While I'm not physically at the DSI today for my friend @tylerjamesburch.com's visit and talks, it makes me happy to see that he got to meet my colleagues and know that I was welcoming him remotely. :)
My one-hour special “Rick Steves Iran: Yesterday and Today,” which helps humanize 90 million Iranian people, is streaming free and ad-free at www.ricksteves.com/watch-iran.
The President of the United States is threatening to commit war crimes and wipe out a "whole civilization" — all because he started a disastrous war of his own making and had no plan and no strategy for how to end it.
This is abhorrent, and the American people do not support this.
Growing up in Illinois in the '90s during the Chicago Bulls dynasty means that this song acst as a signal for "lock in" mode for my brain.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkC_...
Pete Hegseth needs to go, NOW.
Since the start of Trump's war in Iran, Hegseth has — without justification — continued firing some of our top military leaders.
Our service members deserve better than a power-tripping warmonger who thinks war is a big video game.
www.axios.com/2026/04/03/h...
In the context of the FY27 PBR it helps to go back to Robert Wilson’s famous testimony to Congress about funding for the NAL(Fermilab) in FY1970 and ask the natural question, why are there some people so hell-bent on tearing down so much of what makes this country worth defending?⚛️🧪
When it has been a long week reviewing some truly excellent proposals for @scipyconf.bsky.social is a great way to lift the academic spirit and make me excited for July 2026. :)
OK for fun: top funniest tweet ever? I am torn between "moon's haunted" and "Denise I was at your wedding."
BREAKING: In response to huge cuts in Trump's budget request, NSF is shuttering its SBE directorate. Staff will be transferred to other parts of the agency and "grants that align with Administration priorities" will be maintained.
That & more w/ @maxkozlov.bsky.social & @edwrdchen.bsky.social
roon @tszzl the private sector has been remaking its own versions of NIH, ARPA etc as these public science institutions have seen structural decline and defunding and it will be supercharged by the funding NPV of machine intelligence and its firepower at allocation decisions
This is only true for people who understand neither science nor economics.
The NIH budget for this year is FIFTY times larger than OpenAI’s $1B pledge.
The foundation of US science & innovation is public funding. The private sector cannot replace it.
US science is being killed
If the estimates were right, there were about 9 million people at No Kings rallies today.
That would mean this protest was THIRTY TIMES AS LARGE AS THE TEA PARTY PROTEST which we were told, over and over again, was a massively important sign that US politics had shifted dramatically to the right
No more duplicate dependencies in pyproject.toml!
Pixi Python packages can now set `ignore-pypi-mapping = false` to automatically convert `pyproject.toml` dependencies into conda package requirements.
The goal is no configuration, this is a step in that direction!
Trump's newly announced council of scientific advisors is a startling departure from precious PCASTs: Instead of academic researchers or industry scientists, nine out of 13 members are billionaires, who have a combined wealth of over $900 billion.
My reporting:
I would be interested to see the note, given I have a CHEP 2026 talk in this direction.
Hm. Maybe it is already platform agnostic for (using conda parlance) linux-64 and linux-aarch64 given the distribution drop down options on packagemanager.posit.co/client/#/rep.... Though if you're working on say Ubuntu 22.04 locally and your cluster is AlmaLinux 9 is there an agnostic solution?
That's quite a bit better than July 2025, so nice work. Would be nice to see a platform agnostic approach though that would allow for portable ~/.Rprofile across Linux x86_64 and Linux aarch64 platforms.
Following up 7 months later (sorry, though thanks for taking your time to reply last July!) it is nice to see things improved! From packagemanager.posit.co/client/#/rep... I can indeed now in a Linux container get R installed and then echo the options to ~/.Rprofile and `install.packages` works.
1/fb in 14h!
By chance I met Matthew Becker, of the conda-forge/core team, at the 2026 APS Global Summit as we both gave talks this morning. Always fun when physics and software make the world feel much smaller. :)
"Cementing a machine-learning ecosystem: scikit-learn and beyond": on Friday March 20, we at @ucbids.bsky.social and the Berkeley Statistics department are delighted to host @gaelvaroquaux.bsky.social for a seminar. Join us in person or online!
events.berkeley.edu/BIDS/event/3...
📣 Want to help shape #SciPy2026?
🙋♀️ Join our Program Review Committee and help review talk, poster, or tutorial proposals!
🌟 This is a great way to support SciPy and get involved in the scientific Python community!
👉️ Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
🚨 Great news! The #SciPy2026 CFP deadline has been extended.
🗓️ New CFP Deadline: March 4th, 2026.
🚀You have 1 more week to submit your proposal.
🙋♀️Don’t miss this chance to present a tutorial, talk or poster at your favorite scientific Python conference!
👉️ Submit here: pretalx.com/scipy-2026/cfp
⏰ The deadline to submit to #SciPy2026 is approaching!
Don’t miss your chance to speak at this incredible conference and share your work with the scientific Python community 💙
Submit your proposal here 👉 pretalx.com/scipy-2026/cfp
🌟 Our #SciPy2026 organizing team just had the kickoff meeting!
🚀 We’re super excited to start building an incredible conference for the scientific Python community!
Hope to see you there! 🙌
👉️ Grab your ticket now and join us in Minneapolis: ti.to/scipy/scipy2...
A Reuters photographer captured this image of a page from Pam Bondi's "burn book," which she used to counter any questions from Democratic lawmakers during an unhinged hearing today.
It looks like the DOJ monitored members of Congress’s searches of the unredacted Epstein files.
Just wow.
HOW DOES THIS GRIFT KEEP WORKING
🤔 Thinking about submitting a proposal to SciPy 2026 and want feedback or guidance? We’ve got you covered ✨
🚀 Join our Proposal Writing Office Hours
📅 First session is next week
👉 Register here: www.scipy2026.scipy.org#officehours
For reference, building 8-12 new beamlines at NSLS-II over the next 12 years or so is also about 500M$
Alberto Castañeda Mondragón was hospitalized with eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages. Officers claimed he ran into a wall, but medical staff doubted that account. n.pr/4bHoZDU
GM: Charisma check.
Mamdani: [rolls natural 20]
GM: that’s a d6 how did you
Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊