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Posts by Polly Thompson

Monday 6 April 26

Poll-

shower edge

birthday food etc

plastics film

de-clutter progress

hot cross buns (with a little drawing of a hot cross bun)

guinea pigs

Monday 6 April 26 Poll- shower edge birthday food etc plastics film de-clutter progress hot cross buns (with a little drawing of a hot cross bun) guinea pigs

Totally normal: My mum's list of things she wanted to talk to me about today.

2 weeks ago 2 0 0 0

this is art

3 weeks ago 2386 534 62 35

Happy @transformgovtalks.bsky.social week!

Join us for 6pm this Wednesday, online or at the MoJ in London SW1

👇

4 weeks ago 1 2 0 0

This is grim, ghoulish, and nauseating. It also derives from an incredibly impoverished view of success.

1 month ago 6 2 0 0

Research funded by special boys says special boys key to functioning of society and economy. Got it.

1 month ago 854 156 17 3
Video

Phoebe Sanders on YouTube with a timeline cleanse.

1 month ago 1146 385 13 26

I know it's a silly jokey joke, but people REALLY need to stop anthropomorphizing their boyfriends. "My boyfriend told me" your boyfriend didn't "tell" you anything. "My boyfriend thinks..." your boyfriend can't actually think or feel; just output a convincing simulation of it based on probability 🙄

1 month ago 6665 1078 63 45

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...

1 month ago 4 5 7 0
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Alt text as a literary art form. Superb!

1 month ago 17 4 1 0
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axe-con Digital Accessibility Conference | Deque Join us to learn how to build, test, monitor, and maintain digital accessibility. Hosted on February 24-25, 2026, axe-con is completely free and virtual.

Little reminder that axe-con, organised by @deque.com is this week!!
It's a free online, two days (February 24 25) event, with a very nice line up of talks about accessibility and inclusive design.
Want to learn about accessibility? Register, check them live, or catch the replays!

#Accessibility

1 month ago 14 13 1 2
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What if boldness were an explicit value of the civil service? I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it takes to get difficult and meaningful things done. Why it’s hard, exhausting and incredibly…

I've been thinking a lot about boldness this week, so revisited this classic post from @janethughes.bsky.social. I can't it's 10 years old! medium.com/public-innov...

2 months ago 6 0 1 0
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TBM 405: Hope, Context, and Control This essay is about hope, fear, AI, and the tension between control and collective sensemaking.

Techno-authoritarian thinkers elevate centralized, algorithmic control above humanistic complexity. People who bought into these areas (with their wallets and political donations) are on product podcasts talking about how great everything is.

cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-405-ho...

2 months ago 7 3 1 0
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gradient.horse Draw a horse, watch it run!

omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for

gradient.horse

2 months ago 7004 3602 35 153
From the NYT Evening newsletter, headline reads "A.I. bots are often wrong, but they're set to reshape medicine". Highlighted text reads: "A new study published today found that A.I. chatbots were no better than Google at guiding users towards correct or helpful health advice. The technology sometimes presented false information or dramatically changed its advice depending on slight changes in the wording of the question. But A.I. has already proved quite good at other tasks, like at reading scans and images - better than many doctor, in fact."

From the NYT Evening newsletter, headline reads "A.I. bots are often wrong, but they're set to reshape medicine". Highlighted text reads: "A new study published today found that A.I. chatbots were no better than Google at guiding users towards correct or helpful health advice. The technology sometimes presented false information or dramatically changed its advice depending on slight changes in the wording of the question. But A.I. has already proved quite good at other tasks, like at reading scans and images - better than many doctor, in fact."

This is a framing error, NYT. It's different technologies. Chatbots are not the same as the machine learning involved in reading scans (better defined inputs, clearer evaluation of outputs). Calling both AI is like conflating bombs dropped from planes with cars, because they both involve explosions.

2 months ago 136 31 5 5

Reminds me of discourse in which women are called "females". I always think it implies an appeal to biology= science= objectivity.

2 months ago 6 0 0 0

LinkedIn needs to add a 🤮 response option.

2 months ago 4 0 0 0

Yeah I’m looking for my dog (girlfriend who has a restraining order against me and she has a dog) and here’s the picture of the dog (she walks this dog and I can use it to figure out her schedule) thanks for sending all footage my way

2 months ago 5387 1415 54 39

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

2 months ago 17945 5445 249 261
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endless.downward.spiral - is this the beginning of the end of What3Words? Long-time readers know that I am not a fan of What Three Words. I think it is a closed, proprietary, and user-unfriendly attempt to enclose the commons. I consider that it has some dangerous failure m...

endless.downward.spiral - is this the beginning of the end of What3Words?
shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02...

2 months ago 13 8 3 0
Benjamin De Kraker O
@BenjaminDEKR
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OpenClaw is interesting, but will also drain your wallet if you aren't careful.
Last night around midnight I loaded my Anthropic API account with $20, then went to bed.
When I woke up, my Anthropic balance was $O.
Opus was checking "is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night."
Doing literally nothing, OpenClaw spent the entire balance. How?

Benjamin De Kraker O @BenjaminDEKR Follow OpenClaw is interesting, but will also drain your wallet if you aren't careful. Last night around midnight I loaded my Anthropic API account with $20, then went to bed. When I woke up, my Anthropic balance was $O. Opus was checking "is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night." Doing literally nothing, OpenClaw spent the entire balance. How?

The "Heartbeat" cron job, even though literally the only thing I had going was one silly reminder, ("remind me tomorrow to get milk")
1. Sent ~120,000 tokens of context to Opus
4.5
2. Opus read HEARTBEAT md, thought about reminders
3. Replied "HEARTBEAT_OK"
4. Cost: ~$0.75 per heartbeat (cache writes)
The damage:
- Overnight = ~25+ heartbeats
- 25 × $0.75 = ~$18.75 just from heartbeats alone
- Plus regular conversation = ~$20 total
The absurdity: Opus was essentially checking
"is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night."

The "Heartbeat" cron job, even though literally the only thing I had going was one silly reminder, ("remind me tomorrow to get milk") 1. Sent ~120,000 tokens of context to Opus 4.5 2. Opus read HEARTBEAT md, thought about reminders 3. Replied "HEARTBEAT_OK" 4. Cost: ~$0.75 per heartbeat (cache writes) The damage: - Overnight = ~25+ heartbeats - 25 × $0.75 = ~$18.75 just from heartbeats alone - Plus regular conversation = ~$20 total The absurdity: Opus was essentially checking "is it daytime yet?" every 30 minutes, paying $0.75 each time to conclude "no, it's still night."

I’m starting to think the people who are excited about “AI agents” have literally never used a computer in their lives

2 months ago 2691 516 13 147
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Between 2017 and 2021 One Team Gov held space weekly for people working across government to come together, connect, reflect and support each others work. Some local meetups like in Manchester have… |... Between 2017 and 2021 One Team Gov held space weekly for people working across government to come together, connect, reflect and support each others work. Some local meetups like in Manchester have be...

In 2026 we are reinstating the regular One Team Gov breakfast club in London and also running a virtual one for anybody who doesn't have a meetup near them.

If you're interested you can sign up for both using the link (and please retweet/skeet!)

www.linkedin.com/posts/onetea...

4 months ago 28 22 2 2

Data protection, as a concept, grew out of post-war legal scholarship in Germany which reflected on the use of data about people by the Nazi Govt, and formulated a set of limits on data use which recognised that to collect and use data about people was to impact the people’s lives.

2 months ago 197 101 2 3
Video

❤️

2 months ago 28051 9203 362 756

Reading a thread in the other place about resistance, and a sentence sticks with me:

"It is ok to be discouraged, but don't discourage others."

That applies to so much more than just resistance.

2 months ago 8 1 0 0

Bluesky hivemind - views please!

If you were writing an academic-adjacent piece and needed to include clear but accessible stuff on AI / algorithmic bias and its societal impacts, what are your go-to texts?

I have lots but want to make sure I'm not missing a classic!

RTs welcome 🙂

2 months ago 8 8 5 0
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Thanks for giving us some practice at #ukgc26 @jacattell.bsky.social and @mikerose.co.uk
This would make a good sticker ❤️

2 months ago 2 0 1 0

For fans of profound wisdoms gleaned from colexifications:

A lot of languages do not make a difference between "lazy" and "tired".

2 months ago 36 7 2 1
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Power and participation in public tech This conference is for anyone interested in how to achieve better outcomes in the delivery of digital, data and AI work in the public sector through the involvement of the public, communities and workers. Come if you’re a public servant trying to engage or involve the public in your work on technology. Come if you’re working in civil society, in the union movement, or with grassroots groups, trying to be heard. Come to share what you’re up to, and to learn from others; leave with new insights, ideas, and connections.

We are running a conference on 'Power and participation in public tech' and registration is now open to all.

📆 Friday 6th March
🕰️ 10:00 - 17:00
🏢 Manchester, UK

🔗 connectedbydata.org/events/2026...

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3 months ago 10 9 1 1