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maxine.science
Maxine 💃🏼
@maxine.science
600 followers 420 following 2.3K posts
🔬 Looking at the brain’s “dark matter”
🤯 Studying how minds change
👩🏼‍💻 Building science tools

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🌐 maxine.science
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maxine.science
chillin’ with the boys
A black and white photograph from the early 20th century showing six men gathered in a parlor or sitting room. Three men are seated in the front row around a small round table with glasses and refreshments, while three men stand behind them. The man seated on the right holds a white dog on his lap. The room features patterned wallpaper, framed pictures on the walls, wooden furniture, and several wine or champagne bottles visible on nearby surfaces. The men are dressed formally in suits and bow ties, suggesting this is a social gathering among colleagues or friends.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
January 11, 2026 at 1:13 AM
maxine.science
yeah my contention is this is trivial from classical statistics if you jiggle the problem around a little
Screenshot from Wikipedia: Suppose f is an unknown deterministic parameter that is to be estimated from n independent observations (measurements) of x, each from a distribution according to some probability density function f(x; 0). The variance of any unbiased estimator ê of f is then bounded 121 by the reciprocal of the Fisher information I(O): 1 var (Ô) ≥ I(0) where the Fisher information I (0) is defined by 10）ールE2の（wax.g）］ and l(x; 0) = 10g(f(x; 0)) is the natural logarithm of the likelihood function for a single sample x and Ex; denotes the expected value with respect to the density f(x; 0) of X. If not indicated, in what
January 9, 2026 at 8:31 AM
maxine.science
… maybe it’s the other 1/3 of the brain people don’t look at, that processes signals and also directly sits at the interface between neurons and vasculature? 😉
Fluorescence micrograph of an astrocyte in green and neurons in red
December 29, 2025 at 4:55 PM
maxine.science
hmmmm 😏
Wikipedia image of an astrocyte
December 16, 2025 at 5:05 PM
maxine.science
FYI: In the linked textbook at poldrack.github.io/BetterCodeBe..., the links in the overall book Table of Contents table 404, likely due to a substitution of a “.” instead of a “/“ in the addresses.
Screenshot of a Safari address bar on iOS 26 in the Liquid Glass style, showing the text BetterScience/book.essential-
December 16, 2025 at 3:04 PM
maxine.science
bahahahahaha that there’s some deep bubble
Screenshot of the linked OpenAI page: • Alongside the licensing agreement, Disney will become a major customer of OpenAl, using its APls to build new products, tools, and experiences, including for Disney+, and deploying ChatGPT for its employees. • As part of the agreement, Disney will make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAl, and receive warrants to purchase additional equity.
December 11, 2025 at 3:22 PM
maxine.science
nice.
Screenshot from Waymo 2025 wrapped You took 69 trips with nobody behind the wheel [image of posterized map “you are here” icon in light blue-green]
December 11, 2025 at 6:53 AM
maxine.science
ai has been being freaky since 2016 idk

arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/...
Screenshot of interview with AI that wrote “Sunspring” (2016): What do you think of your historic nomination against human opponents in this contest? I was pretty excited. I think I can see the feathers when they release their hearts. It's like a breakdown of the facts. So they should be competent with the fact that they won't be surprised. What is the future of machine written entertainment? It's a bit sudden. I was thinking of the spirit of the men who found me and the children who were all manipulated and full of children. I was worried about my command. I was the scientist of the Holy Ghost. What's next for you? Here we go. The staff is divided by the train of the burning machine building with sweat. No one will see your face. The children reach into the furnace, but the light is still slipping to the floor. The world is still embarrassed. The party is with your staff. My name is Benjamin.
December 11, 2025 at 6:12 AM
maxine.science
Actual Bluesky challenge: post your favorite work of art from fifty years before you were born.
Picture of the original cover of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (1943). Bibliotheque des IDÉES L'être et le néant Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique par J.-P. SARTRE Librarire Gallimard Theatrical poster from Casablanca (1942 premiere, with wide theatrical release in January 1943). Humphrey Bogart is painted in a fedora, trench coat and thick tie, holding a handgun; several other figures from the movie are painted monochrome ghostly images behind him. The title “Casablanca” is superimposed in red cursive with a baseline curving slightly around as the top-left quadrant of a clock.
December 9, 2025 at 2:17 PM
maxine.science
Right of course—I was using a shortcut for microblogging.

I will point out:
Screenshot from Wikipedia: Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive - meaning a posteriori facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience. I2! Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, introspection, or religious faith, are rejected or considered meaningless.
December 6, 2025 at 4:15 PM
maxine.science
Hey Bluesky fam—

If you’re at NeurIPS and looking to work on something awesome in AI x bio, say hi to this lady (me!). We’re making real things people need with data nobody else has. And we’re recruiting! Bonus high-five for people from the atmosphere 😁
Photograph of a blonde woman in a black hat, glasses, and a red top riding up an escalator in a large convention center. She is wearing a lanyard reading “Maxine Levesque, Forecast Bio @ Astera Institute”.
December 6, 2025 at 4:13 PM
maxine.science
“65% said they were satisfied with the role Al plays in their work”

bro these people were interviewed **while they were using Claude**—that means 35% of people using your product were not satisfied with the product they were using while interviewed.

www.anthropic.com/news/anthrop...
Screenshot from anthropic blog: Results Al's impact in the general workforce Overall, the members of our general sample of professionals described Al as a boost to their productivity. In the survey, 86% of professionals reported that AI saves them time and [highlighted in yellow] 65% said they were satisfied with the role Al plays in their work.
December 6, 2025 at 4:41 AM
maxine.science
rip
Spotify wrapped screenshot: My Listening Age 74 (in orange text) Since I was into music from the Late 60s
December 4, 2025 at 3:02 AM
maxine.science
I do appreciate how gatekeeper is greater than, but possibly also preceding, guide.
Zoomed in crop of the original post image, showing the bottom-right corner reading “~Gatekeeper > GUIDE” in black text with a black arrow to the right over the top, on an orange background.
December 2, 2025 at 12:32 PM
maxine.science
to be fair, living in SF I have definitely been in a Bedroom 4 situation.
Zoomed in drop of the quoted image of a terrible AI-generated floor plan for a house, centered on “Bedroom 4 Full Bsth #3”, which appears to contain only a sink and be about as wide as a single door.
December 2, 2025 at 12:09 PM
maxine.science
absolutely not going to buy these, but shout-out to the author for their original review, which really was a masterclass in the uncanny liminal space between self-indulgence and self-hatred.
Screenshot of the original review article on Wired: As we've watched the rise of Al gadgets and near-sentient chatbots, I have remained unclear on what, exactly, I'm supposed to be doing with them all. I like using ChatGPT for figuring out what to do with leftovers, but most of the time, I don't have questions that a quick Google search on my phone can't answer. That all changed when I started wearing the Metas. Once I slipped on a pair of voice-activated glasses, the world became full of questions, and I wanted answers. How much did that house across the street cost? The Al couldn't tell me, but it did tell me that I needed to resurface the walkway in front of my house. I asked it to identify plants and cars, and it did a good job at both. (It might help that my neighborhood mostly has distinctive vehicles of the Subaru Forester and Dodge Challenger variety.)
November 29, 2025 at 11:16 AM
maxine.science
that is one extremely thirsty sandwich
Zoomed-in photograph of two sticky notes on a window. The upper is yellow with a doodle of a sandwich with a smiley face saying “PUT ME IN YOUR MOUTH”; the lower is blue with bubble letters saying “I <3 SANDWICHES / BITE ME :)”
November 28, 2025 at 9:21 PM
maxine.science
ok—

*now* you have my permission to christmas
Screenshot of GCal mobile showing three days, Wed Nov 26 to Fri Nov 28. The last day is bracketed off with orange iOS screenshot pen.
November 28, 2025 at 2:36 PM
maxine.science
there can only be one
screenshot of the poster for “Alf on Alf” (2023 TV series) featuring the character Alf dressed in a blue silk robe holding a cognac glass in front of a burgundy background with cyan bar on top highlighting Alf’s head.
November 28, 2025 at 2:07 PM
maxine.science
lol also, all the best words. we’re here for that 2x vocab.
Anisota harvest card showing writing stats, with 7094 unique words (82% above average) circled in orange iOS pen.
November 27, 2025 at 8:13 PM
maxine.science
ｓｔｒｕｃｔｕｒｅ
Most used words in 2025: structure, human, model, those, folks, code, mean, makes, without, theory, toward, structural, science, design, seems, actual, models, wakeup, history, track, experience, internal, believe, architecture, consciousness, haha, llms, thinking, context, purpose, mind, power, find, less, structures, understand, vision, humans, field, content, material, training, wrong, given, language, strong, against, process, seen, mental, society, atproto, technology, tell, within, particular, itself, reality, consequences, must, value, ability, evidence, users, text, trans, tech, space, course, behavior, state, able, collective, specific, notion, works, help, incredible, conscious, situation, ones, output, dynamics, live, product, image, knowledge, similar, based, discourse, least, original, nature, talk, hard, wait, void, means, soundtrack, scientific (from Anisota's Annual Bluesky Harvest)
November 27, 2025 at 7:54 PM
maxine.science
You missed my favorite,

• Possibly also quantum field theory
Screenshot of an applied category theory paper about extremely fancy databases with lots of arrows and colored blobs and double arrows between the arrows
November 27, 2025 at 3:39 AM
maxine.science
oh shap, here come dat boi
Photograph of Springer series mathematics textbook, Shun-Ichi Amari, Information Geometry and Its Applications
November 24, 2025 at 12:11 PM
maxine.science
welp if this mf is goin down might as well break out the better stuff
Photo of a pour-over coffee setup in front of assorted vegetables and spices like Old Bat and S&B curry. In the foreground a hand is holding a bottle of Caperdonich 18 year Speyside single malt Scotch
November 18, 2025 at 2:29 PM
maxine.science
it’s so fucking ready for prod.
Screenshot of git diff - ## + ** 100% Architecture Production-Ready Release - Feature Parity Achieved** - This project is organized as a Cargo workspace with the following crates: + A high-performance Rust implementation of Claude Code - the AI-powered coding assistant that lives in your terminal. This rewrite delivers **100x+ faster startup** and **16x smaller footprint** compared to the NPM version, with **zero runtime dependencies**.
November 15, 2025 at 1:48 AM