Colm Mac Donnchadha

[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that

For a while in the 1990s my ISP was the Irish Post Office, because if there was such a thing as e-Mail, the mailmen should run it.

Attacking a data center like it’s The Bastille, everyone fleeing with a bushels of RAM to desolder and resolder the chips. One peasant coded guy with a wheelbarrow of SFP+ modules. Manifesting this for 2026.

What will be the normal way to refer to Your Party in conversation? It’s seriously annoying to say Your Party in the pub when one of your friends supports them and one doesn’t when talking politics. I am hoping for the Yipees, saying Why-Pee doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.

Awww that sucks. I really like Obsidian:

Did Obsidian add AI?

Right, I am off work (yes some of us "soldiered" on during Christmas), so got some time to put down coherent thoughts on a range of events. First of all, the Trumpian battleship. Which as part of Trump's "Golden Fleet" even got its (her) own website. 🧵
www.goldenfleet.navy.mil

Do you have any idea why? Did Amazon get a load of employees/institutional knowledge when they purchased MGM?

It’s more the Bristol Blenheim. Still an under appreciated workhorse but it is canonically an obsolete light bomber.

It Could Be Said #81 How I Lost Faith In Immigration Restrictionism Will writes about his strange new respect for mass immigration

itcouldbesaid.substack.com/p/it-could-b... ICYMI write about why trying to reduce immigration actually exacerbates the problems it claims to cure. Sometimes the electorate doesn't know what it wants!

At the point they were planning/building the line, the Belgians were officially Allies. After the Wall Street crash the Belgians changed their foreign policy position to Neutrality. There wasn’t the money to do an extra line (for complicated reasons).

Yes, Bosch drive trains are the gold standard in the space . Gazelle aren’t bad either.

They remain the only government in my lifetime without a theory of how economic growth happens and a determination that it definitely not be through universities, immigration, high skilled services, tax simplification, trade relations etc

Pratchett got no respect then though. He was writing genre fiction, not proper novels. He’d have been tucked into a corner in the bookshop.

And means testing pensions would mean that people who did save would resent paying for other people to get it. Making a benefit means tested is the first step to getting it cut.

Yes I think this is the thing. People think that because the public services got worse there must have been tax cuts for the rich, but no! There were huge tax rises on the top decile and business and tax cuts for average earners alongside the shrinking of important parts of the state.

Imagine have an historic, unassailable majority and a five year runway and doing this?

Every time I see Adrian Newey in the background I hope they can get him on the microphone. They need to talk to him, Pat Fry, James Allison. Let’s see what Rob Marshall has to say about Ferrari.

I’m so with you. I briefly considered doing my own version of XCom because the coverage of Radar was a circle on the map.

Flashing Red Why the criminal justice system should be top of No. 10's "shit list"

The theory of change thus far has been: push systems harder and they will deliver. The problem is numerous public systems are fundamentally broken:

- Criminal justice
- Local Government
- Housing/planning
- Tax
- Trade relations
- HE
- Childcare
- Some benefits

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/f...

It wasn't deep. It didn't have much to say. But Xiao Xiao inspired millions to try Flash animation for themselves.

A Beijing artist made this series -- and turned stick fights into a phenomenon. We're exploring why and how he did it:
animationobsessive.substack.com/p/when-stick...

Been too long since I did a big silly ancient history 🧵so let's bring an old one back over from the Bad Place:

It's time for ::air horn:: Publius Ventidius Bassus, the coolest Roman you have never heard of and the only person to walk in a triumph first as captive, then as triumphing general. 1/

The AAA games take more labour to make too. The triple AAA game in 2000 would have been made by a team of 50. In 2025 most triple AAA games have a main team of 200 with many outsourced teams as well.

What’s the story there?

How does the earnings component of the triple lock work? If that was the only uplift mechanism for state pension, would that effectively be the same as saying the state pension shall be some percentage of median U.K. wages?

Yeah, the first car to break 100kph was an ev. It wasn’t just “charge” time ICEs won on. Range, speed and power were all better than EVs in 1905.

I love that all there is under politics is:
“In 1981 she and her husband joined the new Social Democratic Party”

Independent from who exactly? Central banks and democracy (part two) Quickly and easily listen to The Rhodes Center Podcast with Mark Blyth for free!

Start the week with Part Two of of my chat with Leah Downey on her book, Our Money: Monetary Policy As If Democracy Matters, and all the stuff that has gone on since the summer...
player.captivate.fm/episode/7654...

We got a pc in I think 1997 and it had 95 with service pack 2 on it and it was pretty good.