Claus Wilke
@clauswilke.com
Computational biologist, data scientist, digital artist | he, him | http://clauswilke.com/ | Opinions are my own and do not represent UT Austin.
Interesting thread. Read the whole thing, till the end. Yes, all 41 posts.
Bluetorial-Jim Watson
I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions.
What follows is my personal perspective.
1/41
I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions.
What follows is my personal perspective.
1/41
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
media.tenor.com
November 8, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Interesting thread. Read the whole thing, till the end. Yes, all 41 posts.
Reposted by Claus Wilke
I think I understand how it can be that LLMs are both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming. It's because there are two entirely different skillsets that we both call "good at programming." LLMs have only one of them.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
LLMs excel at programming—how can they be so bad at it?
My explanation for the mystery of why LLMs can be both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:43 PM
I think I understand how it can be that LLMs are both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming. It's because there are two entirely different skillsets that we both call "good at programming." LLMs have only one of them.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
Reposted by Claus Wilke
This!
I am continuously surprised to hear fellow colleagues say that LLMs are trash/useless for programming, while they have radically changed the way I work over the last years. Tasks that used to take a day can now be done in minutes while I fetch a drink.
I am continuously surprised to hear fellow colleagues say that LLMs are trash/useless for programming, while they have radically changed the way I work over the last years. Tasks that used to take a day can now be done in minutes while I fetch a drink.
I think I understand how it can be that LLMs are both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming. It's because there are two entirely different skillsets that we both call "good at programming." LLMs have only one of them.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
LLMs excel at programming—how can they be so bad at it?
My explanation for the mystery of why LLMs can be both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
November 7, 2025 at 10:21 AM
This!
I am continuously surprised to hear fellow colleagues say that LLMs are trash/useless for programming, while they have radically changed the way I work over the last years. Tasks that used to take a day can now be done in minutes while I fetch a drink.
I am continuously surprised to hear fellow colleagues say that LLMs are trash/useless for programming, while they have radically changed the way I work over the last years. Tasks that used to take a day can now be done in minutes while I fetch a drink.
I think I understand how it can be that LLMs are both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming. It's because there are two entirely different skillsets that we both call "good at programming." LLMs have only one of them.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
LLMs excel at programming—how can they be so bad at it?
My explanation for the mystery of why LLMs can be both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:43 PM
I think I understand how it can be that LLMs are both exceptionally good and quite terrible at programming. It's because there are two entirely different skillsets that we both call "good at programming." LLMs have only one of them.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/llms-excel...
Reposted by Claus Wilke
If engine fell off it's most likely a maintenance problem. Look up American Airlines Flight 191, which was a DC 10 (closely related aircraft to the MD 11).
A UPS cargo plane's left wing caught fire and engine fell off just before the fiery crash on takeoff in Kentucky on Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
UPS plane crashes and explodes at a Kentucky airport, leaving at least 9 dead and others missing
Federal investigators say a UPS cargo plane’s left wing caught fire and its engine fell off just before a fireball crash after takeoff in Kentucky.
bit.ly
November 5, 2025 at 9:14 PM
If engine fell off it's most likely a maintenance problem. Look up American Airlines Flight 191, which was a DC 10 (closely related aircraft to the MD 11).
The 21st Century version of corvée work for academics is reviewing papers or grants, writing letters of recommendation, giving public outreach lectures.
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 6:29 PM
The 21st Century version of corvée work for academics is reviewing papers or grants, writing letters of recommendation, giving public outreach lectures.
If LLMs were actually intelligent—and not just stochastic parrots—they could read all the literature on random number generation, synthesize it, and conclude that always setting the seed to the same number is probably not a good idea. Alas, they don't have that kind of awareness.
Newest LLM tell/quirk in coding assignments this semester: instead of generating code based on the CSVs that I provide, LLMs have been inventing datasets with rnorm() and sample() (and an obligatory set.seed(42)) and then making plots with the fake data.
I'm so tired.
I'm so tired.
November 2, 2025 at 11:10 PM
If LLMs were actually intelligent—and not just stochastic parrots—they could read all the literature on random number generation, synthesize it, and conclude that always setting the seed to the same number is probably not a good idea. Alas, they don't have that kind of awareness.
Wait, set.seed(42)? What's that? I've never heard of it. 😉
Newest LLM tell/quirk in coding assignments this semester: instead of generating code based on the CSVs that I provide, LLMs have been inventing datasets with rnorm() and sample() (and an obligatory set.seed(42)) and then making plots with the fake data.
I'm so tired.
I'm so tired.
October 31, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Wait, set.seed(42)? What's that? I've never heard of it. 😉
Excellent idea to demonstrate the effect of color-palette choice on visualizations.
🦧📉 Why are there colorful apes in my #dataviz workshops?
📸 The photo taken years ago by my friend Richard Strozynski has become a tradition in my client projects and courses.
I like to recolor it with different palettes to show how palette design affects perception.
Thread 👇
📸 The photo taken years ago by my friend Richard Strozynski has become a tradition in my client projects and courses.
I like to recolor it with different palettes to show how palette design affects perception.
Thread 👇
October 28, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Excellent idea to demonstrate the effect of color-palette choice on visualizations.
Reposted by Claus Wilke
if you see this post, your actions are:
- if you have a spare buck, give it to Wikipedia, then repost this
- if you don't have a spare buck, just repost
your action is mandatory for the world's best source of information to survive
- if you have a spare buck, give it to Wikipedia, then repost this
- if you don't have a spare buck, just repost
your action is mandatory for the world's best source of information to survive
I’ve never donated to Wikipedia before but I set up a small monthly donation as a fuck you to the world’s richest psychopath.
Elon Musk takes aim at Wikipedia
Musk has denounced Wikipedia as "Wokepedia" on X and urged people not to donate to the platform.
www.newsweek.com
December 26, 2024 at 12:03 PM
if you see this post, your actions are:
- if you have a spare buck, give it to Wikipedia, then repost this
- if you don't have a spare buck, just repost
your action is mandatory for the world's best source of information to survive
- if you have a spare buck, give it to Wikipedia, then repost this
- if you don't have a spare buck, just repost
your action is mandatory for the world's best source of information to survive
My default assumption is all my grants will get rejected so a rejected grant doesn't particularly bother me.
What hurts more - getting a paper rejected or a grant rejected? I know grant rejections are probably worst in terms of consequences, but paper rejections are somehow more emotional (for me). Depends of course on the specifics and how urgently you need the money or publication, asking in general.
October 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
My default assumption is all my grants will get rejected so a rejected grant doesn't particularly bother me.
LinkedIn accounts can be stolen easily. This now has happened to two people I know personally, most recently this morning. There appears to be no viable way to protect your account from this attack, as the attack goes through LinkedIn support.
nazmul-ahsan.medium.com/your-linkedi...
nazmul-ahsan.medium.com/your-linkedi...
Your LinkedIn Account Can Get Hacked By Anyone And There Is Nothing You Can Do About It
On 29th January 2024, my LinkedIn account got hacked. It was very surprising to me because all of my accounts are protected with the best…
nazmul-ahsan.medium.com
October 26, 2025 at 6:03 PM
LinkedIn accounts can be stolen easily. This now has happened to two people I know personally, most recently this morning. There appears to be no viable way to protect your account from this attack, as the attack goes through LinkedIn support.
nazmul-ahsan.medium.com/your-linkedi...
nazmul-ahsan.medium.com/your-linkedi...
A response to all the people who say "if your results depend on your random seed you have bigger problems."
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/random-see...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/random-see...
Random seeds and brown M&Ms
Your first mistake was assuming people actually understand how random numbers work.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
October 23, 2025 at 4:48 PM
A response to all the people who say "if your results depend on your random seed you have bigger problems."
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/random-see...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/random-see...
Reposted by Claus Wilke
My NIH panel that was scheduled for tomorrow and Friday is now officially cancelled. Just received the notification. I was expecting this, but would have been nice to know with a bit of advance notice.
October 22, 2025 at 11:58 PM
My NIH panel that was scheduled for tomorrow and Friday is now officially cancelled. Just received the notification. I was expecting this, but would have been nice to know with a bit of advance notice.
Just so we're clear about the scale of the problem:
Half a million occurrences of `random_state=42` on github, and another almost 200k occurrences of `random.seed(42)`. (And that's just Python. There are also ~20k cases in R.) 1/2
Half a million occurrences of `random_state=42` on github, and another almost 200k occurrences of `random.seed(42)`. (And that's just Python. There are also ~20k cases in R.) 1/2
October 22, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Just so we're clear about the scale of the problem:
Half a million occurrences of `random_state=42` on github, and another almost 200k occurrences of `random.seed(42)`. (And that's just Python. There are also ~20k cases in R.) 1/2
Half a million occurrences of `random_state=42` on github, and another almost 200k occurrences of `random.seed(42)`. (And that's just Python. There are also ~20k cases in R.) 1/2
Not sure if this is in response of my blog post of today. In case it is, I wrote clearly that the choice of random seed is arbitrary. Problems can arise when you're always using the same seed, or even worse, when everybody is. There are 160k occurrences of random.seed(42) on github.
I’m seeing some misinformation about pseudo-random number generator best practices going around the internets. Let’s talk about why the pseudo-random number generator seed you use shouldn’t actually have any impact on your results and, consequently, you can choose whatever seed you damn well please.
October 22, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Not sure if this is in response of my blog post of today. In case it is, I wrote clearly that the choice of random seed is arbitrary. Problems can arise when you're always using the same seed, or even worse, when everybody is. There are 160k occurrences of random.seed(42) on github.
We need to have a conversation about random seeds. Don't use 42.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
If your random seed is 42 I will come to your office and set your computer on fire🔥
Figuratively. More likely you'll get a stern talking to.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
October 22, 2025 at 12:49 PM
We need to have a conversation about random seeds. Don't use 42.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
Don't trust a bed with a monthly subscription plan.
www.dexerto.com/entertainmen...
www.dexerto.com/entertainmen...
AWS crash causes $2,000 Smart Beds to overheat and get stuck upright - Dexerto
The AWS outage caused chaos for owners of Eight Sleep’s Pod3 mattresses as they had no offline mode and were stuck at high temperatures.
www.dexerto.com
October 21, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Don't trust a bed with a monthly subscription plan.
www.dexerto.com/entertainmen...
www.dexerto.com/entertainmen...
"The internet of things will be great" they said.
"Connect your cat feeder to the internet and it'll automatically order refills" they said.
"Imagine a world where everything is connected and one AWS outage causes 100 million people to starve" they didn't say.
"Connect your cat feeder to the internet and it'll automatically order refills" they said.
"Imagine a world where everything is connected and one AWS outage causes 100 million people to starve" they didn't say.
lmao. my automatic cat feeder is down because of AWS
October 20, 2025 at 5:48 PM
"The internet of things will be great" they said.
"Connect your cat feeder to the internet and it'll automatically order refills" they said.
"Imagine a world where everything is connected and one AWS outage causes 100 million people to starve" they didn't say.
"Connect your cat feeder to the internet and it'll automatically order refills" they said.
"Imagine a world where everything is connected and one AWS outage causes 100 million people to starve" they didn't say.
It's still down for me. Has been down since this morning.
Fun fact (or terrifying one), today’s AWS outage took down Canvas, the #1 learning management system used by 4,000+ U.S. colleges and millions of students worldwide. One data center hiccup and half of higher ed disappears.
October 20, 2025 at 5:46 PM
It's still down for me. Has been down since this morning.
Reposted by Claus Wilke
My department at Emory is a hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist!
Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!
apply.interfolio.com/174371
Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!
apply.interfolio.com/174371
Apply - Interfolio
{{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
September 30, 2025 at 6:25 PM
My department at Emory is a hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist!
Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!
apply.interfolio.com/174371
Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!
apply.interfolio.com/174371
Super useful new feature! I've started to recommend plotnine to everybody who does data analysis in python and needs a plotting solution, so this is very welcome.
Announcing Plotnine 0.15.0: The Python package for Grammar of Graphics gets a massive upgrade!
A new feature is Native Plot Composition: combine multiple independent plots into one figure, no more layout managers for multi-panel #Python graphs!
Read the post: posit.co/blog/plotnin...
A new feature is Native Plot Composition: combine multiple independent plots into one figure, no more layout managers for multi-panel #Python graphs!
Read the post: posit.co/blog/plotnin...
October 20, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Super useful new feature! I've started to recommend plotnine to everybody who does data analysis in python and needs a plotting solution, so this is very welcome.
Excellent realistic assessment of what AI is likely going to be able to do in the short to medium term, from somebody who truly understands this stuff.
“Agents don’t work.”
“I don’t know why AI companies make these promises, maybe it’s to raise money.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXUZ...
“Agents don’t work.”
“I don’t know why AI companies make these promises, maybe it’s to raise money.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXUZ...
Andrej Karpathy — “We’re summoning ghosts, not building animals”
YouTube video by Dwarkesh Patel
www.youtube.com
October 19, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Excellent realistic assessment of what AI is likely going to be able to do in the short to medium term, from somebody who truly understands this stuff.
“Agents don’t work.”
“I don’t know why AI companies make these promises, maybe it’s to raise money.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXUZ...
“Agents don’t work.”
“I don’t know why AI companies make these promises, maybe it’s to raise money.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXUZ...