iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 24m

I’m not saying don’t use Overleaf. But if tex to pdf is a truly important part of your worklife, to have a means of editing and processing the file yourself, not to be wholly dependent on Overleaf a subsidiary of Tyrell Corporation.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 1h

Yes. People in my field use Overleaf all the time for many-author papers, proposals, etc because it allows you to collaborate and make comments without sending tex files or pdfs back and forth. I hadn’t foreseen that the natural outcome is they are dependent on it even for their own solo writing.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 1h

I mention this bc I just found out some youngs in my field are so up in the Overleaf, that they just use it on the web and don’t have a way to process the Latex on their computer. I think this is batshit-crazy dependence on a tech company and online access, but I may be a TeX prepper.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 1h

For the record I recently had to re-install Latex and homebrew + Mactex was the way. There were a few hiccups. If you ever need to do it you can ask me. I am not a Tex evangelist, but it is necessary in my field and I hate Word much more.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 10h

Yeah, I think “Smith et al (JWST GO-10001)” is better than “priv comm” or in prep, as it’s more informative.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

You’re just referring to it, right? Not using the data? I think either the ADS citation or the PI name plus program ID would be ok. I had people use data from my HST program (not proprietary) and give the program ID but not the PI name, which I thought was a dirty trick.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Literally, something like “Tag der mit ‘y’ endet”, but I’m not sure a literal translation is really doing justice here

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The bitter complaint I have always made about these generational cliches is the so-called “silent generation” had legions of people who did sit ins at lunch counters, bus boycotts, marches from Selma to Montgomery, or on Washington. It was only silent for people who weren’t listening.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It basically sums up Internet interaction in 2026, that I attempted to make a Bielefeld joke to a person who turns out to actually be from Bielefeld. (Or, a person who *claims* to be from Bielefeld.)

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I understand why all of the internet is dunking on Senator Eric Schmitt right now, but really I think he should first be dragged for all the harm he did as CEO of Google.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

But, it’s not possible to fly directly from Berlin to London. Because you would have to pass over Bielefeld.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If Americans ever visited Europe in December they might figure this out, when the days are 4 hours long and it’s raining for 3 of them.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

There’s a lot of ink spilt over cat people vs dog people, which is often cliched. But if there is a distinction, it could be that cat people are comfortable with or even get pleasure from the mystery of not knowing what the cat is thinking, while non-cat people are unsettled by it.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I think we can often reasonably know what other people are thinking (leaving aside that you can’t formally know, which is not that interesting). But at some level, you never quite know what a cat is thinking. Perhaps even when it’s obviously asking for food.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Technically, and you are an expert on this, you don’t know what the cats believe. You only know what they publicly state. They might believe that you are hungrier than them, yet find it advantageous to pretend otherwise.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This is also a weird equivalence to make because they are very different scales of atrocity. Plus there is a freaking protest rock song about Kent State that got played all the time on classic rock radio once upon a time.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I would hesitate to engage with any of these people and their fictional dilemmas, but every time I hear their pitches, it sounds like an attempt to rationalize taking candy from babies, on utilitarian grounds.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The role of a referee of an empirical science paper is not to review each component of it for correctness. That would be impossible without building a lab and redoing the experiment. The role is at least in part to review plausibility, that if the authors didn’t screw up, it could be correct.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

While there are many biomedical journals at different levels of prestige as you know, I suspect also a difference with philosophy in where the community expects the refereeing process to balance between quality control versus gatekeeping.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I do not need a foldable iphone. What I need is a phone that I can crumple up and throw across the room.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

FYI, I also got “New Jersey,” but this is an artifact of their smoothing/likelihood contour scheme. When I did the similar quiz made by Josh Katz hosted by the NYT (same underlying data), that map correctly showed one hotspot on the NYC region and another hotspot on Pittsburgh.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Water use rights in California and the West in general, famously make the legal case in Bleak House look transparent.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Roughly 75% of water use in California is agriculture, not people in LA or SF. Most of that isn’t from the Colorado, but IIRC most of CA’s allocation from the Colorado goes to grow cheap alfalfa in the Imperial Valley. This is industrial scale farming

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

So, that genre really is Oedipus Rex

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

So not Oedipus Rex, but honestly, it should be Oedipus Rex.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

It’s only a matter of time before tech writers do columns telling us not to memorize or store easily guessed addresses for our home, friends, and relatives, but to use long strings of random characters and store them encrypted in a password manager. Keep ICE from accessing your contacts!

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I think all geographical features should be renamed in maps databases about every 5-20 days, to throw off machine-learning-trained drone navigation.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Meat impresario Pres. Trump has teased the import of cheap foreign beef to ostensibly increase supply and lower prices. Because the name “Trump Steaks” was already taken, the ground beef will be sold in commemorative packaging labeled “Soylent Orange.”

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Every time I read some jagoff posting about ”fintech” I just think, “Sharks! With laser beams!”, and I recommend that you do the same.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

They should use a little icon of Clippy killing a polar bear for the AI assistant, to make the package complete.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Today’s metaphor: I have to use Outlook web email at work. Outlook added a large AI assistant button at top right. If I accidentally mouse over it, it pops up helpful hints that cover up the “Sign in” button. So I have to wait for the AI to stop blabbing at me so I, the human, can sign back in.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

American Jews are deeply disturbed by Trump admin EEOC demands for lists of Jewish students, staff, and groups from the U. of Penn. A grave risk is Feds sharing lists with their useful-idiot allies at the ADL, so that Jews get that asshole Jonathan Greenblatt’s fundraising emails and can’t get off.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

In today’s seminar Roger Blandford said the X-ray polarization shows that SS433’s magnetic field is very well organized. So, yet another astronomical object making me feel inadequate.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Please nobody feel obliged to get me any Christmas presents. I am going to be busy unwrapping “Staff walkout at the Heritage Foundation” for all twelve days.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

A spoon won’t work, you will need a straw.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

I hope all my friends in Portland will stay out of trouble. Just to be on the safe side, if your dog poops in front of a Federal building, be sure to pick it up.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Kristi “I shot a dog in Reno, just to watch him die” Noem has ordered army troops into Portland to maintain order. No one is exactly sure what the disorder was, but there are rumors that an antifa barista made a latte with soy milk for an ICE captain.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Whispered comment during an astronomy talk today: “This slide is really hard to read for people who are blue-black colorblind.”

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Ha no, I just don’t have any sense! I was out there for two hours, and today I have Flag Elbow and respect for drum and flag corps. Thanks for being there.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

High of 107 in Tucson today; No Kings scheduled a car march. Rather than drive I went to a corner and waved a large California Republic flag at the parade for 2 hours. Because republic. People were enthusiastic and if they rolled down the window to wave I hollered “Free the Bear!”

Waving a California state flag in 107 degree heat

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

I suppose it depends on how we define winning - the crow flew away, but the reflection went out of existence.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

A brief video of the crow-VERITAS mirror interaction at Whipple Observatory @mmtobservatory.bsky.social

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

A crow having a dispute with its reflection in the VERITAS telescope mirror, seen at Whipple basecamp on the way back from @mmtobservatory.bsky.social

Crow perched on segmented telescope mirror of VERITAS

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Observing a star occulted by Uranus, in the infrared with MMIRS at the MMT @mmtobservatory.bsky.social

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Rumors that the DoD purged webpages about Navajo Code Talkers of WW II in an anti-DEI rampage are untrue and unfair to the Trump admin. They purged the Navajo Code Talkers because these men violated the admin’s English-only policy. A Navy banner about “revised content” per the President’s order:

history.navy.mil

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Dear Friends, with all the recent disruptions in scientific research, you will be excited to know that I am joining a new venture in high-end, luxury foods. Delivered straight to your door! If you liked Trump Steaks, you’ll love our new, exclusive to us, Trump Eggs.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Making American cholesterol levels great again!

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I know the Republican Party has been upset ever since John Dean said there was a cancer growing on the Presidency, but I don’t think freezing programs at the National Cancer Institute was the best way to address this.

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Benjamin Weiner @cloud149.bsky.social · 08/06/2024

I propose to found a Museum of Fiascos. Informational and instructional exhibits would describe and demonstrate notable fiascos, failures, blunders, botches, collapses, and cock-ups through time. My university’s IT department could sponsor a wing.

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