Pants, Manchester
@fantasticlife.bsky.social
I make ontologies for the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. An odd job and not one I would have chosen for myself
Pinned
A quick hiya to new followers. You may have come across me as Clerk E. Smith, the Mouse of Commons or indeed The Emperor Palatine. These days I prefer to be known as Pants, Manchester Pants
Reposted by Pants, Manchester
Charlie Brown’s eyes are both on the front of his head, implying that he is a predator
November 25, 2025 at 5:22 AM
Charlie Brown’s eyes are both on the front of his head, implying that he is a predator
This is not the first time one of Young Robert’s “colds” has crossed the species barrier and infected me. But his latest offering is an absolute doozy. Recommend not breathing in his vicinity
November 25, 2025 at 10:13 AM
This is not the first time one of Young Robert’s “colds” has crossed the species barrier and infected me. But his latest offering is an absolute doozy. Recommend not breathing in his vicinity
More trouble int’ data mill. Parliamentary data weeknotes from @anyaso.bsky.social and I:
ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
2025 - Week 47
Work in progress to design data models for UK Parliament
ukparliament.github.io
November 25, 2025 at 9:44 AM
More trouble int’ data mill. Parliamentary data weeknotes from @anyaso.bsky.social and I:
ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...
On the other hand, they took me in, so there was definitely an element of charity
As someone who worked in tech through the dotcom crash, I've been thinking a bit about how public-service orgs were great incubators of digital talent in the early 2000s. Fanciful as it seems, the BBC and C4 were basically hotbeds of talent development and risk taking.
November 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
On the other hand, they took me in, so there was definitely an element of charity
The Newcastle players look an inch taller. Oh well, clearly an inch doesn’t cut it
November 22, 2025 at 6:56 PM
The Newcastle players look an inch taller. Oh well, clearly an inch doesn’t cut it
Reposted by Pants, Manchester
“The S in MCP stands for Secure” has stuck in my mind.
November 22, 2025 at 10:12 AM
“The S in MCP stands for Secure” has stuck in my mind.
Reading about agentic AI and it appears to be the old semantic web fever dream, but with bearded nutbag professors replaced by clean shaven nutbag techbros?
November 22, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Reading about agentic AI and it appears to be the old semantic web fever dream, but with bearded nutbag professors replaced by clean shaven nutbag techbros?
Very good article. For those of us in the IT - sorry “digital” - industries food for thought for the service designers and form simplifying community. Whilst undoubtedly well intentioned, it’s unlikely to come to pass and, if it did, may well bankrupt us
🚨🚨NEW BLOGPOST 🚨🚨
Breakage is an industry term for when you make an offer, but hope to minimise the cost of keeping your promise by making it a hassle.
It bankrupted an appliance company. Could it do the same to public services?
www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/government...
Breakage is an industry term for when you make an offer, but hope to minimise the cost of keeping your promise by making it a hassle.
It bankrupted an appliance company. Could it do the same to public services?
www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/government...
Government by Breakage
What a failed appliance promotion shows us about our state
www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk
November 21, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Very good article. For those of us in the IT - sorry “digital” - industries food for thought for the service designers and form simplifying community. Whilst undoubtedly well intentioned, it’s unlikely to come to pass and, if it did, may well bankrupt us
For reasons I can’t quite remember - tho it did involve a friend’s uncle being dressed in a lion costume (again for reasons I cannot remember) and a battery powered yo-yo - we arrived early for the Stone Roses in Blackpool and managed to blag our way into the sound check
November 21, 2025 at 12:05 AM
For reasons I can’t quite remember - tho it did involve a friend’s uncle being dressed in a lion costume (again for reasons I cannot remember) and a battery powered yo-yo - we arrived early for the Stone Roses in Blackpool and managed to blag our way into the sound check
Reposted by Pants, Manchester
Best Friends on a Night Out, painting by Lucy Manfredi (b. 1974).
November 20, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Best Friends on a Night Out, painting by Lucy Manfredi (b. 1974).
Maybe if the LLM lads weren’t quite so intent on hoovering up every corner of the web, fewer websites would need to hide behind Cloudflare et al
“"What's striking is how much of the internet has had to hide behind Cloudflare infrastructure to avoid denial of service attacks in recent years,"” … “as a result of this - it had also become "one of the internet's largest single points of failure."”
www.bbc.com/news/article...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Cloudflare apologises for outage which took down X and ChatGPT
"We apologise to our customers and the Internet in general" the web infrastructure company said.
www.bbc.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Maybe if the LLM lads weren’t quite so intent on hoovering up every corner of the web, fewer websites would need to hide behind Cloudflare et al
A “product” is an encapsulation of a set of services. As I’ve been chanting for the last 13 years now
smethur.st/posts/163867...
smethur.st/posts/163867...
November 19, 2025 at 9:47 AM
A “product” is an encapsulation of a set of services. As I’ve been chanting for the last 13 years now
smethur.st/posts/163867...
smethur.st/posts/163867...
Reposted by Pants, Manchester
I’m not one to argue with scientific Americans, but I’m not convinced today’s outage shows the internet to be empheneral. If I had a boat in this race, I’d probably make a point about single points of failure being endemic to a version of capital with little competition
The Cloudflare outage shows how ephemeral much of the internet is. How can we preserve our digital information for future generations?
The Internet Is Disappearing. How Do We Save What’s Important?
When written knowledge is more ephemeral than ever, how can we pass on what’s important?
www.scientificamerican.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:18 PM
I’m not one to argue with scientific Americans, but I’m not convinced today’s outage shows the internet to be empheneral. If I had a boat in this race, I’d probably make a point about single points of failure being endemic to a version of capital with little competition
Mr O’Commons always comes with the fresh beat. Dance his little tail off, check his mousey technique.
November 18, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Mr O’Commons always comes with the fresh beat. Dance his little tail off, check his mousey technique.
Americans: we’ve invented packet switching and a network that routes round outages in the event of a thermonuclear strike
Russians: we’ve invented Cloudflare
Russians: we’ve invented Cloudflare
November 18, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Americans: we’ve invented packet switching and a network that routes round outages in the event of a thermonuclear strike
Russians: we’ve invented Cloudflare
Russians: we’ve invented Cloudflare
Reposted by Pants, Manchester
Oh look this is relevant again
It is 2005, the internet is a distributed network of servers designed so that no one outage can take down the entire network
It is 2025, the internet relies on three companies, problems with any one of which can cripple a significant proportion of the global economy
It is 2025, the internet relies on three companies, problems with any one of which can cripple a significant proportion of the global economy
there’s a major AWS outage going on right now that’s taken down Fortnite, Alexa, Snapchat, Perplexity, Roblox, and lots more of the internet. US-EAST-1 is down and impacting a lot of services that rely on AWS www.theverge.com/news/802486/...
November 18, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Oh look this is relevant again
This seems unbelievable to me. I won’t expand
But despite the onboarding challenges (there were few a smh in room), Rachel reminds us that fast stream is highly rated in private sector as a graduate scheme. Other employers want fast streamers.
Now discussing how to retain fast streamers to G7. Especially given pay and cost of living in london
Now discussing how to retain fast streamers to G7. Especially given pay and cost of living in london
November 17, 2025 at 6:40 PM
This seems unbelievable to me. I won’t expand
Reposted by Pants, Manchester
Reductionism can be wrong, but actionable.
Complexity can be right, but paralyzing.
cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-389-ov...
Complexity can be right, but paralyzing.
cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-389-ov...
TBM 389: Overthinker!
From a young age, being accused of “overcomplicating” or “overthinking” things felt like a dismissal of who I was.
cutlefish.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reductionism can be wrong, but actionable.
Complexity can be right, but paralyzing.
cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-389-ov...
Complexity can be right, but paralyzing.
cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-389-ov...
Reposted by Pants, Manchester
Is it 'online training course'?
June 17, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Is it 'online training course'?
We asked 1,200 people of voting age across the UK whether they’d prefer simple solution A or simple solution B to complex problem C. The results will amaze you
November 16, 2025 at 8:53 PM
We asked 1,200 people of voting age across the UK whether they’d prefer simple solution A or simple solution B to complex problem C. The results will amaze you
Wondering if there’s enough flex in the market for Young Robert and I to side hustle and pioneer our own manosphere podcast. One assumes there are plenty of young chaps desperate to learn about typography, unusual ways to brew coffee, muscle building and the range of an HTTP deference
November 16, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Wondering if there’s enough flex in the market for Young Robert and I to side hustle and pioneer our own manosphere podcast. One assumes there are plenty of young chaps desperate to learn about typography, unusual ways to brew coffee, muscle building and the range of an HTTP deference
I know the pope is of mixed heritage, but it’s hard to imagine there’s not some Manc in there
November 16, 2025 at 11:31 AM
I know the pope is of mixed heritage, but it’s hard to imagine there’s not some Manc in there