Marcus Shepheard
Formerly @instituteforgov.bsky.social and @thecccuk.bsky.social, currently @nestauk.bsky.social, estwhile evolutionary biologist.
"The intersection of policy and donuts" - @jillongovt.bsky.social
- If we're going to talk about crimes in London, might as well add this exhibit to the list. Bloody yikes
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardThe next set of mayoral elections will be more like a lottery as voters will have to guess who will make it into the Top Two and who they want/want to stop to be mayor. Lets have proper preferential voting now.
- Labour should introduce the alternative vote system for mayoral elections Multi-party politics makes the AV the best choice, say @akashpaun.bsky.social and @jillongovt.bsky.social www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/mayo...
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardReminder that "jaywalking" was literally made up by american car manufacturers to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians. "Jay" was a slang term meaning "idiot" or "rube".
- “Jaywalking is permitted in London. In 1966, the police tried to crack down on it, but gave up after three months.” People walk and cycle on roads by right, people drive under licence. Jaywalking is not a thing in English law and Waymo must not change that. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
- We've been digging into the numbers that sit behind the warm homes plan and assessing how realistic its targets are. Ultimately we think its doable - but the margins for error are incredibly tight. Read more here: www.nesta.org.uk/report/hitti...
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheardthis also raises the frankly wonderful prospect of some Uruk Hai running a nice little boulangerie deep in the bowels of Isengard
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardLast opportunity to comment on proposals for improving cycling on Bayswater Road cmsbayswaterroad.commonplace.is/en-GB/
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardImagine! How could wind and solar ever compete with fossil fuel electricity across an entire year, across an entire block of 450 million people!?😉
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardAfter half a decade of chopping and changing on home upgrade schemes, the Warm Homes Plan should see a more consistent Government approach into the late 2020s. As well as ensuring stable funding, the Plan will also see all programs funded centrally. More on the Warm Homes plan➡️ buff.ly/QJ2881G
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardDon't know if this sort of rhetoric has caught up with the fact that Reform's base are the most dependent on welfare of any party's
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Happy Warm Homes Plan day (for those who celebrate). We have been working through the plan here at @nestauk.bsky.social, and we have some thoughts. More numbers and analysis will follow! www.nesta.org.uk/blog/how-wil...
- And if you want to hear more about this from us, please join our event at 1200 tomorrow. www.nesta.org.uk/event/deciph...
- This wasn't the remake of Speed (1994) that we wanted or expected, but perhaps it's the one we deserved.
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardCóry Doctorow with another verbal bullseye: pluralistic.net/2026/01/13/n...
- Like Stephen, I pity GRRM. The issue is that he keeps making promises that keep fans invested, despite it being clear for years that he can't finish. The growing body of ASOIF work (that isn't finishing the main series) increasingly looks like either an indulgence, a coping mechanism, or a grift.
- Unsurprisingly, AI companions may not be a great idea in practice. This is high quality reporting on an issue that's only going to get more prevalent in the coming years.
- NEW: In January 2024, a man purchased Meta's newly AI-infused smart glasses. He went on to experience a devastating break with reality that played out across Meta platforms — with Meta AI as his companion, entertaining and affirming his worsening delusional beliefs. futurism.com/artificial-i...
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardMy annual decarbonization presentation is here. 200 slides, covering everything from water levels in Lake Gatún to sulfur dioxide emissions to ESG fund flows to Chinese auto exports to artificial intelligence. www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard1/ Some wild numbers have been used in the media this week for “the cost of net zero”. Reports have said that net zero will “cost” £4.5 trillion, £7.6 trillion – the list goes on. None of these are the cost of net zero – a quick explainer 🧵 on why
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardGood set of results on offshore wind auction contracts – the DESNZ team should be praised for balancing the need to deliver a lot of new capacity with the need to keep prices down www.theguardian.com/environment/...
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardAGI may never happen. But in some tasks, 'as good as human' intelligence does already exist - yet there is still one vitally important thing that AI can't take, which is responsibility. Some thoughts on that in my column this week:
- Any idea why the nation decided that it can no longer trust that brand Nadhim?
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardHere's what a map of crime by population actually looks like. It doesn't fit the 'London is a hellhole' narrative.
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheardsuspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research: they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.
- It's not the way I expected to confirm that cloudflare is currently down, but it works
- Turns out that Idiocracy was the most prophetic work since the Bible
- 🫠
- DA BEARS 🐻
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- The method HMT is using to get an 'average bill saving' of £150 is pretty odd. Averaging the costs in this way really overlooks the differences in consumption. e.g the fact that over 4million British households don't have a gas bill...
- I can't open the Budget's policy costings document in Chrome
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- ECO is gone "This includes the exchequer temporarily part-funding the renewables obligation, the impact of the new supercharger uplift on household bills from April 2027, the expansion of the warm home discount, and the ending of the energy company obligation from April 2026."
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- This really made me question my priors about what it's like to go to universal these days. It's so different from my experience 20+ years ago...
- We have updated our price cap explainer with the new numbers (and new charts, oooh) if you want to dig into the details a bit more. www.nesta.org.uk/report/whats... @nestauk.bsky.social
- The new price cap for January is more-or-less flat for a typical household using a gas boiler (£2.55 more than now) However, this snapshot elides the fact that electricity prices have jumped while gas prices fall. A typical home with a storage heater is going to see their bills rise by over £100.
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Marcus ShepheardOkay, I can't let this one go. I live in Ireland, not the UK, but the use of this image by a supposedly socialist party is so stupid and offensive, I'm going to get stuck in. Let me explain to you why any experienced illustrator/designer could have stopped you making so many miserable mistakes. 1/
- Building on the thread below, we've just published this which explains what the Energy Company is, what it does, what it's done well and (moreso) what has gone wrong with this scheme. www.nesta.org.uk/project-upda...
- 👀
- Reposted by Marcus Shepheard[Not loaded yet]
