Ary Shalizi
@unsequenced.bsky.social
Biologist, book nerd, parent, hype skeptic in no particular order.
Phenotypic screening for cell and chemical biology.
Also, random book reviews at link.
unsequenced.life
Phenotypic screening for cell and chemical biology.
Also, random book reviews at link.
unsequenced.life
Pinned
Happy(belated) Solstice, #booksky! Year-end book wrap-up: 53 titles, reviews of almost every one, and my picks for 5 best fiction and 5 best nonfiction I read in 2025. (Although only one of those was actually published this year.)
Hey #booksky, this year I got myself off of Audible in favor of Libro, Libby, and Hoopla. I tried leaving GoodReads, but never really came around to StoryGraph. Has anyone tried Bookwyrm, or Bookworm, or know of other reading trackers they enjoy? Or should I give the StoryGraph another go in 2026?
December 31, 2025 at 5:36 AM
Hey #booksky, this year I got myself off of Audible in favor of Libro, Libby, and Hoopla. I tried leaving GoodReads, but never really came around to StoryGraph. Has anyone tried Bookwyrm, or Bookworm, or know of other reading trackers they enjoy? Or should I give the StoryGraph another go in 2026?
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Sauron is appearing on the scene as concerns rise about crime among the most wealthy.
Sauron, the high-end home security startup for "super premium" customers, plucks a new CEO out of Sonos | TechCrunch
Sauron is appearing on the scene as concerns rise about crime among the most wealthy.
techcrunch.com
December 29, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Join now, and your home also receives a discount code from the ever loyal and true security experts at Boromir Protective Services, LLC.
My father’s first visit to CA since the girls were born, showing his grandkids around the Berkeley campus.
“I think those are the same tables they had when I was studying architecture.”
“Yes, we ran down to that stream after Reagan ordered the soldiers to teargas the protestors.”
“I think those are the same tables they had when I was studying architecture.”
“Yes, we ran down to that stream after Reagan ordered the soldiers to teargas the protestors.”
December 28, 2025 at 9:02 PM
My father’s first visit to CA since the girls were born, showing his grandkids around the Berkeley campus.
“I think those are the same tables they had when I was studying architecture.”
“Yes, we ran down to that stream after Reagan ordered the soldiers to teargas the protestors.”
“I think those are the same tables they had when I was studying architecture.”
“Yes, we ran down to that stream after Reagan ordered the soldiers to teargas the protestors.”
This is such a wild take! Unless you’re just passively ingesting text, what you read is always in dialog with your experiences and the other texts you have read.
Re books: books and literature are useful for information, but they aren't interactive and dialogic. They don't fulfil the same function that I'm referring to.
December 28, 2025 at 12:31 AM
This is such a wild take! Unless you’re just passively ingesting text, what you read is always in dialog with your experiences and the other texts you have read.
For Hanukkah, we got the kids the modern version, which is called “Codebreaker.” The box definitely lacks the Cold War allure of the original.
The countdown of our most-read pieces of 2025 continues! Here's #21:
The Mastermind Box Cover: What the Hell Were They Thinking?
- - -INVICTA GAMES, LTD. Packaging Team — Official Minutes Project: Mastermind / New Cover Presentation MARTIN SMITH (Marketing Senior Vice Presi...
buff.ly
December 27, 2025 at 4:35 PM
For Hanukkah, we got the kids the modern version, which is called “Codebreaker.” The box definitely lacks the Cold War allure of the original.
So does “_____ is a Christmas movie” discourse end today, or does it continue through the feast of Epiphany?
December 25, 2025 at 5:22 PM
So does “_____ is a Christmas movie” discourse end today, or does it continue through the feast of Epiphany?
Happy(belated) Solstice, #booksky! Year-end book wrap-up: 53 titles, reviews of almost every one, and my picks for 5 best fiction and 5 best nonfiction I read in 2025. (Although only one of those was actually published this year.)
December 22, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Happy(belated) Solstice, #booksky! Year-end book wrap-up: 53 titles, reviews of almost every one, and my picks for 5 best fiction and 5 best nonfiction I read in 2025. (Although only one of those was actually published this year.)
I feel like just the CAD files for . @cirquedusoleil.bsky.social must be incredible. The amount of technical effort necessary to pull off an effortless performance — breaking neither bones nor the illusion — is phenomenal. Kids should know that STEM skills are valuable for the arts, too.
December 22, 2025 at 2:37 AM
I feel like just the CAD files for . @cirquedusoleil.bsky.social must be incredible. The amount of technical effort necessary to pull off an effortless performance — breaking neither bones nor the illusion — is phenomenal. Kids should know that STEM skills are valuable for the arts, too.
I feel like there is a dystopian short story, or “Saw” type movie, that could come out of this… AI scientists trapped in labs and made to do the bench work and write the papers for all the fake citations generated by LLMs.
I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.
December 21, 2025 at 12:24 AM
I feel like there is a dystopian short story, or “Saw” type movie, that could come out of this… AI scientists trapped in labs and made to do the bench work and write the papers for all the fake citations generated by LLMs.
The reboot @hypervisible.blacksky.app warned us about!
KEVIN: Hello?
MOM: Kevin!
KEVIN: Mom?
MOM: I’m so sorry you’re home alone! Your sister accidentally took your jacket that had your AirTag in the pocket, and we were too busy listening to Audible to notice you were missing.
MOM: Kevin!
KEVIN: Mom?
MOM: I’m so sorry you’re home alone! Your sister accidentally took your jacket that had your AirTag in the pocket, and we were too busy listening to Audible to notice you were missing.
Home Alone, Updated for the Age of Surveillance
Kate McCallister realizes that her son Kevin didn’t make it with them to the airport on their way to Paris for the holidays. She frantically pulls ...
buff.ly
December 20, 2025 at 2:55 AM
The reboot @hypervisible.blacksky.app warned us about!
Last batch of book reviews for the year, and I managed to write about almost every title I read this year. I know I'm not finishing anything else this year, now that the kids are out of school...
💙📚 #booksky #bookreview
💙📚 #booksky #bookreview
December 19, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Last batch of book reviews for the year, and I managed to write about almost every title I read this year. I know I'm not finishing anything else this year, now that the kids are out of school...
💙📚 #booksky #bookreview
💙📚 #booksky #bookreview
Personally, I always imagined ChatGPT sounds like Sam Altman.
Deep down, perhaps every right-leaning man wishes that chatbots could be the endlessly supportive and sexually receptive secretaries they saw in 70s movies or in porn.
This is why almost every AI system is voiced by default by a young-sounding woman.
This is why almost every AI system is voiced by default by a young-sounding woman.
If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...
December 18, 2025 at 1:32 AM
Personally, I always imagined ChatGPT sounds like Sam Altman.
Sometimes I am tempted to give the UX designers the benefit of the doubt, and think “hey, maybe moving everything around is a great way to stave off cognitive decline.”
But I know that not actually what’s going on.
But I know that not actually what’s going on.
I hate every single one of these latest iPhone update changes.
December 17, 2025 at 1:31 AM
Sometimes I am tempted to give the UX designers the benefit of the doubt, and think “hey, maybe moving everything around is a great way to stave off cognitive decline.”
But I know that not actually what’s going on.
But I know that not actually what’s going on.
This program is great! If you’re even remotely interested in complex dynamic systems, you should absolutely apply.
Are you an early-career researcher or research professional with a broad interest in complexity science?
Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 CSSS program, a three-week, in-residence program offering an intensive introduction to complexity science.
Apply by Feb 4, 2026
santafe.edu/csss
Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 CSSS program, a three-week, in-residence program offering an intensive introduction to complexity science.
Apply by Feb 4, 2026
santafe.edu/csss
December 17, 2025 at 1:27 AM
This program is great! If you’re even remotely interested in complex dynamic systems, you should absolutely apply.
![Excerpt from chapter 6 of Italo Calvino’s novel “If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler”, describing the work of the Organization for the Electronic Production of Homogenized Literary Works (OEPHLW), which produces books using “computers… capable of completing [an unfinished manuscript] easily, programmed as they are to develop all the elements of a text with perfect fidelity to the stylistic and contextual models of the author.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qvcmzr3ttriadi27yamf6k5v/bafkreiabtraod7lozipvmltzn4lb2zst6qqwwv6cfnf27dy2xxqvlqt26q@jpeg)
Wife picked up an advent candle on a trip to Denmark, and we used it to light the shamash for the hanukkiah, with some friends from the neighborhood.
December 15, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Wife picked up an advent candle on a trip to Denmark, and we used it to light the shamash for the hanukkiah, with some friends from the neighborhood.
I think this is what the Persians say about Thermopylae.
Happy Hanukkah, the holiday where we celebrate the defeat of a large cosmpolitan empire by a small determined group of militant religious fanatics
December 15, 2025 at 4:52 AM
I think this is what the Persians say about Thermopylae.
I know it's popular to say "peer review is broken," but LLMs are definitely not the way to fix it...
“The noise in human peer reviews is crucial because it arises from the variability in human experience and practical knowledge — two features that no model’s training corpus can fully capture,” writes Giorgio F. Gilestro in Nature about the introduction of AI peer reviews. #Academicsky 🧪
AI reviewers are here — we are not ready
Artificial intelligence promises rapid and polite feedback on papers — but we must first review the reviewer.
go.nature.com
December 14, 2025 at 6:07 PM
I know it's popular to say "peer review is broken," but LLMs are definitely not the way to fix it...
They didn’t touch on it here (probably because it’s neuroscience inside baseball), but one of the frustrating things about media portrayals of Neuralink is that they got a lot of press for replicating old results.
Episode 47: Elon Musk
Walter Isaacson’s definitive biography poses the question: is it ok to be a pathetic, cruel, lying reactionary if it kind of helps you build cars?
Walter Isaacson’s definitive biography poses the question: is it ok to be a pathetic, cruel, lying reactionary if it kind of helps you build cars?
Elon Musk
Podcast Episode · If Books Could Kill · 12/09/2025 · 1h 28m
podcasts.apple.com
December 9, 2025 at 8:59 PM
They didn’t touch on it here (probably because it’s neuroscience inside baseball), but one of the frustrating things about media portrayals of Neuralink is that they got a lot of press for replicating old results.
Started reading The Hobbit to my 8yo tonight, and half a chapter in, she says “Dad, this is basically just The Church Mice, but with mythical creatures,” and I really feel like I am winning as a parent.
💙📚
💙📚
December 9, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Started reading The Hobbit to my 8yo tonight, and half a chapter in, she says “Dad, this is basically just The Church Mice, but with mythical creatures,” and I really feel like I am winning as a parent.
💙📚
💙📚
This year, my youngest wanted to do a Diwali-themed party for her 8th birthday, to “learn more about her Indian heritage.” I told her we’d have to do some research, because I didn’t grown up celebrating Diwali, and her great grandmother was Anglican, basically a tiny brown Maggie Smith.
a lot of them seemed to think being born Indian meant you were automatically Hindu?
December 6, 2025 at 11:43 PM
This year, my youngest wanted to do a Diwali-themed party for her 8th birthday, to “learn more about her Indian heritage.” I told her we’d have to do some research, because I didn’t grown up celebrating Diwali, and her great grandmother was Anglican, basically a tiny brown Maggie Smith.
8yo tonight: “Dad, stop doing dishes and start dancing! Now!”
December 6, 2025 at 3:29 AM
8yo tonight: “Dad, stop doing dishes and start dancing! Now!”
It's thanks to Looney Toons (and Monty Python) that I learned gender is a social construct...
Oh no, we can't loose the strict adherence to traditional ideas of gender and sexuality that the Looney Tunes cartoons were so famous for.
December 6, 2025 at 12:23 AM
It's thanks to Looney Toons (and Monty Python) that I learned gender is a social construct...
This book is so good, I may actually finish it before the end of the year.
December 5, 2025 at 9:39 PM
This book is so good, I may actually finish it before the end of the year.