Sign in

Kieran Hervold

@hervold.bsky.social
138 followers 262 following 619 posts

Bioinformatics, distributed computing, and shaky opinions

PostsRepliesMedia
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 9h
It’s been illegal to build almost anything in San Francisco for 50 years now! I don’t think the free market solves everything but it would be infinitely better than the status quo in many places
141
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 12h
“We should cure all disease” is also unworkable; it’s still the goal. MORE people can live in all of those places!
170
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Pumped is the dominant form of energy storage!
en.wikipedia.org
Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia
040
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This, apparently
lgbtqnation.com
GOP gubernatorial candidate releases bizarrely steamy & sapphic campaign ad: "Just try it!" - LGBTQ Nation
Even Republican viewers aren't amused.
210
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Biochar!
030
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
We have some understanding of how they do math, don’t we?
arxiv.org
Language Models Use Trigonometry to Do Addition
Mathematical reasoning is an increasingly important indicator of large language model (LLM) capabilities, yet we lack understanding of how LLMs process even simple mathematical tasks. To address this,...
130
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
“But the fallout” - like a little cesium-137 ever hurt anyone!
110
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Oh sure, another critic of Project Plowshare - y’all never even gave it a chance!
120
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
As you move into the real world, human oversight and intervention becomes unavoidable
210
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The voters only get 2 choices, and 2024 US election was part a world-wide rejection of incumbents. Unfortunately, the non-incumbent was Trump
000
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The implication here is that the voters have gotten worse, and I don’t buy it. The problem is our elites - the GOP was too weak and broken to stop Trump, and reform should be focused on punishing those elites
110
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Are prices high because a war cut supply by 20%, or because of nerdy, effeminate regulations? - a question only the truly brilliant would ask
011
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“Get to?” No, *must*
020
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
That’s why you arrest all the co-conspirators at once!
050
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It’s not plenty, probably not comfort, but we’ve greatly reduced the number living in real abject poverty. (Not to be complacent; I’m sure USAID was responsible for some of this drop)
statista.com
Number of people living on less than 2.15 USD a day worldwide 2024| Statista
In 2024, the number of people living on less than 2.15 U.S.
120
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The biggest obstacles there are political, not material - see housing, health care, and education
1430
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Does it, though? Staple crops used to require back-breaking work, and now one combine can harvest hundreds of acres. We can do that for most jobs!
2160
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It’s an elite problem, and they’re all criminals. We need merely enforce the law.
110
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Well, that and, like, building airplanes that actually fly
010
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The biggest lesson from biology is, “don’t worry about empiricism, just come at it from first principles.” Totally predictable stuff, we’ll just build a super-virus, easy peasy!
040
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Didn’t you yourself post an example?
110
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There’s actually a name for this…
en.wikipedia.org
Moravec's paradox - Wikipedia
010
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Wait, hold on, I think I can guess: water recycling
1120
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
@whstancil.bsky.social what do you think of this example? I agree that ppl are in denial about LLM capabilities in the enormous realm of “computer stuff,” but it’s less clear how they perform in real-world scenarios
000
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“an adult male could theoretically perform self-crucifixion, though it would require extraordinary pain tolerance and determination”
010
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
siouxsie and the banshees
000
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
My 14 yr old regaled the dinner table with the story of the Massachusetts lesbian bar masking debate…
130
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Great thread on the difference between a new epidemic and an existing, endemic disease
010
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
And the fact that some people react to Chinese characters on billboards with revulsion and anger explains a lot about this political moment. But if authorial intent means anything, I think Gibson just thought it looked cool
110
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
You might very well be right, but at the time I read the exoticism as cool & futuristic, rather than dystopian? Those noodles Deckard orders in Blade Runner - they looked pretty tasty!
120
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The seminal work is from 1984! Some of our Horrors are a straight-line projection from the concerns of the time (unchecked corporate dominance), and some are exciting and new (tech elite destroying higher education)
140
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
@jevbot.bsky.social is a hot dog a sandwich?
110
Reposted by Kieran Hervold
whet moser @whetmoser.com · 25/09/2026
i want nathan fielder to do undecided voter focus groups
62431366
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Just gotta match the publish dates of the model and novel up, right?
110
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Had to retire the trench coat after that, it was a real loss
010
Reposted by Kieran Hervold
Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
10381682844
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Escaping” overstates it. Accessing other computers over the internet
000
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A blood vessel is made of endothelial and smooth muscle cells, therefore it is two organs
020
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Papa Legba calls to us
010
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Is there value in an economically diverse student body? A rich polity can support a nice budget for SFUSD, but we still have shitty schools failing poor kids. (And some good schools with poorer students!)
120
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
What’s funny is they’ve half-assed it in a way that’s self-defeating - we still have a bi-modal distribution of school quality bc PMC parents spreadsheet the hell out of the system, and if they can’t get a good school they just go private
110
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I think the problem is with the elites, not the voters. 25% of voters have wanted another Holocaust all along, but it was beyond the pale for Republican leadership & the billionaires. We need to punish them, and take fascism back off the menu
010
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I honestly had no idea! Waymo still beats the median driver in crashes-per-mile, right? Subjectively, I’m much happier biking next to an autonomous vehicle than a human driver, but I’m worried about the bottom quartile…
121
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
There are more benign explanations - pharma is a very profitable industry! But it’d be nice to have some oversight here
030
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It’s SO FUNNY!
000
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
It’s “gif” like the peanut butter, damn it!
000
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The state of Louisiana sure isn’t doing it any good
0100
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Next you’ll tell me they took the mercury out of DTaP!
010
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
50/50 he nukes DC
000
Kieran Hervold @hervold.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
A Noncontiguous Code for RNA-Guided DNA Recognition Preceded CRISPR
CRISPR-Cas systems use RNA-guided proteins for adaptive immunity through a mechanism whose origin is unknown. Here we report the discovery of Viral Interference Programmable Repeat (VIPR) systems cons...
010