Wei Ling
weilingy.bsky.social
Wei Ling
@weilingy.bsky.social
Science background. Late to the game but now enjoys geeking out over politics, policy, social and environmental issues. Loves cake & music. Too shy to post anything for now. *100% support the BBC and NHS despite their flaws*
Reposted by Wei Ling
Can you power your computer by typing?

What the latest What If? video in collaboration with
@minuteearth.bsky.social!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L44...
Can you power your computer by typing?
YouTube video by xkcd's What If?
www.youtube.com
December 2, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
spot on
November 14, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
NEW

The letter the BBC could send back to Trump

A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim

By me. Enjoy.

emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...
The letter the BBC could send back to Trump
A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim
emptycity.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
An essential precondition for authoritarianism is the neutering of sources of real news.
November 10, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...
The value of public R&D
www.gov.uk
October 30, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Some exciting news: this morning we launched a collaboration with @icrc.org: our Trust & Safety: Armed Conflict game. trust-and-safety-game.icrc.org
Trust & Safety: Armed Conflict
Navigate the challenging world of trust & safety amidst an unfolding armed conflict.
trust-and-safety-game.icrc.org
September 26, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Dutch late night TV has its take
September 19, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Whose job is safe from AI?
timharford.com/2025/07/whos...
July 31, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Explosions are heard in Doha after a "credible threat" of an Iranian missile attack on a US-run airbase in Qatar

Qatar has temporarily closed its airspace and US and UK citizens have been advised to shelter in place

Iran is weighing a response to Saturday's US strikes on its nuclear facilities
June 23, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
turns out not having nuclear weapons can be a serious vulnerability. iraq, libya, ukraine, iran…
June 22, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Reposted by Wei Ling
I'm thinking of this unforgettable email today, especially that last line.
June 15, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
I think about this comic at least once a week
May 10, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Love this. In his “I Agree” installation Dima Yarovinsky-Yahel took the content from terms of service statements for companies like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Tinder and printed them out on A4 paper with a standard font size for legal contracts to demonstrate the length of these agreements.
April 27, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
📢A new study from @uniofbath.bsky.social shows London's low emissions zones have had major benefits for human health and the economy, with a 10.2% decrease in respiratory issues following LEZ implementation, an **18.5%** reduction in sick leave, and annual public health savings of over £37 million.
“And Breathe Normally”: Impacts of low emission zones on sick leave and mental well-being
Air pollution poses a global concern due to its detrimental effects on climate, healthcare, and human capital accumulation. However, there is limited …
www.sciencedirect.com
April 24, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Wrote up something about Techdirt's recent coverage, and why (whether we like it or not) we need to be a "democracy blog" now, rather than just a "tech" blog (not that we've ever been just a tech blog).

This story is *the* story and it impacts everything else.

www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/w...
Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)
While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere “Democrats say this, Republicans say that” dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recogn…
www.techdirt.com
March 4, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
So it turns out that compared to centralized distribution of digital information on the web, printed material in libraries provided a kind of distributed defense against the casual whims of an authoritarian government aiming to rewrite history.
February 3, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
A little comic about desire paths.
January 15, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
NEW

A close look at Truss's legal threat to Starmer

The former Prime Minister has sent a glorious but seemingly hopeless cease-and-desist letter

By me

Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/a-close-lo...

Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/01/a-cl...
January 9, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Another day, another very cool study from Nick Haslam's group (1st author Brodie Dakin):

Experimental study showing that when harm-related concepts like 'trauma' and 'bullying' expand to cover more mild phenomena, people take those issues less seriously

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

(cont)
November 28, 2024 at 10:16 AM
Reposted by Wei Ling
That’s me in the hard hat, in front of the bucket of a terrifyingly enormous digger.
What you can’t really tell from the picture is that my head was spinning.
I’d just had one of those moments that change your life forever.
It would set me off on a journey around the world…!🧵
November 13, 2024 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Wei Ling
Word of the Day, should you need it, is ‘latibulate’, a 17th-century verb meaning to find a corner somewhere and hide in it.
November 15, 2024 at 8:16 AM
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #2,799,325!
September 18, 2024 at 8:44 PM