iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Shout out to Reginah, the Saturday morning Wegman’s cashier I choose every week, even if her line is longer, because she understands that I want to bag my own groceries and I do not want to talk. Worth the wait.

160

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I bike to work 3-4 days a week and have a close call nearly *every day*. Last week, the closest call was a car that drifted into the bike lane directly in front of me while the driver obliviously texted on her phone. Sure hope that text was important enough to almost kill me.

151

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A few chapters into @heatherchristle.bsky.social’s “In The Rhododendrons” and it’s already speaking my language: “In groups of people…my mind can sometimes feel like a garden wilting in relentless sun. I need solitude, or movement, or ideally both to restore my thoughts to their unshriveled state.”

110

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I definitely know people who thrived there—I just wasn’t one of them. It did not help to be on a floor of PIs who were not getting tenure (including my own).

120

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If I had stayed in academia, I would have loved to go back to UNC. Orders of magnitude more collaborative than where I did my postdoc (cough, Harvard, cough).

160

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Now that I’m 50 it’s so hard to resist a Werther’s sale!

Multiple shelves of Werther’s Original candies on sale at the grocery store.

140

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

My 13yo asked me what that “three letter thing” I mentioned at dinner that I had to do for work was and I replied “Which thing? Because right now I have to think about KPIs for the CRM and QMS sections of our AOP.” And a little bit of my soul died as the words left my mouth…🫠

020

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Well, there was a time in your mid-20s when you also looked like a 13yo boy (I distinctly remember someone thinking you were cosplaying Harry Potter at one of the movies), so, you know. Progress.

110

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

😆Enjoy YOUR last few months of being in your 40s, Kat. December is not far away...

110

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

My contribution to the world of writing is small—I write a column for my local newspaper. But I probably wouldn’t even be doing that if not for The Writing Life.

030

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

An AI cautionary tale told through some Claude screen shots and a few Slack messages, with some political editorializing on my part.

Me asking Claude how to spell "seventeen" and Claude getting it wrong.

Claude explaining why it couldn't spell "seventeen", with the closing line: "The fix, basically, is forcing myself to do the boring mechanical thing (spell it out, tag each letter) rather than trusting an intuitive-feeling answer."

My saying that based on the previous answer, AIs are Republicans.

020

Reposted by Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him)

Addgene @addgene.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Excited to announce the launch of Transfection-Ready DNA — giving academic and industry researchers access to 27,000+ plasmids from Addgene's trusted repository as high-purity, NGS sequence-verified DNA. Read the press release: twp.ai/4hvlXn #Plasmids #Transfection

0116

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The excellent Catherynne M. Valente dips into this genre at times (see Comfort Me With Apples); Anne de Marcken’s It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over was superb; Kelly Link (The Book of Love); anything by Charlie Jane Anders; Bunny, by Mona Awad.

020

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Lesson learned yesterday as a PTO president. When recruiting volunteers through the PTO Facebook account for Belmont Middle School in Belmont, MA, you might accidentally recruit a parent at Belmont Middle School in Belmont, NC. 🤦 That was a very confusing phone call.

020

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I generally don't really mourn celebrity deaths. Sometimes I feel bad or feel the loss, but this one really does hurt. There are so few people that famous who do so much good with their wealth and fame. What a legacy.

010

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I hope my donation is part of a bajillion dollars donated to the Imagination Library in her memory today.

050

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

My friend just walked into my office and said "How did that sick f#$% outlast her? There are no gods."

010

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

If you are starting an email or PSA with "Just a friendly reminder...", consider calling it what it actually is, a P.A.R. (Passive Aggressive Reminder).

220

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Was at a board meeting for the small local library I work with and mentioned that my other volunteer obligations are a little overwhelming right now. "Well you could step back from here if you needed to" said the president. Me: "No! This is my refuge!" belmontvoice.org/generations-...

belmontvoice.org

Generations: Calm and Purpose Among the Benton Stacks

Volunteer at the historic E.C. Benton Library in Belmont, MA, and discover books, events, and community near Cushing Square.

020

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The most important skill I will teach Claude today.

Screen shot of a Claude "saved skill" that says: "Got it--Oxford comma from here on. I saved it as a standing skill, so it'll automatically apply whenever I create or edit any document, deck, spreadsheet, or other written content for you going forward, not just for the rest of this conversation.

010

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Enjoying seeing some familiar faces while representing @addgene.bsky.social at the 2026 United States Culture Collection Network! #USCCN

Me standing next to a banner that reads: UNITED STATES
CULTURE
COLLECTION
NETWORK
A Central
RESOURCE
For Microbial Culture Collections and their
Users
ion Network O
addgene

140

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Whether Argentina wins or not, at least Messi got a LEGO kit out of it.

A LEGO kit for assembling a large Lionel Messi

100

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The most entertaining urinal I’ve ever used. GOOOOAAAAL!!!!

A urinal with a green mat, a small white soccer goal, and a little plastic soccer ball you can pee in to score a goal.

050

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

This year’s sand sculpture in Sankt Peter-Ording. Real crab on top for scale.

020

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I was initially annoyed when I realized I couldn’t watch World Cup games from our vacation apartment in Germany, but now that I know what happened with the US red card, I have no desire watch any FIFA event again. What an atrocious precedent (and president).

020

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Instant pre-order from @belmontbooks.bsky.social, who have met all my @tricialockwood.bsky.social needs for the last several years!

120

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Oh my god, Tah is going to be reliving that kick for the rest of his life😩

020

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

I’ve been describing it as “Lovecraft Lite”

010

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Yesterday, a group of fellow middle-aged friends (aka The Dad Bod Squad) and I finished a Spartan Super 10K. I ended up running well over 10K due to a few penalty loops for obstacles I couldn't quite finish. This is how my mid-life crisis is manifesting, and I'm okay with that😅

080

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

You may have to zoom in a bit to see it, but on my morning walk to work I discovered a scenario that perfectly embodies a pessimist’s view on life.

Photo of a street with two signs on each sidewalk. The sign on the left sidewalk reads “Sidewalk closed, use other side” with an arrow pointing across the street. The sign on the sidewalk across the street simply reads “Sidewalk closed”.

021

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Today my poem-a-day poem was Robert Frost’s “Build Soil”, first published in 1939. It features this line: “Bounds should be set To ingenuity for being so cruel In bringing change unheralded on the unready.” Whoo boy, if you only knew, Robert.

000

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Whoa…you can get a yellow card for flopping now? Or sorry, “simulating”?

110

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I asked a ~12yo kid in my parkour class how doing parkour in Crocs was working out for him. He answered “Crocs are life, and life is parkour.” I…didn’t know what to do with that.

140

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

It’s been 30+ years since I took plant physiology, so I couldn’t remember if the cells away from the sun grew longer as a whole (what I tried to draw here) or just faster.

000

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Who can guess what science concept I was trying to convey to my daughter with this hastily drawn sketch?

A hand drawing of a circle with some lines in the perimeter with a column of rectangles curving towards it, with some circles at the top of the column.

310

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Trying to make plans with a friend for a weekend fishing trip when I realized my weekends were booked from now (early May) until late July. What am I doing to myself...

010

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

All of my work notebooks for the last several years have been science-themed (from Cognitive Surplus), but only this one has caused a kerfuffle with a few arachnophobic colleagues 😬.

Cover a notebook that says “The Biology of Spiders”, featuring several photorealistic images of different spider species.

140

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Hmm...If I were fishing off that pier, I'd almost certainly set my line in one of those grooves to potentially minimize getting tangled up with other fishing lines.

130

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Read the intro to @chanda.blacksky.app’s new book while waiting for her to speak at Harvard last night, and these two paragraphs alone should convince you that this is a book you need to read.

Cover of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s book The Edge of Space-Time

Excerpt from intro:

When it's at its best, physics is a kind of poetry, a story about the cosmos that is made from metaphors-and a producer of metaphors in its own right. I believe that seeing the universe through the perspective offered by physics strengthens our ability to understand what work metaphors are doing on us and how we might wield them. It is in this sense that physics works on us like poetry: a way of understanding the world that provides insights not available to us elsewhere.
This helps us see why we should bother with it. We should bother with physics because it is, in part, how we as a species learn to use our minds. We should learn and teach poetry, physics, algebra, and other abstract ideas because they train us to think in symbolic and figurative terms. The same goes for calculus and quantum mechan-ics. And if we cannot learn to think in and through the abstract and the symbolic, then we are pliable. We are sitting ducks for the fascists and authoritarians who will use us for their ends, and their ends are ultimately catastrophe for the rest of us. That's always been true, and it always will be.

1137

Reposted by Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him)

Addgene @addgene.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Addgene is a nonprofit plasmid repository. Plus so much more. We’re thrilled to debut a refreshed brand that reflects the expanded tools in our library, and our unchanged mission to empower scientists. Check out the new twp.ai/9OUZXL! Read our press release: twp.ai/4hpKLH

0157

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

The Deutsche Bahn experience my kids have now had *twice* is being stuck on a train with a hundreds of drunk, loudly dressed revelers heading to Hamburg's Schlagermove Parade. The Quiet Car war nicht so ruhig. 😆

000

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

My 13yo is currently at a Model UN summit at the actual UN in NYC with other 6th-8th graders and these are the subtopics for discussion in one session 😲. If she understands what all (or any?) of these things mean, she is way more politically savvy than I am.

Piece of paper taped to a board with the following hand written on it:

SUBTOPICS:
Technological Unemployment and Labor Disruption.
3 Bridging the Digital Divide for SME Inclusivity.
3 Blockchain and FinTech for Trade Financing.
4 Cybersecurity, Data Sovercignty, and Geopolitical Tensions.

270

Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him) @allostericsite.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I am 100% ready for a long period of nothing happening😅

051