iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 9h

ngl, not nil ... :eyeroll at autocorrect:

Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 9h

anybody else working on the openADMET 2026 CYP challenge- nil, I'm finding this tough and I've been hitting this bad boy *hard*

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 9h

but after making the switch, it's not even that hard to eat delicious, healthful meals multiple times a day without resorting to eating animal products.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 9h

practically everyone knows on a visceral level that animal farming is cruel, unjust, gross and immoral- yet it's just an accepted thing we do

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 9h

I'm now so far into adopting a vegan diet that the grocery store (or at least 80% of it or more) feels entirely alien to me- mentally, I know/rememberthat I also used to find it totally normal to eat meat, fish and dairy without question, but now I just can't comprehend why it's so mainstream

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Not unexpected for anyone who is paying attention to what’s happening in their towns and cities and actually talking to real people looking for work

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Read this in college- I loved It’s mood so much

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Reposted by Chris Taylor

Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Do we need a planet to have life on it to be/remain habitable? The rather surprising answer is no. Yes, I'm also trying to wrap my head around this. But I think I can tag this for #SciFiScience or at least #Worldbuilding. 🧪 Link: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/…

A schematic of the key processes included in our abiotic Earth model. Remotely observable quantities (surface temperature, albedo, and atmospheric H2O and CO2) are in bold.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Pleasantly surprised today- included as a coauthor on a paper I wasnt expecting to be listed on, although to be fair I did spend a tremendous amount of time on that project. Looking forward to being able to share when the time is right

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Gonna make my morning hash bowl - home fries, chorizo spiced TVP and scrambled tofu. mmm mmmm

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Today’s automatist pastel+sharpie.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Leaning into the DFT Chemist of it all - my recent webinar with openADMET on leveraging quantum chemistry for ADMET prediction alongside deep learning models and classical 2D descriptors m.youtube.com/watch?si=ct5...

m.youtube.com

Chris Taylor, QCWare - Lessons from tackling the OpenADMET challenges with Promethium

YouTube video by OpenADMET

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Playing with color today - I’m usually timid with colors because of my red green color blindness. So trying to push it and find forms and shapes and relationships without needing the backbone of the sharpie lines

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Their fear during the passing of the abyss through the town reveals the truth: they are not strong, not leaders, not capable of facing reality; but merely loud brawlers using violence to maintain the "comfort" of BAU. And then they retreat into the background when collapse arrives.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Not only do they not confront the abyss, but they are driven by a violent instinct to prevent others from confronting it. What is our human impulse that drives us to do this?

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

From the standpoint of biosphere collapse, the bikers are the enforcers of denial, the maintainers of the industrial status quo: silencing activists and intimidating scientists. They attack anyone who threatens the comfort of BAU. The cultural expression of ecological inertia.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

After the town’s ruin is sealed, the bikers quietly return to their homes, and hide in their rooms. Their work is done. They maintained BAU and are ready to retreat. They succeeded in silencing the voices that might have changed the town’s course, and enforcing the rituals that kept the town blind.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

...distracting themselves with brutality because they cannot face the void directly. They are no different from the townspeople who cling to nostalgia or religiosity. Their distraction is different in expression, but still a distraction.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

When the procession of cars passes through the town and time stops, even the bikers feel the fear. Despite their rough'n'tough demeanour they cannot confront the abyss. Their violence is their shield.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Their next target is the Professor. His rants are dangerous because they contains truth, and reminds the town that collapse is coming. The bikers don't understand his insight, but they understand the threat. They enforce the town’s refusal to listen: guardians of distraction.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

She embarrasses the older generation of thinkers who gave up on activism, a Greta Thunberg if you will, who speaks plainly about danger & refuses to accept the silence of those who know better. Just as Greta enrages reactionaries, the bikers are enraged to silence her - because she threatens BAU.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The bikers' first target is the woman who claims to be the Professor’s heir. She is young, outspoken, and insistent. She demands recognition from a man who has withdrawn from the world. She embarrasses him and she embarrasses the town.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The officials perform authority, but the bikers enforce it. In fact, their violent actions are the guardrails for BAU.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Let's talk the bikers in Wenckheim... They are violent, unpredictable, and theatrical (performative violence). They terrorize the town, intimidate the officials, and silence anyone who threatens the provincial order. Beyond being a biker gang, they are effectively the town’s real leadership.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Marika is the novel’s quiet example of how a person can leave a collapsing system without needing to redeem it. She is the figure who shows that clarity is possible, even when salvation is not.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

She does not save the town. She does not fight the collapse. She simply stops participating in the system that guarantees destruction. Her transformation is not heroic (except to herself), but it is honest. She sees the world clearly and moves toward a different one.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Marika is not swallowed by the ecological collapse that erases the animals and drains the town of life. Unlike the Baron, she is smart enough to step off the tracks. In the ecological reading, Marika is the figure of departure. She abandons the provincial fantasy, refusing the town’s illusions.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Marika chose self‑acceptance, and renounced the rituals and illusions that kept her trapped. Her fate stands apart from the others: she is not struck dead like the Baron, not raped like the townswomen, not consumed by the fire.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

This is a counterpoint to the Professor, who she encounters in the city, by chance. Has she, in her own way, listened to the warning he was sounding? Indeed, she has turned herself around, and stepped out of the provincial world that destroyed the Baron and consumed the town.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

She even undergoes a physical change that Iren notices immediately. She is no longer lovely in the conventional sense. She no longer lets herself be shaped by nostalgia. Her departure is not dramatic in a performative sense. Instead, it is quiet and decisive. She simply chooses a new way of being.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

With almost ruthless clarity she sees the daze she has been living in and the cost of self‑illusion. She packs her things and leaves.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

But then the spell breaks. The townspeople’s performative frenzy, hunger for spectacle, fixation on the Baron as a savior, and their willingness to humiliate her end up shattering her private fantasy. As a result, she sees herself clearly for the first time.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Marika’s inner life is a kind of self‑spun fantasy - her own personal BAU. She believes that desire and fancy can still shape her world. She believes that the hopes from her past can still return, that the Baron’s arrival might complete her fairytale.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Marika begins the novel firmly ensconced in her nostalgia fantasy. She is sixty‑seven, still romantic, still dreaming about men, still imagining a future shaped by longing rather than reality. Her friend Iren treats her as flighty and unrealistic.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Back to Baron Wenckheim, because I found this book such a challenge to parse, and now focusing on Marika/Marietta's journey, after which I want to move on to the bikers.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

There's still plenty more to process in the novel- the various town officials, the role of women, and the chaotic energy of the biker gang, but these readings stood out to me most immediately today.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

When ecological collapse arrives for everyone, the Professor is still alive, but no longer part of the story. His fate is that of the scientists, writers, and thinkers who have spent decades warning about climate change, Respected in theory, ignored in practice, sidelined as the crisis accelerates.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

But they are ignored in favor of the political spectacle, cultural nostalgia, and economic inertia. And when the crisis becomes immediate, they are sadly as vulnerable as everyone else. Their knowledge can't save them. Their ecosystems burn with the rest.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The Professor does not burn his home because he hates it. He burns it because he cannot imagine another response. This is the ecological crisis. Clear-sighted individuals (not solely intellectuals or academics) perceive the danger and the stakes.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

When the town's violence finds him, he panics. He burns down his own abode, setting fire to the thorn bushes that form his own private ecosystem. This foreshadows the town’s final destruction, and shows how even the clearest observer can (in this case willfully) become an agent of ruin.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The Professor despises the violence and the town’s illusions and ignorance- but he himself suffers from his personal irresponsibility, his inability to build relationships, nor to communicate in a way that is effective.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Yet the insights and warnings from scientists rarely become meaningful collective action. Cruelly and paradoxically, their relevance fades as the crisis intensifies: figures of respect without influence. Prophets whose voices are ignored.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

In the ecological perspective, the Professor corresponds to the voice of our scientists in this era of biosphere collapse: think the Stockholm Resilience Center. They speak plainly about ecological danger and our imminent/transgressed planetary boundaries.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

What's interesting in the novel is that the townspeople vaguely admire him, even though they do not understand him. He is a figure of symbolic respect but practically useless.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Instead, he withdraws into muttering, ranting, and isolation. His moment of clarity does not turn into action. Rather, he becomes an irrelevant recluse.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The Professor may be considered to be the town’s only true observer. He sees the danger long before anyone else. He understands that the town’s social world is collapsing. He senses the ecological unraveling. He recognizes the violence rising around him, but he does not intervene.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Let's turn to the Professor...

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The Baron is not killed by malice or fate, but by inertia. He chose life, but still ended up being killed by the structure he remained inside, because he could not conceive of another. This is so tragic because he wanted to live and could not escape the system that made living impossible.

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Chris Taylor @dftchemist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The rails are the habits, systems, and economies that hold us in place: our BAU. It feels inevitable, like the only path available. Turning around is not enough. We must step off the tracks, but we do not.

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