Harry Wood

Software engineer somewhat specialised towards ruby on rails and towards back-end data work. Open data & open collaborations. Father of two.
https://harrywood.co.uk/

homepage: https://harrywood.co.uk/

Last Notes

2026-07-07 13:08:23 GMT

The BBC news keeps having these little segments about terrible e-bikes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05y9pe5p1jo
I do wish they would include just *briefest* little mention of the annual ~400 pedestrians killed and ~5800 seriously injured... BY CARS
Not denying there's a problem with bad scootering people. I'm sure enforcement/insurance can be improved,
but isn't it actually quite weird the way we just automatically accept massive four-wheeled boxes zooming around killing people? It's not worth mentioning?

2026-06-24 09:42:49 GMT

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hmm when you say 48 seconds, d'you literally mean there is a time limit? Seems surprising!
or d'you mean it pops up quite quickly in response to clicking/scrolling on things?
Admittedly I'm normally logged in to facebook, so I'm curious what you see.

2026-06-11 10:17:35 GMT

On chatgpt.com some prompts will cause it to show you a little embedded map. It's OpenStreetMap data via mapbox.
I notice they do not give any on-screen credit to OpenStreetMap or even Mapbox (Not even hidden behind an "i" icon)
It's almost as if they don't respect copyright.
https://cdn.masto.host/enosmtown/media_attachments/files/116/730/897/090/749/710/original/f26fab6e7ae97d31.png

2026-04-07 21:31:18 GMT

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It bugs me sometimes when people react to dumb politicians with "This is a deliberate strategy to... " *insert theory here* (something about making us question the nature of truth is a common one)
There's no mastermind strategy going on here. He is just as idiotic as he sounds.

2026-03-19 12:41:59 GMT

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Love to visit Pont Du Gard. It's an impressive Roman construction, and also a lovely place to go for a swim!

2026-02-02 16:01:48 GMT

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Note that User:Sapphaline edited the article to "revert to version before ai slop": https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Basimba_people&diff=1336221260&oldid=1335156801 That was about one hour after your post here. Does that resolve the issue?

2026-01-15 14:55:22 GMT

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Love the videos! Happy Birthday! #wikipedia! #wikipedia25
It's strange that wikimedia foundation don't have an account here on mastodon. (or not an active one. Maybe this is them: @npub1uqv…hknm )

2025-12-31 16:18:29 GMT

We've been getting around São Paulo (in all its concrete complexity) using offline OpenStreetMap via @npub1t2q…n4vh . Never used it with android auto before. Very nice! #saopaulo
https://cdn.masto.host/enosmtown/media_attachments/files/115/814/940/093/575/117/original/5cc7195d93e3691f.jpg

2025-12-02 11:39:58 GMT

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I'm liking the new Framadate. We're not big users, and it's a simple tool, but I will bung you a small donation because it's nice to have a not-for-profit providing these things.

2025-11-30 10:58:59 GMT

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That's an interesting idea. Focusing on the oldest first. Did you find these can often be closed on the basis that the thing is fixed already? (or just *probably* fixed already if it's badly described)

2025-11-29 18:39:04 GMT

Blogged: Transcript of what I said, or intended to say, for my #sotmeu Dundee talk all about OpenStreetMap Notes.
https://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2025/11/29/openstreetmap-notes-sotmeu-dundee-talk
https://cdn.masto.host/enosmtown/media_attachments/files/115/634/432/406/970/450/original/d4dfbe477c600011.png

2025-08-06 08:57:30 GMT

I don't really understand why school holidays make *such* a difference to the number of cars on the road. I did my London cycle into the office just now, and the streets felt deserted, especially in more residential areas (zone 2) Maybe a quarter of the normal traffic. Very pleasant, but...
It really makes me wonder, why do *so many* parents drive cars around, and also what are all these people doing now? Don't they still have to drive their kids to holiday clubs? I don't get it.

2025-07-02 16:37:34 GMT

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Hehe Toupee fallacy. I'll have to remember that.
Indeed. False accusations of AI are one thing, but there's probably lots more false acceptance of AI text as human. We'll never know how much.
I reckon it would be pretty easy to prompt AI to generate text avoiding all of the telltale signs mentioned, and surely some people do.

2025-07-02 14:15:04 GMT

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I'm not so convinced it's as easy to spot AI writing as many people claim.
About the emdash, they're saying "While it’s become popularized as an AI “tell” of a blog post or article, too often it’s a case of mistaken identity. Tread carefully"
But surely that goes for ALL the tips in this article. It would be a shame if we reject a human's work because they wrote with a clear structure, finishing with a conclusion, or because they mention counterarguments.

2025-04-29 09:12:38 GMT

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Ooh! In 4 mins. It's on youtube, but nice to have commentary without an American accent!

2025-03-26 14:09:38 GMT

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More on the LLM scraper problem https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2025/03/ai-bots-are-destroying-open-access.html by @npub1lsc…70dl "Thousands of developer hours are being spent on defense against the dark bots and those hours are lost to us forever. We'll never see the wonderful projects and features they would have come up with in that time"

2025-03-20 11:41:52 GMT

Vicious criticism of LLMs from this sysadmin who has to deal with their scrapers: https://drewdevault.com/2025/03/17/2025-03-17-Stop-externalizing-your-costs-on-me.html
The LLM scraper problem seems surprising to me. The makers of big new generative AI systems are mostly big-tech firms. Don't they value their reputation, or even the reputation of the AI concept overall, better than to commission these cowboys to do their scraping? But maybe they've already decided that, due to the copyrights risk, it's best done at arms length via shady intermediaries.

2024-08-10 07:59:40 GMT

The Doggett's pub (Today's #20YearsOfOSM birthday pub from noon onwards) is behind this big funny shaped One Blackfriars Tower. Shown here in @npub1t2q…n4vh
It has a little beer garden out to the South but I'm not sure I've been there since the tower was built. Maybe it's a bit overshadowed these days!
https://cdn.masto.host/enosmtown/media_attachments/files/112/936/636/850/452/924/original/170fb1c5869c5365.mp4