Wrapping up the photos from the pier at 4 a.m. yesterday. Like a doofus I left my fave camera at home and only had my semi-potato phone, but I am pleased with the results.

#photography #water #LakeErie #night #storm

Other useless things:

• Speaking out
• Wearing a shirt
• Leaving your home

#unpopularopinion #uspol #nokings

I feel like I'm constantly fighting an uphill battle when I raise awareness about any privacy issues. This email went out to my campus a few days ago from (ironically) the American Democracy Project. The link is below:

https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforms.office.com%2FPages%2FResponsePage.aspx%3Fid%3DPAUkwXjwhEmPnTWuD3jFim27hL6NsGFBs-JLhn5poQ5URU4xM0tKRVM1S0w3UUNPQjdISDQwRzdIOS4u&data=05%7C02%7C[MyFullName]%40[MyUniversity].edu%7C426332fa16114117c45d08de8f73e19e%7Cc124053cf07849848f9d35ae0f78c58a%7C0%7C0%7C639105925031635084%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=V1ThxSS%2BVa236C7i03BCacXkisZdjcJLoopiOGDaZeI%3D&reserved=0

I removed my full fucking name and the name of my university; I'm sure there's shit that can be extracted by a knowledgeable person. Or maybe I'm paranoid and overreacting. I don't think all that text is necessary to simply route me to a survey's URL, even if it is on Microsoft Forms.

I replied to the all-campus email and said there was some data sent with that link, including my name. I said I'd like to participate in the survey if it was anonymous and asked if there was a simple, sanitized link that didn't send my name and other information with it. I got bounced to the Very Sincere Student Project Leader who assured me that there was no personal information collected, and I could verify this by looking at the questions in the survey.

On MS Forms.

Linked with all the stuff above.

Sigh. American Democracy, indeed.

#security #privacy #microsoft #survey #surveyresearch

Did RStudio's last update change something, or did I change something in my RStudio environment? As of today, plots made in the IDE are low-resolution. When clicking "zoom" in the plot window, the resolution doesn't increase; everything is blurry.

Yesterday I ran some knitr() stuff (just knitting some .Rmd documents), and I changed my code editor color scheme from one of the presets to another one of them. If anyone knows whether RStudio changed settings (26.01.1 build 403), let me know. I suspect they didn't break their own product and I've somehow changed settings from running code.

#rstats #rstudio #help #dataviz

I have had my concerns about our student newspaper in the past, but I think maybe the kids are alright.

#journalism #ai #hellyeah #students #professor #highered

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