Nick Ulle
@ulletide.bsky.social
Caught between computer science and statistics. Loves teaching. Open source 🔓, democratic socialism 🌹, and emoji 😃 enthusiast.
Also: hiker 🏞️ cyclist 🚲 baker 🥧 gamer♟️
github.com/nick-ulle
Also: hiker 🏞️ cyclist 🚲 baker 🥧 gamer♟️
github.com/nick-ulle
Reposted by Nick Ulle
BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!
January 9, 2026 at 8:02 PM
BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Look, I was a little kid when we went through this last and I just wanted it to live in my mind as a horrible thing some evil reactionary adults did when I was growing up. I was fine with that simple understanding!
I did NOT ask to experience a re-enactment as an adult.
I did NOT ask to experience a re-enactment as an adult.
January 3, 2026 at 9:06 PM
Look, I was a little kid when we went through this last and I just wanted it to live in my mind as a horrible thing some evil reactionary adults did when I was growing up. I was fine with that simple understanding!
I did NOT ask to experience a re-enactment as an adult.
I did NOT ask to experience a re-enactment as an adult.
Reposted by Nick Ulle
🚨 Thread collecting actionable steps to help civilians in Venezuela, Venezuelan refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, and Venezuelan immigrants in the US. 🚨
✅️ Please post ideas / links, especially to local frontline groups.
❌️ Please avoid non-actions, and be cautious regarding sanctions.
👇
✅️ Please post ideas / links, especially to local frontline groups.
❌️ Please avoid non-actions, and be cautious regarding sanctions.
👇
January 3, 2026 at 8:03 AM
🚨 Thread collecting actionable steps to help civilians in Venezuela, Venezuelan refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, and Venezuelan immigrants in the US. 🚨
✅️ Please post ideas / links, especially to local frontline groups.
❌️ Please avoid non-actions, and be cautious regarding sanctions.
👇
✅️ Please post ideas / links, especially to local frontline groups.
❌️ Please avoid non-actions, and be cautious regarding sanctions.
👇
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Discworld QOTD, from Guards! Guards!
December 31, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Discworld QOTD, from Guards! Guards!
Time to start looking for a new web browser, I guess.
Mozilla’s new CEO is doubling down on an AI future for Firefox
Mozilla’s new CEO is doubling down on an AI future for Firefox
Anthony Enzor-DeMeo is taking charge of one of the internet’s most important — and most complicated — companies.
buff.ly
December 17, 2025 at 2:57 AM
Time to start looking for a new web browser, I guess.
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Really liked reading this from @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com, who asks, isn't it exhausting to just feel like you're going insane every time you go on the computer
youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/arent-you-...
youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/arent-you-...
aren't you tired of feeling insane all the time?
Behold! I have had a thought.
youngvulgarian.substack.com
December 16, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Really liked reading this from @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com, who asks, isn't it exhausting to just feel like you're going insane every time you go on the computer
youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/arent-you-...
youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/arent-you-...
Reposted by Nick Ulle
🚨 THE BATTLE BEGINS 🚨
Your favorite year-end contest is back. It’s time to choose who will be this year’s Worst Person In Tech for 2025!
Each day of this week new matchups will drop until we choose the winner on Friday.
🗳️ Cast your ballot: twsu.forms.app/worst-person...
Your favorite year-end contest is back. It’s time to choose who will be this year’s Worst Person In Tech for 2025!
Each day of this week new matchups will drop until we choose the winner on Friday.
🗳️ Cast your ballot: twsu.forms.app/worst-person...
December 15, 2025 at 4:09 PM
🚨 THE BATTLE BEGINS 🚨
Your favorite year-end contest is back. It’s time to choose who will be this year’s Worst Person In Tech for 2025!
Each day of this week new matchups will drop until we choose the winner on Friday.
🗳️ Cast your ballot: twsu.forms.app/worst-person...
Your favorite year-end contest is back. It’s time to choose who will be this year’s Worst Person In Tech for 2025!
Each day of this week new matchups will drop until we choose the winner on Friday.
🗳️ Cast your ballot: twsu.forms.app/worst-person...
I haven't been watching much TV lately, but season 3 of Dark Winds is the show I'm most excited to watch next.
Dark Winds has gone from strength to strength and takes on aspects of even grittier noir and even the metaphysical in a rough and tumble season 3 that is both intense and rollicking and emotional. Really first rate writing, acting, direction. Highly recommended.
December 9, 2025 at 5:06 AM
I haven't been watching much TV lately, but season 3 of Dark Winds is the show I'm most excited to watch next.
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Lots of insights in this Cory Doctorow essay. Reverse centaur and vocational awe ("workers who are vulnerable to workplace exploitation because they actually care about their jobs [such as] nurses, librarians, teachers, and artists") are useful concepts.
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net
December 6, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Lots of insights in this Cory Doctorow essay. Reverse centaur and vocational awe ("workers who are vulnerable to workplace exploitation because they actually care about their jobs [such as] nurses, librarians, teachers, and artists") are useful concepts.
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Holy shit.
Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
December 4, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Holy shit.
Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
Reposted by Nick Ulle
If universities would prioritize smaller classes and fewer bells and whistles like third-party technology contracts, a significantly bigger number of PhDs would find a position in higher education.
November 29, 2025 at 1:47 AM
If universities would prioritize smaller classes and fewer bells and whistles like third-party technology contracts, a significantly bigger number of PhDs would find a position in higher education.
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Unrelated to mim itself, but this is also the first preprint I've prepared in @typst.app rather than LaTeX. It was soooo much nicer. Folks; what are we doing? Why don't our journals accept manuscript sources in Typst!
Ok; mim (github.com/COMBINE-lab/...) preprint submitted! Excited for folks to see it and share thoughts. The key takeaway; mim allows the quick, one-time, building of a small auxiliary index that then allows scaling gzipped FASTQ parsing linearly in # of threads. 1/2
GitHub - COMBINE-lab/mim: A small, auxiliary index to massively improve parallel fastq parsing
A small, auxiliary index to massively improve parallel fastq parsing - COMBINE-lab/mim
github.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Unrelated to mim itself, but this is also the first preprint I've prepared in @typst.app rather than LaTeX. It was soooo much nicer. Folks; what are we doing? Why don't our journals accept manuscript sources in Typst!
Reposted by Nick Ulle
"writing code to solve a problem" used to have "understanding the problem" as a prerequisite. but vibecoding allows solution-shaped objects to be produced without any of the hard-won understanding. beware of solution-shaped objects.
November 24, 2025 at 12:16 PM
"writing code to solve a problem" used to have "understanding the problem" as a prerequisite. but vibecoding allows solution-shaped objects to be produced without any of the hard-won understanding. beware of solution-shaped objects.
Reposted by Nick Ulle
![[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.]
JANET:
Ugh...
LIZ:
What's up?
JANET:
I am so bored of cooking peas!
LIZ:
Have you tried...
AI peas?
JANET:
AI peas?
LIZ:
They're peas with AI!
[Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI].
LIZ:
Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas
JANET:
What
LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines]
Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas?
[Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it]
LIZ:
Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine
[Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas]
LIZ:
With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas!
JANET:
What
LIZ:
Shut up
LIZ:
Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow
From opening the bag of peas
to boiling the peas
to eating the peas
To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means.
JANET:
Is it really necessary to-
LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]:
THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET
[Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan:
AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas.
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreiayqa37f7kik7l7s7fbtfp2sir5ckb662ry2lylinyjrfa2rkvvka@jpeg)
Reposted by Nick Ulle
went into a fugue state and helped write this re: mamdani’s victory and how we don’t have to be pragmatic after all!! www.coyotemedia.org/zohran-mamda...
Zohran Mamdani’s Win Is Proof We Don’t Have to Settle for Newsom 2028
The Bushwick bisexuals have it! We can ask for so much more, and at COYOTE we plan to.
www.coyotemedia.org
November 5, 2025 at 6:04 AM
went into a fugue state and helped write this re: mamdani’s victory and how we don’t have to be pragmatic after all!! www.coyotemedia.org/zohran-mamda...
Reposted by Nick Ulle
the entire tech industry
October 29, 2025 at 2:16 AM
the entire tech industry
Reposted by Nick Ulle
You may be aware that UC Berkeley disclosed personal information to the federal government on specious grounds regarding individual faculty members' supposed political activities and positions. The likelihood that other campuses did likewise is high. This is a public statement demanding more.
senate.universityofcalifornia.edu
October 28, 2025 at 11:12 PM
You may be aware that UC Berkeley disclosed personal information to the federal government on specious grounds regarding individual faculty members' supposed political activities and positions. The likelihood that other campuses did likewise is high. This is a public statement demanding more.
Reposted by Nick Ulle
TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵
🧵
The official home of the Python Programming Language
www.python.org
October 27, 2025 at 2:47 PM
TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵
🧵
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Here is the proposed agreement the Trump admin sent to UCLA, which administrators fought tooth and claw to keep secret ucop.edu/communicatio...
ucop.edu
October 25, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Here is the proposed agreement the Trump admin sent to UCLA, which administrators fought tooth and claw to keep secret ucop.edu/communicatio...
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Rescue the Tilden steam train! Email publiccomment@ebparks.org with the subject line "Public Comment- Tilden Steam Train".
bayareatelegraph.com/2025/10/24/t...
bayareatelegraph.com/2025/10/24/t...
Tilden's Beloved Steam Train is in Danger of Closing, Owner Warns Bay Area Telegraph
SF Bay Area food, news, politics, culture and tech.
bayareatelegraph.com
October 24, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Rescue the Tilden steam train! Email publiccomment@ebparks.org with the subject line "Public Comment- Tilden Steam Train".
bayareatelegraph.com/2025/10/24/t...
bayareatelegraph.com/2025/10/24/t...
Reposted by Nick Ulle
I’m glad to see Science mag cover the UC faculty pushback against Trellix, the surveillance-ware UC wants to install on all faculty computers. (You’ll understand why I’m not reassured that Trellix will only share data by “valid government order.”) www.science.org/content/arti...
October 23, 2025 at 8:49 PM
I’m glad to see Science mag cover the UC faculty pushback against Trellix, the surveillance-ware UC wants to install on all faculty computers. (You’ll understand why I’m not reassured that Trellix will only share data by “valid government order.”) www.science.org/content/arti...
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Not enough of you believe me right now, but "Rebuild The White House" is going to become one of the most popular slogans in American political history
October 22, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Not enough of you believe me right now, but "Rebuild The White House" is going to become one of the most popular slogans in American political history
Reposted by Nick Ulle
Camille Pissarro played a major role in developing impressionism, and was father figure to many impressionist artists. But, like many others, he sold little during his lifetime. Here’s his View of Studio, Éragny, Pear Trees in Bloom ■ Rue Saint-Honoré, Afternoon Rain (1890s)
October 17, 2025 at 6:11 AM
Camille Pissarro played a major role in developing impressionism, and was father figure to many impressionist artists. But, like many others, he sold little during his lifetime. Here’s his View of Studio, Éragny, Pear Trees in Bloom ■ Rue Saint-Honoré, Afternoon Rain (1890s)