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Huw Swanborough

@huwroscience.bsky.social

210 followers 290 following 1.3K posts

Cognitive neuroscientist at ETH Zurich. Primary interests in affect processing/perception and auditory neuroscience. Outside of science: Hiking, huts, snow, history, bluegrass, and folk. ------- Everything's a signal, man.... Everything's a signal

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Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 2h

I am convinced that the demonisation of 'luvvie' degrees in arts and humanities is just an effort to demonise becoming better at questioning the news and media that they read and consume.

A-Level media studies was crucial to my wider development as my first exposure to critical assesment.

Tim Worthington @outonbluesix.bsky.social · 5h

How is this repeatedly made into a policy issue - by *all* parties - when the blunt fact of the matter is that grown adults who are obliged to pay for their own education, and relentlessly pursued to repay their loans, should be able to study whatever the fuck they want.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

we cannot force greatness to happen, merely allow it to enter when it is ready.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

Ramon y Cajal in 1923....

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

My chevy drove itself to the levy, but the levy was dry after groundwater reserves were used to cool the data centre that the Chevy was using for system updates.

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Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

It is so genuinely depressing that the one thing we have control over is how we think and choose to learn/develop that thinking. It's the most important central aspect of us.

And people want to outsource that....

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

Gonna read the Silmarilion and ask it to refresh me on the lineage of a given character, forcing it to use up all the remaining fresh water in Virginia.

lindsey adler @lindseyadler.bsky.social · 1d

...

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Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

That's a razor sharp observation you've made. You're not just reading this story, you're living it.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

a man in a white karate uniform says " tag me in "

ALT: a man in a white karate uniform says " tag me in "

media.tenor.com

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 4h

Folks with money wondering why their position of influence and financial wealth is not solving every thing they wish they had.

Or just folks in a race to the bottom so they can make it out and leave someone else holding the bag.

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 5h

What attracted me to a music degree was the same that attracted me to a neuro PhD so I 100% agree. Both have similar evolving processes from my perspective.

It's odd to me how this can be so cultural specific mind - I knew heaps of artists turned scientists in the UK, but in Switzerland none.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 5h

The language is quite flowery, but if you just hold in mind that these are concepts being discussed through analogy, the core message in this is so useful.

I put it up there with reading Ramon y Cajal's non-empirical work like Advice for Young Investigators or engaging with his photography.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 5h

Started reading The Creative Act by Rick Ruben yesterday.

I'm 100 pages in and genuinely think this should be required for scientists.

I started becuase I have a creative background that I'm trying to reclaim, but so much of it is directly relevant to me as a scientist.

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Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 5h

bsky.app/profile/xkcd...

Well, how timely is this!

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 17h

Window Screen

xkcd.com/3151/

4-panel comic. (1) [person in front of window, shaped like a trapezoid with a curved top] This weekend, I had to make an oversized screen for a porch window. (2) [person sitting with hands on head surrounded by images of assorted equations and measurements] It involved countless tiny problems, each somehow way harder than it should be. Oblique angles. Curved edges. Noncoplanarity. (3) [person in front of window with screen on it, with building detritus strewn on the ground] ...I solved them all. I measured precisely. I did trigonometry. I made custom parts. And it fit *perfectly.* No gaps, no ripples. (4) [person typing at computer] I know that your foundation normally limits its purview to physics, medicine, peace, chemistry, and literature. However, if you review the attached photos showing how well the screen fits into the...

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 5h

"what are you thinking about?"

"Oh..nothing"

"No, really you can tell me"

"No, it was really just emptiness"

A frequent exchange I have lol.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 5h

I dont have kids and I nearly added post nominals to my name for building an AC exhaust vent out of cardboard and duct tape.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 5h

Can't even go like "ah well in the past discoveries or creativity where easier because there was more stuff to discover" because the Nicomachean Ethics is an extraordinary work by any standards.

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Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 8h

On AI art.

Puts it all far better than I could, but exactly as I would like to put it

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

A cartoonist's review of AI art - The Oatmeal

This is a comic about AI art.

theoatmeal.com

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

People reading simple/complex as bad/good or easy/hard is genuinely a source of so much friction in the world for me lol.

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

George Bernard Shaw to The Times after an over zealous editor corrected his use of split infinitives....

"I don't care if he is made to go quickly, or to quickly go—but go he must"

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

german is in chat entered not!

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

a) phenomenal alt text.

b) In terms of metaphorical or literal top? I guess either way, I think the purple-birefringent one could look great with this topper - www.ilnp.com/spaced-out-b...

Spaced Out - by ILNP

Blue to Purple Iridescent Flakie Topper Nail Polish…

www.ilnp.com

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

Okie wokie or wokie dokie?

Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

Obsessed with the idea of seeing a "How to copy her look" page in a magazine.

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Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

Misleading account name, but awesome photos!

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Huw Swanborough @huwroscience.bsky.social · 1d

a close up of a man 's face with the words `` nice '' written on it .

ALT: a close up of a man 's face with the words `` nice '' written on it .

media.tenor.com