@moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · May 13, 2026

Replying to @xjasminelu@hci.social

@xjasminelu@hci.social welcome, and what a cool topic! I'm sure this will resonate with the people here. Tagging this with #introductions and #electronicwaste so that more people get to see it :)

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · May 12, 2026

Replying to @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

@HeidiSeibold@fosstodon.org @nicebread@scicomm.xyz @ElenLeFoll@fediscience.org So extending this analogy to the academic granting process, we would get application brutalism: short proposals, quickly judged, maybe assigned by weighted lottery. LLMs might produce flourishes, but their output is still decidedly mediocre. Flourishes are now worthless, so maybe a half-page core-idea proposal is the way to go?

caveat: I know nothing about cultural history, anyone actually knowledgeable is welcome to tell me how wrong I got this :)

3

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · May 12, 2026

Replying to @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

@HeidiSeibold@fosstodon.org @nicebread@scicomm.xyz @ElenLeFoll@fediscience.org I don't have a solution for this, but maybe we can use this framing for some kind of ill-advised historical analogy: In my (amateurish*) reading of history, once a technical process has automated previously hard-to-fake signals, these have subsequently been devalued and replaced by a new set of more minimalist values. Ostentatious flourishes eventually get replaced by (equally ostentatious) minimalism. (3/n)

0

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · May 12, 2026

Replying to @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

@HeidiSeibold@fosstodon.org @nicebread@scicomm.xyz @ElenLeFoll@fediscience.org LLMs make it possible to produce complexity without a corresponding (sufficiently complex) thought process. For an individual, this looks great (short-term labour savings!), but for an institution, it breaks their signaling process: Essentially, complex output no longer serves as a proxy for complex (and therefore hard-to-fake) thoughts. I guess this is the split we are observing here in this thread as well: labor savings vs costly signal devaluation. (2/n

2

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · May 12, 2026

Replying to @HeidiSeibold@fosstodon.org

@HeidiSeibold@fosstodon.org @nicebread@scicomm.xyz @ElenLeFoll@fediscience.org good points. This reminds me of this recent thread: https://mastodon.online/@tomstafford/116435591801241434 TL;DR: Grant application (and by extension all paperwork) are a form of "costly signal": for the institutions, a complex application process served as a (workable but imperfect) proxy for (vaguely defined) scientific merit. The complexity requirements are easy to change for them and rate-limit the applicants. What we are seeing now, society-wide, is that this process is broken. (1/n

6

1

3

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · May 06, 2026

Replying to @datum@zeroes.ca

@datum It's one of those "if you look into it too deeply, you'll find another layer of complexity" things. For a view of how this works in practice, I'd recommend this blogpost from Derek Lowe, always worth a read: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/stalking-polymorphs

6

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 22, 2026

Replying to @vik@mastodon.nzoss.nz

@vik@mastodon.nzoss.nz the #RepRapMicrom is a bona fide micromanipulator, pretty amazing! Gotta keep that in mind in case I ever get around to building the DYI light-sheet microscope I have in mind (that requires samples to be moved precisely in 3D space)

0

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 20, 2026

Replying to @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

@tomstafford (2/2) Instead, radically shorten the proposal length, and spend the reviewer time for a basic quality grading: e.g. pointless / ok idea / great idea / excellent idea. If there is reviewer time to spare, use it for detailed suggestions *for the submitters* how to improve their proposal for the next round. Discard the "pointless" bucket, and put the rest into a weighted lottery. Tolerate the higher noise and embrace the larger diversity of projects it brings.

2

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 20, 2026

Replying to @tomstafford@mastodon.online

@tomstafford One way I could see that might actually be a positive move: acknowledge that quality signals in text were always fuzzy at best, and are now degraded to the point that a detailed sorting by quality (whatever that means) is not possible anymore. As a consequence, stop trying to throw a limited resource (reviewer time) after a newly limitless one (submission texts) to try discerning ever more fine-grained gradations of excellence. (1/2)

2

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 20, 2026

Replying to @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

@tomstafford maybe our bullshit detectors will adapt in time, but I fear a lot of these processes will either become more selective (as we are seeing in research funding) or more dysfunctional (ask any programmer who has to maintain a be-slopped codebase, or anyone trying to review academic papers right now). I hope that we get to reinvent some of those processes over time - maybe there is a corner of education where there is freedom to experiment (and less of a profit motive to hold them back)?

2

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 20, 2026

Replying to @tomstafford@mastodon.online

@tomstafford Agreed, I think a good deal of opposition to AI use comes from the realization that it cheapens previously costly signals. I think we are (as a society) now discovering that a lot of processes relied on long-form text as a costly signal that a human spent some cognitive effort on this. These could have been for example rate-limiting mechanism (as for the scientific proposals you mentioned), or as indicator for learning (all of education).

1

4

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 17, 2026

Replying to @cr1901@mastodon.social

@cr1901 @th I remember that a scientific equipment manufacturer once sent our lab a prototype that used one of two unmarked USB-A ports... to send ca 30V to a peripheral. After a different USB peripheral had mysteriously stopped working, the engineers went "... Huh. Hadn't thought that anyone would do this." (It ended well, they shipped a replacement with a different port and cable at no cost, and everyone involved had learned something.)

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 16, 2026

Replying to @iddinev@mastodon.social

@iddinev @sarahdalgulls seconding Osprey. My Tropos is coming on 7 years of heavy daily use and is still fully intact. Zippers work, everything is watertight, and the built-in kickstand prevents it from toppling over. That's a feature that I didn't know I needed in a backpack.

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 07, 2026

Replying to @martinfleis@fosstodon.org

@martinfleis thanks, super nice to hear that it was built for interoperability like this! I'll check it out and see if I can wrap my head around it.

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 07, 2026

Replying to @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

@martinfleis Maybe a random question, but do you think that a similar approach could also work for things other than city plans? Specifically, I have a similar-looking problem with my multi-channel neuroanatomical data and am desperately looking for ways to make sense out of them at scale. I actually thought about analyzing them as "cellular neighbourhoods", so maybe there's some useful conceptual transfer to be had here :)

0

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 07, 2026

Replying to @martinfleis@fosstodon.org

@martinfleis Congrats, this looks super nice! The visualizations are excellent, I'm sure the #dataviz people will appreciate it.

0

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 04, 2026

Replying to @Hufnagel@mastodon.de

@Hufnagel @piratenpanda Verständlich. Viel Erfolg bei der Jobsuche!

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 04, 2026

Replying to @Hufnagel@mastodon.de

@Hufnagel @piratenpanda In Erlangen entsteht demnächst ein sehr cooles Labor für Lichtblattmikroskopie-Technikentwicklung. Siehe hier: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fabian-voigt-403150274_new-lab-alert-superhappy-to-announce-activity-7442937988084289537-WPaW

0

4

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 29, 2026

Replying to @yvanspijk@toot.community

@yvanspijk @rygorous @ossobuffo Looking forward to the eventual nano/nanus/(e)Nan(e/o) vs dwerg/zwerg/dwarf ... graphic :)

3

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 29, 2026

Replying to @rygorous@mastodon.gamedev.place

@rygorous and when we power them with fossil fuels, we use the heat of a long-bygone sunshine, captured in decaying jungles whose rotting remains were trapped in caverns under the ground for untold eons, then dug up and burnt to make artificial lightning... More than a bit of necromancy in fossil fuel, if you ask me

4

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 29, 2026

Replying to @rygorous@mastodon.gamedev.place

@rygorous @ossobuffo chances are that @yvanspijk has a cool infographic on how this word root moved around all across the Indo-European language family

2

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 24, 2026

Replying to @foxy@blahaj.zone

@foxy@blahaj.zone sure! For the lab students it's roughly 3 days a week, for the computational students a bit less. We worked side-by-side on the same project, so it's essentially full-time collaboration. Pretty intense but also a great force multiplier for a project. Typically I'd pilot a technique or assay and then hand it over to an intern to work out all the permutations. For the computational interns it was reversed: they knew their aspect of the work better than me so I learned a lot from them!

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 24, 2026

Replying to @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science

@foxy@blahaj.zone 3) teaching is part of my contract, not a separate job. I taught very few classes. Instead I mentored interns that worked in the lab on my project for 3-12 months full-time. Over the course of my PhD, I've mentored 9 interns in one capacity or another. Most became co-authors on the papers that resulted from the work, and I couldn't have done this workload without them.

0

2

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 24, 2026

Replying to @foxy@blahaj.zone

@foxy 0) Netherlands, Neurobiology. 1) nominally 4 years. It took me 8.5 years to actually graduate, which is definitely longer than most (average ca 6 years, after the end of the 4-year contract often unpaid on the side). Master's is typically required. A PhD program is considered a temporary job, not a study. 2) technically none, though the institute had a graduate school that gets you another certificate along with the PhD if you complete half a year's worth of MSc-equivalent courses.

1

3

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 23, 2026

Replying to @su_liam@mas.to

@su_liam @davidtheeviloverlord @RevPancakes @cstross haha yes, similar premise in this (also otherwise excellent) webcomic: https://dresdencodak.com/2009/07/12/fabulous-prizes/

1

0

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 03, 2026

Replying to @hwang@social.lol

@hwang@social.lol @3dprinting@techhub.social i have a core one and occasionally change filament. It has helped me a couple times getting the filament out of the hotend, so I'd consider it useful. This is my first FDM printer so I don't have a lot of comparison though.

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Mar 03, 2026

Replying to @fesshole@mastodon.social

@fesshole@mastodon.social This is a sucessful application of a technique called self-akshually-zation

0

3

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Feb 25, 2026

Replying to @joeroe@archaeo.social

@joeroe This might be a good start, long lists of media organizations on the fediverse: https://social.heise.de/@mho/116130339822952538

2

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Feb 07, 2026

Replying to @Natasha_Jay__dup_31065@tech.lgbt

@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt Tjeerd is active on the fediverse! He shares more of his poignant and incisive cartoons here: @royaards@newsie.social

3

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Dec 16, 2025

Replying to @geospacedman@mastodon.social

@geospacedman@mastodon.social @vonExplaino@mstdn.social Good for you, it'd be a sloppery slope otherwise. Before you know it, the desire to play the slop machine can become overwheLLMing.

7

0

2

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Dec 16, 2025

Replying to @vonExplaino@mstdn.social

@vonExplaino@mstdn.social and if the resulting work makes you fall asleep, it's not "boring" or "sleep inducing", it's sloporific.

9

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · May 17, 2025

The outright wrecking of the scientific infrastructure in the US under the current administration chilled me to my bone. Kept me doomscrolling. But I finally found a way to do something positive, in a small way: I dedicated some storage space and a bit of my internet connection to a decentralized backup of deleted research data.
I am happy to report that @SafeguardingResearch@fedihum.org 's torrent swarm now has ca 14 TB storage and a Gbit connection more.
#sciop #safeguardingresearch #academicchatter

fedihum.org

Safeguarding Research/Culture (@SafeguardingResearch@fedihum.org) - FeDiHum

323

5

269

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Apr 27, 2025

Replying to @gvwilson@mastodon.social

@gvwilson@mastodon.social Ah yes, a great work by the well known woodcut artist Hocookiesai

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Jan 09, 2024

Replying to @OhTheUrbanity@mastodon.social

@OhTheUrbanity@mastodon.social I had something new today: My bike's (cheapo hub-mounted) gearbox had let in some water, which froze and didn't let me shift beyond first gear. I thawed it indoors, but after 10 minutes outdoors it re-froze in an even more unfortunate position with the release permanently open. The pedals and chain are moving, but there is zero power arriving at the gearbox. Other than that, biking in winter is great (if the infrastructure is up to it). That's in Munich, Germany.

1

0

Moritz Negwer @moritz_negwer@mstdn.science · Aug 28, 2023

Replying to @briannosek@nerdculture.de

@briannosek@nerdculture.de Taste testers? Data freshness monitors? (Similar to how freshwater quality is tested with live fishes or clams in some places - they are sensitive to small variations in condition and therefore are useful sentinels for water quality). I also think there is a larger point to be made about food metaphors: like food, research has a (field-specific) best-by date, is industrially manufactured in large quantities and sometimes deliberately inflated with crap by unscrupulous actors.

1

0

Moritz Negwer

Posts

Safeguarding Research/Culture (@SafeguardingResearch@fedihum.org) - FeDiHum

Remote instance