Silly #shitpost I made a few years back. I think I could have done better with the choices, but you move on, you know? I think I cut corners because I just wanted #Deadpool in the middle, there.

#shitpost #funny #comics #movies #VennDiagram

Right now, yes, I think biological systems like the incredibly complex way DNA (and other genetic code) interacts with hyper-local and other environments to produce biological stuff is beyond the reach of genAI.

However, I'm sure there are hundreds or thousands of biological researchers using AI or slightly simpler machine learning algorithms to solve tough problems--these tools can sometimes spot (and other times just use, without telling us how) patterns that humans can't.

I like this post and think it's accurate so far--with my painfully limited, layperson's understanding of biology--but a year ago the experts said #AI would never generate good code, and now it generates useful code in lots of areas. It won't stop getting better, and I don't think we're near any plateaus in its improvement.

The main reason to oppose AI isn't because it sucks.

#biology #code #resist #meme #dna

The lake last night. Stiff winter-style wind. Mounds of ice on the #beach. Still, dozens of other people also felt the need to get out of their cars and see the #sunset while feeling the brutal cold.

#photo #lakeerie #greatlakes

So anyway I'm grading student projects long after normal-people working hours. Again. As I have done ten thousand times previously. There are always a few students...

#professor #subtoot #highered #TheGoodPlace #shitpost

I'm going to need Hadley Wickham to make up his mind.

• early 00s - 2020s: recoding with dplyr is annoying; just use car::recode()
• 2020s: dplyr::recode() happens, breaking bazillions of scripts, functions, and analyses
• 2024: dplyr::recode() is deprecated; use case_match or case_when instead; it's way better except that you I have no idea why it was better, I just had to learn a new syntax form. I think many people just went back to car::recode(), at this point
• 2026: Now apparently case_match() is deprecated, and we're supposed to use a new function: recode_values(). I'll go learn about it when I have time.

Can we please just let this one stick around a few years? This isn't some esoteric, rare function; this is every day. All the time. Every time this breaks, it costs me hours of my life and comes back to cost me more hours in future years. as older, now-broken code refuses to work when I want to use it, and I spend an hour debugging before I remember.

Edit: I actually think Hadley Wickham is phenomenal and has probably (in my limited view) done more for R than any other1 single person in the past 20 years. I also know that something like tidyverse must evolve. My occasional gripes about the cycle of new functions, and my frequent frustration at just not understanding things quickly enough, are very small compared to my gratitude that the tidyverse is what it is.

1 Sorry, Yves Rosseel2 ... I'm a huge fan, but it's just a numbers game, you know? Laaan is my favorite package!

2 Huh. Spell check in Vivaldi helped me spell Rosseel correctly.

#rstats #complaints #deprecated #tidyverse

My review: Margarine, poorly executed

#butter #vegan #vegetairian #disappointment

I spent ten or possibly fifteen of my very own non-AI minutes making this for FB. I guess I'll post it here, too, though I suspect I'm preaching to the choir.

#war #colonialism #iran #uspol #violence #cycle #terrorism

"When the only thing stopping you from completely dehumanising someone is your own judgement regarding their privilege level relative to yours, you are not a safe person to be around."

Relevant: The foaming-at-the-mouth MAGA mirrorshadesdudes and the reasonable, kind, limitless-love MAGA housewives truly believe they are "punching up" when they vote for candidates who promise to hurt marginalized people.

We can stop bad policies and oppose bad behavior without demonizing or dehumanizing the people associated with that behavior.

(I'm reassured that some random person from tumblr said what I've tried to say, but much more concisely and memorably. I also realize that I'm hypocritically struggling with this myself--I believe it in my mind even though in my heart I want to punch all the nazis.)

[The text from the image is below]

sluglover666: Hot take, but even if you ARE punching up (instead of punching sideways at a group that is in the same boat as you), there's a limit to what you can say without sounding like a violent facist but woke this time.
Making fun of a group of people that are privileged over you is one thing, but wishing non-cartoonish violence and death on them ("they should fall off a cliff" vs. "they should be wiped out"), wishing sexual violence on them, dehumanising them, claiming that they're less capable of creating art or living meaningful lives, saying that their relationships are inherently shallow and fake - these things are fucked up. I understand venting and saying extreme things when in pain, but when you find yourself regularly posting about wanting certain people tortured and killed, you need to examine that.

(Post is long because text from image pasted at bottom)

When the only thing stopping you from completely dehumanising someone is your own judgement regarding their privilege level relative to yours, you are not a safe person to be around.

darkladynyara quoting royalhenoil: For real, this "anything goes so long as it's punching up" was a driving force in the Rwandan Genocide. The people who perpetrated the genocide believed they were punching up.

emfrots: "convince your followers that their Oppressor Class (whether real or imagined) is less deserving of human rights" is the oldest and most reliable trick in the book to incite mass violence, and you're not immune to it because you're a Good Person with Correct Opinions

#fascism #dehumanization #privilege #violence

These undergrads knocked it out of the park.

#transrights #education #academia #students #photography