New preprint out with @elspethready.bsky.social : "The emergence of sharing networks through indirect signaling". osf.io/preprints/so...

I think the first to go all in on "reality is made of information" was Konrad Zuze, whose Rechnender Raum is a psychedelic read. Interesting even though I don't think there is much reality in the information it provides.

The Christmas edition of Cabinet of Infographic Curiosities is out now! attilabatorfy.substack.com/p/christmas-...

Abd ar-Rahman al-Sufi. Book of Fixed Stars, 964 CE. Illustrations from 1417. Manuscript reproduced 1730 The constellation Orion

Blog time! 📯 We feel that we understand things when certain patterns of explanations are in place. If reality doesn't follow those patterns, our understanding suffers. On to the third such eureka fallacy I've blogged about: explanation by optimization. petterhol.me/2025/12/10/t...

Blog time! 📯 We feel that we understand things when certain patterns of explanations are in place. If reality doesn't follow those patterns, our understanding suffers. On to the third such eureka fallacy I've blogged about: explanation by optimization. petterhol.me/2025/12/10/t...

Join us today @cudanlab.bsky.social for a lecture and discussion with Corinna Coupette of @aalto.fi in person @dataspider.bsky.social 💽🕷️ on Computational Perspectives on Legal Systems 🤖🔭⚖️ 16:00-18:00 Tallinn time UTC+2 🇪🇪🇪🇺🌍 5.5 hours from this post. Details & zoom: cudan.tlu.ee/events/2025-...

Yes, I used to be so much into this! Armchair deglobalization at its best. The more exotic the better, so prayer-heavy Sahelian stations like radio.garden/listen/radio... are high on my list.

Today's algorithmic art: "Verteilung elementarer Zeichen" by F. Nake, 1965. From "Bit-1: Teorija Informacija I Nova Estetika."

Time for another mixtape to get you into that wintery mood. 🎶 A cassette-friendly 90 min, of course. open.spotify.com/playlist/15s...

Time for another mixtape to get you into that wintery mood. 🎶 A cassette-friendly 90 min, of course. open.spotify.com/playlist/15s...

Network of the day. From R Riedl's "Structures of Complexity"

Network of the day: States of poverty and corresponding actions from charity organizations from Mohr & Duquenne (1997) via @netsciconf.bsky.social

New, spicy competitor for Zachary's Karate Club just dropped

We're excited to announce that the website and registration for IC2S2 2026 (July 28-31) will launch in early December! The Vermont Complex Systems Institute @vcsi.bsky.social at the University of Vermont will be hosting IC2S2 in 2026: youtube.com/watch?v=p412S4GnPkc&feature=youtu.be

@mtsvetkova.bsky.social is a panellist at the International Society for Computational Social Science (ISCSS) first-ever "Ask Me Anything" webinar, focused on PhD admissions! 🗓️ Nov 19 3.00pm ET 💻Online Register➡️ umich.zoom.us/webinar/regi.... 💬 Submit questions: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Join us on Thursday, 6 November, at 14:30 CET for the International Roundtable on Computational Social Science with @ajalvero.bsky.social 🔹 Generative AI and Sociology: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful 🔹 More info: liu.se/en/article/s...

Network of the day. From: Kuligowski, E.D. (2016). Human Behavior in Fire. In: Hurley, M.J., et al. SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering. Springer, New York, NY.

For us, this journey toward explaining *surprising macro outcomes* took many years. Grateful to my amazing co-authors, @martinarvidsson.bsky.social and Peter Hedström, and to all the reviewers who supported us along the way 🚀Out now: sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...

Network of the day. From: Briggs & Peat, Turbulent Mirror, 1989.

🔈Job Alert! Swedish Excellence Center in Computational Social Science (SWECSS) is hiring postdoctoral researchers. Positions are available at IAS and the Department of Computer Science (IDA). ⌛Deadline: 31 October IAS: liu.se/en/work-at-l... IDA: liu.se/en/work-at-l... #academicsky #css

arXiv alert! 📄🚨 A review paper about the physics of news, rumors, and opinions arxiv.org/abs/2510.15053 w @manlius.bsky.social @sarawalk.bsky.social Guido Cadarelli et al.

Network of the day, from: Live Fyrand, "Sosialt Nettverk: Teori og Praktikk", 1994.

Reminder: Last chance to apply for our postdoc positions in polarisation + mental well-being: www.aalto.fi/en/open-posi...

💡👉 "Artificially intelligent agents in the social and behavioral sciences: A history and outlook" A new paper from @mtsvetkova.bsky.social (@lsedatascience.bsky.social Affiliate) and Professor @pholme.bsky.social traces the evolution of agentic #AI in the social sciences ➡️ arxiv.org/abs/2510.05743

arXiv alert 📄🚨 arxiv.org/abs/2510.05743 w Milena Tsvetkova This was such a fun paper to write! The development leading up to today’s social/behavioral science with AI agents. The history itself is a roller-coaster ride connecting many of the big themes of 20/21 century human-centric science. 1/3

Bring back inscrutable security posters

Network of the day. An autocatalytic network from: S Levy, Artificial Life, 1992.

arXiv alert! 📄🚨 Robustness of small networks arxiv.org/abs/2509.23670 Great to dust off one of my favorite topics and get to collaborate with the legendary @aliceschwarze.bsky.social and Peter Mucha

I updated my blogpost about complexity science books from the golden era (1987–1996). Now it covers 17 books—many very readable even 30 years later! petterhol.me/2022/08/11/t...

Org-chart of the week: on.ft.com/4gHkxoU

Jia et al. experimentally show that when individuals can tailor their actions to each neighbour - a freedom termed social networking agency - they display higher cooperation, trust and fairness in economic games. @ivanromic.bsky.social @pholme.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper in NHB 📄🚨 We ran extensive experiments to show that making the rules of some canonical economic games looser, makes people more cooperative www.nature.com/articles/s41...

📣 Job alert! *Assistant Prof in Computational Social Science*. We're a friendly department, with sharp students, at a great institution, in a lovely city. We have real strengths in computational social science & are looking for a colleague to build this further. Share and reach out with quesions!

In just about a week, the season's first NetSci Colloquium will happen. And we're starting with a bang . . . with none other than Iain Couzin talking about Collective Behavior in Animal Groups. September 24, 10 AM ET. Register here to get a Zoom link: iu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The figures of old simulation papers are so vaporwave. (From: Gilbert & Conte (eds.), "Artificial Societies.")

💙New paper!💙 How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society? With @danielredhead.bsky.social we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

My idea about "strong passports" is heavily influenced by the fact that the title page of Swedish passports (at least between 2005-2010) used to crack pretty quickly.

Network (visualization) of the day, by Duane M. Palyka (1968). From: Margit Rosen, et al. (eds.): A Little-Known Story About a Movement, a Magazine, and The Computer’s Arrival in Art: New Tendencies and Bit International, 1961-1973 (2011).

Super excited about our new paper on mobility that's out in Nature Human Behavior www.nature.com/articles/s41... I love this paper for many reasons, but one is that we find beautiful 1/x power-law that spans 6 orders of magnitude hidden within the "ugly" distribution raw mobility data.

Network of the day: A network of modernist writers. From "The Gender of Modernity" by Bonnie Lynn Scott (1990).

A bit early, but who could wait? A C90 mixtape for the best of seasons. 🎶 open.spotify.com/playlist/1rS...

A survey of >99k people (110 regions) shows the Global North has denser belief networks, while the Global South has looser connections Inconsistency appears in areas (eg Mid East), where support for fossil fuels conflicts with support for renewables/climate policies www.nature.com/articles/s41...

There are several recent papers which could fall under the heading ‘Economic History of the Scientific Revolution’ but this network analysis tracing how scientific ideas diffused amongst scholars in the period 1084-1793 is a real milestone, an ‘epidemiological’ model of how ideas spread like disease

✨ The IAS Seminar Series returns for the Fall 2025 semester with a stellar lineup of speakers and thought-provoking talks. Open to all! #AcademicSky #Sociology #CSS

Network of the day. From: Epstein & Axtell, Growing Artificial Societies (1996). The book is, of course, a classic in the pre-network-science complexity science literature. But I, for one, forgot that it also contains networks.

Network of the day. From: Mirkin & Rodin's "Graphs and Genes" (1984).

Network of the day. From: Graph Games by Frédérique and Papy (1971).

New review article preprint: 🚨📄 www.arxiv.org/abs/2507.22799 It's about the interface between human mobility studies and epidemic modeling. (Hit me up if we missed your paper.)