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David Faden

@util.bsky.social
628 followers 2.5K following 425 posts

Father, husband, software engineer, and analyst, interested in California native plants, Bayes, utilitarianism. Trying to stay curious about many things.

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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 4h
This looks useful. I regret having dumped all our current mailers into the recycling bin already, but I'm sure we'll get more inputs soon. It asks for an e-mail address. Is that required?
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Neat. baynature.org/2026/09/30/s...
baynature.org
People Are Sequencing Mushroom DNA at Home Now
And they’ve blown open the world of fungal biodiversity, in California and beyond.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm curious about APL, k, q, etc. Hoping to return to this sometime: peachq.org
peachq.org
PeachQ - Open source q preview
PeachQ is an open source q implementation built on Rayforce, with DuckDB storage being explored.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Anybody have experience cooking with society garlic? I cooked some for the first time last night: blog.revfad.com/2026/09/27/e... Still tasting garlic this morning :-)
blog.revfad.com
Eating society garlic (Tulbaghia violacea) – Revfad Blog
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Reposted by David Faden
Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Happy Stanislav Petrov day! He saved the world from nuclear annihilation on this day in 1983. My freshman year in college would have been so much worse without his courage.🧵
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Catchy. :-]
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Listening to "9 to 5" for "9 to 5 Day": www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxU...
youtube.com
Dolly Parton - 9 To 5 (Official Video)
YouTube video by DollyPartonVEVO
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Beautifully captures their paths. Is each pixel in the stacked image just the average of the inputs? Or is it doing something more complicated to preserve what's changing frame by frame? I notice how dark and sharp the birds look.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
@andreapitzer.bsky.social raises related concerns in a recent newsletter. degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/when-your-... I was especially struck by that Himmler quote.
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
When your TV watches you
Oligarchs and demagogues have a shared interest in surveillance.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The seed leaves are starting to open up!
Variable Linanthus (Leptosiphon parviflorus) sprouts.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This looks neat: puffer.ai Via: emerge-lab.github.io.
puffer.ai
PufferLib is a fast and sane reinforcement learning library that can train tiny, super-human models in seconds. The included learning algorithm, hyperparameter tuning, and simulation methods are the product of our own research. All our tools are free and open source. Need a high performance environment for your application? We build them professionally and offer training + extended support. Contact jsuarez🐡puffer🐡ai.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Seems like it was okay? www.reddit.com/r/ArtemisPro... (Okay enough for the astronauts to survive anyway.)
reddit.com
From the ArtemisProgram community on Reddit: Artemis II heatshield photo taken by Navy divers following splashdown
Explore this post and more from the ArtemisProgram community
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
How did the heat shield hold up? idlewords.com/2026/03/arte...
idlewords.com
Artemis II Is Not Safe to Fly (Idle Words)
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Haunted by idlewords.com/talks/haunte... (2015). "What would Nixon do?" Quaint. Also makes me curious about what is planned for the waste from new nuclear projects coming online.
idlewords.com
Haunted By Data
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Some Variable Linanthus (Leptosiphon parviflorus) seeds from seedhunt.com germinated after just two days. More: calscape.org/plant/68257/.... No guarantee of success -- you can see I did a bad job spreading them out, and I was lazy with the media -- but a good start, I hope? #californianativeplants
Teeny green sprouts, not even yet with the seed leaves open, but with a fuzz of white roots reaching out.
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Reposted by David Faden
Adam Steinbaugh @adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
BREAKING: An Iowa state court dismisses President Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer (represented by @thefireorg.bsky.social) and the Des Moines Register newspaper, a victory for First Amendment rights. Opinion here: www.fire.org/research-lea...
This case sets a President, a member of Congress, and a former state senator against a pollster and a newspaper, and it arises out of an election. A case of that kind invites the reader to look for a political result. The Court’s role is narrower. It is to sit as an impartial arbiter, to apply the law without passion or prejudice, and to rule without regard to the politics of the day. As such, the only question before the Court is whether the Petition states a claim the law recognizes. At its core, the Plaintiffs’ Petition seeks to stretch both Iowa statutory and common law beyond their current bounds, turning speech that enjoys the highest category of First Amendment protection into a liability. After considering the parties’ arguments, the Court must conclude that the protection is too great and the reach is too far. The case must therefore be dismissed.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Would be neat to tour this for real someday: sunset.com/home-garden/...
sunset.com
Tour the 300-Acre Northern California Farm That's Been Committed to Native Plants for Almost 40 Years
Hedgerow Farms is a Northern California farm that is focused on growing stunning native plant seeds and ecological restoration.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Also neat that SOFIA played a pivotal role in detecting it. We got to take a look at SOFIA at the local NASA base back in 2019 -- same year helonium was detected, apparently. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratos...
SOFIA aircraft at NASA Ames in Mountain View, CA, USA, next to Hangar One.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Thanks to www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/...
reddit.com
From the wikipedia community on Reddit: Helonium: The strongest known acid, it cannot be prepared in bulk because it would react with any other molecule with which it came into contact. Its occurrence...
Posted by Pupikal - 84 votes and 4 comments
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Today I learned: Helium *can* make compounds, and one of them -- helonium -- is probably the first compound formed after the Big Bang and is also the strongest known acid: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_....
en.wikipedia.org
Helium hydride ion - Wikipedia
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Goodhart's Law appears: youtu.be/M0--ZH1lOzg?... A reassessment of what matters in math. Community. Communication. Consensus. Canonicalization.
youtu.be
ICM 2026 Public Lectures - Terence Tao
YouTube video by Simons Foundation
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
vagrerfgvat blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/05/29/f...
blog.cryptographyengineering.com
Let’s talk about encrypted reasoning
Update August 11, 2026: A group of researchers from all over Europe were inspired by this post, and actually turned it into a real working attack! Check out their writeup and paper here. This is a …
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Appreciating @bcantrill.bsky.social standing up for readers: bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/05/t.... Wonder if expectations on grammar and flow will increase as writing aides improve, stifling style somewhat. I'm imagining built-in spell check earlier increased pressure to get spelling "right"?
bcantrill.dtrace.org
The revolt of the reader | The Observation Deck
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Happy to see that this is already on order for our local library.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It's not the main point, but I'm happy to have learned of Penrose via this: github.com/penrose/penr...
github.com
GitHub - penrose/penrose: Create beautiful diagrams just by typing notation in plain text.
Create beautiful diagrams just by typing notation in plain text. - penrose/penrose
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Delightful. research.swtch.com/zip
research.swtch.com
research!rsc: Zip Files All The Way Down
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Source code seems to be here: github.com/magnusmanske...
github.com
GitHub - magnusmanske/wikistream: Video/audio streaming codebase. Used by WikiFlix and WikiVibes
Video/audio streaming codebase. Used by WikiFlix and WikiVibes - magnusmanske/wikistream
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Via Reddit, learned of "Charade" being in the public domain due to a copyright mixup. Someone shared this tool for exploring movies available via Wikipedia: wikiflix.toolforge.org. Lot of great stuff, also great raw material for other projects. Grateful again to everyone contributing.
wikiflix.toolforge.org
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Going to try some Clarkia too? larnerseeds.com/products/cla...
larnerseeds.com
Clarkia unguiculata, Mountain Garland
Clarkia unguiculata Mountain garland, the tallest of the clarkias, rises on long slender flower spikes from 2-3' tall. In shades of bright pink, purple, and soft lavender, it is beautiful at the back ...
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Am reminded again of the joy of r.geocompx.org. So much wonderful stuff available for free.
r.geocompx.org
Welcome | Geocomputation with R
Welcome | Geocomputation with R is for people who want to analyze, visualize and model geographic data with open source software. It is based on R, a statistical programming language that has powerful...
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Thankful to Exercism and its community. Just got to 50% on the C++ track. exercism.org/tracks/cpp/e... Still having fun. Looking forward to trying out other languages.
Completed 50.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Happy to see that Bing Maps hasn't renamed Lake Ontario. www.bing.com/maps/search?....
Screenshot from Bing Maps, taken from an IP address in the US Midwest, showing that Bing Maps hasn't renamed Lake Ontario.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Neat to see Cyriak on here.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Potato and lens flare.
Still haven't figured out moon photography with my camera phone. Should've gotten a Samsung.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Just found another source of free ebooks: www.iastatedigitalpress.com/plugins/books/. Fun to see a book from one of my old professors there: www.iastatedigitalpress.com/plugins/book... "Basic Engineering Data Collection and Analysis"
iastatedigitalpress.com
Published Books
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Pretty sure we saw some on a road near Sunol Regional Wilderness. iNaturalist does show observations in that area: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
inaturalist.org
Observations
Yellow-billed Magpie from Alameda County, US, CA
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Reposted by David Faden
dataindex.us @dataindex.us · 10/08/2026
How do we track terminations of federal data? Since the 2025 admin change, disappearing federal datasets have sparked widespread concern and confusion. Today, dataindex.us published the Federal Data Terminations Tracker—the most policy-relevant, verified source of terminated federal datasets.
dataindex.us
Federal Data Terminations Tracker | dataindex.us
A verified, regularly updated record of federal datasets, data elements, and tools terminated or removed since January 2025.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Love that Python supports `<`, `<=`, etc., for subset tests. Around since version 2 at least: docs.python.org/2/library/st....
Python prompts with various inline subset operator examples
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Japanese cheesewood in Japan! blog.revfad.com/2026/08/04/j...
Shiny green leaves with some developing seedpods. Japanese cheesewood.Zoomed out photo of a Japanese cheesewood bush (probably). The bushes were growing on the inner side of a retaining wall across the sidewalk from a sea wall in Ibusuki, Japan.
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Reposted by David Faden
Project Gutenberg @gutenberg.org · 29/07/2026
7 People Who Saved the Most Lives in History While tyrants may dominate public memory, there are many heroes who helped mankind and saved millions of lives. www.thecollector.com/people-saved... #history Florence Nightingale
This is a photograph of Florence Nightingale taken by Henry Hering. She appears young and looks straight ahead. Her dark hair is parted in the middle and pulled back smoothly over her ears. She wears a light-colored, ruffled lace cap on her head. Her dress is dark with a white lace collar.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Grateful to @lizthegrey.com and the rest of the Honeycomb team for making www.honeycomb.io/observabilit... available for free. Looking forward to reading it!
honeycomb.io
Honeycomb’s O’Reilly Book Observability Engineering, 2nd Ed.
Let authors Charity Majors, Liz Fong-Jones, George Miranda, and Austin Parker explain how to apply Observability successfully in your organization.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Thanks for the pointer! I'll hope to make it there.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Just came across pygis.io/docs/a_intro... -- free book on using open source tools for geo data analysis. I love the WWW. Much gratitude to the authors.
pygis.io
PyGIS™ - Open Source Spatial Programming & Remote Sensing — PyGIS&trade; - Python Open Source Spatial Programming & Remote Sensing
Introducing PyGIS an open source book on spatial programming. We cover how to handle points, lines and polygons including shapefiles, handling remote sensing imagery, and other raster data.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Was disappointed to learn today that Berkeley Bowl isn't selling the lab grown meat mentioned in this article. Seems it was a one off? www.sfgate.com/food/article...
sfgate.com
Berkeley Bowl dishes up meat banned in red states
No pigs died in the making of these meatballs.
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_... and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occitan...
en.wikipedia.org
Breton language - Wikipedia
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Was delighted to learn of a couple languages via this language pop-up on cartes.app: Brezhoneg (Breton) and Occitan. Fun to see the code for the list here: codeberg.org/cartes/web/s... and codeberg.org/cartes/web/s...
The pop-up has a flag connected with each language, starting with the French flag. The language names are:

Français
English
Deutsch
Italiano
Español
Català
Occitan
Brezhoneg
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
May Chen explores the insect life in a native plant garden, close up -- bumble bee queens, aphid mummies, skippers, and more. One new thing for me: it's not just wasps making galls -- aphids can too. bringingbackthenatives.net/guest-post/p... #californianativeplants
bringingbackthenatives.net
Pollinator Post 6/15/26 - Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour and Green Home Features Showcase
After dropping Fred off at Shoreline Park for his walk this afternoon, I head for the Bay Farm Island Library to check on the native plant garden there.  Much to my delight, the young garden
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
What are some examples of what you're thinking of in terms of reasonably safe spaces?
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Reposted by David Faden
Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I spent the last month obsessed with finding colors that can't be displayed on a conventional screen. This is what I found. moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...
moultano.wordpress.com
Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can’t Show You
An atlas of the vibrance of the real world
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David Faden @util.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Seems like [sunset time] no longer works to get the sunset time on Google?
Google search results for [sunset time] no longer show the sunset time onebox but instead show an AI Overview?
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