iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 12/03/2026

Your post reminded me of a video from at least 2009, possibly earlier. Yes it’s somewhat offensive. Yes I’m a bad person and still laugh at it. www.dailymotion.com/video/x2okwn4

dailymotion.com

MTV Cribs - NICU

Dailymotion video by Modesta Lofton

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 04/03/2026

TIL that splattering your scrubs with beet juice at lunch leaves you looking like you were at a VERY bad C-section. And it doesn’t blot out. So now I look like an axe murderer, taking care of the babies.

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DocAtCDI @docatcdi.com · 20/02/2026

A view of Earth as seen by NASA's EPIC camera aboard the NOAA DSCOVR spacecraft, capturing our planet suspended in the darkness of space from nearly a million miles away

This image was taken by NASA's EPIC camera onboard the NOAA DSCOVR spacecraft

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 20/02/2026

I could raise my hand. But it’s pointless. I’d much rather see more people NOT raise their hand but say they have changed.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 18/02/2026

Forever ago I really enjoyed SimAnt. Two of my favorite non-fiction books include EO Wilson and Holldobler’s Journey to the Ants and The Leafcutter Ants Will have to check this out. Is it more game or biological sim? 🐜

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 18/02/2026

Installed Linux Mint a few days ago. It’s good. Very good actually. Didn’t expect this, but I could see myself migrating eventually, or even pretty soon. (Currently Mac OS >>> Windows)

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 15/02/2026

Thoughts on the impact of exponentially (literally) growing capabilities of AI. Very much worth the 10 - 15 minutes to read, particularly if you're closer to the start than the end of your career, no matter what that career might be.

shumer.dev

Something Big Is Happening

A personal note for non-tech friends and family on what AI is starting to change.

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Coffee and improved cognition, reduced dementia >130,000 people followed 37 years Benefit seen only with caffeinated coffee or tea and most pronounced ~2 cups/day @jama.com ☕️☕️https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2844764

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 11/02/2026

In my office, I still have “books” (those things made out of trees) that I learned PHP and Perl from. (My clinical calculator website is fully hand coded in PHP…) Maybe I should see if my laserdisc player still works.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 11/02/2026

Like the finding. Don’t like the Y axis.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 11/02/2026

Encouraging a kid who decided to get vaccinated, in my own apparently strange way. #PedSky

Former pediatrician here (now just newborns) — congratulations and thank you.

When you feel sore and achy afterwards, remember that it’s because IT’S WORKING! Your body’s immune system is going “what the heck is this stuff?!? I’m going to learn to kick the sh*t out of it if I ever run into it again.”

Whenever I got my shots and I DIDN’T feel sort of crummy the couple of days afterwards, I was worried the shots weren’t working :)

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 09/02/2026

So much depth to the half-time show that I missed. Really nice post sharing the cultural meaning. www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQu... www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQu...

reddit.com

Traditional_Rice_682's comment on "Can I get an explanation of the Super Bowl halftime show?"

Explore this conversation and more from the NoStupidQuestions community

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 07/02/2026

This is today. I guess for me it’ll have to be “Eat ice cream for third breakfast day”

en.wikipedia.org

Ice Cream for Breakfast Day - Wikipedia

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 05/02/2026

I bet they’re going to flood Pooh, 7 Dwarfs, and Ariel and bring back submarines, right?

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Bill Amend @billamend.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 04/02/2026

Was working with a medical student recently who said I had a “moral code”. I don’t really know what that means but I felt strangely disturbed. They probably shouldn’t let me work with medical students. I’m contaminating them.

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xkcd Bot @xkcd-bot.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Groundhog Day Meaning xkcd.com/3202 Originally, the ceremony used a variety of rodents and mustelids, but over time most people agreed it made sense to standardize on a specific individual ground squirrel in Pennsylvania. Explain xkcd: www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/…

Originally, the ceremony used a variety of rodents and mustelids, but over time most people agreed it made sense to standardize on a specific individual ground squirrel in Pennsylvania.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 02/02/2026

I prefer: “Don’t believe anything without thought.” - Me

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 02/02/2026

This is both horrifying and expected. I have been dismayed at how many clinicians I know are quite willing and even excited to offload their clinical judgement to large language models.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 01/02/2026

I’m aware of Palantir and what they do But I’m a physician, and protected health information is (or was) considered sacred. The information a patient (or parent) communicates with us shouldn’t be fair game for data harvesting.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 31/01/2026

Parents terrified to leave home to bring kid to the hospital is yet another thing making me very angry (bili over 25 mg/dL)

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Scott McGrath @smcgrath.phd · 31/01/2026

You do have to give Anthropic credit here. It is rare for a lab to publish data questioning its own tools. Meta constantly buries internal findings that challenge their business model. This kind of transparency is uncommon and should be encouraged instead of dog-piled. Link to the full study:

arxiv.org

How AI Impacts Skill Formation

AI assistance produces significant productivity gains across professional domains, particularly for novice workers. Yet how this assistance affects the development of skills required to effectively…

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 31/01/2026

I’m actually really pleasantly surprised that Anthropic (Claude) was willing to disseminate these results. Much respect to them. Confession: I use Claude at times to help with R coding

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Scott McGrath @smcgrath.phd · 31/01/2026

Really important research out of Anthropic: In a RCT study, they found AI coding assistance resulted in a 𝟏𝟕% 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩 in mastery for users. While tasks were slightly faster, offloading thinking to AI stunted skill growth. Using AI to explain code, rather than just write it did help with retention.

anthropic.com

How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 30/01/2026

I had a mom in the nursery ask if I was The Baby Whisperer yesterday, after calming a cranky small one. Honestly, my dream retirement would include being a volunteer cuddler. Someday.

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nfariousactivities.bsky.social @nfariousactivities.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

“This is an image of universal moral urgency, akin to a small number of photographs that once upon a time had the power to change our behavior, away from cruelty or indifference and in the direction of basic decency.“ Gift Link

wapo.st

Column | The abhorrent power of the photograph of a 5-year-old held by ICE

An image like this could once change history. Can one still?

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 24/01/2026

Dang it, how did I miss this? Back in 2018 I worked (very slowly) through an earlier edition of this book using R but always meant to go through it again (with the 2nd edition) to try to cement understanding. This is perfect! Hopefully I can catch and keep up!

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 23/01/2026

Around 30 whistles printed and packaged up with Reporting info cards, ready for distribution.

Basket of around 30 whistles 3D printed and packaged up with info cards with phone number to report ICE activity and what to report, ready for distribution.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 23/01/2026

What advice can you give to folks in other cities expecting an ICE surge? What lessons learned of things that worked or didn’t work?

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 23/01/2026

I am extremely offended by this and must protest. We are training clinician scientists and the n is only 1. To answer the question, we need a much larger sample size. Put them all on their asses.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 22/01/2026

Guess I should always trust wife. Not a great picture, but not mold. I think I’m going to rig / 3D print something to hold the iPhone along the right axis

Microscope to examine a suspicious piece of bread

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 22/01/2026

So there’s this suspicious looking spot on my loaf of bread. I think it’s mold. Wife thinks it’s just a bit of ash. Good thing I have access to a clinical grade microscope. The truth will be known.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 22/01/2026

I'm tired of feeling helpless, so here's a first pass of a project I've been working on: trying out different 3D-printed whistles to distribute along with informational cards (front and back shown)

Picture of 3 styles of 3D-printed whistles along with images of the front and back of a card to include with the whistles.

📢 Community Support 🚨
• Whistles: 3 short (threat nearby); 3 long (active operation)
Call LUCE hotline 5a - 9p (617) 370-5023: SALUTE-VP
• Size: How many agents present?
• Actions: What are they doing (e.g., arresting, questioning)?
• Location: Where are they and where are they going?
• Uniform: What are they wearing?
• Time: When did the event start?
• Equipment & Weapons: What gear or weapons are visible?
• Vehicle: License plates, vehicle make, model, color
• Photo / Video: If possible to do safely; do NOT obstruct

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

- Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 21/01/2026

Just installed #LibreOffice for use on MacOS — any tips or suggestions? It’s a bit janky with intermittent app hangs on saves (which I’ve seen previously reported but without solutions) and odd UI issues, but I want alternatives to M$ Office and Google apps.

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Iain Roberts @slowbikeiain.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Yesterday it was cows using tools, today its penguins using satellite imagery.

Headline: "Scientists discover emperor penguin colony in Antarctica using satellite images"

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 15/01/2026

Star Trek, played on a teletype terminal connected to remote computer via telephone 📞 in rubber audio sockets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(1971_video_game)

Teletype terminal — can see the punch tape that could be used to save and load programs

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 15/01/2026

This one? I set up a network in our lab in the 1990’s so we could play at night while experiments were running.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 15/01/2026

Night Driver (arcade version) — first game I begged my parents to play while visiting Chinatown Fair in NYC in the 70’s.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 09/01/2026

Thank you, Massachusetts Department of Public Health. #PedSky

Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH)
Guidance on Recommended Reference Materials for Pediatric Immunization Schedules
January 2026

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) is issuing this notification to inform clinicians of a change in recommended reference materials for pediatric immunization schedules.

DPH has a longstanding and ongoing commitment to promoting evidence-based immunization practices that protect communities from vaccine preventable illnesses. Following a review of recent changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pediatric immunization schedule, DPH now recommends that clinicians in Massachusetts use the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Recommended Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule as the primary reference for the routine immunization of infants, children, and adolescents.

DPH recognizes the importance of clear, consistent, and evidence-based guidance to facilitate safe and effective vaccination practices. AAP is a national professional organization representing pediatric physicians, and its immunization schedule is developed by pediatric experts and updated regularly to reflect current evidence and clinical best practices for immunizing children and adolescents. The AAP immunization schedule aligns with science-backed pediatric standards of care and provides detailed guidance that supports clinical decision-making in pediatric settings.

Clinicians should continue to follow all applicable state requirements, including the immunization requirements for school and camp entry (aligned with AAP recommendations), and reporting obligations, including documentation of administered immunizations in the Massachusetts Immunization Information System (MIIS).

DPH will continue to monitor national immunization policy updates and will communicate any additional guidance as needed.

Thank you for your continued commitment to protecting the health of Massachusetts children and families. …

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 07/01/2026

Here's an annoying behavior that resulted in a hard to find bug: Our build of SnowflakeSQL returns queries in R with: - datetimes as POSIXct (yay!) - time in local (yay!) - timezone in UTC (boo...) It'd be great if I my hospital was near the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, but it isn't.

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 03/01/2026

This is a wonderful and extraordinary YouTube series. While it's not "actually" Richard Feynman speaking, it's inspired by him, and the joy and wonder comes through. The explanations are at a low enough level for me to understand, so much as quantum mechanics can be "understood". It's inspiring.

youtube.com

Physics The Feynman Way

The principle of science is that the truth of any statement becomes a matter of experiment and observation, not authority. - Richard Feynman This channel explores the life, work, and ideas of Richard...

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Joe Chou @incidentalfindings.org · 02/01/2026

It’s a bit of a mind shift, but after I started using a password app, I changed ALL my login passwords to different strings of 20 random characters and let the app handle it. My LEAST secure password is my clinical EHR password, because it’s the only one I have to remember and type.

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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Thanks GlobalTV Canada! 🇨🇦

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Aman Bhargava @aman.bh · 21/12/2025

> We archived around 86M music files, representing around 99.6% of listens. It’s a little under 300TB. This is the largest music metadata database that is publicly available. Many interesting 📊 charts on this page that can only be made by having this scale of data. annas-archive.li/blog/backing...

Chart showing that 70% of songs are ones almost no one ever listens to (stream count < 1000).

A chart titled "Stream Count Analysis by Popularity" showing a histogram of total streams peaking at popularity scores of 60–70, overlaid with a line graph showing average streams per song spiking exponentially at scores of 90–100. Below, a table lists the top three songs by stream count: "Die With A Smile," "BIRDS OF A FEATHER," and "DtMF."

A matrix grid with the title "Audio Features Correlation Heatmaps" showing histograms of musical traits (Tempo, Energy, Valence, etc.) along the diagonal and 2D density heatmaps showing correlations between paired features in the intersecting cells.

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