iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 4h

Flock of wild turkeys near the summit of Pu'u Wa'awa'a today

A line of seven turkeys walking in the grass along a fence. Behind the fence are mature koa trees and a lush forest.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

That is fun. Here's the white pizza with spinach cream sauce and artichoke hearts I made today.

A list of the species in the pizza: cattle, baker's yeast, black pepper, spinach, garlic, bread wheat, artichoke, chili pepper, olive in two different phylogentic tree views, with information about divergence dates, percent of the edible tree's branch length, that the total branch length spanning the meal is 6,326 million years, etc.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's gotten to the point where even just the signatures of our billionaire overlords fills me with rage.

The signatures of Donald Trump, Sundar Pichai, Dario Amodei, Mark Zuckerberg, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Both are true. Patriarchy is a system of domination. It's terrible for women--and it's also terrible for children, most men, even animals. See, for example, robindembroff.com/real-men-on-...

Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality
by Robin Dembroff

A revelatory new lens on patriarchy-as a force that governs how we see the world, live in our bodies, and imagine our futuresIn Real Men on Top, Robin Dembroff shows us that we don't just live in a patriarchal world. We live in a world that patriarchy taught us to see. Patriarchy is not simply a system where men dominate women, Dembroff argues. It is a deeper reality-shaping force that legitimizes economic exploitation, political injustice, and social cruelty by dividing all of us into the rigid categories of Man, Woman, Animal, and Child.These categories are presented as natural truths, but Dembroff reveals them as man-made myths—ones that construct a reality in which being characterized as Woman, Animal, or Child marks moral degradation. By no coincidence, feminization, dehumanization, and infantilization are the very degradations used to make a man 'less of a man'.But this book is more than critique; it's also a guide to transformation especially for those grappling with what it means to be a man under patriarchy. Patriarchy's myths celebrate the identity Man, but these myths are no friend to most men. Promising strength and superiority, they instead fuel isolation, emotional repression, and relentless pressure to prove oneself while propping up systems that enrich the powerful few. Rather than deliver freedom and prosperity, these myths entrap and impoverish. Real Men on Top invites readers to see through them and, in so doing, to find new possibilities for living, relating, and becoming human. Sharp, daring, and deeply felt, Real Men on Top is a book for anyone who senses that something is deeply wrong with the way we live and wants to understand how we got here, and where we might begin the work of remaking reality.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

For comparison, NIH spends ~$50B a year. Teslo's idea is good. But I worry about overall governance "Because the foundation holds a 26% equity stake in OpenAI, it is now be on track to become the richest charitable organization on the planet, potentially sitting on $250 billion in stock value."

Last year Ruxandra Teslo, a policy analyst who focuses on clinical trials, posted an idea for supercharging medical AI systems: Use data from failed biotech companies.

By bidding at their bankruptcy proceedings, she proposed, it might be possible to obtain detailed regulatory filings, manufacturing strategies, and safety data—types of information usually considered trade secrets. She called these documents “biotech’s lost archive” and said they could be used to help train AIs that would act as powerful copilots in the often opaque drug approval process.

Today the OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit parent of OpenAI, said it would fund her idea as part of a new effort it calls Public Data for Health, which aims to help artificial intelligence make big leaps in

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Amen! If only we could get contemporary AI folks to engage with things like this:

Given that no formal community of critical technical practitioners
exists yet, this book necessarily addresses two very different audiences,
technical and critical. The technical audience consists of technical practi-
tioners who, while committed to their work, suspect that it might be
improved using intellectual tools from nontechnical fields. The critical
audience consists of philosophers and social scientists who, while perhaps
unhappy with technology as it is, suspect that they can make a positive
contribution to its reform.
In my experience, the first obstacle to communication between these
audiences is the word "critical," which for technical people connotes
negativity and destruction. It is true that critical theorists are essentially
suspicious; they dig below the surface of things, and they do not expect to
like what they find there. But critical analysis quickly becomes lost unless
it is organized and guided by an affirmative moral purpose. My own
moral purpose is to confront certain prestigious technical methodologies
that falsify and distort human experience. The purpose of critical work,
simply put, is to explain how this sort of problem arises. Technical people
frequently resist such inquiries because they seem to involve accusations
of malfeasance. In one sense this is true: we all bear some responsibility
for the unintended consequences of our actions. But in another sense it is
false: critical research draws attention to structural and cultural levels of
explanation - to the things that happen through our actions but that exist
beneath our conscious awareness.
In the case of AI, I will argue that certain conceptions of human life are
reproduced through the discourses and practices of technical work. I will
also argue that the falsehood of those conceptions can be discerned in
their impracticability and that new critical tools can bring the problem
into the consciousness of the research community.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Amusing. Apparently I'm just mildly interesting to corporate AI. And I refuse on principle to try to manipulate any academic performance metrics. We don't use any of these metrics for promotion or tenure at the U of Chicago, we read our colleague's papers.

A report page from amicited.ai for Lawrence Hunter, showing 43 of more than 355 "papers" (includes abstracts and slide decks of mine Scite has found open access online) have been requested from Scite 120 times, mostly by ChatGPT and Claude. A bar chart of months shows most scans have been recent.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Sherry Turkle is *still* such a valuable thinker about AI. truthout.org/audio/artifi...

And we’re still kind of on that path that we’re dealing with a technology that has no moral or ethical or it hasn’t lived a life. It’s not part of our community. So it can’t have a moral or an ethical or a humane sense. So that’s very important, I think, to cover this entire conversation is to make the point again and again that there is no there there. There is no there there. We’re imagining it and it’s amazing. I mean, all credit to it. It’s amazing, but it is going to get us into trouble if we treat it as a person.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

My first computer? Technically, I suppose it was an IBM System/360, although I never actually saw it. First one I touched (I helped build it) was an IMSAI 8080. Both now more than 50 years ago.

An IMSAI 8080. A blue case with a black frontpiece. Frontpiece has a row of red and blue toggle switches with three rows of red LEDs above.

The control panel of an IBM System/360 sitting on a table, with a black office chair in front of it. To the side is a hardcopy terminal with a blue keyboard.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Sobering. The combination of commercial pre-implantation genetic testing with polygenic risk scores has significant consequences for everyone. Even for people who have no intention of ever doing it themselves.

Despite these risks, there is a lack of clear guidance on the implementation of PGT-P, and existing regulations for prenatal testing differ widely across countries4,5. The central question is, therefore, whether societies should accept a future in which reproductive opportunities, parental obligations and children’s life chances are increasingly organized around genetic optimization, private purchasing power and corporate profit. In our view, leaving PGT-P to the market is not a neutral policy choice, but an active decision to allow commercial actors to shape the future of reproduction.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Rose are red We're governed by dopes

FDA warns of bacterial contamination in recalled hand soaps

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Pizza al taglio, with soppressata, potatoes, and arugula. One of the few things I still make with meat as an ingredient — but just a little for flavor. And boy is it good!

A rectangular pizza, covered in potato slices and bright green arugula

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This really is a worthwhile read!

Worse: to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead. We inhabit civilization while holding some part of ourselves—what we imagine to be the most precious part—aloof from its entanglements. We work our nine-to-five jobs in its institutions, we eat its food, we drive its cars (not least to reach the wilderness), we benefit from the intricate and all too invisible networks with which it shelters us, all the while pretending that these things are not an essential part of who we are. By imagining that our true home is in the wilderness, we forgive ourselves the homes we actually inhabit. In its flight from history, in its siren song of escape, in its reproduction of the dangerous dualism that sets human beings outside of nature—in all of these ways, wilderness poses a serious threat to responsible environmentalism at the end of the twentieth century.

By now I hope it is clear that my criticism in this essay is not directed at wild nature per se, or even at efforts to set aside large tracts of wild land, but rather at the specific habits of thinking that flow from this complex cultural construction called wilderness. It is not the things we label as wilderness that are the problem—for nonhuman nature and large tracts of the natural world do deserve protection—but rather what we ourselves mean when we use the label. Lest one doubt how pervasive these habits of thought actually are in contemporary environmentalism, let me list some of the

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This reminded me I need to download the apps I need to review this round, and when I tried... Never seen that one before...

White lettering on a blue background, reading: "LOGIN.GOV Temporarily Down. Login.gov is temporarily down for maintenance. Please try back later." with the phrase "Login Status" in a link at the bottom

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Followed by homemade mango-banana-coconut milk-rum ice cream. Yum!

A glass bowl full of pale yellow-orange ice cream. A metal scoop is forming a sphere

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Labor Day weekend cooking Big Island style: coconut cauliflower tacos with mango salsa

Four tacos on a white plate. Green cilantro and jalapeños with bright orange mango

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Still have your Whip Inflation Now button, Tom?

Red circle with white letters WIN. Bordered with blue lettering on a white background reading WHIP - INFLATION - NOW

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Shin beat the world's best Go program with a metacognitive strategy. He started with a 2 stone handicap and protected that modest advantage with a very slow rate of loss. He won because the program just optimized without catching it would run out of board before the advantage reversed direction.

The amazing thing is – even though Shin’s 18 point lead was in constant decline over the whole game, there wasn’t enough time – enough empty space on the board – for that slow decline to change the winrate. It never budged from 99%. By the time Shin’s lead hit 11.5 points, there was no more board to fight over.

The thing is – to the neural network that is KataGo – it cannot tell HOW MUCH BOARD IS LEFT. Unlike a human player, it can only perceive the board state through the very narrow lens of which moves in which spots will increase the winrate, that’s it. As such, it makes AI moves that increase winrate – it cannot tell that this is the time to change strategy and make a desperate all-or-nothing gamble or Black will take a comfortable win, because the option to take that fork leads to more complications and has a lower winrate.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

That recession was *intentional*. It was the Reagan/Volcker plan for reducing inflation. Federal funds rate hit nearly 20% and they refused to back down, even when the howls of pain reached Congress.

percent at the start of the recession to nearly 10 percent a year later. As the recession worsened, Volcker faced repeated calls from Congress to loosen monetary policy, but he maintained that failing to bring down long-run inflation expectations now would result in "more serious economic circumstances over a much longer period of time" (Monetary Policy Report 1982, 67).

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Does make me wonder *whose* hiring, precisely, needed facilitating.

In June, the FBI quietly lowered some of the standards it uses when it conducts background checks on would-be federal agents and other personnel. According to multiple sources briefed on the matter, the FBI did so to facilitate hiring in some cases, even if candidates acknowledged they engaged in sexually deviant activities or stole from an employer.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

ATK recommendations for quicker carmelized onions. Definitely helps, especially #2 www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/106...

1. Cut the onions pole to pole instead of crosswise
Slicing the onions through their root end prevents them from breaking down too much during cooking.

2. Start cooking the onions with water over high heat and covered
Surrounding the onions with steam (and submerging some of them in the added water) heats them more quickly and thoroughly than just relying on the heat generated by the cooking surface of the skillet alone.

3. Press and stir the onions until deeply browned
Since browning occurs only where the onions are in direct contact with the hot pan, gently press the softened onions into the bottom and sides of the skillet to allow for maximum contact. Let them sit for about 30 seconds and then stir them until they’re softened and deeply browned.

4. Finish with baking soda
Baking soda boosts the onions’ sweetness by encouraging the breakdown of flavorless inulin into sweet fructose.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Don’t think I’m going to be able to see the eclipse tonight, but sunset was nice

Dramatically lit clouds, the setting sun, and silhouetted palm trees

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Restoring power is especially hard when a hurricane hits Hawaii, like the recent Lala. We have to airlift bucket trucks from California... [Below is a clip of an email I got from HELCO today. There are still over 1,000 homes without power here two weeks later]

Additional resources continue to arrive on Hawaiʻi Island. A second C-17 cargo aircraft via military transport from March Air Reserve Base in California landed in Hilo last night carrying utility trucks, equipment and tools needed to support crews. The equipment will be deployed to assist our crews and Southern California Edison's mutual assistance crews working throughout the island.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Go Cory! This is an amazingly plausible path to a huge victory over the billionaire tech bros. From your lips to Carney’s ear…

That's where Trump comes in. From the moment his "Liberation Day" tariffs landed, any country that upheld its anti-circumvention laws was sacrificing its national competitiveness, resiliency and integrity in exchange for nothing. Trump reneged on America's obligations to its trading partners, just like he reneged on every deal he's ever made:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/22/table-flipper/#graveyard-of-indispensable-nations

The good news is, this means we can have VCRs again! All it will take is for one (or more) countries to decide to lift its one-sided restrictions on making technologies "capable of sustaining a substantial non-infringing use" and wait for one (or more) entrepreneurs to figure out that reintroducing the VCR is a winner, just like it was in the 1970s, when the VCR was the fastest-adopted technology in the history of the world.

It's not just VCRs, of course. For a generation, entire product categories have been suppressed, all over the world. There is a whole CES (good) worth of products that are truly innovative (good) waiting to be brought to market.

The last time there was this much low-hanging fruit on offer was after WWII, where six years' worth of bombings, austerity

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Creative, Jason! I thought about trying to attach another handle on the opposite side, but usually end up doing something like this.

Unbalanced pan on a stovetop with a lid resting on the lip of the side opposite the handle.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Celebrate every victory, and learn for the future

For the next community staring down a similar drill permit, the lesson isn’t any single tactic – it’s the stacking of them, organizers said. A lawsuit alone is slow; an occupation alone is easy to clear; a good story alone changes nothing without leverage behind it. Pe’ Sla worked because the pieces protected each other.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Bsky hivemind, I have a question: Does anyone know of a good quality, induction compatible 8” nonstick skillet that is balanced enough not to do this? The one in the picture is the All-Clad — the handle is too heavy (or the pan too light) for it to sit flat. Same with the OXO and the Tramontina.

8” frying pan sitting on an induction stovetop. The weight of the handle lifts the opposite side of the pan off the burner.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Another banger from Cory! I love the idea of Europe* rebuilding the tech stack right as a response to the US becoming an active threat. A bit of optimism for our difficult times. Plus a rational national AI strategy for them as a bonus! *+ Canada, UK, S. Korea, Australia, NZ, Japan, etc.

If you really want an "AI strategy" for your country, it should be this: wait for the bubble to burst, then buy hardware and talent at fire-sale prices in the wave of ensuing bankruptcies, and use them to extract more performance from free, open source models.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

No cheating. Share the last photo of the sky in your camera roll

Spiral arm of Hurricane Lala, with rain visible around Mauna Kea in the distance. Taken from the summit of Pu’u Wa’awa’a

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I like the way UChicago is handling AI The tools are made accessible privately, without giving vendors access to inputs, and also we "emphasize the centrality of human engagement, human interaction, and human expertise to UChicago’s educational mission.” chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...

The memo cites as influential a 2025 report on AI and education by the University’s Artificial Intelligence and Education Working Group, which, according to the memo, “emphasizes the centrality of human engagement, human interaction, and human expertise to UChicago’s educational mission.”

Other committees addressing the University’s relationship with artificial intelligence were announced earlier this summer alongside the unveiling of a partnership between Anthropic and UChicago. Beginning in September, students will receive free access to the Claude Enterprise suite of large language models; faculty and staff were given early access to the tools in July.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

As one big storm fades into the distance, another shows up just days later, before we’ve even gotten all the roads open and power back. Really hope it misses us…

A map showing the state of Hawai’i in the center, with a tropical storm track in red and yellow to the upper left, and another in blue approaching on the lower right.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Even a decade in, I still find it shocking that US Government officials, up to and including the President, talk like this about other Americans, let alone a sitting Senator. Also shocking that no Republican (and not many journalists) seem to care.

Trump himself lashed out after being asked about Ossoff’s comments Monday afternoon.

“You mean Pee-Wee Herman? Pee-Wee Herman lookalike?” Trump replied, pulling out his recent nickname for Ossoff. “I would much rather do other things.”

“Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” Steven Cheung, the ever-cantankerous White House communications director, posted on X. “Instead of denigrating hard working people serving their country, Jon should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he’s a miserable person who hates this country. It’s because he’s a radical, extremist Dumocrat.”

“Jon Ossoff is a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama. Nobody gives a shit what this lightweight loser says,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said on X, launching a homophobic insult at Ossoff.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Hurricane Lala wrapping around Mauna Kea. Taken from the top of Pu’u Wa’awa’a this morning around 8:45am

Striking clouds with heavy rain in the distance. Mauna Kea visible through the rain. Grassy trail in the foreground.

Screen capture of weather radar showing hurricane Lala when the above picture was taken. White marker indicates Pu’u Wa’awa’a, which is the only part of the island not getting heavy rain.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Cat leaving bag… www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/u...

To some extent, the new order would align the United States more with some of its chief cyberantagonists, including China and Russia, where spy agencies have long relied on contract hackers working in the private sector to further their national security missions, in part to afford the state plausible deniability.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Leave it to the field biologists at RMBL to come up with creative ideas to survive in the face of lost federal grant $$$

The choice to make an OnlyFans page was just one of a number of out-of-the-box ideas they came up with to refill their coffers. Earlier this month, Crested Butte brewer Irwin Brewing Co. released a “Marmot Tears” IPA in partnership with the lab, with proceeds from its sale benefiting the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, which the marmot program is run out of.
Emily Renkey, a first-year master’s student in Blumstein’s lab, was the one to start the OnlyFans account, and the one who today posts its content. She first joined the project as a volunteer in 2022, and became so enamored with marmots that she chose to study them for her degree, which investigates behavioral and cognitive differences between individual marmots and what this could mean for their conservation.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

The regime’s attack on American science ended up supercharging Chinese science investment and it is already paying off...

In 2020, the Party’s Central Committee established “scientific and technological self-reliance” as a paramount goal, and last year funding for exploratory basic research hit a record seven per cent of the nation’s R. & D. budget.

The effects were startling. By 2024, China had outstripped the U.S. in the number of clinical trials. (Recruiting test subjects there can take less than half the time, and trials cost an estimated forty per cent less.) That fall, an experimental cancer drug from the Chinese firm Akeso outperformed Keytruda, a gold-standard therapy made by the American pharma giant Merck.

Early this year, after the Trump Administration slashed funding to American federal and academic scientific studies, the Chinese government announced another ten-per-cent increase in funding for science and technology. China has overtaken both the U.S. and the European Union in publishing influential research papers, measured by how often they are cited by others. Chinese biotech firms now generate nearly a third of the world’s new drug candidates, almost matching the U.S. “People in Washington are worried that biotech is the next E.V.s,” an American executive told me.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Was great being back at the Lister Hill Center at the National Library of Medicine to talk about future directions of the NLM!

16 attendees of NLM strategic planning workshop on interoperability taken in the Lister Hill Center auditorium. I’m second from the right.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

ICE collected ~1,000,000 DNA samples last year (including from children) and deposited them into the FBI’s CODIS database, which used to hold only DNA from people convicted of a crime. There are no guardrails, it’s already being used for other purposes. Very dangerous! www.wired.com/story/ice-dn...

New research from Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology estimates that the Department of Homeland Security has become the largest single source of new genetic profiles in the nation's criminal DNA system, with ICE alone potentially adding as many as roughly 920,000 profiles in 2025.

The vast majority of people in ICE custody have no criminal conviction, and residing in the US undocumented is typically a civil, not criminal, offense. Yet once the DNA profiles of detained people enter the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, law enforcement agencies across the country can compare them against evidence from unsolved crimes—and against crime-scene DNA collected years or even decades from now. The physical sample, which holds a person's entire genome, sits in a federal laboratory indefinitely.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I asked my favorite wine industry professional about this, and she had an interesting perspective: Not a disaster for the wine industry, but climate change one of many serious stresses facing wine makers.

The image is a little blurry when I try to zoom in, but only 6 days over 40 degrees celsius in Bordeaux shouldn't be too big of a concern these days. It will mean higher brix and thus an earlier pick, which could impact the other measurements of overall "ripeness" like stem lignification and the internal complexity that develops with time on the vine. The real factor will be if there are major inclement weather conditions as we get into August like hail, frost, etc. Best to keep watch for how the rest of the season develops, when the harvest happens, and in what weather. Probably a good year to buy from slightly higher elevation appellations.

But of course, what it means, as any honest vigneron will tell you, is that climate change is very real and agriculture has become increasingly more stressful. The best way to support winemakers, in Bordeaux or elsewhere, is to buy their wines every year in order to drink them when the time is right and to track this information to know which vintages will age 50+ years or only 5-10.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

A bunch of volunteers out planting trees at Pu’u Wa’awa’a today

About 20 tired, dirty, happy people with a forest behind then

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Inspired by @sazeracla.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sazeracla.bsky.social/post/3mr7mhgnmec2v I made Đậu Sốt Cà Chua to go with Vietnamese flavored broccolini & lion’s mane over noodles.

Red tomato-covered tofu in a white bowl and noodles topped with green cilantro in a yellow bowl.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

@iscb.bsky.social does a Congressional briefing! You may never see bioinformaticians dressed this well again.

20+ ISCB members in front of the Capitol building before giving a briefing on how informatics advances health and life sciences.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

My comment on the OMB proposed rulemaking is submitted. Now time to enjoy the ISMB conference. If this rule is adopted, scientific conferences like this one will be off limits for most American scientists.

Your comment was submitted successfully!
Comment Tracking Number: mri-13tc-42rp

Your comment has been sent for review. This process is dependent on agency public submission policies/procedures and processing times. Once the agency has posted your comment, you may view it on Regulations.gov using your Comment Tracking Number.

Agency: OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET (OMB)
Document Type: Proposed Rule
Title: Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance
Document ID: OMB-2026-0034-0001

Comment:
I am submitting this comment in strong opposition to the proposed revisions to 2 CFR Part 200 (Docket OMB-2026-0034). The below is a brief summary, my full comment is attached as a PDF document. The core of the proposed change is a rebellion against the long-standing government policy of deferring to experts in grant-making decisions. Instead, the proposed rule substitutes total executive authority in making all federal grants. It is so bizarre and nonsensical that it is impossible to believe the proposed rule came from a body of experts. The entire purpose of the proposed rules is to subvert expertise, and replace it with political judgment. It’s perhaps too much to call it judgment – it replaces judgment with turning the entire federal government into a way to reward political friends and punish political enemies without any regard for expertise. There is no rational basis for the proposed massive change to the way the government disperses grant funding, and that change represents a clear error in judgment. Furthermore, This proposed change does nothing but silence and intimidate independent expertise and facilitate executive corruption. I have substantial expertise in science and its government funding, that comes from decades of experience as a federal scientist, a federally funded academic researcher, and as a participant in various aspects of the federal grant-making process. I focus my comments in the attached document on scientific grant-making, but they also apply to th…

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Home electrification’s first birthday, a tale in two charts. EV (Ioniq 5), induction stove (Impulse), and an electric drier have tripled my consumption. When the days are long (last two months) the PV/battery system covers all of it, and even in winter, my utility bills are <25% of what they were.

Bar chart showing electric consumption over the last two years. Tripled in July ’25 (and declined a bit since then).

Bar chart of utility consumption over the last two years. Drops by 2/3 in July of ’25, was near zero for the last two months. A purple line indicating solar radiation is superimposed.

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

One of the things to like about the *ACL approach to reviewing is that “excitement” is one of the criteria. aclrollingreview.org/reviewform

Excitement

How exciting is this paper for you? Excitement is subjective, and does not necessarily follow what is popular in the field. We may perceive papers as transformational/innovative/surprising, e.g. because they present conceptual breakthroughs or evidence challenging common assumptions/methods/datasets/metrics. We may be excited about the possible impact of the paper on some community (not necessarily large or our own), e.g. lowering barriers, reducing costs, enabling new applications. We may be excited for papers that are relevant, inspiring, or useful for our own research. These factors may combine in different ways for different reviewers.

5 = Highly Exciting: I would recommend this paper to others and/or attend its presentation in a conference.
4.5
4 = Exciting: I would mention this paper to others and/or make an effort to attend its presentation in a conference.
3.5
3 = Interesting: I might mention some points of this paper to others and/or attend its presentation in a conference if there’s time.
2.5
2 = Potentially Interesting: this paper does not resonate with me, but it might with others in the *ACL community.
1.5
1 = Not Exciting: this paper does not resonate with me, and I don’t think it would with others in the *ACL community (e.g. it is in no way related to computational processing of language).

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Larry Hunter @proflhunter.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

We are now being required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts so the University can report them to the regime. This includes travel reimbursements and “in kind” efforts such as collaborative work.

The University of Chicago Biological Sciences Division - TO: BSD Faculty

FROM: Bess Wildman, Vice Dean of Academic Administration and Finance

SUBJECT: Action Requested: Disclosure of Foreign Gifts and Contracts to Federal Agencies

ACTION REQUESTED:
We are requesting disclosure of any gifts received from (and any contracts entered into with) foreign sources by BSD faculty during the period January 1st through June 30, 2026.

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