alexfeakes.bsky.social
@alexfeakes.bsky.social
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Found this website this morning, useful as a starting point if you’re trying to boycott American goods and services, which we absolutely all should!

https://www.goeuropean.org
Go European — Discover European products and services
Go European is a community-driven directory bringing you European products and services from across the continent.
www.goeuropean.org
January 18, 2026 at 7:49 AM
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Even putting aside sovereignty arguments and the ability of US tech to turn off services for eg francesca albanese, ICC etc the the USA uses tech to extract rents from us all. In britian we send £100bn every year to america in digital rents via AWS, amazon, visa, netflix, ebay etc
When countries get hooked on US tech, their governments are constrained in reining in tech’s harms while most of the economic benefits accrue to the United States.

It’s time to break out of that trap — but that means challenging the Silicon Valley model, not creating our own digital colonizers.
Escaping the trap of US tech dependence
Canada needs real digital sovereignty, not our own digital colonizers
disconnect.blog
January 17, 2026 at 7:38 AM
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A bit of positivity to start your working day.
Think society is in decline? Research gives us some reasons to be cheerful
If we look at people’s values - abstract ideals that guide our behaviour - there are reasons to be positive about society.
theconversation.com
January 8, 2026 at 9:06 AM
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Nice piece from @pdonovan-econ.bsky.social -
Time to properly count (and tax) online influencers

as.ft.com/r/e1b37018-f...
The rise of the side hustle
[FREE TO READ] Economists and tax collectors might be underestimating its impact
as.ft.com
December 29, 2025 at 7:34 AM
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“By reading this plaque, you have made a valuable addition to the number of people who have read this plaque” … an important heritage moment on the streets of Toronto (by artist Sarah Lazarovic).
December 27, 2025 at 1:01 PM
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Not now, super-massive runaway black hole!
Astronomers made a truly mind-boggling discovery using the JWST:

A runaway super-massive black hole, rocketing through space at a staggering 1,000 km/s, leaving a 200,000 light-year-long tail in its wake in which gas is accumulating and triggering star formation.

🧪

www.space.com/astronomy/bl...
James Webb Space Telescope confirms 1st 'runaway' supermassive black hole rocketing through home galaxy at 2.2 million mph: 'It boggles the mind!'
"The forces that are needed to dislodge such a massive black hole from its home are enormous."
www.space.com
December 27, 2025 at 9:18 AM
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The Embassy staff of Germany, France and the United Kingdom sing Schedryk in the Kyiv underground.
Wonderful!
December 24, 2025 at 10:29 PM
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Pantone just updated their Color Of The Year
December 20, 2025 at 7:23 PM
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Virginia Heffernan wrote this shortly after the 2016 election and it still holds true
December 16, 2025 at 4:21 AM
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"It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing....It's the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong."

Tom Stoppard, on complexity theory, in Arcadia.

One of the world's best playwrights. RIP.

www.bbc.com/news/article...
Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard dies at 88
Sir Tom won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for the screenplay for Shakespeare In Love.
www.bbc.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:53 PM
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Persuasive letter on populism as a cognitive short-cut in the @financialtimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 7:13 AM
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Properly moving xkcd
xkcd.com/3172/
Fifteen Years
xkcd.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:51 PM
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What do teachers lose in terms of subject and pedagogical knowledge when they don't plan curriculum and lessons themselves?

One of many great questions posed by @carlhendrick.substack.com in this super review of the not-so-super offering from ChatGPT.
November 24, 2025 at 3:27 PM
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a “Space Force”, if you will
we need a department of kerning
November 13, 2025 at 2:27 PM
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Headline from a serious and long working paper on the economic impact of Brexit. Possible that this has been feeding into OBR and HMT discussions?
November 10, 2025 at 9:33 AM
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If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.
November 8, 2025 at 7:32 AM
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Grateful🙏🏻 for this nuanced blog and interpretations of our scaffolding study:
the fact that scaffolding is not as clearcut as we thought up until now, does not mean it no longer has value.
The most influential study on scaffolding timing just failed replication. My latest on why this matters and what the evidence actually shows. carlhendrick.substack.com/p/we-need-to...
October 24, 2025 at 4:42 PM
#TronAres wasn’t as bad as I thought it could be. A December amount of action and entertaining Sci-fi silliness.
October 23, 2025 at 5:44 PM
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I would laugh if this wasn't so true 😭
October 19, 2025 at 11:42 AM
A really good read, and a challenge to those who casually invoke Vygotsky in support of their pedagogy.
With apologies to #EdusSky for this later than usual #Saturday3 starts with this wonderful and detailed blog on the real Vygotsky and how he looks quite different to the one you learned about in teacher training by @carlhendrick.substack.com

open.substack.com/pub/carlhend...
In Search of Vygotsky
How the Zone of Proximal Development Became Education's Most Misunderstood Idea
open.substack.com
October 19, 2025 at 8:10 AM
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How it started vs How it's going.

More details: buff.ly/GbIKw4P
October 17, 2025 at 8:48 PM
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🧵🚨

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news.

Today our report is published!
www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

1/11
UK’s arm’s length public bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation
Seven in ten Britons say it is important for top scientific institutions to be independent in exclusive new polling.
www.ucl.ac.uk
October 9, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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We have built a society in which people of different skin tones, religious backgrounds & cultures get along, share power, work alongside each other, procreate with each other, recognise the each other’s humanity and democratic rights. It is a STUNNING ACHIEVEMENT OF WORLD HISTORIC PROPORTIONS.
I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them
October 8, 2025 at 10:08 AM
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Disney learned nothing from Andor.
September 18, 2025 at 5:05 AM
The lamps are going out all over America, and we may not see them lit again in our lifetimes…
September 18, 2025 at 6:28 AM