Nicola Romanò @nicolaromano@qoto.org

I’m a software developer with a bunch of industry experience. I’m also a comp sci professor, and whenever a CS alum working in industry comes to talk to the students, I always like to ask, “What do you wish you’d taken more of in college?”

Almost without exception, they answer, “Writing.”

One of them said, “I do more writing at Google now than I did when I was in college.”

I am therefore begging, begging you to listen to @stephstephking: https://mstdn.social/@stephstephking/113336270193370876

Six tips for going public with your lab’s software: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03344-y
1) make time for maintenance
2) simplify installation
3) add a GUI or good CLI
4) good documentation
5) use github/git
6) automated testing

Any other tips people have? #SoftwareEngineering #opensource #openscience

#academicchatter I read a published paper on the other day and noticed a panel in the figure is clearly duplicated but by mistake, I knew this because the authors uploaded the raw data as table and the table has a complete set of numbers that doesn't match the figure panel. Importantly the correct data didnot change the conclusion. This
#openscience approach either enforced by publishers or volunteered by authors maintained the trust I have with the finding they reported.

"My paper was proved wrong. After a sleepless night, here’s what I did next"

column by @oaggimenez describing how to gracefully react when mistakes are discovered in ones published papers.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02870-z

I’m often asked whether it’s a good idea get the #HPV #vaccine if you think you’ve already been infected with the virus.

The answer is yes, but not for the reasons you might expect. 1/6

to celebrate selling out the first print run of How Integers and Floats work, we're giving away 500 PDF copies of the zine!

use code BUYONEGIVEONE at checkout to get a copy for free. (no need to enter your real address)

As usual this works with the honour system, this code is for you if $12 USD is a lot of money for you!

https://wizardzines.com/zines/integers-floats/

Wow it transports 20 people. ooooh I have an idea, what if we connected a bunch of these together... in a long chain and put them on tracks to make them more energy efficient (and to meet power needs) then ran them along the most popular transportation corridors in major cities! They could even go in tunnels in places like NYC to reduce traffic!

Golly Elon is on to something this time!

#statstab #198 Bayesian mixed effects (aka multi-level) ordinal regression models with {brms}

Thoughts: Useful tutorial also for frequentists, as it covers checking multiple links at once in {ordinal}.

#ordinal #brms #clmm #probit #cloglog #r #cauchit

https://kevinstadler.github.io/notes/bayesian-ordinal-regression-with-random-effects-using-brms/

What a massive, cool project. Such huge many lab collaborations are becoming more and more common and I am HERE for it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-024-03865-1

@jeffowski #AI is an academic field of endeavour first. Just because there is some grifting and questionable actors now does not mean you can write it and all people involved in it off like that.

That is like saying Physics is a scam because people were pedding perpetuum mobila, writing of medicine because people are peddling miracle cures or writing off Computer Science because of the dot-com boom.

@renordquist @academicchatter

I find it concerning and unsurprising that The Nobel Prize team called out their own sexism, likely without realising it:

"This morning [the Nobel laureate] celebrated the news of his prize with his colleague and wife Rosalind Lee, who was also the first author on the 1993 'Cell' paper cited by the Nobel Committee."

https://twitter.com/NobelPrize/status/1843252351152390392

Ah, the yearly week of the Nobel Prize for Men has started.

These guys did great work, surely. Also lots of non-men have done great work. I've followed this in the past and been so bitterly dissappointed by the lack of anything but old white guys. We'll see if this year is better, but so far 0 for 2 awardees.

https://www.nobelprize.org/all-nobel-prizes-2024/

#Nobel #WomenInSTEM #WomenInScience #sigh @academicchatter

Today in university: the University cannot accept a letter from the University, saying that a student's fees will be paid by the University to the University, as evidence that the University will pay the University the money that the University owes itself.

The student is, understandably, confused.

Types of Microbial Bioinformatics Papers. based on https://xkcd.com/2456/

There is no such thing as a backdoor for good guys. Once you place a backdoor, you compromise the safety and privacy of all your users. A third party or bad guys will get access to it and abuse it further. The concept of a "backdoor for good guys" is fundamentally flawed and dangerous. It sets a dangerous precedent. Security and privacy should be absolute. There's no safe way to create a backdoor that can't be exploited by malicious actors. #privacy #security #infosec

@albertcardona

I wish I knew the magic thing to say.

I think students are very susceptible to the strong cultural bias that views Cell/Nature/Science (with PNAS off to the side) as the epitome of scientific publishing. I still regularly hear trainees say something to the extent of "I could really get that job if I had a Nature Neuroscience publication", even after I show them how individual paper metrics seem decorrelated from journal impact factor.

The only trainees that don't seem to care as much about journal prestige are those that want to go into industry instead of academia.