. I mean, hurling it down. And someone nearby is letting off fireworks. I just... why? What is the point?

Pretty obvious he thought the BBC would immediately cave and shove a chunk of cash his way. Now doing everything he can to keep this from going to trial.

This little monster had a very bad night, which meant I had a very bad night. A lot of miaowing even though there was food down.

This is absolutely outrageous. Meta's new T&Cs are written such that "by using Meta platforms, publishers risk handing over AI rights to all their content – whether it is published via Meta or elsewhere." pressgazette.co.uk/news/faceboo...

Why is it that the three days I am out and about are the three days it's going to be rainy and windy?

Since we're talking about editors, here I am expressing my deep and abiding love for them in @royalliteraryfund.bsky.social's latest substack. Also featuring the brilliant @sophiecoulombeau.bsky.social and the glorious @unheimlichmanvr.bsky.social. royalliteraryfund.substack.com/p/my-writing...

Starting today!

Was just refactoring my To Do list and wrote down "Find" then got distracted by something and now can't remember what it is that I need to find.

Can empathy levels predict whether someone goes into the physical sciences? And is there a gendered component? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ald-report-can-empathy-levels-predict-whether-someone-jdw9e/ This article is part of my report prep, which you can support here: