Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️

@thejeffbyrnes

🎸 🎻 bassist 👨🏻‍💻 SRE manager @ athenahealth 🏗️ Steering Committee member & co-founder of Somerville YIMBY 🎮 video gamer 👔 snappy dresser 📚 avid reader 🗺️ Somerville, MA, USA

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Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· 5d

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Quincy Jones (20) The Urge (20) Sonny Clark Trio (19) Jimmy Smith (13) Miles Tackett (11). #myweekcounted 180 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm-butialabs.bsky.social

Collage of photos of the bands Quincy Jones, The Urge, Sonny Clark Trio, Jimmy Smith, Miles Tackett

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· 12d

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown (28) The Rhythm Future Quartet (22) Pat Metheny (13) Mtn Lion (12) Art Tatum (11). #myweekcounted 195 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm-butialabs.bsky.social

Collage of photos of the bands Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown, The Rhythm Future Quartet, Pat Metheny, Mtn Lion, Art Tatum

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· 18d

Except it’s not; we’ve piles of evidence that despite its costs, an undergrad degree will net you _way_ more income over the course of your life than otherwise. www.ppic.org/publication/...

Dot plot titled “College graduates generally outearn high school graduates,” showing annual wage and salary income at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles for six education levels. Median income rises steadily with education: about $30K for less than a high school diploma, $38K for a high school diploma, $45K for some college, $50K for an associate degree, $65K for a bachelor's degree, and $90K for an advanced degree. The gap between 25th and 75th percentile earners also widens at higher education levels, from roughly $25K-$45K at the lowest tier to $75K-$200K

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· 18d

A quick search turned this up, which goes to show that we already have the ability to constrain gov't speech b/c it's not protected by 1A. knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-...

When Do the Government's Lies Violate the Constitution?
The government’s lies violate the Constitution when they deprive the government’s targets of their constitutional rights as effectively as the government’s action. Think, for instance, of law enforcement officers’ lies about the existence of a search warrant (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/391/543/) to trick their targets into permitting a search of their home. Or governmental lies about the consequences of exercising constitutional rights—like police officers’ false claims (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/372/528/) that a suspect’s child would be taken away from her unless she waived her rights to a lawyer and to remain silent. Or prosecutors’ lies through fake subpoenas that falsely stated (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/19-30197/19-30197-2020-04-21.html) that “[a] fine and imprisonment may be imposed for failure to obey this notice” to deceive crime victims and potential witnesses into coming forward when they otherwise chose not to.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· 19d

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Incubus (52) Jalen Ngonda (15) The Jimi Hendrix Experience (14) Cory Wong (12) Parlor Greens (11). #myweekcounted 190 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm-butialabs.bsky.social

Collage of photos of the bands Incubus, Jalen Ngonda, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cory Wong, Parlor Greens

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· 26d

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Incubus (41) Jimmy Smith (12) Wes Montgomery (9) Airto (7) Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (2). #myweekcounted 99 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm-butialabs.bsky.social

Collage of photos of the bands Incubus, Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Airto, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jul 2

I didn't say it had to be calculated by a machine. Though the colloquial definition is that it's automated decisions by computers. Here's the dictionary one. Not sure how a recipe involves calculations to arrive at a solved problem, though I suppose "food I can eat" is a kind of problem.

al•go•rithm l'alga,riTHam I
noun a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer: a basic algorithm for division.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 15

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 3

I mean, unprompted, you started off with this. No mention of Nazi Germany, just “Germans”. I figured you meant right now, since the context broadly is “punish today’s Americans for the sins of their ancestors”. Can you see where I got a little confused & worried about what you were saying?

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 3

Bud, you _literally_ said that when I asked.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· May 30

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jan 8

Coming back to this b/c I saw something that you’d probably appreciate seeing: xcancel.com/tristenpalor...

@TristenPalori on X.com, on 2026-01-08 @ 4:07 AM UTC, posted:
“Multifamily developer told me he's planning big Austin projects for 2026.

Surprised me.

I said: "Why? Rents are down 17%, vacancy is 15%. Construction costs are still high. Why build now?"

He said: "By the time we deliver in 2027-2028, existing inventory will be absorbed and new supply will have dried up."

I checked the data:

He's absolutely right.

Austin multifamily permits:
- For 2024: 1,580
- For 2025: 41

97% collapse. Holy....

The construction pipeline just fell off a cliff.

Developers starting now deliver into 2027-2028 with almost zero competition.

My guess is he's timing it perfectly.”

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jan 8

Here’s real wages over the same period for full-time workers, showing wages growing over the same period. Also, during the Biden admin, wages for the lowest earners grew the most. fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgr...

FRED graph of employed full time: median usual weekly real earnings: wage and salary workers: 16 years and over, from 2014-01-01 to 2025-07-01.

The graph shows a trend from about $335 to $375, and is inflation-adjusted, i.e. “real” dollars.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Nov 12

I cannot encourage reading this essay enough. The title will make sense once you’re partway through, and this set of grafs stood out in a huge way.

Our culture tends to confuse power with strength, but it’s easy to tell them apart. Consider a person in a forklift. They can lift heavy things by pressing a button – but no one would say that’s the same as being strong. To build muscle, you have to push against a force that resists you. You have to move through resistance.

The same is true for strength of character.

If you eliminate all resistance, if you cannot tolerate dissent, if no one dares to give you negative feedback – then you will become frail, and weak. Spending all day talking to smart, brilliant people, who are afraid of ever contradicting you is a recipe for melting your brain.

You become detached from reality.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 23

Especially since here’s the city calendar, showing Council is meeting twice in July, including July 24. Pretty easy to think Council is meeting then when it’s on the calendar! We should do a better job of not posting meetings that aren’t happening, so we don’t confuse folks.

Screenshot of Somerville MA city council calendar for July 2025, showing two council meetings, one on July 24, 2025

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 20

A goose in the top frame asks “what bad ideas?”
In the bottom frame the goose is chasing a person in a puffer coat asking “what bad ideas motherfucker?”

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 18

Once again: the poor did not, and do not, drive into Manhattan. It’s a tariff on the rich. www.reddit.com/r/nyc/commen... www.replicahq.com/post/whos-pa...

Takeaway #3: On average, those who commute by car into the Congestion Zone are wealthier and less diverse than those who take transit. Compared to those who take transit, those who drive into the zone have an average household income 11% higher ($189K vs. $171K) and median income 15% higher ($136K vs. $114K).

Pie chart of outer-borough commuters, sliced by method of commute, next to a bar chart of outer-borough workers who travel into Manhattan, sliced by income.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 15

Principal Skinner from The Simpsons in two frames, top & bottom. On top, he has his hand on his chin thinking, with the caption “is the military that are escalating things?” And on the bottom, he’s put his hand down & appears clear of mind, with the caption “no, the protesters are at fault”. This is sarcasm.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 4

Fred from Scooby-Doo, labeled “NIMBYs”, unmasks a villain labeled “BPDA” in the top frame, but after being unmasked is labeled “Mayor Wu”

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jun 2

For example, here’s US Census data showing how overwhelmingly the US rental market is fragmented among landlords. There _are_ markets that are strongly captured by larger LLs (Atlanta, infamously), but that’s quite rare. Again, Boston’s got over 1400 diff landlords operating here!

Bar chart of “most landlords are individuals who own just a few units”, showing “individual investors” are 14.1M in size, primarily owning 1–4 units.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· May 27

I am not sure how else to understand you saying that “liberal democracy is not the same as liberalism” than you refuting that liberal democracy is based on the tenets of liberalism.

jango.bsky.social posts, saying “liberal democracy and liberalism are not actually the same thing. You’re pretty smug for a guy who does’t actually know what he’s talking about”

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· May 13

Somebody unblocked, and I was able to screenshot the original exchange and hoooooo boy that’s some ugly nativism. Straight up “your opinion doesn’t count if you weren’t born here”. I just don’t know how else to read that, no matter how much good faith I try to ascribe to it.

Screenshot of an exchange between @vodkasnowflake & @meelar:

@vodkasnowflake: just curious, are you from NYC
@meelar: Yup, I live in Astoria. You?
@vodkasnowflake: I mean, have you been here all your life
@meelar: Why would that matter?
@vodkasnowflake: because I want to know if the person to whom I'm talking is a longtime resident familiar with what good housing is here in NYC or a transplant that is simply just wowed by the development of a shiny new

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· May 12

> “…throughout the county, the average rent dropped from $2,338 in 2023 to $2,170 in 2024, a drop of slightly over 7%. In San Diego, the average rent fell from $2,266 in Spring 2023 to $2,189 in Spring 2024, a decline of over 3%.” www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/m...

San Diego County's vacancy rate climbed to 6.36% in Spring 2024, up from 3.9% in Spring 2023. Within the region, the city of San Diego also experienced a rise in its vacancy rate to 4.22%, compared to 2.64% last year.

According to the rental housing association, the increase in vacancies can be attributed to the addition of new properties to the market and higher than usual vacancy rates in older properties.

When there are more homes on the market, rent prices tend to fall. Fittingly, throughout the county, the average rent dropped from $2,338 in 2023 to $2,170 in 2024, a drop of slightly over 7%. In San Diego, the average rent fell from $2,266 in Spring 2023 to $2,189 in Spring 2024, a decline of over 3%.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Apr 17

Like, here is one of the national YIMBY organizations, YIMBY Action, emailing me about reducing or removing parking minimums. This is a main plank of the YIMBY movement, and to say otherwise is utter bullshit & totally foolish.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Mar 8

Not aware of one, but useful to note that a Starter Pack is different from a List on Bluesky, so if you want to make one, mind that! You can make a List here (see pic)

Screenshot of Bsky.app, with the menu expanded, and the “Lists” item circled in red

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jan 21

Damn nice collection! Here’s my setup.

Jeff Byrnes’s “stereo nook”, with a large bird of paradise plant on the left, then a small table with a white turntable & integrated amp on it, then a floor-to-ceiling white bookshelf, with roughly 600 vinyl records in it, plus two bookshelf speakers, a LEGO Ecto-1, a LEGO Saturn V rocket, and some miscellaneous storage bins on the bottom shelf.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jan 13

To be fair, Beverly Hills is an enclave wholly surrounded by the City of LA, not a distant suburb. It really would be better if it was a neighborhood of the City, not a separate locality.

Google Maps screenshot of part Los Angeles, with its municipal boundaries shown with dotted red lines. The enclave of Beverly Hills, a separate municipality, is centered to show its nature as a fully-surrounded enclave.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Jan 3

Stacy, _you_ misunderstood _me_ and now you’re calling me a dumbass? I even replied at the time pointing out your misunderstanding, and you breezed right on by & replied w/ an admonishment (which read condescending after your misunderstanding & lack of acknowledgement) to donate to public media.

Bret: The problem I have is that I don't want 100 different subscriptions but I do want to read or listen to quality content from a lot of different sources.

Jeff: I regret to tell you that compensating different sources for their time & energy requires multiple transactions. Such is how markets & trade have always worked 🤷🏻‍♂️ I put them all on the same credit card so it’s easy to keep an eye, and use bank software that groks recurring transactions. It helps!

Stacy: Reporters don't compensate sources. Get outta here.

Jeff: Er, yes, I know; I was saying “sources” in the same way that Bret was, as in “source of news or content”.

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Dec 1

Post the 10 films you’ve seen that are least popular across the rest of Letterboxd 🎥 (Sort by “popularity” & scroll to the bottom)

Screenshot of Jeff Byrnes’s least popular movie watches: Flame & The Arrow, Eddie Izzard, Game of Death 2, Mutsnt Chronicles, Bartleby, Apex, Double Wedding, Hell’s Hinges, Alien Raiders, Miss Sharon Jones!, Occupation: Rainfall, Treasure Island (2012), The Dustwalker, and Everything is a Remix

Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️@thejeffbyrnes· Nov 23

If you see this, post a dog!