John Speakman
@speakman.bsky.social
And yet, here we are. Data and technology bureaucrat. Views mine. Slightly American (or slightly British?). He/him. London, UK, again, somewhat to my surprise. Twitter (not there very often): @speakman
Guys, there is one on your own doorstep, assuming the Lobster Pound in Red Hook is still open www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/t...
Christmas Trappings: New England Swoons Over Lobster Pot Trees
www.nytimes.com
December 22, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Guys, there is one on your own doorstep, assuming the Lobster Pound in Red Hook is still open www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/t...
Reposted by John Speakman
Houses with Red Sky | Koichi Sakamoto
December 20, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Houses with Red Sky | Koichi Sakamoto
Reposted by John Speakman
please let “bugs bunnying” become the slang for manipulating an LLM into ignoring its guardrails, i have never seen a more succinct and evocative term for it
Highly amused by the stories of companies using agentic AI chatbots to run their internal company stores, only for their employees to immediately Bugs Bunny the chatbot into giving them free stuff www.aiweirdness.com/when-a-chatb...
When a chatbot runs your store
You may have heard of "agentic AI", which is basically the idea that you can hook up a large language model to controls that do real things. The controls might run internet searches, run commands to o...
www.aiweirdness.com
December 21, 2025 at 4:20 PM
please let “bugs bunnying” become the slang for manipulating an LLM into ignoring its guardrails, i have never seen a more succinct and evocative term for it
Reposted by John Speakman
December 21, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Reposted by John Speakman
It’s lucky the shortest day is immediately followed by the longest night, otherwise there would be too much time and nowhere to put it.
December 21, 2025 at 7:11 PM
It’s lucky the shortest day is immediately followed by the longest night, otherwise there would be too much time and nowhere to put it.
Reposted by John Speakman
Rare footage of St Paul’s Cathedral testing its giant flamethrower
December 21, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Rare footage of St Paul’s Cathedral testing its giant flamethrower
Reposted by John Speakman
Americans - take that superfluous "s" that you add to Lego, and put it rightfully onto the end of Maths.
December 20, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Americans - take that superfluous "s" that you add to Lego, and put it rightfully onto the end of Maths.
Reposted by John Speakman
John Atkinson Grimshaw, English painter, 1836-1893.
Moonlight on the Lake, Roundhay Park, Leeds, 1872.
Oil on canvas.
Private collection.
🙏🏼🌍🕊️
Moonlight on the Lake, Roundhay Park, Leeds, 1872.
Oil on canvas.
Private collection.
🙏🏼🌍🕊️
December 19, 2025 at 11:43 PM
John Atkinson Grimshaw, English painter, 1836-1893.
Moonlight on the Lake, Roundhay Park, Leeds, 1872.
Oil on canvas.
Private collection.
🙏🏼🌍🕊️
Moonlight on the Lake, Roundhay Park, Leeds, 1872.
Oil on canvas.
Private collection.
🙏🏼🌍🕊️
Reposted by John Speakman
Stone-built Snake Bridge on the Macclesfield Canal, England
December 19, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Stone-built Snake Bridge on the Macclesfield Canal, England
Reposted by John Speakman
Unless you are communicating in French, using the word 'Soiree' instead of 'party' makes you unforgivably pretentious.
December 12, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Unless you are communicating in French, using the word 'Soiree' instead of 'party' makes you unforgivably pretentious.
Reposted by John Speakman
A thing I learnt from this, some places actually enforce 20mph limits 😱
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Evan Davis: Why so many people break 20mph speed limits
After receiving a speeding ticket, Evan Davis explores why so many people have broken 20mph limits across the country.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 11, 2025 at 2:23 PM
A thing I learnt from this, some places actually enforce 20mph limits 😱
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by John Speakman
Insanely perfect: fantastic little bouquet of flowers in a glass vase by Daniel Seghers of Antwerp, painter & Jesuit priest, whose day is today.
December 3, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Insanely perfect: fantastic little bouquet of flowers in a glass vase by Daniel Seghers of Antwerp, painter & Jesuit priest, whose day is today.
Full moon, Wandsworth Road
December 3, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Full moon, Wandsworth Road
Reposted by John Speakman
December 2, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by John Speakman
Huge respect to the papers for finding both an 88 year old worried about the tax bill on her 6 bedroom Kensington house and a 20 year old fretting about only being able to save £12k a year tax free.
Top work all around. These are not easy case studies to find.
Top work all around. These are not easy case studies to find.
November 29, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Huge respect to the papers for finding both an 88 year old worried about the tax bill on her 6 bedroom Kensington house and a 20 year old fretting about only being able to save £12k a year tax free.
Top work all around. These are not easy case studies to find.
Top work all around. These are not easy case studies to find.
UPDATE: The publisher intends to retract the paper, but insists it went through two rounds of review from two independent peer reviewers: nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the... by @jacksonwryan.com. No word on how they will make sure this sort of thing never happens again.
Riding the Autism Bicycle to Retraction Town
Does anyone *really* know their Factor Fexcectorn?
nobreakthroughs.substack.com
November 28, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by John Speakman
Reposted by John Speakman
narrator: 50 years ago...
me: [nods] in 1945
narrator: in 1975...
me: what
me: [nods] in 1945
narrator: in 1975...
me: what
November 25, 2025 at 2:11 AM
narrator: 50 years ago...
me: [nods] in 1945
narrator: in 1975...
me: what
me: [nods] in 1945
narrator: in 1975...
me: what
Reposted by John Speakman
Reposted by John Speakman
Just remember that given the abundance of neurodivergent people in science, it’s far more likely that autism causes vaccines.
November 21, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Just remember that given the abundance of neurodivergent people in science, it’s far more likely that autism causes vaccines.
Reposted by John Speakman
Word of the day is ‘quockerwodger’ (19th century): a puppet politician whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.
November 21, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Word of the day is ‘quockerwodger’ (19th century): a puppet politician whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.
Reposted by John Speakman
No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -no dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease …
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, no fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!
November!
Thomas Hood
November 1844
#BookWormSat 🍂
No morn - no noon -no dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease …
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, no fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!
November!
Thomas Hood
November 1844
#BookWormSat 🍂
November 22, 2025 at 6:43 AM
No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -no dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease …
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, no fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!
November!
Thomas Hood
November 1844
#BookWormSat 🍂
No morn - no noon -no dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease …
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, no fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!
November!
Thomas Hood
November 1844
#BookWormSat 🍂