Matt Ballantine

@ballantine70.bsky.social

502 Followers 333 Following

Sociologist. Musician. Technologist. Dad. Current side project: randomthebook.com "Someone called Matt Ballantine" New Scientist, June 2026

A door knocker which bashes a bronze head.
Screen shot of my zettlekasten App
Classic Bruce Springsteen image
A bucket containing green sludge
Big clouds of smoke
Hertfordshire man left with 'life-changing penis burns' on flight pursues... Watford Observer
The cover image from Where the Wood things are. A grumpy monster sitting under trees. A boat on a lake.
Hoarding with the words fitzrovia corner
A derelict shed with the numbers 2007 in white superimposed on top
A seagull in flight reaching food food held almost by a person's hand.
A rather fine Jay sitting on a fence with a tree in the background.
The foam on top of my coffee this morning. This doesn't really work if you have vision issues.
510 copies of our book, in big cardboard boxes, in the back of a lorry.
A Lockheed Martin advert for an F-35 fighter jet on LinkedIn.
An old white Fiat with a boat fender on the front, presumably because it parks between trees.
a safety sign from The Royal Institution. It's a pretty clear set of "don'ts" regarding their balustrades (the railings or pillars supporting a handrail). The sign lists four specific prohibited actions to keep everyone safe: Do not lean on the balustrade. Do not climb on the balustrade. Do not sit on the balustrade. Do not drop anything over the balustrade
Another pointless gamification nick nack from Kindle.
Seven small pieces of card on a hitch surface, each with a list of ingredients.
Estate agents board for "Miles and Bird".
Clip from the guardian... "His justification? "If we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor," Trump said."
Screen shot of The Guardian app with the words "Video Watch the moment woman fatally shot by ICE agent during Minnesota raid"
Summary of social and economic costs of gambling in the UK. About £1.2bn
A copy of the book
A snowflake on a green and red background.
The first full printed prototype of our book. It's 2 inches of A5-sized Cardstock. The front cover has a 4x5 grid of images taken from the book.
A big number 73
A big number 73
Close up of a six pence piece, coloured a festive red.
An extract from Adam Grant's book... The Discipline to Delay Procrastination turns out to be a com- mon habit of creative thinkers and great problem solvers. Consider winners of the Science Talent Search, which is known as the "Super Bowl of Science" for high school seniors in the United States. A team led by psychologist Rena Subotnik inter- viewed I these elite performers more than a decade after their victories, when they were in their early thirties, asking whether thev procrastinated on routine and cre- ative tasks, as well as in social life and health behavior. More than 68 percent ad- mitted procrastinating in at least two of the four domains. Procrastination proved especially fruitful for creative work. The science stars "used procrastination as a form of incubation to stave off a prema- ture choice of a scientific problem or so- lution."8, 2 As one explained: "Often when I am procrastinating, I really have some- thing on the back burner and I need the time to work it through." Another said: "In scientific work. ideas need time to mature," and procrastination is one way to "restrain that urge to respond prema- turely." After poring over the interviews with these precocious thinkers and doers, Subotnik's team drew a curious conclu-
A screen shot of Netflix where "24 Hours in Aldi" is classified as "Horror"
Robert Jenrick presumably stirring up hate again at a conference lecturn pointing aggressively with his left hand whilst inexplicably balancing a judge's wig on his right.
To everyone in Britain's Jewish Community: You are not alone. We will not let hate or those who spread it win. We stand with you.
A very sleek Norwegian concrete bridge with a sunset in the background
The Millau viaduct in southern France, a bloomin' enormous, very modern bridge designed by Foster Associates.
A le crueset-style iPhone case
An ad for Copilot in which the "download free" button is about 5° off horizontal.
A straight banana
A coffee vending machine.
A picture of an advert for the RayBan Meta glasses with the following text: "They See What You See. Bring the concert to them with hands-free video calling on Ray-Ban Meta glasses."
The Tracksuit Trilogy album sleeve from The Experimental Pop Band
A video of an interaction with Gemini where I ask it to create a specific photo and it repeatedly fails.
Al Overview No, other microphones are not only compatible with the DJI Action 5 Pro, but they are also not compatible with the DJI Action 5.
A big pig, sitting upright, in a hat with his shirt hanging open
Bears in Singapore Gardens in the Bay
An advert at Changi Airport for the DeRucci Smart AI Mattress
A picture of my sister aged about 10 with Biddy Baxter giving us a hug in the middle of the picture, and my body, chin and mouth. Not the greatest composition...
Chat gpt's attempt at a visual guide to British pms
A selection of the brightly coloured cards that are the contents of Random the Book. All are a bit obscured to build up a bit of intrigue...
A screen from Claude which reads "Warming up the engines"
Nobody has a career long enough to prove statistically that their success came from their own efforts rather than luck. This isn't pessimism. It's mathematics. To prove that personal skill rather than circumstance drives career outcomes, you'd need thousands of comparable data points tracked over decades. Even with sophisticated statistical methods, you'd require samples of 1,500+ independent observations for skill to reliably dominate chance factors. But individual careers provide maybe 50-100 major decisions over 20-40 years. These aren't independent events either—early luck creates later opportunities through path dependence. That first break, that crucial introduction, that market timing beyond your control—they compound throughout your career.
The top of my coffee
Donald Trump Holding a gold goalie glove trophy.
Google notification with the highlight "GOV.UK changes to GOV.UK"
Graffiti in Bristol reading Big Up Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a sketchy man in a top hat.
Graffiti in the door area of a Central line carriage.
Me at nearly 3 years old. Red jumper. Long red hair. A slightly perturbed look on my face.
But by holding tightly to metaphors, we end up limiting what and how we can think." Modern AI systems based on "neural networks" claim to have an architecture inspired by neurons, but they bear the same re- semblance to a real brain that a raincloud emoji has to a nor'easter. Brains and computers just don't operate in the same way at all, and thus concepts taken from computer science aren't generally applicable to the brain.
A message from Google Assistant telling me it's an LLM so can't turn off my lights.