Patrick

mainly tech, music & politics. usual disclaimers (i.e views own). tweets deleted weekly.

[Tim Newman @whitesundesert]

Nothing will enrage a bureaucrat more than someone doing the job the bureaucrat was supposed to do.

[Michael🍿 @QTalksFtbl]

Wonderwall being the replacement for Sweet Caroline is the best evolution of England Football Culture in my lifetime

[Aaron Levie @levie]

The fact that open weights models are being discussed credibly at this level of capability should be a huge update for many.

The implications of open models getting to frontier performance ensures that you can always have sovereign AI, have the ability to post train for your specific workflows, cost optimize for various workloads, and actually afford to do much more with AI (which opens up meaningfully different applications).

Huge win for the applied AI layer.

[Preston Byrne @prestonjbyrne]

Here’s a letter from Ofcom, the UK’s Internet censor, threatening my American clients with fines and arrest if they refused to censor their site.

Any comment?

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

It shouldn't matter who you are or what your ideology is to understand how dangerous these laws are that require the submission of state ID to use social media.

"Protecting children" is the bullshit pretense. The real outcome is tracking everyone's views and online behavior:

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

When ID verification inevitably “fails” the government will seek to ban VPNs. This is why we need to reject these authoritarian censorship and mass surveillance policies and the false moral panic they’re predicated on

[Pavel Durov @durov]

Banning social media for teenagers only puts them in greater danger.

Teens are forced to switch to VPNs — and unlock far worse illegal content.

We’ve seen this before. When the Russian government banned Telegram, 95% of Russian teenagers kept using it. They just moved to VPNs.

[Patrick @Millais]

@lfg_uk Deeply unserious take from @lfg_uk. Healthier population, reduced NHS burden, less congestion... Defence funding should be prioritised, but active infra buildout isn't where the budget pressure lives. (Triple lock: £15bn+ extra a year by 2030. Anyone?)

[Jimmy Wales @jimmy_wales]

I support human rights - therefore I support Signal in this. This government has gone completely off the rails on these issues.

[Mullvad.net @mullvadnet]

Some politicians in the UK think it is a good idea to introduce identity verification for using VPN services.

It could be that these politicians do not understand what they are proposing. The alternative, that they do understand, would be even worse.

Whistleblowers, activists, and journalists depend on anonymous VPN services. Requiring identity verification for VPN services would put them at risk. It would also have a chilling effect on online debate (VPNs can help people post anonymously on social media).

In authoritarian countries, VPN services are crucial forcriticizing the government. That is precisely why such governments seek to ban or restrict them. Hopefully, the UK will not join that list.

[Tim Sweeney @TimSweeneyEpic]

Same old lie Apple told during Epic v Apple, which they lost, and were later found in contempt of court on, with a criminal referral. iPhone would be MUCH better if AI assistants could compete in a free market, rather than locking out competitors and paywalling what’s left.

[Patrick @Millais]

@pacer142 @Brekkie_Bangers @sourpanda7 @createstreets Agreed. Looked at upgrading my timber single glazed windows to be compliant with conservation and article 4 rules - you're talking £25-30k all in. uPVC is a fraction of that.

The result is no upgrades, cold homes, and rotting housing stock across London. Wrong balance currently.

[Patrick @Millais]

@an0n_Nic Absolutely a real issue for Plan 2 loans at higher salaries. With marginal tax rates of 71%, there's little incentives to work longer and/or start side projects.
For each work week, you effectively get paid for a day and a few hours work.

[Patrick @Millais]

@PippaCrerar @jessicaelgot 'Ease the burden' by reverting to the terms that Plan 2 loan holders originally signed up to?

It would not be legal for any private company to freeze thresholds like successive governments have done.

[Patrick @Millais]

@BBCNewsnight @vicderbyshire 'Huge pressures as a government' doesn't mean you can unilaterally rewrite loan terms. If a private company did this, the FCA would be at their door.

Labour were elected on 'change'. The only thing that's actually changed is who's punishing Plan 2 loan holders.

[Patrick @Millais]

@Richie7664343 @OliDugmore It's actually a ~71% marginal tax rate.

60% effective income tax rate (with loss of personal allowance) + 2% NI + 9% student loan.

That's before the horrendous childcare cliff edges as well.

[Patrick @Millais]

@pursuitofprog It is 'sorted', so much nicer now it's open to walkers, runners and cyclists!

[Patrick @Millais]

@daveynufc @crozzoh @stephenpollard Yes agreed this is what it means, the second bullet point in the screenshot could be a little clearer!

[Patrick @Millais]

@AlanJi73069669 @Sam_Dumitriu This doesn't help thousands of flat owners like Chris who don't live on the top floor.

We have modern window solutions that look visually similar and perform magnitudes better. Apart from exceptional cases (i.e grade II+), owners should be able to replace windows w/out planning.