Mark Byrne

Pretty sunset last night

I'm in Santorini feeding the cats

Good thread on a very interesting discussion.

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that could transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC

“An emotional research team became tearful as they described how data shows the disease was slowed by 75% in patients.”

What an absolutely incredible, joyous achievement for everyone involved. Hurrah for science and scientists! www.bbc.com/news/article...

Screenshot from New Yorker interview by Isaac Chotiner with Cass Sunstein

when the interview goes well: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

i will concede that if you want to influence other people addicted to X, X is worth using. but if you want to influence the actual public, text-based social media is a fool's errand.

Recommended, not in a „worthy initiative” way but because it’s proper interesting and informative journalism about London and nobody else really does it.

Lol. How well did the last govt insulting load-bearing parts of their electoral coalition work out for them? Like they watched what the Lib Dems did to the home counties and wondered what it'd be like if the Greens did that to the two dozen largest university towns.

Tony Blair used to talk about the difference between the 3-second, 30-second & 3-minute conversation - the point being that simplistic policies, that poll well, collapse under the more sustained scrutiny of an election or time in govt.

So what happens when there is *only* the 3-second conversation?

This is incredibly sharp on TikTok, distraction and politics. Current UK government is communicating on terms that no longer exist

Trump's use of the attention economy, by Peter Hyman peterhyman21.substack.com/p/trump-the-...

Strongly agree. The days of just getting to the end with lines to take are over

We should also probably avoid basing our politics on information systems that reward outrage and where the truth has zero value.

This is outstanding. And, while research doesn’t get much of a hearing these days on identity issues, everything in it is consistent with piles of research. Anti-racism norms don’t drop from the sky. They are built and buttressed by elites drawing red lines. They can be eroded when elites don’t.

Bear with me, I anticipate your disagreement. There is a clear pattern to the advice given to those who want to press back against rising racism. What it boils down to is that if you point out that racism is often being dressed up as “legitimate concerns” you will alienate people. /1

Line chart showing that there's been a rapid escalation in how quickly the world installs a gigawatt of solar power capacity.

Time for the world to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity
2004: A year
2010: ~ a month
2015: ~ a week
Now: A day
ourworldindata.org/data-insight... 🧪

it's so miserable

Not that anyone in politics listens to research, but there is a bucket of research (including some excellent recent studies) which show exactly this. Voters listen to leaders and respond to what they say.

Hahaha

Dublin photography: A city that has vanished yet feels strangely familiar Mick Brown's exhibition The Days That Were In It provides a photographic record of Dublin’s street life

Dublin photography: A city that has vanished yet feels strangely familiar

this didn’t happen at the height of the Brexit referendum. I don’t *think* it’s happened since National Front were at their peak in 1970s.

This is organised racist intimidation & movement building, and it’s happening because Labour Party leaders have not opposed that campaign.

The core problem for Starmer is that what made him Labour leader and prime minister was his ability to judge what the audience in front of him wanted to hear - to work out which narrative would get him to the next step on the board. But you can't run a country on storytelling.

There are very, VERY few people who are equipped to talk about this shooter correctly given the brainrot written on the shell casing. You have to understand so much of online culture to get it and also understand how that culture is both connected to and separate from real world ideological spaces

When a parrot wanted to connect with a distant friend, a touchscreen showed a selection of other birds available online. The parrots learned to activate the screen, designed specially for them, by touching it gently with their tongues rather than pecking aggressively with their beaks. "We had 26 birds involved," said Hirskyj-Douglas. "They would use the system up to three hours a day, with each call lasting up to five minutes." The interactions ranged from preening and playing with toys to loud vocal exchanges. "When we went through the data, we found that most of these parrots had favourite friends," said Hirskyj-Douglas.

Pet parrots which typically live alone (whilst those in the wild live in large flocks) were given the technology to call each other. They would use it for up to three hours a day, and developed favourite friends 💔
on.ft.com/3K05vhS

5 parties on more than 12%, winner gains seat with under 30%. Results like this used to be rare, freak outliers. Now they are routine (there was a second just like this yesterday). Electoral chaos.

The DUP’s support for Brexit, then hard Brexit, then Johnson (who betrayed them as he betrays everyone), and now ECHR-exit is perhaps the most obviously self-harming run of decisions that any democratic political party has ever taken.

Brilliant writing

RTÉ Statement: 2026 Eurovision Song Contest  – About RTÉ RTÉ Statement: 2026 Eurovision Song Contest “At the General Assembly of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in July, a number of EBU members raised concerns about the participation of Israel in the ...

Breaking: Irish broadcaster RTE says that Ireland will not participate in Eurovision next year if Israel does.

"RTÉ feels that Ireland’s participation would be unconscionable given the ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza."

about.rte.ie/2025/09/11/r...

There's @samfr.bsky.social chatting to @nicolasturgeon.bsky.social and Mark Drakeford

my hot take is that i do not care if you post on twitter but i do think that monitoring it is essential to understanding who is running the country right now and where they are directing their sentiments