Nicola Romanò @nicolaromano@qoto.org
- Pronouns
- he/him
Senior lecturer at Edinburgh University and Zhejiang-Edinburgh Joint Institute (ZJE).
Undergraduate Programme Coordinator, Biomedical Informatics at ZJE.
I teach #imageanalysis & #dataanalysis with #RStats & #python.
My research is focused on how #heterogeneous behaviour in #pituitary (and other) cells shapes their function as a population.
I'm also very interested in #reproducibility and #openscience.
Joined Oct 2022
Nicola Romanò
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I'm now also looking for a postdoc with strong Bayesian background and interest in developing Bayesian cross-validation theory, methods and software. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact information at https://users.aalto.fi/~ave/).
Others, please share
@RonBeavis unfortunately not just proteomics...
Nicola Romanò
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#rstats folks should think about supporting our friends at the #Python Software Foundation, who turned down a $1.5M NSF grant rather than cave to the administration's inquisition against diversity, equity, and inclusion. ❤️
https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-funding-statement.html
@m4rk1x It's true that there are horrendous slides out there in the wild... but if you craft them carefully they can be extremely helpful for students. I agree, there should be a support tool, and fully expect students to take notes of what I'm saying on top of the slides.
@regehr the thing is, having a grand plan means publishing even fewer papers!
@regehr the thing is, having a grand plan means publishing even fewer papers!
Nicola Romanò
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US student handcuffed after AI system apparently mistook bag of chips for gun
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/24/baltimore-student-ai-gun-detection-system-doritos
Nicola Romanò
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“But Max, but Max, they did an experiment with an LLM and it refused to shut itself down, even to save the user, and—“
SHUT UP. That’s not what fucking happened.
They took a machine that generates plausible text sequences based on all the other text they could get their hands on, they fed it a bullshit story, and it gave a bullshit story in return. THAT’S ALL.
ChatGPT doesn’t want to hurt you. ChatGPT doesn’t want to help you. ChatGPT ISN’T AWARE THAT YOU EXIST.
Nicola Romanò
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Go Namibia! The only country where women now make up 57% of government, including the president, vice president, and the speaker of the national assembly. 💪🇳🇦
Recently stumbled across this nice little #poem by probably the greatest #Italian children's writer, Gianni Rodari (translation below, by Matilda Colarossi). Written in 1960 in the collection "Filastrocche in cielo e in terra" (Nursery rhymes in Heaven and on Earth), still very relevant.
Il dittatore
Un punto piccoletto,
superbioso e iracondo
"dopo di me - gridava -
verrà la fine del mondo!"
Le parole protestarono:
"Ma che grilli hai pel capo?
Si crede un Punto-e-basta,
e non è che un Punto-e-a-capo".
Tutto solo a mezza pagina
lo piantarono in asso,
e il mondo continuò
una riga più in basso.
-------
The Dictator
A tiny dot,
irascible and arrogant.
"After me" he'd yell
"the world will end!"
The words protested:
"What bats has he got
in his belfry?
He thinks he's a Full-stop,
and is nothing but a New start."
All alone, midway down the page
they ditched him
and the world continued
on the very next line.
@rimu @ojala isn't there also a consideration that space is not a problem anymore (not that I agree with that, but I can see someone saying it).
I guess you *could* optimise those apps for space whilst keeping the same features, but it costs time and money and effort, and the average customer/user will not notice.
Also, this made me think about 64k demos... 🤯
Nicola Romanò
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@zackwhittaker In terms of profit:shitness ratio, Oracle has them beat by miles
Nicola Romanò
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The Guardian is reporting that since Israel and Hamas signed the ceasefire and full hostage exchange agreement, Israel has violated the ceasefire 47 times, killed 38 Palestinians, and wounded another 143 more.
Meanwhile Hamas has released all remaining hostages.
It Was Never About The Hostages.
@susanleemburg Don't know the answer to your questions but your students should be happy that their lecturer checks facts before telling them, and is not afraid of admitting she isn't sure about something. We have all been there, nothing to be ashamed of!
re: Long post about data sharing vs not
@toxomat @jonny @elduvelle thanks for this, very interesting read!
@adredish I am a big fan of open review. I don't mind having my name associated with my comments and actually I'd rather someone not guess wrongly that I wrote something I didn't.
Most journals I review from have a box for comments to editors only and I guess your example makes sense. I think it only happened to me once to use it.
I don't see a case for comments to authors only. I've suggested redoing the analysis on papers several times and I think that should be openly visible there is no shame in that, it shows the authors are happy to improve their own work. Same for silly mistakes... why would I be embarrassed if I made a silly mistake? That's the whole purpose of reviewing papers, correcting mistakes.
Nicola Romanò
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In other news, we sometimes forget that Elon Musk did not buy Twitter on his own, but with money from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia was already Twitter’s biggest shareholder before Musk bought it and reportedly planted engineer-spies inside the company to unmask dissidents.
After the acquisition, they gained more influence over the algorithm using it “to silence government critics and human rights activists, or to further state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.”
@erikjan @geospacedman I see your point but cognitive overload is a thing, so is programming anxiety.
Sometimes you just want to introduce students to a language or a method or a specific concept, in which case spending half an hour if not more trying to explain how to install the tools is not productive and will make some students simply give up from the start.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Senior lecturer at Edinburgh University and Zhejiang-Edinburgh Joint Institute (ZJE).
Undergraduate Programme Coordinator, Biomedical Informatics at ZJE.
I teach #imageanalysis & #dataanalysis with #RStats & #python.
My research is focused on how #heterogeneous behaviour in #pituitary (and other) cells shapes their function as a population.
I'm also very interested in #reproducibility and #openscience.
Joined Oct 2022
