Hubert Hickman

I am ready for the trick or treaters. I gave out half dollars and candy. Most of the kids don’t know about half dollars and the little ones treat it like a great treasure. I love to see their faces light up when I give them a bright shiny half dollar.

Shhhh John. I might get on the tariff list now.

I eat a lot of soy due to ye olde lipids. A pound-ish of tofu can be had for a lot less than a pound of ground beef, and we seem to have plenty of soybeans at the present time - but the folks who could save the most $$ aren't the ones using tofu.

Trump Is Demolishing the White House’s East Wing to Make Way for His Ballroom

Soooo...he lied.

The White House is demolishing the entirety of the East Wing to make way for President Trump’s $200 million ballroom, a construction project that is far more extensive than he initially let on, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/u...

The White House is asking people not to share pictures of the East Wing because it’s even worse today.

I buy more American soybeans than China.

In 1972, a whistleblower leaked to the press the details of the highly unethical & racist Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments run by the United States Public Health Service. Because of that (and other unethical experiments) Congress passed the National Research Act of 1974, which includes the IRB process.

The evaluation illusion of large language models in medicine - npj Digital Medicine While large language models (LLMs) hold promise for transforming clinical healthcare, current comparisons and benchmark evaluations of large language models in medicine often fail to capture…

Current benchmarks for medical LLMs create an "evaluation illusion." They use simplified data and tasks that don't reflect complex clinical reality. Automated metrics also fail to assess safety and utility, meaning high scores don't translate to real-world value.
#MedSky #MedAI #MLSky

Tulane changes syllabus, fires academic director over Gaza article • Louisiana Illuminator Some say that the incident is yet another glimpse of the tense climate experienced on local and national campuses by people who support Palestine.

Tulane "terminated an academic director this summer after the syllabus she'd helped create for an infectious disease class was rejected by a newly hired instructor because it included an academic article about a polio outbreak in Gaza."
#Louisiana #USA #Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Healthcare #Genocide

Everyone needs one of these to know what time it is

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

AOL not answering the phone….

I use ‘fubar’ as a throwaway variable name for things when I am debugging things. If things are really off the rails it get friends fubar1, fubar2, ….

if you’re in line to get raptured, STAY IN LINE

I honestly think he has seen a stock picture of a health care worker with a very large syringe and that is what he thinks a childhood/infant vaccine looks like. This is so bonkers.

Google fiber battery backup with control buttons

These buttons are giving me some old school mainframe control panel vibes.

Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut it down. The FBI and Justice officials closed the investigation, which a Justice Department appointee had called a “deep state” probe in early 2025.

EXCLUSIVE: Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut it down.

Google fiber is here ! Symmetric speedy goodness. I also have the GFiber phone - I occasionally use my old Polycom phone and my ‘home’ phone number rings it, my lovely old 1940 Western Electric 302 rotary phone, and my cell phone. #fiberinternet #rotaryphone

letter from the statistics department chair at UNL

The Department of Statistics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is under threat of closure, with tenured faculty facing dismissal. This is a small but globally impactful department.
Please consider writing a letter of support. Your voice could make a real difference.

ggplot2 4.0.0 A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN.

It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.

Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

Baker Institute

Register today www.bakerinstitute.org/event/scienc...

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.

Dances With Gary

New C.D.C. Director Resists Ouster as Other Officials Resign

I had serious doubts about CDC Director Monarez’s willingness to stand up against RFK Jr.’s personal mission to destroy public health in America—I’m glad that I was wrong.

If there are any adults left in the White House: we cannot let RFK Jr. burn what's left of CDC. FIRE HIM.

New ACC guidance urges uptake of 5 vaccines for heart patients

New ACC guidance urges uptake of 5 vaccines for heart patients
www.cidrap.umn.edu/adult-non-fl...

These shrimp get glowing reviews.

So it looks like programming with AI slows you down, AI doesn't actually discover as much science as people have claimed, and also there are material risks to using AI to create assets for games and other media. Got it.

This dude got his PhD 5 years ago and works at Heritage - here's his unpublished diss with 1 citation www.proquest.com/docview/2452...

Here's the fired Comm. of Labor Statistics with 20+ years of government economics experience and an extensive publishing record
scholar.google.com/citations?us...

Drunk history, via ChatGPT.

ChatGPT How many b's are in blueberry? The word blueberry has three "b" letters — one at the start and two together in the middle.

ChatGPT 5 You are a professor of English. How many b's are in blueberry ? As your precise-minded English professor, I must note that in the word blueberry, there are exactly three lowercase "b" letters: 1. The initial b in blue. 2. The first b in berry. 3. The second b in berry. So, blueberry contains three b's in total. Would you like me to also break down its phonetic structure? That's where the fun usually begins in my lectures.

GPT-5 FTW!!!

control panel of the day #HCI