Alex Selby-Boothroyd
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alexselbyb.bsky.social
Alex Selby-Boothroyd
@alexselbyb.bsky.social
14K followers 1.4K following 2.4K posts
Head of data journalism at The Economist
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Alex Selby-Boothroyd @alexselbyb.bsky.social · Nov 18
Day 18 #30DayMapChallenge
I 3D-printed John Snow's 1854 cholera map of Soho. It took ages.
3D-printed map of Soho in 1854. Black marks on top of the buildings represent deaths from cholera caused by infected water from the Broad Street Pump (note the missing handle!). Top-down view. 3D-printed map of Soho in 1854. Black marks on top of the buildings represent deaths from cholera caused by infected water from the Broad Street Pump (note the missing handle!). Side view. 3D-printed map of Soho in 1854. Black marks on top of the buildings represent deaths from cholera caused by infected water from the Broad Street Pump (note the missing handle!). Framed, close-up. 3D-printed map of Soho in 1854. Black marks on top of the buildings represent deaths from cholera caused by infected water from the Broad Street Pump (note the missing handle!). Frame, "artful" shot.
Reposted by Alex Selby-Boothroyd
marisakabas.bsky.social
this is how every outlet should refer to X
Financial Times: Who’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter
January 6, 2026 at 5:11 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
wow, pangea is 114 years old today 🎂
gregpriest.bsky.social Greg Priest @gregpriest.bsky.social · 1h
OTD in 1912, Alfred Wegener delivered a lecture propounding the theory that our modern continents were formed by the splitting and drifting apart of an ancient supercontinent, which he named Pangea.

Due to his failure to offer a plausible mechanism, he was widely ridiculed.

🧠🗃️⚒️ 🧪 #HistSTM #PhilSci
Wegener's (1915) depiction of the breakup of Pangaea. (a) the Carboniferous, (b) the Eocene, (c) today.
January 6, 2026 at 5:11 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Question for everyone who put things off "until the new year": what are we talking here? Jan 31st? End of the quarter??
January 6, 2026 at 12:56 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Literally every time
Reponse from ChatGPT: "You’re absolutely right to call this out — and thank you for doing so. The short answer is: I was wrong"
January 6, 2026 at 11:34 AM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
A lovely detail in our review of The Night Manager
www.economist.com/culture/2026...
That first series, a hit in 2016, introduced Jonathan Pine, a British ex-soldier and night manager in upmarket hotels, played by Tom Hiddleston with a feline stride and misleading grin. In an atmosphere humid with omen and intrigue, he became embroiled in a shadow world of subterfuge and gun-running; his foe was the suavely wicked Richard Roper, “the worst man in the world” (and, in the book, a reader of The Economist, a villains often are).
January 5, 2026 at 5:28 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
memento morning
drlindseyfitz.bsky.social Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 1d
This elaborate alarm clock from the 19th century prompted people to think about the shortness of life. When the alarm bell chimed, a small card running up the skeleton’s spinal column retracted to make the jaw open and the eyes roll.

It's now at the Science Museum, London. #skystorians
A skeleton sitting atop a black coffin. The skeleton is leaning on a clock.
January 5, 2026 at 3:45 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
wait, *marco rubio* is going to run man utd?
January 5, 2026 at 2:28 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Happy Back-To-Work Day!!
January 5, 2026 at 9:13 AM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Liked this. Riz Ahmed was excellent, and it's the same director as the fantastic Hell or High Water (2016)
www.imdb.com/title/tt1153...
Relay (2024) ⭐ 7.0 | Action, Drama, Thriller
1h 52m | R
www.imdb.com
January 5, 2026 at 1:17 AM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
StackOverflow's Over
sungkim.bsky.social Sung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 2d
I guess StackOverflow is done.
January 4, 2026 at 10:43 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Convince friends you smoke 60-a-day by briefly touching turmeric
Very yellow fingers
January 4, 2026 at 8:23 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Lol
A tight offside decision goes Liverpool's way Should have cut his toenails
January 4, 2026 at 4:35 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Trump is Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose
January 4, 2026 at 12:43 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
These are not serious people
January 3, 2026 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Alex Selby-Boothroyd
shayan86.bsky.social
THREAD: I'll fact-check all the viral misinformation about the US military operation in Venezuela in this thread

This image, purporting to show the US military arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is AI-generated.

According to Google's SynthID detector, it was created using Google AI.
January 3, 2026 at 5:55 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Helping the kid revise for her mocks and never more glad that I put underfloor heating in my summerhouse (19°C in here, -2°C outside). Literally hothousing her.
My once-pristine summerhouse is now a map-making workshop/revision factory
January 3, 2026 at 6:03 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Venezusa
January 3, 2026 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Alex Selby-Boothroyd
bluser12.bsky.social
This person went on a buying spree over the past 24 hours. Fresh wallet. Only existed since Dec 27th and has only bet on Venezuela-related markets.

polymarket.com/@0x31a56e9E6...
January 3, 2026 at 7:49 AM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Does he think the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded for the calendar year of 2025?
January 3, 2026 at 12:27 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
"What is the charge? Having oil? Succulent Venezuelan oil?"
Democracy manifest
January 3, 2026 at 11:51 AM
Reposted by Alex Selby-Boothroyd
stephencollins.bsky.social
Forgot to post this one
[Scene is KEIR STARMER as FATHER CHRISTMAS in his factory, with RACHEL REEVES as an awkward-looking Head Elf] 1 FATHER KEIR: Well, well, well! [Elf Reeves is holding an enormous sack of letters] 2 FATHER KEIR: Look at all these letters of membership cancellation! ELF REEVES: More than ever this year 3 [Father Keir reads one out:] “Dear Father Keir I am writing to cancel my Labour Party membership…” Awww how sweet 4 “I have truly believed for 40 years, but now I’ve had enough.” 5 “Please please please this year can you deliver some policies that aren’t craven right wing bullshit?” 6 FATHER KEIR: Well, I think we know what to give this good boy don’t we? Elf Mahmood! 7 [Show SHABANA MAHMOOD as an elf poking her head round a doorway to afactory full of busy elves, above the door is a wooden sign reading CRAVEN RIGHTWING BULLSHIT FACTORY] ELF MAHMOOD: What. 8 FATHER KEIR: Do we have any performatively cruel immigration stuff left? 9 ELF MAHMOOD: We've got ‘stealing their belongings and a 20-year wait for settled status’…? 10 FATHER KEIR: In the sack, please! [Elves Mahmood and Reeves push the big sack into the sleigh as father Keir climbs in the driver’s seat] 11 And off we goooo! [He wooshes off into the snowy polar night] 12 [Cut to a person’s LIVING ROOM - a man and a woman are looking in their stockings - the man looks disappointed] WOMAN: Is it not what you wanted MAN: Not really, no [Ends]
January 2, 2026 at 11:16 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Gorgeous charts and a great story
beckydale.bsky.social Becky Dale @beckydale.bsky.social · 4d
New record year for renewable electricity in Britain - thanks especially to strong solar output.

Read our analysis of 2025 here www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Two part graphic showing the daily contribution of solar in Great Britain’s electricity. The top half is a single tile chart arranged in 30-minute blocks from midnight on left to 23:59 on right with each row representing one day and ordered top-to-bottom from 1 January to 31 December 2025. Blocks are shaded by strength of generation share. In 2025, more than a dozen blocks are dark orange to show share above 40 percent. Contribution in summer days is longer and generally stronger than in winter. The second part of the graphic repeats the format as a small multiple with one fart for each year from 2013 to 2024. Each year increases in strength over that period but 2025 is the greatest contributor overall.
January 2, 2026 at 12:32 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
I wrote that!
Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally saying "I wrote that!" when Carrie Fisher quotes one of his articles
January 1, 2026 at 8:22 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Nice
Google Trends chart showing a spike in search interest in Here Comes Your Man by Pixies
January 1, 2026 at 4:13 PM
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Lot of fireworks tonight. Over 300 days til Bonfires Night, people!
December 31, 2025 at 11:00 PM