Nicola Romanò @nicolaromano@qoto.org

Timnit Gebru

I am very concerned about the future of AI. Not because of the risk of rogue machines taking over. But because of the homogeneous, one dimensional group of men who are currently involved in advancing the technology. Concerned AI researcher

https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru/110515521708943378

This item was found via the website Not the Only One where there are over 9000 other Diversity, Equity and Inclusion articles, stories and quotes.

On my blog: Rasmus’s maximum meeting length formula.

https://www.sumsar.net/blog/rasmus-meeting-length-formula/

'The book that gives us Calvino the romantic and Calvino the craftsman in equal measure is “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.” It is the book that makes people fall in love with Calvino, because it is a book about falling in love through reading—specifically, “reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler.”' (Illustration by Daniele Castellano)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-worlds-of-italo-calvino

Christmas is coming early this year: we just dropped a new preprint!

"Beyond networks: explaining dynamics in the natural and social sciences."

https://osf.io/htc78

It's a broad criticism of network modeling in both the natural & social sciences & a study of where its shortcomings originate historically. 🧵

Optogenetics helped researchers study the role of the microtubule end-binding protein, EB1, in the growth of neurons. Here, the end of a neuron reaches a strip of blue light which optogenetically inactivates EB1 causing the microtubule fibres that usually push and grow the cell to fall apart. #Neuroscience #Optogenetics #Microtubules #12DaysOfeLife https://elifesciences.org/articles/84143?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic_12days

Fake news BC

"En plein Sénat, Caton laisse échapper quelques figues gorgées de jus, comme tombées par mégarde des plis de sa toge. Lorsque ses collègues s'extasient, Caton jure qu'il les ramène de Carthage –et que si elles sont si appétissantes, c'est parce que l'ennemie jurée n'est qu'à trois jours de Rome. Caton a menti: la traversée prend au mieux six jours et il y a toutes les chances que les fameuses figues soient venues de ses propres plantations. Mais qu'importe: le souvenir d'Hannibal est ravivé. Dans le doute, il faut raser Carthage."

https://www.slate.fr/culture/histoires-sans-fin/carthage-incendie-scipion-emilien-rome-resistance

Did you know "collaborative two-stage exams" are a thing? I learned about these from my friend Dr. Claire Meaders who is doing excellent work in how we teach about biology. And as usual, I try to think about how we might incorporate some lovely lateral learning into how we run software teams.

Imagine if performance evaluations had an individual component AND a group component. Imagine being able to promote whole teams together. It's a cool idea.

https://www.drcathicks.com/post/when-things-happen-not-just-what

Kasamatsu Shiro - Shadow of the mountain (1959) #art #EastAsia #painting #woodblock #Japan #KasamatsuShiro

Happy birthday to Srinivasa Ramanujan Indian mathematician who was born today 136 years ago!

Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Today, India celebrates National Mathematics Day to commemorate Ramanujan's birth anniversary. via @wikipedia

#books #mathematics

Yay, arXiv now offers papers as HTML pages! 🥳🥳🥳 I hope everyone does their best to optimise their LaTeX for best HTML experience.

https://blog.arxiv.org/2023/12/21/accessibility-update-arxiv-now-offers-papers-in-html-format/

#arxiv #science #research #accessibility #html #pdf #academia

Btop++ is pretty https://github.com/aristocratos/btop

A thought crossed my mind - it is hard enough to keep software usable for the future but websites are another level of difficulty. Many useful sites (e.g. in Bioinformatics) implementing tools are going to disappear if we're not careful.

**Bioconductor's Twitter/X account is now closed**

Bioconductor will no longer be posting on Twitter/X.

Instead we will be continuing to post on other social media platforms that better reflect our community’s code of conduct.

Read more in our blog post: https://buff.ly/3RddEAV

‘I felt like a fraud’: A biologist goes public about a retraction https://retractionwatch.com/2023/12/15/i-felt-like-a-fraud-a-biologist-goes-public-about-a-retraction/

I love that open data and open code helped others identify the error -- so it could be corrected -- and also helped him demonstrate what he'd done which avoided questions of misconduct.

I was told by a neighbour this morning that I am "the right kind of immigrant".

When asked to explain he said that I work and pay taxes. He didn't also say that I'm ok because I'm white but I wonder how the conversation would have gone off I were not white.

Am I reassured that because i am "the right kind of immigrant" everything will now be fine in the Netherlands after a quarter of the people who live around me just voted for a fascist, when the new speaker in our parliament is a conspiracy theorist as well as a fascist, and when most of the rest of the country appears to think that this is just fine ? No it does not.

I have more in common with asylum seekers and any other immigrants than I do with fascists or with unthinking voters for fascists.
#pvvisfascism
#RefugeesAreWelcomeHere

**Just three days to go until Bioconductor leaves Twitter/X**

Bioconductor will no longer be posting on Twitter/X after the 17th December.

Instead we will be continuing to post on other social media platforms that better reflect our community’s code of conduct.

Have you followed us on our LinkedIn account yet?

Read more about our move in our blog post: https://buff.ly/3RddEAV

@MCDuncanLab Actually I have thoughts on this haha, gotta make my infographic but the sketch is:

This weekend I ordered a #Lenovo X1 carbon with #Fedora preinstalled. This still blows my mind.

It was very nearly a #Macbook pro. I'd love to experience that hardware. I'm an amateur photographer and it would be great to have another way to run #lightroom. (currently I edit on an #iPad which is actually probably better)

But the X1 won in the end. Thin and light, #Linux updates forever, all my tools of 20 years, access to drive and battery, way cheaper, consistent with my ideals.

Brave step! @sorbonne_univ_ unsubscribes from the Web of Science.

‘By resolutely abandoning the use of proprietary bibliometric products, it is opening the way for open, free and participative tools.’

https://www.sorbonne-universite.fr/en/news/sorbonne-university-unsubscribes-web-science