iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I've enjoyed the convenience of streaming (a whole world of music at my fingertips), but if the major platforms force AI-modified versions of existing recordings on everyone (b/c they were captured by these idiots) I guess I'll have to become a vinyl person

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My gosh, these people are such losers. They see everything humanity does as only content to optimize/sell. In addition to AI-generated music, I foresee re-releases of existing recordings where AI has modified the audio to various degrees. They'll sell it as the next generation of 'remastering'.

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

should they conduct a geophysical imaging (e.g., seismic reflection) survey prior to drilling? for safety, in case of potential overpressured intervals to avoid? or maybe their drilling configuration can handle any blowouts 🤓

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Recently learned about “cognitive surrender”, defined as 'adopting AI outputs with minimal scrutiny, overriding intuition and deliberation' –– the details of this research on cognition is outside my expertise, but I think this gets to the crux of why educators are alarmed osf.io/preprints/ps...

osf.io

OSF

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I hadn't been celebrating this, but now I am

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Third sentence of the abstract starts with: "Conventional research papers require readers to understand ..." Indeed they do.

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I feel lucky/fortunate to live in a small town that is mostly very safe to cycle-commute in. I've gotten skilled at reading the 'body language' of cars being driven by someone texting or otherwise looking at their phone (usually, but not always, a college student).

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

check out this episode of Strong Songs, one of, if not *the*, best music podcasts out there strongsongspodcast.com/blogs/episod... (music podcast as in actually about the music, not just rock-critic-style commentary on popular culture; he gets really into harmony, melody, and rhythm aspects)

strongsongspodcast.com

S01E28 - "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton

It takes an extremely strong song to top the charts three separate times in three separate decades, but "I Will Always Love You" is just such a song. Written and recorded (twice) by Dolly Parton and t...

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I don't know all the ins-and-outs of this, but I thought the scenario forecasting/modeling community moved on from RCPs and use the SSP (shared socioeconomic pathways) framework now (?).

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

they wouldn't be able to deliver ads to consumers doing those things ... all of this is just the next way to amass consumer data with which to generate evermore personalized ads to people's devices ... "Hey Brian, great job with those emails today, how about Totino's pizza rolls to celebrate", lol

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

received an email with a PDF 'certificate' for being a reviewer for a journal –– is this necessary? I mean, a friendly message thanking me is nice, I suppose, but do people really want a certificate? (are there situations where someone needs to prove they were a reviewer with this documentation?)

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

yea, I'm definitely not an expert on this, but I remember several years ago seeing "ML/AI" bundled together ... but, now with generative AI, LLMs, and the like, it seems ML more distinctly stands as a separate thing

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

What do we mean when saying "AI" now? There are a lot of sweeping statements, spanning a huge range of perspectives. Are machine-learning techniques AI? Are language translation tools AI? Are people mostly referring to LLMs? I'm not saying I have the answers, but more specificity could help.

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

agree! I did a bunch of underlining and notes in the margins, numerous fascinating tidbits to follow up on and learn more about

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

are you going to put one of the companies on the blockchain? ... agentic AI-powered blockchain perhaps?

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Iceland would be an otherworldly place to experience a total eclipse, but I'm guessing the chances of being cloudy/overcast are high this time of year (?) –– I hope it works out for everybody, I still think about being in totality in 2017

map showing path of totality for upcoming solar eclipse (from New York Times)

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

This obsession w/ productivity and optimization applied to everything (even hobbies) is their main argument to buy into their tech, we all need to be constantly 'accomplishing' things. I don't need a bot accusing me of being lazy. But, this is really just a way to deliver personalized ads to you.

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

also, I appreciate that this is created and designed to be solely audio –– podcasts pushing video are lame, I listen when exercising, walking, driving, relaxing in a chair, etc. –– I don't want to have to look at a screen all the time!

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I'm nearly done (one episode to go) with Jad Abrumrad et al.'s 12-part audio series about Fela Kuti –– I didn't know most of this history and context, is definitely worth a listen, very well done podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...

podcasts.apple.com

Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

Society & Culture Podcast · Series · In a world that’s on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually…do? Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed? In Fela K...

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

three things: (1) proposals, proposals, proposals; even if it seems bleak in terms of chances, 'proposal pressure' is probably healthy for the long term; (2) support my current grad students as best I can; (3) support the junior faculty in my dept as best I can

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

the beige/light-gray is indeed unique and is the 'background' facies ... whereas the other three colors are defined by combinations of observable/measureable features

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Future student in my class: "If you exclude all the parts I got wrong, I actually did very well on this assignment."

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

here's a little snapshot ... the four colors represent four sedimentary facies (based on core data) and we want to display in these vertical 'bar code' style plots ... their thicknesses (vertical length) and ordering/sequencing are highly variable these current colors are okay, hoping to do better

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

thanks, I'll play around with those –– we are building some plots/visualizations with 4 elements and need a palette where each are easily distinguishable from each other (I think a diverging palette could work)

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

question for @rsimmon.bsky.social and anyone else into data viz: what are the latest-and-greatest web tools for choosing a color palette? I remember Color Brewer being decent, but there seem to be *a lot* now –– would like to have some customization (not be locked in to a palette)

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

early August is such a vibe –– it's still technically summer but the new academic year is hurtling towards us like a meteor, unstoppable and imminent did I get all the ambitious things done I wanted? of course not, but I did some of them! (and I focused on recharging)

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

It's pretty intense times we are in, people are so bombarded and disoriented on a daily basis. Perhaps there will be a 'reawakening' in the future where curious people seek out communicators like you and many others. But maybe that's just hopeful thinking.

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

two other papers about this particular outcrop, one about the sedimentology and another focused on the organic geochemistry (TOC, d13Corg), are going to be submitted soon –– hopefully out later this year or early 2027

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

for those doing stratigraphic characterization of outcrops, we've got a new methods paper out in @sedimentologika.bsky.social presenting a workflow that integrates on-the-ground data with drone imagery to correct distortions and restore depositional geometry ⚒️ oap.unige.ch/journals/sdk...

Part of Figure 5 from Peploe et al. (2026); see link to open-access paper in the main post

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I think this happens when we retire

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Yes, Vought and the rest may push this through and enact these changes regardless, but it's important to have the public comments, and analyses of the comments like this, on record. (Also, I appreciate the explanation of how they did their analysis of >50,000 comments.)

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

and it's so dynamic and ever-changing, I think it's fine for educators to try different things, customize approaches for different courses and student population, change their mind, etc. ... adjustments and evolution seems inevitable

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

so far, I've gone the route of emphasizing to students that they are accountable for the work they submit –– I discourage the use of AI (especially in writing) but I don't know how I feel about an explicit ban

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

I saw that headline but didn't realize it was *that* guy until reading the article

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

research and teaching advice from people who aren't directly involved in academic research and higher education (but want to influence its direction), updated for the current era (I haven't had this exact conversation with a single individual, but aspects of this occur from time-to-time)

summary of a genre of conversation I've had over the years

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

ouch, I don't use it everyday but has definitely been a useful tool for a lot of things I do for example, the kmz for DSDP/ODP/IODP sites is amazing for quickly learning what legacy data might be available for a specific area

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I look forward to reading all of your piece –– I recently learned about the 'Two-thirds for the birds' idea (for which Tallamy is an advisor I see) that encourages introducing more native plants, without having to be absolute/purist about it 234birds.org

234birds.org

Two Thirds for the Birds

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I've enjoyed Carbon Brief's coverage/resources for years and this semi-monthly email newsletter is fantastic for getting an overview at a more 'relaxed' frequency and not in a social-media feed of mixed content –– I won't dive into every item in the newsletter, but it's useful to see it all together

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I don't spend much time on social media anymore, I dip in once in a while (there are still some benefits) –– but the discourse around this whole saga is a prime example of what makes me close the tab and do something else

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

😂 what a strange choice for this illustration

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

oh man, I have a conflict at that time!

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

many thanks to multiple Paleozoic mountain-building episodes, early Mesozoic rifting, and (potentially) regional uplift since the Miocene due to enigmatic mantle processes for providing us just enough elevation to lessen the severity of this heat wave

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Brian Romans @clasticdetritus.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

the 'vibe shift' promoted by the current government (e.g., claiming climate change a hoax, denigrating *any* form of energy that isn't carbon-intensive, etc.) seems to have created some excitement in some circles –– it's not gonna last, reality will eventually assert itself as it always does

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