# .plan-26-44: Commons People
*2026-11-01 — note*
With term in full swing, I caught the traditional head cold and mostly lost my
voice after giving many lectures this week! It's inevitable for me to catch one every first term;
I hear a chorus of coughing from the 1A [FoCS](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/focs) students by the second week, and I fall like clockwork in the third. The week has also been extremely busy keeping up with a [huge deluge of security issues](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50319143) that have required [100s of our open source infra machines](https://www.tunbury.org/2026/11/02/week-44/#a-cve-across-everything) to be upgraded. The security pressure on open source projects right now is relentless, unfortunately.
Still, it's been *very* fun being back in Pembroke again after sabbatical and I wrote in more detail about [three different events this term](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/pem26) there, covering the computer science subject dinner, the weekly Evidence TAP "samosa socials" to encourage interdisciplinary conversations, and admitting two new honorary fellows.
Two of the [Part II students](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w41) have started keeping public weeknotes, which I'm delighted to see! Matt Occleshaw is writing his [notes](https://mjocc.org/weeknotes/) on the [embedded OCaml DSL for OpenStreetMap](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/ocaml-osm-dsl). Finley Stirk is restarting his [weeknotes](https://finleystirk.github.io/weeknotes/) after his UROP work this summer on [GPS uncertainty in GBIF point labels for Tessera](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/tessera-gbif-uncertainty). I'm watching Matt's progress on OpenStreetMap with interest since I've also been looking into OpenStreetMap mirroring for my [UK label database](#a-uk-label-map-for-tessera) below. And [Cyrus Omar](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~comar/) has also refreshed his [website](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~comar/notes/) with weeknotes for his sabbatical.
In the rest of this week's notes, I headed to London to [keynote the OpenUK Space Tech Radar launch](#keynoting-the-openuk-space-tech-radar) and began a [comprehensive UK label map for Tessera](#a-uk-label-map-for-tessera) that could be the basis for a collaborative wiki [via Tangled](#hosting-and-sharing-these-on-tangled), and Tessera was also [shortlisted for an OpenUK award](#tessera-shortlisted-for-an-openuk-award). There are plenty of fun [papers and talks](#papers-and-whatnots) in progress, and my [links around the web](#links-around-the-web) as usual.
## Keynoting the OpenUK Space Tech Radar
Glorious views of autumn London from the Fieldfisher office on the Thames
I also took a break from lecturing and headed down to London on Thursday to give the opening keynote at the [OpenUK Space Tech Radar launch](https://openuk.uk/event-calendar/openukspacetechradar/), held at the (very) swanky [Fieldfisher](https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/locations/united-kingdom/contact-us/offices/london) offices.
My talk was on using open geo-foundation models like [Tessera](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/tessera) to find [life on Earth](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/life). I was also delighted to meet [Simon Wardley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wardley) at long last, since I've almost crossed paths with him many times after his early work on virtualisation, containers and now on strategy maps! This event follows on from the [AI Openness report](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w30) conversations with OpenUK earlier this year.
A lively geospatial panel at the OpenUK Tech Radar launch
## A UK label map for Tessera
The crowd at the Space Tech Radar launch was well into finding ways to use Tessera. On the train back, I started pulling together the proper label database with a specific focus on the UK.
My aim is to harmonise the many sources of ground truth labels we use for habitat and urban mapping into one place, since every dataset I encounter has subtle variations in schema, coordinate conventions and notion of uncertainty. This builds on the [OpenStreetMap, GBIF and iNaturalist raw mirror](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w42) I set up a couple of weeks ago.
The UK has an incredible wealth of open data available, and I discovered that the government portal has been turned into a [National Data Library](https://www.data.gov.uk/roadmap/) of the sort that I [speculated about](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/uk-national-data-lib) last year! So far my label db involves a large sync of:
- [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org) for the built and natural environment features.
- [GBIF](https://www.gbif.org) species occurrence records, which ties in with [Finley's project](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/tessera-gbif-uncertainty) on their GPS uncertainty.
- [ESA WorldCover](https://esa-worldcover.org) land cover classes that cover 2020/2021 at a 10m resolution (a good fit for Tessera).
- The Environment Agency's [hydrology data](https://environment.data.gov.uk/hydrology/explore) via their [API portal](https://environment.data.gov.uk/apiportal), for rivers, flows and water levels across England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland aren't covered by these but I'm working on those.
The hydrology data is a wealth of rainfall and flood data across the UK, regularly updated. This is my quick local viewer using Leaflet.
After that, I spidered the NDL with some (carefully rate-limited) local agents and found various APIs for:
- Lidar surveys: [2 m DTM composite](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/13787b9a-26a4-4775-8523-806d13af58fc), [first-return DSM composite](https://ckan.publishing.service.gov.uk/dataset/lidar-composite-first-return-digital-surface-model-fz-dsm-1m), [vegetation object model](https://ckan.publishing.service.gov.uk/dataset/lidar-vegetation-object-model-vom); and tiles via the [survey data download](https://environment.data.gov.uk/DefraDataDownload/?Mode=survey). These give us very fine terrain models but only over some years.
- The [National Forest Inventory 2023](https://data-forestry.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/25690ca444d54a588394d61a985006b5_0) and [2022](https://data-forestry.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/9149ff1ab1a24f87ba1a60837bae872e_0), [trees outside woodland](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/9c41b3c6-2453-44f6-9900-e7821f1a1072) from Defra, and [ancient woodland](https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::ancient-woodland-england) from Natural England.
- Habitats and soils data along with a [priority habitats inventory](https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::priority-habitats-inventory-england), the [Living England habitat map](https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::living-england-habitat-map-phase-4), [peaty soil extent](https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::england-peat-map-peaty-soil-extent-1), [agricultural land classification](https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::agricultural-land-classification-alc-grades-post-1988-england); and a [CASI and LIDAR coastal habitat map](https://ckan.publishing.service.gov.uk/dataset/casi-and-lidar-habitat-map).
- How sites are designated by Natural England with a [sites of special scientific interest](https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::sites-of-special-scientific-interest-england), the [national nature reserves](https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/726484b0-d14e-44a3-9621-29e79fc47bfc/national-nature-reserves-england), [Ramsar](https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/67b4ef48-d0b2-4b6f-b659-4efa33469889/ramsar-england), [Country Parks](https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/e729abb9-aa6c-42c5-baec-b6673e2b3a62/country-parks-england); and RSPB's [Important Bird Areas](https://opendata-rspb.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/RSPB::ibas-uk) and [reserves](https://opendata-rspb.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/RSPB::rspb-reserves) and [heathland extent and potential](https://opendata-rspb.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/RSPB::heathland-extent-and-potential). Some of these are under the Open Government Licence, and others are research use only.
- Then plant atlas info from 2020 such as [tetrad presences](https://zenodo.org/records/10998189), [hectad presences by period](https://zenodo.org/records/10998003), [hectad trends](https://zenodo.org/records/11108832), [native status](https://zenodo.org/records/11097371), [conservation status](https://zenodo.org/records/11093342), and [phenology](https://zenodo.org/records/11092846).
- There are also ancient tree registries from the [Woodland Trust Ancient Tree Inventory](https://ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk/tree-search/) and the [Tree Register champion trees](https://www.treeregister.org/champion-trees-map/).
- Going back to water, I got more info from the Environment Agency on [main rivers](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/25dde009-ba7d-40de-8380-c5c3bb32ccdc), [storm overflows 2020-2025](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/21e15f12-0df8-4bfc-b763-45226c16a8ac), [historic flood warnings](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/88bed270-d465-11e4-8669-f0def148f590), [coastal erosion risk](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/9fede91f-5acd-4fd2-9bd8-98153fa3c2ff); and the [water quality archive](https://environment.data.gov.uk/water-quality/api-docs). This complements the EA hydrology data above and is all available via nice APIs or downloads.
- Landfill data, both currently [authorised](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/692eaecf-d465-11e4-ac2e-f0def148f590) and [historic](https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/7a955570-d465-11e4-a37c-f0def148f590) site boundaries
- Air quality got a look in as I have an [air quality project idea](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/tessera-street-air-quality) with [1km background concentrations](https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/data/pcm-data) from 2003-2024 for NO2, NOx, PM, ozone, SO2, and benzene; and even [AURN hourly site data](https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/data/).
- I also grabbed base maps from the [Ordnance Survey OpenData](https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open) on terrain types, Open Rivers, Greenspace, OpenMap Local, Boundary-Line, Open Roads, Zoomstack, and Open Names. Phew\!
I'm just putting this enormous (and growing) dataset together into one DuckDB instance and a tileserver along with GBIF. It can't be easily redistributed I think, as there are a lot of competing licence terms in there I need to figure out first. However, just the list above is quite useful to get started. I put together a quick Tessera WorldCover 10m downstream task and hooked it up to the [Esri Wayback service](https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wayback/) (to verify historical satellite data) and it's looking very promising so far.
Checking out the Cambridge Eddington development before/after using Tessera to detect the change and Esri to view the images
### Hosting and sharing these on Tangled
For the longer term, we'll need a way of sharing these datasets online. I'm very excited that [Akshay Oppiliappan](https://oppi.li/) launched a big upgrade of [Tangled](https://tangled.org) code hosting with [lots of new features](https://tangled.org/blog/forge/). Most importantly, the [self hosted code hosting knots](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/disentangling-git-with-bluesky) that I run for both Recoil and the Computer Lab are now upgraded to a fancy new Rust based one that is not only faster, but also supports Git Large File Storage\!
Akshay is planning a rollout of private repositories in Tangled in the next month or so, which means that we'll have all the pieces necessary to store large files under version control in infrastructure we run, and to share it selectively with a shared social graph using the AT Protocol. This could revolutionise how we can harmonise all those datasets above into a shared commons. Now that [Cyrus Omar](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~comar/) is settled in, we've been having regular brainstorms about how our earlier ideas on [Fairground](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-fairground) and [Bastion](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2024-hope-bastion) could fit together here.
### Tessera shortlisted for an OpenUK award
[Tessera](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/tessera) has also been shortlisted in the software category of the [OpenUK Awards 2026](https://openuk.uk/awards/openukawards2026/), alongside titans like Cilium, Flux CD and StackHPC. The [awards ceremony and gala dinner](https://openuk.uk/event-calendar/openukawards2026/) is at the House of Commons on Thursday, so I'm going to don my tuxedo and practise my Oscars^H^H^Hacceptance speech on behalf of the team (and cry theatrically if we lose, of course).
## Papers and whatnots
Cyrus and I discovered there's a great lunch spot in the new Cavendish building in West Cambridge
I finally got back to the Computer Lab and started fixing up my office, and got [Cyrus Omar](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~comar/) settled in with his card. We discovered the new Cavendish building has an excellent cafe, bringing back the physics tradition of cheap(ish) healthy lunches\!
Beatrice Spence and Arissa-Elena Rotunjanu gave a splendid practice run of their [ZoologyCon 2026](https://zoologycon.ro/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/ZoologyCon2026-Programme-1.pdf) oral presentation to the Zoology group here in Cambridge. Their talk is on DoME, a low cost and high throughput rig for the [3D digitisation of insect collections](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/digitisation-of-insects), with Anna Yiu, [Tiffany Ki]() and [Edgar Turner](https://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-edgar-turner). The conference runs from 4th-7th November in Bucharest, with their slot on the Wednesday afternoon in case you are attending\!
[Max Carroll](https://maxcarroll0.github.io/blog/) finished his POPL 2027 camera ready changes for his [type slicing paper](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2026-bidirectional-type-slicing) and we submitted those to the portal. I've also been helping [Josh Millar](https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/joshua.millar22) with his latest work on test-time adaptation, and [Patrick Ferris](https://patrick.sirref.org) on [next generation shells](https://patrick.sirref.org/weekly-2026-w43/), so there's been a lot of fun computer science in the past few weeks! A lot of my contribution here is just storytelling these days, while the heavy technical lifting is taken on by the key authors.
## Links around the web
RIP Captain Picard
This was the week that Patrick Stewart passed away, so I of course switched over to drinking Tea, Earl Grey, hot.
Various discussions about the use of AI in academia rumble on here in Cambridge, with the ever changing landscape being difficult for universities to keep up with. [John Palfrey](https://jpalfrey.blog/) wrote an [excellent note](https://jpalfrey.blog/2026/11/02/academic-writing-and-ai-what-rules-make-the-most-sense/) on the recent [resignation](https://www.chronicle.com/article/dartmouth-provosts-resignation-may-set-a-precedent) of the Provost of Dartmouth College over undisclosed AI use in his writing:
> Given the power of the AI tools that exist today and all the more so given the astonishing speed of recursive self-improvement in the frontier labs, the development of new knowledge is increasingly not being done by human brains, but rather directed by humans and performed by machines.
>
> If I’m right in this regard, then that places even more pressure on setting the right set of rules for academic research and publication — such that we neither limit ourselves unduly in terms of developing new knowledge, nor do we mislead one another or our readers when we fail to disclose the roles we played as human scholars as compared to the machines that have aided us.
> \-- [John Palfrey, Nov 2026](https://jpalfrey.blog/2026/11/02/academic-writing-and-ai-what-rules-make-the-most-sense/)
My own use of AI varies dramatically based on context (cold turkey ban if trying to learn something, minimal if working on existing projects and mostly for code review, and extensive frontier use for new explorations), so I'm going to put up a web page explaining my personal methods. It changes weekly right now...
## References
1. Madhavapeddy (2025). Foundations of Computer Science.
2. Madhavapeddy (2025). Thoughts on the National Data Library and private research data.
3. Madhavapeddy (2025). Socially self-hosting source code with Tangled on Bluesky.
4. Omar et al (2025). A FAIR Case for a Live Computational Commons. Association for Computing Machinery.
5. Carroll et al (2026). Bidirectional Type Slicing. arXiv.
Synopsis: Keynoted the OpenUK Space Tech Radar launch with Tessera shortlisted for an OpenUK award, building a UK label map for Tessera from open government data, Tangled upgrades towards a data commons, new Part II weeknoters, Pembroke recaps, a ZoologyCon practice talk, and rules for AI in academic writing.
Words: 1767
DOI: 10.59350/94p1z-tk116
## Related
- [Academic Writing and AI: What Rules Make the Most Sense?](https://jpalfrey.blog/2026/11/02/academic-writing-and-ai-what-rules-make-the-most-sense/) (feed, 2026-11-02)
John Palfrey. The abrupt resignation of the Provost of Dartmouth amidst discussion about AI and academic work leads to lots of questions about disclosure and the limits we should place on AI's role in scholarship.
- [From subject dinners to samosa socials at Pembroke College](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/pem26) (note, 2026-10-29)
Three different Pembroke events this term, from a computer science subject dinner, weekly Evidence TAP samosa socials in the Reading Room, and dining with new honorary fellows Rob Macfarlane and Raj Thakker.
- [Weekly 2026 W43](https://patrick.sirref.org/weekly-2026-w43/) (feed, 2026-10-26)
Patrick Ferris. This week was a bit of a flop as I ended up coming down with something and was unable to work for about half of it. A shorter note this week due to this.Paper WritingI had a productive conversation with Anil about the direction of the paper I am currently writing. Plenty of work to do with the deadl…
- [.plan-26-42: Tails of the unexpected](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w42) (note, 2026-10-18)
Back to lecturing Foundations of CS, why List.tl raises, a record Tessera crowd at the CCI, and a sample of termtime meetings from Japanese AI governance to NVIDIA and samosa socials.
- [.plan-26-41: Hello, is it Part II you're looking for?](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w41) (note, 2026-10-11)
The Foundations of Computer Science notes are now done as a Forest with live OCaml toplevels, and Part II projects sorted.
- [Weeknotes for Part II Project](https://mjocc.org/weeknotes/) (feed, 2026-10-05)
Matt Occleshaw. I’m going to use this space to document what work I do each week on the OpenStreetMap eDSL, in large part to keep me accountable. RSS feed available at index.xml.
- [An embedded DSL for OpenStreetMap](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/ocaml-osm-dsl) (idea, 2026-10-01)
Ongoing · Part II
- [Handling GPS uncertainty in point labels for Tessera](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/tessera-gbif-uncertainty) (idea, 2026-10-01)
Ongoing · Part II
- [From satellites to the streets: Earth embeddings for local environmental decisions](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/tessera-street-air-quality) (idea, 2026-10-01)
Available · PhD
- [.plan-26-30: Bananas ripen, models open, and OxCaml releases](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w30) (note, 2026-07-26)
An OpenUK openness interview, prototyping the Evidence TAP site with exe.dev, Windows eio support finds a user in Forester, and a new grant for optimising ranger patrols.
- [Bidirectional Type Slicing](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2026-bidirectional-type-slicing) (paper, 2026-07-01)
Max Carroll, Anil Madhavapeddy et al.
- [A FAIR Case for a Live Computational Commons](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2025-fairground) (paper, 2025-10-01)
Cyrus Omar, Michael Coblenz et al. — Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGPLAN International Workshop on Programming for the Planet
- [Socially self-hosting source code with Tangled on Bluesky](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/disentangling-git-with-bluesky) (note, 2025-03-08)
Self-host source code with Tangled on Bluesky for decentralized Git repositories.
- [Thoughts on the National Data Library and private research data](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/uk-national-data-lib) (note, 2025-02-17)
Exploring the National Data Library and its potential to improve access to private research data while balancing security and privacy concerns.
- [Affordable digitisation of insect collections using photogrammetry](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/digitisation-of-insects) (idea, 2025-02-01)
Completed · MPhil
- [Foundations of Computer Science](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/focs) (note, 2025-01-03)
Resources for teaching Foundations of Computer Science with OCaml and Jupyter notebooks.
- [TESSERA, a pixelwise geospatial foundation model](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/tessera) (project, 2025-01-01)
- [Modularizing Reasoning about AI Capabilities via Abstract Dijkstra Monads](https://anil.recoil.org/papers/2024-hope-bastion) (paper, 2024-09-01)
Cyrus Omar, Patrick Ferris et al. — the 12th ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Higher-Order Programming with Effects (HOPE)
- [Mapping LIFE on Earth](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/life) (project, 2023-01-01)
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Canonical: https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w44
Type: note
License: CC BY 4.0
Tags: tessera, openuk, pembroke, teaching, conservation, ai
