Martin Tomko
@dinomirmt.bsky.social
Understanding and supporting people in their spatial interactions through computational #spatial #data #science #giscience #melbourne 🛶🚵♂️🥾🏊♂️🐕
@unimelb, own views. support 🇺🇦 www.tomko.org
@unimelb, own views. support 🇺🇦 www.tomko.org
Pinned
LMSeg: an end-to-end geometric message-passing network on barycentric dualgraphs for large-scale landscape mesh segmentation
Semantic segmentation of large-scale 3D landscape meshes is critical for geospatial analysis in complex environments, yet existing approaches face persistent challenges of scalability, end-to-end t...
doi.org
Need to identify semantic regions on 2.5D terrain? Read our "LMSeg: an end-to-end geometric message-passing network on barycentric dual graphs for large-scale landscape mesh segmentation" #mesh #segmentation #terrain #3D #culturalheritage #giscience doi.org/10.1080/1548...
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Putting Dr Høeg in charge "is like dropping an atom bomb," an agency source said.
"Multiple top-level officials are preparing resignations."
"It's an extinction level event. She's has never supervised a drug review, never has conducted a clinical trial. She doesn't understand laws ®ulations."
"Multiple top-level officials are preparing resignations."
"It's an extinction level event. She's has never supervised a drug review, never has conducted a clinical trial. She doesn't understand laws ®ulations."
Even ignoring Dr. Høeg's antivaccine views and obvious bias, she has no qualifications for the job. She does not know regulations, she does not know drug approvals, and she has no expertise in any relevant scientific area.
No wonder people are resigning.
www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-tra...
No wonder people are resigning.
www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-tra...
Appointment of controversial FDA official rocking agency like "an atom bomb," scientists there say
The Trump administration's elevation of Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg to lead a high-profile office within the Food and Drug Administration is raising alarm among multiple senior FDA officials.
www.cbsnews.com
December 8, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Putting Dr Høeg in charge "is like dropping an atom bomb," an agency source said.
"Multiple top-level officials are preparing resignations."
"It's an extinction level event. She's has never supervised a drug review, never has conducted a clinical trial. She doesn't understand laws ®ulations."
"Multiple top-level officials are preparing resignations."
"It's an extinction level event. She's has never supervised a drug review, never has conducted a clinical trial. She doesn't understand laws ®ulations."
Reposted by Martin Tomko
I know this probably isn't very useful since I don't even have speaker's notes, but here are the slides from that recent talk. The title was "The Librarian’s Dividend: Pathways towards Information Ethics and Literacy in the Age of Generative AI" docs.google.com/presentation...
The Librarian's Dividence (ALA Core Forum).pptx
✨The Librarian’s Dividend✨ Pathways towards Information Ethics and Literacy in the Age of Generative AI Casey Fiesler | casey.prof Image credit: OpenAI’s DALL-E and countless uncredited and uncompensa...
docs.google.com
December 5, 2025 at 11:27 PM
I know this probably isn't very useful since I don't even have speaker's notes, but here are the slides from that recent talk. The title was "The Librarian’s Dividend: Pathways towards Information Ethics and Literacy in the Age of Generative AI" docs.google.com/presentation...
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Here's the reality this example illustrates:
It's not even just about people blindly trusting what ChatGPT tells them. LLMs are poisoning the entire information ecosystem. You can't even necessarily trust that the citations in a published paper are real (or a search engine's descriptions of them).
It's not even just about people blindly trusting what ChatGPT tells them. LLMs are poisoning the entire information ecosystem. You can't even necessarily trust that the citations in a published paper are real (or a search engine's descriptions of them).
December 5, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Here's the reality this example illustrates:
It's not even just about people blindly trusting what ChatGPT tells them. LLMs are poisoning the entire information ecosystem. You can't even necessarily trust that the citations in a published paper are real (or a search engine's descriptions of them).
It's not even just about people blindly trusting what ChatGPT tells them. LLMs are poisoning the entire information ecosystem. You can't even necessarily trust that the citations in a published paper are real (or a search engine's descriptions of them).
Reposted by Martin Tomko
I’ve tried using the AI-powered Google Scholar feature a few times. I was asking things like “find papers that apply method X in context Y”. It would return papers that don’t actually use method X, and tell me that they do. Way less useful than regular Google Scholar search.
so it begins
December 6, 2025 at 2:13 AM
I’ve tried using the AI-powered Google Scholar feature a few times. I was asking things like “find papers that apply method X in context Y”. It would return papers that don’t actually use method X, and tell me that they do. Way less useful than regular Google Scholar search.
Reposted by Martin Tomko
This afternoon, I was in a meeting with Jay Bhattacharya, and I can confirm this is *exactly* what he both wants and will be doing.
THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE.
THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE.
I missed this from a couple of weeks ago, but if you're an NIH-funded investigator, please read.
Peer review will exist to make things look legitimate, but can, and will, be over-ruled. Funding decisions, ultimately, will be done by political appointees.
grants.nih.gov/news-events/...
Peer review will exist to make things look legitimate, but can, and will, be over-ruled. Funding decisions, ultimately, will be done by political appointees.
grants.nih.gov/news-events/...
Implementing a Unified NIH Funding Strategy to Guide Consistent and Clearer Award Decisions | Grants & Funding
grants.nih.gov
December 5, 2025 at 10:07 PM
This afternoon, I was in a meeting with Jay Bhattacharya, and I can confirm this is *exactly* what he both wants and will be doing.
THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE.
THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE.
Reposted by Martin Tomko
“This feels like yet another attack on our research community that is already under siege”
Senator @davidpocock.bsky.social has issued a media release about the ARC's proposed restructure and job cuts 👇
Senator @davidpocock.bsky.social has issued a media release about the ARC's proposed restructure and job cuts 👇
December 5, 2025 at 3:05 AM
“This feels like yet another attack on our research community that is already under siege”
Senator @davidpocock.bsky.social has issued a media release about the ARC's proposed restructure and job cuts 👇
Senator @davidpocock.bsky.social has issued a media release about the ARC's proposed restructure and job cuts 👇
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Girl Guides of Canada has made a statement, likely in response to the cowardly decisions of Girlguiding UK. 🏳️⚧️
December 4, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Girl Guides of Canada has made a statement, likely in response to the cowardly decisions of Girlguiding UK. 🏳️⚧️
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Update: GRRRR! ARC has been excused from Senate Estimates, according to the "live schedule".
😡
They were bumped from the last Estimates session (Oct) as well!
😡
They were bumped from the last Estimates session (Oct) as well!
The ARC is due to appear before Senate Estimates tonight. As usual, they're last on the schedule, at 9pm (Canberra time) ▶️ parlwork.aph.gov.au/committee/de... ("live" schedule).
I hope the committee asks about the job losses & restructure the ARC are proposing👇
I hope the committee asks about the job losses & restructure the ARC are proposing👇
ARC are considering a restructure in which jobs there will be lost, a source tells me.
This seems ridiculous when they're about to completely overhaul the entire grants system – they've never undertaken anything so large before!
I've long said ARC needs MANY MORE staff, & should do more, not less.
This seems ridiculous when they're about to completely overhaul the entire grants system – they've never undertaken anything so large before!
I've long said ARC needs MANY MORE staff, & should do more, not less.
December 3, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Update: GRRRR! ARC has been excused from Senate Estimates, according to the "live schedule".
😡
They were bumped from the last Estimates session (Oct) as well!
😡
They were bumped from the last Estimates session (Oct) as well!
Reposted by Martin Tomko
@ginaravenscroft.bsky.social & #NARF are collecting impact statements from Australian researchers
‘ Please consider sharing your story about the impact of Australia's chronic underfunding of science and biomedical research.’
lnkd.in/g8A_PAZG
1/
‘ Please consider sharing your story about the impact of Australia's chronic underfunding of science and biomedical research.’
lnkd.in/g8A_PAZG
1/
December 1, 2025 at 10:49 PM
@ginaravenscroft.bsky.social & #NARF are collecting impact statements from Australian researchers
‘ Please consider sharing your story about the impact of Australia's chronic underfunding of science and biomedical research.’
lnkd.in/g8A_PAZG
1/
‘ Please consider sharing your story about the impact of Australia's chronic underfunding of science and biomedical research.’
lnkd.in/g8A_PAZG
1/
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Excellent article for reminding everyone why new gas fields need to be banned and gas companies need to be taxed out of existence.
www.smh.com.au/world/north-...
www.smh.com.au/world/north-...
Trump wants to ‘drill, baby, drill’. This Australian giant is happy to help
Oil and gas giant Woodside is expanding in the US under its American chief executive. Over brunch in New York, Meg O’Neill explains why she thinks the climate conversation has fundamentally changed.
www.smh.com.au
December 2, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Excellent article for reminding everyone why new gas fields need to be banned and gas companies need to be taxed out of existence.
www.smh.com.au/world/north-...
www.smh.com.au/world/north-...
Reposted by Martin Tomko
According to the BBC, the Georgian government was using a World War I-era toxic compound to disperse Georgian demonstrators who were standing for Georgia's sovereignty and the European future.
WW1 toxic compound sprayed on Georgian protesters, BBC evidence suggests
Anti-government demonstrators are likely to have been targeted with camite, our investigation finds.
www.bbc.com
December 2, 2025 at 3:29 AM
According to the BBC, the Georgian government was using a World War I-era toxic compound to disperse Georgian demonstrators who were standing for Georgia's sovereignty and the European future.
Need to identify semantic regions on 2.5D terrain? Read our "LMSeg: an end-to-end geometric message-passing network on barycentric dual graphs for large-scale landscape mesh segmentation" #mesh #segmentation #terrain #3D #culturalheritage #giscience doi.org/10.1080/1548...
LMSeg: an end-to-end geometric message-passing network on barycentric dualgraphs for large-scale landscape mesh segmentation
Semantic segmentation of large-scale 3D landscape meshes is critical for geospatial analysis in complex environments, yet existing approaches face persistent challenges of scalability, end-to-end t...
doi.org
December 2, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Need to identify semantic regions on 2.5D terrain? Read our "LMSeg: an end-to-end geometric message-passing network on barycentric dual graphs for large-scale landscape mesh segmentation" #mesh #segmentation #terrain #3D #culturalheritage #giscience doi.org/10.1080/1548...
Reposted by Martin Tomko
At a festival with events happening over a week and over a whole city? Dilara Bozkurt explores temporal navigation for festival maps on mobile devices, working out how to incorporate space and time on a small screen like a mobile phone doi.org/10.1080/1523... #GISchat #OpenAccess Check out the GIF:
November 27, 2025 at 3:02 PM
At a festival with events happening over a week and over a whole city? Dilara Bozkurt explores temporal navigation for festival maps on mobile devices, working out how to incorporate space and time on a small screen like a mobile phone doi.org/10.1080/1523... #GISchat #OpenAccess Check out the GIF:
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Wohoo, QGIS Arrow support has been merged: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pull/63749
Thanks @paleolimbot & @nyalld et al.
Looking forward to testing it out soon 🤩
#qgis #arrow #gischat
Thanks @paleolimbot & @nyalld et al.
Looking forward to testing it out soon 🤩
#qgis #arrow #gischat
Implement QgsArrowIterator to iterate over features as batches of ArrowArray by paleolimbot · Pull Request #63749 · qgis/QGIS
Description As encouraged by @nyalldawson! https://mastodon.social/@nyalld/115459416976982489 The motivation is to eliminate the need for per-feature iteration in Python to maintain the fidelity of...
github.com
November 28, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Wohoo, QGIS Arrow support has been merged: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pull/63749
Thanks @paleolimbot & @nyalld et al.
Looking forward to testing it out soon 🤩
#qgis #arrow #gischat
Thanks @paleolimbot & @nyalld et al.
Looking forward to testing it out soon 🤩
#qgis #arrow #gischat
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Recommended
I joined @cwarzel.bsky.social on the Galaxy Brain Podcast to explain some of the reasons why America, and a lot of other Western democracies, are sliding into authoritarianism and why it's probably inevitable
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvFh...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvFh...
America’s Slide Toward Simulated Democracy with Eliot Higgins
YouTube video by The Atlantic
www.youtube.com
November 28, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Recommended
Reposted by Martin Tomko
"Prestige bias" is one of the strongest forms of bias in academia.
Reviewers rank paper submissions from top-20 institutions and non-students higher, but this goes away with blinded reviews.
haruka-uchida.github.io/websitefiles...
Reviewers rank paper submissions from top-20 institutions and non-students higher, but this goes away with blinded reviews.
haruka-uchida.github.io/websitefiles...
November 28, 2025 at 9:19 PM
"Prestige bias" is one of the strongest forms of bias in academia.
Reviewers rank paper submissions from top-20 institutions and non-students higher, but this goes away with blinded reviews.
haruka-uchida.github.io/websitefiles...
Reviewers rank paper submissions from top-20 institutions and non-students higher, but this goes away with blinded reviews.
haruka-uchida.github.io/websitefiles...
Reposted by Martin Tomko
i just reviewed 50+ applications for an arts award and most of them were written by chatgpt. And then the other reviewers said they put them into Gemini to rank them. At a certain point, if everyone is giving their thinking entirely over to AI, why are we even bothering with any of this anymore?
November 23, 2025 at 5:32 PM
i just reviewed 50+ applications for an arts award and most of them were written by chatgpt. And then the other reviewers said they put them into Gemini to rank them. At a certain point, if everyone is giving their thinking entirely over to AI, why are we even bothering with any of this anymore?
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Your universe is a photocopy of a photocopy of a…
on.ft.com/4ahkNKa
on.ft.com/4ahkNKa
November 27, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Your universe is a photocopy of a photocopy of a…
on.ft.com/4ahkNKa
on.ft.com/4ahkNKa
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Here's a report from Jenny Sinclair @jsresearchpro.bsky.social on the low success rate for DECRAs this week, driven by high demand and low Government funding for early career researchers in Australia.
[Free article in @resprofnews.bsky.social]
[Free article in @resprofnews.bsky.social]
Low success rate in early career grants ‘deeply disappointing’ - Research Professional News
“Decay continues” as Australian Research Council’s Decra scheme announces 13.1 per cent success rate
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
November 28, 2025 at 4:32 AM
Here's a report from Jenny Sinclair @jsresearchpro.bsky.social on the low success rate for DECRAs this week, driven by high demand and low Government funding for early career researchers in Australia.
[Free article in @resprofnews.bsky.social]
[Free article in @resprofnews.bsky.social]
Reposted by Martin Tomko
November 26, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Reposted by Martin Tomko
Very pleased to see that @greens.org.au have won an inquiry into job cuts at CSIRO
Would be great to see attention brought to bear on restructuring (cuts?) at the Australian Research Council too
Why these attacks on science in the public interest in Australia❓ Who does this serve❓
Would be great to see attention brought to bear on restructuring (cuts?) at the Australian Research Council too
Why these attacks on science in the public interest in Australia❓ Who does this serve❓
November 26, 2025 at 5:31 AM
Very pleased to see that @greens.org.au have won an inquiry into job cuts at CSIRO
Would be great to see attention brought to bear on restructuring (cuts?) at the Australian Research Council too
Why these attacks on science in the public interest in Australia❓ Who does this serve❓
Would be great to see attention brought to bear on restructuring (cuts?) at the Australian Research Council too
Why these attacks on science in the public interest in Australia❓ Who does this serve❓
Reposted by Martin Tomko
The ARC will soon be overhauling its entire grants system. They've never undertaken such a huge set of changes. Doing it while sacking existing staff and restructuring … I just … 🤯😡
ARC are considering a restructure in which jobs there will be lost, a source tells me.
This seems ridiculous when they're about to completely overhaul the entire grants system – they've never undertaken anything so large before!
I've long said ARC needs MANY MORE staff, & should do more, not less.
This seems ridiculous when they're about to completely overhaul the entire grants system – they've never undertaken anything so large before!
I've long said ARC needs MANY MORE staff, & should do more, not less.
November 26, 2025 at 6:17 AM
The ARC will soon be overhauling its entire grants system. They've never undertaken such a huge set of changes. Doing it while sacking existing staff and restructuring … I just … 🤯😡