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Josh Cowls

@joshcowls.bsky.social
571 followers 876 following 170 posts

Tech policy person (Google), PhD in app store governance (Oxford). Views own. Repost signals interest. Expect miscellany.

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Reposted by Josh Cowls
Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most TV is just this now.
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hypothetical but I sincerely believe that there exists a reply to this post that ticks all four boxes
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Based on this I think we’re in the same school year, meaning 9/11 also happened in your first full week of secondary school, which I’ve always taken as making me a millennial nonpareil
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I like to think of UV levels as the relative exposure of X discourse (ultravitriolic?)
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Genuinely curious how VAR becomes less explicable each and every season.
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
GeoGuessr, bloody hell
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Imagined community of Severe Alert recipients
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Looking forward to finding out whether exams are getting easier or kids aren’t applying themselves enough, it must be one or the other!
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Starting to think sincerely, visibly, viscerally liking football might prove to be an asset for a UK prime minister.
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Not to be hipster about it but having loved Sam Fender’s album the first time around, which included liking Rein Me In, I didn’t foresee it going on to break the UK singles record! (On the other hand, Olivia Dean has a Midas touch)
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
It’s coming home (to IFAB)
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
In short, TikTok New Labour
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Taxing vape shops (and warehouses?) to relieve rates on pubs… aka percussively leveraging soft-left state intervention on tangible median voter/“common sense” wins seems to have political potential. (Burnham just needs to find another ~900 similar amuse-bouches to flood the grid from now to 2029…)
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Majority female UK Cabinet (which I think would be a first?) seems well on track
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Although these descriptions are intended as synonyms for one another, amusing to note that the ur-Starmerites seem to have received the most aggressive oustings
A list of cabinet sackings described in various ways
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
The viewing effects of the shift from everyone watching on analogue tv to some people on digital, some streaming, and some on phone alerts/betting apps seems under assessed
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Galaxy brained to wait for fifteen minutes and ten men, rather than 40 and eleven, before applying the clincher
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
It’s almost as if unprecedented fiddling with suspension rules mid-tournament has sown wider mistrust at the sharp end
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 14/07/2024
“Why don’t the Spanish sing their anthem” takes incoming in 3, 2, 1…
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
First vacation of Great Office straight off a transatlantic red eye since Kwarteng, though Starmer will be somewhat more prepared for it…
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Kudos to @felixsimon.bsky.social for capturing the anguish of an England fan
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Jack Bernhardt @jackbern.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
oh no, oh no, sorry everyone, I love this
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Football, bloody hell
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
The Labour 2029 coalition consists of the single voter who supports mandated solar on new builds and also supports no new builds for asylum seekers.
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Also very possibly the only station call in the UK with a Mandarin translation?
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SpinningHugo @spinninghugo.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
CountBinface is like the slave in the chariot behind the victorious Roman general whispering "memento mori." A (genuinely) important constitutional role.
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
2.8 goals per World Cup game so far. Wonder whether the path to qualification from third place in the groups has made a first game loss not necessarily fatal, which in turn has helped to open the first games up
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
For those of a certain age (mine), the realisation that we’re as far from “Football’s Coming Home” now as the release of that song was from 1966 is enough to send a shiver down a millennial spine
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Have long thought the tropes of British politics are so rote that a bit of fourth wall-breaking would be well received. e.g. you’re a minister walking up Downing St to reporters’ cries of “will you resign minister?”: cup your ears and pretend you can’t quite hear them. Just to mix it up a bit
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
The benefit to flavour of food served at room temperature relative to refrigerated is underestimated.
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Magyar joins Atatürk and Kenyatta in the select group to lead countries which partly bear their name
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Mushy peas are British dal
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
*knowingly make a Nathan For You reference, is the real question
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Did the PM just make a Nathan For You reference?!
Email from Keir Starmer with subject line “The plan:”
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
On a packed train a few years back, businessman type had a long, loud, totally oblivious work call while everyone sat silently. When he finally said “I have to hang up now” some unknown hero muttered “hooray” and the whole carriage exploded in laughter and cheers. Never known such joy before / since
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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
Highly recommended (free to read but might take around 15 mins).
ft.com
The bench
A true story of two strangers, a home-made bomb and an extraordinary act of courage
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Jordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.
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Fared Al Mahlool | فريد المحلول @faredalmahlool.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
BREAKING: Simultaneous explosions reported in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Source: Reuters
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Iran has fired ballistic missiles into: Israel Bahrain UAE Qatar
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Or even switch grayscale on/off with a double tap using accessibility settings
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Mixed team skeleton, bloody hell
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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
A List of Predictions Made in 1926 About 2026 🧵
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever (get to 100 without loss)
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
If there is a greater joy than waking up to find Zak Crawley still at the crease I don’t know of it
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River Action @riveractionuk.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
🚨 SHOCKING 🚨 A HUGE illegal waste dump has appeared between the A34 and River Cherwell, linked to organised crime. Every rainfall risks toxins washing into the river. We’re calling on the Environment Agency & Cherwell Council to act NOW. Our rivers cannot wait. 👇👇
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
open.substack.com/pub/londonce... eye-opening weekend read about a (very large and concrete) path not taken
open.substack.com
Would your home have been under a motorway?
"The most astonishing and destructive thing never to happen to London," says the man who has spent twenty years researching the first true map of the unbuilt Ringways.
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jim fishvvick @fimjishwick.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
do you think the nyt puzzles people saw the only connect wall about them
a new york times connections puzzle, where the top four clues are Only, Connect, Olive, Branch.
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Interesting how colloquial use of non-standard number words tends to alter their perceived size over time. “Myriad” formally means 10,000 but can now mean anything from “quite a few” to “innumerable” “Orders of magnitude more” often refers to quite a bit less than 100x or 1,000x
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Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
(And by any dimension, food is much better now)
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