Andrew Kerr
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andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Andrew Kerr
@andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
670 followers 2.4K following 960 posts
Social liberal, software engineer. #UBI #LVT. May also post about defence and armed conflict. He/him.
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andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
If you see this, quote with your model of masculinity
Pinky: Gee, Brain, what do you wanna do tonight? Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!
December 5, 2025 at 11:37 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
There are serious ethical implications of the techniques currently getting hyped (LLMs, diffusion models, maybe GANs):

Plagiarism, misselling, misinformation, harassment, employment.

I don't think they are unique to AI, or even IT, as demonstrated here by Nikolai Yezhov.

2/4
Nikolai Yezhov with Stalin along the Volga Dam, original. Yezhov would later be removed from the image after the great purge, an example of Damnatio memoriae. Stalin in center, Yezhov right, Molotov left. Shot sometime in April 1937. Nikolai Yezhov with Stalin along the Volga Dam, doctored. Yezhov removed from the image after the great purge, an example of Damnatio memoriae. The faces and background are brightened. Stalin in center, Molotov left. Photograph taken sometime in April 1937.
December 5, 2025 at 9:43 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Tempting as it is to dunk on Farage not recognising Scottish languages, I advise caution:

Firstly, it gives a pass on xenophobia

Secondly, there aren't many Glaswegians who mainly speak Scots, Gaelic or BSL

Source: www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk
Scottish Census 2022 Glasgow council area 2019 All peopleu aged 3 years and older: 603,203 English: 532,033 Scots: 1,444 Gaelic: 369 Sign Language: 382 (I assume BSL but it doesn't say here) Other language: 68,975 Crown copyright 2024
December 4, 2025 at 9:51 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Anyway, to the point:

Main language in Glasgow:
Total: 603,203
English: 532,033
Scots: 1,444
Gaelic: 369
Sign Language: 382 (I assume BSL but it doesn't say here)
Other language: 68,975

So, not many primary users of non-English Scottish languages.
Screenshot of a table of Scottish Census data, data as in post Crown copyright 2024
December 4, 2025 at 9:27 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Table
Scotland's Census 2022 - National Records of Scotland Table UV209 - Scots language skills All people aged 3 and over Council Area 2019 by Scots language skills - 8 groups, all by Individuals Council Area 2019: Glasgow City All people aged 3 and over 603,203 Understands but does not speak, read or write Scots 73,072 Speaks, reads and writes Scots 119,017 Speaks but does not read or write Scots 16,655 Speaks and reads but does not write Scots 11,288 Reads but does not speak or write Scots 21,036 Other combination of skills in Scots 2,407 No skills in Scots 359,724 Crown copyright 2024
December 4, 2025 at 9:15 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
🤔
A screenshot of a Zack Polanski post on bluesky Looking forward to speaking in the Opening Ceremony tomorrow with We Demand Change: ✊🏼 Jeremy Corbyn, Lindsey German, Ben Jamal, Zack Polanski, Lewis Nielsen, Yanis Varoufakis, Grace Blakeley, Ellen Clifford and Raghad Al-Tikriti
December 2, 2025 at 4:12 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Petition for public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics:

As suggested by @nickreeves.bsky.social, quoted in this article, it does seem that there is a particularly high proportion of Welsh signatories.

Presumably because of Nathan Gill.
Bar chart showing signatures per thousand population broken down by English regions, Scotland and Northern Ireland. region signatures per thousand population NORTH EAST 1.5844 NORTH WEST 1.4948 YORKSHIRE AND THE HUMBER 1.4608 EAST MIDLANDS 1.4370 WEST MIDLANDS 1.1647 EAST 1.4487 LONDON 1.1733 SOUTH EAST 1.7580 SOUTH WEST 1.9651 WALES 2.4798 SCOTLAND 1.4302 NORTHERN IRELAND 0.4731
December 1, 2025 at 7:18 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Clip of Zarah Sultana's pre Your Party conference rally, in which she calls to "nationalise the entire economy".

Source:

www.youtube.com/live/GafgqNb...
November 29, 2025 at 9:18 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Here:

www.youtube.com/live/GafgqNb...
Screenshot of Youtube auto generated transcript. 2:04:34 policies are about redistributing wealth and power. We are talking about a super rich um uh minority in this country that 2:04:41 have seen their wealth travel since 2010. We have 50 rich families who hold 2:04:47 more wealth than half the country. So we need a wealth tax but we also need to nationalize the entire economy. 2:04:53 Obviously like I said utilities, transport, energy are important but we need to look beyond that. We need to 2:04:59 look at the banks. We need to look at construction. We need to look at the entire economy and also the fact that 2:05:05 this Labor government is happy to continue with PFIs. I know that I speak for the entire movement, our NHS in 2:05:12 public hands for everyone. So, no more austerity, 2:05:17 no more local governments overseeing austerity. We are here to fight cuts. We're not here to oversee them. And so, 2:05:24 we will fight with communities on the issues that they care about, and our members will decide what those priorities are.
November 29, 2025 at 3:52 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
This working paper from Stanford Institute of Economic Research is damning of Brexit.

Some of the economic cost was incurred by the process itself.

6-8% GDP is a lot to be caused by policy. Half that would be a lot.
We estimate that by 2025, the Brexit process had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, investment by 12% to 18%, employment by 3% to 4%, and productivity by 3% to 4%. These effects accumulated gradually over time. We identify four main channels through which Brexit has affected the UK economy. First, the UK’s decision to leave the EU generated a persistent increase in uncertainty, weighing on investment, in particular. Second, investment and employment growth were affected by lower expected demand for goods and services. Third, productivity growth within firms was affected by lower innovation and IT investment, and by management time and resources being used to prepare for Brexit. Finally, productivity growth between-firms was reduced as the more productive, internationally exposed, firms were more negatively impacted.
November 25, 2025 at 1:26 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
The current Palace of Westminster was built 1830-1876 after its predecessor burned down.

So which tradition is being kept: the current building, or having to build a replacement after the standing Palace of Westminster burns down?
Successive governments have put off a decision on renovating parliament amid fears of a public backlash over the enormous cost. It was estimated at between £7 billion and £13 billion in 2022, but has since risen. The costs of ad hoc maintenance and repairs to keep the palace safe have been rising. Fresh figures obtained by POLITICO show it now stands at £1.56 million a week, or £81.1 million a year, up from £1.45 million a week in 2023.
November 15, 2025 at 7:21 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/quotes/77078...
“But what if someone kills somebody else?" Gurgeh shrugged. "They're slap-droned." "Ah! This sounds more like it. What does that drone do?" "Follows you around and makes sure you never do it again." "Is that all?" "What more do you want? Social death, Hamin; you don't get invited to too many parties." "Ah; but in your Culture, can't you gatecrash?" "I suppose so," Gurgeh conceded. "But nobody'd talk to you.” ― Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
November 11, 2025 at 11:43 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
By contrast, this is the Oxford (internal) style guide:

www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/...
Quotation marks • place punctuation before the closing quotation mark if the quote would have required punctuation in its original form; place it after the closing quotation mark if the quote would not require punctuation: ‘Bob,’ I asked, ‘do you like cheese?’ OR ‘Bob, do you like cheese?’ I asked. OR ‘Does Bob’, I asked, ‘like cheese?’ • use single quotation marks for quotations/direct speech/titles and double quotation marks for quotations/direct speech/titles within that: ‘I haven’t got round to reading “Thomas the Tank Engine” yet,’ I said.
November 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Meh.
A roadsign giving directions to the town of Dildo, Newfoundland, Canada.
October 30, 2025 at 7:50 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Relevant from Yougov

Starmer is as under water in approval as any recent PM, but he still beats Farage and Badenoch in "best PM" polls.

He's level with Davey, who's roughly even on approval.

I think a lot of people are dissatisfied without actively hating Starmer.

yougov.co.uk/politics/art...
Who do Britons think would make the best prime minister? Yougov August 2025 Head to head: Starmer 35, Farage 28 Starmer 30, Badenoch 20 Starmer 20, Davey 20
October 28, 2025 at 9:33 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Miller here begins to claim that the President has "plenary authority" in the context of deploying the National Guard onto American streets before clamming up mid sentence.
plenary authority Plenary authority is power that is wide-ranging, broadly construed, and often limitless for all practical purposes. When used with respect to public officials, the more popular term is plenary power. Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/plenary_authority
October 9, 2025 at 7:31 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Automated analysis of:
text using large language model
graphs (follows, interactions)

I'm sure Palantir could cook something up.

With this sort of population monitoring I particularly worry about the medical test paradox:

davidbieber.com/snippets/202...
Suppose 1 in 10000 people have a certain disease, and there is a medical test that is 99% accurate. This means that if you do have the disease, the test comes back positive with 99% probability, and if you do not have the disease, the test comes back negative with 99% probability. It is wrong 1% of the time. If your test result comes back positive, what’s the probability that you have the disease? Probability you have the disease given the test comes back positive is 1% by application of Bayes theorem. Maths rendered by MathJax, which claims to work with screen readers, so follow the link to the full article I guess.
October 4, 2025 at 9:13 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Can't say I've ever rated Ganesh, but this is a decent piece (except for the HS2 comment), and I respect him for admitting to changing his mind.
Second, even Europe must only appease Trump as a bridging tactic to a more self-reliant future. To defend itself in the 2030s, the continent will need not just cash but quicker, less consensual decision-making, perhaps outside EU structures, given the military clout of Britain (which is not a member) and the less pronounced fear of Russia in Spain and Italy (which are). The submission to Trump is only worthwhile if all this reform happens in parallel. The danger is that short-term trade concessions prove so fruitful — Trump said encouraging things about Ukraine on Tuesday — that it settles into permanent statecraft.
September 25, 2025 at 8:33 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Good grief, is this idea still going?

Some autistic people have restricted diets. This causes changes to gut microbiome.

Anyone who hasn't considered that shows their ignorance; anyone who hasn't involved the autistic community enough to know shows their prejudice.

xcancel.com/Autism/statu...
September 23, 2025 at 3:47 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Mikhail Kalashnikov's reputed response was "you must have very clever soldiers".

pic from forgotten weapons
Mikhail Kalashnikov, aged, gray, wearing camo, ear protectors, glasses wielding an SA80 rested on a sandbag. https://www.facebook.com/ForgottenWeapons/photos/mikhail-kalashnikov-with-an-l85a1-reportedly-his-comment-was-you-must-have-very-/1386667411395698/?_rdr
September 19, 2025 at 12:50 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
up right down down down is a Helldivers 2 reference.

Took me about 10 seconds of Googling to find it.

What FBI doing?
up right down down down, in a speech bubble of an armoured character, flexing and feeling their bicep. A super earth broadcast.
September 12, 2025 at 6:09 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Someone else has had the Konami code, but I first thought of the Mortal Kombat cheat so I'm having it.
On the main menu, press down up left left A right down (DULLARD) to acces cheat mode.
September 12, 2025 at 6:01 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
It is widely held on parts of the left that racism and fascism is caused by poverty, and that reducing poverty will defeat fascism.

We should reduce poverty, but I am skeptical that doing so will defeat the fash.

Study of Jan 6th insurrectionists:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Overall, our findings suggest that white population decline is more important than manufacturing decline as a predictor of violent populism and that counties that voted for Trump were less likely to fight for Trump. Our findings should give us pause in presuming that economic solutions to electoral populism will axiomatically ameliorate violent populism. Although economic factors do play a role, social factors are stronger, which suggests the crucial need to confront the fear among certain whites about becoming a minority and their associated status anxiety.
September 11, 2025 at 5:21 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Greg Bagwell, former Air Marshall of the RAF, proposed a no fly zone over western Ukraine. This is from 2024:

www.forcesnews.com/ukraine/nato...
"If you actually look at the threat scenario, we've put no-fly zones over countries, over the top of their surface-to-air systems, daring them not to fire at us – whether that be Iraq or Libya," he said. "So we have created no-fly zones over the top of a hostile country for years. "We're not talking about that in this scenario. We're talking about putting a no-fly zone, or call it what you will, an engagement zone, over the western half of a friendly country where there aren't Russian aircraft.
September 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Sean Bell, former Air Vice Marshall of the RAF, opines today that now is the time to put a no-fly zone in place.

He doesn't specify what assets would be doing that.

metro.co.uk/2025/09/10/r...
What you should do is immediately shoot them down and immediately take some kind of retaliatory action because otherwise it compromises the safety of your citizens, that should be the No1 priority for any government. The West is providing enough aid to stop Ukraine losing, but not enough to help it win. With America getting more unreliable, the West has got some harsh choices to make; either it lets Ukraine slowly lose or it ramps up its response options. There are many of us, myself included, who think that now is the time for a no-fly zone to be put in place. ‘There are questions there about how much of Ukraine, what the rules of engagement are. I accept it is a ramping up of risk but it’s only matching what Russia is doing anyway.
September 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM