Ben Hall

@hallben.bsky.social

106

Posts

Science, code, music, photography!
Research scientist at UCL interested in computational cancer biology and aging. Funded by MRC and Royal Society.

Posts Replies Media

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Ben Hall

Our #PhysiBoSS tutorial is finally available as a preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2406.18371! Learn how to build #multiscale models with #Boolean intracellular signaling, without any code, using #PhysiCell Studio. Showing 3 simple examples, and an update of @MRuscone invasion model 👇

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Ben Hall

The original Torment Nexus.

Reminder that meritocracy was invented (by Toby Young’s dad of all people) as a satirical idea for a dystopian book back in the 1950s, and shouldn’t be used as an actual way of justifying calcified privilege and inequality.

Some exciting professional news; I’ve been promoted to professor of computational cancer biology! www.ucl.ac.uk/human-resour...

Promotions 2023-24www.ucl.ac.uk Senior Academic, Research and Teaching Promotions 2023-24 successful list.

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Ben Hall

einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter: (1) your haters are trash (2) you’re a baller, a true queen (3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️

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Ben Hall

"Sped up this lengthy process, still needs to be checked by a human" is the actual use case for generative AI. But that's not what the hype would have you believe.

One of the most fascinating things about generative AI is the businesses and states that are using it are largely doing “we’ve sped up this lengthy process”, whereas the tech companies’ largely seem to be going “we made this thing you like worse”.

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Ben Hall

Brontësaurus. Ink & gouache on Strathmore grey toned paper, 151 x 147mm, 2014. Because this seems to be doing the rounds again elsewhere. Perhaps the only piece of mine to have gone mildly viral, shunted uncredited like an orphan from workhouse to workhouse across the Internet over the years. 🤓

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Ben Hall

I invented a machine to help aging pop groups keep fit on tour. My only problem is that the waiting list to use it is getting ridiculously long because the first group are taking ages on it. I'm still working out the Kinks.

I invented a machine to clone pop groups. At the moment there are a few issues - like, all the clones are a quarter of the size of the originals. Still, little Steps.

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Ben Hall

🧪One last bump for this request. I spoke with a lovely computational chemist this morning, but where are my ecologists? Cancer biologists? Geneticists? Climate change scientists? I know y'all here on Bluesky aren't living under a rock. How have your personal experiments with Chat-GPT gone?

🧪 #journorequest: Are you a scientist thinking critically about how your intellectual property is being leveraged to train AI? Are you reading this and thinking that maybe you should be? I'd love to chat with you for a story in Nature.

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Ben Hall

My company: click this link to take your cybersecurity training immediately or risk termination Training: be wary of emails creating a sense of urgency and fear asking you to click a link

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Ben Hall

As a fan of Casey and a reader of this book, this shit is Life Changing and only $4 this weekend.

i got my almost 30-year-old neopets account back. that doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but i'm filled with a sense of possibility, so Couch to Barbell is only $4 through Memorial Day weekend. discount auto-applies in cart, run don't walk! store.shesabeast.co/products/lif...

LIFTOFF: Couch to Barbellstore.shesabeast.co Get a piece of the strength training sensation! Over 10,000 copies sold! Feeling strong is life-changing. But most of us never even get the chance to experience the difference it makes, because we t...

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Ben Hall

This is my policy. I don't know if it's the best. But I just give students a very low grade when they use LLMs because the writing is simply just bad.

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Ben Hall

Reply to

News Feed

“How to make pizza.” Google: Whoa whoa! Take it easy there!

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Ben Hall

Reply to

Richard.

What was it lately? The emails slipping through the cracks? The needing re-orientation on a given project at each meeting? The “things will be less busy next month”? 😅

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Ben Hall

as I get more settled as a midcareer prof I'm having a lot of "oh now I can see how people end up this way" moments. 😭

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Ben Hall

So, why is Labour's election slogan Change and not Steer Calmer with Keir Starmer?

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Ben Hall

Tired of his campaign being too on the nose, this weekend Sunak will visit a football ground where, against the wishes of the club staff, the owner is demolishing one of the stands. "We're due to lose hundreds of seats," the manager will say

This latest one inspired by Sunak's Day Three campaign: visiting the factory where they made the Titanic. Tomorrow: a factory where they make 'Exit' signs.

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Ben Hall

NEW KNIVES OUT ALERT

The next Knives Out, called Wake Up Dead Man, premieres in 2025www.theverge.com Benoit Blanc is back.

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Ben Hall

NEW: This is the best thing the Tories did in office (FREE TO READ). takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/this-is-th...

This is the best thing the Tories did in officetakes.jamesomalley.co.uk They didn't make *everything* worse.

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Ben Hall

I always felt like Star Trek III got a raw deal when it came to movie posters but this new one by Matt Ferguson for the cinema re-release is *lovely*. #StarTrek www.empireonline.com/movies/news/...

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Ben Hall

I didn't know McDonald's had a Specials board

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Ben Hall

[runs into the room out of breath] REEL BIG FILET-O-FISH

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Ben Hall

I hope all those PhD candidates that started their PhDs in the first weeks of COVID are doing okay 🍫

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Ben Hall

There is such a thing as society - and to fix this country after 14 years of Tory ruin, we’re going to need to start saying as much. My latest

There is such a thing as societywww.newstatesman.com To fix this country after 14 years of Tory ruin, we’re going to need to start saying as much.

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Ben Hall

Working on a piece of Tolkien fan fiction where the daily life of inhabitants of King Thranduil’s realm is told through a series of voices in the style of Dylan Thomas’s greatest work. I am calling it Under. Mirk. Wood.

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Ben Hall

I used to compare the drawbacks of no smartphones for kids to growing up in a house with no or limited TV, until my mother emailed to complain with a point that has really stayed with me, which is that at least she was also willing to do without a TV.

Said it before, but to reiterate: "Ban social media for under 16s" "internet-free phones for children" These ideas may have worked 20 years ago, but that horse bolted so long ago, it's galloped around the planet and is now approaching the stable from the opposite direction /1

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Ben Hall

Reply to

Alastair Meeks

In related news good to see Stephen’s newsletter today re the looming university disaster. Not sure people realise how big a decent sized university is these days - say 20k students and 5k staff. Obviously devastating for all concerns including the local community with huge news value.

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Ben Hall

This has been everywhere, because it’s true. Every step of my writing journey has been owed to those around me, to people who have helped and supported that journey, believed in it when I couldn’t do so myself. You are all amazing.

Practising a talk for tomorrow and thinking of how I can only reveal the changes the slides need in speaking it out loud. Reminded of the Harrison Ford quote about Star Wars dialogue “you can write this stuff George but you can’t say it”.

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Ben Hall

I have a joke about removing common factors from numerators and denominators but it'll get me cancelled.

I have a joke about Danny La Rue but it’s quite a drag.

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Ben Hall

Reply to

Ian Martin

This is a very good "why are Israel in Eurovision" article by @jonnelledge.bsky.social www.bigissue.com/culture/musi...

Making your mind up: The long history of Eurovision, politics and Israel, explainedwww.bigissue.com Eurovision has rarely been apolitical, from its origins as a mechanism to bind a war-shattered continent together to controversial songs.