Jacob Cram

Thousands of paywalled research papers could be freed with this simple fix

‘Green open access’ has existed for decades – and it’s not hard to get academics to use it more.

Did you know that strawberries are not berries, and are actually mammals?

Wikipedia says this is the last book in a series. Do you recommend starting with this one or starting with one of the earlier books?

Now nobody will doubt @davidho.bsky.social 's credibility as a 2010s style hipster.

How inverters can stabilize a renewables-heavy grid Daniel Duckwitz and Catarina Augusto explain how we can run stable electricity grids on inverter-based clean energy resources.

@volts.wtf did a cool podcast once about how flywheels are an essential part of most power generation and how batteries are becoming an alternative, sort of. I enjoyed it.

How inverters can stabilize a renewables-heavy grid share.google/MuksndKrdpX7...

YouTube video by Dr. Glaucomflecken What To Do If You Get Pepper Sprayed

www.youtube.com/shorts/z4dy0...
A video from board-certified ophthalmologist a @glaucomflecken.bsky.social - FYI if you ever get pepper spray somehow onto you, in some manner.

I think for it to actually confer SEAL status, per the rules of the navy, you have to bully a SEAL into giving the coin to you.

A family member reacts after a federal immigration officer used a battering ram to break down a door before making an arrest on January 11, 2026, in Minneapolis.

Stunning photos from Minneapolis, including this one by John Locher for the Associated Press. www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

US Senate passes bill to boost federal science spending after White House sought major cuts The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to approve billions of dollars in funding for federal science agencies, rejecting deep cuts proposed by President Donald Trump in space and other areas.

Wow! Yay! The Senate just rejected Trump’s proposed science cuts, voting 82–15 to boost funding for NOAA, NASA, and the NSF. The bill already passed the House 397–28. Strong bipartisan support for science still exists.

Funding deal rejects Trump’s push for major science cuts Congressional appropriators released a “minibus” of three bipartisan spending bills today that would pare back the budgets of some science agencies but largely reject Trump’s request for steep cuts. The minibus consists of the Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy and Water Development, and Interior-Environment bills, which cover a substantial portion of federal research funding for fiscal year 2026. The package includes: $24.4 billion for NASA, a 1.6% cut (including $7.25 billion for NASA Science, a 1.1% cut); $8.75 billion for the National Science Foundation, a 3.4% cut; $8.4 billion for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, a 1.9% increase; $6.17 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, roughly flat funding; $1.42 billion for the U.S. Geological Survey, a 2.0% cut; and $1.18 billion to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a 2.3% increase

I'll take it 😎

2025 recap: capping all the uncapped markers in my house.

If you happen to be looking for bad redactions in a large set of data files today for some reason, there's an open source tool for that.

Image of two hand soap refills available on Walmart app. One is for "aquarium scented" soap. The other is "aloe scented"

Intrigued by the "Aquarium Liquid" scented hand soap refill. Anyone have experience with this variety?

Excited to see this post by Heather Turner with more details on their recent RSMF grant for enabling future contributions to R.

I'd encourage #rstats folks to give it a read: there are some much-needed modernisation ideas in here.

blog.r-project.org/2025/12/17/r...

I have seen many people say that no academic needs to use LLMs for writing, because of course we are all already excellent at writing. I fear that risks exacerbating imposter syndrome in early career researchers. I therefore want to raise my hand and say while I enjoy writing, I find it hard.

Oh no!

Anna! Im at cerf too. Hope to see you this week.

Pull requests · hadley/genzplyr dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap. Contribute to hadley/genzplyr development by creating an account on GitHub.

Y’all these genzplyr PRs are off the hook: github.com/hadley/genzp...

What type of #microscopy would allow for watching real time cell division of an anaerobic bacterium (~1 x 0.5 um rod) at resolution high enough to view internal structure? Doubling time of ~2 days.

#MicroSky

Big news! We're hiring lots of new faculty here at the University of Virginia School of Data Science @uvadatascience.bsky.social! You can find all our postings here: datascience.virginia.edu/faculty-jobs

Nature: US senators poised to reject Trump’s proposed massive science cuts Committee gives first hint that policymakers might preserve, rather than slash, funding for US National Science Foundation and other agencies.

DO NOT GIVE UP!

Our advocacy is working.

A key Senate committee has indicated that it will reject Trump’s proposed cuts to science agencies including NASA and the NSF.

Keep speaking up and calling your electeds 🗣️🗣️🗣️

Indiana Jones and the Concur Travel Reimbursement System

News from the NSF Division of Earth Sciences Informational Webinar: If US scientists want to support NSF EAR, they should continue to submit proposals. The number of proposals is an important metric for quantifying need and therefore influencing the budget

Well shoot. This foils my system/hack of having an accessible preprint version of every one of my closed source papers.

Python for R users A Google search for “R vs Python” returns thousands of hits across sites like Reddit, IBM, Datacamp, Coursera, Kaggle, and many others.

Python for R users blog.stephenturner.us/p/python-for... #rstats

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology. Genomic exploration continually reveals novel microbial lineages, often exhibiting extreme genome...

Joining the race to the bottom has never been cooler...
www.biorxiv.org/node/4580343...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

(Longish thread. Apologies)

I have met many inspiring colleagues over the past few months, many of whom are in academic institutions targeted by the current administration, and many others who are about to be (the analogy to the ‘eye of Sauron’ has been invoked many times; gallows humor). 1/

Are all muppets the same species just with wildly different phenotypes like dogs or are there a lot of different species of muppet

some milk I used to make Forbidden Percentages. I didn't mention 2% in my post though. I gotta keep some secrets

by carefully mixing 10% cream with 1% skim milk, you can unlock forbidden milk percentages the government doesn't want you to know about, like 7.725%

T-Rex: We have Mother's Day, and we have Father's Day, but what about OTHER familiar relationships? God: WE HAVE THOSE TOO THEY'RE JUST NOT AS POPULAR T-Rex: Ah.

T-Rex: Okay, well - fallback topic, what about FRIENDS? How come there isn't a FRIENDS DAY? Dromiceiomimus: There is a day for friends. There is a day for every relationship you can think of, T-Rex, because anyone can make one up. But as there's no central authority, most are desperately obscure and unpopular.

T-Rex: Aha! So to make a day celebrating what *I* want, I just have to make it popular! Utahraptor: How hard could it be? T-Rex: NOT HARD AT ALL, Utahraptor - I need simply BUY A CALENDAR COMPANY and then get my day added to all their calendars, and then people will be like "Oh hey, it's 'Hug A T-Rex Day' today. Makes sense: THEY can't hug back with those tiny arms, they must need all the help they can get, hah hah hah!"

T-Rex: Okay, so even in my fantasies I'm dunking on myself?? T-Rex: ...I need to get to the bottom of this, STAT

the INCREDIBLE self-restraint, sustained across DECADES, that's kept anyone from slipping "calendar-makers day, the day when you high-five a maker of calendars" into their calendars

qwantz.com/index.php?co...