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Alex

@blangry.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.2K following 4.1K posts

Final year DPhil anthropology of civic tech. Principal consultant. Norwich with a cargo bike. Greyhound pictures extra.

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Reposted by Alex
Phil Rodgers @philrodgers.co.uk · 13h
Interesting analysis of property ownership in Cambridge and Oxford. gaffon.com/blog/oxford-...
gaffon.com
Oxford v Cambridge
Two provincial cities trading at nine-tenths of London: what a world-leading university does to the price of a terraced house, from the sale registers of both.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 16h
Keep seeing data as an acquisitive asset rather than a perishable service delivery consumable.
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 16h
one of the things I find fascinating is that, even though I constantly hear about how AI (previously "big data") is going to improve everything, it's apparently no one's job to anticipate that the pavement will be full of bikes and the road full of holes at the same time as it's also bin day
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I am glad I got put on to @catfishing.net, it is a great quiz. But the number of questions that are "name this incredibly obscure (to a non US & non NBA fan) basketball player - I'll make it easy for you by telling you which college team they played for" drives me nuts.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
No link left behind should not be old hat.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A friend on here used to work in a building shared with a slightly notoriously antsy union where the door code was the date they'd ousted the last general secretary.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Got a bit of a feeling that I'm going to be upping my list of long-term things going on with my body the next time I get a GP appointment. I'd avoided ones where the main symptom was "pain" for quite a while so that is the obvious next step.
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Finally a leaflet talking about the real issues in the constituency
"Vote in Christian Values" - Saint Pancras was martyred age 14 by beheading
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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I’m a dual national. I’m not planing on committing any crimes anytime soon, let alone ones with a sentence of 5+ years, but if I ever did I’m not sure why my second passport should disqualify me from facing the same British justice system as everyone else and instead strip me of my citizenship
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Went out to the @dxw.com summer party last night and it's so nice to see a good company full of people you have time and respect for doing well. Also so many faces from the Old Days, was like being in 2013 again.
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Mike Rugnetta @mikerugnetta.com · 24/09/2026
ahahaha this fucking rules; RETURN THE OPERA TO THE PEOPLE
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Reminds me of an old digital government hand telling me about the 80s/90s when they'd make fake people in the tax system and chat by appending notes to Mickey Mouse's record.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I'm working on the boy by reading this page with the additional line "you're going to get some hop-ons".
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Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 21/09/2026
Open Access Adviser role in the Open Research team at Cambridge @theul.bsky.social www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/open-ac...
cam.ac.uk
Open Access Adviser
Ever wanted to work in an institution that is home to one of the world's great collections of cultural treasures and research materials? Spanning thousands of years of human thought and discovery, Cam...
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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
3 panel comic titled “Logging into Bluesky”

Panel 1: 
A Pink Guy bursts into Bluesky wearing a t-shirt that says “Fun”. His little face looks so happy.

Panel 2: 
Six Bluesky users turn to look at the Pink Guy. They all look dour and angry because they have been overdosing on the discourse. Having the current state of the world mainlined into their veins for 22 hours a day has left them real grumpy.

Panel 3:
Pink Guy slowly removes his t-shirt and quietly says “sorry”. He won’t soon forget that Bluesky is the home of Serious Discussion. If he wants “Fun” maybe he should log into the Barney the Dinosaur forums.
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Roger @rogger.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
When I wang on about product management I use this analogy of “tasting menu vs taco chain” - balancing innovation/vision-based leading products with iteration/demand-based following products. And tl;dr you always need some of both. You sure as hell can’t run a country on cheap tacos. 🤷‍♂️
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Be real though, he's been shit at things for years, Palantir are buying the UK equivalent of "Pokémon Go to the polls".
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Roger @rogger.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Another one - and an absolute banger - for the “doing whatever I want to do instead of helping is the moral high ground, actually” gallery. That’s it. That’s the entire EA/long term/Silicon Valley philosophical project.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Keep thinking about the affordances of software. What does a new playbook of open work look like if the canvas it's drawn on is (almost always) Teams?
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I just saw some thick as mince commentary (good point -> bad point -> worse point) and remembered "hey, this guy annoys me every single time someone earnestly reposts him. I can just mute and get on with things". Good stuff.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
My BiL took UKVA and their subcontractors to trading standards in NSW because of their standard practices and won. www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...
thebureauinvestigates.com
Government makes £5bn a year from immigration fees while applicants…
Home Office’s fees are up to 10 times the processing cost – and rising every year
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I made some soda bread at breakfast time and have now eaten half the loaf. It's just savoury cake. I may need some doors widening.
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tante @tante.cc · 14/09/2026
Omarchy is part of new fascism. But it's also a good case study about how little political resilience is built into FLOSS: The libertarian roots have not only made the whole movement ready for the taking by corporations but also by fascists.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Looks a bit too cheery on here. Have a moping greyhound.
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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 14/09/2026
One thing not getting as much attention re: Dario's essay. In it, he talks about the need for third party evaluators to review models for safety. But a few days before the essay, Anthropic... refused to submit its latest models to the UK's evaluator: www.ft.com/content/560e...
ft.com
Anthropic withheld latest AI model from UK testing agency
Decision to exclude Aisi has prompted fears inside British government of protectionist shift among tech groups
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The thing that annoys me most about Ludwig is the lack of bicycles in any street shot and the fact that John insists on being driven. Oh and that every single location looks nothing like the place.
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The Onion @theonion.com · 12/09/2026
Critically Acclaimed ‘Ted Lasso’ Episode Just Stock Photos Of People Hugging Each Other theonion.com/critically-acclaimed-t…
Critically Acclaimed ‘Ted Lasso’ Episode Just Stock Photos Of People Hugging Each Other
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Ireland Simpsons Fans @iresimpsonsfans.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Troy McClure's Planet Of The Apes song, but it's about Limewire
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Raph Cormack @raphcormack.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
In the bits of the today programme that I have heard discussing Ed Miliband's sanctions, they have interviewed a spokesman for the Israeli government, the US ambassador to Israel, someone from Labour Friends of Israel, and government ministers. No Palestinians or even Palestinian perspective.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
If a vast swathe of sensible pundits are **directly at odds with public polling** on everything from climate disaster to genocide to fascist thugs burning hotels, it seems likely that tens of thousands of fake accounts telling them they love those things has had an effect, and purposefully so.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A less explored issue is that, to put it kindly, a lot of British media figures don't interact with ordinary people very much, so things like X and Facebook long ago become the pulse by which they intuit this mysterious rabble and their inscrutable moods. When that pulse turns fascist, this is bad.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I was actually looking forward to being in a city that could control its own roads. Thank goodness we get to keep a Reform CC that loves urbanism.
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Low Frequency Ovipositor @pikesley.mastodon.me.uk.ap.brid.gy · 07/09/2026
Just seen in Stratford
A sign reading

DOG TAROT

THIS WAYA woman calling Thanos on her phone
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
In all the pub chat today not a single mention of the Marquis of Granby in New Cross. It's not a nice pub, but it is an incredible pub.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Got a submission extension until April so now hopefully my ribcage will stop tensing for hours at a time.
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Alex Parsons @alexparsons.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Institutions are just people doing their jobs, but you have to do your job or it doesn't work.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Look, you might think that ancient universities would have had to sort their house out and bring in HR policies, but can I instead introduce you to the concept of "University Court" and also tell you how the use of an incredibly long (several years+) backlog stops things actually being decided?
admin.cam.ac.uk
Statutes and Ordinances: : University of Cambridge
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Sophie E. Hill @sophieehill.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Meme from The Wire, in which Stringer Bell asks "is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy"
Text altered to read: "is you talking in a Mayfair club on a criminal fucking conspiracy"
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I can't comment on anything that did or didn't happen in the meetings, but I suspect the lesson of the National Data Library is that whoever holds the pen on the next Labour manifesto shouldn't commit to any tech proposals with a snazzy name and literally 0 information about what the idea entails
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Check in on your local founder/CEO today.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Not going to watch the wizard thing myself, but idly musing that most of my parent friends aren't Online and don't really know the ins and outs of it all. Wouldn't it be good to have a big feature piece on why there's a boycott and then I remembered the rain of litigation that prevents that.
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 03/09/2026
I would *really* like 1Password to rescind this and apologize because moving my family out of 1Password after 12 years will be a pain in the ass and I don’t want to do it. But, what, I’m gonna fund this Nazi? No way.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Honestly, a government stimulus to small business should be "legally you can just invoice, the company paying you can pay their own finance staff to set you up and it is an invalid reason for non payment"
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I was born in London, I went to uni in London, lived there for more than 20 years of my life, I work in London: commentators who live in London insisting that London got a bum deal for funding over the past 15 years should try living in the dozens of not-London cities in the UK.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Bits of 2026 that can eat one: the Hayward Gallery's website refusing to say what a child ticket costs (sending you to an FAQ that just says "it depends") and then showing that adult tickets are surge priced.
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The War on Cars @thewaroncars.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
On the one hand, some people want to make it so that kids and other people aren't crushed to death by cars. On the other hand, some people are upset that they might have to pay attention, slow down or be inconvenienced by about 15 seconds. So you can see how it's a "war on cars."
bbc.com
Birmingham 20mph limit: a 'life saver' or 'a war on cars'?
Birmingham City Council is proposing the city becomes England's first 20mph city.
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
10 live acts eh? My Bloody Valentine Radiohead Mountain Goats Godspeed You! Black Emperor Tool DJ Shadow Rufus Wainwright Calexico Jurassic 5
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Went to see this at the cinema and Jesus Christ it is devastating. www.theguardian.com/football/202...
theguardian.com
‘I just wanted to be who I am’: the extraordinary story of Tony Powell, the secretly gay footballer
Former Norwich defender lived for years in an LA motel, cut ties with his family for more than three decades and is now the subject of a documentary
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Alex @blangry.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Thing is, the app is free but you will have to wade through the organically reposted ads for dad books and graphic designers putting nice pictures on mugs.
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Dan Hon @danhon.com · 27/08/2026
Welcome to Bluesky. Please familiarize yourself with the following accounts to understand the range of opinions it is acceptable to express.
It's a cast promo photo of the Voyager crew! Harry Kim, Seven of Nine, The Doctor, Neelix, Janeway, Chakotay, Paris, Torres, and Tuvok.
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