Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ
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jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ
@jarome.bsky.social
1.7K followers 870 following 770 posts

Biologist* wondering why the world is so colourful. Currently NYU, formerly Princeton. Generally bird/scienceposting πŸ§ͺ

Opinions are official Bene Gesserit policy.

πŸ“ Jersey City

*actually three parrots in a parrot suit .. more

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jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Jan 31
Hi new followers (bots and real people alike 😝). I'm not here to collect followers but it'll take me some time to go through and follow back people with shared interests etc. In the meantime here's a nice bird ✌🏽

Expect more birds, science, politics and occasional shitposting :)
A Double-crested Cormorantβ€”a variably black and glossy birdβ€”with it's wings held open, and its long neck looped around so it can preen its wing feathers.

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· 2d
I think this is the real inspiration for American Pie 😒

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Brendan Nyhan, Michael A. Clemens , and 6 more

marceldirsus.com
Marcel Dirsus @marceldirsus.com Β· 4d
AI could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2 percentage points

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· 14d
Good generative models for:

writer's block β€” your brain after a walk
song recommendations β€” your friend's brain
visual art β€” your brain + pencil/paint
music β€” your brain + your fave instrument
AI can help authors beat writer’s block, says Bloomsbury chief
Publisher last week reported jump in revenue in academic and professional arm thanks to AI licensing deal
www.theguardian.com

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· 18d
#ScienceJobs #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter
jarome.bsky.social Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· 18d
Postdoc position available at NYU Anthropology to work on topics related to longitudinal aging in the long-running (>80 years) study of rhesus macaque biology on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico πŸ§ͺ #primates #academicsky

apply.interfolio.com/173938

πŸ“·: davidraju, wikimedia commons
Mother rhesus macaque with her baby

Reposted by Mark J. Brandt, Benjamin Larue, Hansraj Gautam

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· 18d
Postdoc position available at NYU Anthropology to work on topics related to longitudinal aging in the long-running (>80 years) study of rhesus macaque biology on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico πŸ§ͺ #primates #academicsky

apply.interfolio.com/173938

πŸ“·: davidraju, wikimedia commons
Mother rhesus macaque with her baby

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Oct 9
better yet, leaf
a lamb's ear plant from above

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Oct 9
Leave.
ryanboyd.bsky.social Holidays Ryan @ryanboyd.bsky.social Β· Oct 6
Leave Twitter for Bluesky. Leave Bluesky for Mastodon. Leave Mastodon for Klerb. Leave Klerb for Chunk. Leave Chunk for Goobus. Leave Goobus f

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Anna O. Law, Gavin A. Schmidt , and 25 more

keithwdickinson.bsky.social
Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social Β· Oct 8
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Reposted by Jarome R. Ali

ryanboyd.bsky.social
Holidays Ryan @ryanboyd.bsky.social Β· Oct 6
Leave Twitter for Bluesky. Leave Bluesky for Mastodon. Leave Mastodon for Klerb. Leave Klerb for Chunk. Leave Chunk for Goobus. Leave Goobus f

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Oct 3
Every day we stray further from god's light.
1 in 3 Americans have had a β€˜romantic relationship’ with an AI bot, new survey says
More than half of those surveyed (54 percent) said that they had some sort of relationship with an artificial intelligence platform
www.independent.co.uk

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Sep 25
E I G H T
H U N D R E D
M I L L I O N
kyle-horton.bsky.social Kyle Horton @kyle-horton.bsky.social Β· Sep 25
Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe, Caroline Fohlin, Ryan K. Brook , and 2 more

kyle-horton.bsky.social
Kyle Horton @kyle-horton.bsky.social Β· Sep 25
Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Sep 11
Sep 28! I can't wait for the weird frog spam.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Jarome R. Ali

thaddeus.zone
Thaddeus is a girl's name πŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ @thaddeus.zone Β· Aug 28
this "passion tax" appears all over the place & should be talked about more. you see it in book stores and game stores all the time

excitement for particular work is constantly weaponized to depress wages & pit workers against each other
screenshot of a paragraph from op's linked article Claudy pointed to what he calls the β€œpassion tax.” Game workers, he said, often get paid less than their tech industry counterparts because they’re passionate about what they do, and passion can be taken advantage of. Microsoft is a tech company, making discrepancies all the more arbitrary.

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 30
Summoning both of them at once reveals your true form
Photo of an owl, the species name is POWERFUL OWL β€” how awesome is that?

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 25
Has anyone succeeded in persuading people you know to drop GPT, Grok etc.? And if yes, HOWWW?

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 21
Who's out there getting their weather in Kelvin?

"Looks like it'll be a nice dayβ€”300 and sunny!"
Screenshot from a weather app showing the options for temperature units which includes Fahrenheit, Celsius and Kelvin.

Reposted by Jarome R. Ali

sherburnsi.bsky.social
Simon Stobart @sherburnsi.bsky.social Β· Aug 15
Black Tailed Godwit on Teesside the other day.
@teesbirds.bsky.social
@rspbengland.bsky.social
@rspb.bsky.social
πŸͺΆ

Reposted by Jarome R. Ali

spaceturtleart.bsky.social
Tired Art Goblin @spaceturtleart.bsky.social Β· Aug 15
#AvianAugust Day 15 - 'Oma'o. These little guys like to forage in moss and lichen-covered branches. #birds #birdart
A small round grey-brown bird peeks out from behind a moss covered branch

Reposted by Jarome R. Ali

vandacorp.bsky.social
James van der Moezel @vandacorp.bsky.social Β· Aug 15
Male king parrot visiting the yard early morning.

#birds #canberra #nature #australia #parrot #photography #winter #kingparrot #ausbird #ornithology #australianbird #canon
King Parrot

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
My building super once asked, "So, do you work?" πŸ™ƒ

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
A really fun project with Rosalyn, Ben Hogan, @ajshultz622.bsky.social & Cassie Stoddard. Made possible by awesome museums & curators (@nhm.org, ansp.org) and with lots of imaging help.

Here's the paper, complete with a beautiful feather close-up taken by Rosalyn (if I remember correctly):
Hidden white and black feather layers enhance plumage coloration in tanagers and other songbirds
Colorful songbirds use hidden white or black feather layers to enhance plumage color, an optical trick well known to artists.
www.science.org

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
This optical effect is not news to artists. A white gesso layer has the same effect. I particularly like Dale Chihuly's description of the white underlayer of glass that he uses in his sculptures as a 'cloud layer'.

But, as is so often the case, nature did it first!
A photograph of colourful glass placed in boats. Taken by me at the Chihuly garden/exhibit in Seattle.

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
In the tanagers we studied, males are often more vibrant. To our surprise, some instances of male-female differences were not due to the pigmented feather tips but rather the hidden layer! So the story of males putting more pigments (re: honest signals) into feathers is more complicated than that...
More bad alt text for a dense figure: see Fig 4 of paper.

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
Using a *bunch* of imaging techniques and optical modelling, we showed that a white layer makes red/yellow/orange brighter by scattering light back through the red feather tips. The black layer prevents this backscatter, which would wash out blue colours, resulting in more saturated 'purer' blues.
Sorry for bad alt text, this figure is pretty dense. See Fig 3 of the paper for a proper caption.

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
By looking at specimens at the @nhm.org and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel, Philadelphia, we* found that this phenomenon is widespread across passerine birds!

*the looking was really done by Rosalyn and @ajshultz622.bsky.social
A phylogenetic tree with images of feathers at the tips of the tree. These images show that hidden achromatic layers (white under red/yellow, and black under blue) are widespread.

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
This project began when Rosalyn noticed that red/yellow/orange feathers seemed to have a medial white zone while blue/green feathers had a black medial zone (NB: not the downy part). The value of spending time with your study subjects--even (especially?) if they're museum specimens!
A museum specimen that has had the feather tips trimmed off on parts of a red and a green patch. A feather has been sampled from each region. This shows that the hidden layer forms a continuous achromatic layer under the colourful feather tips.

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 13
"Hey, bullshit machine! Is your bullshit bullshit?"
faineg.bsky.social Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social Β· Aug 11
The #1 thing that blows my mind about how most people use LLMs: they believe if they ask the LLM a question about how it works or how accurate it is, the LLM will truthfully answer them.

I have seen SO many seemingly-smart people do this.
toiletbones.bsky.social toilet bones @toiletbones.bsky.social Β· Aug 11
i don't think it helps that the llms constantly lie to the user about the capabilities of llms as part of its whole obsequious fawning style of interaction that oversells its abilities and obscures its obvious limitations by fundamentally misrepresenting how the technology works

Reposted by Luxembourg, Halvard Leira, Jarome R. Ali

faineg.bsky.social
Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social Β· Aug 11
The #1 thing that blows my mind about how most people use LLMs: they believe if they ask the LLM a question about how it works or how accurate it is, the LLM will truthfully answer them.

I have seen SO many seemingly-smart people do this.
toiletbones.bsky.social toilet bones @toiletbones.bsky.social Β· Aug 11
i don't think it helps that the llms constantly lie to the user about the capabilities of llms as part of its whole obsequious fawning style of interaction that oversells its abilities and obscures its obvious limitations by fundamentally misrepresenting how the technology works

jarome.bsky.social
Jarome Ali πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡Ή πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ @jarome.bsky.social Β· Aug 8
attacked right in the middle of the work day
mapquest.com MapQuest @mapquest.com Β· Aug 8
You are lost.