Sol Yates
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oddish3.github.io
Sol Yates
@oddish3.github.io
190 followers 1.2K following 10 posts
Research Associate (Manchester Centre for Health Economics), University of Manchester
🔗 https://solyates.uk/
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Reposted by Sol Yates
brenttoderian.bsky.social
“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.”

Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability & quality of life.

Common sense.

Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.
Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.
Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.
www.washingtonpost.com
July 29, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Sol Yates
owenboswarva.bsky.social
Morgan McSweeney (UK Labour's Dominic Cummings knock-off) is reportedly experimenting with 'synthetic voters' – "essentially fake focus groups of AI voters who can tell ministers more quickly and cheaply what the public thinks of policies" www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-...

#govtech #govcomms
McSweeney is exercised by the fact that the civil service has 7,000 communications officers, 4,500 of whom work for arm's-length bodies and quangos and frequently attack what the government is trying to do. Like Dominic Cummings, he is enthused by the possibilities of technology to speed change, such as AI in the NHS or gamers being hired by the Ministry of Defence to fly drones. He is now experimenting with 'synthetic voters' – essentially fake focus groups of AI voters who can tell ministers more quickly and cheaply what the public thinks of policies. In the last week he has been reading The Technological Republic by Alexander Karp, co-founder of the tech firm Palantir, which argues that the West’s technical dominance over the past century has been down to collaboration between governments and tech firms.
July 3, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Sol Yates
trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social
Someone needs to tell these guys about supply-induced demand. #healthpolicy

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Streeting sets out digital overhaul of NHS centred on ‘doctor in your pocket’ app
Health secretary banks on resulting efficiencies to reduce number of frontline workers in 10-year health plan
www.theguardian.com
July 3, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
andrew.heiss.phd
Ooh, @posit.co's Positron is no longer in beta as of this week(!), and it recently added support for DuckDB databases in the Connections Pane positron.posit.co/connections-... - any db connection you add with {connections} shows up there—this is magical! #rstats
Screenshot from Positron showing code that connects to a database, and then highlights the connection in a Connections Pane and shows the data in a Data Explorer tab Here's the code: library(dplyr) # Connect with {connections}, which automatically adds this to the panel con <- connections::connection_open(duckdb::duckdb(), ":memory:") # Or do it manually with {DBI} # con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb(), ":memory:") # connections::connection_view(con) # Add some stuff to the database copy_to(con, penguins, name = "penguins", overwrite = TRUE) copy_to(con, gapminder::gapminder, name = "gapminder", overwrite = TRUE) # Get stuff out of the database adelie_query <- tbl(con, I("penguins")) |> filter(species == "Adelie") # Check it out! It's SQL! show_query(adelie_query) # Actually run the query penguins_from_db <- adelie_query |> collect() penguins_from_db connections::connection_close(con) # Or this: # DBI::dbDisconnect(con)
July 3, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
wildwoods.bsky.social
If anyone needs more empirical evidence that climate change is driving the uptick in extreme wildfire activity across western NAmerica, this is a good illustration.
mikeflannigan.bsky.social Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Jun 26
Updated figure from Jain et al. showing global extreme fire weather trends since 1979. Metrics are global 95th percentile of annual Fire Weather Index (FWI), Initial Spread Index (ISI) and the Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD). The trend is clear - we are seeing more extreme fire weather due to warming.
graphs showing fire weather index (FWI), initial spread index (ISI) and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) 95th percentile trends 1979 to 2024. Updated from Jain et al. 2022 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01224-1
June 26, 2025 at 5:03 PM
oddish3.github.io
stephenturner.us Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · Jun 16
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872 92 figures in the main text!
June 16, 2025 at 3:51 PM
oddish3.github.io
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
Proactive case-finding and risk-stratification in people at risk of chronic liver disease in Greater Manchester: a cost-effectiveness analysis
Background: We urgently need innovative strategies to combat a growing epidemic of chronic liver disease (CLD). ID-LIVER was a collaborative project aiming to improve detection of reversible-stage CLD...
www.medrxiv.org
June 3, 2025 at 7:25 AM
Reposted by Sol Yates
gabrielzucman.bsky.social
A long long time ago, in a far away galaxy... the US used to tax the rich
May 23, 2025 at 8:19 PM
oddish3.github.io
A alpha version of an R package to estimate differences-in-differences with a continuous treatment is now available from the authors
bcallaway11.github.io/contdid/inde...
May 31, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Sol Yates
nicolakellywrites.bsky.social
Net migration has halved, meaning the government didn't need to axe the social care route, or double the time for settlement, or create a funding crisis among universities.

Hundreds of thousands of lives impacted because of the politics.
britishfuture.bsky.social British Future @britishfuture.bsky.social · May 22
Net migration has fallen by almost 50% according to today's new ONS figures, at 431,000 for the year ending Dec 2024, down from 860,000 for the same period a year earlier.
It has fallen by 297,000 since the last ONS figures 6 months ago, for YE June 2024. Reaction to follow.
May 22, 2025 at 8:52 AM
oddish3.github.io
youtu.be/OhA3T60PtSM?...
Is ALL cooking "ultra-processed" food?
YouTube video by Adam Ragusea
youtu.be
May 21, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
mche-uom.bsky.social
The Manchester Centre for Health Economics has three new Research Associate positions in Health Economics (£37,174 - £41,671 p/a). These are 24-month fixed-term contracts from July 2025 to June 2027.

For full details and to apply, visit
www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
Research Associate in Health Economics:Oxford Road
www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk
May 14, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
dieworkwear.bsky.social
I want to give credit to my editors, who asked me to write 2,000 words on why Andrew Tate wears such tight pants. I submitted 3,700. They asked if I really needed to start with a story about the industrial revolution and I said "yes, absolutely don't cut."

www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
Why So Many MAGA Men Look Like Joe Rogan
The slim-fit uniform of grindset entrepreneurs and right wing podcasters can be traced back decades.
www.bloomberg.com
April 22, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
naelshiab.bsky.social
Here's the link. www.code-like-a-journalist.com/en/git-and-g...
What is Git and how to use it?
In this lesson, we learn the basics of using Git.
www.code-like-a-journalist.com
April 15, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
olimould.bsky.social
The UK car industry contributes £22bn to the economy and employs c 35k people.

Universities contribute £265bn and employ nearly 400k, over 10x as much.

Yet he seems ok to let that sector implode.
adambienkov.bsky.social Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · Apr 7
"My choice in these volatile times is backing British brilliance," says Keir Starmer, who promises to deliver "British cars for British workers"
April 9, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Sol Yates
luongthuha.bsky.social
I’m happy to share our new working paper, "Are Female-Dominated Cancers Underfunded?", co-authored with my incredible doctoral advisors, @juditvall.bsky.social and @lidiafarre.bsky.social . This paper has evoked a range of emotions, but we hope it sheds light on an important topic.
April 7, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
healthequitynorth.bsky.social
Following the announcement of the #SpringStatement by Chancellor of the Exchequer, our Academic Co-Directors @profkepickett.bsky.social @profbambra.bsky.social @lukemunford.bsky.social & Prof David Taylor-Robinson have issued a joint statement in response www.healthequitynorth.co.uk/health-equit...
Health Equity North directors respond to Spring Statement - Health Equity North
Following the announcement of today’s (March 26, 2025) Spring Statement by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves MP, Health Equity North’s four Academic Co-Directors have issued a joint statement ...
www.healthequitynorth.co.uk
March 26, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
felly500.bsky.social
bettercities.substack.com/p/congestion...

Congestion Pricing

Traffic down
Pollution down
Public transport up
Business impact positive
Safety improved
Congestion Pricing is a Policy Miracle
Which is exactly why Trump wants to get rid of it
bettercities.substack.com
March 24, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social
Brilliant piece by Siva Anandaciva from the Kings Fund on the implications of abolishing NHS England.

www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-...
The Reshaping Of NHS National Bodies Has Only Just Started. How Will It Finish? | The King's Fund
Following the announcement that NHS England is to be abolished, Siva Anandaciva considers the implications and why at the moment there are more questions than answers.
www.kingsfund.org.uk
March 15, 2025 at 6:10 AM
Reposted by Sol Yates
emilyliu.me
zuck wearing a shirt that says "aut zuck aut nihil" jay graber, bluesky ceo, wearing a shirt that says "mundus sine caesaribus"
March 10, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
drsarahem.bsky.social
Written for Scotland, applies globally.
“Good social care is the difference between an individual being able to choose how they live their life and having that choice stripped away. It ensures that human rights are not just a theoretical construct but a lived reality. A society that fails to invest in social care is a society that perpetuates inequality, particularly for women, disabled people, and those in poverty, who are disproportionately affected by the gaps in the system.”
February 20, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Reposted by Sol Yates
pkrugman.bsky.social
As expected paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-to-n...
Trump To New York: Drop Dead
Why he wants to kill a hugely successful policy
paulkrugman.substack.com
February 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
oddish3.github.io
“As in Ricardo’s time, the impact of automation on workers today is more complex than an automatic linkage from higher productivity to better wages”

economics.mit.edu/sites/defaul...
economics.mit.edu
February 7, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
jeffjarvis.bsky.social
.@theguardian.com to the rescue of journalism, calling TrumpMusk's ongoing totalitarian insurrection what it is: a #COUP.
Do read. From the Guardian, it's always a gift link:
The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s power grab: a coup veiled by chaos
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s power grab: a coup veiled by chaos | Editorial
Editorial: The US president is testing the limits of executive authority, sidelining Congress and enriching allies while destabilising the global economy
www.theguardian.com
February 4, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Sol Yates
instrumenthull.bsky.social
TIL Abraham Wald, who famously worked on selection bias in assessing aircraft damage, died in a plane crash :(
January 29, 2025 at 6:49 PM