Someone once said that it is better to burn out than to fade away. However, I believe that in my case, I will do neither. Instead, my brain will lose the will to remain semi-solid, and it will drool out my ear.

I woke up this morning in Manhattan, and I am now in San Francisco, but somewhere in between, I testified before the House Financial Services Committee in Washinton, DC.

Saturday "booking a 5-day BOS-JFK-DCA-SFO-BOS flight itinerary" vibes.

I have been asked to testify before the Senate _again_ in a few weeks, and now I am wondering if it is a fashion faux pas to where the same tie in consecutive testimonies only weeks apart.

Happy birthday to trailblazing American computer scientist Frances Elizabeth Allen (1932 – 2020) who made foundational contributions to optimizing compilers, optimizing programs and parallel computing. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬🧮 #histsci She was the first woman to become an IBM Fellow, where she worked from 1957 to 2002🧵

Today was a blur, but at some point earlier in that blur, I testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment.

No, YOU'RE ordering four dress shirts at 8PM in different sizes and fits, to pick up in-store tomorrow, because you have to fly to DC on Tuesday to testify to Congress and don't have a shirt you can wear with a tie.

His opposition to what now?

Forget ChatGPT! This will revolutionize science! openCHEAT: Computationally Helped Error bar Approximation Tool - Kickstarting Science 4.0 eggerbernhard.ch/SIGBOVIK_ope... Plenty of happy users since 2021! 1/5

OK, so here's the deal, wolf. You can have some of this meat we're cooking by this fire, but in exchange, we're going to selectively breed your children, and your children's children, and so on—for 50,000 years—until they are basically ridiculous muppets.

Please do not use.

Just another normal day, sharing my knowledge and advice with the people of BlueSky.

I have been a little bit scarce on social media in the last few months. Some of that has just been from being busy at work, but some of it has had to do with my father's passing. He hated the very idea of social media, but he religiously followed my Twitter, and then Bluesky, feeds. /n

Has anyone run the numbers on how much coverage a genetic database would need to have to get different levels of specificity in matching? I imagine once you get to a certain level of coverage, you can narrow down the possible set quite aggressively.

btw, this is my guess on why they collected that backpack with an excavator when they found it. Don't want to risk destroying or contaminating any genetic evidence present at the scene. Wouldn't be surprised if they sterilized the excavator shovel before collection as well.

Someone asked me if face recognition/AI will catch the NYC assassin guy. I guess it's possible, but my money is on the DNA (if it's his). If anyone up to a third cousin (less than 1% shared heritable variation) used 23andme, then have a lead and can start walking the family tree.

It begins.

My daughter hit me yesterday, completely out of the blue, with a detailed and thoroughly researched presentation entitled "Why I should learn to play the harp"

tfw when I am the sole technical person a reception full of business people.

My wife, asking me cautiously (but somewhat nervously) if there is an upper limit to the number of watches a person can or should acquire.

fwiw, this is the posture that axolotls take when they're about to attack

So many job opportunities available these days.

Intellectually, I am aware that turkeys can fly. But it is another thing altogether to see two of them bomb into my backyard at speed. I feel like my brain is not really ready to accept this fact.

I just tried to type "Arduino," and my phone autocorrected it to "STFU no"

SF weather is so weird. The Bay Area is experiencing a historic heat wave, and it's positively chilly in the city.

I have been asked to testify before congress in two weeks, and my dominant emotion is "I sure hope that suit I bought but never had time to try on actually fits"

Today I learned that gates 52A-G (and ONLY those gates) at LAX terminal 5 exist in an alternate universe, and must be reached by taking a shuttle bus clear across the airport. Unexpectedly, there is a lounge just for those gates. I was the only person in it.

Ummm...

Big tech trade shows have Richard Scary Busytown vibes.

I think we're experiencing the slow heat death of the thought-leader industrial complex. Today, I showed up to speak on a panel, and half the panel (including the moderator) didn't show. Earlier this year, a whole conference was cancelled, and they failed to inform all speakers.

My fingers won't do what I could make them do when I was 18 (back when I practiced every day), but these days I play while enjoying a stiff cocktail made from decent liquor, so it all evens out.

Every time I open this device up, I ask myself "did they let the intern design this?" There is no way that 6 AAA batteries was the right solution here.

One could get used to California.

In Boston, we refer to this time of day as "before Dunkin Donuts opens"

My daughter coded up an animated birthday card for me in Racket.

You know you travel too much when you pull out your ID to check in at the hotel and the guy at the desk says "I don't need to see your ID. I know who you are."

Oh cool, found the hot coffee supply line in our new house.

Special thanks to my phone's autocorrect for repeatedly trying to change "jetting off" to "getting off" in a text message. I prevailed in the end, but it took some effort.

I did my commute today in style. 😎

FYI folks I’ve seen the “ideology gap” story about GenZ men becoming increasingly conservative going around a lot and the data is extremely problematic and being widely panned by scientific experts as biased and poorly analyzed. Prob best to stop sharing it:

That's a lot of uppers and downers...

The Wikipedia biographical info for Ryan Gosling sounds like Dr. Evil talking about his father

Air shrimp!

Someone was hungry when they gave this interview (full article at: electrek.co/2024/01/15/h...)

Charismatic aquatic minifauna

Where does one store objects like this?...

Playing Monopoly with my family, and my 11yo perfectly summed up the dynamic of the game when the first player buys a house: "now everything goes to shit."

I found the best sign.

Just had some portraits of my daughters drawn in the touristy square in Montmartre with all of the sketch artists, and as much as people say that artists are in trouble now that generative AI is here... yeah, these are not good portraits at all. I guess it's more about the experience 🤷‍♂️