Jeff Byrnes 🚰 🏙️

@thejeffbyrnes.com

1402 Followers 491 Following

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

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.
Justin Timberlake, in a jacket & tie, looking directly into the camera with a disappointed expression, with the caption “I’m still waiting”
Ross Geller from the TV show FRIENDS, looking to the left of the camera with a nonplussed expression, breaks into a slow clap.
@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.”
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.
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.
Screenshot of Somerville MA city council calendar for July 2025, showing two council meetings, one on July 24, 2025
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?”
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).
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.
Fred from Scooby-Doo, labeled “NIMBYs”, unmasks a villain labeled “BPDA” in the top frame, but after being unmasked is labeled “Mayor Wu”
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.
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”
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
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%.
Screenshot of a YIMBY Action email newsletter, “Less Cars = More Housing”. The hero image says “People > Parking, help us end parking minimums!” The body text reads: “This year, 9 states across the country have legislation that would reduce or remove parking minimums, allowing for more homes! Minimum parking requirements dictate that homes and apartments must be built with a certain number of parking spots. These rules frequently require much more parking than is needed. Parking spaces are expensive to build, often as much as 20% of construction costs. This cost gets passed on to residents, often increasing the rent or mortgage of an apartment or house by $200-$500 per month.”
Screenshot of Bsky.app, with the menu expanded, and the “Lists” item circled in red
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.
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.
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”.
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
A black lab/pit bull mix dog, in a red harness, looks at the camera while sitting down on a sidewalk in front of a low stone wall with his tongue hanging out “smiling”.