Aaron Braver 🐧
@abraver.bsky.social
Linguist (phon*). R stuff. Science fiction nerd. @abraver at all the socials. aaronbraver.com
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
If you aren't happy single, you won't be happy taken. Happiness comes from Star Trek, not relationships.
October 15, 2025 at 10:58 PM
If you aren't happy single, you won't be happy taken. Happiness comes from Star Trek, not relationships.
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Ea-Nāşir's perfidy seems eternal!
October 12, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Ea-Nāşir's perfidy seems eternal!
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
I'm going to finish this manuscript by the end of the week, I told myself
August 7, 2025 at 5:02 PM
I'm going to finish this manuscript by the end of the week, I told myself
The narrator of my audiobook keeps pronouncing Xhosa as [hoʊsə], with initial [h]!
- Usual English pronunciationː [ˈkoʊ.sə]
- In Xhosaː isiXhosa [isì‖ʰɔ́sa]
I don't expect audiobook narrators to know orthographies of Bantu languages, but I do expect them to look up unfamiliar words. #linguistics
- Usual English pronunciationː [ˈkoʊ.sə]
- In Xhosaː isiXhosa [isì‖ʰɔ́sa]
I don't expect audiobook narrators to know orthographies of Bantu languages, but I do expect them to look up unfamiliar words. #linguistics
August 4, 2025 at 10:47 PM
The narrator of my audiobook keeps pronouncing Xhosa as [hoʊsə], with initial [h]!
- Usual English pronunciationː [ˈkoʊ.sə]
- In Xhosaː isiXhosa [isì‖ʰɔ́sa]
I don't expect audiobook narrators to know orthographies of Bantu languages, but I do expect them to look up unfamiliar words. #linguistics
- Usual English pronunciationː [ˈkoʊ.sə]
- In Xhosaː isiXhosa [isì‖ʰɔ́sa]
I don't expect audiobook narrators to know orthographies of Bantu languages, but I do expect them to look up unfamiliar words. #linguistics
Having fun with some animal sounds for practice stimuli in our AXB task. 🔊sound on!
August 2, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Having fun with some animal sounds for practice stimuli in our AXB task. 🔊sound on!
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
We present a simplified, p5.js version of the vocal tract synthesizer from Neil Thapen's popular Pink Trombone, adapted for use in a creative coding assignment concerned with interaction design and absurd puppeteering.
Interactive: editor.p5js.org/golan/sketch...
Writeup: github.com/golanlevin/6...
Interactive: editor.p5js.org/golan/sketch...
Writeup: github.com/golanlevin/6...
July 25, 2025 at 4:52 PM
We present a simplified, p5.js version of the vocal tract synthesizer from Neil Thapen's popular Pink Trombone, adapted for use in a creative coding assignment concerned with interaction design and absurd puppeteering.
Interactive: editor.p5js.org/golan/sketch...
Writeup: github.com/golanlevin/6...
Interactive: editor.p5js.org/golan/sketch...
Writeup: github.com/golanlevin/6...
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
when they close it all up, I do believe this will go down as the funniest video on the internet
July 24, 2025 at 7:51 PM
when they close it all up, I do believe this will go down as the funniest video on the internet
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
I think the only hope is that eventually they’ll run so many ‘inconclusive’ UBI trials that everyone will de facto be on UBI even though they won’t ever decide to implement it.
July 25, 2025 at 8:49 AM
I think the only hope is that eventually they’ll run so many ‘inconclusive’ UBI trials that everyone will de facto be on UBI even though they won’t ever decide to implement it.
This exists… At least I think it does?
Unalaska, Alaska - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
July 18, 2025 at 10:42 PM
This exists… At least I think it does?
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Space-station specific accents are going to be so cool.
July 18, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Space-station specific accents are going to be so cool.
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Doctors are AMAZED at these 10 ways to BOOST your immune system:
The Tetanus vaccine
The Measles vaccine
The Polio vaccine
The Mumps vaccine
The HPV vaccine
The Pneumonia vaccine
The Hepatitis B vaccine
The Rubella vaccine
The Diphtheria vaccine
The Covid-19 vaccine
- @hislopmd.bsky.social
The Tetanus vaccine
The Measles vaccine
The Polio vaccine
The Mumps vaccine
The HPV vaccine
The Pneumonia vaccine
The Hepatitis B vaccine
The Rubella vaccine
The Diphtheria vaccine
The Covid-19 vaccine
- @hislopmd.bsky.social
July 7, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Doctors are AMAZED at these 10 ways to BOOST your immune system:
The Tetanus vaccine
The Measles vaccine
The Polio vaccine
The Mumps vaccine
The HPV vaccine
The Pneumonia vaccine
The Hepatitis B vaccine
The Rubella vaccine
The Diphtheria vaccine
The Covid-19 vaccine
- @hislopmd.bsky.social
The Tetanus vaccine
The Measles vaccine
The Polio vaccine
The Mumps vaccine
The HPV vaccine
The Pneumonia vaccine
The Hepatitis B vaccine
The Rubella vaccine
The Diphtheria vaccine
The Covid-19 vaccine
- @hislopmd.bsky.social
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Descartes gave us all the tools we need to survive in an era of misinformation. Simply begin with the understanding that you are real but everything else is fairly likely to be the cruel games of a demon sent to torment you specifically.
June 30, 2025 at 2:53 AM
Descartes gave us all the tools we need to survive in an era of misinformation. Simply begin with the understanding that you are real but everything else is fairly likely to be the cruel games of a demon sent to torment you specifically.
@wmgbennett.bsky.social and I are teaching "Topics in the Phonology of African Languages" at the Seshegopuo Winter Linguistics School later this month!
Seshegopuo Linguistics School
sites.google.com
June 10, 2025 at 1:43 PM
@wmgbennett.bsky.social and I are teaching "Topics in the Phonology of African Languages" at the Seshegopuo Winter Linguistics School later this month!
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Can you train a performant language model using only openly licensed text?
We are thrilled to announce the Common Pile v0.1, an 8TB dataset of openly licensed and public domain text. We train 7B models for 1T and 2T tokens and match the performance similar models like LLaMA 1 & 2
We are thrilled to announce the Common Pile v0.1, an 8TB dataset of openly licensed and public domain text. We train 7B models for 1T and 2T tokens and match the performance similar models like LLaMA 1 & 2
June 6, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Can you train a performant language model using only openly licensed text?
We are thrilled to announce the Common Pile v0.1, an 8TB dataset of openly licensed and public domain text. We train 7B models for 1T and 2T tokens and match the performance similar models like LLaMA 1 & 2
We are thrilled to announce the Common Pile v0.1, an 8TB dataset of openly licensed and public domain text. We train 7B models for 1T and 2T tokens and match the performance similar models like LLaMA 1 & 2
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Penny Eckert, on Bill's reaction to her not turning in problem sets during her 1st semester in grad school (bc she was worried they weren't good enough):
After a few weeks, he made me fork them over, saying "If you give me shit at least I'll know you're capable of shit"
After a few weeks, he made me fork them over, saying "If you give me shit at least I'll know you're capable of shit"
May 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Penny Eckert, on Bill's reaction to her not turning in problem sets during her 1st semester in grad school (bc she was worried they weren't good enough):
After a few weeks, he made me fork them over, saying "If you give me shit at least I'll know you're capable of shit"
After a few weeks, he made me fork them over, saying "If you give me shit at least I'll know you're capable of shit"
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Happy Friday! It's #WorldPenguinDay so I thought I'd remind you that penguins do have knees, they just aren't where you think they should be.
April 25, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Happy Friday! It's #WorldPenguinDay so I thought I'd remind you that penguins do have knees, they just aren't where you think they should be.
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
New visualization tool alert!
The vayr package version 1.0.0 is now on CRAN.
It contains position adjustments for ggplot2 that help with overplotting in pleasing ways. My favorite is position_sunflower().
- install.packages("vayr")
- alexandercoppock.com/vayr
#rstats #ggplot2 #dataviz
The vayr package version 1.0.0 is now on CRAN.
It contains position adjustments for ggplot2 that help with overplotting in pleasing ways. My favorite is position_sunflower().
- install.packages("vayr")
- alexandercoppock.com/vayr
#rstats #ggplot2 #dataviz
April 16, 2025 at 7:53 PM
New visualization tool alert!
The vayr package version 1.0.0 is now on CRAN.
It contains position adjustments for ggplot2 that help with overplotting in pleasing ways. My favorite is position_sunflower().
- install.packages("vayr")
- alexandercoppock.com/vayr
#rstats #ggplot2 #dataviz
The vayr package version 1.0.0 is now on CRAN.
It contains position adjustments for ggplot2 that help with overplotting in pleasing ways. My favorite is position_sunflower().
- install.packages("vayr")
- alexandercoppock.com/vayr
#rstats #ggplot2 #dataviz
Dolphins can be researchers now?!
April 15, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Dolphins can be researchers now?!
Reposted by Aaron Braver 🐧
Do you do Phonetics? Human-Computer Interaction? Anything sound-y plus computer-y? Submit to our special issue of Phonetica! Just a little one-page abstract due by 4/30, and you get to work with very cool special issue editors!
www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
Phonetica
Aims & Scope Phonetica is an international forum for phonetic science that addresses all aspects of the subject matter including phonetic descriptions, articulatory and signal analytic measures of...
www.degruyterbrill.com
April 8, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Do you do Phonetics? Human-Computer Interaction? Anything sound-y plus computer-y? Submit to our special issue of Phonetica! Just a little one-page abstract due by 4/30, and you get to work with very cool special issue editors!
www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
(One of) my issues with LLMs is that we don't understand the steps the model takes to respond to a given query.
Researchers at Anthropic have developed tools to see how their model comes up with a response—and the results are much better than just asking the model "tell me how you did that."
Researchers at Anthropic have developed tools to see how their model comes up with a response—and the results are much better than just asking the model "tell me how you did that."
Tracing the thoughts of a large language model
Anthropic's latest interpretability research: a new microscope to understand Claude's internal mechanisms
www.anthropic.com
March 29, 2025 at 9:52 PM
(One of) my issues with LLMs is that we don't understand the steps the model takes to respond to a given query.
Researchers at Anthropic have developed tools to see how their model comes up with a response—and the results are much better than just asking the model "tell me how you did that."
Researchers at Anthropic have developed tools to see how their model comes up with a response—and the results are much better than just asking the model "tell me how you did that."
Just got served this ad for an app called “Kiki” - complete with spiky mascot! #linguistics
March 29, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Just got served this ad for an app called “Kiki” - complete with spiky mascot! #linguistics
Does anyone have (or know of) #linguistics sample job materials for PhD students going on the market for the first time? Looking to provide some good examples to my students.
March 28, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Does anyone have (or know of) #linguistics sample job materials for PhD students going on the market for the first time? Looking to provide some good examples to my students.