John Wilbanks
@wilbanks.bsky.social
Probably off thinking about scientific data or college sports. Boston-ish.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
made field goal rocky top (total: 13)
November 23, 2025 at 2:23 AM
made field goal rocky top (total: 13)
Reposted by John Wilbanks
hey friends i'm at florida/tennessee and i'm gonna post every time the tennessee band plays rocky top
November 23, 2025 at 12:23 AM
hey friends i'm at florida/tennessee and i'm gonna post every time the tennessee band plays rocky top
Reposted by John Wilbanks
It seems pretty clear to me that we're going to need something like c2pa to authenticate the chain of editing of real photos / videos. 10 minutes of playing with Nano Banana Pro and just, wow.
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
November 22, 2025 at 9:20 PM
It seems pretty clear to me that we're going to need something like c2pa to authenticate the chain of editing of real photos / videos. 10 minutes of playing with Nano Banana Pro and just, wow.
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
Reposted by John Wilbanks
Image screening is going to fail. We need audit trails for data provenance.
I tried an even harder example on Gemini Pro image generation and this is quite scary/amazing. I asked for a microscopy image of around 20 HeLa cells, GFP tagged 20% nuclear, 10% membrane, +1 nuclear staining, + overlap. Image below and prompt in the following post.
November 22, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Image screening is going to fail. We need audit trails for data provenance.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
Here is the actual prompt, I was trying to see how good the visual reasoning is. I presume it will actually be good at quantifying directly from images as well.
November 21, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Here is the actual prompt, I was trying to see how good the visual reasoning is. I presume it will actually be good at quantifying directly from images as well.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
I tried an even harder example on Gemini Pro image generation and this is quite scary/amazing. I asked for a microscopy image of around 20 HeLa cells, GFP tagged 20% nuclear, 10% membrane, +1 nuclear staining, + overlap. Image below and prompt in the following post.
November 21, 2025 at 5:32 PM
I tried an even harder example on Gemini Pro image generation and this is quite scary/amazing. I asked for a microscopy image of around 20 HeLa cells, GFP tagged 20% nuclear, 10% membrane, +1 nuclear staining, + overlap. Image below and prompt in the following post.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
Wow journalism’s going though some things right now
November 22, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Wow journalism’s going though some things right now
Reposted by John Wilbanks
The International Association for Cryptologic Research has used heliosvoting.org – my online voting system – for a number of years.
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
Cryptographers Held an Election. They Can’t Decrypt the Results.
www.nytimes.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:40 AM
The International Association for Cryptologic Research has used heliosvoting.org – my online voting system – for a number of years.
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
Reposted by John Wilbanks
i know this will all be forgotten by the weekend but for now
lol
lol
November 22, 2025 at 12:48 AM
i know this will all be forgotten by the weekend but for now
lol
lol
Reposted by John Wilbanks
I know you guys like neurons artologica.etsy.com #sciart
November 21, 2025 at 7:18 PM
I know you guys like neurons artologica.etsy.com #sciart
Reposted by John Wilbanks
Interesting to see how Grok's other behaviors shifted after they made it stop glazing Elon so much yesterday
November 21, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Interesting to see how Grok's other behaviors shifted after they made it stop glazing Elon so much yesterday
Reposted by John Wilbanks
Quite frankly, I think non-fascists who are still using Twitter and somehow still believe it’ll help them achieve non-fascist aims are 100% delusional. It’s pathetic.
It's a censorship engine designed to promote ideas that Elon Musk likes and suppress ideas that Elon Musk does not like. I really don't get why this evident fact - that Musk openly admits! - is so hard for so many people to understand
An X user asks Elon Musk why they’re seeing tweets from left-wing lawmakers.
Musk: “Because we are failing very badly with the recommendations algorithm. Doing my best to address this.”
Musk: “Because we are failing very badly with the recommendations algorithm. Doing my best to address this.”
November 21, 2025 at 6:37 AM
Quite frankly, I think non-fascists who are still using Twitter and somehow still believe it’ll help them achieve non-fascist aims are 100% delusional. It’s pathetic.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 12:49 PM
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
The bass line to "I Wanna Be Adored" is one of the greatest in rock and roll, period, end of story
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield, the Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist, dies aged 63
Ian Brown and Tim Burgess were among those to pay tribute to Mani, whose death was announced by his brother and nephew
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 2:30 AM
The bass line to "I Wanna Be Adored" is one of the greatest in rock and roll, period, end of story
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
Reposted by John Wilbanks
Reposted by John Wilbanks
My colleague @timcarman.bsky.social has a beautiful essay on the music of Chris Whitley, who died 20 years ago www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...
Column | 20 years after Chris Whitley died, I can’t shake his earthy, gutting songs
After a brief flirtation with the mainstream, Houston’s Chris Whitley carved one of rock’s more fascinating paths. It’s time to rediscover him.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:06 PM
My colleague @timcarman.bsky.social has a beautiful essay on the music of Chris Whitley, who died 20 years ago www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...
Reposted by John Wilbanks
The problem isn't his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. It's that he plotted to abuse his position as the mentor of a grad student by conditioning his support for her work on "romance/sex."
Every report that fails to mention the true offense is failing (again) the student who endured this.
Every report that fails to mention the true offense is failing (again) the student who endured this.
“Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will immediately leave his role as an instructor at Harvard while the University investigates his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey E. Epstein,” The Harvard Crimson reports.
Summers Will Not Finish Semester of Teaching as Harvard Investigates Epstein Ties | News | The Harvard Crimson
Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will immediately leave his role as an instructor at Harvard while the University investigates his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey E. Epstein.
www.thecrimson.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:52 PM
The problem isn't his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. It's that he plotted to abuse his position as the mentor of a grad student by conditioning his support for her work on "romance/sex."
Every report that fails to mention the true offense is failing (again) the student who endured this.
Every report that fails to mention the true offense is failing (again) the student who endured this.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
January arrives soon (!) and with it my course on writing a nonfiction book proposal
How To Write A Nonfiction Book Proposal January 5-15 2026
In this course, you will learn the basics of non-fiction trade book proposals, receive feedback on your proposals and queries, and become part of a...
thinkingwriter.bigcartel.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:17 PM
January arrives soon (!) and with it my course on writing a nonfiction book proposal
Reposted by John Wilbanks
are the fae
open source
open source
Turning into my father one "the problem is no one reads enough books these days" grumble at a time
November 20, 2025 at 2:47 AM
are the fae
open source
open source
Reposted by John Wilbanks
That the American political science profession didn’t see the institutional failure coming should rank as a disciplinary embarrassment on par with the failure of Sovietologists in the 1980s to foresee the collapse of the USSR.
The Eric Schickler essay in Larry Bartel's symposium on "What Trump Has Taught Us About Political Science" is one of the most insightful pieces I've read in 2025.
US institutions turned out to be weak, and we have to rethink conventional wisdom.
open access: academic.oup.com/psq/advance-...
US institutions turned out to be weak, and we have to rethink conventional wisdom.
open access: academic.oup.com/psq/advance-...
November 19, 2025 at 8:34 PM
That the American political science profession didn’t see the institutional failure coming should rank as a disciplinary embarrassment on par with the failure of Sovietologists in the 1980s to foresee the collapse of the USSR.
Reposted by John Wilbanks
Will the USMNT win two or three World Cups in a row? Many are asking this.
November 19, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Will the USMNT win two or three World Cups in a row? Many are asking this.
Raise your hand if you had “USMNT Reyna-Berhalter back to back Man of the Match” called
November 19, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Raise your hand if you had “USMNT Reyna-Berhalter back to back Man of the Match” called
Reposted by John Wilbanks
what if christian pulisic didn't take every set piece for the usmnt when healthy, my colu--
November 19, 2025 at 12:29 AM
what if christian pulisic didn't take every set piece for the usmnt when healthy, my colu--
Reposted by John Wilbanks
If, in some imaginary world, I had any direct influence on tech policy making I'd mandate some kind of "back to the floor" training for those making tech policy. Specifically, I'd make them do a stint as delivery managers for massive complex projects, with sight of all the moving parts
November 18, 2025 at 10:52 PM
If, in some imaginary world, I had any direct influence on tech policy making I'd mandate some kind of "back to the floor" training for those making tech policy. Specifically, I'd make them do a stint as delivery managers for massive complex projects, with sight of all the moving parts