Rob Elliot
rob.lidalia.org.uk
Rob Elliot
@rob.lidalia.org.uk
Apple “Find My” just lies. If it doesn’t know where something is that I normally have with me it claims it is with me.

It is hard to overemphasise how massively unhelpful this is.
December 17, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
You mean the Bell end d'Or?
December 15, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
—I’ve been asked to baptise the King of Spain’s daughter
—Infanta?
—No, holy water as usual. Weird thing to ask honestly
December 15, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
A big shout out to Dirk Bolte for his contribution of numeric matchers in WireMock OSS. You can already match numbers in their String representation using equalTo. For matching based on their numeric value, you can now use the following number matchers - wiremock.org/docs/request...
Request Matching
Learn how to match HTTP requests in WireMock using URLs, headers, query parameters, request bodies, JSON, XML, cookies, and advanced matchers including regex, JSONPath, and XPath.
wiremock.org
December 8, 2025 at 2:17 PM
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those I protect I do not love
My country is Kiltartan’s Cross
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor
No likely end could do them loss
Or leave them happier than before
Which lines of poetry live rent-free in your head?
December 6, 2025 at 11:02 PM
It really isn't helpful to have "Find My" reporting my keys are with me now, when they are actually at home 13 miles away.

Presumably it reckons "they are normally in the same place as your phone". For this sort of thing an honest "I don't know" is *much* better than a mostly right guess.
December 4, 2025 at 6:31 PM
I highly recommend @originstorypodcast.bsky.social - not least because, judging by the live event I went to recently, it is not really my tribe.

The hosts a) put in the reading, b) are very fair minded in their evaluation of their reading and c) are great company.

Well worth your time and money.
December 3, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
Sultana and Corbyn act like they were put together in a competition by Simon Cowell and now they're contractually obliged to go on tour
November 29, 2025 at 3:30 PM
What’s the overlap between people who think Brexit was a bad idea and people who say they will vote Reform? I’ve been thinking it’s very stupid that Reform are surging as we collectively accept Farage’s signature policy was a disaster, but perhaps his support are all from the Brexit was ok crowd.
November 29, 2025 at 7:48 AM
With the possible exception of the Lib Dems, who aren't really relevant anyway, a government from any of the other parties would be substantially worse.
November 28, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
Essentially the best way to run a railway is for it to be owned by a development corporation, and then frankly whether that corporation is state owned or privately owned is sort of a much of a muchness:
The missing piece in Labour’s rail renationalisation scheme
Whether trains are public or private is not the deal-breaker for a well-functioning service — it is about a better delivery model
www.ft.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:09 AM
This is an amazing (and worrying...) chart from the FT:
www.ft.com/content/47ab...

I do hope the government have thought nationalisation through.

(Article suggests it absolutely can work with the right framework.)
November 24, 2025 at 11:47 AM
History degree -> no clue what I want to do -> want a reasonably paying career -> all big accountancy / consultancy firms have a massive paper application book -> IBM have an online application process you can save and edit -> IBM think they can sell person with 4 weeks training as a “programmer”
What’s the lore behind choosing your career path ?
November 23, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Not one of the five political parties vying to run Britain seems to be made up of serious, competent people with a realistic plan and the ability to explain the constraints of reality to the British people.
November 13, 2025 at 11:44 PM
After all these years I *still* have to hit myself over the head and say "write a test you idiot" after half an hour of staring at a stacktrace & the code & trying to reason about how it happened.
November 7, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
October 30, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
urgently need you guys to know that this French politician below 1) didn't know he'd been appointed as a minister until he saw it on TV 2) reacted by going: "bah pfff voilà"
Le nouveau ministre de la Ruralité, Michel Fournier, raconte avoir appris sa nomination à la télé

Le plus vieux ministre nommé sous la Ve République précise avoir discuté avec le Premier ministre «deux jours avant», sans que rien ne soit arrêté. «Comment j’ai réagi ? Bah pfff voilà», résume-t-il.
Le nouveau ministre de la Ruralité, Michel Fournier, raconte avoir appris sa nomination à la télé
Le plus vieux ministre nommé sous la Ve République a précisé avoir discuté avec le Premier ministre «deux jours avant», sans que rien ne soit arrêté.
www.liberation.fr
October 16, 2025 at 9:23 AM
It shouldn't really be controversial to point out that the tax / benefit system should not mean a salary rise makes you poorer, and that the effective tax rate should only ever increase per salary band, it should not go up and then down. Even if the discrepancies only affect the well off.
October 15, 2025 at 9:30 AM
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out like to a tenement or pelting farm.
September 18, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
I've written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, urging them to join me in condemning Elon Musk's dangerous remarks inciting violence yesterday.

As leaders, we must stand together and make clear Musk will face serious consequences for these actions.
September 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
September 14, 2025 at 4:57 PM
If human aligned general super intelligent AI were possible, and happened, it would be a disaster for Thiel and Musk and co, wouldn't it?

It's very hard to see how it could conclude that that such manifestly flawed individuals having such disproportianate power was still in humanity's interests.
September 14, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Rob Elliot
I’m a broken record on this, but — there are so many examples of famous people radicalised by midlife career/personal knockbacks. Ant Middleton was on yday’s march. He got done for tax offences and lost his TV work. Now he’s mates with Tommy Robinson.
September 14, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Is there anyway to prevent being shown a repost of a post you’ve already seen? The relentless self-publicity reposts are becoming a huge pain.
September 13, 2025 at 10:47 AM