Philip John

Category: Political

  • I keep seeing “encryption” and “WhatsApp” used in the same today. You do realise it’s *not* secure, right? And it’s owned by Facebook FFS, do you’re giving Facebook all your messages. If you want secure, encrypted communications use Telegram. Even better, get yourself a VPN to hide all your traffic from our illiberal, civil rights…

  • #365daysofpolitics day 26: transcending the situation

    Today is day 26, which means I’ve had two days of doing nothing (pretty much). Spending the weekend with my little man was far more important, of course. ButĀ in general I’m finding it hard to keep up every single day. My hope was that it’d be fairly straight-forward to do something, at least small, every…

  • #365daysofpolitics day 23: close

    Last night I finished off the seats data for the general election. It didn’t validate šŸ™ but that might be a bug, so we’ll see… Also had someĀ conversations with the Something New lot about alliances and such… very interesting it was too! Join us.

  • #365daysofpolitics day 22: data!

    Finally, I think I got the seats data for the 2015 general election sorted out! I worked on it yesterday so tonight (day 23) I need to test it and make sureĀ it’s validating properly. Also, I had a chance encounter with a friend andĀ had a chat aboutĀ this little experiment of mine šŸ™‚ as well as…

  • #365daysofpolitics day 21: the great divide

    Yesterday I started to read The Great Divide by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Years ago on a whim I picked up Globalisation and its Discontents andĀ really enjoyed it, so when I heard aboutĀ Stiglitz’s new book I quickly grabbed a copy. It’s great timing and I’m really looking forward to making my way through…

  • #365daysofpolitics day 20: failing

    “A little bit each day”, I thought to myself, “that’ll be easy.” Well it turns out I have a job, I’m aĀ dad, I have hobbiesĀ and friends.Ā Not to mention a house and car to take reasonable care of. Sometimes, even just sitting at the laptop for a few minutes to do some clicktivism isn’t particularly thrilling,…

  • #365daysofpolitics day 16: Unlocking Magna Carta

    Yesterday I drove to Nottingham University to take part in a discussion about politics in the digital age. While the name might be a bit suspect, the event was interesting. We heard from three speakers about their thoughts on democracy, and how the internet and digital tools effect it. IĀ tweeted someĀ of the more interesting tidbits,…

  • #365daysofpolitics day 15: dragging this one out

    I’m really taking my time over this data wrangling…

  • #365daysofpolitics day 14: more wrangling

    More of yesterday’s data wrangling tonight.