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jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Julia Piaskowski
@jpiaskowski.bsky.social
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https://jpiaskowski.gitlab.io/
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Julia Piaskowski @jpiaskowski.bsky.social · Nov 23
"I don’t have lately. I have always. I have a constant blur of plates spinning and knives on the floor and needy, panicked faces at the door, of which you are but one of many." -- A consulting statistician, probably
Kleya from Andor walking through a pedestrian thoroughfare, looking intense.
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
I do wonder if what we will need is a truth and reconciliation process to describe, document and preserve the evidence of what is happening. We cannot allow this to happen again.
bgrueskin.bsky.social Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 1d
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
I Want You to Understand Chicago Politics Chicago 2025-11-08 I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st. Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…
November 10, 2025 at 4:18 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Props to the article's opening sentence by Sandra Epson: "Earth, it’s said, is home to more than 10,000 AI startups. They’re more abundant than cheetahs. They outnumber dawn redwoods."
jpiaskowski.bsky.social Julia Piaskowski @jpiaskowski.bsky.social · 1d
These graphs of self-taught teenagers' startup to design agricultural herbicides is something else. 'Bindwell’s website once described these [AI] models as insanely fast [that] could predict, in mere seconds, the results of experiments that would have taken days' www.wired.com/story/ai-sta...
Anand grew up in India reading Hacker News with his dad and was building his own large language models halfway through high school. Before he graduated, he, his cofounder (now 18), and two other friends from summer camp published a paper on bioRxiv, about an LLM they’d built to predict a facet of protein behavior. It got scientists buzzing on X. The paper was cited in a well-respected journal. They decided they should try to build a startup, brainstormed, and settled on protein-based pesticides. Then, the fairy tale continues, a wood sprite (sorry, venture capitalist) got in touch on LinkedIn and offered them $750,000 to drop out of high school and college and work on the company full-time. They accepted and got started. The teens knew next to nothing about agribusiness. That was last December. Five months later, Anand and his cofounder opened their first biological testing lab in the San Francisco Bay Area, then moved to another, where they personally squeeze drops of promising molecules into tiny vials. (A protein-based compound can more precisely target a locust or aphid, goes the theory, and not also take out the humans, earthworms, bees.) I asked him how he’d picked up the skills to work in a wet lab. “I hired a friend,” he said cheerfully. The friend coached him over the summer before heading back to college in the fall. “Now I can do some biochemical assays,” Anand says. “Not like a whole range of assays, but basic, wet-lab validation of our models.” Huh, I thought. That a few teens had in a handful of months built their own LLMs, learned the biochemistry of pest control, used their models to identify potential molecules, and were now pipetting away in their own lab seemed not shabby. In truth, once I’d tallied up all that they’d done, it struck me as completely absurd.
November 10, 2025 at 4:08 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
These graphs of self-taught teenagers' startup to design agricultural herbicides is something else. 'Bindwell’s website once described these [AI] models as insanely fast [that] could predict, in mere seconds, the results of experiments that would have taken days' www.wired.com/story/ai-sta...
Anand grew up in India reading Hacker News with his dad and was building his own large language models halfway through high school. Before he graduated, he, his cofounder (now 18), and two other friends from summer camp published a paper on bioRxiv, about an LLM they’d built to predict a facet of protein behavior. It got scientists buzzing on X. The paper was cited in a well-respected journal. They decided they should try to build a startup, brainstormed, and settled on protein-based pesticides. Then, the fairy tale continues, a wood sprite (sorry, venture capitalist) got in touch on LinkedIn and offered them $750,000 to drop out of high school and college and work on the company full-time. They accepted and got started. The teens knew next to nothing about agribusiness. That was last December. Five months later, Anand and his cofounder opened their first biological testing lab in the San Francisco Bay Area, then moved to another, where they personally squeeze drops of promising molecules into tiny vials. (A protein-based compound can more precisely target a locust or aphid, goes the theory, and not also take out the humans, earthworms, bees.) I asked him how he’d picked up the skills to work in a wet lab. “I hired a friend,” he said cheerfully. The friend coached him over the summer before heading back to college in the fall. “Now I can do some biochemical assays,” Anand says. “Not like a whole range of assays, but basic, wet-lab validation of our models.” Huh, I thought. That a few teens had in a handful of months built their own LLMs, learned the biochemistry of pest control, used their models to identify potential molecules, and were now pipetting away in their own lab seemed not shabby. In truth, once I’d tallied up all that they’d done, it struck me as completely absurd.
November 10, 2025 at 4:06 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
This whole thing is a quite a tale: "a few teens had in a handful of months built their own LLMs, learned the biochemistry of pest control, used their models to identify potential molecules, and were now pipetting away in their own lab..."
November 9, 2025 at 7:27 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
*laughs in realtor*
stevanzetti.bsky.social steven monacelli @stevanzetti.bsky.social · 2d
Lebensraum for the late American Century
The Tarrant County GOP chairman saying "we need to remove 100 million people from the country" in order to lower housing prices.
November 9, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
p-hunermund.com
⏰ Last chance to register for #CDSM2025!

Don't miss your chance to join us Nov 12–13 for two days of talks & debates at the intersection of causality, data science & AI.

💻 Online | 🎟️ Free
👉 causalscience.org
November 8, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
richarddmorey.bsky.social
time travel assassination targets

normal people: Hitler, Stalin, Leopold II

data analysts: whoever invented dates
November 3, 2025 at 3:12 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
The sort of argument my high schooler makes for not doing chores.
economist.com The Economist @economist.com · 12d
There is a legal case for a third term—but it is strewn with obstacles
Trump 2028
There is a legal case for a third term—but it is strewn with obstacles
econ.st
October 31, 2025 at 1:40 AM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
andrew.heiss.phd
It's like LLMs in the past few months realized that little reprexes are cool, but people aren't realizing that and just going with the fake code. Can't wait for this to inevitably make it into published stuff.
andrew.heiss.phd Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 12d
Newest LLM tell/quirk in coding assignments this semester: instead of generating code based on the CSVs that I provide, LLMs have been inventing datasets with rnorm() and sample() (and an obligatory set.seed(42)) and then making plots with the fake data.

I'm so tired.
October 30, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
uncultured.carinilab.com
ICYMI: Our latest shows what happens to transcriptional and metabolic profiles in a desiccated soil bacterium.

To simplify things, I've attached a visual abstract.

Comments on the preprint are welcome!
#microsky #microbesky

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 30, 2025 at 7:35 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Why are we treating this guy like he's some elder great statesmen or a distinguished scientist?! He's a very rich dude who got lucky and whose fortune was built on anti-trust violations. He's not even a good programmer!
drnickiw.bsky.social Nicki Washington, Ph.D. @drnickiw.bsky.social · 12d
“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise.”

So just...🖕🏾to those who have the least.

Also worth noting that focusing on climate change contradicts the AI full court press from SV.
Bill Gates Says Climate Change ‘Will Not Lead to Humanity’s Demise’
www.nytimes.com
October 29, 2025 at 10:31 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Version 2.0.0 of emmeans is out! Notable changes: new look to the plots, qdrg() now an S3 method, and new maintainer (me, Russ still highly involved). cran.r-project.org/package=emme...
emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means
Obtain estimated marginal means (EMMs) for many linear, generalized linear, and mixed models. Compute contrasts or linear functions of EMMs, trends, and comparisons of slopes. Plots and other displays...
cran.r-project.org
October 29, 2025 at 4:05 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Me, screaming: That is not even how you use that word in a sentence! It makes no sense!

academics: *shrug*. meh, close enough, stop being picky.
October 28, 2025 at 6:07 AM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Truly an amazing display of racism, classism, and eugenics. I've always found these "mask off" moments to be incredibly clarifying and I hope, impossible to live down.
anthonymkreis.bsky.social Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 15d
May I present a former clerk to Justice Gorsuch.
October 27, 2025 at 1:14 AM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
And one for school lunch debt! Let American's children eat.
abraham.bsky.social Daniel Abraham @abraham.bsky.social · 15d
If I were running the DNC, there would be Democratic Party sponsored food relief banks across the country right now that specifically welcomed anyone regardless of party affiliation.

Along with the food, there could be voter registration and links to runforsomething.net
October 27, 2025 at 1:12 AM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Nope
chicagotribune.com Chicago Tribune @chicagotribune.com · 18d
Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday a decision on whether to pursue the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination comes down to whether he thinks he can meet “both the challenge and the promise of tomorrow” and execute on it.
Rahm Emanuel points to record, trust with Republicans as he considers presidential bid
Former Chicago mayor and Japan ambassador Rahm Emanuel said at a City Club of Chicago luncheon he needs to have something unique to say and know he can execute on it to run for president.
trib.al
October 24, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
andrewkostrub.bsky.social
Updating my LEGO White House
October 23, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
remorahousedc.bsky.social
For DC, this combined with federal workers who are furloughed now needing to access the local food banks, will be devastating
jennmjacksonphd.bsky.social jenn m. jackson @jennmjacksonphd.bsky.social · 20d
I want more people to care that SNAP benefits are being cut off on November 1. 40% of SNAP beneficiaries are children. This is callous and vile.
October 22, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
dingdingpeng.the100.ci
The recording is now available so that you can confirm that I indeed have a German accent and color-match my outfits with my Zoom background.

youtu.be/YL0co26ng-g?...
October 21, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
evangreer.bsky.social
Everyone knows that Meta is basically single-handedly behind the "do age verification in the app store" push, right?

Government mandated online age verification is dangerous, doesn't work, and poses a massive threat to human rights and free expression no matter where/how it's done. Full stop.
October 16, 2025 at 8:41 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
This essay by @jeetheer.bsky.social on that particular 'presidential' post is worth a read about how the Pres thinks he can and should treat Americans. www.thenation.com/article/poli...
October 20, 2025 at 4:41 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
The dread I feel when I tell a client they need an ordinal model:
f2harrell.bsky.social Frank Harrell @f2harrell.bsky.social · 22d
Ordinal semiparametric cumulative probability models have an amazing variety of statistical methods as special cases, including proportional odds and proportional hazards models - hbiostat.org/rmsc/ordsurv... #Statistics #StatsSky
October 20, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
jonbois.bsky.social
i see you're doing something online that you have effortlessly done 100,000 times. would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? w
October 20, 2025 at 2:38 PM
jpiaskowski.bsky.social
Ya know, I just wanted to know more about major land use areas.
NRCS website notice: "Due to the radical left democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. president trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the american people."
October 16, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Reposted by Julia Piaskowski
mskellymhayes.bsky.social
The vague term "political violence" is used specifically bc of its elasticity. It can be contorted to include a murder (despite the motive and perpetrator being unknown), property damage (committed for life-preserving reasons), or protesters using signs as shields when they are attacked by police.
September 11, 2025 at 4:25 AM