Stephen Emrich

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

AI boom could falter without wider adoption, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella warns Big tech boss tells delegates at Davos that broader global use is essential if technology is to deliver lasting growth

I was present for the birth of the web, the explosion of personal sites, and the blogging revolution, and you know what we never had to do? Beg people to use our shit.

Clearly there's no shortage of horrors to choose from of late but for some reason this one in particular has really chilled me to the fucking bone. Last week a group of pigs had lunch at a Mexican restaurant called El Tapatio in Willmar, Minnesota. "Staff at the restaurant were frightened," an eye witness told the Star Tribune. You can surely imagine that they were. You can picture exactly how it must have felt in there. Four fucking Nazis with their shit-eating grins squeezing their fat asses into a booth at a family-owned Mexican place poisoning the entire room with their smug impunity. Desecrating a place of community. There's one like it where you live too. In almost every town in the country. We love Mexican food here so much. They forced these people to prepare their food and to serve them all the while knowing that they were going to ruin their lives after. With full bellies. The threat hanging in the air. Of course they did ruin them. They arrested a dishwasher and the two owners a few hours later after the restaurant closed. Can you imagine being made to wash the dishes used to feed the men who are waiting to kidnap you or worse? Cooking and plating their meals? I wonder if they put the same care they usually do into it or if their shaking hands made the work suffer?

You can picture how it must have felt in there. Four fucking Nazis with their shit-eating grins squeezing their fat asses into a booth at a family-owned Mexican place poisoning the entire room with their smug impunity. Desecrating a place of community www.welcometohellworld.com/we-must-love...

Opportunity to move to Canada. 🍁 The Lifespan Institute @brocku.ca is looking to hire a Canada Excellence Research Chair In Healthy Development Across the Lifespan. More info in the job ad (salary negotiable).

brocku.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/brocku_caree....

#psychscisky #neuroskyence #development #aging #lifespan #mentalhealth #cognition #physiology #kinesiology

Canada is on a MASSIVE poaching spree. The Impact+ is $500k/$1M a year support for 8 years!

I've already said "I'm willing to be poached, want a dronery?"

For anyone looking to get out of the US because of *gestures wildly*: we are looking for a Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Healthy Development Across the Lifespan. The timeline for applying is tight but it's a great opportunity. Details here: brocku.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/brocku_caree...

Illustration of the hypothesized flows of information between perception, memory and cognitive control in a conceptual model of working memory. Stimuli attributes are processed to varying degrees of abstraction and parts of these representations can be loaded into working memory under the guidance of cognitive control. Familiar stimuli such as the letter B activate visually abstract representations while less familiar stimuli are limited to sensory representations. Information can be shifted both up and down levels of the perceptual hierarchy to build either more or less abstract representations of either perceived or imagined stimuli. Working memories can be shifted into or out of the hierarchy as needed.

We recently published a theoretical review about how compositional and generative mechanisms in working memory provide a flexible engine for creative perception and imagery.

Pre-print:
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Gay Canadian hockey romance exploding is whatever I'm just really happy a bunch of people are discovering Wolf Parade.

Shack attack those KB swings!

Just busting your balls (it's the Canadian way). You're inspiring me to get back to it.

another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls

a man in a toronto raptors jersey is standing on a basketball court with a crowd in the background . ALT: a man in a toronto raptors jersey is standing on a basketball court with a crowd in the background .

Heated Rivalry has Wolf Parade songs on the soundtrack.

AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.

If you have only one thing to read today...

"Universities are being retrofitted as fulfillment centers of cognitive convenience."

www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

"“Every time I talk to a colleague about this, the same thing comes up: retirement. When can I retire? When can I get out of this? That’s what we’re all thinking now.”"
Can confirm. I've talked with so many academics who had planned to work until their early 70s saying they're now eyeing the exits.

Oh shit I think I'm a Canada guy. Unless you're talking about Alberta guys. Very different Guys.

bluesky is like if a flash mob of 38 year olds came to post on 2009 twitter

VP Cheney will be honoured with a 21 gun salute accidentally aimed directly at 21 of his friends

At the end of the day I'm not sure how much difference it makes. But it is striking to put out a budget that axes a luxury tax on yachts and adds a co-pay for refugee claimants accessing drugs and dental care.

Larry Tesler, inventor of the cut, copy, and paste commands, dies at 74

Nancy Mace tweet: Time to bring back the death penalty superimposed on an image of Mr. Burns tenting his fingers as he talks to a crowd

Smithers whispers in Mr. Burns's ear

Mr. Burns pushes Smithers away

Nancy Mace tweet: We truly belive if Tyler Robinson had ever sat down across from Charlie, the great debater, the man of faith and grace he was Tyler wouldn't have pulled the trigger superimposed on an image of a chastened Mr. Burns speaking to the crowd about a different subject

it really is astonishing how quickly it goes from “civil war” and “blood in the streets” to “wow guys it’s just a sad tragedy” when it becomes inconvenient

Each alleged mass shooter is even more On the Computer All the Time than the previous one. Probably nothing to worry about there

In addition to receiving an average of about 2 review requests per day, today I got a reminder for a review I already submitted.

e4?

A hilariously inaccurate "diagram" of visual areas of the brain created by Chat GPT

generating examples for my fall undergrad Perception students on why they should not use LLMs as study aides...

my new ai device will sit in a beer garden that backs onto a small river and drink three to five pints on a sunny late summer afternoon for you, leaving you free for more meetings and business calls

Same. I also realize as I'm watching the Tour de France how much fun it is to not be heavily invested in the outcome and just enjoy the competition and impressive physical feats.