Magsmanston
@magsmanston.bsky.social
Personal account of a Biologist. General nerd (computer games, physics, Raspberry Pi, tinkering, stats). Likes frogs and fish. Runner. Same handle as on the old place.
Reposted by Magsmanston
Farage confirms he’s glad his (schoolboy) racism has been exposed, that he’s enjoying the electoral kickback it’s given him amongst his racist supporters and expresses absolutely no shame or guilt about it at all.
Racist man. Racist party. Racist voters.
(iPaper)
Racist man. Racist party. Racist voters.
(iPaper)
January 2, 2026 at 8:44 AM
Farage confirms he’s glad his (schoolboy) racism has been exposed, that he’s enjoying the electoral kickback it’s given him amongst his racist supporters and expresses absolutely no shame or guilt about it at all.
Racist man. Racist party. Racist voters.
(iPaper)
Racist man. Racist party. Racist voters.
(iPaper)
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This is what Brendan Nyhan has called the “Green Lantern” theory of government- the idea that leaders, like the DC comic book heroes, can in fact do anything if they try hard enough so any failure is a failure of will rather than due to complexity/institutional constraints/competing interest etc
Its also a perpetual fantasy that you are one Superman away from fixing everyone, and invariably they are that Superman - which just totally fails to understand how complex governing and government is.
Just like the Tories, Labour's centrist hacks think themselves omniscient and infallible - they cannot fail, they can only be failed. So when they do fail, they blame everyone else.
We saw it with the Tories, and it's already started from the Starmerites with this idiotic dreck: archive.ph/rHoXA
We saw it with the Tories, and it's already started from the Starmerites with this idiotic dreck: archive.ph/rHoXA
January 2, 2026 at 9:33 AM
This is what Brendan Nyhan has called the “Green Lantern” theory of government- the idea that leaders, like the DC comic book heroes, can in fact do anything if they try hard enough so any failure is a failure of will rather than due to complexity/institutional constraints/competing interest etc
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Just simply automating the tedious phone calls that would otherwise need to be made in order to incorporate data points like "if the flu reached Exeter last week it will probably reach Plymouth next week" would be a big win.
December 31, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Just simply automating the tedious phone calls that would otherwise need to be made in order to incorporate data points like "if the flu reached Exeter last week it will probably reach Plymouth next week" would be a big win.
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Got a take on this - rebranding machine learning as AI is good for attracting funding/sales, but bad for reputations. Fundamentally, it is fine to use data driven mathematical modelling to predict changes in demand and if this A&E stuff was framed like that then there would be fewer complaints.
I dug behind the industry paywall to find out, what *are* the geniusly clever things that AI can predict will increase NHS A&E pressures?
You’ll never guess
- Flu
- Winter
- Icy weather
- Friday nights
- Christmas
- New Years Eve
Jeez, Dom’s old mates at Faculty AI (o yes) really saw Wes coming
You’ll never guess
- Flu
- Winter
- Icy weather
- Friday nights
- Christmas
- New Years Eve
Jeez, Dom’s old mates at Faculty AI (o yes) really saw Wes coming
December 31, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Got a take on this - rebranding machine learning as AI is good for attracting funding/sales, but bad for reputations. Fundamentally, it is fine to use data driven mathematical modelling to predict changes in demand and if this A&E stuff was framed like that then there would be fewer complaints.
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Yes. It was weak - showed no faith in our institutions, our society, our law.
One of the most infuriating things about this whole debacle is that it was sold by the government as showing strength and decisiveness, where the absolute opposite is the case. It was weak and its (grim) consequences are entirely foreseeable.
December 29, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Yes. It was weak - showed no faith in our institutions, our society, our law.
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A Reform Councillor writes to @vizcomic.bsky.social
December 29, 2025 at 1:04 PM
A Reform Councillor writes to @vizcomic.bsky.social
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Wonders aloud where “Hitler was right…Gas ‘em all!” sit in Farage’s “racist and anti-British views” Venn diagram.
December 29, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Wonders aloud where “Hitler was right…Gas ‘em all!” sit in Farage’s “racist and anti-British views” Venn diagram.
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The Conservative Party is simultaneously arguing people shouldn’t be jailed for social media posts directly calling for violence, but also that people’s citizenship should be revoked over social media posts they don’t like.
Make it make sense.
Make it make sense.
December 29, 2025 at 11:09 AM
The Conservative Party is simultaneously arguing people shouldn’t be jailed for social media posts directly calling for violence, but also that people’s citizenship should be revoked over social media posts they don’t like.
Make it make sense.
Make it make sense.
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Another reason to challenge Reform UK, not appease it: www.theguardian.com/politics/202....
Third of Reform UK’s council leaders have expressed vaccine-sceptic views
Health minister decries criticism of vaccinations by heads of four authorities as ‘dangerous and utterly irresponsible’
www.theguardian.com
December 29, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Another reason to challenge Reform UK, not appease it: www.theguardian.com/politics/202....
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The Greenland precedent would then be used by a US government pursuing hemispheric imperialism to press claims against Canada, Mexico and Caricom states
December 28, 2025 at 9:39 AM
The Greenland precedent would then be used by a US government pursuing hemispheric imperialism to press claims against Canada, Mexico and Caricom states
Reposted by Magsmanston
will also add - yes, this is my personal crusade - that turning podcasts into videos implicitly asks women to once again make more effort than men, as the bar for "camera-ready" for one gender is obviously higher than for the other
‘Painful to hear!’ How podcasts’ rush to video is turning them into dreadful listens
‘Painful to hear!’ How podcasts’ rush to video is turning them into dreadful listens
From Joe Marler’s visual-only stunts to the incomprehensible shuffling sounds Steven Bartlett recently subjected headphone users to, dodgy audio experiences are on the rise
www.theguardian.com
December 27, 2025 at 10:20 AM
will also add - yes, this is my personal crusade - that turning podcasts into videos implicitly asks women to once again make more effort than men, as the bar for "camera-ready" for one gender is obviously higher than for the other
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Good interview in the paper, this. I think Sadiq is right: London 'needs' to be less successful than it is for a bunch of political arguments here in the UK to work, hence the fictions being invented about it:
Populists attack London because it is ‘progressive and successful’, says Sadiq Khan
Rightwing attacks on one of the world’s most visited cities at odds with reality, says mayor
www.ft.com
December 26, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Good interview in the paper, this. I think Sadiq is right: London 'needs' to be less successful than it is for a bunch of political arguments here in the UK to work, hence the fictions being invented about it:
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I think the problem with Sir James Dyson- guest editor of the Today Programme today- is that he genuinely thinks that "inventive spirit" is enough to run an economy on. We can't all be entrepreneurs. We can't all invent a revolutionary new product. Also, for a "futurist" he's massively nostalgic.-
December 26, 2025 at 8:16 AM
I think the problem with Sir James Dyson- guest editor of the Today Programme today- is that he genuinely thinks that "inventive spirit" is enough to run an economy on. We can't all be entrepreneurs. We can't all invent a revolutionary new product. Also, for a "futurist" he's massively nostalgic.-
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-Shiny campuses, grounded Harriers and "the world's oldest working jet engine" interest him more than boring old factories making hoses or moulded plastic parts. He's just a typical predictable rich person, really.
December 26, 2025 at 8:27 AM
-Shiny campuses, grounded Harriers and "the world's oldest working jet engine" interest him more than boring old factories making hoses or moulded plastic parts. He's just a typical predictable rich person, really.
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We've always had these dead-eyed socipaths around. It's just a few years ago they were ignored and now they're "senior fellow" at places funded by evil millionaires + going on podcasts with a brain-rotted ex-PM.
Harrison Pitt accuses the King of treachery. Pitt is a Senior Policy Fellow for Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain, who also regularly co-hosts podcasts with his ally Tomlinson (who advocates banning all ethnic and faith minorities from public office). Like Lowe, Pitt is keen to dissolve boundaries/norms
December 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
We've always had these dead-eyed socipaths around. It's just a few years ago they were ignored and now they're "senior fellow" at places funded by evil millionaires + going on podcasts with a brain-rotted ex-PM.
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A (non-militant) republican here, but that was a fine King’s Speech.
If we are to have a monarchy that is what they should say.
If we are to have a monarchy that is what they should say.
December 25, 2025 at 9:30 PM
A (non-militant) republican here, but that was a fine King’s Speech.
If we are to have a monarchy that is what they should say.
If we are to have a monarchy that is what they should say.
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It really has come to this: the Pope and the King (the POPE! the KING!) spout what used to be seen as platitudes so banal and mainstream as to be effectively meaningless and now they’re being demonised as socialists and lefty culture warriors… the flipping POPE AND KING FFS
December 25, 2025 at 9:58 PM
It really has come to this: the Pope and the King (the POPE! the KING!) spout what used to be seen as platitudes so banal and mainstream as to be effectively meaningless and now they’re being demonised as socialists and lefty culture warriors… the flipping POPE AND KING FFS
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They are nothing without a bedrock of anger, so anything that threatens to put out the rage, from whatever angle, is itself something to be angry about.
December 25, 2025 at 7:56 PM
They are nothing without a bedrock of anger, so anything that threatens to put out the rage, from whatever angle, is itself something to be angry about.
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December 19, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Magsmanston
I don't always get pretty, isolated, AND transfected primary neurons in culture, but when I do I take advantage.... Rat hippocampal neuron overexpressing ThymosinB4-mScarlet and imaged for 16hr on a @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social LSM880 with Airyscan. #FluorescenceFriday #Microscopy
December 19, 2025 at 2:01 PM
I don't always get pretty, isolated, AND transfected primary neurons in culture, but when I do I take advantage.... Rat hippocampal neuron overexpressing ThymosinB4-mScarlet and imaged for 16hr on a @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social LSM880 with Airyscan. #FluorescenceFriday #Microscopy
Reposted by Magsmanston
Tomorrow evening it’ll be my annual duty to vaguely shepherd the activity on the #duvetknowitschristmas hashtag and urge people to give small sums to charity. 7.30pm? Something like that?
December 23, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Tomorrow evening it’ll be my annual duty to vaguely shepherd the activity on the #duvetknowitschristmas hashtag and urge people to give small sums to charity. 7.30pm? Something like that?
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[preparing to get screamed at] I think I officially don’t need to know if you’re mad that an article is paywalled. Perhaps that can be an Inside Thought
December 21, 2025 at 9:20 PM
[preparing to get screamed at] I think I officially don’t need to know if you’re mad that an article is paywalled. Perhaps that can be an Inside Thought
Reposted by Magsmanston
Galaxy Quest - a perfect movie, just a wonderful love letter to actors, sci-fi, Star Trek in particular, and to fandom - really deserves a proper physical release with decent extras. Think Weaver's right that releasing a R-rated cut would be fun, too.
Sigourney Weaver Says She Wishes DreamWorks Released A Director’s Cut Of ‘Galaxy Quest,’ Reminisces On Sequel That Never Came To Pass
Sigourney Weaver reflected on cult classic Galaxy Quest and how she wishes the sci-fi satire had released an R-rated director's cut.
deadline.com
December 22, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Galaxy Quest - a perfect movie, just a wonderful love letter to actors, sci-fi, Star Trek in particular, and to fandom - really deserves a proper physical release with decent extras. Think Weaver's right that releasing a R-rated cut would be fun, too.
Reposted by Magsmanston
✨ Blinking #nanobodies that work for single-molecule localization 🔬
Our new preprint shows that the self-blinking dye JF635b restores robust, buffer-free blinking in #nanobodies, enabling reliable #dSTORM, #MINFLUX, and more, without chemical-switching buffers. Opening new possibilities for #ExM!
Our new preprint shows that the self-blinking dye JF635b restores robust, buffer-free blinking in #nanobodies, enabling reliable #dSTORM, #MINFLUX, and more, without chemical-switching buffers. Opening new possibilities for #ExM!
December 22, 2025 at 10:45 AM
✨ Blinking #nanobodies that work for single-molecule localization 🔬
Our new preprint shows that the self-blinking dye JF635b restores robust, buffer-free blinking in #nanobodies, enabling reliable #dSTORM, #MINFLUX, and more, without chemical-switching buffers. Opening new possibilities for #ExM!
Our new preprint shows that the self-blinking dye JF635b restores robust, buffer-free blinking in #nanobodies, enabling reliable #dSTORM, #MINFLUX, and more, without chemical-switching buffers. Opening new possibilities for #ExM!
