Introducing letterpaths 1.0, free software for teaching cursive writing. Blog w/ examples, videos + worksheet generator:
www.robinlinacre.com/letterpaths_...
As far as I can tell, this is the best free and open source library for building handwriting tools according the the UK curriculum
As capabilities have improved, I am increasingly sceptical of the description of LLMs as a 'calculator for words', and the idea that they excel at semantics, because their rate of improvement in these areas seems extremely modest in comparison to things like coding and tool use
Here's an example of how my `letterpaths` library can be used to power a game, intended for phones/other touchscreen devices
Game:
www.robinlinacre.com/letterpaths/...
Code:
github.com/RobinL/lette...
The game can be installed as an android app so it can be used fullscreen. It's free+open source
No capitals/punctuation etc. yet, and no support for precursive/cursive distinction. But prob good enough to be useful
It's up to user to decide how to render but basic demo here:
www.robinlinacre.com/letterpaths/
Source code:
github.com/RobinL/lette...
WIP/still rough edges and a bit more work needed on geometry.
Developing a cursive writing typescript library capable of powering educational apps. It's free an open source and has:
- Geometry for each letter
- Algorithm for joining letters
- Algorithm for animating cursive writing
- Algorithm for tracing/path finding
Link in 🧵
Loads more examples of use cases in public sector and beyond here:
moj-analytical-services.github.io/splink/#__ta...
A nice recent one is that the Australian Bureau of Statistics just won an award for using Splink for their Person Linkage Spine!
www.apsdataawards.gov.au/2026-winners...
What tools will it need to accomplish/verify its task? Sometimes this allowing it to use a pre-existing tool like playwright. Often it's getting the agent to write a tool for itself.
And then what tools can it build to help me verify it's accomplished its task.
Finding working with agents all day a bit mind bending.
Always having to think about how to enable an agent to do good work, and how it verifies its work.
After a period of stagnation in UK solar nice to records starting to be broken again in 2025 and now 2026 by significant margins
Fair point - it's turns out it's quite fiddly to make this work for all countries because e.g. when it zooms in to show the uk, you want it to ignore e.g. the Falklands. I didn't have enough patience to encode all the rules, so it 'ignores' the 'non primary' geographies
Greenland isn't a country!
Amazing that in a few hours, it possible to build one of the best versions of this on the internet. I'm somewhat optimistic that we'll see more things like this, and for people who care they'll be easier to find, so we won't have to put up with so much ads/monetisation/spam in educational tools.
The country quiz now has:
- Capital cities mode
- Single continent mode
- 'What country is highlighted' mode (following a travelling salesman route)
- More detailed borders
- 4k mode, with much bigger map
- Choice of map projection
rupertlinacre.com/country_quiz/
Access via options menu.
..., not only for finding old knowledge but for making new, by carrying out certain logical operations on those numbers.”
Reading The Baroque Cycle - King of the Vagabonds (2003). This quote hit me:
“What does the Doctor want?”
“To translate all human knowledge into a new philosophical language, consisting of numbers. To write it down in a vast Encyclopedia that will be a sort of machine...
In the next five years, we are going to do LOTS of census linking 🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗, produce new transcriptions of all UK censuses 1841-1921, and use these to study migrations and demographic transitions, thanks to @ukri.org !
Sneak peek at: www.geolinking.hist.cam.ac.uk
uk_address_matcher v1.0.1 is released:
- Hugely reduced memory usage, especially when matching to full UK.
- Over 30% faster
- Now supports duckdb 1.4.4 and 1.5.0
- New docs on choosing a matching threshold and optimising accuracy here: moj-analytical-services.github.io/uk_address_m...
Haha - i love it - glad you enjoyed!
Another one for English monarchs. rupertlinacre.com/english_mona...
I have been enjoying playing Sporcle's countries of the world quiz with my son, so I made a fancier version. Play here: rupertlinacre.com/country_quiz/
We're particularly proud of how easy this is to use. The following 2 minute video demos the end-to-end process of matching 100k council tax records.
This process is more fully documented here:
moj-analytical-services.github.io/uk_address_m...
Docs: moj-analytical-services.github.io/uk_address_m...
Code: github.com/moj-analytic...
Discussion forum: github.com/moj-analytic...
The full end-to-end process from raw OS data to 100k matched addresses can be completed in less than a minute if matching to a small geographic area such as a local authority, and about 11 minutes for the whole UK (including one-time setup). Additional 100k records take <1m
In addition, we have published reproducible accuracy benchmarks using publicly available labelled datasets. This allows it to be compared head-to-head with other approaches.
Key features:
- Python only. Set up in seconds, runs on a laptop. No separate infrastructure or services needed.
- Fast. Match 100,000 addresses in ~30 seconds.
- We provide an automated build pipeline for users wishing to match to Ordnance Survey data.
UK Address Matcher logo
We are pleased to release `uk_address_matcher`, a free Python package for address matching and geocoding, developed by Tom Hepworth and me.
The package has several aims: simplicity, speed and accuracy.
📣 NEW! I’ve just released the BIGGEST and perhaps most creative project I’ve ever worked on!
“Searching for Birds” searchingforbirds.visualcinnamon.com 🐤
A project, an article, an exploration that dives into the data that connects humans with birds, by looking at how we search for birds.
In case you missed it: New blog: Respectful use of AI in software development teams
www.robinlinacre.com/respectful_u...
LLMs are increasingly able to write production quality code. But what cognitive work can be delegated to LLMs without damaging the health of the team?
