Reposted by Michael Williamsonbryan newbold @bnewbold.net · 07/10/2026ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare... 101142054679
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 01/09/2026Sticks and stones may break your bones, but pigeon will always haunt them. 020
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 01/09/2026For all of my complaints about some of the bosses I've had, at least they weren't trying to strip me and my friends of their rights. www.ft.com/content/fa69...ft.comFar-right Restore Britain receives £500,000 from tech entrepreneurNativist upstart shows growing potential to peel voters off from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK 2164
Reposted by Michael WilliamsonMarie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 25/08/2026imagine your whole thing, aside from the day job, being "reading and tits", imagine being this much of a legend 747436
Reposted by Michael WilliamsonAlex Zalben @azalben.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Dolly Parton, among a thousand other amazing things she did in her life, gifted over 330 million books to kids through her Imagination Library program. Her passing is a tremendous loss to the world, but you can support the program today to keep it going imaginationlibrary.comimaginationlibrary.comDolly Parton's Imagination Library | USA, UK, IE, CA, AUDolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free books to children from birth until they begin school in participating areas. 45121535979
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/07/2026I used to be part of a queer book club, but mostly for the social aspect (although I appreciated reading stuff I otherwise wouldn't). There are plenty of queer events that I've avoided, like clubbing, but I've never quite decided whether it's due to my not drinking or just my general boringness! 010
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 06/07/2026I'm running a heist from issue 2, and having a wonderful time as my players' plan comes together. Mostly. So far. It's my favourite spell system in that it requires you to be inventive, and you can unleash powerful magic even at level 1, if you're willing to pay the price. 10/10 would huff again. 0113
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/20266. Devolution. The centre is overloaded, and making coherent cross-cutting decisions seems easier at the local level. Happily, this is one thing Burnham is quite likely to do! 000
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/20265. A more robust response to racism. Starmer's government has seemed reluctant just to straightforwardly say: racism is bad! 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/2026Plus, numbers have already come down, and further deterrence will further hurt growth, not to mention the moral arguments, especially when it comes to retroactive changes for people already here. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/20264. A more liberal migration policy. I'm not expecting something uber-liberal, but Labour are never going to out-Reform Reform, and the rhetoric ("island of strangers") is actively harmful. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/20263. Speaking of comparative advantages, show some more love to the arts and media sector. Start by appointing a secretary of state who seems a little more enthused. Have a serious think about the role of the BBC and how to strengthen it. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/2026If the decision is that the sector should shrink, being a bit more intentional about exactly how it should shrink seems like it would help to limit the damage? Although perhaps that comes back to the lack (in my view) of a consensus of what the UK university sector is actually for. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/2026and that the sector is one of the UK's comparative advantages. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/20262. Addressing the implosion of the university sector. Perhaps the government is doing more than I'm aware of, but I'm surprised by the lack of action given this affects so many young people, that universities are often one of the largest employers in their town, ... 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/20261. Tax reform. Obviously there's a whole load of stuff you could do to boost growth, like getting rid of NI or reforming property taxes, but at the very least getting rid of the distortions seems comparatively uncontroversial. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 26/06/2026So that I have something to refer to in the future when I'm delighted/disappointment in Burnham, a list of plausible (but perhaps unlikely) things I'd like a Burnham government to do, in no particular order. 121
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 08/06/2026True: I was at uni at a similar time (07-10), and while I have fond memories of watching Borgen on the iPlayer, my mum would still (very kindly!) sometimes bring DVDs of things I'd missed off the telly. I also remember having a wretched experience trying to watch Pushing Daisies on the ITV Player. 000
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 08/06/2026I think the ITV Player and 4od were also around by then? 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 28/05/2026I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I think C# can do this when a parameter type is `Expression<...>`. For instance, the docs for Select on IQueryable a concrete example: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet...learn.microsoft.comQueryable.Select Method (System.Linq)Projects each element of a sequence into a new form. 010
Reposted by Michael WilliamsonJamie McKelvie @mckelvie.bsky.social · 23/05/2026Only 90s British kids will get this 11493110
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 21/05/2026I keep trying (and failing) to find the right adjective to describe the difference between prime ministers up to May, and the subsequent prime ministers. I don't share May's politics, and she made serious errors, but she was imv the last... serious(? prime ministerial?) prime minister we've had. 200
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 18/05/2026Incredible levels of fence sitting from me on the Economic dimension. 000
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 13/05/2026I suppose I more meant clear-eyed about the fiscal reality, rather than what exactly Labour would do once in government. Which is to say, I think current politicians underestimate the public's willingness to grapple with hard trade-offs, which is a recipe for long-term disappointment for everyone. 010
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 13/05/2026Apologies if this is what you're alluding to, but if I remember correctly, there was polling during the general election campaign that a decent chunk of the electorate didn't believe Labour's promise not to increase taxes on working people. Sounds clear-eyed rather than ungovernable to me. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 17/04/2026For the avoidance of doubt: this is by no means Starmer's only nor biggest flaw, and this particular failure was both eminently predictable and eminently preventable. 000
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 17/04/2026Starmer's reaction to various failures of government is often to act like he's the injured party. But it's a failure of *his* government! Even if the failure was impossible to predict or prevent, you're still culpable if you're the boss. It sucks, but that's the job. 140
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 16/04/2026Truly an evergreen post. bsky.app/profile/joxl... 010
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 23/03/2026I sometimes wonder what would happen if copyright was, say, a couple of decades. Would we get a 100 different takes on Star Trek that are so obviously incoherent that instead of worrying about canon or a grand strategy for the franchise, we get weird, fun things that stand on their own two feet. 010
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 13/03/2026If only there was some sort of precedent suggesting that the increasing use of Palantir could be used by illiberal forces to undermine an already tenuous government. 020
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 01/03/2026Speaking of supreme leaders, there were a couple of years when Kim Jong-pil was the prime minister of South Korea while Kim Jong Il was the supreme leader of North Korea. 010
Reposted by Michael WilliamsonJohn Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 31/01/2026"average New Labour minister causes 3 scandals" factoid actualy just statistical error. average minister causes 0 scandals. Scandals Peter, who lives in cave & causes over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted 10620172
Reposted by Michael Williamsonℳatt @matttomic.bsky.social · 20/01/2026Italian voice actor Carlo Bononi was the voice of all of the characters on Pingu. A trained clown by trade, he used a theater technique called grammelot, which consists of "speaking" in a mix of babbled gibberish noises. He improvised all the voices live and unscripted. 5550021896
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 08/12/2025Depends on the build, but I'd say no. I find the cast useful if you want to keep enemies away while you make a slower attack, but some combination of careful positioning, high instant damage and status effects can also work. Quite common for me to not use the cast at all for bosses. 010
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 15/11/2025If it were to happen, one bonus of Starmer leaving Downing Street before the next election is that it preserves an excellent pub quiz question: who was the last prime minister to both become and stop being prime minister as a consequence of a general election? 120
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 02/10/2025Is it not also counter to the (defunct?) messaging around sticking plaster politics? In my ignorance, GP appointments seem like the sweet spot for landing that message: doing something upstream that's more cost-effective, while very visible given it's the most common NHS interaction (and complaint?) 000
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 19/09/2025I thoroughly enjoyed Some Desperate Glory, so this is more than enough of a nudge for me to put The Incandescent on my list! Although I need to read the sequel to the Tainted Cup first. 100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 10/07/2025Contradiction: Spot The Liar is an absolute delight, although admittedly a different beast to the FMV cut scenes in Red Alert 2 (one of the contenders for games I've sunk the most hours into) 000
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 04/07/2025Given the state of the official opposition, having Labour MPs who are willing to scrutinise and challenge legislation seems like something that might actually help the government, if only they worked with them, rather than lurching between stubbornness and desperate, last-minute concessions 1100
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 15/06/2025Having just watched an advert at the cinema showing someone screwing up a recipe and having Gemini tell them how to turn it into something else, I was (1) horrified (but not surprised) at the suggestion of blindly following the instructions (2) pondering: how could you regulate this, if so inclined? 200
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 05/06/2025That last line is one of my favourite lines of writing in any video game. The whole game is so full of character without feeling overwrought. 000
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 30/05/2025Description becomes prescription becomes (ossified) ideology? 000
Reposted by Michael WilliamsonDan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 22/04/2025it feels almost indecent to say this since the primary reason for removing children from poverty is simply removing children from poverty. but it is really well established fact that child poverty is extremely expensive in the long term and this policy costs money. 23668252
Reposted by Michael WilliamsonGaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 11/04/2025Hands down my fabourite thing I’ve read this week. I laughed, I cried a bit (I lost my own dad recently), I will be quoting this next time someone says something pompous about what it means to be British. Enjoy your eccentric parents while you still have them substack.com/@tomcox/note...substack.comTom Cox on SubstackSome Notes About My Dad That I Have Made In My Notebooks: My dad has come to an arrangement with the public pool in Nottinghamshire where he swims: after everyone else has got out of the pool, he is ... 716027
Michael Williamson @zwobble.bsky.social · 06/03/2025One thing I keep meaning to read up on is Japanese railway companies that (as I (mis)understand it) make their money from real estate / investment around the train stations, and why that model isn't used more widely. In my ignorance, that seems like a natural way to fund rail investment? 130
Reposted by Michael WilliamsonStephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 22/02/2025Really important and moving account of state failure in this weekend's @financialtimes.com that is free to read for all here:ft.comMy brother, the NHS and the inquest into a needless deathMy brother spent the last hours of his life trying in vain to get basic help from the NHS. Why? 1719899
