Vignesh
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vigneshb.com
Vignesh
@vigneshb.com
Music supervisor for Hans Zimmer, A.R. Rahman, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo
Technologist, science enthusiast, avid reader
Feminist | LGBTQIA+ Ally | Advocating empathy, diversity, sustainability & clean energy

Cover photo: @rachellense.bsky.social
Pinned
Although a masculinizing puberty may confer advantages, an October 2023 review of trans women who seek out such therapy said that many of the advantages are “reduced, if not erased, over time” if they undergo gender-affirming hormone therapy.
www.frontiersin.org/journals/spo...
Frontiers | Sex differences and athletic performance. Where do trans individuals fit into sports and athletics based on current research?
There are well known sex differences in parameters of physical fitness/performance due to changes occurring during sexual development. Thus, many sport and a...
www.frontiersin.org
Reposted by Vignesh
Happy Halloween 🦇🦇🦇 Horror movie music can be deeply unsettling. Here's how composers achieve that effect www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-... 🧪
Why Horror Movie Music Sends a Chill Up Your Spine
Horror movie composers use musical tricks to hijack your nervous system and put you on edge
www.scientificamerican.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
📣THREAD: It’s surprising to me that so many people were surprised to learn that Signal runs partly on AWS (something we can do because we use encryption to make sure no one but you–not AWS, not Signal, not anyone–can access your comms).

It’s also concerning. 1/
PSA: we're aware that Signal is down for some people. This appears to be related to a major AWS outage. Stand by.
October 27, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
I took a whole week to read and write about this paper because I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just rubber-stamping some results I liked. And now I can confidently say, this paper is very well-done and very well-written.

And I believe their results.
open.substack.com/pub/epiellie...
Finally, a well-done study about autism and Tylenol!
We have read a LOT of bad research over the past few weeks, as we explore what RFK Jr thinks about the causes of autism. Finally, we get to read some good research!
open.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 4:19 PM
A well written and nuanced article by @helenpearson.bsky.social & @heidiledford.bsky.social arguing that there is insufficient data to link autism and acetaminophen and that focusing on such a link is no more than a distraction.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Trump links autism and Tylenol: is there any truth to it?
The US president repeatedly advised people, “Don't take Tylenol,” but scientists say that strong evidence between the medication and autism is lacking.
www.nature.com
September 24, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
When life gives you lemons (a review I thought was lazy and damaging in the way it framed women’s writing), make lemonade (a 2,500-word essay on the habits of literary criticism).

kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/literary-c...

#Writing #WritingCommunity #Reading #Scotland #Books
Literary Criticism Under Review
Authors aren’t supposed to do this.
kristiedegaris.substack.com
September 15, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 15, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
If you are curious about what atproto is, what a PDS is, or what moving to a new PDS looks like. This may be a good starting place for you. This is my attempt at explaining some of the basics of Bluesky(atproto) in a less technical way.
What the hell is the atmosphere anyway
A slightly less technical intro to the technical side of Bluesky
marvins-guide.leaflet.pub
September 13, 2025 at 11:49 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
I am thrilled to be recognized by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people worldwide in the field of artificial intelligence for my work with @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social.

>> #TIME100AI time.com/time100ai

I want to take this opportunity to share a few reflections on this work 👇🧵
August 28, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
NEW EPISODE!

An OpenPGP.js bug gave us an excuse to tear encrypted email via PGP to shreds. William Woodruff joined us to explain the vuln & indulge our gnashing of teeth on why email was never meant to be encrypted:

securitycryptographywhatever.com/2025/08/22/s...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL3...
Stop Using Encrypted Email with William Woodruff
YouTube video by Security Cryptography Whatever
www.youtube.com
August 23, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
I think the Vibecoding reddit has accidentally stumbled on the best description of vibecoding:

It's "roleplay for guys [it is always guys] who want to feel like hackers without doing the hard part".

#ai #vibecoding
August 19, 2025 at 7:30 AM
A brilliantly written and researched piece which might get you riled up and eager to defend the Open Web against the incessant attacks by Big Tech:

wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/g...
Google is killing the open web
The juggernaut is taking advantage of its dominant position to enclose and destroy the commons.
wok.oblomov.eu
August 18, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
THIS ESSAY IS SO GOOD. I don't know that I've ever read an essay so thoroughly saturated with sarcasm and yet devastatingly accurately shredding someone's stupid ideas. This is the kind of essay our world needs right now […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
August 9, 2025 at 2:36 AM
August 6, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
“Scientists don’t have the Hippocratic oath that doctors do, but we should. If you see that harm to the stability of climate and to present and future generations is being caused, then, in my opinion, you have a moral and ethical responsibility as a climate scientist to speak out against that.”
This renowned climate scientist says this is the most difficult time for climate science he’s ever seen
Benjamin Santer has faced pushback on climate research in the past. But this environment feels different ‘because it's so targeted.’
www.fastcompany.com
July 21, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Predicting mass layoffs with the confidence of a tech messiah because in the race to automate, inconvenient questions about ethics and livelihoods apparently don't compute.
Bold disregard, too, for the nuances of human work and the fallout of mass displacement.

gizmodo.com/ai-will-repl...
AI Will Replace Recruiters and Assistants in Six Months, Says CEO Behind ChatGPT Rival
Perplexity's CEO lays out a near-future where entire white-collar roles are automated by a new generation of AI browsers, transforming a week's worth of work into a single prompt.
gizmodo.com
July 21, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
Study finds A.I. LLMs advise women to ask for lower salaries than men. When prompted w/ a user profile of same education, experience & job role, differing only by gender, ChatGPT advised the female applicant to request $280K salary; Male applicant=$400K.
thenextweb.com/news/chatgpt...
ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds
A new study has found that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT consistently advise women to ask for lower salaries than men.
thenextweb.com
July 20, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
apropos of ~ everything ~ please allow me to share a free gift link to a Flytrap piece I wrote earlier this year about the decimation of reality, AI, and how fucked we all are
Reality Bytes
So-called ‘AI,’ performative ignorance, and old-fashioned human assholery are degrading reality as we know it.
theflytrap.beehiiv.com
July 16, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
My book is out in two weeks. This is the essay I’ve waited longest to share.

It’s about body, desire, shame, strength and what happens when you stop letting the world shape you, and start shaping the world instead.

kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/what-i-bui...

#Scotland #Writing #Books #Essay
What I Build Will Outlast Every Man Who Ever Wanted Me.
On choosing permanence over performance.
kristiedegaris.substack.com
July 20, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
Disabled folk don’t have to do “exceptional” things, or be the next Hawking, to have value to society.

They have value because everyone has value, and everyone deserves to live & be supported.
July 18, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
"[The Flytrap] aims to be 'unf*ck your algorithm' with a lot of intersectional analysis for and by femme and queer people. This great piece on the “first LGBTQ co-housing community” in the country is a great proof of concept."

So true, besties! Read here:

theflytrap.beehiiv.com/p/take-care-...
‘Take Care of Your Own, As Long As You Can’
For Pride month, The Flytrap visited Durham, North Carolina’s Village Hearth, the first LGBTQ cohousing community in the nation for people 55 and over.
theflytrap.beehiiv.com
July 9, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
Hey wait, this isn’t okay. We need more subscribers, people. This group has already had more hits in its brief existence than the legacy local paper you are (and should continue to be) supporting because the world needs news reporting and analysis.

Go. Now.

theflytrap.beehiiv.com
July 12, 2025 at 5:14 PM
"An AI may never be able to write a great poem—a truly original poem—because a poem is made not of language but of experience, and the defining aspect of human experience is the constant collision between our wishes and reality, the sharp violation of our expectations, the demolition of our plans."
July 13, 2025 at 2:38 AM
Reposted by Vignesh
We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers.

The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.
July 10, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Reposted by Vignesh
why call it white dwarf spectroscopy when you could call it ~necroplanetology~ 👻🪐
July 11, 2025 at 10:14 PM