iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 21/06/2026

I often think this with respect to sewage spills from water co’s. If Thames *is* renationalised, the pollution doesn’t instantly stop and it’s no longer “sufficient abstract evil shareholder” to blame it’s literally the government. Do you really want to touch that 3rd rail?

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 16/04/2026

Hey thanks for the interest! We are working on this! Hoping to get this sorted soon :) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 16/04/2026

Thanks to @mysociety.org for this great focus on SewageMap and what we’re doing to make sewage spill data more transparent! (And how the public can apply pressure for even more data!!)

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 17/03/2026

Hey! Yes, sure, ping me at a dot lipp at ucl dot ac dot uk! That’s great to hear. Would you be happy to share the data about this? I would be keen to hear how that’s going…

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 16/03/2026

what is telling about UUK response is it focuses only on financial costs. EU students in U.K. dropped from 27% to 5% overnight after Brexit. There is clear latent demand that is not being met! As we have learned, student numbers is no limit, so why not diversify where students are coming from!

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 16/03/2026

A proposal that would improve the university sector, bring in external investment and help normalise EU relations… so obviously the gov and UUK are dead against it

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 27/02/2026

Good! I have been keeping a list of other vital environmental datasets and models that were publicly funded but now sit behind a paywall (looking at you CEH 👀). Can we initiate some community efforts to open up all such datasets? A digital right-to-roam as it were…

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 24/02/2026

💯… Sewage pollution is “easy” (ish) to monitor: it’s literally a pipe. Agriculture is so much harder because it’s a diffuse source and not just one evil company to point the finger at… 🤷

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 20/02/2026

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... “‘Is university still worth it?’ is the wrong question”

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 21/01/2026

The student-loan system now actively subsidises the rest of the state, fails to adequately support HE, *and* has punitive life-long repayment terms for students 🫠

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 21/01/2026

wonkhe.com/blogs/gradua... Remarkable quote: "We’ve gone from government suggesting that the state would subsidise undergraduate student loans by about 45p in the pound, to making a profit on them for that cohort."

wonkhe.com

Graduates are paying more and getting less

Jim Dickinson traces how a student loans system once sold as cost-sharing has become one where graduates fund everything – and where Labour has quietly reversed promises to make things fairer Jim Dick...

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Reposted by Alex Lipp

Lewis A. Jones (he/him) @lewisajones.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

🚨 Pre-announcement! 🚨 We’re hiring for 2 x two-year, full-time roles to join me and the wider @palaeoverse.bsky.social team @es-ucl.bsky.social. - Research Software Engineer (REF: B04-06999): lnkd.in/eNRBiPnP - Community Engagement Coordinator (REF: B04-06998): lnkd.in/ejUACCzn

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

This was a very fun project to work on, with some neat stats & maths from fractals to fluid mechanics. We were surprised that for such a high profile dataset like sewage spills there had been such limited public statistical analysis until now! 💩 🧮 🧑‍💻 eartharxiv.org/repository/v... 8/8

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

This matters because water companies now need to create hydraulic models of thousands of CSOs to reduce their spilling… but unless they can model infiltration (hard!) they are likely to underestimate the frequency of the most damaging, long duration spills! 7/ www.gov.uk/government/p...

gov.uk

How to form, publish and maintain your drainage and wastewater management plan (DWMP)

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

What causes the heavy tail? When trying to replicate it using hydraulic models we can only do so by including infiltration of groundwater into pipes through cracks… this suggests that these long duration spills are *not* only occurring after heavy rain… eartharxiv.org/repository/v... 6/

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

We think this is driven by daily fluctuations in water usage (🚿 💩) which modulates the length of sewage spills… eartharxiv.org/repository/v... 5/

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

A total (and cool 🤓) surprise for us, was the discovery of a periodic variation of the misfit to this modelled trend, fluctuating around spills that are multiples of 24 hours long… what’s causing this? eartharxiv.org/repository/v... 4/

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

Statistically, this tail is well described by a stretched exponential distribution. It’s not quite as heavy as a power law, but much heavier than a vanilla exponential… eartharxiv.org/repository/v... 3/

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

We find that sewage spills follow a very heavy-tailed distribution. 10% of spills account for 85% of all spilling *time*. So, it’s not the infrequent, short spills we should care about, it’s the infrequent long ones… eartharxiv.org/repository/v... 2/

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/12/2025

In our 💫 new preprint 💫 Barney Dobson & I drill into the statistics behind “shitty” headlines like these about the number & duration of sewage pollution spills. We analyse a dataset of nearly 4 million individual #sewage spill events… 1/ eartharxiv.org/repository/v...

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 28/11/2025

Is this all subjects? Undergrad & postgrad?

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 15/11/2025

OTOH the environment agency *is* massively under-resourced so not totally their fault, *but* this defence is totally inappropriate… You’re an arm of the State, it’s right and good to be subject to criticism and you need to respond to it better than “uwu don’t be so mean” 🙄

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Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Many people believe that the way to attract people to the geosciences is via logical, utilitarian returns on an undergraduate degree. But left unexplored is the power of the field's inherent irrational, cosmic horror to command attention. It's 2nd only to astronomy in that, & much more immediate.

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 16/10/2025

I mean c’mon you’re the CEH! You famously study things that are naturally messy and green and blue! Why opt for…. black with very hard lines?!

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 16/10/2025

so pleased everyone is choosing such unique and distinctive typefaces

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 16/10/2025

Another research institute opting for “short lived AI start-up chic” in their (no doubt vastly expensive) rebranding I see

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 27/09/2025

also the population change assumes (iirc) its all *new* population into catchment, rather than say residents moving *within* catchment (=no net increase). so, population density increasing due to limited supply would be a “win” for nutrient neutrality…

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 27/09/2025

you’re right on the gist (nutrient neutrality is mad) but actually population growth *is* linear with nutrient outflow (ie it’s not a capacity thing). Problem is builders can’t pay to increase treatment efficiency at existing plants (!?) even though that can work…

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 06/09/2025

The perfect conditions continue 😎 🌞!

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 05/09/2025

Stunning conditions (and enthusiastic students!) for the first few days of the @es-ucl.bsky.social mapping course in North West Scotland! ☀️ ⛰️ ⚒️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🗺️ #fieldworkfriday

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 26/08/2025

Neat idea from psephology that might be useful for geological ternary plots too. Similar to the 4 component solid solution of garnet.

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 15/08/2025

Focus on "universities" raising fees misses the point that the real injustice is the interest rates & repayment thresholds on student debt which I suspect plays greater role in determining how much is paid over a lifetime than the initial "up-front" fees...

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 15/08/2025

Given that universities/gov are savaged in the media even for increasing fees with inflation, is there anything meaningfully lost from advocating for a one-off step change back to an inflation adjusted £9k (~£13k)?

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 11/08/2025

Me to students: "Keep field notebooks legible, and only write down the most relevant information". My own notebooks:

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 05/08/2025

Shocked to hear that Stream, which has given Esri huge sums of bill payer money to create an extremely basic API, has won an award from…. Esri! Trebles all round…

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 31/07/2025

Thanks! The art of the backronym…

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 31/07/2025

eartharxiv.org/repository/v... In our new preprint we describe in detail the software & workflows behind www.SewageMap.co.uk! One for the open environmental data nerds out there :) 💩 🧑‍💻 🏞️

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 24/07/2025

grass fed “sustainable” rewilding cattle ultimately false solution. Yes, it’s good for climate… but hopelessly not scaleable. Only works if we each only eat one steak every couple of years! So, basically, are vegetarian!

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 24/07/2025

1) methane (CH4) has greater greenhouse effect than CO2 so grass fed cattle is partly turning CO2 to CH4 and 2) probably greater effect is opportunity cost of land use. grass fed cattle needs LOADS of grassland which would otherwise be (for instance) forest, wetlands etc… much better for climate

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 18/07/2025

So, whilst a laudable aim on paper im not sure how it’s really enforceable or even if it’s ‘fair’ to enforce it (assuming I have understood it)

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 18/07/2025

…and selecting one year as your baseline is very silly. Last year was very very wet and this year is very very dry. So, 2025 has already seen less than half the amount of spills than 2024 but purely out of changes in the weather.

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 18/07/2025

“From 2021 levels” I predict will result in future confusion. We only have had consistent sewer overflow monitoring data since *2023*… 2021 data is only partial. Not a good thing to use as a benchmark (imo)

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 14/07/2025

Related reminder that the student loan repayment threshold for current students is now *£25000*... i.e., if you now graduate and get *any full time job* you will be paying back your loan. (www.gov.uk/repaying-you...)

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 13/07/2025

hope you used bog butter for them!

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Shamelessly replugging this from two years ago. We would never look at the proportion of, say, schools, that don't turn out literate pupils and go 'oh well, probably those kids were better off out of it'. We shouldn't view the short tail of bad courses and/or outcomes any differently:

ft.com

Everyone needs educating in the fight over university degrees

Political confusion over the purpose of these institutions means the obvious fixes are being neglected

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 27/06/2025

Hi Ned! Thanks! You can drop me a Bluesky message if you want! Or you can email me, my contacts are at: alexlipp.github.io Sadly there are currently issues with the input data stream (beyond my control unfortunately) which is creating some issues which may be behind this!

alexlipp.github.io

Dr Alex Lipp

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Alex Lipp @alexlipp.github.io · 04/06/2025

😭 (Although, providing summaries of long technical documents for non-technical audiences in a non-critical capacity seems like actually quite a good use of AI?!)

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