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Thomas House

@tah-sci.com

4.5K followers 1.2K following 2.7K posts

Professor of Mathematical Sciences, working mainly on epidemiology although partial to a bit of non-commutative algebra, social science and basic biology. https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/thomas.house/about.html

personalpages.manchester.ac.uk

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Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 1m

I've found all the people I interacted with on SoMe then met IRL or had Teams / Zoom chats with quite delightful.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 11h

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 3h

How some Ancient Chinese viewed "The West" including Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Northern India. Particularly interesting on Roman government: "Their kings are not permanent ... The one who has been dismissed quietly accepts his demotion".

depts.washington.edu/silkroad/tex...

The Han Histories

depts.washington.edu

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 7h

Mal épissé, je crois

Reposted by Thomas House

Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 7h

Super cool science: Parachutes are expensive and delicate to manufacture, which limits their use for humanitarian airdrops or drone delivery. Laser cutting a closed-loop kirigami pattern in a disc induces porosity and flexibility into an easily fabricated parachute. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Kirigami-inspired parachutes with programmable reconfiguration - Nature

A thin planar disc designed with appropriately patterned cuts transforms itself, due to air flow effects, into an effective parachute exhibiting good positional stability, regardless of its initial orientation.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 8h

An interviewee was introduced on the Radio news yesterday as "Martin Lewis of the Martin Lewis Podcast", which somehow feels both dystopian and tautological.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 8h

Ah non! Celui -

youtube.com/shorts/YhqJ6...

Theme Song | Transformers G1 | 40th Anniversary

YouTube video by Hasbro Pulse

Reposted by Thomas House

Nick Brown @steamtraen.eu · 16h

😅

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 17h

La musique de "Transformers" semblait d'être très Avant Garde, mais je vient d'apprendre qué ce n'etait qu'une erreur avec la bande magnétique.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

I mean, maybe our democracy isn't set up to deliver fair outcomes, and not everything is sometimes doing something wrong.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

Very much so, yes.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

I really haven't if you read my posts, they're all consistent with this view.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

Yes, we have a national Government - not a 'London Government' - and one of their mistakes is being beholden to provincial NIMBYs.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

I was also reasonably clear that I think this phenomenon is reproduced in Northern England where it's suboptimal for Manchester to receive first dibs compared to Leeds, and while I do loathe myself as much as the next academic I do like both cities.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

Well, the Lizzy line was built (hooray!) but not HS2 (in full). If that isn't "first dibs" then I don't know what is, and there's been an accumulation of similar choices over the years that other countries didn't make leading to different relative affluences in their major cities.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

Very much so, yes.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 22h

Yes sorry I think you are being ridiculous a tiny bit. I've lived in London, have many people I love there, often spend time there and may live there in future. I do think that relative affluence arises due in large part to policy, which may be debatable but really isn't "obvious lie".

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 23h

The relative affluence of some small rural towns came up when Sunak talked about the council block grant allocations, which very much showed the power of British central Government to determine economic success. FWIW I also do very much like Tunbridge Wells where he delivered the speech IIRC.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 23h

I honestly can't see anything I've written that could be interpreted as remotely hateful.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 23h

So how large do Leeds and Brum have to get? I think they're large enough on the World scale to achieve similar productivity to London with the right policies.

bsky.app/profile/tah-...

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 23h

So what creates the conditions for those industries to thrive? To some extend agglomeration is unavoidably part of the story of course, there need to be cities and the larger ones will have even stronger network effects and economies of scale, but if we don't think that London's success is >

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 23h

> reproducible through policy manipulations elsewhere that's a rather odd and negative view of the UK's future.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 23h

So what creates the conditions for those industries to thrive? To some extend agglomeration is unavoidably part of the story of course, there need to be cities and the larger ones will have even stronger network effects and economies of scale, but if we don't think that London's success is >

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 23h

Why do those factors emerge though? Education requires investment in Universities, which although they have some limited autonomy are highly controlled by central Government. Why are young people attracted? Again, there will be reasons that are within policy remit.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 1d

Well why else is London rich? There has to be some kind of rational policy-based explanation if the answer is not "innate superiority".

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 1d

It's not "London"s fault, but rather a national Government that doesn't prioritise such projects. Leeds and Brum local government have made their blunders over the years but I don't think it's fair to blame them.

Thomas House @tah-sci.com · 1d

I don't know how much more I need to say I love London and want it and its inhabitants to succeed and be happy not to be accused of attacking or hating it.