iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 04/10/2026

Celebrating korvapuustipäivä in style. 🇫🇮

A big pile of fresh baked cinnamon rolls

Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 13/08/2026

This is an amazing story about a result that generated tons of discussion at the time. I am also curious to hear why it took nearly three years to come to light!

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 10/08/2026

I have only had the “many puffins” experience (Skomer Island). I don’t think I’ll try the artisanal one puffin trip.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 06/08/2026

Absolute giddy first-day-of-school vibes for me this week.

The author in front of Biomedicum Helsinki

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 08/07/2026

I’m very excited to build a new team that blends academic exploration with small company pragmatism, but I also feel some trepidation at starting from scratch again! Much more coming soon (I’ll be hiring!) but for now I’m going to enjoy a few more weeks with these important colleagues:

Two girls and an inflatable elephant in a Nordic lake.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 06/06/2026

I guess to be fair they are doing it. Just wish it were faster!

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 05/06/2026

...including cancers, and indeed they found a substantial reduction in risk of lung cancer. And the current paper shows their signature almost completely identifies the patient subgroup who receive this benefit. A truly striking stratification:

survival curves. red & blue are the high protein score group, who have elevated lung cancer rates, and a big difference between placebo and treatment. green and orange are low protein score, who have low levels of cancer and no difference between treatment arms.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 05/06/2026

This is a good list, and the authors do show specificity of the combined signature, but I think they go too far in painting all these proteins as lung specific. e.g. they show nicely that the set is expressed highly in the lung, but there is substantial variability. Compare LAMP3 and MMP12 in GTEx:

MMP12 is expressed more widely, with lung being only 7th rank

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 05/06/2026

The authors first find a 14 protein signature in the UK Biobank plasma proteomics data that, when added to standard clinical risk factors, substantially increases prediction of future risk of lung cancer. AUC goes from 0.81 to 0.86, which is a lot.

AUC curves comparing clinical and proteomics scores

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 12/05/2026

Contrast the Philips resignation with Davies-Jones, below. She wrote clearly and gave concrete examples. She believes paragraphs can have more than one sentence. He fills a side of A4 with mostly carriage returns. And sounds like a robot.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 26/04/2026

The difference in the UK vs US meaning of the word “mentalist” can cause confusion, but really either works here:

Traditionally a comedian roasts the president at the WHCA dinner but this year a mentalist was engaged to perform instead of the usual comedian

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 17/04/2026

Allbirds’ stock is insane on every time scale. Why did they IPO for a bajillion dollars? Why does anyone think now that they are well positioned to transition to AI?

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 12/04/2026

Essential reading, as always. This captured something I noticed listening to NPR cover the ceasefire. They quoted Trump’s blather that the 10 point plan was a solid basis for negotiation as a reason for optimism when even a moment’s inspection revealed it was Iran’s maximalist starting point.

This drains credibility from his statements though the media still reports them as if they can be judged by the same standards as those of other political leaders

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 27/03/2026

Kudos to the city of Helsinki webpage for this nice UX touch when you try to switch languages on a page they haven’t translated. Almost always the default behaviour is just to dump you to the homepage, which is NEVER what the user wants!

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 03/03/2026

I was thinking maybe the 🐊 jokes were stale, but then again this is the second story on the local page of the Sydney Morning Herald

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 02/03/2026

In London you mind the gap, but in Sydney you BEWARE it because of the metro crocs. 🐊

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 21/02/2026

This article was helpful for me as I try to get my bearings about what’s been happening in AI world in the past 3 months. It called out a testable prediction from one of the xAI evangelists, which is a helpful anchor to use when evaluating vaguer statements. 80 days to go.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 17/02/2026

Was sitting by this fireplace listening to a family speaking what I thought was a very Savo-accented Finnish, but turned out to be Estonian 🇪🇪 😂 cc: @kauralasoo.bsky.social

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 12/01/2026

Fond memories of a summer canal boat trip up the Great Ouse many years ago. Bonus points if anyone can ID the famous British geneticist having a sunset disco on the roof.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 08/01/2026

Kindergarten drop off traffic in Finland.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 05/01/2026

On the plus side, now I can trivially do stuff like this

The author, transformed by AI to a mockery of Vermeer’s masterpiece, Girl with a Pearl Earring

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 10/12/2025

If you’re wondering what December in Finland is like…

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 25/11/2025

Polar night begins in Finnish Lapland. Forecast for Utsjoki notes the next sunrise is January 17th. 😣

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 31/10/2025

I am presenting updates on multiomic research and clinical risk prediction on behalf of @nightingalehealth.com at this year's @ukbiobank.bsky.social conference. Looking forward to joining the event, and catching up with other attendees! #UKBiobank #Omics #HealthData

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 22/10/2025

This part of @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social ‘s piece is spot on. Another reason “No Kings” is better is because it’s a good Saxon word, whereas the others are effete Latin words. www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-f...

Wouldn’t it speak more accurately…to talk of No Tyrants or No Authoritarians or No Autocrats? …the old fashioned character of No Kings is part of what made it work politically.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 18/10/2025

Saturday at ASHG is always bittersweet. Still listening to cool science, but many people have gone home, and the “see you next year” signs are up. It goes by fast! #ashg25

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 07/09/2025

“Hey Frank, we need some art for the lunar eclipse story, stat!” “I’ve got just the thing, boss.”

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 26/08/2025

The bluesky ecosystem: the menswear guy being quote posted by a prof. of political science, being reposted to my timeline by an astronomer.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 11/08/2025

GPT5 fast mode sucks at things I expect it to be good at. Here's an example where it seemingly realizes it's full of shit halfway through its answer, and tries to recover:

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 08/08/2025

This is so dumb, but I'm kind of addicted to this game.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 08/08/2025

Do you think this is really still a tokenization limitation, or an OpenAI easter egg?

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 01/08/2025

Here's a fun bit of math in R:

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 21/06/2025

Perennial midsummer question: is inhaling too much hytyssavu bad for you? #juhannus 🇫🇮

A green mosquito coil burns on a red plate. In the background is a lake.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 24/05/2025

As you both know, I bring a propane stove to all international meetings.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 23/05/2025

Strong from MIT prez, Sally Kornbluth: orgchart.mit.edu/letters/toda...

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 01/05/2025

20 years ago today, at 5:50 AM, a little more than a week after I had arrived in Oxford, I was headed to see the Magdalen choir. Pretty magical introduction to my new home!

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 02/04/2025

The very good @338canada.bsky.social model prediction of the upcoming election over time is informative about how to tune Bayesian models with limited history. It was absolutely certain of a conservative victory for >1 year. But strange things do happen.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 02/04/2025

I opened a signal account in case any governments wanted to add me to group chats. I seem to be on the right track?

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 12/03/2025

I think it come in second behind “put only one figure on each slide”

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 02/03/2025

The point in the day when big winter boots feel like the comfiest slippers.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 23/02/2025

There’s nothing more relaxing than reading the Finnish national broadcaster’s English news. They assume you can get international news in English somewhere else, so just cover the most important happenings in Finland.

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Jeffrey Barrett @jeffbarrett.eu · 19/02/2025

President Stubb doesn’t mess around: his visit today to one of the brigades on Finland’s border with Russia clearly contrasts with some other Presidents I could mention.

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