nickrsan - Network

Every time I watch this talk, I take away something different about what motivates me and others, and see well-intentioned, but misguided...

Every time I watch this talk, I take away something different about what motivates me and others, and see well-intentioned, but misguided motivational tools all around me. Only 10 minutes and worth watching. I think I've seen it every 2 or 3 years since it came out.

Video at https://vimeo.com/13677854

Full talk linked from https://www.thersa.org/video/animates/2010/04/rsa-animate---drive

Anyone know if there's any research on if public service examinations increase or decrease hiring biases for government workers? I can...

Anyone know if there's any research on if public service examinations increase or decrease hiring biases for government workers? I can see arguments for both. Haven't gone digging yet - just kind of curious. Right now I'm feeling like it privileges those with the time and expertise to navigate the system.

Anyone have specific systems you love that aren't too costly in either staff time or money to set up and maintain and which showcase the...

Anyone have specific systems you love that aren't too costly in either staff time or money to set up and maintain and which showcase the items I mentioned before (or can be configured to) while allowing a staff member to put content in? Just getting a gutcheck before I launch another wordpress site.

A unit I work with handcodes HTML/CSS into a GitHub repository and hosts it there. They don't have a database and instead put all...

A unit I work with handcodes HTML/CSS into a GitHub repository and hosts it there. They don't have a database and instead put all repeating content in CSV files. They previously used Jekyll, but some students working on it are switching to React. The sites have worked and are low technical overhead, but require a knowledgeable technical person to make all content edits, and anything that doesn't fit in the CSV requires a dev hand-code it. It's not scaling well.

I've also configured numerous Wordpress installs for similar capabilities. It just requires a bit longer of setup and can be less...

I've also configured numerous Wordpress installs for similar capabilities. It just requires a bit longer of setup and can be less cohesive because lots of heavy lifting is done by plugins. I lean this direction when I have to set something new up, but also want to make sure people working on site content are comfortable.

At UC Davis, we had access to an excellent Drupal-based system called SiteFarm (https://sitefarm.ucdavis.edu/), where an expert team on...

At UC Davis, we had access to an excellent Drupal-based system called SiteFarm (https://sitefarm.ucdavis.edu/), where an expert team on campus pre-configured Drupal, but also allowed full customizability for people administering a lab or research unit website to control things directly. It was fast for simple sites and still removed administrative burden for more complex sites.

What software are you all using for academic websites? I'm specifically looking for tools that:1) Have content entered directly by...

What software are you all using for academic websites? I'm specifically looking for tools that:

1) Have content entered directly by people who know nothing about managing a website, and

2) Can be nicely configured to give a good overview and interconnection of people, projects, publications, and research outputs, in addition to news coverage and other types of general content.

I'll put some of what we've used in a thread, but trying to assess the landscape

Anyone have an online community that has an excellent set of etiquette guidelines to avoid toxic discussion behaviors? I'm looking to...

Anyone have an online community that has an excellent set of etiquette guidelines to avoid toxic discussion behaviors? I'm looking to review some good examples.

Microsoft launching new Bing preview with AI generated answers: https://www.bing.com/newOne example they give is AI writing a blog post...

Microsoft launching new Bing preview with AI generated answers: https://www.bing.com/new

One example they give is AI writing a blog post comparing noise canceling headphones. I look forward to the Internet full of empty content claiming to be authoritative.

Their FAQ says "Use your own judgment and double check the facts before making decisions or taking action based on Bing's responses." But they're giving people these responses while they're searching for facts. This won't go well.

Actual email I got today:'The University of California Office of the President invites comments on the proposed Presidential Policy on...

Actual email I got today:

'The University of California Office of the President invites comments on the proposed Presidential Policy on Developing and Maintaining Presidential Policies (“Policy on Policies”).'

You know you're in a giant organization when...

In all seriousness, it's good that they do this, but I couldn't read that without laughing.

Not my science, but really cool stuff: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2022/12/12/pollution-cleanup-method-destroys-toxic-forever-chemicalsUC...

Not my science, but really cool stuff: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2022/12/12/pollution-cleanup-method-destroys-toxic-forever-chemicals

UC Riverside researchers found that adding hydrogen to water contaminated with PFAS, then treating with UV breaks down PFAS almost completely - the article says that they hydrogen makes the water more reactive, which allows the UV to break the high energy bonds in the PFAS. Byproducts, according to the article, are water and the elements that composed the PFAS.

AI bots, impersonating real people, talking forever as artistic commentary on Deepfakes....

AI bots, impersonating real people, talking forever as artistic commentary on Deepfakes. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/herzog-and-zizek-become-uncanny-ai-bots-trapped-in-endless-conversation/

Playing with data from GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility - https://www.gbif.org/) and really liking the site. I think it's...

Playing with data from GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility - https://www.gbif.org/) and really liking the site. I think it's just because we're so California focused, by I'm surprised that something this great and well-built hasn't been a large part of my work up until now.

Ended up repairing it and learning how to compile Python code into binary .pyd files today - a much better feeling than ending the day on...

Ended up repairing it and learning how to compile Python code into binary .pyd files today - a much better feeling than ending the day on the frustrating breakage of a new tool

I think the day might end when I accidentally blow away my Python environment trying to use a new tool (that's supposed to make...

I think the day might end when I accidentally blow away my Python environment trying to use a new tool (that's supposed to make environments more stable, amusingly).

Well apparently the preview didn't work, so you'll have to click through to see the animation. It covers 2000-2015 and spreads flows...

Well apparently the preview didn't work, so you'll have to click through to see the animation. It covers 2000-2015 and spreads flows from a single gage through the entire basin in proportion with modeled data from the California Unimpaired Flows Database.

Made a visualization of interpolated daily river flows at the stream segment level for a small basin in California:...

Made a visualization of interpolated daily river flows at the stream segment level for a small basin in California: https://vimeo.com/385923992

Short version attached here, but click through to see the real thing!

On a related note, I love sqlite.

On a related note, I love sqlite.

Has anyone defined "medium data" yet? volumes of data for which standard tooling/scripts are a PITA, but where you still don't...

Has anyone defined "medium data" yet? volumes of data for which standard tooling/scripts are a PITA, but where you still don't want to learn or set up infrastructure for a true big data approach?

Ever wanted to get all the paper titles and metadata from a journal, and some frequency analysis on words in titles, authors, and...

Ever wanted to get all the paper titles and metadata from a journal, and some frequency analysis on words in titles, authors, and institutions? Me too! So now, there's an uhhhh, script for that: https://github.com/nickrsan/JournalMetadata