A chance to do a PhD on plasmid copy number with the excellent @wtmatlock.bsky.social , highly recommended! Combines genomics and experimental evolution with Tiff Taylor (whose bsky id I can't seem to find, apols) gw4biomed.ac.uk/turning-up-t...

If you've got an opinion you want on here - submit it to the form: https://forms.gle/1gNMupaNHQf8xeRE6

Happy 60th anniversary to the brilliant universe of Star Trek, and all who made it possible. Live long and prosper. 🖖

Dark and rainy day here, so here’s a few moments of Blue Jay bath from yesterday. Such enthusiasm! #birds

Britain’s state-owned electricity system operator has awarded Palantir a £21mn contract without inviting rival bids, arguing critical processes are too reliant on its tech to run a competitive procurement process Latest for @financialtimes.com: as.ft.com/r/7fe6c0b7-2...

Britain’s grid operator gave Palantir contract without inviting rival bids

Neso cited a legal exemption that removes the requirement to consider other suppliers if dependencies leave no alternative

as.ft.com

We are at the jail our enemies stage of British fascism

A detail missing from The Times story… the woman who took the photo shared it to a Facebook group called ‘South east patriots’.

Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · yesterday

The Times has run a story this morning about how ‘polite’ the masked men in Dover were to three white ladies on a train. Propaganda in its clumsiest form.

I am sorry, I may have said this before, but there really are moments when British politics are astonishingly naive, and I really think this may have something to do with the fact that the British have not experienced occupation, tyranny, displacemen within living memory.

John Oxley@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · yesterday

WTF - first BBC question to Pat McFadden "Are you focusing too much on the protestors, and not on the issue that millions care about: small boats?"

I've probably moaned about this before. Cross validation doesn't control overfitting (your model is still just as overfit). It (tries to) estimates predictive performance without being tricked by overfitting. Big difference.

Say I've got a train dataset and a test data set. I fit a linear model to the train set and evaluate within-sample error. Then I fit the linear model to the train set and evaluate with the test set (i.e. cross validation). The 2 models are identical and equally overfit. The metric is different.

Stats For Bios@statsforbios.bsky.social · yesterday

I've probably moaned about this before. Cross validation doesn't control overfitting (your model is still just as overfit). It (tries to) estimates predictive performance without being tricked by overfitting. Big difference.

Over on X, the far-right British Patriots have launched a hate campaign against the RNLI They are recording RNLI volunteers in order to dox them, reveal their identities and publish details of where they and their families live These men are dangerous

It won’t stop these reprehensible, cowardly pieces of shit attacking the RNLI, but here is a handy link to donate rnli.org/support-us/g...

Donate to the RNLI and help save lives at sea

Your donations really make a difference. We depend on your generosity to educate people to stay safe and prevent tragedies on and offshore. Donate here.

rnli.org

Louis 〓〓@louishenwood.bsky.social · 2d ago

Over on X, the far-right British Patriots have launched a hate campaign against the RNLI They are recording RNLI volunteers in order to dox them, reveal their identities and publish details of where they and their families live These men are dangerous

A coauthor is someone who can introduce entirely new reasons for why the paper isn't ready

New preprint from us @modmedmicro.bsky.social where we validate the diagnostic accuracy of a metagenomic nanopore sequencing method for respiratory RNA viruses. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Clinical validation of a novel metagenomic nanopore sequencing method for detecting viral respiratory pathogens: diagnostic accuracy study

Background Clinical metagenomics (CMg) offers high-throughput respiratory pathogen detection with a wider range than targeted, probe-dependent diagnostics. Sequencing cost and the challenges of high h...

medrxiv.org

If only there had been some warning what Tommo was planning...

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 4w ago

Danmy Tommo, a sidekick of Tommy Robinson with a penchant for incitement in flashpoimt moments, gathered 50 blackshirts under some arches in Basimgstoke. He claims to be building a National Resistance Movement to take matters into its own hands, foregoing protest for direct actiom & confrontation

Apply to do a PhD at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social with me on global genomics of Mycobacterium abscessus bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/project-refe... About the scheme: bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/application-...

The cost of borrowing is rising while the purchasing power of money is falling. That means mortgages, credit cards, business loans, federal debt, and groceries all get harder at once. theintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/everything...

80 year-olds with pro-Palestine signs: arrested as terrorists. Greens planning to block a road, to highlight an existential crisis: sent down for years. Masked far-right thugs blocking roads and ports, using intimidation, obstruction & threatening behaviour: no arrests. The real two-tier policing.

Lecturer in Bioinformatics job at University of Bristol! www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

College students’ increasing reliance on AI, John Paul Rollert argues, is teaching them a “knack for cutting corners, a disdain for community rules, and an assumption that a spirit of integrity, and the sacrifices it assumes, is the reserve of suckers and wimps”:

A Society of Cheats

Students’ use of AI is teaching them a knack for cutting corners, a disdain for community rules, and an assumption that a spirit of integrity is the reserve of suckers and wimps.

bit.ly

Wendell Berry, a writer and farmer, died this week at age 92. Joe Fassler writes about the simple, clarifying idea that informed his life:

Why Wendell Berry Didn’t Worry About the Future

His life as a writer and farmer was informed by a simple, clarifying idea: Forget tomorrow, and work toward what is good today.

bit.ly

I actually got an inquiry from a prospective graduate student today that says “I have been following your work on [insert topic here] and it aligns closely with my background.” 🙏🏼 please please please stop using AI to draft your emails to grad school advisors. It’s not a good look. 👀

Open university lecturer position at @helsinki.fi Dept. of Agricultural Sciences! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

University Lecturer in Crop science

University Lecturer in Crop science

jobs.helsinki.fi

I'm guessing he found out his normal shade of hair dye, "Hospice Clown #3" is Canadian.

Molly Jong-Fast@mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 4d ago

This is objectively insane

"So in summary: using AI for coding led to depression, apathy, existential dread, and worse software. Not good. Add on top of that the negative environmental, community, and economic impacts of AI, and it became extremely apparent to me that something's gotta change." brettcodes.com/im-done-usin...

I'm done using AI

Why I'm stopping using AI for coding (and anything else) after using it earnestly for a year and coming to understand the harms it causes on personal, societal, and environmental levels.

brettcodes.com

It's almost as if engineering is about care and attention, rather than number of slop issues opened.

Daniel Knobloch@dankbreadmpls.com · 3d ago

"Upon reflection, I've come to believe that quality software is not about how many features something has or how quickly it is built but rather how cared for it is by the designers, developers, and product people who work on it" 🎯

Seems the difference between ‘protestors’ and ‘terrorists’ is that protestors wear balaclavas while terrorists hold placards.

I feel ya, bud.

Raccoons Hourly@raccoonhourly.bsky.social · 4d ago

Unfortunately, at least in my field, we've reached a point where your academic patron cannot get you a job but they *can* blackball you in the field. Which is the worst of all possible worlds when it comes to abusive advisors.

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 5d ago

Your academic future should not be dependent on a bizarre patronage model that doesn’t even give the benefits it once did (your patron calls someone in their network and gets you a job)

not forgetting ‘legitimate concerns’ either. A good piece.

The Quietus@thequietus.com · 4d ago

"20 years on, Kingdom Come hits so vividly it could be reportage—like a prophecy of the United Kingdom in 2026, a country in which racism has been institutionalised and the quiet bit is now being shouted out loud." J.G. Ballard’s Kingdom Come & England’s Slide towards Fascism buff.ly/fAUErsZ