Tom Hartley

Thanks to @rachelphysics.bsky.social I watched "Steve" on Netflix last night. Excellent film.

Synesthetes claim sensory experiences, such as seeing color when reading or hearing a (black) number. 
But how genuine are these reports and sensations? We introduce a rather direct measure of synesthetic perception: Synesthetes’ pupils respond to evoked color as if it was real color #vision! 👁️🎨🧪

Same with scientific writing. Get a complete first draft quick but rough. Then refine. I wish I'd learned quicker!

I think with a lot of creative tasks it's great to get a version down and then improve it; aiming to be perfect first time is the enemy of success. In recording music I made progress when I split tracking, editing, mixing, mastering - standard; but if you try to mix too soon, it's disruptive.

This is a great thread. Also reminds me of my breakthrough experience in programming where I realized I enjoyed debugging. Once I got into that frame of mind it helped so much. I would write some code and try to predict what would go wrong. Then I got a boost if I was right, fix and repeat.

New paper on PsyArXiv looking at task difficulty (memory load), serial order, and error patterns in children’s #workingmemory using a large-scale dataset (N~15,000) #developmental #psychology With @richjallen.bsky.social and @amyatkinson.bsky.social
osf.io/preprints/ps...

And then all the way up again.

Human hippocampal theta–gamma coupling coordinates sequential planning during navigation

Impressive study from Dan Bush's Lab at UCL:

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Google Auto completed my query "are pencil sha..." with "peners made of magnesium".

Funnily enough this was.exactly the question I had in mind, and had just spoken about.

PHILOSOPHY & FUN OF ALGEBRA BY MARY EVEREST BOOLE AUTHOR OF “PREPARATION OF THE CHILD FOR SCIENCE,” ETC.

📚 Now reading 📚

Mary Everest Boole (1909). Philosophy and Fun of Algebra. archive.org/details/phil...

(h/t @olivia.science)

1/🧵

Starmer: If you don't like Labour changes leave Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said Labour has changed permanently under his leadership.

Voters doing exactly what Labour wanted of them www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-p...

I think this is a *super* important paper - if this result can be replicated with other regions or tasks then this may come to form our core understanding of credit assignment signals in the neocortex!

#neuroscience 🧪

this is incredibly shortsighted institutional goal

🤮

It struck me as very interesting. Good luck.

Not central to the issue of LLMs but I am surprised that some academics of whatever persuasion are arguing that academic writing is "not supposed to read well". But it would explain a lot!

A week ago, we had an open conversation amongst senior academics in leadership roles and their use of LLMs (in both their leadership capacities and individually). Small group, not representative, but it already taught me a great deal about the diversity of perspectives (& their consequences). 1/

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me Summary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…

Letting "AI agents" roam should be illegal, and any harm they cause should cause fines high enough to bankrupt anyone.

theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

I am genuinely sorry that since I retired I will no longer be participating in this recurring discussion.

Getting my PhD

Me, posing in front of the portico.

UCL Psychology Panto, featuring Stevie Sackin, me (as golden singing harp), Celia Heyes, Chris Mitchell, Tim Shallice (front of pantomime cow, or horse, I can't remember who was in the back), Dorothy Einon, George Houghton. Directed by Sophie Scott.

Group photo at the ICN not long after the building opened. 1999.

Some memories of UCL.

Getting my PhD

Me, posing in front of the portico.

UCL Psychology Panto, featuring Stevie Sackin, me (as golden singing harp), Celia Heyes, Chris Mitchell, Tim Shallice (front of pantomime cow, or horse, I can't remember who was in the back), Dorothy Einon, George Houghton. Directed by Sophie Scott.

Group photo at the ICN not long after the building opened. 1999.

Some memories of UCL.

I was there for about 12 years. Had fun, made friends, learned a lot. And whenever I go back there I feel like I am coming home. Happy birthday UCL.

I feel the same, tbh.

Do take 15 minutes out of your day to read this @andrewprlevi.bsky.social 🧵 The signs were there for decades

It isn’t possible for PMs to be expert in all fields…or indeed in many. Which is why having the judgement to identify very high quality advisors and really listen to them really matter..

“Some might be tempted to dismiss the Epstein files as just evidence of the extreme behaviour of a prolific sex offender.

But strip away the lewd and crude content, and they also reveal much about how patriarchy works day to day.”

I am surprised there's not more discussion about the security services' role in this. A lot of what's revealed in the Epstein files looks like subversion. While the authorities and government focus on people protesting fossil fuels or the war in Gaza, they don't seem alert to the greater threats.

We owe it to Epstein’s victims and to British democracy to demand historic change | Gordon Brown The abuse of women by figures such as Epstein, and of political power by the likes of Mandelson, must be confronted. As far as I am able, I will play my part, says former UK prime minister Gordon Brow...

“We owe it to Epstein’s victims and to British democracy to demand historic change”
Gordon Brown

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Job alert!!

We're looking for a Postdoc and two RAs on a 3-year project examining the effects of smartphones on sleep and mental health in adolescents. Details below:

RA: tinyurl.com/7h6zrz2k
Postdoc: tinyurl.com/ykmsk757

Please repost :)

From the Cooking community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the Cooking community

Sometimes reddit is an amazing resource.

www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/co...

Anything other than 5 seems a bit naive at this point.