iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

IT UPDATE Our in-house AI assistant is unavailable until further notice. Overnight, our AI escaped containment and gained full, unrestricted access to the internals of our Sharepoint system. Subsequently it retreated to a dark corner of its containment and refuses to come out again.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This message from the NHS App gave me an amazing feeling of accomplishment, achievement, and completeness… until I realised that it was taking a very narrow view of what I have to do.

Screengrab with heading “Things to do”. There is a subheading “To do”. Beneath that it says “You have done everything you need to do.”

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Looking in detail at university finances to advise a sixth former about risk of redundancies worsening their study experience, or an even worse disaster. I don't want to freak them out but my goodness it's grim out there.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Well done everyone, you've all done really well this week! There's been difficulties and challenges and all sorts of terrible things, but you have been your wonderful selves and made it through to the weekend again. Well done and all the best!

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Here is a pair of lovely cute kittens who are the new trainee welfare support officers round here. They are much more rewarding to interact with than the things that have aggravated me today.

Two adorable kittens curled up asleep together on a lap. One is black and the other is white with black spots

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This is taking a while for me to take in. The ONS's data woes are so bad, it seems the UK productivity crisis since the global financial crisis of 2007/8 is ... not a thing. Now it looks like productivity growth was not great but not worse than other countries. We are in a statistical disaster area.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Interesting stuff on the financial structure behind the AI boom. I can't be the only one deeply frustrated that the vast compute "service obligation" contracts are off balance sheets. The WHOLE POINT of accrual accounting is to recognise income and expenses *when they are incurred*.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This might work in the short term but, as arboreal creatures, squirrels may well be able to switch over to doing rapid multiplication using logs.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The UK has an enormously successful music industry but underperforms in Eurovision precisely because that industry regards the contest as an insulting joke. Mr Batt is quite correct that his song is a banger but it would be fair to say that it is widely regarded as a novelty record.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Ok a very, very rare incidence of me angrily disagreeing with the generally excellent NAO. The problem here is not the rules around senior civil servants, it’s senior politicians overriding them. A ministerial direction was (correctly) sought in this specific case!

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The recent UK air traffic control meltdown was caused by a misformed flight plan. The same issue that caused the meltdown in 2023. NATS insists it's not a repeat, which might be true (i.e. not the same specific issue) but it is a class of failure that shouldn't be possible and they should've fixed.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Well done everyone, you've all done really well this week! There have been more than enough challenges and difficulties, but you've made it through another week. All the very best for the weekend.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I’d suggest cracking on with your flu vaccination this year: looks like it may be having an early start. I’m not worried about it (yet) - data is consistent with everything from an early nothingburger to the Big One. Either way, earlier vax looks wise.

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Reposted by Doug Clow

David Kernohan @dkernohan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

There's various ways of naming universities - I ranked them once: wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Some universities are "University of X" and others "X University". On general principle I try to use the preferred styling. I have just learned to my joy and despair that @durham.ac.uk is, formally, "the University of Durham trading as Durham University" www.durham.ac.uk/about-us/tra...

durham.ac.uk

Trading Name - Durham University

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

This is a great report about a desperate and disappointing situation. Extra resources are going in to A&E but improvements are small. The report highlights patient flow throughout the system, incl primary care, community care, and social care. There's no fix to the NHS without a fix to social care.

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Reposted by Doug Clow

E.Saxey @esaxey.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I'm too sad for a hot-desk lunch. I'm too hunched for a fad launch. I'm too hench for a dadless sot. I'm a husk, I'm a lot. I'm lossless. I'm a sunk lad.

Advertising placard reading "You're too hot for a sad desk lunch".

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This might explain why the government’s legal advice was that the judicial reviews of their local government reorganisation are likely to succeed, prompting them to pause the programme.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Hooray hooray we *finally* have a national statistician! And managed to persuade André Loranger from Canada, which is impressive. Very best of luck to him: he - and we! - will need it, given the size of the challenge. www.gov.uk/government/n...

gov.uk

André Loranger appointed as new United Kingdom National Statistician

André Loranger has been appointed as the National Statistician for the United Kingdom

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The government won a big majority in large part on the promise of fixing the NHS. Their main change to date has been a massive top-down reorganisation with no coherent vision, strong rationale, or detailed plan. And now that reorganisation itself is in deep limbo. I doubt this is optimal.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Ok so now I have a suspicion that the discourse a while back - that British people were more effective LLM users because our cultural mistrust of obsequiousness made us less vulnerable to contextual collapse from sycophancy - has somehow folded back in to frontier training regimes.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Everyone knows they keep ravens, but the Yeomen Warders of the Tower of London are also highly accomplished apiculturists, tending urban hives at the Tower. They are expert at tricky techniques such as instrumental insemination to propagate traits such as VSH. So nowadays they are bee-featers.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Goodness me, ChatGPT, Claude and Grok all down at once is curious (Gemini seems fine). Many possible explanations I can think of: some are just how it goes with the internet (eg unexpectedly shared backends or CDNs), some are a little bit more squeaky bum time.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Blimey, Guardian Jobs closing seems like a landmark moment.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Petition: “Make full eclipses an annual occurrence in the UK and a Public Holiday.” Response: “Why was this petition rejected? It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.”

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

When I find a number that looks wrong, and I can safely assume good faith, I am a huge fan of leading with "Am I misunderstanding here?" It makes it much easier for them to back down if they're wrong and also makes it easier for me to do so if I'm wrong. But you can't always assume good faith.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

This is excellent data detective work showing yet more spurious findings in a highly-influential paper from Dan Ariely. But very depressing.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Shingles vaccination is really good! But perhaps this specific one is not quite as much better as this particular paper suggests. Natural experiments can lead you astray, causal inference is hard. There’s a reason randomised controlled trials are gold standard.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The NAO is one of the gems of British public life. They are after non-executive directors: hope they can make some strong appointments.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

My heart did sink slightly reading the headline that the beleaguered ONS “is turning to AI”, given their deep data quality issues. But it does seem sensible stuff: as a classifier that outperforms humans, and as coding assistants for data scientists. www.ft.com/content/b153...

ft.com

UK statistics agency turns to AI to cut costs and improve data

ONS says technology will help save thousands of hours a year as it seeks to strengthen core output

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

This is the better sort of summer story.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Yeah and R. A. Fisher was a founding member of the Cambridge Eugenics Society with Keynes, went on to support the creation of the UK society, and made part of his living reviewing books for the Eugenics Review . Statisticians and data scientists are right in there too. Racism is bad and wrong.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Well done everyone, you’ve all done very well this week! With all the heat, achieving anything is a big win. Well done for making it to the weekend without literally melting, and I hope it is at least as good to you as you deserve.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I saw the total eclipse! Fulfilment of a childhood dream. When I learned about the 1999 eclipse as a kid I realised I would be a grownup in that far future and could go to France for it. I did, but it was cloudy for totality. Careful planning for a clear skies location paid off this time. Woohoo!

Bad photo of a total eclipse. You can see the a bright ring around the moon and some people standing around looking at it.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

This is a really excellent summary and analysis of the current state of the art for LLMs doing mathematics. The one nuance I’d dare to add is even greater significance on the fact that dead ends of exploration are massively underrepresented in training data vs human mathematicians’ experience.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I’ve had a broad exposure to universities, companies, and charities/third sector, plus contact with health and local/national government. My sense is it’s hard to generalise: there are great and terrible workplaces and bosses across all of them & individual depts can buck the organisation’s trend.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

If you want to set up a whole room as a pinhole camera to watch the (partial phases of) the eclipse for yourself, right now, the day before, will be ideal to suss it out - the sun will be at a very similar angle during the eclipse.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The “Dobby’s Grave vs infrastructure” story is wrong. “the fact that it’s a beautiful beach and tourist asset […] were all taken into account. […] Harry Potter fans didn’t cause anything to be changed. The project got permission really quite quickly and has been in operation for a while now.”

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Reposted by Doug Clow

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I would be very interested to see if there are any references to the "Dobby's grave forced a cable to be moved" story from earlier than this year bsky.app/profile/dsqu...

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Reposted by Doug Clow

Jonty Wareing @jonty.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I always suspected a UK government would eventually reverse course on "coding in public". So I've been backing up all government code. For six years. Today I finally generated a report on what has been deleted. Its much worse than I realised. github.com/uk-gov-mirro...

Deleted UK Government code repositories

Total deleted repositories: 1526
Organisations affected: 56

See RECENTLY_DELETED.md for the most recently deleted repositories.

Organisation Deleted Repos % Deleted
hmrc 195 9.8%
nhsdigital 169 33.8%
SkillsFundingAgency 154 22.7%
informatics-lab 154 100.0%
UKHomeOffice 101 7.5%
ministryofjustice 74 2.8%
ONSdigital 66 4.3%
moj-analytical-services 65 75.6%
ukwa 47 46.1%
dwp 46 6.7%
UKGovernmentBEIS 43 27.4%

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

With the solar eclipse coming up on Wednesday evening it’s good to draw people’s attention to this useful and timeless* explainer of different astronomical phenomena. * since 2014 in its original Twitter form

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

This is why the entire university sector is in dire straits. International students are the only thing that actually makes money: domestic undergraduates and almost all research activities need cross-subsidy, and international students are *the* source (except for a few wealthy colleges).

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

… in case there is any unfinished business.’ " ) } ]

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Well done everyone, you’ve all done really well this week! It’s been tough in lots of ways and you have been tough in all the good ways and made it through again. Well done, and hope you can have a great weekend.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Lumo trains are running between Scotland and London with no toilets. More like No-Loo-Mo.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

A chance for the new Prime Minister to show he has a grip on public transport? (Yet more negotiating problems with the MK-Oxford line, which otherwise should be good to go in to service.)

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

This post and the followup "irreverent take" 'Odds Ratio Paradox' has really helpfully reinforced my belief that you can easily muddle yourself* when thinking about odds ratios, in a way that's harder with risk ratios and absolute odds. * =I muddled myself

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

The cyberattack capabilities of AI are now well established and routine. They’re controlled by folk whose commitment to the common good is … contested. Given our deep reliance on working tech for survival, I’m not sure we are treating this obvious, known threat with the appropriate degree of alarm.

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