Maik Zumstrull
@maik.zumstrull.net
Writer of code turned wrangler of coders. Drinker of coffee. Fan of reliable systems.
Even if he never gets into power, he does enormous damage to the UK every time he opens his mouth, because what every foreign negotiator hears is “This is an unreliable country that might rip up existing treaties if there's one bad election, so we should give them nothing.”
“He also set out plans to slash foreign aid to a minimum, and nearly triple the annual fee paid by visa applicants to use the NHS”
www.bbc.com/news/article...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Reform plans to strip EU citizens of benefit rights, says Farage
Leader Nigel Farage says his party would renegotiate the Brexit deal struck by the Tory government.
www.bbc.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Even if he never gets into power, he does enormous damage to the UK every time he opens his mouth, because what every foreign negotiator hears is “This is an unreliable country that might rip up existing treaties if there's one bad election, so we should give them nothing.”
See also: old paintings of exotic animals by people who've never seen one but had good descriptions.
It’s like trying to understand a ‘cat’ say from lots of text related to cats but without having ever encountered an actual cat and gone through the process of converting perceived cat to language.
November 20, 2025 at 12:39 PM
See also: old paintings of exotic animals by people who've never seen one but had good descriptions.
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
A hopeful message to finish. The problems with the UK economy are many, but most of them are solvable, because they are the result of sustained poor policy choices. These policy mistakes have left scars, and some of the damage is irreversible, but the majority of it can be recovered.
November 17, 2025 at 8:20 AM
A hopeful message to finish. The problems with the UK economy are many, but most of them are solvable, because they are the result of sustained poor policy choices. These policy mistakes have left scars, and some of the damage is irreversible, but the majority of it can be recovered.
I've lived under three different European health systems – four if you consider that Germany has two parallel systems for no real reason.
I could go on a long rant about what's wrong with any of them, but all of them understand that health insurance needs to cover all treatable health problems.
I could go on a long rant about what's wrong with any of them, but all of them understand that health insurance needs to cover all treatable health problems.
Dr. Oz is clearly a moron who, incredibly, doesn't understand anything about how the insurance system works.
But also: Conservatives genuinely believe that people want to spend endless hours "choosing the insurance that's best for them." They don't. They want good, secure health care. It's simple.
But also: Conservatives genuinely believe that people want to spend endless hours "choosing the insurance that's best for them." They don't. They want good, secure health care. It's simple.
Dr Oz: "If you had a check in the mail, you could buy the insurance you thought was best for you"
November 16, 2025 at 5:54 PM
I've lived under three different European health systems – four if you consider that Germany has two parallel systems for no real reason.
I could go on a long rant about what's wrong with any of them, but all of them understand that health insurance needs to cover all treatable health problems.
I could go on a long rant about what's wrong with any of them, but all of them understand that health insurance needs to cover all treatable health problems.
Proud to announce our next policy: installing a giant meat grinder on Trafalgar Square and slowing feeding migrants into it. There will be a live stream, and you can use the tipping function to vote on who goes next.
NEW from Ipsos
Satisfaction with the PM remains unchanged since September, continuing to be the worst ever recorded by Ipsos for a Prime Minister, going back to 1977…
Satisfaction with the PM remains unchanged since September, continuing to be the worst ever recorded by Ipsos for a Prime Minister, going back to 1977…
November 16, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Proud to announce our next policy: installing a giant meat grinder on Trafalgar Square and slowing feeding migrants into it. There will be a live stream, and you can use the tipping function to vote on who goes next.
They genuinely think it's just so mean and unfair they're supposed to choose and can't pander to fascists and antifascists at the same time.
Appealing to Reform voters whilst also invoking people’s “openness, tolerance and generosity” seems to involve a degree of mixed messaging
"Mahmood said a raft of tough immigration controls were designed to unlock “the inherent openness, tolerance and generosity” of the British people."
Such nauseating shamelessness.
Such nauseating shamelessness.
November 16, 2025 at 1:49 PM
They genuinely think it's just so mean and unfair they're supposed to choose and can't pander to fascists and antifascists at the same time.
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
I love the "Prosecutions for fare evasion on the Tube are at their highest level for six years" bit. I wonder what could have happened 5-6 years ago that would have caused fare evasion to decline so steeply?!?
November 14, 2025 at 12:40 PM
I love the "Prosecutions for fare evasion on the Tube are at their highest level for six years" bit. I wonder what could have happened 5-6 years ago that would have caused fare evasion to decline so steeply?!?
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
Anyway: both the state and private developers need to build at far greater rates, the default aim should be 'a dual earner couple on average incomes can live in non-crowded conditions and raise a family', and the model family *for policymakers* should be three for obvious reasons.
November 13, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Anyway: both the state and private developers need to build at far greater rates, the default aim should be 'a dual earner couple on average incomes can live in non-crowded conditions and raise a family', and the model family *for policymakers* should be three for obvious reasons.
Plus naked stock manipulation.
They've figured out that any layoffs will give you a quick stock price bump, no matter how unnecessary or irrational.
They've figured out that any layoffs will give you a quick stock price bump, no matter how unnecessary or irrational.
Financial stress from AI infrastructure spending, overhiring, and recession fears, rather than AI adoption, is likely driving layoffs in the tech sector (Fast Company)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
November 10, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Plus naked stock manipulation.
They've figured out that any layoffs will give you a quick stock price bump, no matter how unnecessary or irrational.
They've figured out that any layoffs will give you a quick stock price bump, no matter how unnecessary or irrational.
It's frustrating people don't understand how this works.
If you're the far right and you manage to place saboteurs in BBC leadership, you don't ask them to make the BBC nicer to conservatives.
You use them to create real cases of crass misconduct so liberals will agree the BBC must be destroyed.
If you're the far right and you manage to place saboteurs in BBC leadership, you don't ask them to make the BBC nicer to conservatives.
You use them to create real cases of crass misconduct so liberals will agree the BBC must be destroyed.
Sorry to be the archetypal bothsidesist again (!), but the newsreader's eye-roll *and* the editing of the Trump footage both seem quite difficult to defend?!?
November 10, 2025 at 1:13 PM
It's frustrating people don't understand how this works.
If you're the far right and you manage to place saboteurs in BBC leadership, you don't ask them to make the BBC nicer to conservatives.
You use them to create real cases of crass misconduct so liberals will agree the BBC must be destroyed.
If you're the far right and you manage to place saboteurs in BBC leadership, you don't ask them to make the BBC nicer to conservatives.
You use them to create real cases of crass misconduct so liberals will agree the BBC must be destroyed.
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
I genuinely think there is a case that anyone using an AI product of this kind should face a short prison sentence. It's vandalism, just like painting on a wall or smashing a bus stop.
And you don’t even need an actually good bit of tech, which “Objector” may or may not be, to do this! If you just ask the free version of any genAI to do something plausible it still louses up everyone else’s productivity to work out it is bollocks!
The automated problem factory!
November 9, 2025 at 5:20 PM
I genuinely think there is a case that anyone using an AI product of this kind should face a short prison sentence. It's vandalism, just like painting on a wall or smashing a bus stop.
Tools so good you have to illegally influence the European Commission to try to force people to buy them!
November 7, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Tools so good you have to illegally influence the European Commission to try to force people to buy them!
“I'm not right or left, I'm liberta…”
“Okay, ultra hard right, got it. Next!”
“Okay, ultra hard right, got it. Next!”
Yawning at the limited government folks warning that a democratic socialist mayor of New York is an existential threat, but who remain guardedly optimistic about an authoritarian president.
November 4, 2025 at 1:14 PM
“I'm not right or left, I'm liberta…”
“Okay, ultra hard right, got it. Next!”
“Okay, ultra hard right, got it. Next!”
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
Today, we celebrate 75 years of the European Convention on Human Rights. From the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression to freedom of thought, conscience, and belief, the #ECHR has been instrumental in advancing human dignity and liberty. 🧵
humanists.uk/2025/11/04/c...
humanists.uk/2025/11/04/c...
Celebrating 75 years of the European Convention on Human Rights
Today, we celebrate 75 years of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Brought into being after the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust, and following in the footsteps of the Un...
humanists.uk
November 4, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Today, we celebrate 75 years of the European Convention on Human Rights. From the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression to freedom of thought, conscience, and belief, the #ECHR has been instrumental in advancing human dignity and liberty. 🧵
humanists.uk/2025/11/04/c...
humanists.uk/2025/11/04/c...
Honestly thought at first that the joke was that one of these is actually real.
My favorite running comedy bit is whenever CBS knows it has additional viewers for a live sporting event they run a bunch of promos for clearly fake shows just to screw with them
November 2, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Honestly thought at first that the joke was that one of these is actually real.
“But how will we sell a policy of no starving children in this country” is an insane thing to think.
Terminal case of focus group brain worms.
Terminal case of focus group brain worms.
I can’t envisage a child poverty strategy which garners any credibility without fully scrapping the two-child limit.
Unconvinced? Check out (even better share) this summary of the peer-reviewed evidence base @kittyjstewart.bsky.social @aaronreeves.bsky.social
largerfamilies.study/publications...
Unconvinced? Check out (even better share) this summary of the peer-reviewed evidence base @kittyjstewart.bsky.social @aaronreeves.bsky.social
largerfamilies.study/publications...
November 2, 2025 at 10:20 AM
“But how will we sell a policy of no starving children in this country” is an insane thing to think.
Terminal case of focus group brain worms.
Terminal case of focus group brain worms.
Wichtigster Punkt: „Wir wissen gar nicht, wie viele Rechner wir haben, was darauf läuft, oder wer die betreut“ ist schon an sich eine Bankrotterklärung und ein rechtswidriger Zustand.
Ob das Betriebssystem theoretisch noch Support hätte, ist da fast schon egal. Völliger Kontrollverlust.
Ob das Betriebssystem theoretisch noch Support hätte, ist da fast schon egal. Völliger Kontrollverlust.
Einfachste Grundlagen für einen ordnungsgemäßen IT-Betrieb nicht vorhanden... da brauchen wir nicht reden von digitaler Souveränität. 🔥🔥🔥
Digitalministerium ratlos: Keine Strategie für Umstieg auf Windows 11
"Für Windows 10 bietet Microsoft..."
netzpolitik.org/2025/digital...
Digitalministerium ratlos: Keine Strategie für Umstieg auf Windows 11
"Für Windows 10 bietet Microsoft..."
netzpolitik.org/2025/digital...
Digitalministerium ratlos: Keine Strategie für Umstieg auf Windows 11
Für Windows 10 bietet Microsoft seit gut einer Woche keinen Support mehr an. Das bringt Nutzer*innen in Zugzwang, darunter auch die Bundesverwaltung. Das zuständige Digitalministerium weiß indes wenig...
netzpolitik.org
October 26, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Wichtigster Punkt: „Wir wissen gar nicht, wie viele Rechner wir haben, was darauf läuft, oder wer die betreut“ ist schon an sich eine Bankrotterklärung und ein rechtswidriger Zustand.
Ob das Betriebssystem theoretisch noch Support hätte, ist da fast schon egal. Völliger Kontrollverlust.
Ob das Betriebssystem theoretisch noch Support hätte, ist da fast schon egal. Völliger Kontrollverlust.
No matter how you slice the data, renewables today are cheaper than any other kind of energy.
It's not just that these dingdongs are laundering fossil fuel industry talking points, but that they're talking points from fifty years ago, ignoring all technical progress since then.
It's not just that these dingdongs are laundering fossil fuel industry talking points, but that they're talking points from fifty years ago, ignoring all technical progress since then.
Literally everything they do seems to be a bid to boost the Green Party, or Reform, or sometimes when they’re feeling really determined, both at once.
Just breathtaking how bad they are, even on their own ”gain power at all costs” terms.
Just breathtaking how bad they are, even on their own ”gain power at all costs” terms.
Keir Starmer prepares to miss key green target in effort to keep energy bills down
Exclusive: Promise to remove almost all fossil fuels from UK’s electricity supply by 2030 may be quietly abandoned over cost
www.theguardian.com
October 23, 2025 at 6:22 PM
No matter how you slice the data, renewables today are cheaper than any other kind of energy.
It's not just that these dingdongs are laundering fossil fuel industry talking points, but that they're talking points from fifty years ago, ignoring all technical progress since then.
It's not just that these dingdongs are laundering fossil fuel industry talking points, but that they're talking points from fifty years ago, ignoring all technical progress since then.
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
good faith progressive reform is THE answer to authoritarianism, and there's a lot of money being spent across the partisan spectrum to pretend otherwise
October 23, 2025 at 2:19 PM
good faith progressive reform is THE answer to authoritarianism, and there's a lot of money being spent across the partisan spectrum to pretend otherwise
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
People who are generally upset with how their lives are going, and also feel there are too many people around who look different, can never actually be appeased.
Not by Brexit, not by eliminating FoM, not by new taxes or fees, not by ending ILR, not by denaturalizing not by anything.
Not by Brexit, not by eliminating FoM, not by new taxes or fees, not by ending ILR, not by denaturalizing not by anything.
October 22, 2025 at 11:01 AM
People who are generally upset with how their lives are going, and also feel there are too many people around who look different, can never actually be appeased.
Not by Brexit, not by eliminating FoM, not by new taxes or fees, not by ending ILR, not by denaturalizing not by anything.
Not by Brexit, not by eliminating FoM, not by new taxes or fees, not by ending ILR, not by denaturalizing not by anything.
People should go to prison for this. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. Directing people who have explicitly asked for the only private messenger to a scam app is indefensible.
October 22, 2025 at 12:38 PM
People should go to prison for this. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. Directing people who have explicitly asked for the only private messenger to a scam app is indefensible.
Reposted by Maik Zumstrull
Sad how we live in a world where someone can get paid for an article about how they never wash their bread knife yet nobody will pay for my screenplay Phantom of the Airport (a disfigured man lives in the eaves of Gatwick Airport, visits a flight attendant in her dreams and teaches her to fly 747s).
October 21, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Sad how we live in a world where someone can get paid for an article about how they never wash their bread knife yet nobody will pay for my screenplay Phantom of the Airport (a disfigured man lives in the eaves of Gatwick Airport, visits a flight attendant in her dreams and teaches her to fly 747s).
Die Parteibasis hatte nach den Merkeljahren Sehnsucht nach jemandem, der wieder offen rechtsradikal ist. Dementsprechend ist, was er jetzt macht, zwar furchtbar, aber nicht überraschend. Geliefert wie bestellt.
An dieser Stelle möchte ich gerne an Aussagen von Merz aus der Vergangenheit erinnern, in denen er Homosexualität in Verbindung gebracht hat mit Übergriffen an Kindern. Auch damals war sein Umgang mit Kritik aus meiner Sicht inakzeptabel:
Merz hält Kritik an seiner Homophobie für Fake News
Auch in Union und SPD rumort es wegen der Äußerung von Friedrich Merz zu Homosexualität und Kindesmissbrauch. Der CDU-Politiker behauptet schlicht, die Aussage nicht gemacht zu haben, obwohl sie auf V...
www.queer.de
October 20, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Die Parteibasis hatte nach den Merkeljahren Sehnsucht nach jemandem, der wieder offen rechtsradikal ist. Dementsprechend ist, was er jetzt macht, zwar furchtbar, aber nicht überraschend. Geliefert wie bestellt.
Part of it is, I think, that we're in an awkward period where buyers have figured out that you're crazy if you buy leasehold, so they don't, but developments take years so a lot of stuff is still coming on the market that was developed for leasehold.
Example of the current challenges in London development:
Developer completed this mixed use site in Nine Elms with 22 flats (2beds from £760k) last month. Normally they'd all be sold by now but haven't, so developer needs a £16.7m loan to keep selling.
bridgingandcommercial.co.uk/article/2180...
Developer completed this mixed use site in Nine Elms with 22 flats (2beds from £760k) last month. Normally they'd all be sold by now but haven't, so developer needs a £16.7m loan to keep selling.
bridgingandcommercial.co.uk/article/2180...
Blue Shield completes £16.7m loan for London new build
Blue Shield Capital has provided a £16.7m loan against a residential-led new-build scheme in Nine Elms, London.
bridgingandcommercial.co.uk
October 20, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Part of it is, I think, that we're in an awkward period where buyers have figured out that you're crazy if you buy leasehold, so they don't, but developments take years so a lot of stuff is still coming on the market that was developed for leasehold.
Yet another GenAI review that follows the template that most of them do: “We tested it for this specific thing and it's absolutely useless, but of course, in general it's amazing.”
When will they notice there seems to be no evidence for the second part?
When will they notice there seems to be no evidence for the second part?
LOL all morning picturing some finance quant slouched at his desk prompting Dalle, like, "make me a picture of pikachu having sex with the Apple logo" or whatever tf those guys use these things for, then throwing up his hands like "WHY WON'T THIS FIND ALPHA?!"
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
October 16, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Yet another GenAI review that follows the template that most of them do: “We tested it for this specific thing and it's absolutely useless, but of course, in general it's amazing.”
When will they notice there seems to be no evidence for the second part?
When will they notice there seems to be no evidence for the second part?