Gieljan de Vries

@gieljandevries.bsky.social

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Gets paid to write about science | say no to generative ai | tabletop RPGs, forever DM | born at 338 ppm | Dutch & English, he / him

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@bskyttrpg.bsky.social reroll

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Gieljan de Vries

This thread is a RIDE

When an article says "some scientists think" then remember this: I, a scientist, once thought I could fit a whole orange in my mouth. I could, it turns out, get it in there, but I hadn't given sufficient thought to the reverse operation.

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This week in my "science graduate student skills for success" course we're talking about getting interviewed by journalists about your research. Scientists and science communicators who have been interviewed a lot, what top tips do you have for beginners? How do you prepare for an interview? 🧪

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My students were worried about the heat death of the Universe. I told them not to worry, that everything would be 0K.

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, was born #OTD in 1824. Kelvin is largely responsible for the modern formulation of thermodynamics. The absolute temperature scale, where thermal motion ceases at 0K, is named in his honor. In awe at the scale of this lord. Absolute (temperature) unit. 🧪

Should’ve rolled higher #HomeForWaywardDice

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Gieljan de Vries

British place names: A guide for confused Americans If a town has "cester" in its name, that bit is just prounounced "ster" Worcester = Wooster (with a short 'oo') Leicester = Lester Gloucester = Glosster Frocester = Froster Alcester = Allster Bicester = Bisster Towcester = Toaster (yes, really)

Ah, the dulcet tones of mosquito. This year’s Book of Gnat Splat on my bedside table is the 1969 Lovecraft anthology Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, Panther Horror. A nice one-handed finesse weapon for targeted bludgeoning. This night’s count: 6 going on 7. Come on baby, land.

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Gieljan de Vries

Look at this thing of beauty. This won a Nobel Prize. The Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar system. Einstein's General Relativity predicts orbital period between these massive compact objects should decay (the solid curve is the GR prediction). Incredibly, observations match this almost perfectly. 🔭🧪

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Gieljan de Vries

THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR IDIOMS: Slovenia vs Serbia 🇷🇸 A fairly savage Serbian curse translates to “may your wife give birth to a centipede so you spend your life working for shoes” vs 🇸🇮 An UNBELIEVABLY savage Slovene curse goes as follows… “I hope your tractor breaks”

Een goedbedoelende collega redigeert mijn verhaal en stelt voor om quantum consekwent met kw- te schrijven. Heb maar even uitgelegd dat ik dan moet onderduiken voor ziedende fysici. Of publiceren onder pseudoniem?

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Gieljan de Vries

"The view that people are merely biological computers who spit out words based on the totality of what they’ve read is offensively cynical. If we lower the standards for what it means to be human, however, machines look a lot more impressive." this is so fucking on point

This article goes in depth on this question, with the right angle: The comparison with human learning is a way to justify theft. Hope it helps :) www.tomshardware.com/news/ai-does...

AI Lie: Machines Don’t Learn Like Humans (And Don’t Have the Right To)www.tomshardware.com Some argue that bots should be entitled to ingest any content they see, because people can.

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I made this Pride flag using only NASA images and our team thought it would be cool to share on social (I work on the NASA heliophysics communications team), but it's getting all sorts of hate on the bird app and Fbook. Thought y'all might be more appreciative of it here. ☺️🏳️‍🌈💖

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Gieljan de Vries

Reply to

snackeru

If I had all the money I'd spent on pinball, I'd spend it on pinball.

I feel seen! (Please let this be available on a tshirt…)

My latest cartoon for New Scientist.

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Gieljan de Vries

Hello, today is my Birthday! ✨And the best gift for an artist is a retweet of his artworks 🌱🍃

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Gieljan de Vries

Science journalists. Please. I ask so little.

Once again a science journalist has failed the “if it doesn’t address cosmology, it doesn’t address dark matter” challenge (as well as the “talk to at least ONE physicist who is not the author of the paper” challenge)

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Gieljan de Vries

Haha dit is precies Marlijn

Always a pleasure to read these. Come for the beautiful little vignettes, stay for the typo disclaimers.

(Thread) Things spotted on market day in small city Aotearoa New Zealand: A small human distraught that her threadbare brown teddy does not get a milkshake like hers. Patient father explaining that teddy doesn't have milkshake holding paws. Small human looking entirely skeptical. (1)

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Gieljan de Vries

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Gieljan de Vries

Ik zal me altijd een verhaal van Niek Lopes Cardozo herinneren. Die vertelde dat hij, nadat hij de Fusion Road Show had ontwikkeld, een paar simpele dingen daaruit ook in voordrachten op congressen ging gebruiken. Zoals beginnen met het resultaat. Dat bleken de toehoorders erg fijn te vinden.

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Gieljan de Vries

Me: AI assistant, decline meetings AI: meetingae, meetingās, meetingārum, meetingīs

Tip: koop geen, nooit, nee, DOE HET NIET, O ONGELUKKIGE!!!, niet dus, het cranberrysap van Spar-huismerk Gwoon. Nasmaak zoals die fluorpasta waar je bij de tandarts in mocht happen.

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Gieljan de Vries

Hi, I’m a health physicist. My greatest hits include “Radioactive, Radiation, & Contamination are different things”, “Microwaves don’t do that”, “Anti-Rad pills aren’t real”, and “Cancer models require large populations. Can’t give individual odds.” I also do lasers. “It’s not a toy. Never was.”

Hi, I’m a climate scientist. My greatest hits include, “No it’s not a natural cycle,” “We’re the ones who told you it’s been warmer before” and “Even if it’s on YouTube it doesn’t mean it’s true.” I also cover the Christiana Figueres classic, “We’re only as doomed as we believe ourselves to be.”

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Gieljan de Vries

Who called a JAWS rip off set in France 'Under Paris', and not 'Shark de Triomphe'?

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Gieljan de Vries

RISHI: You're sure about this? ADVISOR: Yes RISHI: Because it's a big deal ADVISOR: Um, is it..? RISHI: Okay I'm doing it. DONE. Tweeted. ADVISOR: Cool I- WHAT?!. National EXPRESS! RISHI: You said National Service! ADVISOR: I said National EXPRESS! Instead of helicopters everywhere! RISHI: Oh fuuuck

Confirmation: NI Minister Steve Baker says Sunak’s National Service wheeze was developed by a political adviser and sprung on candidates with no consultation or even talking to relevant ministers.

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Gieljan de Vries

In honour of my husband finally finding the necessary cables to fire up the N64, finally allowing us to play Mortal Kombat 4 on date night again, here's "finish him" (lit. "impose death upon him") in Middle Egyptian.

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Gieljan de Vries

I endeavor to such prose.

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Gieljan de Vries

Reply to

Richard K

Actually still annoyed that my description of Cameron as "the man who put the Gove in government" never took off.

150,000,000 , 0.67 , 69 (the last one added quite recently)

What are some numbers in your field that anyone else in it would identify without even thinking about it, but folk outside may have no idea. Just the numbers, no explanations. Yet. 105 148 210 297 420 594 841 1189