Chris von Simson
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chrisvonsimson.bsky.social
Chris von Simson
@chrisvonsimson.bsky.social
Data, Analytics, Performance Management, but first the People, second the Process, then the Technology.
Family. Wonder. Joy. Ecology. Community. Gardening (7b).
Born at 323 ppm CO2, 1326ppb CH4
I use Lists here for my interests. Photo is dawn in Montana.
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Parenting is effortful.

There are 168 hours in each week.

Parents of children in the first 3 years of life provide an average of 156 hours of care a week.

Allowing parents to parent less enables them to parent better.
www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
January 2, 2026 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Without intervention, higher income is strongly associated with higher car dependence across ~800 cities; doubling income ~37% more car journeys.

Electrifying a car-dependent city still means congestion, space, safety risk, and asphalt eating your budget.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
December 30, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
The Embassy staff of Germany, France and the United Kingdom sing Schedryk in the Kyiv underground.
Wonderful!
December 24, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Eating the last tomato from the garden in northern Virginia: December 13th. #gardening Variety: "Early Girl" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_G...
December 12, 2025 at 2:24 PM
It can be hard to trust a commercial provider, if their business model is exploitation of that trust.
Same product. Same store. Same time. But on Instacart, different customers may see different prices.
My story on a fascinating new experiment from @groundwork.bsky.social & @consumerreports.org and how the idea of a single price is breaking down in the digital age:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/b...
Same Product, Same Store, but on Instacart, Prices Might Differ
www.nytimes.com
December 9, 2025 at 3:39 PM
I'm so happy to see @laurenhlb.bsky.social and @hamiltonproject.org here. Their work on education has *radically improved* the perspective of the high school kids I know.
Does it matter at what age a child experienced the COVID shock for subsequent learning?

Eileen Powell and I have taken a first stab by looking at math and English proficiency by grade cohorts. The answer: yep.

www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/...
December 9, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
A new record - on 5 December wind power produced enough electricity for 3/4 of UK homes

At 23.8GW it meant that even during winter peak demand, it was still providing nearly half the country's power needs

Still a way to go though....

www.edie.net/uk-soars-pas...
UK soars past wind power generation record for second time in two months - edie
Great Britain’s maximum wind generation record was broken on Friday, 5 December, the National Energy System Operator (NESO) has confirmed.
www.edie.net
December 9, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Tired: flat streets

Wired: Speed humps, tables, etc

Inspired: Speed *dips*, because modern clearance and suspension makes taking speed bumps at speed no big deal, but dips still make drivers worry they'll damage their car, and that has the highest level of encouraging compliance
December 8, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Further evidence that widespread covid vaccination is better for everybody.
A study on 1.7 million people in Hong Kong shows superior hybrid immunity to Covid in people who got vaccinated before infection vs. people who got infected first. "Our findings are a direct rebuttal to arguments for natural immunity," the authors write. doi.org/10.1016/j.va...
Redirecting
doi.org
December 8, 2025 at 1:03 AM
I was thinking about documentaries, and their stunning power (thanks @petermiles.bsky.social ) and suddenly remembered this utterly arresting segment.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjI...
Watching now gives me chills as we reckon with the beginning of AI.
December 6, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Interesting. Tough compare with "the original". www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWKN...
Kenneth Clark: Civilisation (1969) EP01 ⟩ “The Skin of Our Teeth”
YouTube video by High Ontology
www.youtube.com
December 6, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
The Nobel Prize committee should announce the World Cup winner tomorrow
December 6, 2025 at 4:29 AM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
OTD in 1994 The Budapest Memorandum was signed. It remains the most spectacular waste of paper, ink, and geopolitical optimism in the history of humankind.

​The deal was simple: Ukraine disarms. Russia, the UK, and the USA promised, in return, to guarantee our security and territorial integrity.
December 5, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Multiple large natural experiments have documented Shingles vaccine is linked with ~20-25% reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. A new report today adds to that and extends the to slowing the progression of dementia @cellcellpress.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
December 2, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
The most dangerous
December 2, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
This article provides more data showing how easy it is to manipulate humans on social media.

These researchers rerouted the algorithm on Twitter to push some users toward “antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity”.

It only took 1 week to elicit changes that used to take 3 years.
Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization
Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used thi...
www.science.org
November 28, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Remarkable story of a Georgia high school team who used CRISPR to make a rapid diagnostic test strip for Lyme disease, speeding dx from 2 weeks to days
www.cbsnews.com/news/teens-m...
Teens may have come up with a new way to detect, treat Lyme disease using CRISPR gene editing
To compete at iGEM, a sort of science Olympics, teens at a Georgia high school set their sights on finding a better way to detect and treat Lyme disease. Their approach uses CRISPR gene editing.
www.cbsnews.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:06 AM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard
December 2, 2025 at 8:48 AM
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Expect to see the Four Pillars of Disordered Doubt deployed in any party debates about policy and leadership.
November 30, 2025 at 11:39 AM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Nepal has become an electric vehicle leader - 80% of cars imported in December were battery electric.

This is leapfrogging par excellence.
November 29, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Right folks, let's get this over the line 😀

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...
November 29, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
I love this idea. My dad died when I was three and I had to figure out simple things like how to tie a tie and even shave on my own. Please retweet this because I know there are a lot of kids out there who could use some help with day to day life.
November 26, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
Rachel Reeves says there’s a “hole” in the public finances.

A new decade-long Brexit study explains it:

a 6–8% hit to GDP – that's £180bn-£240bn a year – means less tax, less investment and less money for everything else.

Brexit made Britain poorer. Much poorer.
New: Boris Johnson’s ‘Brexit Titanic success’ was half right
Nearly ten years on, the first full assessment of Brexit confirms what millions warned: Britain made itself poorer
eastangliabylines.co.uk
November 24, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Reposted by Chris von Simson
SUSTKEVER says age of scaling is over; it’s “back to the age of research.”

“.. We are in a world where there are more companies than ideas by quite a bit.” 👀

www.dwarkesh.com/p/ilya-sutsk...
Ilya Sutskever – We're moving from the age of scaling to the age of research
“These models somehow just generalize dramatically worse than people. It's a very fundamental thing.”
www.dwarkesh.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:23 PM