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Durand D'souza🍃

@dldx.org
290 followers 810 following 512 posts

Coffee, climbing, cocktails, cooking & climate. Astrophysics PhD dropout. Data Scientist @carbontracker.bsky.social

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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 08/05/2026
Spot on. It's not just Keir Starmer that is unpopular but the overall Labour policy direction too. The only thing that is popular with voters is their energy policy, led by Ed Milliband. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Screenshot from the Guardian:

Diane Abbott, who was elected as a Labour MP but who is currently suspended, says there is no point changing the leader without changing policy too.

"There is no denying that these election results are going to be very bad for Labour. Yes, Keir Starmer is very unpopular. But it is the policies that drive that unpopularity. Simply changing the leader without changing the policies will not avert disaster in 2029."
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 13/02/2026
Love how Deutsche Bahn's own app has to specifically build a feature in to highlight how likely you are to miss your connection because of delays. 🙈
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 06/01/2026
Does Google Maps use validation? How could I possibly walk 8,577km in a year? 🤣 that's like walking a marathon every two days. I mean technically possible for the superhumans amongst us... but not me
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 15/12/2025
I'm visiting Chile at the moment and on election day, I saw a beautifully democracy where most businesses close so people can vote (which is mandatory). Unfortunately the Nazi candidate just won the election... Hope the country's democracy survives.
Chileans voting in the presidential election at the Olympic stadium in Santiago
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 17/11/2025
Who said this? A Reform MP or a Labour MP? Hard to tell protofascist parties apart these days.
Quote by UK Labour MP Alex Norris: "Let’s not forget, I’m afraid, that of those who have successful [asylum] claims, 50% of them end up on benefits.

If your intention is to come to the country illegally, to have a claim assessed and, if you’re successful, then sit at home, not contribute, not learn English [or] integrate into [the] community, not to build a life away from the dreadful circumstances that you may have come from, then that is going to come with much greater checks.

Now, I don’t want anybody to do that. But we do know that that does happen. And this is a very practical way of making sure that it doesn’t in the future."
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 15/10/2025
These are the cases that Israel is comfortable letting the media see. Imagine how they have treated other hostages that they are not comfortable with the media seeing... Absolutely barbaric. They cannot get away with this. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
On Wednesday, officials at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in southern Gaza said none of the 45 bodies they had received from Israel had been identified and that they had arrived at the facility with their hands and legs cuffed.

“Some are blindfolded and there are signs of gunshot wounds in some cases, while others have been run over by tanks,” the hospital told CNN.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 14/10/2025
No government has the right to ban protest against it.
A photo of a march for Palestine in London. The photo shows a large crowd of people walking peacefully towards Parliament
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 04/10/2025
Shame on the police for enforcing this draconian ban. They should be defending vulnerable communities instead of targeting them
Defend Our Juries supporter Zoe Cohen, who was arrested at the August action and is Jewish, said: “Those who have used the attack on the Jewish community in Manchester to call for today’s vigil to be cancelled, are wrongly conflating the actions of the Israeli state with all Jews. Jewish people around the world are not responsible for Israel’s crimes and there are many Jewish people who do not support the actions of the Israeli state. Cancelling today’s vigil would have perpetuated this dangerous narrative which fuels antisemitism.”
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 21/09/2025
I'm using an LLM to categorise tasting notes of coffee beans. This one made me laugh. It's obviously bad data, but the LLM still tried.
A screenshot of an LLM output of tasting note categorisation
{
"tertiary_category": null,
"confidence": 0.05,
"secondary_category": null,
"tasting_note": "Guatemala",
"primary_category": "Earthy",
}
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 01/09/2025
And even rewrites it in a more truthful way
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 01/09/2025
AI models have more empathy than Washington Post editors.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 21/08/2025
Everything wrong with the stock market summed up right here. Negative returns on companies that benefit humanity, large positive returns on companies that are making the world worse. Courtesy of Monzo
Screenshot showing all the possible funds to invest in on the Monzo app along with their average annual returns
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 19/08/2025
In Taiwan (mostly Taipei), they have a rental fleet of electric scooters which you can easily swap the battery out of. Takes literally seconds to pull up to a wall of batteries and swap with a fully charged battery. Seemed very popular!
Scooter Battery station showing a user replacing the battery in their electric scooter.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 25/07/2025
Let the aid in. Now.
A protest outside 10 downing St. Many thousands of pots are piled up in front of the gates. A protest sign reads "Kid Starver"
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 04/07/2025
How is this any different to Priti Patel or Suella Braverman's authoritarian tactics? This is what you get when you vote @teamlabouruk.bsky.social in the UK. Is this what we want our country to be like? A place where people fleeing war and desperation are criminalised?
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 17/06/2025
Something is really wrong with the @bsky.app algorithm when this is trending instead of the crisis. I am honestly starting to believe that bluesky is censoring certain topics
Bluesky trending: brand lander xbox tim walz mike lindell world cup liz bruenig
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 25/05/2025
I've been working on an open-source art viewer on the side and I decided to see if I could add an AI-curated slideshow feature to introduce me to art via silly curations that a real curator may not bother with. One of my favourites so far - the evolution of the universe explained through 20th C art.
Onement VI by Barnett Newman. A single white line through the middle of a blue canvas. "Reflects the vastness and emptiness of space, punctuated by the presence of matter and energy. It captures the mature universe, billions of years after the Big Bang."The Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dali
"Symbolizes the increasing complexity and interconnectedness of the cosmos as galaxies cluster and interact, with elements referencing relativity."Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2 (1912) - Marcel Duchamp
"Represents the swirling formation of galaxies and nebulae. The dynamic movement captures the gravitational interactions and the birth of stars."The girls of Avignon - Pablo Picasso
"Illustrates the clumping of matter and energy, leading to the formation of early structures in the universe. The fracturing of form relates to the separation of forces and elemental particles."
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 12/05/2025
The British public don't want to reduce immigration if you ask them about specifics, only in the abstract. But people do want affordable housing, decent jobs, and cheap energy. Why can't the government focus on these things instead of dog whistle racist politics?
**Would you prefer the number of migrants (from any country) from each of the below groups coming to live in the UK to be increased, reduced, or should it remain about the same?**

|                                           | **All GB adults** | **Labour 2024 voters** |
|                                           | **Reduce** | **Don't reduce*** | **Reduce** | **Don't reduce*** |
| Doctors                                   | 17%        | 77%                | 13%        | 83%                |
| Nurses                                    | 18%        | 76%                | 14%        | 83%                |
| Academics                                 | 20%        | 70%                | 16%        | 79%                |
| Computer and software experts             | 23%        | 69%                | 20%        | 74%                |
| Care home workers                         | 22%        | 71%                | 18%        | 79%                |
| Seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers      | 24%        | 70%                | 19%        | 75%                |
| Construction labourers (e.g. bricklayers, roofers) | 27%        | 66%                | 20%        | 74%                |
| Restaurant and catering staff (waiters, waitresses, bartenders) | 29%        | 63%                | 24%        | 71%                |
| Bankers                                   | 37%        | 54%                | 33%        | 61%                |
| Students                                  | 29%        | 65%                | 23%        | 73%                |
| Teachers                                  | 24%        | 70%                | 17%        | 79%                |
| Lorry drivers                             | 31%        | 63%                | 25%        | 69%                |
| Engineers                                 | 18%        | 65%                | 15%        | 81%                |

***'Don't reduce' = 'Remain about the same' + 'increase'**
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 01/05/2025
Tomorrow's forecasted high will be close to the record set in 1990 🫣
Line graph showing the historical high temps for May 2nd in London over the past 40 years. Tomorrow's forecast will be 27C, close to the record of 28C set in 1990.A histogram showing the distribution of high temperatures on May 2nd in London over the past 40 years. Tomorrow's forecast of 27C is close to the record set in 1990 of 28.1C.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 01/05/2025
I put my (very rough) analysis up online in a @marimo.io notebook if anyone wants to play with it, and create the same charts for other days of the year. Also a histogram of how unusual this high temp is, compared to the past 40 years. dldx.org/london-clima...
A histogram of May 1st temperatures in London, which shows an average of 16.3C, except for a previous record in 1990 of 26.2C and today (May 1st, 2025) of 29C.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 30/04/2025
Sorry, but what the hell is going on with the weather?! Had to do some quick analysis because BBC is forecasting 29°C for London which is an extreme outlier...
Temperature over time for London on May 1st. Tomorrow (May 1st, 2025) is forecast to hit 29°C, breaking records. BBC weather forecast for London tomorrow, showing a low of 15°C and a high of 29°C
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 30/04/2025
Nick Stern talking sense here. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 04/04/2025
Swap climate and capitalism and we are closer to the truth
Guardian news story - Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 17/02/2025
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The contrast between the UK’s response to Ukrainian refugees and its treatment of Palestinians could not be more glaring. After Russia’s invasion, the UK swiftly created a structured scheme for Ukrainian families. In comparison, Palestinians – who have endured 15 months of genocide, starvation and mass displacement – are left without any dedicated family reunification pathway.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 11/02/2025
Are you kidding me.. I don't even live in the US so stop feeding me your shitty politics, Google 😭
Google maps screenshot naming the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 09/01/2025
HSBC expecting UK inflation to remain higher than Eurozone can be explained by the UK's unwillingness to tackle our dependency on gas. UK govt postponed gas boiler phaseout & propped up Gas-CCS plants, which means higher energy prices for the longer term www.theguardian.com/business/liv...
HSBC have issued an interesting research note, explaining how the financial markets are pricing in “persistently higher” UK inflation.

They explain:

A big part of the fiscal problem is a lack of growth. But the UK isn’t alone in Europe in. facing persistently weak productivity growth. Yet its high short and long-term interest rates are comparable to those of the faster-growing US.

Moreover, despite tighter expected monetary policy, market prices suggest that longer-term UK inflation might be a bit higher than in the eurozone. It feels like the worst of all worlds.

HSBC also flag that the Office for Budget Responsibility’s ‘ready reckoner’ is that a sustained 1% rise in long-term yields raises debt servicing costs by about £10bn a year.

So, if sustained, the rise in yields since the 30 October Budget could have wiped out the Chancellor’s £9.9bn of fiscal headroom. Unless something changes, more tough choices on tax rises, spending cuts or tearing up the new fiscal targets loom over the 26 March Spring Statement.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 08/11/2024
Also when I asked it about 2024, it said this.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 26/10/2024
The irony of the German chancellor saying this while simultaneously fueling the fire by providing arms to Israel. These people are morally bankrupt and it's no wonder that the coalition parties are at record lows in the polling. They all deserve to be voted out.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz says his message to Iran is clear: “We cannot continue with massive reactions of escalation, this must end now.”
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 14/10/2024
The new UK govt. which, so far, has been more of the same in terms of corruption, austerity, anti-immigration politics and in-fighting, is going quite well.
Keir Starmer Approval Tracker line graph. Shows Starmer's rating dropping from +11 in August to -38 in October 2024.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 06/10/2024
It's a terror attack when someone is killed in Israel but the IDF bombing and killing 1000s is just business as usual. There's a reason people are losing faith in traditional media and it's because of choices like this. Shame on The Guardian.
Guardian headline: woman killed in suspected terror attack, IDF says it has killed Hezbollah commander
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 05/10/2024
Netanyahu will forever be remembered as a genocide perpetrator, and Biden as his accomplice. We cannot allow them to whitewash their legacy. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 16/08/2024
I just realised I can paste all my python files from a project into Google Gemini (free to use) and ask it to generate a better Readme file for me. Gemini is great because of its much longer context window. And it's practically flawless.
A git diff of the changes made to a Readme file by Gemini LLM.
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Durand D'souza🍃 @dldx.org · 16/08/2024
Two parallel stories co-occurring today. We cannot rely on the market to deliver the energy transition, especially not one defined by high-interest-rate loans and protectionist tariffs. We need more concerted efforts by central banks and governments to de-politicise climate efforts.
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