Tom Loosemore

@tomski
1.2K Followers
341 Following
64 Posts
Work at Public Digital. Formerly of GDS and BBC. Not the heart surgeon.
I've written something on the need for boldness in what organisation do, not just how they do it. https://public.digital/pd-insights/blog/2024/10/what-we-mean-when-we-say-be-bold
What we mean when we say “Be Bold” — Public Digital

A full 20 years since our 6 year old son beat off the malign machinations of Barney The Purple Dinosaur for control of barney.co.uk

The story was nicely covered at the time by the much-missed NTK.
http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/?arc

Need To Know 2004-05-28

Peek-a-boo Barney, Charles III in charge

If you're going to make a big deal in the national press about how top secret your high security greenhouse is, I'd recommend hiding it a bit better so two nerds in a slack channel can't find it within 15 minutes of idle searching.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68497720

Sycamore Gap: New life springs from rescued tree

BBC News is shown the secret site protecting the remains of the Sycamore Gap tree felled last year.

BBC News
Headline below doesn't reflect how much Universal Credit needs to change. But the 'test and learn' approach to policy/ops/delivery that its civil servants try to embrace is genuinely world leading. However YMMV (Your Minister May Vary). https://eatingpolicy.substack.com/p/the-brits-are-way-ahead-of-us-again
The Brits are way ahead of us. Again.

They're taking a test-and-learn approach not just to the delivery of services, but to policy itself. We need to be doing this in the US, especially as we prepare for a pending Supreme Court decision.

Eating Policy

"Applying the Radical How means conducting multiple small-scale experiments at the boundaries of policy and delivery - and doing this permanently, in pursuit of a policy intent or outcome

This approach is not a case of simply running lots of pilots. A pilot implies starting with a phase for learning, which then ends as you move into 'roll out'. Pilots also tend to imply testing a whole solution to see if it works, rather than specific hypotheses"

Drop the pilot
@tomski https://public.digital/2024/02/21/why-we-should-radically-change-how-we-do-change

Why we should radically change how we do change — Public Digital

My colleague Andrew Greenway and I have just published 'The Radical How', a NESTA-funded paper making the case for governments changing how they do change. Feedback welcome! https://public.digital/2024/02/21/why-we-should-radically-change-how-we-do-change
Why we should radically change how we do change — Public Digital

Looks awfully like Boeing forgot to put any of the bolts in the door plug in that 737, and it was just being held in place by spring tension since it entered service in October.

At some point I'd like to read a book about how Boeing completely forgot how to make planes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o

737 Mid-Cabin Emergency Exit Doors - Plug Option

YouTube

I'm shocked to find out* that the man who attacked Paul Pelosi started his radicalisation journey wity Gamergate.

(*I am not shocked)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67411189?at_medium=RSS

Accused Pelosi hammer attacker David DePape tearfully testifies of bizarre plot

David DePape says he planned to wear a unicorn costume and interrogate ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

BBC News

We need to talk about GitHub -- and I don't mean co-pilot. No, I mean the basic "does this work on my computer?" and "is it good?" stuff about, you know, a collaborative UI on top of git.

Helpfully for GitHub's competitors, recent dogma has demanded that it walk away from the (totally functional, accessible) Web Components infrastructure that led it to be a market success, and replace it with...React? Sure? Fine? As long as the UI is still good? Ok.

Whatever.

Except that it isn't.

In Ottawa for the FWD50.com conference. Shaping up to be a really good conference already, not least cos I just bumped into the extremely tall @sboots