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Oliver Blanthorn

@bovine3dom.bsky.social
154 followers 451 following 478 posts

Tridactyl developer predominantly on @bovine3dom.masto.ai.ap.brid.gy / masto.ai/@bovine3dom

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Oliver Blanthorn
Oli Hawkins @olihawkins.com · 29/09/2026
If you are in the US and looking for opportunities to get into data journalism, the FT's New York team is recruiting a Summer Intern for 2027. job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/financialtim...
job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io
Data Journalism Summer Intern
New York
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Reposted by Oliver Blanthorn
Jon Worth @jonworth.eu · 28/09/2026
Damn I am tired of people laughing about Deutsche Bahn. Travel in many other places in Europe and you will discover Germany is trying to do many things right with its railways. A quick blog post / rant from me: jonworth.eu/your-deutsche-… #CrossBorderRail
jonworth.eu
Your Deutsche Bahn "joke" is no longer funny (if it ever was)
Before attempting my record attempt between Kemijärvi, Finland and Lagos, Portugal, people told me over and over it would break down in Germany. So much so that I even tried to re-but (pre-but?) some of the likely critique. Now, having made the trip, and none of the total
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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
For centuries, Oxford made graduates swear that they would "never consent to the reconciliation of Henry Simeonis". The odd thing was, nobody could remember who the hell he was.
jonn.substack.com
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Reposted by Oliver Blanthorn
European Rail Passengers Union @erpu.eu · 22/09/2026
In fact we organized a "rail ticketing challenge" to demonstrate the actual problems passengers face. Teams competed to find the best tickets for real world scenarios … and discovered how difficult it can be. One policy maker summed it with their exasperated "but how were we supposed to know that…"
The inside of train with people sitting and standing all energeticaly looking at devices and talking.
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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Paywalling (more) public sector data is a bad idea, actually www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-od... New post. The marginal cost limit in the UK's RPSI regulations does not mandate #opendata – but does provide a convenient excuse for underfunding of public data infrastructure #datapolicy #openpolicy
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European Rail Passengers Union @erpu.eu · 31/08/2026
Starting next week ERPU co-founder and board member @jonworth.eu is going for a new world record: the fastest time on the longest uninterrupted rail journey in Europe! 6281.6km of train travel from Kemijärvi, Finland to Lagos, Portugal.
A map of Europe showing a train route journey from Kemijärvi, Finland in the north to Lagos, Portugal in the south.
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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
HM Land Registry has now released lookup tables for UPRNs and INSPIRE IDs that can be matched to Price Paid Data www.gov.uk/government/n... ● UPRNs www.gov.uk/government/s... ● INSPIRE IDs www.gov.uk/government/s... ● July PPD www.gov.uk/government/s... #UKhousing #houseprices #proptech #opendata?
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Stanley Pignal @spignal.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
SO YOU'VE WRITTEN A BIG REPORT and you want us to care about it. Please, if you are targetting journalists etc, do these few very simple things. - include a date - make it easy to navigate (no fancy animation stuff) - single column! - charts should link to data - contact info of relevant authors
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Markonthemaps (Mark Ovenden) @markonthemaps.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Forgive shameless self promotion but for we freelance #authors these things are rare: new book with @mrmappy.bsky.social #Mapping #Britains #Railways has just gone to Number 1 in 6 #Amazon categories. Also No1 @stanfordstravel.bsky.social in #Trains & #Transport. Appologies for trumpet-blowing!
Screenshot from Amazon.co.uk showing Ovendens book as « Number One Best Seller » in the Railways History category.
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Markonthemaps (Mark Ovenden) @markonthemaps.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Book launch ahead! Love #maps #railways #design? Know people who do? Search "Mapping Britain's Railways" & "Ovenden" for new #BritishLibrary title out 18/08/26. 1st with every #TrainOperatingCompany & newest #GreatBritishRailways maps, plus historical ones. #transit & #cartography lovers must-have!
Mark Ovenden poses inside the Stanfords book store, Covent Garden, London, with piles of his new book, just signed!
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Jon Worth @jonworth.eu · 15/08/2026
#LongestTrainEU merchandise is ready! 🎉 T-shirts & more with the new logo here: crossborderrail.eu/about/mercha... And there is also an updated version of the classic #CrossBorderRail logo as well Each purchase makes a very small financial contribution to my work, and next 2 days there's 25% off
Longest Journey black t-shirtLongest journey white mugClassic #CrossBorderRail T-Shirt
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Reposted by Oliver Blanthorn
vincentholst.bsky.social @vincentholst.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
In 2023, @nature.com published 'Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time', receiving world-wide media attention. Our Matters Arising, published after a 32 month delay (more on that soon), shows that the reported decline can largely be attributed to dataset artefacts. 🧵
The average CD_5 index per year for Web of Science. The original Park et al. decline (top curve) becomes essentially flat (bottom curve) when removing papers with CD_5=1. Those papers largely correspond to dataset artefacts.
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European Rail Passengers Union @erpu.eu · 30/07/2026
We just submitted our official feedback on the EU’s proposed Passenger Package: erpu.eu/files/erpu_p... 3 key points: 1. We support the “sharing obligation”. 2. We oppose the “single platform / transaction” requirement. 3. We need clarity on how rights will be realised at the point of disruption.
Our official feedback to the EU on the proposed Passenger package.

1. We support the "sharing obligation" under FRAND terms.

As outlined in Articles 4 and 6 of COM(2026)232.

European Rail Passengers Union | erpu.euOur official feedback to the EU on the proposed Passenger package.

2. We oppose the "single platform" and "single transaction" requirement.

Passenger rights must apply to any journey as long as all transfers respect minimum connection times.

European Rail Passengers Union | erpu.euOur official feedback to the EU on the proposed Passenger package.

3. The final legislation should more clearly address how rights will be realised by passengers at the point of disruption.

The guiding principle should be the experience for a stressed passenger stranded on a distant train platform hoping to get to their destination.

European Rail Passengers Union | erpu.eu
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Oliver Blanthorn @bovine3dom.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
> Most European rail pass systems apply only to regional orsuburban rail. I wonder which systems they're thinking of? The dead cheap D-Ticket? Austria, Switzerland, Czechia (and BC100) include long distance and similar size to England in terms of intercity distances. New Spanish one maybe?
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Reposted by Oliver Blanthorn
The Man in Seat 61 @seatsixtyone.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
NEWS: The Belgrade-Podgorica/Bar trains can now (finally!) be booked online with Montenegro Railways at www.tickets-zpcg.me
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Jon Worth @jonworth.eu · 11/07/2026
On Thursday a train derailed between Nice and Ventimiglia For 48 hours SNCF maintained it was a “panne” - a breakdown It was either a broken wheel or broken axle that resulted in a derailment No one was injured, but infra was damaged, and the untruthful communication from SNCF isn’t good
Instagram screenshot showing the derailed train
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Noel Dolphin @noeldolphin.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
All trains to Nottingham are cancelled - the one critical piece of information passengers need to know is.... this station operates a penalty fare scheme. This must be unusual for a UK station... to make this the priority when massive disruption occurs. 🤷‍♂️
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Martin Stabe @martinstabe.ft.com · 07/07/2026
🚨We're hiring!🚨 The @data.ft.com team is hiring a graphics journalist. job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/financialtim...
job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io
Graphics journalist, Visual and Data desk ( Contractor)
London
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 04/07/2026
Want to run a fake London estate agency and repeatedly scam people out of thousands of pounds through rental scams? The good news is that for £250 you can join all the official renters' protection schemes and do it with a UK government badge of approval! www.londoncentric.media/p/london-ren...
londoncentric.media
Fake estate agents are buying the government's seal of approval
London's scammers find a new tactic • "I felt sick... They’re doing everything except for actually having a flat." • What happens when the scammers get inside the systems?
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Rob Palmer @robpalmer.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Bloomberg uses a lot of C++ & contributes to the standard as well as various industry conferences and libraries. I’m looking for an experienced engineer to join a distributed systems team in New York working on our core Deployment Infrastructure for the Bloomberg Terminal 🗽 🧵
Five engineers in a glass meeting room with a whiteboard wall
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Alex Selby-Boothroyd @alexselbyb.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Striking charts in this week's Briefing on AI models' values www.economist.com/briefing/202...
Scatter chart showing worldviews of AI models compared with the World Values SurveyScatter chart showing replies to political questions and press freedom scoresChart showing AI models' responses to various statementsScatter chart showing views of AI models compared with American voters in 2020
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Neal Agarwal @neal.fun · 18/06/2026
Made a site that takes objects from wikipedia and turns them into endless I Spy > neal.fun/wiki-spy/
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Jon Worth @jonworth.eu · 10/06/2026
This FT piece about how Germany is fixing its railways, and why it has to, is not bad www.ft.com/content/db75... It's one of few such articles where I am not screaming at my screen because they made some error
ft.com
Germany’s €100bn bid to make the trains run on time
The country’s railway renewal is the first test of whether Europe’s largest economy can reverse years of decline
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RJ Andrews @infowetrust.com · 08/06/2026
All four FUTURE BOOKS, featuring classic Isotype information graphics, are live at isotype.infowetrust.com — now 153 total figures sortable by dimensions I care about.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
This was actually fascinating. I learned a lot. An interactive explainer that walks you through exactly how solar panels convert sunlight into electricity, step by step: perthirtysix.com/how-the-heck...
perthirtysix.com
How The Heck Do Solar Panels Work? (An Interactive Exploration)
An interactive exploration of how solar panels work: from photons and the bandgap of silicon to Wright’s Law and the political will problem.
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European Rail Passengers Union @erpu.eu · 09/06/2026
Big news: We’re official! This past weekend we completed the paperwork to officially become a non-profit organisation. The European Rail Passengers Union is now established as an ASBL in Belgium. This is a big step forward for our legitimacy, sustainability, & transparency as an organisation. [1/6]
Four men standing around a small circular table that is covered in documents, they are all holding pens and concentrating to make sure they sign the correct ones.
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Atlas Guo @cartoguophy.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Glad to see my global climate visualization featured by Maps.com! The project includes both static and interactive maps that reimagine the Köppen climate classification through cartographic design. Check it out: www.maps.com/koppen-clima... #dataviz #datavisualization #climate #cartography
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Luca Casonato 🏳️‍🌈 @lcas.dev · 07/06/2026
At the end of 2024 / start of 2025, 70% of daily relations were cancelled. Now it's at peak ~15% a day. Still terrible, but it is improving. And the construction early this year definitely polished up the data for Feb/March 2026.
A heatmap showing daily cancellations between stations on the Drielandentrein. It has been getting better recently.
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Juuso Koponen @juusokoponen.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Last summer, me and @misaelisabeth.bsky.social travelled to Italy by train. This summer, we are taking another 3-week #Interrail trip. I can’t recommend this mode of travel enough! Here are some tips for planning an Interrail trip in Europe. #OverlandTravel #MaataPitkin 1/
A photograph showing a small wine bottle and a glass of white wine on a train tray table, with another tray table that has a beer bottle and glass in the back.
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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
The UK Government's public data portal, Data​.gov​.uk (launched 2009), has been rebranded as the National Data Library (NDL) www.data.gov.uk Another manifesto promise fulfilled! Well done everybody, glad that's sorted, moving along … #govtech #opendata #datapolicy
Screenshot of the National Data Library data catalogue interface, all shiny and new
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Andrew Gallant @burntsushi.net · 03/06/2026
I was recently diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. It's a "disease of chaos" that completely upturned my life for a couple months. I wrote a blog about it that goes into more detail and discusses prognosis. :-) burntsushi.net/encephalitis/
burntsushi.net
Encephalitis - Andrew Gallant's Blog
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Back-on-Track.eu @back-on-track.eu · 03/06/2026
The summer travel season is almost here, and we’re proud to announce our updated, community-built, 2026 Night Train Map. 🚅 The results? Six lines added, 11 lines reduced, and one line shortened. More info: back-on-track.eu/all-night-tr... Big thanks to our volunteers!
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Jo Kibble (Political Animal) @politicanimal.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Glad to see that the scourge of 'We'd love to hear your feedback' that dominates the modern world is not limited to buying nappies or getting house insurance, but even to having your deepest, darkest secrets probed by the state.
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Surbhi Bhatia @surbhaai.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Last month, I made thirty charts in thirty days for the #30DayChartChallenge. Wrote about what the process behind it demands of you: a forager's instinct, an athlete's discipline, a tailor's precision, a traffic controller's grip on attention. Full post here: surbhibhatia.com/vizardry/30-...
surbhibhatia.com
Thirty charts in thirty days
Notes from the #30DayChartChallenge and the process of making a chart every day of the month
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Robin Wigglesworth @robinwigglesworth.ft.com · 29/05/2026
in the grim darkness of the near future small caged mammal www.ft.com/content/dad4...
ft.com
small caged mammal on the run
in the grim darkness of the near future, small caged mammal
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The Man in Seat 61 @seatsixtyone.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
The excellent RTT (Real Time Trains) website now has an app! It shows how any British train performed up to 2 weeks ago, shows planned rolling stock for any given train, and shows the *planned* platform so you can be positioned ready, ahead of the scrum (includes Eurostar).
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Jon Worth @jonworth.eu · 26/05/2026
Your reminder: 1) Level crossings are leathal 2) In the vast, vast majority of cases leathal for people in the road vehicle hit, and NOT in the train 3) Designing out level crossings is hard and costly 4) If stuck on a level crossing, keep driving and break the barriers www.hln.be/buggenhout/t...
hln.be
“Twee kinderen en twee volwassenen overleden” bij aanrijding tussen trein en busje in Buggenhout: “Slagbomen waren gesloten”
In het Oost-Vlaamse Buggenhout is een minibusje, dat dienstdeed als schoolbus, gegrepen door een trein. In het busje zaten zeven leerlingen van Richtpunt campus Buggenhout, een middelbare school van h...
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Kate Allen @kateallen.ft.com · 22/05/2026
Colin Inman, the @financialtimes.com writing style guru, has sadly died. Here is our obituary (gift link, 300 clicks) - & a page from the introduction to the FT Style Guide which he wrote. (No this post has not been approved by the FT style council, errors mine). as.ft.com/r/a1b1b5ca-2...
A list of rules regarding the appropriate style in news journalism.
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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Reply to Ordnance Survey lawyers about Council Tax address datasets published as open data www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... New blog post, ongoing drama with extra verbiage #FOI #IPlaw #localgov #opendata #openaddresses
Accordingly, I think it is likely that many of the routine processing operations that might remove local address data from the understood definition of "Authority Owned Data" do not map cleanly to concepts (such as "extraction", "re-utilization", and "consultation") that have been established in statute and case law. Those processing operations may not necessarily involve the extraction of a substantial part of the contents of any third-party database, or otherwise meet any legal test for acquisition of third-party IP rights.

All of this means that whether particular address data is thought to conform to the definition of "Authority Owned Data" is a poor guide to understanding whether that data is solely owned by the council or contains third-party IP rights, as a matter of law outside the Potemkin village of GeoPlace's contractual framework.
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Jonas Schöley @jschoeley.com · 29/04/2026
demoscapes.org is a visual atlas of demographic surfaces hosted at @mpidr.bsky.social. It is also my passion project growing out of my 2016 human mortality database explorer. Did you publish something containing Lexis surfaces? Consider reaching out and having your work featured on the site.
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Nadieh Bremer @nadiehbremer.com · 21/05/2026
I spend nearly a year on this personal project to create a giant map of the world to dominate a wall in my living room It's size is 2.85m by 1.5m and I love it! 🤩 See more photos and read about the creation process here: www.visualcinnamon.com/portfolio/wo...
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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
New #opendata: Output Area counts for licensed vehicles in the UK at the end of 2025, released by DfT following FOI request www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ve... This is the most granular dataset available to the public for mapping and analysis of where vehicles are registered #FOI #transportdata
The vehicle counts are broken down by body type, keepership, and licence status.
The data is compatible with DfT's published table df_VEH0125, which is at LSOA level.
However, this OA dataset is not an official statistical output.
Following from an ICO decision in 2022, there is no suppression of small numbers in the dataset.
The data is in the following format:
[Screenshot of six rows of sample data with column headings: OA21, BodyType, Keepership, LicenceStatus, VehicleCount]
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Alex Selby-Boothroyd @alexselbyb.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
This is what I believe the French call "un making-of" www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4...
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Terence Eden @edent.tel · 17/05/2026
New blog post: GDS weighs in on the NHS's decision to retreat from Open Source shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/gds-weighs… Within the UK's Civil Service you occasionally hear the expression "being invited to a meeting without biscuits". It …
shkspr.mobi
GDS weighs in on the NHS's decision to retreat from Open Source
Within the UK's Civil Service you occasionally hear the expression "being invited to a meeting without biscuits". It implies a rather frosty discussion without any of the polite niceties of a normal meeting. In general though, even when people have severe disagreements, it is rare for tempers to fray. It is even rarer for those internal disagreements to spill over into public. Which is what…
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 15/05/2026
Exciting new Transit Priority Atlas from @chittimarco.bsky.social & NYU Marron provides an exciting look at mechanisms to speed transit on surface streets, including a large set of strategies & toolkits, all beautifully illustrated! tpa.transitcosts.com
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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Council Tax address datasets: progress update, next steps, and how to request missing datasets yourself www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... (UK) Follow-up post about ongoing development of my project at www.datadaptive.com/addr/ #FOI #localgov #datapolicy #geospatial #opendata #openaddresses
Screenshot of geocoded Wigan Council address data, in the Makerfield constituency, visualised in Leaflet with background mapping from OpenStreetMap
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Nicola Rennie @nrennie.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
"Five rules for evidence communication" is one of the papers I recommend to people most often because it has really good advice that often applies in #DataViz as well If you don't have access to Nature publications, you can also access it through ResearchGate: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
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European Rail Passengers Union @erpu.eu · 13/05/2026
We are working on a detailed summary of what the EU's proposal contains and what that means for passengers. But, here is the short version: The commission has good intentions but their plan falls woefully short. Making rights contingent on how and where you bought your tickets is not good enough.
Does the EU's plan deliver for passengers?

We need guaranteed  rights, no matter how many operators or how you bought your tickets. The plan does not deliver that.

We need easier ticketing, that allows you to find and purchase tickets for the best price. The plan does mostly deliver that.
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Jon Worth @jonworth.eu · 13/05/2026
If your 🚆 journey: - crosses only 1 EU border - involves normal tickets - you're booking 5 months ahead or less then today's #PassengerPackage from the Commission is OK If it: - crosses more than 1 border - involves passes or reduction cards - you're planning long ahead ... then problems persist
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