How’s everyone’s reading pile of shame looking so far in 2026? I keep trying to find more time to read but it’s so hard.

A picture of a hardback book on a washed blue background. The title is Next Level: Making Games That Make Themselves, by Mike Cook.

I've written a book! Next Level: Making Games That Make Themselves is the story of procedural generation - the tech behind games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress. It's about how it works, the games that use it, and the art and magic behind it.

Out May 7th, in bookshops: linktr.ee/next_level 🎲🔮

Ah, at least that looks like you've only got a 50:50 chance it will be hours.

Wrote up a little intervention post/explanation for my class about why using LLMs for trying to learn programming (as first time learners!) is bad and detrimental datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-11...

This is an exceptionally evidence-based and important thread from @mattashby.com debunking some biased nonsense published in the Grauniad by Amnesty International.
Thread is a perfect primer on predictive policing.

As always, a well thought-through and clear thread from Matt. It frustrates me no end to see all forms of "predictive policing" conflated as if it's all the same. The Amnesty report just reminded me of a similar Liberty report from 2019 that did the same.

Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek censors itself in realtime, users report Depending on version downloaded, app approaches its answers with preamble of reasoning which it then erases

This is such a wild thing to report. Google Gemini does this! It does it all the time! Why is this *front page news*??? (I know why) www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I spent Friday getting more and more frustrated that I couldn't turn this off as it kept popping up. It's 100 times more annoying and useless than Clippy and I wish there was a simple way to just turn it all off. When will this con finally die?

🧵 THREAD: Our reporter spent the past year reporting inside the State Department, trying to answer the central question of Biden’s foreign policy:

How did the U.S. let Israel get away with widespread horrors in Gaza?

It is hard for public institutions to change gear and communication policies. But consider this: UK and German public institutions that post information on twitter but not on bluesky are providing free benefits and competitive advantages to a platform that aims to put the far right in power.

Back home to Leipzig! We moved in Feb and I'm back in London regularly for work though this trip was mostly for the Christmas party.

A photo of a Ryanair Boeing 737 from the rear door along the fuselage at night as passengers board.

I've had to take soooo many flights this year. Thankfully this will be the last one.

A note on AI usage A note on AI usage I genuinely want you to succeed in this class. One of my very favorite things about my job as a professor is when students are succeeding and I feel like I helped. I want you to suc...

hey bluesky, in case anyone's interested, I wrote this for my students about why I don't want them to use anything AI in my classes. It interrupts the course calendar part of the syllabus, coming immediately after the first day there's a writing assignment assigned.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

can I code fast? no. but can I code well? also no. but does my code work? alas, no

Two stages of writing:

1) This shouldn't take too long
2) Oh no

5642 Morris Street, Halifax Property Listing: MLS® #202425868 Situated in the historic Schmidtville district, 5642 Morris St / 1290 Wright Avenue. is a Scottish Georgian townhouse built in 1859. While the exterior presents classic Victorian charm, the interior r...

It's important that you look through the gallery for this listing until you get to the top floor bathroom.

Important.

www.cbmaritimerealty.com/listing/2024...

Yesterday, there was a major change in the criminal justice system that’s largely sneaked under the radar: the doubling of magistrates’ court sentencing powers. What does that actually mean, and is it good or bad?

This is my favourite example of perverse incentives arising from police performance management. library.college.police.uk/docs/Policin...

🧵SALT🧵
It's been snowing in the UK and the road gritters are out in force, begging the question:
Have you ever wondered where that grit actually COMES from?
The answer is more magical, beautiful and fascinating than you probably realised.
1/14

I'm sure they will be here soon, though I don't know how prolific anyone was on Twitter before this so don't expect a sudden flurry of activity!

Nothing but rain here but then the temperature is forecast to drop ten degrees tomorrow... Thankfully I don't plan to go outside before the weekend.

There are some bloody brilliant people on this #CriminalJustice #StarterPack

Lawyers, commentators and NGOs working in/ discussing topics from the police to the courts to prisons (hi 👋) to probation…

Please do share - and let me know if you’d like to be added

go.bsky.app/2sQ9xmz

If you’re a new Bluesky user and interested in criminology, see this thread for lists feeds and starter packs.

We're hiring a Lead Quantitative Analyst The Lead Quantitative Analyst is a newly introduced role at Crest Advisory, created to support the growth of our data analytics services for clients in the justice, policing, and public safety sectors...

We're looking for a lead Quant Analyst to join our team. Interested in a new challenge, or know someone who might be? Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or apply here: www.crestadvisory.com/post/we-are-...

And one night and day in Dresden. We'll be going back again in about a month because we didn't have time to do any of the museums this time but the old town centre is absolutely stunning.

In Sächsische Schweiz for a few days enjoying some fantastic views.

"And should a state rely on a private company, whose methods are not entirely transparent, to make decisions on sensitive school issues?"

No. The answer is no. Full stop. No.