Jack Aidley
@jackaidley.bsky.social
Programmer (mostly games, currently Unity) and former microbiologist. Brit in Germany. Likes cats, tabletop RPGs, and F1.
Reposted by Jack Aidley
May as well dive right in.
Did you know that dogs in ancient Mesopotamia also refused to drop the ball?
According to a Sumerian proverb, “The dog understands ‘Take it!’ It does not understand ‘Put it down!’”
Source: cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/34...
Did you know that dogs in ancient Mesopotamia also refused to drop the ball?
According to a Sumerian proverb, “The dog understands ‘Take it!’ It does not understand ‘Put it down!’”
Source: cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/34...
November 13, 2024 at 11:20 AM
May as well dive right in.
Did you know that dogs in ancient Mesopotamia also refused to drop the ball?
According to a Sumerian proverb, “The dog understands ‘Take it!’ It does not understand ‘Put it down!’”
Source: cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/34...
Did you know that dogs in ancient Mesopotamia also refused to drop the ball?
According to a Sumerian proverb, “The dog understands ‘Take it!’ It does not understand ‘Put it down!’”
Source: cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/34...
Reposted by Jack Aidley
Hello UK taxpayers! Your new AI training guide has just arrived: shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/XB...
January 28, 2026 at 1:30 PM
Hello UK taxpayers! Your new AI training guide has just arrived: shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/XB...
Reposted by Jack Aidley
Reposted by Jack Aidley
www.theguardian.com/money/2026/j...
"A spokesperson for the RFA said: 'The inclusion of a ground rent cap in the draft bill represents a wholly unjustified interference with existing property rights which if enacted, would seriously damage investor confidence in the UK housing market'"
"A spokesperson for the RFA said: 'The inclusion of a ground rent cap in the draft bill represents a wholly unjustified interference with existing property rights which if enacted, would seriously damage investor confidence in the UK housing market'"
January 27, 2026 at 4:18 PM
www.theguardian.com/money/2026/j...
"A spokesperson for the RFA said: 'The inclusion of a ground rent cap in the draft bill represents a wholly unjustified interference with existing property rights which if enacted, would seriously damage investor confidence in the UK housing market'"
"A spokesperson for the RFA said: 'The inclusion of a ground rent cap in the draft bill represents a wholly unjustified interference with existing property rights which if enacted, would seriously damage investor confidence in the UK housing market'"
In a sensible country, this drastic drop in a key export industry and a massive source of soft power, would be an absolute headline panic for the government.
It won't be.
It won't be.
Int'l student numbers at UK universities down 6% last year - master's numbers down 10%. Some massive drops in overseas headcount, eg, Beds (-51%), Swansea, Northampton (-44%). Also Sheffield (-26%), Cardiff, Leeds (-22%) www.timeshighereducation.com/news/masters... via @patrickjack.bsky.social
Master’s plunge 10 per cent amid record fall in overseas students
UK universities’ recruitment from India, China and Nigeria falls after policy changes, with student numbers now well below peak of a few years ago
www.timeshighereducation.com
January 27, 2026 at 4:47 PM
In a sensible country, this drastic drop in a key export industry and a massive source of soft power, would be an absolute headline panic for the government.
It won't be.
It won't be.
Reposted by Jack Aidley
“analyzing all articles indexed in the PubMed database (>36.5 million articles published in >36,000 biomedical and life sciences journals), we show that the median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles “ 🧪 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review
Women are underrepresented in academia, especially in STEMM fields, at top institutions, and in senior positions. This study analyzes millions of biomedical and life science articles, revealing that f...
journals.plos.org
January 24, 2026 at 5:28 PM
“analyzing all articles indexed in the PubMed database (>36.5 million articles published in >36,000 biomedical and life sciences journals), we show that the median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles “ 🧪 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Reposted by Jack Aidley
Transphobia is a cancer of the heart and mind.
It is a useless fear, based on ignorance and cruelty.
Trans people are not responsible for a single one of the problems we face.
Do the world a favor and grow the fuck up.
It is a useless fear, based on ignorance and cruelty.
Trans people are not responsible for a single one of the problems we face.
Do the world a favor and grow the fuck up.
January 24, 2026 at 3:15 AM
Transphobia is a cancer of the heart and mind.
It is a useless fear, based on ignorance and cruelty.
Trans people are not responsible for a single one of the problems we face.
Do the world a favor and grow the fuck up.
It is a useless fear, based on ignorance and cruelty.
Trans people are not responsible for a single one of the problems we face.
Do the world a favor and grow the fuck up.
Self-reported measures of time saving, not even measured time saving. In research that measures time saved we've seen people think they were getting substantial gains while actually be slower than they would be without it.
The disconnect between management and employee on AI usage is big. At the same time, CEOs are reporting they aren't seeing any revenue growth from AI.
🤷
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/wo...
🤷
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/wo...
CEOs Say AI Is Making Work More Efficient. Employees Tell a Different Story.
How much time workers say the technology saves them on the job is vastly different from what executives report.
www.wsj.com
January 21, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Self-reported measures of time saving, not even measured time saving. In research that measures time saved we've seen people think they were getting substantial gains while actually be slower than they would be without it.
Reposted by Jack Aidley
#NatMicroPicks
Asgard archaea and the origin of eukaryotes! 🦠
Eukaryotic cellular complexity evolved largely within the Asgard lineage before mitochondrial endosymbiosis and later bacterial gene acquisitions
#MicroSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Asgard archaea and the origin of eukaryotes! 🦠
Eukaryotic cellular complexity evolved largely within the Asgard lineage before mitochondrial endosymbiosis and later bacterial gene acquisitions
#MicroSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Dominant contribution of Asgard archaea to eukaryogenesis - Nature
A survey of the reconstructed gene set of the last eukaryotic common ancestor shows a consistent link between Asgard archaea and the origin of numerous, functionally diverse eukaryotic genes, dem...
www.nature.com
January 16, 2026 at 2:56 PM
#NatMicroPicks
Asgard archaea and the origin of eukaryotes! 🦠
Eukaryotic cellular complexity evolved largely within the Asgard lineage before mitochondrial endosymbiosis and later bacterial gene acquisitions
#MicroSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Asgard archaea and the origin of eukaryotes! 🦠
Eukaryotic cellular complexity evolved largely within the Asgard lineage before mitochondrial endosymbiosis and later bacterial gene acquisitions
#MicroSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The question that needs answering is whether ChatGPT is causing psychosis or whether people who were already going to undergo a psychotic break are using ChatGPT while they do it. If it's the former then the data should show an increase in the number of cases.
NEW: People are being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — and even ending up arrested or jailed — after becoming fixated on ChatGPT and other chatbots and spiraling into psychosis.
futurism.com/commitment-j...
futurism.com/commitment-j...
January 13, 2026 at 1:58 PM
The question that needs answering is whether ChatGPT is causing psychosis or whether people who were already going to undergo a psychotic break are using ChatGPT while they do it. If it's the former then the data should show an increase in the number of cases.
It occurs to me that the C in Customs is pronounced as a hard c, as a /k/, that means rather than it being pronounced 'ice' as in frozen water, it should be pronounced 'Ike' or 'Icky'.
January 13, 2026 at 6:50 AM
It occurs to me that the C in Customs is pronounced as a hard c, as a /k/, that means rather than it being pronounced 'ice' as in frozen water, it should be pronounced 'Ike' or 'Icky'.
Reposted by Jack Aidley
The widely reported statement about restricting the feature to subscribers was a hallucinatory answer by the AI Grok - not a statement by the company itself
In case you've seen the story about “grok now only generates images for paid users”, it's untrue. Apparently everyone just reported it because… it was what grok told them 🤦🏼
www.theverge.com/news/859309/...
www.theverge.com/news/859309/...
No, Grok hasn’t paywalled its deepfake image feature
X’s sexual deepfake machine is still running, despite Grok saying otherwise.
www.theverge.com
January 9, 2026 at 6:15 PM
The widely reported statement about restricting the feature to subscribers was a hallucinatory answer by the AI Grok - not a statement by the company itself
Reposted by Jack Aidley
“Several versions of models scored above diagnostic thresholds, and all showed levels of worry that in people ‘would be clearly pathological’, say the authors.”
I checked for a heartbeat in my kitchen utensils. None found. In people that ‘would be clearly pathological’. Time to panic.
🧪⏲️🥣🍽️😱
I checked for a heartbeat in my kitchen utensils. None found. In people that ‘would be clearly pathological’. Time to panic.
🧪⏲️🥣🍽️😱
Researchers who put major AI models through four weeks of psychoanalysis got haunting responses, from "abuse" to "fears of failure"
go.nature.com/49pxLU3
go.nature.com/49pxLU3
AI models were given four weeks of therapy: the results shocked researchers
Chatbots put through psychotherapy report trauma and abuse. Authors say models are doing more than role play, but researchers are sceptical.
go.nature.com
January 9, 2026 at 2:05 PM
“Several versions of models scored above diagnostic thresholds, and all showed levels of worry that in people ‘would be clearly pathological’, say the authors.”
I checked for a heartbeat in my kitchen utensils. None found. In people that ‘would be clearly pathological’. Time to panic.
🧪⏲️🥣🍽️😱
I checked for a heartbeat in my kitchen utensils. None found. In people that ‘would be clearly pathological’. Time to panic.
🧪⏲️🥣🍽️😱
Reposted by Jack Aidley
Gearing up to teach my grad Theory class again, I am reminded that the Spandrels of San Marcos is not a good paper.
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/w...
(but I'll probably assign it anyway, for precisely this reason)
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/w...
(but I'll probably assign it anyway, for precisely this reason)
Why "The Spandrels of San Marco" isn't a good paper
Stephen Jay Gould & Richard Lewontin’s 1979 article “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme” is one of the most wid…
dynamicecology.wordpress.com
January 8, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Gearing up to teach my grad Theory class again, I am reminded that the Spandrels of San Marcos is not a good paper.
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/w...
(but I'll probably assign it anyway, for precisely this reason)
dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/w...
(but I'll probably assign it anyway, for precisely this reason)
Reposted by Jack Aidley
Incredibly important new study from Cal Horton @fiercemum.bsky.social - the first to look at England's post-Cass child/adolescent gender clinics. Dr Horton found patients and families are being actively harmed, with one young person describing appointments as "the worst thing I’ve ever experienced”.
“The worst thing I’ve ever experienced” – comparing experiences of affirmative and non-affirmative healthcare provision for trans adolescents in the UK
Within trans youth healthcare two fundamentally different models of care persist, with a significant difference between affirmative and non-affirmative healthcare services. To date there has been l...
doi.org
January 8, 2026 at 10:25 AM
Incredibly important new study from Cal Horton @fiercemum.bsky.social - the first to look at England's post-Cass child/adolescent gender clinics. Dr Horton found patients and families are being actively harmed, with one young person describing appointments as "the worst thing I’ve ever experienced”.
Hmm. Pretty sure this isn't true, surely the US bombed more countries in a year under Roosevelt or possibly Truman during WWII?
January 7, 2026 at 6:34 AM
Hmm. Pretty sure this isn't true, surely the US bombed more countries in a year under Roosevelt or possibly Truman during WWII?
Reposted by Jack Aidley
I heard what everyone has been clamoring for is 6,000 words on what a simple question about the 1990s comedy My Cousin Vinny can teach us about the capabilities and surprising weaknesses of current LLMs. Well, I hate to disappoint people, so I went and wrote it. open.substack.com/pub/mikecaul...
What a simple question about My Cousin Vinny taught me about LLMs
If you want to see an LLM really malfunction, ask it to reconstruct a story from pieces. Also: Should this be a benchmark?
open.substack.com
January 5, 2026 at 1:48 AM
I heard what everyone has been clamoring for is 6,000 words on what a simple question about the 1990s comedy My Cousin Vinny can teach us about the capabilities and surprising weaknesses of current LLMs. Well, I hate to disappoint people, so I went and wrote it. open.substack.com/pub/mikecaul...
Why the fuck are MPs urging a boycott? Put on your big girl/boy pants and legislate!
Writing this I had to look through Grok's mentions. Earlier I counted around 8 requests PER MINUTE featuring "bikini" and "her". Thousands of women and girls stripped each day. I found users stripping dozens of women per hour, from female celebrities to gym selfies.
www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...
www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...
MPs urge boycott of Elon Musk’s X over Grok AI’s undressing
The call to end use of X for official government communication follows posts of digitally undressed women and children that may have broken UK law
www.thetimes.com
January 5, 2026 at 10:41 PM
Why the fuck are MPs urging a boycott? Put on your big girl/boy pants and legislate!
It's a Robin Hood film so there's like a 98% chance I'll watch it, and I wonder how closely it hews to the classic ballad from which it presumably derives its name but I feel like if you've not made Robin Hood a hero you've missed the damn point.
January 5, 2026 at 6:27 PM
It's a Robin Hood film so there's like a 98% chance I'll watch it, and I wonder how closely it hews to the classic ballad from which it presumably derives its name but I feel like if you've not made Robin Hood a hero you've missed the damn point.
The discussion about Grok's creepy behaviour is focusing much too much on the child porn aspect. Governments across the world need to move quickly to criminalise the production of non-consensual AI images based on real people; and apply meaningful fines to companies that allow them to be produced.
January 5, 2026 at 2:51 PM
The discussion about Grok's creepy behaviour is focusing much too much on the child porn aspect. Governments across the world need to move quickly to criminalise the production of non-consensual AI images based on real people; and apply meaningful fines to companies that allow them to be produced.
Reposted by Jack Aidley
🔊 Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bacterial Evolution.
Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠
3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share!
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠
3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share!
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
Job profile
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk
January 5, 2026 at 10:00 AM
🔊 Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bacterial Evolution.
Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠
3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share!
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠
3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share!
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_webrec...
Reposted by Jack Aidley
How likely is ‘likely’? Does ‘likely’ have a higher probability than ‘probable’? I put together a quick quiz so you can see how you interpret probability phrases, then see how you compare with others: probability.kucharski.io
January 3, 2026 at 4:15 PM
How likely is ‘likely’? Does ‘likely’ have a higher probability than ‘probable’? I put together a quick quiz so you can see how you interpret probability phrases, then see how you compare with others: probability.kucharski.io
Reposted by Jack Aidley
The Dickin Medal is the highest award that can be issued to animals in British military service. Bearing the words "We Also Serve" it has been awarded 75 times since its creation in 1943.
Only one cat has ever received the award.
This is the story of Able Seacat Simon, of HMS Amethyst. 🧵 1/25
Only one cat has ever received the award.
This is the story of Able Seacat Simon, of HMS Amethyst. 🧵 1/25
August 6, 2024 at 12:36 PM
The Dickin Medal is the highest award that can be issued to animals in British military service. Bearing the words "We Also Serve" it has been awarded 75 times since its creation in 1943.
Only one cat has ever received the award.
This is the story of Able Seacat Simon, of HMS Amethyst. 🧵 1/25
Only one cat has ever received the award.
This is the story of Able Seacat Simon, of HMS Amethyst. 🧵 1/25
Reposted by Jack Aidley
One reason is that we're increasingly having to multitask. Time use surveys show nearly half of all young adults are on their phone when they say they are "relaxing"
Another is that key activities have become less enjoyable. Work is less fun than it was 40 years ago!
2/3
Another is that key activities have become less enjoyable. Work is less fun than it was 40 years ago!
2/3
January 4, 2026 at 11:43 AM
One reason is that we're increasingly having to multitask. Time use surveys show nearly half of all young adults are on their phone when they say they are "relaxing"
Another is that key activities have become less enjoyable. Work is less fun than it was 40 years ago!
2/3
Another is that key activities have become less enjoyable. Work is less fun than it was 40 years ago!
2/3
Feel Trump has seriously undermined the sanctity and reputation of the FIFA Peace prize 😟
January 4, 2026 at 9:14 AM
Feel Trump has seriously undermined the sanctity and reputation of the FIFA Peace prize 😟