TIL that deer will eat small birds if they happen to find dead ones lying around Two faced macabre little devils what’s wrong with you

Looking forward to what promises to be an interesting week of discussions on explanation in neuroscience. Starting tomorrow!

Reviewed 6 papers and ended up with a uniform split over bad / meh / good *taps earbud* Did I enjoy the process though? Uh no, Janet, I did not. This is Reviewer 4, reporting from the trenches. #icml2026

Call for position papers: you have one job — state your position in the title Authors: The Adventures of Neural Networks #icml2026

Call for position papers: you have one job — state your position in the title Authors: The Adventures of Neural Networks #icml2026

After dislodging the meteorite fragments from the roofs, people sat the fragments at the kitchen table and gave them a speech about being late to deliver signs of the apocalypse

I went to a really cool jazz concert a couple of days ago but no photos or recording of any kind were allowed during the performance so here you go, social media overlords #jazzsky

Upcoming talk in the Theory of Interpretable AI seminar: Federico Adolfi frames interpretability in terms of computational complexity theory.

Me: I’m elated to announce my new suite of agentic LLMs fine-tuned to exhibit subtle behaviors that maximally elicit complex vicarious emotions in humans such as shame and embarrassment Billionaire: I can help you grow with an initial investment of— Me: I call it CrinGPT B: get out

To take this to the limit, we note that for every ε-ssay there exists a δ-ebate.

In this ε-ssay, I develop a kernel of an idea so diminishingly small that you’ve just read it You’re welcome

Me: alright then, time to work on the abstract for my talk and ONLY the abstract for my talk until it’s done Also me: *spends an hour working on a schematic for a single slide* Nailed it

In this household we are generally self deprecating and also we celebrate rejections with dangerously delicious cookies

I don’t know who needs to hear this but *uncanny mouth noises*

Oh hell no Put. That. Shit. Back.

Oh hell no Put. That. Shit. Back.

Got a little taste of that Academic Rejection yesterday and it already feels like a 27 year old unresolved trauma

I don’t know who needs to hear this but *uncanny mouth noises*

We’ve all heard of the early (and possibly fallacious) dichotomy between our biological endowment and the environment we inhabit growing up (Nature vs Nurture). Lesser known is the later (less fallacious) dichotomy between developing into a decent person versus a total shitbag (Mature vs Manure).

We’ve all heard of the early (and possibly fallacious) dichotomy between our biological endowment and the environment we inhabit growing up (Nature vs Nurture). Lesser known is the later (less fallacious) dichotomy between developing into a decent person versus a total shitbag (Mature vs Manure).

Ok so an fMRI study in the context of an fMRI study — yes go on

Hiring committee: tell us about your perspective on the field of cognitive neuroscience Me: well, a lot of ink has been spilled in attempts to understand brain function HC: interesti— Me: say, ‘temporal cortex, frontal cortex’, that’s a LOT of words. Just use temporex, frontex, occ— HC: get out

Looks like I’m giving a bunch of talks at seminars and symposiums in the next few months and I’m hoping the audience appreciates brutal honesty and a hint of desperation in my closing slide

Looks like I’m giving a bunch of talks at seminars and symposiums in the next few months and I’m hoping the audience appreciates brutal honesty and a hint of desperation in my closing slide

*frantically trying to figure out how rabits fit in all of this* This is sending me down a…ra-bit hole

[Cognitive capacity nobody understands] is very important. However, the underlying neural mechanisms remain enigmatic. Here we show that [stimuli somehow related to the capacity] can be decoded from [spatiotemporal description]. Our results show that we can do what we did.

I'm looking for emergency reviewers for FAccT papers about ethics and LLMs. So many reviewers have ghosted, and I have one paper that currently has zero reviews, two days after the deadline :( Please reach out if you could write a review for me!

The thing you all need to understand about LLMs is that just kidding I’m not touching that discourse with a 20 meter laser beam

Original is from 2021. Still relevant 🧠🟦 🧪 I wonder how many kinds of templates would be needed to capture most “canned” cog/neuro science out there…

[Cognitive capacity nobody understands] is very important. However, the underlying neural mechanisms remain enigmatic. Here we show that [stimuli somehow related to the capacity] can be decoded from [spatiotemporal description]. Our results show that we can do what we did.

I made about 74 of these so I guess it’s waffle sandwiches for the rest of the month

Adults can have Baby Yoda waffles for lunch anytime and nobody can stop them. Checkmate, kids

Adults can have Baby Yoda waffles for lunch anytime and nobody can stop them. Checkmate, kids

I want to be very clear: No that’s it actually. I’d just like more clarity

I’ve been having the most detailed, elaborate, bizarre dreams / nightmares the past couple of weeks, and I don’t think this is a rare experience in general. Have the cognitive and brain sciences advanced any plausible ideas for how and why this happens? My impression is we don’t have the tools 🧪 🧠🟦

I’ve been having the most detailed, elaborate, bizarre dreams / nightmares the past couple of weeks, and I don’t think this is a rare experience in general. Have the cognitive and brain sciences advanced any plausible ideas for how and why this happens? My impression is we don’t have the tools 🧪 🧠🟦

It is done. I gave it my best and it went really well. Now it’s in your hands. Cast the good vibe spells

Just gave a presentation to a grant panel and I’m spent for the day so I think I deserve a small negroni the size of a large negroni

If you saw this I’d love to know where this came from because 1. we don’t call it that, 2. she says yes but then they never go for it, which we would never do because why torture yourself like that, and 3. it’s always mate o clock so you don’t need to check your watch 🧉

Just gave a presentation to a grant panel and I’m spent for the day so I think I deserve a small negroni the size of a large negroni

It is done. I gave it my best and it went really well. Now it’s in your hands. Cast the good vibe spells

I’ve been having the mother of all earworms for two weeks now: it’s not a single song, it’s a whole cursed playlist

~Applying for an academic job in 2028~ Them: an initial review of your application revealed missing sections: 7.4.3 Helicopter Experience Me: wh…what? Them: H E L I C O P T E R. Please make sure to follow the guidelines when submitting your revised application Me: *checks guidelines* son of a

~Applying for an academic job in 2028~ Them: an initial review of your application revealed missing sections: 7.4.3 Helicopter Experience Me: wh…what? Them: H E L I C O P T E R. Please make sure to follow the guidelines when submitting your revised application Me: *checks guidelines* son of a

I’d think they are not really doing any of the work but just the other day somebody told me they collaborated on a paper with one such prominent neuroscientist and the guy really did a lot of useful work, which really surprised me and I will choose to forget I heard because it messes with my head

A few months ago I was shortlisted for a research group leader grant and so I’m giving a presentation to a panel of experts in a few days. Get ready because immediately after that I’m gonna need each of you to cross fingers, say a prayer, sprinkle salt over your shoulder, perform incantations, etc.

If you’ve published work applying the Ising model to some domain, say social interactions, and haven’t titled your paper accordingly, say “Socialising”, then I despair for humankind as there seem to exist insurmountable barriers between some of us

A few months ago I was shortlisted for a research group leader grant and so I’m giving a presentation to a panel of experts in a few days. Get ready because immediately after that I’m gonna need each of you to cross fingers, say a prayer, sprinkle salt over your shoulder, perform incantations, etc.

Thinking about this theme in the context of cog/neurosci 🧠🧪 A thing shows up only or predominantly under some methodological framework —> the field takes it as evidence of the success/correctness of the framework (whatever that may be) rather than a failure of robustness of the thing

My bar for telling anybody to f**k off is so high that I did it once on social media and 5 years later the guy shows up in The Official Government Files of The Creepiest Human Beings. He described the incident to me, a PhD student at the time, as “career ending”. Guess he was sorta right!