Rob Sison

@robs@aus.social
264 Followers
244 Following
6.2K Posts

Australian formal methods researcher and occasional OS-level programmer. Ex-industry, ex-NICTA/CSIRO. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Trans nonbinary person, 💍engaged to @leoadec.

(Avatar: Awkward crop of me standing on a beach with my eyes closed in the background of a selfie. Banner: Water babbling over rocks in the Blue Mountains.)

ORCID Recordhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0313-9764
Websitehttps://www.robs-cse.com
Pronounsshe/they

ETAPS 2026 might seem like a long way off, but the joint call for papers is now out! https://etaps.org/2026/cfp/

Get your papers ready for October for ESOP (round 2), TACAS, FoSSaCs and FASE

ETAPS Joint Call for Papers

Torino, Italy, April 11–16, 2026

Cockatoos start sipping from Sydney’s drinking fountains after mastering series of complex moves - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/04/cockatoos-drink-from-sydney-water-fountains "Experts think the clever birds learned the technique by watching people and then trying it themselves" amazing
Cockatoos start sipping from Sydney’s drinking fountains after mastering series of complex moves

Experts think the clever birds learned the technique by watching people and then trying it themselves

The Guardian

"the israeli military has announced that routes leading to the aid centers are active combat zones"

... that's got to be a war crime

ActivityPub is a site for Facebooks to talk to each other
What do you mean 60% compostable. What am I supposed to do, let it decompose 60% then fetch the rest out?

I'm working on my little hobby.

#GameDev

Ah yes, the old "the system is non-deterministic therefore free will" argument, thus proving uranium atoms have free will
A 23-Year-Old Crypto Bro Is Now Vetoing #NSF Grants While Staring At His Water Bottle - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/02/a-23-year-old-crypto-bro-is-now-vetoing-nsf-grants-while-staring-at-his-water-bottle/ more #murican madness
A 23-Year-Old Crypto Bro Is Now Vetoing NSF Grants While Staring At His Water Bottle

Picture this: You’re a researcher who has spent years developing a grant proposal, gone through layers of expert review, and received National Science Foundation (NSF) approval. Then some kid…

Techdirt

This is my PhD thesis

I did not ask for this

I did not consent to this

I did not approve of this

I was not compensated for this

I would not have advised this

I do not like this

And worst of all, the number of people who've read my thesis has still not increased.

As someone who works in higher-ed and also has taught middle school and high school aged kids, my opinion is not that LLM use is exploding among students because they're lazy or stupid or anything else

it's because our educational system has prioritized a very transactional "do this bullshit, and you get the credentials you need to have a life" approach for

well

maybe forever, really

and no one should be surprised that adversarial approaches by teachers and administrators are being met with an adversarial approach by students