Bikes and battle cruisers (Odds and Ends #88)

Plus why planning reform fails, and blazing fast new AI hardware.

Photo by Jamie Wheeler on Unsplash

POD! On YIMBY Pod this week, why Remainers and YIMBYs could soon be at loggerheads, how HS2 and Wendover Council found the stupidest solution to a long-running disagreement, and we speak to Phil Tinline about why Britain needs a new ‘Theory of Power’. Listen here, or wherever you get your pods.

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ICYMI #1: Don’t forget to check out this week’s big essay post on why we should abolish Natural England, so you can understand why a bunch of people on Bluesky are annoyed by me.

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ICYMI #2: A re-up with a new ending for my piece about how to safely use NHS data for scientific research, following the exciting news that OpenSafely has opened its doors to non-Covid projects.

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Hello! It’s time for Odds and Ends, your semi-regular round-up of the most interesting links I’ve seen lately, plus some shorter takes.

This time I’m featuring:

• Another brain breaking AI breakthrough

• How CSS has changed since I first learned it 20 years ago

• A novel use for electric car charging infrastructure

• Why sometimes you need to pick a fight in government

• Dramatic photos of China’s renewables build-out

• A vision of 2010, written in 2001, from the vantage of 2026

• And a musician who really captures what Britain is all about

But first… something important.

How to respond to the DSIT survey on increasing access to public sector data (peterkwells)

The UK Government’s National Data Library team is running a survey to understand the opportunities for responsibly increasing access to data held by the public sector. It closes on Saturday February 28th.

If you care about increasing access to UK address data, or geospatial data more broadly, then this is an opportunity to let the UK government know.

If you’re sick of me banging on about the Postcode Address File, then now is the time to act! The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology is running a consultation on public sector data use, and very helpfully Peter has put together this guide of exactly what we need to tell the department.

So if you care about making one of our most critical national datasets publicly available, to spur innovation and growth, have a read and respond to the consultation!

Now let’s get on with the links!