Mike Wiser

A tabby and white cat laying on a couch, looking towards the camera.

He’s lucky that he’s very cute.

Interested in a tenure track position teaching and doing research with undergrads at a PUI? We are looking for a broadly-defined microbiologist who can teach Med Micro and Immunology. Apply at universityofscrantonjobs.com/postings/8308. Pls share widely to feeds (& on twitter if you still tweet)! 🦠

On the one hand, I should do some grading.

On the other hand, a purring cat is on top of me and I am not a monster.

Evergreen reminder that people aren’t putting drugs in Halloween candy.

Not only is this not a thing, it’s a distraction from the real issue - vehicles. Cars hitting kiddos. That spikes every Halloween night. Watch your babies, talk about safety, and go with them to keep them out of the street.

In a related note: you are not *saving* for retirement, you are *investing* for retirement. Putting money in a savings account means it will barely change. Putting money in a low cost index fund means it will grow over the years.

Home The SCalE Meeting is a free, one day regional academic meeting focused on evolutionary genetics and genomics. This year's SCalE Meeting is hosted by UCLA, sponsored by the Institute for Quantitative ...

In the midst of the darkness, I am pleased to announce that UCLA will be hosting the upcoming Southern California Evolutionary Genetics (SCalE) conference on November 1! Registration & abstract submission is here: www.scalemeeting.org/home Deadline is October 13! Hope to see you at UCLA!

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

I mean, a not-insignificant portion is that it is apparently literally impossible to turn off Copilot in it when it's forced in by my university, and thus I also can't globally disable its stupid spelling and grammar checker. (I have found a way to disable them in a single email, but not globally)

I try to avoid emulating Barclay after his ... incel-like creepy holodeck behavior in earlier seasons.

Have you tried exorcism?

bsky.app/profile/arth...

Doctors are AMAZED at these 10 ways to BOOST your immune system:

The Tetanus vaccine
The Measles vaccine
The Polio vaccine
The Mumps vaccine
The HPV vaccine
The Pneumonia vaccine
The Hepatitis B vaccine
The Rubella vaccine
The Diphtheria vaccine
The Covid-19 vaccine

- @hislopmd.bsky.social

Remind the kid that by running slower than her, you're actually protecting her from predators, who will pick you off instead.

This is your intermittent reminder that you can just bake a cake for no reason other than wanting a cake.

Meanwhile it is 86F here in Lansing, MI.

I'll take Health Care for $200, please.

I do start with a bit of that, but mostly in the form of "Here are a bunch of historical misconceptions about this field and what is wrong with them"

🎶
There are things that you've never thought!
Come to Emma and you'll be taught!
🎶

Bonus points to anyone teaching meiosis this month who manages to work in an Booooogenesis joke in class.

Mmm, carb

Roads themselves are dangerous. It's a case of balancing multiple different dangers which do not all point in the same direction.

Life has this annoying tendency to not be simple.

I hated Waiting For Godot, so I'm hoping for a different term.

In a comedic sense, I can be the straight guy.

HOWEVER ...

I keep looking for a word -- which I assume will be from German, though there's a possibility it's instead from Lewis Carroll -- to express "reacting rationally to an increasingly ridiculous reality".

I keep looking for a word -- which I assume will be from German, though there's a possibility it's instead from Lewis Carroll -- to express "reacting rationally to an increasingly ridiculous reality".

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Philadelphia area friends, I will be at the Towne Book Center and Cafe on Wednesday, October 8th at 6:30 pm! Come get your books and stuff signed! Be awesome! I have stickers!

(My salary is almost exactly the same, adjusting for inflation, as it was when I was hired as a faculty in 2019. I have been promoted in that time frame.)

We were told we needed to switch from a 6% followed by a 3% budget cut as originally mandated to 9% all at once. Despite our unit being revenue-positive if you parcel out tuition dollars by credit hours.

I suspect we're getting no merit raises again this year.

Books

More books.

Open til 8pm. Furloughed folks get 10% off.

My cats are routinely disappointed in me for not eating food, but eating what food eats.

On the other hand, they refuse to eat wet food and are dedicated to the astrocat dehydrated kibble lifestyle, so their judgment rolls off my back.