Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

david jon furbish

@davidjonfurbish.bsky.social

110 followers 74 following 280 posts

granddad and emeritus professor studying statistical physics of sediment transport & science philosophy essays on these topics: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/davidjonfurbish/ author of Fluid Physics in Geology: https://academic.oup.com/book/40895?login=false

my.vanderbilt.edu

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Jan 16

As a point of reference, meet Rowan the intrepid woof. Together we invented the game of Dragon Soccer involving two soccer balls and a stuffed dragon. The rules are complicated… and fluid. But it seems that whoever controls the dragon controls the game. I’ll be posting numerous pics of Rowan.

Tri-colored Australian Shepherd standing in a grassy field, sunbeams on her back, anxious for me to play with her.

1 5

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 1d

“Yes, that next sentence directly contradicts the previous one. You are not misreading it. This document is that stupid.”

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 1d

“This “compact” is… like an invitation to borrow money from the mob, with substantial control and future penalties assured. If any university agrees to this proposal, it will be under federal control and subject to some unpredictable, arbitrary, extreme penalties.”

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

Reposted by david jon furbish

Colin Stark @cstark.bsky.social · 4d

For anyone interested in stochastic dynamics, nonequilibrium/critical phenomena, Langevin equations, etc, I *strongly* recommend these new lectures (40x 40 min) by Erwin Frey (LMU Munich). Outstanding.
🧪🧮
www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Nonequilibrium Physics -- Stochastic Dynamics & Field Theories - YouTube

This lecture explores the fundamental principles and advanced concepts of nonequilibrium field theories and stochastic dynamics. The course focuses on stocha...

www.youtube.com

2 3 8

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 5d

For those who are new to or already use LAMMPS… with reference to a new GUI

arxiv.org/abs/2503.14020

A Set of Tutorials for the LAMMPS Simulation Package

The availability of open-source molecular simulation software packages allows scientists and engineers to focus on running and analyzing simulations without having to write, parallelize, and validate ...

arxiv.org

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 5d

Indeed, based on my reading of the document sent to the nine universities, the “compact” consists of open-ended extortion, and any “benefits” of signing on are an illusion.

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 5d

This is absolutely right on every point and everyone who sits on a governing board or serves as president or provost or similar should please make the time to read it.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by david jon furbish

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 5d

This is absolutely right on every point and everyone who sits on a governing board or serves as president or provost or similar should please make the time to read it.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

www.nytimes.com

28 440 1.1K

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 6d

decided to use my 30-year-old unabridged Webster LLM and noticed we inherited several of our daughters’ not-so-LLMs (“only” ~70,000 parameters)

don’t recall ever seeing any of these hallucinate 🤓😂

large hardbound Webster dictionary on table with three small paperback dictionaries placed on an open page of the Webster

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 7d

lol brilliant

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 7d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 11d

Among other likely reasons for the uptick in migrations from MS Office to LibreOffice are — no surprise — AI fatigue and subscription fatigue. For me the equation editor also matters a lot. In LibreOffice it is LaTeX-like — yay! — and it is well documented.

2/2

www.zdnet.com/article/4-re...

4 reasons why LibreOffice downloads are way up (hint: you'll relate)

More users than ever are flocking to the open source suite since its latest update. The end of Windows 10 support is far from the only factor.

www.zdnet.com

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 11d

It’s not just cost. Digital sovereignty and privacy matter. The migration from Microsoft (Windows, Office) to Linux and open-source software (e.g. LibreOffice) is accelerating. This is just one notable example among many.

1/2

www.zdnet.com/article/this...

This European military just ditched Microsoft for open-source LibreOffice - here's why

It's not about the cost savings, either. Many government organizations are replacing Microsoft software for a more important reason.

www.zdnet.com

1 1

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 17d

Rowan caught another dragon for our Dragon Soccer game! The dragon was initially annoyed — and still gets a bit touchy about not being able to fly with too much dog spit on its wings — but now seems to enjoy playing with us!

#dogs
#dogsofbluesky
#AustralianShepherd

tri-color Australian Shepherd in dog down position in grassy lawn with toy stuffed dragon between her front paws

tri-color Australian Shepherd laying in grassy lawn with toy stuffed dragon between her front paws

1 8

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 17d

And to be clear, I’m a LaTeX person. I’ve never seriously used that weird thing called Word.
 #software  #computersoftware  #enshittification  #opensource

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · 18d

It is soooo satisfying to continue ditching/purging enshittified Microsoft, Adobe, etc. products for high quality open-source software without missing a beat. Things like LibreOffice, Gimp, OmniTools, etc.

1 2

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 8

zenodo.org/records/1706...

Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia

Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these col...

zenodo.org

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 6

lol oh my gosh are you suggesting that instead of defaulting to an LLM, maybe I should use my own shitty little brain?! lol what a grand idea… 😂😄

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 4

Thank you @quantamagazine.bsky.social for replacing your previous lede — involving a misleading analogy with perfume — for this nice didactic article.

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 3

nope

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 3

Fourier transforms are a gem of applied mathematics. But no (ouch), a Fourier transform is not “like sniffing a perfume and determining its list of ingredients.”

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 3

Rowan and I are NOT doom scrolling on my iPad. We’re watching cool dog agility videos and checking out the stuffed animals toys on the webpage of our locally owned pet supply store. We’re getting ready to go hide in the mountains/woods for a week or so.

#dogs
#dogsofbluesky
#AustralianShepherd

tri-color Australian Shepherd (Rowan) laying on my shoulders as we look at my iPad together on the couch

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 1

the Earth-surface processes community. Nonetheless, I suspect it will resonate with students and early career people eager for a fresh view of this complex and often confusing topic. To be sure, the book unapologetically breaks from current dogmatic styles of thinking and analysis in the field.

6/6

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 1

sediment particle motions and transport in a manner that integrates principles and methods of probability with mechanical considerations of particle motions. The book therefore covers the topic of sediment transport in a manner that is mostly unfamiliar to folks in...

5/n

1 2

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 1

on open access, to be freely accessible to all. Although it currently exceeds 400 pages without figures, I still have much to do and won't offer a target date. (Pieces of the book appear as essays on my Vanderbilt webpage.)

The objective of the book is to provide a framework for describing...

4/n

1 2

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 1

These provide a clear idea of the material covered in the book, including its philosophical basis. Although I originally committed an early version of the book to a well-known university press, I eventually decided instead to prepare it as an ebook, consistent with my views...

3/n

1 2

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 1

It represents real progress in understanding. And given the current state of domestic and world affairs, who knows what doing science will even look like by the time I finish the book?

The linked pdf contains the title page with front material, the Preface, and the first chapter.

2/n

1 2

david jon furbish @davidjonfurbish.bsky.social · Sep 1

eBook Preview

Statistical Physics of Rarefied Sediment Particle Motions and Transport: Applications to Hillslopes and Rivers

Posting this preview of material from my next (unfinished) book might be a mistake. But eh… what the hell.

1/n

cdn.vanderbilt.edu/t2-my/my-prd...

cdn.vanderbilt.edu

1 3 6