“This disorder, which was eventually called encephalitis lethargica or von Economo’s sleeping sickness, swept through Europe and North America during the second decade of the twentieth century; by the end of the following decade it had apparently disappeared, as only sporadic and unconvincing reports have appeared since. […] the virus that caused it was never identified

There was a passage in one of the Foundation novels where an armchair scientist described his doing science in terms of comparing the writings of various authors, and Salvor Hardin (I think) appraised the man's perspective on science negatively. I've always remembered that, and took on Hardin's attitude, but since I've actually had to do research...honestly, that's actually a lot of it. There is, perhaps, more effort that must go into systematizing one's own knowledge in parsing the various studies rather than just comparing the relative "authority" of the authors of different studies as I believe the armchair scientist was doing, but, significantly, it's not all just observation and experiment: there's theorizing that has to happen too, which depends on close reading and critically comparing results.

I'm not sure if I'm really arguing against anyone's actual perspective on how science is done here (I barely remember the passage from the novel in the first place.), but I just wanted to make a record of this way of thinking that I suppose has caused me a measure of embarrassment in years past about not being more hands-on in my research.

On the Origin of Species was published on this day in 1859, forever changing our understanding of nature and our origins. Here are the charming doodles Darwin's kids left all over his manuscript with their tiny opposable thumbs: t.co/BGtxu11Mgz

@Binder if you can't find it it's Hayden, If you're listening to it when you're out buying items it's Chopin, if you're listening to it when you're carrying a suitcase it's Handel and if you've got to the end of these bad puns you're at the end of the Liszt ;)

Reverse GitHub Copilot, it doesn't write any code for you, instead it asks you to explain your code with non-specific questions and through the rubber duck effect this causes you to notice bugs and/or realize yourself how to proceed with coding. On the inside it is literally just Eliza (1964)

πŸŽ‰ Tool for better documentation!! Release of sphinx-gallery, to automatically integrate narrative 🐍 examples in documentations
sphinx-gallery.github.io/stabl

Highlight: a light recommender system to show related examples

An illustration of sphinx-gallery:
scikit-learn.org/dev/auto_exam
(from @sklearn 's gallery). Note the links to function docs.

Sphinx-gallery comes with awesome features such as
β—Όonline execution with binder or jupyterlite
β—Όmini-galleries eg to link an object's docstring to its examples

Job opportunity: Open Climate Campaign Communications Manager.

Are you passionate about open access to research and fighting climate change? The Open Climate Campaign is hiring a Communications Manager to create and execute a communications plan. The Campaign advocates for all research on climate science and biodiversity to be openly available. Application deadline is January 12, 2024.

creativecommons.org/mission/op

I was also able to get a better photograph of my koi fish drawing. Natural light makes all the difference.

Here's the listing for it on etsy: etsy.com/listing/1604274553/ha

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The toast sandwich article was created on English Wikipedia twelve years ago today!

(photo: Qwantz, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The main problem with ads is not privacy or security. Those are also real problems, but they're only adjacent issues. Even in a world where every ad was personally vetted by Very Good Privacy and Security Experts, the issue still remains that people keep trying to shove shit you didn't ask for into your eyeballs and/or eardrums in an attempt to influence your behavior in some way. Doing it politely only looks good by comparison. It's still an asshole move.

As long as people keep trying to spin this as a privacy/security thing, companies will keep making token efforts to patch over *those* issues and not addressing the root problem.

Apropos of nothing (and everything):

It is way more fun to lift people up than to tear them down.

After DART Smashed Into Dimorphos, What Happened to the Larger Asteroid Didymos? @asrivkin tells me about new observations using JWST to see how the parent asteroid is doing, post-DART impact. universetoday.com/163895/after

Massachusetts ME/CFS and FM Annual Event

"ME/CFS: Changing the Narrative"

October 28, 1-3 PM Eastern Time (on Zoom)

Guest Speaker: Ed Yong

Fee is $10 for non-members

Full details: massmecfs.org/news-events/866-

@mecfs

#MEcfs #PwME #ChronicIllness #Massachusetts

I'm always struck by how uncanny the images from space missions can look: the precision of the movements and the flatness of some textures
asteroidmission.org/?attachmen

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🌸🌹2ck πŸŒ±πŸ‡'s choices:

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