A little more about why I returned the #RoyalSociety Faraday Prize, with a question for everyone to ponder. #Musk

https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/why-i-returned-the-faraday-prize-to-the-royal-society/4021668.article

"Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!"

Quoth the Nac Mac Feegle in The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

Given the USA spends more (by some margin) on health per capita than any other country, the Q. is if that money is not prolonging lives of US citizens, what is it doing?

To which the answer is:
enriching healthcare corporations, pharmaceutical firms and, of course, the politicians who these firms 'support'.

When politicians in the UK say we need to learn form the US healthcare system, the only lesson we need to learn is to not adopt a profit-centered model!

#health #politics

#SilentSunday #Sheffield #GravesPark

You will never learn how your incidents happen by asking “what could we have done differently?” If you want to learn what enables your incidents, you have to instead ask “how did all of the contributing actions make sense in the moment?”

Field full of wild chamomile & poppies along the walking path to Platja de Castell, #CostaBrava #Spain

#SilentSunday #Stunday #photography #nature #flowers #bloomscrolling

I don’t know who to credit for this, but it’s beautiful

That the North has lost out on a decade of transport infrastructure spending that has seen spend-per-person at much lower levels than used in London & the SE, will be no surprise to anyone who loves in the North of England.

Whether more promises of revived investment in our transport are being made in good faith is an issue that only the delivery of the actual investment will demonstrate - I'm not holding my breath.

#transport #politics

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/09/north-of-england-lost-out-on-140bn-for-transport-in-decade-of-deceit-study

What austerity has demonstrated again & again, is that if you cut everyday social services, you push many people into personal crisis, who then require emergency interventions; which are so much more costly they wipe out any initial saving(s) made by the cuts.

This key factor lies behind the situation that in so many sectors we seem to be paying more for a worse public service; the money now is flowing towards emergency provision to deal with failure(s).

False economies

#austerity #politics

@Daojoan "queue up to be second" was advice I received from a former manager. "We don't want to be first, we want proven tech, that has already experienced a learning curve".

@bruce @per_sonne @Natasha_Jay

a darkly true aspect of propaganda is that those who feel the most confident about protecting themselves from it are simply defining a blind spot for propagandists to exploit

the only solution is to doubt yourself most of all, to deny the ego. this leap of humility is the only true protection from propaganda

any hubris, any false confidence, is punished in this world

and cynicism is the laziest protection and also the biggest fattest target for propaganda

Fascinating watching this orangutan tying a knot. 🦧🪢

@jon that post looks useful thank you. I suspect my Birdy is a bit older. I bought it somewhere in the late 90s. For a number of years I used it for combined rail and cycle commuting. Somewhere post Hatfield I wound it down due to disrupted services and ending repeatedly cycling the whole route, so thought I might as well use a standard bike for that

@confusedMiddleAgedDad Also I have written up a lot of the Birdy experience here https://jonworth.eu/turning-a-2001-riese-und-muller-birdy-into-a-modern-folding-bicycle/ but the post is now a terrible mess. It's on my to-do list to re-write it!

@jon thanks for info. I will have a closer look when I am back home at the weekend

@jon I have an old Birdy red. I found the clamp on the stem to be a weakness and led to some movement. The seat post also has a crack from one of the drill holes. What is your experience, particularly of the stem?

As Roy Lilley (NHSManagers.net) points out:

'the more capacity you create, the more you’ll fill it up. We know that’s true. The moment the NHS provides more beds, they fill.

The solution is root-cause analysis. Stop the highest users getting sick in he first place… fix what happens outside hospital & that means social care'.

Successive Govt.'s have kicked the problem(s) of social care down the road, which is a significant (if not only) cause of the NHS crisis!

It cannot go on!

#health #NHS

Dear colleague, booking a meeting first thing in the morning the day I am back from leave on a subject that had not been raised before going on leave, and I will not have had time to read up the background, is just anti-social and you are not going to get the best out of me. And no it was really not that urgent or important.

Work IT session rolled out to all employees: security in under 5 mins; 1 hr session booked into the calendar. Do we have different definitions of 5 minutes?

Yesterday I read a thread (which of course I have lost) about how I should check my privilege on being asked to watch a video or listen to voice notes rather than text etc. Although I feel seen by some of this I also have counter points for some of this: voice notes which are usually delivered to phone - I have to find a private room or headphones for my phone. I work in an open plan office, I don't have earbuds in or headphones on permanently or with me often, why should I?