rob mahurin
@robtasm.bsky.social
I am large. I contain multitudes.
Chatbots offering advice to literate baby animals
November 4, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Chatbots offering advice to literate baby animals
What if chelation could also be charitable
Extremely 2025 coded - Firefighters are donating their plasma to reduce the forever chemicals in their blood. "If a firefighter donates plasma six times a year, the PFAS in their blood could be reduced by up to 60%." (The plasma is "cleaned" before being used.) www.yourvalley.net/glendale-ind...
Glendale firefighters donate plasma to change out PFAS - Glendale Independent
Across Arizona and the United States, firefighters are facing a cancer epidemic. One cause of this spike in cancer is the record high amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also …
www.yourvalley.net
November 4, 2025 at 8:15 PM
What if chelation could also be charitable
If you want "cellar door" to have the magic sound like "Selador," the elvish hero, you need Tolkien's accent. I have too much Tennessee; "cellar door" is unremarkable.
In your neighborhood, someone speaks a distinctively local dialect. What is an unexpectedly beautiful word in their accent?
In your neighborhood, someone speaks a distinctively local dialect. What is an unexpectedly beautiful word in their accent?
low key "cellar door" is kinda mid
November 3, 2025 at 6:25 AM
If you want "cellar door" to have the magic sound like "Selador," the elvish hero, you need Tolkien's accent. I have too much Tennessee; "cellar door" is unremarkable.
In your neighborhood, someone speaks a distinctively local dialect. What is an unexpectedly beautiful word in their accent?
In your neighborhood, someone speaks a distinctively local dialect. What is an unexpectedly beautiful word in their accent?
this cuts awful close to home for a fortune cookie
October 30, 2025 at 2:11 AM
this cuts awful close to home for a fortune cookie
Companies whose full-time employees qualify for welfare should pay 200% of the cost of the welfare benefit in their federal taxes.
October 27, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Companies whose full-time employees qualify for welfare should pay 200% of the cost of the welfare benefit in their federal taxes.
I think I understand that a smaller eye corresponds to a stronger hurricane, but six nanometers is smaller than I was prepared for
5:40 PM EDT, 10/26: #HurricaneMelissa has a 6 nm eye, central pressure has recently fallen 12 mb, and maximum sustained winds are now 145 MPH. #StadiumEffect #HurricaneSeason2025 #Jamaica
October 27, 2025 at 1:47 PM
I think I understand that a smaller eye corresponds to a stronger hurricane, but six nanometers is smaller than I was prepared for
Oh, this is a great collection.
🧪⚛️
🧪⚛️
A little treat going into the weekend: the midterm for my quantum mechanics class was a couple weeks ago, and again the students made memes for extra credit.
Let's start out strong with a PSA about the dangers of nondegenerate perturbation theory. Do you know where your good states are?
Let's start out strong with a PSA about the dangers of nondegenerate perturbation theory. Do you know where your good states are?
October 18, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Oh, this is a great collection.
🧪⚛️
🧪⚛️
Ages ago, Jeff Atwood complained in a blog that coding job candidates couldn't code, even an elementary program like "FizzBuzz." Hundreds of people responded with half-working FizzBuzz programs.
Lots of preaching in the thread below about opining on religion isn't preaching if an atheist does it.
Lots of preaching in the thread below about opining on religion isn't preaching if an atheist does it.
Atheist proselytizers are the religious proselytizers I’m most likely to come into contact with and they’re just as annoying as all of the other ones I experience
October 11, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Ages ago, Jeff Atwood complained in a blog that coding job candidates couldn't code, even an elementary program like "FizzBuzz." Hundreds of people responded with half-working FizzBuzz programs.
Lots of preaching in the thread below about opining on religion isn't preaching if an atheist does it.
Lots of preaching in the thread below about opining on religion isn't preaching if an atheist does it.
thanks, i hate it
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Measurement
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/measurement
We must not let the modern world take the fun out of toxic nationalism jokes.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/measurement
We must not let the modern world take the fun out of toxic nationalism jokes.
October 10, 2025 at 3:33 PM
thanks, i hate it
My daughter sent me a video of a person singing a song called "today is national transfer money to your daughter day."
So I opened up Venmo and sent her twenty-seven cents.
So I opened up Venmo and sent her twenty-seven cents.
October 9, 2025 at 7:25 PM
My daughter sent me a video of a person singing a song called "today is national transfer money to your daughter day."
So I opened up Venmo and sent her twenty-seven cents.
So I opened up Venmo and sent her twenty-seven cents.
totally radula-ical
October 9, 2025 at 7:16 PM
totally radula-ical
There was a young lady from Knoxville
who bought her brassieres by the boxful.
They were stuffed with corn kernels
and old Wall Street Journals
and that's how she kept all her frocks full.
(Keillor, 2008-ish)
who bought her brassieres by the boxful.
They were stuffed with corn kernels
and old Wall Street Journals
and that's how she kept all her frocks full.
(Keillor, 2008-ish)
What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?
October 8, 2025 at 10:11 PM
There was a young lady from Knoxville
who bought her brassieres by the boxful.
They were stuffed with corn kernels
and old Wall Street Journals
and that's how she kept all her frocks full.
(Keillor, 2008-ish)
who bought her brassieres by the boxful.
They were stuffed with corn kernels
and old Wall Street Journals
and that's how she kept all her frocks full.
(Keillor, 2008-ish)
When my daughter learned to lean back in her chair at the dinner table, I told her that it would make her grow a beard. She clapped her face and said, "but I'm a girl!"
She believed me for TWO YEARS.
Having reasoned your way out of an absurd lie is an essential part of intellectual development.
She believed me for TWO YEARS.
Having reasoned your way out of an absurd lie is an essential part of intellectual development.
Every time I do a joke about messing with kids someone says I'm endorsing gaslighting, and all I can say is that if you couldn't lie to children you'd lose about 63% of the fun of being a parent.
October 1, 2025 at 12:37 PM
When my daughter learned to lean back in her chair at the dinner table, I told her that it would make her grow a beard. She clapped her face and said, "but I'm a girl!"
She believed me for TWO YEARS.
Having reasoned your way out of an absurd lie is an essential part of intellectual development.
She believed me for TWO YEARS.
Having reasoned your way out of an absurd lie is an essential part of intellectual development.
This rating scale is worth having in your back pocket.
I don't have a pitchbot... but I do have a handy rating scale for science communication mishaps that was in no way inspired by another recently developed scale for interstellar objects
The Loeb Scale for science PR disasters
Science miscommunication is dangerous. But how dangerous?
www.reviewertoo.com
September 29, 2025 at 8:08 PM
This rating scale is worth having in your back pocket.
@alyankovic.bsky.social did the President (age 79) delete you
I'm not the first one to point this out, but as a culture we're _really_ going to need to have the discipline to write "strange AI" rather than "weird AI" because everybody born before 2015 is going to read it as "Weird Al" and cause a massive amount of confusion.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you for your attention.
To the Daily Beast staffer who put “79” into this headline, know this:
We salute you.
We salute you.
September 29, 2025 at 1:25 AM
@alyankovic.bsky.social did the President (age 79) delete you
Do you like tiny hovering dinosaurs? Do you also enjoy when the rolling shutter effect reveals surprising information about a rapid oscillator on video? Then you (like me) need a hummingbird feeder with a camera.
I bought a hummingbird feeder with a camera and put it up this morning and… 🥹❤️
September 23, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Do you like tiny hovering dinosaurs? Do you also enjoy when the rolling shutter effect reveals surprising information about a rapid oscillator on video? Then you (like me) need a hummingbird feeder with a camera.
I have been using speech-to-text dictation with my phone for a while and I am quite concerned that my habit of specifying where the punctuation goes is going to leak into my conversations with human persons.
Question Mark
xkcd.com
September 22, 2025 at 8:54 PM
I have been using speech-to-text dictation with my phone for a while and I am quite concerned that my habit of specifying where the punctuation goes is going to leak into my conversations with human persons.
You know what would make today better? A giant fountain of lava.
September 19, 2025 at 4:58 PM
You know what would make today better? A giant fountain of lava.
Protein synthesis 🧪 as interpretive dance (1971, fifteen minutes, converted from 16mm to YouTube). The soundtrack is the "Protein Jive Sutra."
youtu.be/3GfWZy6SSAg
youtu.be/3GfWZy6SSAg
Protein Synthesis (1971)
YouTube video by A/V Geeks 16mm Films
youtu.be
September 17, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Protein synthesis 🧪 as interpretive dance (1971, fifteen minutes, converted from 16mm to YouTube). The soundtrack is the "Protein Jive Sutra."
youtu.be/3GfWZy6SSAg
youtu.be/3GfWZy6SSAg
I think that the original biological function of human language was group identification, with information-carrying as a bonus. Think of the last time a stranger asked you for directions. Long before they had finished "pardon, which way to the," you had formed an opinion about where they grew up,
I am (self-evidently) very interested in language. And also in technology. From that perspective, the rise of LLMs has created many new things for me to think about.
One is: why is it that certain very small clusters of words are *clearly written by an LLM*? What is the quality of that writing?
One is: why is it that certain very small clusters of words are *clearly written by an LLM*? What is the quality of that writing?
September 16, 2025 at 11:49 AM
I think that the original biological function of human language was group identification, with information-carrying as a bonus. Think of the last time a stranger asked you for directions. Long before they had finished "pardon, which way to the," you had formed an opinion about where they grew up,
On the other side of "do it" vs. "you're a dolt" in computer interfaces:
I once spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out why some installer wouldn't run when the space available was "0K," which surely meant "adequate," yes?
I once spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out why some installer wouldn't run when the space available was "0K," which surely meant "adequate," yes?
September 16, 2025 at 1:35 AM
On the other side of "do it" vs. "you're a dolt" in computer interfaces:
I once spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out why some installer wouldn't run when the space available was "0K," which surely meant "adequate," yes?
I once spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out why some installer wouldn't run when the space available was "0K," which surely meant "adequate," yes?
I was just chatting with my teen about a book I'm rereading from fifteen years ago and some background-noise TV that I'm watching from the 1990s. I'm trying to imagine an equivalent conversation with my dad in 1996 where he would have been reading a book from 1981 and watching a movie from 1961.
I think for some people everything before the year 2000 is all one amorphous blob.
September 14, 2025 at 2:04 AM
I was just chatting with my teen about a book I'm rereading from fifteen years ago and some background-noise TV that I'm watching from the 1990s. I'm trying to imagine an equivalent conversation with my dad in 1996 where he would have been reading a book from 1981 and watching a movie from 1961.
This is what computers are for.
Did you know your MacBook has a sensor that knows the exact angle of the screen hinge?
It’s not exposed as a public API, but I figured out a way to read it and make it sound like an old wooden door.
It’s not exposed as a public API, but I figured out a way to read it and make it sound like an old wooden door.
September 7, 2025 at 1:02 PM
This is what computers are for.
I did not know about the Video Background Play Fix extension, wow, thanks!
running uBlock origin on mobile firefox with video background play fix extension is *chef's kiss*
September 6, 2025 at 5:49 PM
I did not know about the Video Background Play Fix extension, wow, thanks!
Oooh, this looks delightful. On my "to read this afternoon" list.
Thanks to @slavkobogdanov.bsky.social for pointing me to this really cool 🔭 history paper! arxiv.org/abs/2509.04127
New Arabic records from Cairo on supernovae 1181 and 1006
The remnant of the historical supernova SN 1181 is under discussion: While the previously suggested G130.7+3.1 (3C58) appears too old (3000-5000 yr), the unusual star IRAS 00500+6713 with a surroundin...
arxiv.org
September 6, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Oooh, this looks delightful. On my "to read this afternoon" list.