Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 9h

Image credit: John Wheeler at a Princeton blackboard discussing quantization but as if he were looking at Walton Ford’s painting, “Falling Bough’, a fantastic depiction of collective behavior. Composite image by JCF. Wheeler photo by Kip Thorne.

1

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 9h

For more on emergence and computation in nature, please visit my website. Unfortunately my research website, Bluesky and x accounts, and substack continue to be censored and edited by a third party without permission so I cannot vouch for their content at this time.

jessicaflack.wordpress.com/blog

1 2

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 9h

If you are unsure of the answers to these questions, a film that helps clear the fog off the mirror is The Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

The Lives of Others | Official Trailer (2006)
youtu.be/n3_iLOp6IhM?...

And in case you’d like to know my take.

x.com/C4COMPUTATIO...

The Lives of Others | Official Trailer (2006)

YouTube video by Sony Pictures Classics

youtu.be

1

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Jul 8

The long term solution to protection against privacy + other civil liberties violations can't be $200M ranches w 6 ft walls + security forces. It has to be rooted in intrusion detection tech, social norms, enforced laws, + default private infrastructure + building materials.

x.com/C4COMPUTATIO...

1 1 1

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Jun 3

Through hourglass emergence, complexity begets complexity...is one of my favorite sayings.

A cell is a blob of cytoplasm with a few organelles floating about—or so the textbooks teach and you probably learned in school. More on Babel Blog at jessicaflack.wordpress.com

John Wheeler by R.P. Matthews

2 2 4

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Jul 8

That frozen star there,
Or this one on the water,—
Which is more distant?

Keep straight down this block,
Then turn right where you will find
A peach tree blooming

1 1 1

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Jul 8

Juxtaposed they remind us to have humility, that what matters is how we treat each other, and that our lives must be lived on many scales at once—to cast our vision near and far.

jessicaflack.wordpress.com

Image: composite made by JCF—info on website.

1

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 9h

If you are unsure of the answers to these questions, a film that helps clear the fog off the mirror is The Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

The Lives of Others | Official Trailer (2006)
youtu.be/n3_iLOp6IhM?...

And in case you’d like to know my take.

x.com/C4COMPUTATIO...

The Lives of Others | Official Trailer (2006)

YouTube video by Sony Pictures Classics

youtu.be

1

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 9h

Wondering what your view is @govmlg.bsky.social on a person‘s right to privacy in his or her home, and especially when it involves multi-year high resolution video surveillance her bedroom and bathroom, not to mention a civilian committee of discussants.

1

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 1d

A dewy Verbascum thapsus spotted on the Picacho peak trails this afternoon.

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 3d

‘…he predicted an almost infinite range of structures could be produced, ‘open structures’ with large channels and cavities would be developed, and the frameworks could be ‘functionalised’ with catalytic sites, so, for example, a substance could […] be chemically transformed on the way through.”

1 2

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 3d

Perhaps there are useful liminal spaces between the work behind the physics + chemistry Nobel Prizes. 💥

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the...

On the chemistry prize and Richard Robson’s contribution.

The Nobel Prize winner who built a whole new field of chemistry

In the 90s, University of Melbourne Professor Richard Robson created a new class of coordination polymers - now he and two other scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au

1 1

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 4d

Please note my email, website, x, Bluesky and substack accounts are still under third party control without permission.

Image: Still from The Lives of Others

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 4d

Congratulations to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis for winning the 2025 @nobelprize.bsky.social
for their work on macroscopic quantum tunneling and quantisation in circuits.

Preliminary thoughts are up at my blog.

jessicacflack.wordpress.com

2 8

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · May 4

Dream Dust
By Langston Hughes

Gather out of star-dust
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust
Not for sale.

From The Collected Works of Langston Hughes (2002) via @PoetryFound.
Photo credit—TBD—please share if you know.

2 2 7

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Jul 18

...negative liberties naturally and profoundly incentivizes behavior that contributes to the social good while protecting individual rights.

More at Babel Blog.

jessicaflack.wordpress.com/blog (scroll down).

Image: Composite made by JCF. See website for information.

1 1

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Jul 18

The beauty and power of negative liberties lies in how freedom is defined—the 'allowed behavior' is the behavior that remains after all behavior that hurts or impinges on the rights of others is 'disallowed'.

With the lightest touch,

1 1 1

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Jul 18

Perspective on rights that emphasize individual liberties are sometimes equated with selfishness or described as anti-social. It is precisely the opposite for the concept of negative liberties. Continued...

Image credit: Isaiah Berlin by Steve Pyke, National Portrait Gallery

1 1

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Mar 31

Isaiah Berlin—proponent of negative liberties as a remakably effective + broadly useful yet relatively simple (compressed) guiding moral principle—on the perilousness of ideological certainty. From an essay @nybooks
by Henry Hardy.

nybooks.com/articles/200...

1 3 4

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · 14d

Happy Public Lands Day!

2

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Aug 30

Tomás Sánchez is a Cuban painter. His works are often in my mind. This painting, I believe, is from his 1948 “Enchanting Forrests” series.

jessicaflack.wordpress.com/blog

2

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Aug 25

Similarly, institutions engaging in corruption—including endorsing the poaching or trade of biological material—cannot buy back their science reputations with fancy awards. 🤨

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Aug 25

Intellectual opportunities or recognition that comes with personal choice or other tethers, or which is backed by institutions that discriminate based on political views, are not merit-based + are neither interesting, or worthy of time or attention.

Palette cleanser:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml14...

Rostropovich records the Prelude from Bach Cello Suite No.1 BWV 1007

YouTube video by Warner Classics

m.youtube.com

1 2

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Aug 19

For science related issues, I can be reached at the email on my website. In addition, I post often abt my work, and that of others, on Babel Blog.

The latest post is on Borges, Oulipo + the impoverishing power of being able to see everything everywhere all at once.

jessicaflack.wordpress.com

1

Reposted by Jessica Flack

Jessica Flack @c4computation.bsky.social · Aug 19

After ~23 years at the Institute—as grad student, postdoc, + professor—I’ve elected not to pursue renewal of my faculty contract. My last day was August 1st.

There are fundamental science advances on the horizon. . .more @ Babel Blog.

jessicaflack.wordpress.com/blog

Image: Turrell Blue Day. JCF

1 1 1