I just finished Michael Lewis's biography of Sam Bankman-Fried "Going infinite". It is bizzare, timely and an awesome read. It uses the the "buisness" of cryptocurrency as a window into how hype cycles emerge, the stats strategies that help people get ahead in […] [Original post on ecoevo.social]

The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.

Places of the Vienna Circle. An online exhibit by the City of Vienna library and the Institute Vienna Circle https://online-ausstellungen.wienbibliothek.at/wiener-kreis/en/overview/

The magic of a really good wonk communicator is that, even when they are talking about terrible things, they make you feel better, just knowing that smart, competent people are out there. Nobody does that better than Emily. She's the best.

On Friday I was lucky to get a tour of the Isaac Conservation Park, west of Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ. It was set up by Sir Neil and Lady Diana Isaac, who had a vision of channelling their business success in quarrying and construction into nature […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

Oh sure you might be looking for instructions for how to format a box for the journal Oikos, but wouldn't you rather have some similarly branded yogurt?

Highly recommend this pod on AI where @chrislhayes.bsky.social interviews Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of a big recent New Yorker piece on the subject. Tons of interestng discussion, especially for us ex-philosophy geeks. Forthwith, a short 🧵

Renewables are scaling up, fossil fuels have an incumbency advangate from existing economies of scale. What happens when these economies of scale break down: https://www.volts.wtf/p/the-fate-of-fossil-fuel-systems-in

Imagine a government setting out to protect its citizens from enshittification rather than serving as one of its primary accelerants.

Reading for today: Wan, et al. "Functional coexistence theory: Identifying mechanisms linking biodiversity and ecosystem function." Ecological Monographs 95, no. 3 (2025): e70033. Many many people have speculated on when species' coexistence leads to a […] [Original post on ecoevo.social]

When your talk is a tough act to follow...

Business as usual in the AI business model...

The Tragically Hip, New Orleans is beat "Your smile is fading a bit so I Ration it Don't think about it Here where the Mississippi quits, where it's Still got a bit Of Minnesota in it... The river takes and takes, takes and takes It doesn't change and only changes See it there in a picture […]

I just got back from the first lab for my Biological Diversity course at #LincolnUniversityNZ. Today's lab was about the local butterfly species, plus we began to teach students the local birds. Near the end of lab we went out for a walk across campus to practise […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

RE: https://flipboard.com/@cbcnews/edmonton-5aq1688az/-/a-7vMmwIcuQ3KWCIGK5GGfYA%3Aa%3A107108217-%2F0 What ever could Alberta do to reduce the frequency of wildfires...

@TimHarford puts together maybe the parable of our technoskeptic times: The last generation has seen massive advances in online dating; The last generation has seen a reduction in the amount of sex that people have […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@BikingViking/116075493564706722 "It is not wrong to seek solace in nature. But we cannot turn a blind eye to injustice, however far away it occurs. We have to figure out how to keep both things in view: the angels and the oil derricks. To get up each morning and […]

Powerpoint has... of course removed the option to turn off its "AI" slide suggestion. I know what i'll be talking about in my next lecutre and what autogenerated design I will use.

I wrote a small game simulating the transition to a solar-powered economy. You can build solar panels, batteries, hydrogen storage and sell your generated electricity at market prices. Electricity demand, pricing, and weather conditions are based on realistic […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

For the third in my hat-trick of exciting NZ Lepidoptera news stories, here is an observation over Christmas of a Mokarakare · Rauparaha's Copper (Lycaena rauparaha). It's likely the first seen anywhere in or between Lincoln and Christchurch in over a century […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

I went to a fantastic seminar today at the University of Canterbury by Carl Bergstrom (@ct_bergstrom), titled “Information Foraging in a Social Media World.” Carl has been applying his knowledge of how information flows through ecological and evolutionary systems to better understand our digital […]

See the bike lane veering to the right? Gotta be the prefered route to take a bike, certainly not the stroad (Blenheim road) to the left. I had long wondered why google maps would insist on routing me across the stroad, ignoring the lovely bike path. I though […] [Original post on ecoevo.social]

If I want to do calculations reasonably fast I use 20th century computing... If i want to do calculations very fast I use 17th century mathematics... Then again if I want to do calculations wrong I use 21st century computing.

I will watch with interest. In Christchurch/Otautahi New Zealand, I see google maps giving bad directions as well. In this neighbourhood there is a beautiful bikelane connecting these two locations. Google maps instead recommends a four lane stroad, with no protected bike lane.

Oh, and here's the most elegant moth that flew into our moth lights this week. It's the appropriately named Exquisite Olearia Owlet (*Meterana exquisita*) and we saw just one of them and it looks to be the first record of the species from North Canterbury. Just […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

The best thing I've discovered on the internet this week is Joseph Ricketts' channel where he snorkels and finds interesting creatures. Here's a taste, where he snorkels a forest creek in Alabama, in mid-winter, and still finds all sorts of interesting things. That includes tiny freshwater […]

Content moderation / AI scholars - what's the best paper you're aware of that quantitatively studies the problem of creativity in the evasion of content moderation systems? My go-to is @stevie et al, but surely there are more recent works? https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2818048.2819963

I'm enjoying Jáñez-Martino & co's review article and empirical work on the problem of machine learning content classification in adversarial contexts. They show that when studies account for creative adversaries, high-performing models do very, very badly at detection […]

Incredible stuff here. You could lose hours.

Inlaws are taking me on a trip to Brisbane/Bundaberg Aus next week. There is talk of going naturalizing, but i'm slowly coming to the realization that Australia is quite hot, maybe not ideal for dragging my kids for a hike given their tender NZ/Canadian […] [Original post on ecoevo.social]