iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

it's important to learn to self-assess in collabs and to learn to notice when it's not gonna work out, such that a project should simply stop today I quit a collab over open access (I don't think we should pay Springer $10K per paper while academia burns; they do) and it was the right move

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watched the first 10 minutes of THE INVITE and it's so on the nose that I had to stop so that I could watch it with my spouse (we do get along lol)

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<bedtime> Me: night night I love you very much 5yo: <yawns> Me: I love you more than the moon and the stars 5yo, suddenly alert: but dada you don't even love the moon and the stars at all

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I appreciate it when colleagues do things with a bit of human kindness. Stop by the office, make a phone call, it doesn't all need to be formal, written messages. Scientists are human beings

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senior postdocs on the academic job market:

screenshots from the latest season of British Bake Off of a chef named Mo, he's a tan skinned young man. He's got dark hair falling over his forehead and a beard. He's saying, "I come with a lot of baggage, but it's, like, the good baggage."

Mo continued, "Like Louis Vuitton baggage."

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another day, another bit of evidence that the scientists who willingly hand over proprietary information to AI firms may experience some consequences

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I grew up in Cambridge, MA but spent a decent amount of time in Paris as a kid, as my grandparents lived in the 15eme, and let me tell you the pharmacie signs blew my tiny Cantabridgian mind

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

every few months I read a piece, often in a right-leaning outlet, with the rough premise "Sure, I was a jerk to my children for most of their lives. But why don't they want to hang out with me?"

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Reposted by samuel mehr

I feel you, Daniel L

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 26/09/2026

Pro tip, a simple fruit salad is elevated by a bit of colour variation, plus salt, mint, demerara sugar, and citrus zest It also doubles as an opportunity to teach your five-year-old some knife skills

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it was so hard to be on search committees during covid, instead of iced coffees all the candidates brought sourdough to their interview

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Reposted by samuel mehr

Vaughn Cooper @vscooper.micropopbio.org · 25/09/2026

FYI to everyone submitting this October NIH cycle You need to re-certify your ScienCV AFTER Sept 26 (tomorrow) for your application or it may not be accepted. Great timing!

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 26/09/2026

maybe it's because I still hold a grudge but my favourite is the entirely illegal one that many, many, many of us have experienced directly: "can't hire them, the spouse might also need a job in our dept"

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 26/09/2026

True story I've parked in one of these spots and was not ticketed

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Academic job market advice is always like this:

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we were at our neighbours' place last night, and on the table was a paper leaflet, their 8yo had written a story and his teacher turned it into a comic, with genAI what a child should learn from that experience really is beyond me

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A futuristic tale of an Kiwi magazine editor who never refrains from saying what he thinks. Russell Crowe stars in WORD CUNT: 2050

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Jan Simson @simson.io · 24/09/2026

am i alone here or does everybody just get several hundred spam messages per week, which they have to sift through manually on a regular basis, because inevitably something important is also buried in there

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Reposted by samuel mehr

The most cursed thing I came across in a while: bastardica.mitpit.com Combine and mess up fonts, with support for exporting them as TTF etc

bastardica.mitpit.com

Bastardica

A type foundry for bastard web fonts.

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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

it's been awhile since i recruited someone in Auckland so I'd forgotten how odd academic hiring is at businessified universities a central Recruitment Consultant reached out, assuming they'd just go and find me a new postdoc; I gently explained that no, the search committee would just be me

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Reposted by samuel mehr

[telling people what I work on] Wow that’s so interesting Not if I keep talking about it it’s not

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there are many complex ethical and practical reasons for you to forbid students from using AI for scientific writing, and to not use it yourself for scientific writing. the most compelling one is simpler: the text an LLM generates or 'polishes' reads like shit

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this post of mild frustration is directed at nobody in particular but: solidarité with expats everywhere, who often deal with bureaucratic nonsense of embassies and high commissions (just had a visa thing returned to us because we sent X instead of Y, when the govt website says to send X and not Y)

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eliminating the marsden to create an underfunded replacement ('TRF') led the govt to cap the # of apps from each uni obvious outcome: junior PIs are getting triaged more than senior PIs, so their science isn't even considered. heard today from a junior prof at UoA who didn't make the cut #nzpol

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Natalie Brito @nataliebrito.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

my favourite form of grad student flex: you roll up to lab meeting with pilot data which demonstrates that the study is working exactly as expected, but you didn't tell anyone ahead of time. the lab finds out all at once, together

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Reposted by samuel mehr

My department is looking to hire 3 new faculty members! Please share widely. Assistant Professor - Cognitive: apply.interfolio.com/193975 Assistant Professor - Social Psychology: apply.interfolio.com/193979 Associate/Full Professor - Mental Health: apply.interfolio.com/193984

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Dermot Lynott @dermotlynott.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Me after being forced to use Microsoft Outlook in the browser

Sign saying “our expectations for you were low, but HOLY FUCK”

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 23/09/2026

is it possible to overdose on Sichuan pepper

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 23/09/2026

after some in-depth discussions with my lab and also drawing on conversations on here, we've edited our new policy on AI usage in my lab feel free to adapt or re-use with attribution, or to reply to tell me how awful this policy is lol

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Martin Zettersten @mzettersten.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Our department at UC San Diego is hiring a new tenure-track Assistant Professor. Open area, research addressing foundational issues in cogsci using modern computational methods. I love my department, and you will too. Apply!! apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF04633 #cogscisci #cogsci #DevPsyc #PsychSciSky

apol-recruit.ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor in Cognitive Science

University of California, San Diego is hiring. Apply now!

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8yo: I'm making a new presentation about Jupiter me: ok cool 8yo: NASA is a reliable source right?

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sure looks like Elsevier got hit with a ransomware attack. can't think of a nicer company for it to happen to lol

Kia ora koutou,

Our supplier Elsevier has advised us that several of its products used by our students and staff have been affected by an incident.

Students and staff trying to access some of our Library resources might be impacted.

If you receive any unusual or unexpected requests when trying to access Elsevier sites and services, please do not proceed. If you're unsure, contact the staff and student contact centres before taking any action.

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DON'T RUIN THIS FOR US

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