🇬🇧A University of Edinburgh study found UK VPN-related discussions increased by 145% around the introduction of age checks in July 2025.
Government: "This is for your protection"
People: "Let me get some privacy protection"
Every time age verification is asked for, a new VPN user is born💫
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
Yet to see a leader mentioning the need for diplomacy before sending young men off to fight a foreign war involving nuclear powers.
A powerful intervention from the head of the Army. Something is coming, and government needs to wake up.
He says the public will have to make sacrifices so we can prioritise defence and security.
This is no time for “national security can’t come at the expense of social security”. Hard choices are coming whether ministers like it or not.
I have been clear where I would start: cut welfare spending and put the money into defence.
Army Chief Warns UK Must Prepare for Sacrifices on Defence
The head of the British Army says the UK’s days of not having to think about fighting a war are over
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
I suppose I shouldn't keep reposting Tomasz Tuszko's 2013 glass at St Mary, Inverness every time it's a Carmelite feast day, but it's hard to resist. Today's the feast of St Teresa of Ávila, 16th Century mystic and reformer, bottom right. The others are St Faustina, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and St Thérèse of Lisieux.
Orbital AI is in motion.
BREAKING: A Chinese space technology company has unveiled satellites designed to run a 397-billion-parameter AI model in orbit, moving increasingly powerful computing systems beyond Earth.
STAR VISION introduced four new satellites at the International Astronautical Congress, including two designed to operate together as an orbital AI computing system.
One satellite, Marco Polo, is being built to run a large AI model directly in space, while its companion, Ibn Battuta, is designed to provide 10 POPS of computing capability for processing satellite imagery and other complex workloads.
The two spacecraft are intended to communicate through a high-speed optical link, allowing AI processing and decision-making to be distributed between satellites.
Targeted for launch in late 2026, the system could help satellites analyze information in orbit rather than sending all raw data back to Earth.
The announced computing capabilities have yet to be demonstrated in orbit.
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
Yeah, people really deeply, deeply hate (as in HATE) AI because it's projected with these fear narratives instead of "You can do amazing stuff. Show me the amazing stuff you have built."
Those who reject AI instead of leaning into AI are going to find themselves unemployable. It concerns me deeply. It's a form of self-sabotage and self-harm.
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
🗞️ nobody should type code by hand anymore. here's what's left.
ghuntley.com/agency/
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
the big discount on intelligence
arunabhdastidar.substack.com…
“We stopped the individual engineering subscriptions to Claude and Codex on the engineers’ Macs, and routed all engineering work through the API. The team and backlog didn’t change, and we didn’t ask the engineers to work more.
Before this, five engineers collectively paid $800 to $1000 per month for Max and Pro plans.
After this, the bill was approximately $1000 per day for the same work. So in one fell swoop, the cost went up thirty times.”
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
I voted Remain. But this would be a democratic outrage and would not endure. There is no way that re-accession would have legitimacy as a new settlement without a direct democratic reversal of the last referendum.
'Get over it': Labour MP Dame Emily Thornberry's message on concerns about reopening 'divisive' Brexit debates.
Thornberry tells @CathyNewman that the UK could re-join the EU without a second referendum if it was included as a manifesto commitment at a general election.
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
"It is Life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies."
~ Marcel Proust
Autumn on Krestovsky Island
🎨 Ivan Shishkin (1892)
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
The UK, dependent on services business for much of its GDP, has created a regulatory minefield that it seeks to extraterritorially export to the entire world with the GDPR and the Online Safety Act.
Data regulation is costing British technology businesses £5 billion a year in compliance costs.
A new study by Freshwater Strategy for CCIA finds:
- A majority (57%) described UK data protection regulation as a burden.
- 69% say compliance costs have risen over the last 5-10 years, including firms of every size reporting an increase and no respondent reporting a decrease.
- 52% of businesses have been prevented from undertaking a business activity because of UK data protection regulation, 48% say compliance has diverted skilled technical or engineering staff away from product development
- Respondents, particularly from larger and non-UK firms, also reported launching products and features outside of the UK first as a result of data regulation.
The survey included 113 senior decision-makers from data-intensive British technology businesses.
As reported in Politico today by @frankhersey @JoeBambridge1:
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
Do you want to see what a genuine existential threat to the internet looks like?
xitter.cf/terrorwatchdog/status/…
Should product liability apply to harm arising from code and algos? Law Commission consultation paper released today propose supply of open source code would qualify if provided within course of business but not otherwise [2.81]; liability would not apply to code repositories like GitHub and HuggingFace because of ongoing hosting exemptions [2.96]; but would apply to recommender algos [2.92] expressly aligning proposals with recent US addiction-by-design litigation [2.133]. So in principle harm caused (causation always hard) by addictive design features of social media product could result in damages. Also contains a proto-statutory definition of AI [2.7.2]. From terrorism use perspective, does not offer disincentive to code repositories to make available abliterated AI models, because continuing hosting exemptions.
Kinda dystopian to need your passport to use the internet.
Kinda dystopian to scan your face to prove your age.
Kinda dystopian to have cameras record everywhere you drive.
Kinda dystopian to have your private messages automatically scanned.
Kinda dystopian to need an ID to prove you're anonymous.
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
The British Government is preparing an apparatus of internet censorship without parallel in the modern era.
At the UN, Andy Burnham announced the creation of a National Centre for Information Defence — Labour’s Ministry of Truth.
The Prime Minister says the centre will protect us from hostile foreign powers such as Russia, which he accused of spreading lies and disinformation about Britain, amplifying “far-right narratives” and interfering in our democracy.
But the real purpose is to suppress dissent and silence those who criticise the Government or express views about the state of the country that run counter to Labour’s prevailing progressive orthodoxy.
FSU Director of Policy and Research David Rose has written a new briefing examining the threadbare research the Government has used to justify its plans. The Government is clutching at straws — and, ironically, already spreading misinformation about the threat of misinformation.
It has ignored a wealth of evidence from leading academics to push ahead with its new censorship regime.
Burnham’s Government is putting Britain in the same league as some of the world’s most authoritarian powers.
Watch the new episode of the FSU Podcast with General Secretary of the FSU Lord Young of Acton on YouTube and read @DavidRoseUK’s report below 👇
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
1. Oh shit, AI can do my job better than me
2. Software engineering is dead!
3. I can vibe code as much slop as I want!
4. Oh, things are not going well. Fable/Sol/Opus all suuuck
5. But what if I constrain the agent? Put it in a straitjacket?
6. Oh, the results are pretty good now. How do I go deeper?
7. *Orders 12 software engineering books from Amazon*
8. Software engineering is alive!
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
DIGITAL ID: "Tony Blair and Oracle… driving public policy"
SPEAKER FOR 7 NOVEMBER: MOLLY KINGSLEY
⏰Early Bird tickets end SUNDAY⏰
Don't pay more later! 👇
togetherdeclaration.org/tick…
@lensiseethrough is a lawyer, writer and children’s-rights campaigner who co-founded @UsforThemUK in 2020 to challenge school closures and ensure children’s welfare was represented in pandemic policymaking
Rob Blake ∞ retweeted
SOCIAL MEDIA 'BAN': This policy, sold as 'safety,' could create a digital ID checkpoint for everyone
This was NOT in your manifesto either @uklabour?
Is this about kids or control @lisanandy @DCMS @andyburnham?



























