Another way to put it is... if you don't use AI platforms because you have a moral objection to them, but you publish your words on Substack, you haven't really thought about this stuff.

Hey - sorry to hear about this, all the best for a swift recovery

I love that work and life collided, good old parkrun 😊 Looks like, for once, it might have been warmer in Edinburgh than London!

Text reads: "Hello Hugh, Portobello parkrun, Edinburgh results for event #477. Your time was 00:27:18."

Yup, true to form

X: why are you still here? Twitter is no longer with us, but X lives on. In the run up to what would've been Twitter's 20th birthday, why does X's influence endure?

20 years since the very first tweet - unhappy birthday Twitter!

tumshie.me/x-why-are-yo...

Hey, Facebook, I Made a Metaverse 27 Years Ago It was terrible then, and it’s terrible now.

Re: Meta's retreat from the metaverse: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/t...

Told you so:
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

I'm volunteering as a parkrun marshall and scanner this weekend - the point about manual scanning promoting interactions is so true! 'Just enough technology' is a great mantra for life

Big up the volunteers! I've done it a couple of times, and am always trying to persuade unwilling younger family members to do it more.

It's a run, not a race When I turned 50 last year, one of the most noteworthy things I did was rack up my 50th parkrun. I'd realised a few months earlier that if I timed it carefully, the two things would coincide nicely. ...

I wrote some words about the joy of parkrun, the thoughtful application of technology, and (somewhat inevitably) AI.

tumshie.me/its-a-run-no...

This is the Society for Hopeful Technologists. Brilliant, kind and thoughtful individuals looking to bring hope back into tech. Join us for updates.

societyforhopefultechnologists.org

Local government bods! Anyone with experience of getting permission for working in the open at your local authority? Need a couple of quotes from people who’ve done it before...

Really insightful explainer and update on the dreadful Glasgow fire and its impact which must have been challenging to write today. Kudos to @libbybrooks.bsky.social and @severincarrell.bsky.social

I also ended up in a dizzying spin of app, email, and notification confusion 😬

Your Other National Drink - Renfield Street early eighties

Absolutely gutting news about Glasgow - I got the train into Central Station on Friday night, and it's hard to fathom how much is now just gone. This photo from the 80s shows the extent: from the Irn Bru to the Bell's sign, almost completely destroyed by fire.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd...

Monthnote, February 2026 Various goings-on during the shortest month.

As is tradition, here are my highlights from February a week later than intended (accompanied by a fitting photo to sum up the general state of things) tumshie.me/monthnote-fe...

A postcard that says ‘Innovation needs representation’ beside a lanyard with my name (Hugh) on it.

And massive shout out to @jenitennison.com @emilyjmacaulay.bsky.social @gavinfreeguard.com and all the @connectedbydata.org team for running such an engaging and thought-provoking event. Plus a bonus lanyard that turns into seeds 🌱

Steph Wright in full flow presenting in front of a screen and colourful stained glass

Powerful, provocative keynote on AI from @elmosmoe.bsky.social at today’s ‘Power and participation in public tech’ conference in Manchester. So good to have the ‘this is inevitable’ narrative challenged with many pertinent examples.

Thanks Chris. So many final straw moments! Hopefully more and more orgs/people will make the move off.

X: why are you still here? Twitter is no longer with us, but X lives on. In the run up to what would've been Twitter's 20th birthday, why does X's influence endure?

Yes! I wrote this the other day.

tumshie.me/x-why-are-yo...

In a v rare moment of tapping into the zeitgeist 😂 my Happy 20th Birthday Twitter post covers a lot of similar ground to John Oliver’s takedown

tumshie.me/x-why-are-yo...

IMHO there isn't a defensible position anymore: get off the platform, or start making plans to. We all inevitibly end up drinking from the poisoned well.

UK academia’s presence on X is reaching a tipping point - LSE Impact Data collected on UK universities’ use of social media shows academic engagement with X is at a tipping point with more institutions off the platform than on.

I dipped back in for the purposes of this post, and it's evident there's still loads of active accounts, and particular groups keeping things ticking along nicely. Huge kudos to @andytattersall.bsky.social's article and research into UK academia's use of X blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

I started drafting this last month in the midst of the CSAM scandal. I find it intensely frustrating that every 6-12 months there's a huge X backlash and then everyone largely carries on as normal, even though *nothing* is normal about how the platform operates.

X: why are you still here? Get your party clothes ready people: next month would have been Twitter's 20th birthday! 🥳 For so it came to pass, on 21 March 2006, Jack Dorsey posted "just setting up my twttr" and an era-defining ...

Twitter would have been 20 years old next month, but it didn't make it beyond its teenage years 😢

I've written about the fact X still exerts a lot of influence over our public discourse, and why that's bad for all of us.

tumshie.me/x-why-are-yo...

I’ve migrated twice, to Buttondown & Ghost. Both times were super simple, but… as with all things internety, best to take a bit of time & send a few test emails - the main stuff I found easy (bulk moving posts, subscribers) but there are functional tweaks that u just have to work through. Good luck!

😮

Episode 1 is OUT!! 🥳 🙌

This week on The Interface, we discuss:
* That insane Superbowl ad for Ring
* The US TikTok takeover
* And the beef that launched ChatGPT

Listen wherever you get your podcasts: app.magellan.ai/listen_links...

And now it’s lighting up LinkedIn too, with hundreds of AI boosters slavering all over it 🤮

Here's my take on that big dumb post about AI going viral on X right now.
www.garbageday.email/p/a-comfort-...

Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism

how do you write this story without noting there was a campaign literally called SUBSTACKERS AGAINST NAZIS in…2023