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Neil Vincent

@syntenicman.bsky.social
29 followers 229 following 47 posts

A retired self opinionated old British codger with a background in the Life Sciences, but also interested in multiple other totally unrelated topics.

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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Had our 1st full year operating a heat pump at the end of May. Follow the link to our Substack post for a deep dive on what we learned, but basically it reduced our energy spend by 1/3rd, reduced our CO2 emissions by over 60% and boosted our property’s saleability. substack.com/@neilvincent...
substack.com
AIRA Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) - Results after one full year of operation
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” W. Edwards Deming
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Central Bylines @centralbylines.co.uk · 15/02/2026
👏👏👏
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Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Last night, I got properly "doored" for the first time. A car in the road to my right paused, and the rear left passenger threw open his door without looking, right into my path. I ended up on the floor, badly winded but ok. If you don't know what the "Dutch reach" is, NOW is the time to learn.
Illustration of the Dutch Reach. You should reach across with your non-door-side hand to open a car door, because it forces you to look behind you.
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Carbon Brief @carbonbrief.org · 30/01/2026
NEW – Factcheck: What it really costs to heat a home in the UK with a heat pump | @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org Read here:
buff.ly
Factcheck: What it really costs to heat a home in the UK with a heat pump - Carbon Brief
This factcheck explains how heat pumps can cut bills, what the latest data shows about potential savings
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Russ Jones @russincheshire.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
It's her own fault, I have zero sympathy for Michelle Mone, but she's in the headlines now because she's always chased the headlines. However, she is the tip of the VIP lane iceberg, most of them connected to the Tory Party. Utter corruption. Read these 8 pages from The Decade In Tory 1/2
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Rob Bryher @robbryher.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
I don't want to build Starmer's Britain: afraid, capital-obsessed and centralised. I want to grow our movement: bold, people-orientated and localised. Join.greenparty.org.uk
join.greenparty.org.uk
Join the Green Party
Join the Green Party from just £6 a year. Become a member today - join the only party standing up for people and planet.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
A little bit of good news from Hawaiʻi.
khon2.com
Lahaina’s historic Banyan Tree Park could re-open in several months
Nearly two years after the devastating wildfires swept through Lahaina and Kula, one of Lahaina’s most well-known landmarks has made a significant comeback.
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
I just signed this petition calling for better cooperation with the EU on the environment. Will you add your name, too? www.europeanmovement.co.uk/uk-eu-enviro...
europeanmovement.co.uk
Tell The Government: Strengthen UK-EU Environmental Cooperation
Climate change and environmental problems don't respect borders. The UK and EU must work together to protect our shared environment, tackle the climate crisis, and preserve biodiversity for future gen...
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Zoë Garbett @zoegarbett.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
What's that? Another Green byelection win in London! That's the 4th in the last 10 months! Overjoyed to welcome Tamasin Rhymes as the newest Green Councillor. Thank you to everyone who voted Green!
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
We have 3 years before we burn through the carbon budget for 1.5°C World leaders promised action in 2015. Since then: 🔥 Record fossil fuel use 🌲 More deforestation 📈 Rising emissions This isn’t a lack of solutions. It’s a lack of will. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, top scientists warn - BBC News
The Earth could be doomed to breach a key climate target in as little as three years, scientists warn.
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
If you have solar PV and a battery but still use gas for heating then this is the elephant in the room. Gas fired CH is likely still your household’s largest contribution to carbon emissions. Plot 1. Our 2024 actual. Plot 2. Prediction based on our new Aira #AirSourceHeatPump.
Plot 1 shows our house consumed a humongous 14.9MWh of gas in 2024 & 1.4MWh of grid leckie vs 2.8 MWh of total generated leckie from our 14 year old 3.15 kWp PV array. In May we got an Aira ASHP installed. Aira guarantee a SCOP of 4, which means it’s 400% efficient over a full seasonal cycle. By comparison our old gas boiler was about 79% efficient. Plugging those numbers into a calculation based on our 2024 heat demand results in plot 2. It’s an additional 4.3 MWh of leckie consumption but this is substantially less than the gas required last year and a lot of it could now come from renewables. The proof of the pudding is of course in the eating so I look forward to reporting on the 1st year of operation in June next year!
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 13/05/2025
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, posted photos on Sunday of himself and his grandchildren swimming in a contaminated Washington creek where swimming is not allowed because it is used for sewer runoff.
nytimes.com
RFK Jr. Swims in Washington Creek That Flows With Sewage and Bacteria
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Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
"In December last year, Resolute 1850 Ltd was incorporated in the UK. With a thinktank soon to be launched and funds from MAGA, American Big Tech and the US religious right already pledged, it seeks to use Reform as a vessel to bring Project 2025-style policies to the UK." 🤬
yorkshirebylines.co.uk
‘Resolute 1850’: Reform UK Ltd’s MAGA plan to turn Britain into Little America
Right-wing US interests are pushing a plan to bend the UK to their will, ‘DOGE’-style – in Farage’s Reform UK they have an eager little helper
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Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️ @spahn711.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
One year ago tonight, the night sky wow'd much of the planet with dancing colors in what was one of the best aurora displays of the last two decades. This was the scene all the way down on the freakin' Oklahoma/Texas border that night! Even had overhead pillars. Let's do that again soon, yeah?
The aurora illuminates the night sky over a lake along the OK/TX border. Stars shine through a sky completely filled with colors of pink, purple, red, and green.A photo looking straight up at purple and red pillars along the OK/TX border.Red pillars overhead looking SOUTH from the OK/TX border. The aurora illuminates the night sky over a lake along the OK/TX border. Stars shine through a sky completely filled with colors of pink, purple, red, and green. Bright pillars are on the horizon.
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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
I may be one of the only 44-year-olds in the country with a father who served in the Second World War. Wrote this a couple of years ago on how he and his generation sacrificed not just their lives, but their youth. www.thetimes.com/world/russia...
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Richard @ukverified.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Now we know where Sir Keir Starmer's carbon capture plan came from, via dodgy dossier provided by Saudi oil lobbyist, Sir Tony Blair? euroweeklynews.com/2016/04/29/t...
euroweeklynews.com
Tony Blair unmasked as chief lobbyist for Saudi oil firm
FLYING somewhat under the radar since his absurdist stint as Middle East peace envoy, Tony Blair has resurfaced as a key broker in a booming nexus of Chinese and Saudi oil companies.
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Spring has sprung!
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Hard to believe it’s mid April in the UK and 23 Celsius in the sun. Pictures from an idyllic walk through the countryside near #comptonVerney and #combroke Warwickshire UK earlier today
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
This is what passes for a perfect solar generation curve on our UK Midlands south facing 3.15 kWp solar PV array. We usually see the earliest +20 kWh day at the start of May, but was on the 6th April & is the earliest we’ve seen in 14 years We’ve had getting on for 2 weeks of sunny days now.
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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
“So unbelievably stupid, incompetent and insane.”
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
I’ve just started my latest 1:48 scale aircraft modelling project. Somewhat back to front reading of the kit destructions means I’ve started with these. What do you think the aircraft is?
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LeithMotive @leithmotive.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Hang on, that full transcript seems to indicate they deliberately targeted civilians? Isn't that a war crime?
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
A recent #plasticmodelling build. RAF Red Arrows Bae Hawk T Mk1 based on the Trumpeter 1:48 scale kit. Not a bad kit, but the incorrect wing fences need sorting out and the pre WW2 era RAF roundel decals supplied by Trumpeter had to be replaced.
A dynamic flight pose seems entirely appropriate for a display aircraft. Made the model’s custom stand out of an oak off cut with Perspex rod jet wash support through the jet pipe. Model rotates freely around the rod to allowing the model to be posed in various roll attitudes. The arrow decals provided for the underside needed some adjustment as they don’t extend fully to a point ahead of the dorsal tank as supplied. Airbrake is posed in the fully open position as often seen during display aerobatics. Had to add a 3D printed resin pilot figure for this in flight model. Fully kitted out in the red arrows red flight suit and a red arrows helmet complete with arrow logo.
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Bylines Network @bylinesnetwork.co.uk · 08/03/2025
Approaching 70,000 views in around 48 hours...... Is Donald Trump a Russian agent? Donald Trump’s unshakeable admiration for Vladimir Putin continues to raise eyebrows. Does Putin have a hold over Trump? @anthonybylines.bsky.social @yorkshirebylines.co.uk
yorkshirebylines.co.uk
Is Donald Trump a Russian agent?
Donald Trump’s unshakeable admiration for Vladimir Putin continues to raise eyebrows. Does Putin have a hold over Trump?
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
When the orange wannabe imperator said “Drill baby, drill” this is what he should have meant. Of course he didn’t, but huge potential and a game changing disruption for the fossil fool industry if this works. www.quaise.energy
quaise.energy
Quaise Energy
Quaise is an energy company unlocking geothermal energy for the world population through millimeter wave drilling technology.
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Armando Iannucci @aiannucci.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Hi gang. My films ‘In The Loop’ and ‘The Death of Stalin’ are on #BBCFour this evening, at 9pm and 10.40pm. Do enjoy if you’re a fan of repeated threat.
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Sophie Waring @atinybitwaring.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Great, better very late than never, now start by cleaning up your own house… Musk has no business being admitted to this hallowed space!
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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
You first.
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Russ Jones @russincheshire.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
If you're wondering how we got here, these are the official British "Words of the Year" during Conservative rule austerity gaslighting fake news populism post-truth misinformation xenophobia peramacrisis and omnishambles
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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.
Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children.

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.
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Stephen Curry @scurry.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
My open letter and FRS resignations reported in Nature: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Royal Society will meet amid campaign to revoke Elon Musk’s fellowship
More than 1,300 scientists have signed a letter calling on the world’s oldest science society to reassess the billionaire’s membership following cuts to US science.
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Science Magazine @science.org · 06/02/2025
A new special issue of Science highlights research on Earth’s frozen places—from the Arctic to the Antarctic—and how it’s changing due to climate change and the geopolitical challenges this important work faces. Learn more: scim.ag/4jPYRID
Climate change in the polar regions of our warming world is threatening to transform many of its features, such as this icy tableau in the Fish Islands off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. There is still much to learn about these places before we know better what those changes may be.
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
A vintage Airfix 1:48 scale BAC TSR-2 prototype built during COVID lockdown. The kit has some major inaccuracies which required a number of aftermarket items and some major surgery to correct in order to better represent XR219, the only prototype to fly before the project was canned in 1965.
Side view of 1:48 scale model of XR219, the only prototype of the BAC TSR2 to fly before cancellation of the project in 1965. Based on the early Hornby era vintage Airfix kit but heavily modified to correct several inaccuracies. Scale Aircraft Conversions SAC48026 White metal UC set was used to correct the angle of the main gear oleos and help support what is a rather heavy model. Armory AR AW48413 Weight-on resin wheels with some nicely detailed "drop in" photoetch hubs complete the undercarriage.Inaccurate kit parts required extensive reworking to fair the upper fuselage into the wing correctly, narrow the mid fuselage, separate the intake boundary layer splitter plate from the fuselage side and accurately portray the twin dorsal intake boundary layer ventsAmongst the other aftermarket add-ons used were Alleycat Models Odds and Ordnance OAO 48001 Fin and Tail-planes. The replacement fin has the cooling air intake that's missing in the Airfix kit and the tail planes have more accurately shaped flap actuator housings. The cockpits were improved using the CMK 4220 TSR-2 Interior Set. This Includes more accurate replacement vac formed canopies plus windscreen, detailed ejection seats, detailed colour photo etched instrument panels and instrument coaming.
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Neil Vincent @syntenicman.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
An old codger new to Bluesky. Amongst other things, I’ll be posting on the #plasticmodels I make in retirement. My latest build? Old school Hasegawa 1:48 F-4J Phantom II in the US Bicentennial markings of VMFA-451 in 1976. Various aftermarket bits and bobs were used to pep the basic kit up a bit.
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