The Walking Dolbow
@jdolbow.bsky.social
Associate Vice President for Research & Innovation at Duke University, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Father to two daughters, 🏳️🌈ally. Red Sox fan, DOE CSGF alumnus.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
The most precious commodity you have is your attention. You don’t have to waste it on poor-faith debates or arguments with strangers if you don’t think they’ll be productive. You can prioritize the things that matter to you and make your life richer.
November 30, 2025 at 8:00 PM
The most precious commodity you have is your attention. You don’t have to waste it on poor-faith debates or arguments with strangers if you don’t think they’ll be productive. You can prioritize the things that matter to you and make your life richer.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
This is essentially all out war on higher ed/research. From lawsuits, to science budgets, to F&A rates, to taxes on endowments, to politicizing grant awards, to reclaiming patents, on and on.
Some institutions are just trying to pick their battles, and simply not choosing well.
Some institutions are just trying to pick their battles, and simply not choosing well.
November 29, 2025 at 4:22 PM
This is essentially all out war on higher ed/research. From lawsuits, to science budgets, to F&A rates, to taxes on endowments, to politicizing grant awards, to reclaiming patents, on and on.
Some institutions are just trying to pick their battles, and simply not choosing well.
Some institutions are just trying to pick their battles, and simply not choosing well.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
@assignedmedia.org is another doing absolutely crucial work thanks to @evanurquhart.bsky.social and all those that contribute. Make sure you’re supporting them and in doing so, you are making a difference for folks who have been marginalized by our current media ecosystem for too long. No more.
Assigned
Founded by Evan Urquhart, Assigned Media is a news site dedicated to daily coverage of anti-trans propaganda and its effects.
www.assignedmedia.org
November 29, 2025 at 3:48 PM
@assignedmedia.org is another doing absolutely crucial work thanks to @evanurquhart.bsky.social and all those that contribute. Make sure you’re supporting them and in doing so, you are making a difference for folks who have been marginalized by our current media ecosystem for too long. No more.
I’d just like to know who the “others” were here. Trump cabinet members?
How did the @nytimes.com editors let this sentence appear?
"Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others have chalked it up as a cost of doing business with this administration."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
"Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others have chalked it up as a cost of doing business with this administration."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
Northwestern University Nears Deal to Resolve Its Conflict With the White House
www.nytimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 3:33 AM
I’d just like to know who the “others” were here. Trump cabinet members?
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
We've not spent enough time talking about this administration as unamerican, rather than cruel or wrong or illegal. This stuff just is not who we are.
Homeland Security doesn’t grasp the fact that the first Thanksgiving was about making “room at the table” for European “invaders.”
November 28, 2025 at 2:18 AM
We've not spent enough time talking about this administration as unamerican, rather than cruel or wrong or illegal. This stuff just is not who we are.
Dessert at Thanksgiving today: white sweet potato pies
November 28, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Dessert at Thanksgiving today: white sweet potato pies
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
People on BlueSky: AI is useless! A stochastic parrot!
Mathematicians/biologists/physicists: It is already helping us do frontier technical research and in some cases solve open problems arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16072
(There are of course, as always, many caveats, but the paper is genuinely remarkable)
Mathematicians/biologists/physicists: It is already helping us do frontier technical research and in some cases solve open problems arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16072
(There are of course, as always, many caveats, but the paper is genuinely remarkable)
arxiv.org
November 26, 2025 at 3:51 PM
People on BlueSky: AI is useless! A stochastic parrot!
Mathematicians/biologists/physicists: It is already helping us do frontier technical research and in some cases solve open problems arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16072
(There are of course, as always, many caveats, but the paper is genuinely remarkable)
Mathematicians/biologists/physicists: It is already helping us do frontier technical research and in some cases solve open problems arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16072
(There are of course, as always, many caveats, but the paper is genuinely remarkable)
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
Massive shoutout out to whoever handles the Royal Canadian Air Force’s social media account. They responded to every single comment on their already very solid Trans Day of Remembrance post and they responded like this…
November 22, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Massive shoutout out to whoever handles the Royal Canadian Air Force’s social media account. They responded to every single comment on their already very solid Trans Day of Remembrance post and they responded like this…
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
Print version of my new commentary ("Bill Gates’s climate comments are a dangerous distraction") on #COP30, Bill Gates and more, in the latest issue of @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
November 19, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Print version of my new commentary ("Bill Gates’s climate comments are a dangerous distraction") on #COP30, Bill Gates and more, in the latest issue of @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
At Duke tonight: Know Your Rights and UndocuAlly Training
November 19, 2025 at 5:35 PM
At Duke tonight: Know Your Rights and UndocuAlly Training
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
Show your science pride this season with our newly released phylogenetic holiday cards! These 5x7 cards can be purchased individually or in sets of 5.
🧬 🎄 🧬
#phylogenetics #science #evolution #biology #biologist
🧬 🎄 🧬
#phylogenetics #science #evolution #biology #biologist
November 17, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Show your science pride this season with our newly released phylogenetic holiday cards! These 5x7 cards can be purchased individually or in sets of 5.
🧬 🎄 🧬
#phylogenetics #science #evolution #biology #biologist
🧬 🎄 🧬
#phylogenetics #science #evolution #biology #biologist
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
A senior academic using mentoring as leverage to obtain sex is a contemptible abuser of power.
Summers conferred with Epstein frequently about how to extract sexual favors from a Harvard econ grad (AB '04, PhD '09)
The grad is from China
Epstein and Summers referred to her by the codename "Peril"
Racism and sexual exploitation in one efficient package
bit.ly/3LHpin8
The grad is from China
Epstein and Summers referred to her by the codename "Peril"
Racism and sexual exploitation in one efficient package
bit.ly/3LHpin8
As Summers Sought Clandestine Relationship With Woman He Called a Mentee, Epstein Was His ‘Wing Man’ | News | The Harvard Crimson
When former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers was pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee, he turned to a longtime associate for guidance: convicted sex offender Jef...
bit.ly
November 17, 2025 at 8:07 AM
A senior academic using mentoring as leverage to obtain sex is a contemptible abuser of power.
Made Kenji’s cheesy hasselback gratin potato gratin, and all was well with the world!
November 17, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Made Kenji’s cheesy hasselback gratin potato gratin, and all was well with the world!
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
some notable things in this excellent Bloomberg story - www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
how much of it connects through Harvard, and how many of these people are now in the AI field.
how much of it connects through Harvard, and how many of these people are now in the AI field.
Jeffrey Epstein Leaned on His Elite Network for Help as Investigators Closed In
A cache of 18,000 messages shows the elite support the disgraced financier got in his “hour of terror.”
www.bloomberg.com
November 16, 2025 at 4:36 PM
some notable things in this excellent Bloomberg story - www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
how much of it connects through Harvard, and how many of these people are now in the AI field.
how much of it connects through Harvard, and how many of these people are now in the AI field.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
15 years ago @jevinwest.bsky.social and I talked about how we needed a data scientists’ code of ethics like the Hippocratic oath.
We still do.
We still do.
November 15, 2025 at 7:41 PM
15 years ago @jevinwest.bsky.social and I talked about how we needed a data scientists’ code of ethics like the Hippocratic oath.
We still do.
We still do.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
Buddy if this goes into 2026 there isn’t gonna be a federal government left to reopen.
GOP SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: It may be 2026 when we'll come out of the shutdown.
REPORTERS: 😳
KENNEDY: I'm not kidding, you guys. I mean, you see what I see. Okay? This shutdown is going to last a long time. What's going to get us out of it?
REPORTERS: 😳
KENNEDY: I'm not kidding, you guys. I mean, you see what I see. Okay? This shutdown is going to last a long time. What's going to get us out of it?
November 8, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Buddy if this goes into 2026 there isn’t gonna be a federal government left to reopen.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
Today is Thursday, Nov 6
Good morning ❤️
eat
take your meds
hydrate
tell your people you love them
let them love you back
We are here. This is real. Let's build a home for each other and fight like hell.
Good morning ❤️
eat
take your meds
hydrate
tell your people you love them
let them love you back
We are here. This is real. Let's build a home for each other and fight like hell.
November 6, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Today is Thursday, Nov 6
Good morning ❤️
eat
take your meds
hydrate
tell your people you love them
let them love you back
We are here. This is real. Let's build a home for each other and fight like hell.
Good morning ❤️
eat
take your meds
hydrate
tell your people you love them
let them love you back
We are here. This is real. Let's build a home for each other and fight like hell.
The animals in our house do not appear to approve of daylight savings, just judging by their response today an hour before their dinner time.
November 2, 2025 at 10:16 PM
The animals in our house do not appear to approve of daylight savings, just judging by their response today an hour before their dinner time.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
The press doesn’t get away unscathed: “The legacy media is apparently more interested in the climate musings of an erstwhile PC mogul than a sober assessment by the world’s leading climate scientists.”
"You can’t reboot the planet if you crash it" | My commentary on Bill Gates' flawed new climate missive for @thebulletin.org: thebulletin.org/2025/10/you-...
You can’t reboot the planet if you crash it
What Gates is putting forward aren’t legitimate arguments that can be made in good faith. They are shopworn fossil fuel industry talking points.
thebulletin.org
October 31, 2025 at 10:13 PM
The press doesn’t get away unscathed: “The legacy media is apparently more interested in the climate musings of an erstwhile PC mogul than a sober assessment by the world’s leading climate scientists.”
Paging @michaelemann.bsky.social
Goddammit I just read the Gates climate memo and now I have an intense urge to write about Bjorn fuckin’ Llomborg.
It’s a Saturday. Healthy people don’t wrote about Bjorn Llomborg and the intersection between climate denial and effective altruism ON A SATURDAY, Dave.
It’s a Saturday. Healthy people don’t wrote about Bjorn Llomborg and the intersection between climate denial and effective altruism ON A SATURDAY, Dave.
November 1, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Paging @michaelemann.bsky.social
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
“Elections are determined by (1) your message, (2) the messenger, (3) the media environment, and (4) the moment. The only thing that political campaigns control is (1). There is a long-standing bad habit among pundits of treating it as the only thing that matters.” newrepublic.com/article/2023...
Why Centrist Democrats Keep Being Wrong About Elections
A new 60-page report insists the party is too radical. But the problem isn’t the party platform. The problem is the broader environment.
newrepublic.com
November 1, 2025 at 11:40 AM
“Elections are determined by (1) your message, (2) the messenger, (3) the media environment, and (4) the moment. The only thing that political campaigns control is (1). There is a long-standing bad habit among pundits of treating it as the only thing that matters.” newrepublic.com/article/2023...
One assumes the US will fire a nuke into Hurricane Melissa here shortly.
Trump says we’re going to restart nuclear weapons testing. Halted in 1992.
October 30, 2025 at 1:45 AM
One assumes the US will fire a nuke into Hurricane Melissa here shortly.
Reposted by The Walking Dolbow
Watching Ohtani pitch still doesn’t compute in my brain. I really don’t believe what I’m looking at
October 29, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Watching Ohtani pitch still doesn’t compute in my brain. I really don’t believe what I’m looking at