![](\"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Gustave_Courbet_auto-retrato.jpg/330px-Gustave_Courbet_auto-retrato.jpg\"/)
\nSelf-protrait by Gustave Courbet.
\nSource: Wikipedia. CC-BY-SA\n
Ahhh! PSB's RFS! A delightfully indulgent soundscape of melodic wonder, performed here on its 10th (ish) anniversary. Is it really nostalgia if an album is only a decade old? It feels like it has been in the air forever.
\n\n![\"The](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/On-Stage.webp\")
\n\nFor something which is seemingly made up of samples, it would have been easy for them to half-arse it and basically just play the CD. Instead we got a full band, guest singers, and 360\u00b0 video projection,
\n\n![\"Flight](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Laser-Display.webp\")
\n\nOh, also a disco Sputnik flying over the crowd!
\n\n![\"A](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Disco-Sputnik.webp\")
\n\nSimply magical! As were the indoor fireworks.
\n\n![\"Sparks](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Fireworks.webp\")
\n\nI might quibble a little with their song choices (no Gagarin!) but hearing the crowd repeatedly scream \"GO!\" was magnificent.
\n\nAlly Pally isn't a raked venue, so the video projection of the band was most welcome. An excellent gig in a splendid location.
\n\nAs I've written about before, the art of the Pre-Show and Post-Show is vital for getting people to pay for events outside of their homes. Right now I can stream all the music in the world for a year for about the same price as a couple of gig tickets. Why should I freeze my arse off outside, paying stupid money for mass-produced lager, when I could be at home?
\n\nPSB kept up a constant stream of emails talking about the gig. Not an overwhelming amount, just letting people peek behind the curtain of organising it, giving helpful information about logistics, and letting us know about merchandise which was available.
\n\nCrucially, they also gave us stage timings for them and their support act! How many times have you turned up on time to a gig only to spend an hour listening to some crap DJ before the crew even started setting up the stage? PSB treat their fans with respect.
\n\nAlly Pally isn't a venue I've been to before. It was well laid out with decent toilet provision - including a big block of portaloos at the back of the hall. The beer prices weren't ruinous, but I kind of resented paying \u00a315 for a veggie hotdog and a handful of chips.
\n\nSome venues seem to think that screaming at punters to open their bags will make for an enjoyable visit. Here the security staff were polite and not overly officious. Water bottles were allowed in with a cheery wave.
\n\nPost show - although the train stations are downhill, there were several buses waiting to take punters directly back. That's a perfect way of treating guests at your venue - ensuring that they get home safe and sound.
![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=75993&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/exck1-pr238","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=75993","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PSB-RFS.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790467200,"rid":"9ewy3-fm172","summary":"Ahhh! PSB's RFS! A delightfully indulgent soundscape of melodic wonder, performed here on its 10th (ish) anniversary. Is it really nostalgia if an album is only a decade old? It feels like it has been in the air forever.","tags":["/etc/","Gig","Review"],"title":"Gig Review: Public Service Broadcasting's Race For Space at Alexandra Palace","updated_at":1790508914,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/gig-review-public-service-broadcastings-race-for-space-at-alexandra-palace/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/02jz4aj89","name":"Maastricht University"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Willighagen","given":"Egon","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7542-0286"}],"blog":{"authors":[{"name":"Egon Willighagen"}],"community_id":"7f57028e-9d03-489c-b3b4-3d60de06bc9e","created":1710288000,"current_feed_url":"https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/feed.json","description":"Chemblaics (pronounced chem-bla-ics) is the science that uses open science and computers to solve problems in chemistry, biochemistry and related fields.","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/chem_bla_ics","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/7f57028e-9d03-489c-b3b4-3d60de06bc9e/logo","feed_format":"application/feed+json","feed_url":"https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/archive.json","filter":null,"generator":"Jekyll","home_page_url":"https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"chem_bla_ics","status":"active","subfield":"1606","title":"chem-bla-ics","updated":1790467200,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"chem-bla-ics","blog_slug":"chem_bla_ics","content_html":"\n
\nSelf-protrait by Gustave Courbet.
\nSource: Wikipedia. CC-BY-SA\n
One blog that I have been (occasionally but repeatedly) reading for a long time is the What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate blog by Neil Saunders. HT to WoW!ter for pointing me to this nice post where Saunders shows how to calculate the number of entries in PubMed marked as retracted (in two seperate ways). The spoiler (you should check his R scripts anyway!): about 3900 retractions.
\nI have been quite interested in this idea of retractions and recent discussions with Chris (Christopher: mostly offline this time, and even some over a beer :) about if retractions are good or bad (BTW, check his inaugural speech on YouTube). He points out that retractions are not always for the right reasons, and, probably worse, have unintended consequences. An example he gave is a more senior researcher with two positions; in one lab someone misbehaved and this lab did not see any misconduct of this senior researcher; however, his other affiliation did not agree and fired him.
\nFive years ago I would have sad any senior researcher on a paper should still understand things in detail, and if misconduct was found, the senior authors are to blame too. I still believe this is the case, that's what you're co-researcher for, but feeling the pressure of publishing enough and just not having enough time, I do realize I cannot personally reproduce all results my post-docs and collaborators do. But we all know that publishing has made a wrong turn and, yes, I am trying to make it return to a better default.
\nWhy I am interested in retractions
\nBut that is not why I wanted to blog and discuss Saunders post. Instead, I want to explain why I am interested in retractions and, another blog you should check out, Retraction Watch. In fact, I am very much looking forward to their database! However, this is not because of the blame game. Not at all.
\nInstead, I am interested in noise in knowledge. Obviously, because this greatly affects my chemblaics research. Particularly, I like to reduce noise or at the very least take appropriate measures when doing statistics as we have plenty of means to deal with noise (like cancelling it out). Now, are retractions then a appropriate means to find incorrect, incomplete, or just outright false knowledge? No. But there is nothing better.
\nThere are better approached: I have long and still am advocating the Citation Typing Ontology, though I have to admit I am not up to date with David Shotton's work. The CiTO allows to annotate if two papers disagree or if it agrees and perhaps even uses the knowledge. It can also annotate the citation as merely being included because the cited paper has some authority (expect many of those to Nature and Science papers).
\nBut we have a long way to go before using CiTO becomes a reality. If interested, please check out the CiteULike support and Shotton's OpenCitations.
\nWhat does this mean for databases?
\nResearch depends on data, some you measure, some you get from literature and increasingly databases. The latter, for example, to compare your own results with other findings. It is indeed helpful that databases provide these two functions:
\nThese database will have two different approaches: the first will present the data as reported or even better as raw data (as it came from the machine, unprocessed, though increasingly the machines already do processing to the best of its knowledge); the second will filter out true facts, possibly normalizing data along the way, e.g. by correcting obvious typing and drawing errors.
\nIndeed, database can combine these features, just like PubChem and ChemSpider do for small compounds. PubChem has the explicit approach of providing both the raw input from sources (the substances with SIDs) and the normalized result (the compounds with CIDs).
\nBut what if the original paper turned out the be wrong? There are (at least) two phases:
\nThe first clearly reflects my interest in CiTO and retractions. We must develop means to filter out all the reported facts that turn out to be incorrect. And, can we efficiently keep our thousands of databases clean (many valid approaches!)? Do retractions matter here? Yes, because research in so-called higher impact journals is also seeing more retractions (whatever the reason is for that correlation), see this post by Bjoern Brembs.
\nWhere we must be heading
\nWhat the community needs to develop in the next few years is approaches for propagation of knowledge about correct and incorrect knowledge. That is, high impact knowledge must enter databases quickly, e.g. the exercise myokine irisin, but also the fact that it was recently shown it very likely doesn't exist, or at least that the original paper most likely measured something else (doi:10.1038/srep08889). Now, this is clearly a high-profile \"retraction\" of facts that few of us will have missed. Right? And that's where the problem is, the very long tail of disproven knowledge is very long, and we cannot rely on such facts to propagate quickly if we do not use tools to help us. This is one reason why my attention turned to semantic technologies, so that contradictions can be found more easily.
\nBut I am getting rather desperate about all the badly annotated knowledge in databases, and I am also getting desperate about being able to make a change. The research I'm doing may turn out rather desperate.
\nTo celebrate the upcoming series Doctor Who staring Jodie Whittaker, I'm attempting to chronicle all the mobile phones used in previous shows.
\n\nIf you think you've spotted something that's not listed here, or think I've made a mistake, drop it in the comments.
\n\nYou can follow along with all 10 series.
\n\nA cracking episode - perfectly directed. But what's the device Donna's teasing us with?\n![\"Donna](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Donna-Nobel-holding-a-black-phone.jpg\")
\nA little too indistinct for now. Let's wait for a clearer view later.
Again, we only get a glance at the phone used to call the Doctor.\n![\"Martha](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Martha-looking-off-camera.jpg\")
\nAll we can see is that bottom port. But don't worry - all will be revealed in a few episodes' time!
Here's a curio! One of the few PDA's featured in the show.\n![\"Martha's](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Marthas-PDA.jpg\")
\nSD Card slot on the top, and a cluster of buttons at the bottom. An iPaq? A PocketPC? An XDA? There's no Windows button...
It is the Acer n300!\n![\"A](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Acer-N311.jpg\")
\nPossibly the most obscure one yet! The props department have covered up the Acer logo and added in two fake buttons. Cunning!
A phone borrowed from a UNIT guard. But what is it?\n![\"The](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/The-Doctor-with-a-candy-bar-phone.jpg\")
\nThe trapezoid camera and circular logo on the back means this is a Motorola. One of the SLVR line. Probably an S9.\n![\"motorola](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/motorola-slvr-l9-front-side-and-rear-view.jpg\")
\nBit of an odd choice for a soldier, no?
Donna's turn to get her phone super charged.\n![\"The](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The-Doctor-holding-Donnas-phone.jpg\")
\nNot much detail here, sadly. The square button for the d-pad is characteristic of Nokia phones. There's a silver thing on top. I thought it was the N78 due to the placement of the flash - but that was launched after the episode aired.
Therefore, I reckon this is the Nokia 6500 Classic.
\n![\"Nokia](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Nokia-6500-Classic-front-side-rear-view.jpg\")
\nThe silver gap at the top is the charging port.
Do we get any more clues as to Martha's new phone? Oh yes!
\n\n![\"Martha](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Martha-holding-a-phone.jpg\")
\n\nObviously she kept her number, so The Doctor could call her. Wait... does that mean the Universal Roaming upgrade is applied to the SIM and not the terminal????
\n\nAnyway, based on the huge lens cover, and button placement, it's a Sony Ericsson K750.
\n\n![\"Side,](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/K750i.jpg\")
\n\nLoads and loads and LOADS of phones in this!
\n\nDr Jones has yet another new phone!\n![\"Close](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Close-up-of-Martha.jpg\")
Tough to say, but given the fat lower lip on the phone and circular control I'm going for the Motorola Z6w.\n![\"A](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/motorola-z6.jpg\")
\nClose enough, do you think?\n![\"Martha](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Martha-Jones-with-a-slider-phone.jpg\")
The Sarah Jane Adventures crew get a look in. Here's Luke with a candy-bar phone.\n![\"Luke](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Luke-holding-a-red-phone.jpg\")
\nWhat's the perfect phone for a cool teenager? Nokia 5310 XpressMusic.\n![\"Nokia5310.png\"](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nokia5310.png#/media/File:Nokia5310.png\")
\nA perfectly sourced prop.
Mr Lover-Lover has upgraded the phone he had in Series 1's \"Boom Town\" to this nifty flipper.\n![\"Captain](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Captain-Jack-with-a-flip-phone.jpg\")
Not much detail. Zoom! Enhance!\n![\"Close](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Close-up-of-Jack.jpg\")
Aha! That's a Motorola RAZR! No mistaking the thinness and the circular control. Could be one of several variants, but I'm going with Motorola Razr2 V8.
\n\n![\"Slim](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Slim-Moto-RAZR-V8.jpg\")
\n\nHonourable mentions to Torchwood's finest.\n![\"Gwen](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Gwen-with-a-phone.jpg\")
\nHer phone is only in view for a few frames. If you've any idea what she's packing - let me know!
While everyone is trying to call The Doctor, we get this lovely shot of THREE PHONES AT ONCE!\n![\"Rose,](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Rose-Sylvia-and-Wilf-all-holding-phones.jpg\")
Wilf's first. I recognise this - the first \"business phone\" I ever owned. The Nokia 6310i - you can tell by the red band over the top, and the battery cover button. Ancient by the time this was filmed - perfect phone casting for Wilf.
\n\nSylvia's is trickier. A flipper, but with only a small display of front. The circular logo looks like the placement for a Motorola. I reckon it's the Razr V3X.
\n\nThere's a close-up on Rose in the next shot.\n![\"Rose](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Rose-with-a-black-slider.jpg\")
OMG! She's using the same phone as The Master in The Sound of Drums!\n![\"John](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Masters-Phone.jpg\")
It's our old friend the Samsung D600!
\n\n![\"Sgh-d600.jpg\"](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sgh-d600.jpg#/media/File:Sgh-d600.jpg\")
What an action packed series! Before we get to S05, we've got the four \"specials\".
\n\nFollow along at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/doctor-who-phones/
![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=29808&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/3n7zh-fwr23","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=29808","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Martha-looking-off-camera.jpg","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1538006400,"rid":"k9ahp-qss07","summary":"To celebrate the upcoming series Doctor Who staring Jodie Whittaker, I'm attempting to chronicle all the mobile phones used in previous shows. If you think you've spotted something that's not listed here, or think I've made a mistake, drop it in the comments. You can follow along with all 10 series. Donna - Partners in Crime A cracking episode - perfectly directed.","tags":["/etc/","Doctor Who Phones"],"title":"The Mobile Phones of Doctor Who - Series 4","updated_at":1790498881,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/09/the-mobile-phones-of-doctor-who-series-4/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence"}],"content_html":"It has been over a year since I cancelled my Cloudflare account. They keep emailing me and haven't taken me off their marketing lists despite repeated requests. Their CTO told me he would investigate, but nothing changed. Their Data Protection Office hasn't respond to my requests.
\n\nCloudflare do not appear to respect the GDPR.
\n\nI've escalated this to the highest levels of Cloudflare, but they just don't seem to be able to take any action. This is concerning.
\n\n![\"JGC](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Screenshot_2020-09-18-Terence-Eden-on-Twitter.png\")
![\"\"](\"data:image/webp;base64,UklGRkgBAABXRUJQVlA4IDwBAACQCACdASowADAAPrVQn0ynJCKiJyto4BaJaQAIIsx4Au9dhDqVA1i1RoRTO7nbdyy03nM5FhvV62goUj37tuxqpfpPeTBZvrJ78w0qAAD+/hVyFHvYXIrMCjny0z7wqsB9/QE08xls/AQdXJFX0adG9lISsm6kV96J5FINBFXzHwfzMCr4N6r3z5/Aa/wfEoVGX3H976she3jyS8RqJv7Jw7bOxoTSPlu4gNbfXYZ9TnbdQ0MNnMObyaRQLIu556jIj03zfJrVgqRM8GPwRoWb1M9AfzFe6Mtg13uEIqrTHmiuBpH+bTVB5EEQ3uby0C//XOAPJOFv4QV8RZDPQd517Khyba8Jlr97j2kIBJD9K3mbOHSHiQDasj6Y3forATbIg4QZHxWnCeqqMkVYfUAivuL0L/68mMnagAAA\")
![\"Twitter\"](\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%0Aaria-label%3D%22Twitter%22%20role%3D%22img%22%0AviewBox%3D%220%200%20512%20512%22%3E%3Cpath%0Ad%3D%22m0%200H512V512H0%22%0Afill%3D%22%23fff%22%2F%3E%3Cpath%20fill%3D%22%231d9bf0%22%20d%3D%22m458%20140q-23%2010-45%2012%2025-15%2034-43-24%2014-50%2019a79%2079%200%2000-135%2072q-101-7-163-83a80%2080%200%200024%20106q-17%200-36-10s-3%2062%2064%2079q-19%205-36%201s15%2053%2074%2055q-50%2040-117%2033a224%20224%200%2000346-200q23-16%2040-41%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\")
Sadly, John Graham-Cumming - the CTO - deleted his Tweet saying that he'd look into it. I assume that JGC doesn't like his personal data being misused. If only I were able to delete my personal data from Cloudflare, eh?
\n\nLuckily, the Internet Archive has a backup
\n\nDespite promising an investigation and a response from their Data Protection Office - I've received no assurance that they have respected my rights.
\n\nAt the start of August last year, I cancelled my Cloudflare account. I received confirmation from them that I was no longer a customer. My login was disabled. That should have been the last I heard from them.
\n\nTwo months later, I received an email update about their privacy policy.
\n\n![\"Email](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CloudFlare-Privacy-fs8.png\")
\n\nI complained on Twitter, and their CTO promised he'd look into it:
\n\n![\"\"](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Screenshot_2020-09-18-John-Graham-Cumming-on-Twitter.png\")
(Again, tweet deleted, but saved in the Internet Archive)
\n\nI never heard back from John. But one of his minions sent me this:
\n\n\n\nWhen we receive a request for account deletion, we may retain the email address on the account up to a year to ensure that we comply with internal policies and legal obligations.
*Pffft* Whatever. No mention of that is made in their privacy policy.
\n\nAt the end of August this year - well over 12 months after I unsubscribed - I received another email from Cloudflare. This time apologising for their downtime!
\n\nReplying to @edentJust received more spam from @Cloudflare. With no unsubscribe link.
It has been more than a year since I asked them to delete my account.
You cannot trust Cloudflare with your personal data. 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\")
There was no option to unsubscribe. I'm not a customer - but apparently I still have to receive emails from them.
\n\nI got a message from someone at Cloudflare who said that they have multiple customer mailing lists and they are rarely in sync with each other. They don't have a good idea of who they are sending emails to, or whether people have consented. I think this is unacceptable for a company of this size to be so lax about their GDPR obligations.
\n\nI asked Cloudflare to report this breach to the Information Commissioners Office, and I suggested that they may need to notify the SEC if they are expecting a large fine. They may also need to let investors know if they have misrepresented their customer numbers.
\n\nI asked JGC and Cloudflare PR for a comment - but they were not inclined to provide one. They said their DPO would get back to me last week, but I heard nothing.
\n\nAt this point, I can only conclude that Cloudflare do not respect their users' privacy. Cloudflare has no idea who its customers are, nor how many they have. Cloudflare doesn't care about your data rights.
\n\n\n\nCLOUDFLARE'S PROMISE
\n\nOur mission to help build a better Internet is rooted in the importance we place on establishing trust with our Customers, users, and the Internet community globally. To earn and maintain that trust, we commit to communicating transparently, providing security, and protecting the privacy of data on our systems.
\n\n
*bitter laugh*
![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=36764&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/gjsb7-m6208","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=36764","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Screenshot_2020-09-18-John-Graham-Cumming-on-Twitter.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1601164800,"rid":"msdfc-xyw98","summary":"It has been over a year since I cancelled my Cloudflare account. They keep emailing me and haven't taken me off their marketing lists despite repeated requests. Their CTO told me he would investigate, but nothing changed. Their Data Protection Office hasn't respond to my requests. Cloudflare do not appear to respect the GDPR.","tags":["/etc/","Cloudflare","Data","Gdpr"],"title":"Don't trust Cloudflare with your personal data","updated_at":1790498880,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/09/dont-trust-cloudflare-with-your-personal-data/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"\"The problem with defending the purity of the HyperText Markup Language is that HTML is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. The standard doesn't just borrow concepts from better languages; on occasion, HTML has pursued other programming languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new syntax0.\"
\n\n\n\nEnglitch is an pretty goode langwidge. even you no grok all the pacific bits you got the jist & the splelling & grandma dont mattr to much.
\n\nHTML is much the same. You can write utterly malformed, derranged, non-standards complaint HTML and most browsers will just say \"Yeah, sure, whatever dawg!\" and render it adequately. Take a look at the source code for TodePond - a lovely website but some of the most abused HTML I've seen.
\n\nThere's a brilliant blog post by Jens Oliver Meiert which looks at whether HTML validity is seen as a priority for major sites. Basically, no.
\n\n\n\nIt's time for the annual analysis of how much of the HTML code in the field is error-free and valid. The short version: 1% of the most-frequented sites on this planet uses valid HTML\u2014and 99% don't.
\n\n
iS ThAt A pRoBlEm????
\n\nMy site is proudly HTML Valid. Run it through the HTML Validator or the Schema.org Validator and you'll see that it is fucking perfect! Same with my RSS Feed and Atom Feed. Not so much as an advisory bit of info, a couched warning, or a sternly worded suggestion1.
\n\nEvery last bit pure and holy.
\n\nOf course, syntactically valid HTML is neither necessary nor sufficient for any purpose.
\n\nPerfect HTML doesn't imply that a site is accessible (although, I'm proud to say mine meets or exceeds all WCAG guidance2).
\n\nPerfect HTML doesn't guarantee that the information it contains is accurate3.
\n\nPerfect HTML, at best, merely implies that the author gives a damn about such things. Much like Knolling, it leaves a suggestion that order is preferable to chaos4.
\n\nIt is said that one of the reasons HTML succeeded is that it is lax about validation. Most programming languages will shit the bed if you dare to leave out so much as a single semicolon. The compiler wails can be heard throughout the land.
\n\nBy contrast, HTML is designed to be sympathetic to the frailty of the human mind. \"Oh, you didn't close an element? Well, you opened a new one which I guess implies the same thing. Did you forget the correct syntax? Never mind - it'll be our little secret.\"
\n\nThat's why XHTML failed - the browser would literally refuse to render a page if it didn't meet the spec. Who can be bothered with that?! HTML just lets you get on with things.
\n\nAs I've mentioned before, humans don't write or speak in Backus\u2013Naur form. Our ideas are loosely expressed in a floating grammar which lends itself to paradoxical impossibilities and logical tautologies. And yet most of us can still parse weird sentences without too much effort.
\n\nBut most computer languages are different. It might be obvious to you that if (x = 42) means \"compare the value of x to 42\" - but what the computer sees is \"if assign x the value of 42\". Within computing our code needs to be rigorously formal and any syntax errors will lead to show-stopping bugs.
Imagine if every time a human wrote Romanes eunt domus the world simply crashed. It would be intolerable.
\n\nHTML is more like a human language than a computing language. You can understand human speech over a crackly phone line in a foreign accent - Web Browsers understand CP-1252 encoded text with bizarre syntax errors.
\n\nIf it is OK to write bad HTML, why do some of us fetishise \"pure\" HTML?
\n\nI think it comes down to an ingrained belief that it is polite to reduce ambiguity. It is nice to be precise5. It reduces the cognitive burden on anyone (or anything) which reads what we have written. We are holding up our end of the social contract by producing something unadulterated and easy to comprehend. It reduces the likelihood of different browsers rendering things differently but, almost on a cellular level, we feel that things must be done properly.
\n\nThe browser doesn't care about your inability to follow standards. But you should have some fucking self-respect and do it anyway.
\n\nWith the appropriate amount of apologies to James Nicoll \u21a9\ufe0e
\nAt the time of writing. Who knows what batshit bugs I'll accidentally include in the future \ud83d\ude43 \u21a9\ufe0e
\nAgain, it is possible to make something pass automated testing while still being an accessibility mess. \u21a9\ufe0e
\nAlthough, of course, everything you read in this site is 100% accurate. \u21a9\ufe0e
\nOr some horrifying psychological issue. Potato / Tomato. \u21a9\ufe0e
\nI will grant you, there's also a strain of 100% Completionist which compels me to get \"top score\" on all the benchmarks. But that's just pure vanity. \u21a9\ufe0e
\n![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=74960&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/aaajy-vhb90","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=74960","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HTML5_Badge_512.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790380800,"rid":"skm7j-47q74","summary":"\"The problem with defending the purity of the HyperText Markup Language is that HTML is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. The standard doesn't just borrow concepts from better languages; on occasion, HTML has pursued other programming languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new syntax.\" Englitch is an pretty goode langwidge.","tags":["/etc/","HTML","Webdev"],"title":"No errors, no warnings, no gods, no masters - HTML Purity is a Fetish","updated_at":1790494211,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/no-errors-no-warnings-no-gods-no-masters-html-purity-is-a-fetish/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/0153tk833","name":"University of Virginia"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Turner","given":"Stephen","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9140-9028"}],"blog":{"authors":[{"name":"Stephen Turner"}],"community_id":"382941a7-2ffa-41df-8bbb-5f772188517f","created":1780876800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"A practicing data scientist's take on AI, genomics, biosecurity, and the ways AI is reshaping how science gets done. Weekly updates from the field. Occasional notes on programming.","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/stephenturner","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/382941a7-2ffa-41df-8bbb-5f772188517f/logo","feed_format":"application/rss+xml","feed_url":"https://blog.stephenturner.us/feed","filter":null,"generator":"Substack","home_page_url":"https://blog.stephenturner.us","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"stephenturner","status":"active","subfield":"1311","title":"Paired Ends","updated":1790414839,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Paired Ends","blog_slug":"stephenturner","content_html":"Personal essay, weekend edition. Starting with a familiar quote often attributed to English economist John Maynard Keynes:1
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I've argued here that refusing a useful tool on principle is stubbornness. And after a few weeks of trying to go without AI at all, I still feel that way for the most part. But my relationship with AI is changing, especially around writing and scientific inquiry.
My inboxes (personal and otherwise) are filled with slop. My social feeds are filled with slop. Many of the papers I read are slop. My Hacker News links are slop. Many of the blogs I read are becoming increasingly filled with slop.2 People who I know and deeply respect are churning out AI slop at a pace I find simultaneously dizzying and disappointing (I'm not innocent here: there's some slop on some older posts here I'm embarrassed about, but I'm keeping them here unedited as a reminder). It's not just writing. I can't go a day without seeing a slide deck that looks exactly like this. IYKYK.
![\"\"](\"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SEym!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc7f2b146-f264-4594-bbd2-b7235b147b1e_4000x2258.webp\")
David Dewhurst is a program manager at DARPA. He described watching capable people he respects lose their creativity in real time as they present AI-generated content as original work. They point to length and coverage as achievements. I get some long comprehensive document and I can't find the sender's judgment anywhere in it. If I wanted Claude's analysis or opinion on this or that, I'm very well capable of asking Claude for Claude's analysis or opinion on this or that. Don't be a meat proxy.
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I feel the same way when I'm reading the scientific literature. Anshul Kundaje argues that papers have stopped working as measures of productivity, expertise, or accomplishment.
The argument is obviously correct if you think about it for a half a minute. A publication on someone's CV tells me way less than it used to about what they contributed or understand. But as a newly returned academic, I can tell you Anshul is also correct that it'll take (too much) time before we figure out new ways to assess impact and expertise, while we desperately try to hold onto our old ways, bean counting glam journal publication and H-indices and such. We still need ways to document research impact and contribution, but these days a publication doesn't really tell us much about what its authors contributed or even understand. Earlier this week the Washington Post describes a full professor at University of Chicago having published more than 200 papers and 14 books this year alone. Case in point.
![\"\"](\"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YG_U!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffd781674-fab1-4c1b-9412-d9088df34ee7_673x386.png)
TMLR editor Nihar Shah contacted authors of 10 submissions that were already going to be desk rejected. One of them withdrew their submission. One said they were unavailable, and one didn't show up to the scheduled meeting. Of the remainder he met with, three authors couldn't answer basic questions about their papers, and three more struggled with technical details. The authors of the one remaining paper were able to answer basic questions, but Shah identified major errors in a central claim. Now this small sample can't tell you how common the problem is or how much AI caused it, but it says something. Shah also noted that this took >20 hours so it's obviously not a scalable solution.
Related, Giorgio Gilestro wrote an essay that's been making the rounds this week, calling where this ends the Weimar of Knowledge. The marginal cost of producing content is essentially zero, but the cost of attention is still high. The worry is that overwhelmed readers will rely even more on institutional prestige to decide what to read or whose work you should pay attention to. Obviously making it harder for good researchers outside well-known institutions to ever get read.
Tom Dietterich, arXiv editor in chief, shared a few thoughts on this problem. Ultimately I think the scale of the problem makes oral interviews for preprints unworkable even though I think this could really help cut down on the slop we see flooding academic publications. I've written about AI for peer review, and I do think there's a real place for it, but I'm also not bullish on an AI-written, AI-reviewed journal without human authors, for papers which will surely never be read by an actual human being. What are we even doing here.
![\"\"](\"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Idht!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fedc2774b-1d0a-40ec-b95e-2e88d937ca25_653x612.png\")
Then there are proposals. I can't personally speak to the degree to which NIH study sections or NSF review panels are dealing with wholly AI-generated proposals. I'm serving on a NSF panel later this year so I'll get a sense of things soon. But I'd be willing to wager the number is far higher than any of us wish.3
I've noticed a change in myself, and I don't like it. I'm losing interest in reading.
If you've spent any time using AI yourself you can smell the Claudish a mile away, no Pangram needed.4 Maybe these things will get better at writing eventually, but that's kind of beside the point. Even flawless prose wouldn't make me less reluctant to spend an hour reading something that its author spent less than 10 minutes \"writing.\"
Part of the reason I read the things I read is to understand how another person thinks. To understand their own internal thought process, whether that's about a genetics paper, how to run a research lab and mentor students in the AI age, the optimal cover crop for Virginia winters, or traffic-calming approaches for improved bike and pedestrian safety. These days I wonder how much of that person is actually present.
With some AI sparkle \u2728 thing built into everything these days the persistent temptation to use AI for literally every part of thinking and writing is hard to resist. My AI Dry July experiment which I eventually aborted, gave me reasons to write more myself. I could better recall my arguments when I wrote 100% of them, I could better understand how the sections fit together because I fussed around with the story arc for hours, and I found revision to be much easier and less frustrating. I enjoyed it more, too. People much smarter than me on the topic have written volumes about writing and thinking, so I'll just confirm here: every time I delegated the writing I missed out on much of the thinking that I would have done while trying to think through or explain an idea.
I think this should make you feel concern about your professional value. If you outsource all your proposals or lectures or manuscripts or whatever creative work you do to a competent AI, you're choosing to let atrophy the judgment and creativity your employer pays you to do. You become less capable while appearing more productive. If you think people around you won't notice, you're very wrong.
I still want AI's help. Paul Bloom describes models catching errors that human reviewers miss. I recently published a preprint on AI and biosecurity, and while I actually think AI disclosures are actually a net negative in most cases, I did write a lengthy disclosure describing in detail how I'm using a multi-agent workflow to check my work against the papers I cited, including numbers and stats and my descriptions of their findings. This was useful, until it wasn't: the biosecurity subject matter quickly led both models I used to refuse further fact-checking.
![\"\"](\"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bIGD!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcfe8c9a6-95c1-4443-8a25-58f29579f0c6_2018x2782.png\")
I haven't settled on some kind of policy for every part of my work. I expect to keep using these tools and finding them useful. They're great for anything I do involving code. Lately I've been using Claude Code extensively to make little throwaway web apps to demonstrate a concept to my students far better than I could do with a janky PowerPoint animation. And I recently submitted a large proposal to develop a closed-loop AI scientist connected to a wet lab for autonomous biomedical research. But since that failed experiment in July I'm really trying to hand over less of my writing and thinking to the machines, and the majority of what I consume these days gives me more reason to take that commitment seriously as much as I can. I want to remain capable of doing the work I put my name on.
Although the attribution is questionable.
Substack, which hosts this blog you're reading now, and the vast majority of things I like to read, recently made a controversial decision to integrate Pangram's AI detection into the platform itself. If you're reading on the Substack web reader or iOS app you can click a button to check this. Screenshot below. I think Substack made a correct strategic move here. I love that blogs are making a comeback. But with more and more slop polluting the blogosphere, Substack is making a bet (one that I think will pay off) that most people, in fact, don't want to read slop. Much less pay for the privilege of doing so. It's really interesting, and telling, to see the reaction to this. My new favorite genre of essays are those vehemently and dogmatically anti-AI everything, which are, in fact, written mostly or entirely by AI. I'm hoping that writers here, now knowing that slop will be exposed, will be incentivized to not produce so much slop. And sure, you can turn off the AI detection feature, but that's a glaring admission that the whole post is, in fact, slop.
![\"\"](\"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!F2gs!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc59aa2d3-b343-4d0f-a636-75bd016d26d7_794x792.png\")
Free research-on-research project idea. Go to NIH RePORTER ExPORTER, and download CSV files of all the abstracts for funded grants in the last 10 years. Do the same for all the JSON files you can download from NSF. Pick a subset of a few thousand, and run them through Pangram's API. Compare pre-2023 to post-2024. Now here's the part that won't make you any friends. Do the same analysis, stratified by institution, department, or dare I say, even by PI. Pangram isn't perfect but it's surprisingly accurate by way of personal experience.
I've even tried writing my own Claudish to English translator for the writing I shouldn't be doing anyway, but it only goes so far.
Knowledge refinement is the ever ongoing process in science (and beyond it) that shepherds knowledge from lab notebooks into journal articles and then on to review articles, monographs, reference handbooks, university textbooks, and finally professional domain expertise and school education for a wider public. It has been going on for a few centuries, but we hardly talk about it. In fact, I made up the term because I couldn't find an established one. Computational knowledge has not yet found its place in the knowledge refinement process. Why not? And what can we do to make it happen?
\n\nFirst of all, what is the role of knowledge refinement?
\nOne answer is that knowledge becomes more reliable in the refinement process. Any single experiment, no matter how carefully done, can turn out to be wrong for lots of reasons. In contrast, the synthesis of hundreds of independent related experiments will remain trustworthy even if one flaky input experiment has to be withdrawn.
\nAnother role of knowledge refinement is making knowledge more accessible. When we learn from others, rather than from our own experience, we start with a highly refined view of a domain, and dive into the details only later and when we see a need for it. Schools teach only refined knowledge, which thus shapes general culture.
\nFinally, with refinement, knowledge also becomes more long-lived. A useful picture here is pace layers: each refinement step pushes knowledge down into a more slowly evolving layer.
\nEach knowledge refinement step has several interrelated aspects:
\nSummarization. A large number of works from the preceding step are cooked down into a common essence that emerges from them.
Curation. Domain experts select what they see as most relevant, discarding what they consider technical details, or only of historical importance.
Integration. Each step draws on broader domain coverage than the preceding one. The relation to already established knowledge is made clearer.
Simplification and clarification. Each step is written for a wider and less specialized audience than the preceding one. Jargon is replaced by more widely understood vocabulary. New concepts are introduced and the explanation is structured around them.
All these processes require reformulation. The output of a refinement step is not simply an annotated collection of quotes from its inputs. You can't edit a journal article into a chapter for a university textbook.
\nIn the digital era, it has become widely accepted that software and electronic datasets are representations of scientific knowledge. See for example pages 9 to 11 of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, which discuss \"open scientific knowledge\". For now, however, this is mostly wishful thinking. While code and data certainly are scientific information, it is difficult to consider them to be knowledge as long as they don't participate in the knowledge refinement process.
\nLet me illustrate this with analogies from pre-digital science. The predecessors of today's digital datasets are tables of observations recorded in lab notebooks. The predecessors of today's scientific software are mathematical equations. Consider the foundational research on electromagnetism that was done in the 19th century. Examples of original sources are the lab notebooks of Michael Faraday, or on the theoretical side James Clerk Maxwell's paper \"A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagneticm Field\" (already a refined version of his personal notes, which are probably lost). Today's textbooks in physics or electrical engineering mention both Faraday and Maxwell in historical overviews, but they don't ask you to consult their original work, nor do they cite passages from it in their pedagogical presentation. Instead, they show highly refined versions of Maxwell's theory in modern vector notation, which was largely created for this purpose. The textbooks also summarize the kind of experiments done by Faraday and many others, with pictures and diagrams of modern rather than historical instruments and experimental setups. Instead of real data, they show plots of idealized synthetic data for illustration.
\nWhereas nobody would seriously consider publishing a lab notebook as a journal article after just some light editing, many researchers seem to believe that computational notebooks, such as the popular Jupyter notebooks, could replace journal articles. However, the history and practice of Jupyter shows that it is by design a tool for interactive computational exploration. A Jupyter notebook is an annotated chronological record of a single computation. There is no way to summarize multiple computations. There is no way to focus on the essential aspects of a computation while relegating implementation details to an appendix. There is no way to explain, in more than words, algorithms from a library that is used in the notebook. Moreover, the order of presentation is constrained by the flow of the computation. In a typical Jupyter notebook, one of the very first lines says import matplotlib, a technical detail that in a journal article should be relegated to a reference list, because it is irrelevant to the scientific message.
If you look at today's published Jupyter notebooks, most of them are complements to journal articles. The play the role of an appendix, a repository for technical details. Notebooks that are independent publications do exist, for example in the Journal of Digital History, but the computations they contain, basic data analysis and visualization, are simple and not the main topic of the paper. Moreover, the Journal of Digital History has developed its own extensions to Jupyter that add support for hiding technical details from view while reading the article.
\nWhile I focused on Jupyter because of its popularity, other notebook technologies such as Quarto or Emacs' Babel extension to org-mode are not fundamentally different. As long as the executable content is a single computation that runs from top to bottom, the above criticisms remain valid.
\nVarious ideas for improving the publishing technology for code are being explored. One of them is removing the linear execution constraint, e.g. by using the dataflow paradigm. A few notebook systems have adopted this approach, most notably Observable. The most interesting system I have seen so far in this space is Lopecode, which adds a hypertext structure to Observable's dataflow model for computation. My own experiment on supporting the publication of refined digital knowledge is HyperDoc, which focuses on (1) integrating code and its execution into hypermedia networks and (2) building bridges to existing hypermedia systems. It has the advantage of being applicable to existing code in any programming language (though this requires significant implementation work that hasn't been done yet), and thus avoids a complete break with the past six decades of computational research.
\nMuch more remains to be done, however, before computational knowledge can become an integral part of the refinement process. Computational knowledge is most of all formalized knowledge, meaning knowledge expressed in terms of a formal system that can be processed mechanically, by a computer. Refinement techniques for formalized knowledge are constrained by the formal system they depend on. Program source code lives in a formal system defined by a programming language. It is processed mechanically by a compiler or an interpreter. The focus of a programming language is, not surprisingly, the construction of executable programs. There is a well-established refinement process for source code: scripts become library modules, which are complemented by tests and documentation and then published to become off-the-shelf ingredients for constructing more complex programs. Like knowledge refinement, code refinement makes code more reliable, more accessible, and long-lived, but only from the \"code as a tool\" perspective. It tends to reduce rather than augment its value as a knowledge repository. Software engineering priorities such as optimization and reducing redundancy tend to make the code less readable for researchers who are not professional software developers, and impenetrable to anyone who is just starting to explore a new domain of knowledge.
\nThis is why knowledge refinement in computational science remains limited to non-formal language. Textbooks remain printed books (or their digital twins, PDF files), merely referring to and writing about machine-readable artifacts such as code. The textbooks discuss concepts, including algorithms and data structures, but don't provide examples that readers could run and then build on in their own explorations. On the code side, there are often highly refined implementations for use as off-the-shelf tools, but their correspondence to what the textbooks say is unclear and not verifiable by the reader.
\nThere has been work on improving the explanation side, for example Bret Victor's explorable explanations that integrate interactive exploration tools into formerly passive textbook material. However, the strict divide between explanation and code for use in practice remains.
\nThis state of the art is tolerable for low-complexity computational knowledge, e.g. in linear algebra or signal processing. A textbook on Fourier transforms and good FFT library are good enough for learning these methods. But we need something better for complex models and methods.
\nConsider computational models of complex systems such as force fields for biomolecules, or climate models. On the machine side, they are implemented as software modules for use in simulation, using standard programming languages. On the human side, there are papers describing the principles behind their design, but lacking many details because these details would be overwhelming to a human reader. So if you really want to know how such models work, your only choice is wading through enormous amounts of source code, taking notes carefully of the findings that are relevant to your question. And if you ever want to compare two such complex models... good luck exploring two large software packages in parallel. Unfortunately, that's something you can't avoid doing during knowledge refinement. For example when you write a review paper on protein force fields, or on climate models.
\nWhen models become too complex to be represented in traditional scientific notations (equations, diagrams, etc.), they need to be represented in digital scientific notations. They need to be represented in formal systems that are made for documentation and exploration, rather than for plugging into a simulator. And they require tools that treat them as data, not code.
\nAn idea I have been pursuing for a while is the use of specification languages as digital scientific notations. See my project Leibniz for the details. Specification languages are more general than programming languages in the same way that mathematical equations are more general than mathematical functions (see here for a discussion). In particular, specification languages do not impose an executability condition on everything you write. This allows you to write incomplete function definitions or data structures. I am working on this idea and I remain optimistic that it will work out, but I won't declare victory before I have actually written that review of biomolecular force fields. Meanwhile, I'd be happy to see other work in this space, ideally pursuing very different ideas.
\nDigital scientific notations are a necessary first step for enabling the refinement of digital scientific knowledge, but the real works starts once we have them. We must then develop the tools that let researchers explore and examine publications containing formalized knowledge. We must also find refinement strategies that actually work in practice. There remains a lot to be done!
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/5vb7q-rnw59","guid":"https://blog.khinsen.net/posts/2026/09/25/knowledge-refinement.html","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790294400,"rid":"kn021-31216","summary":"Knowledge refinement is the ever ongoing process in science (and beyond it) that shepherds knowledge from lab notebooks into journal articles and then on to review articles, monographs, reference handbooks, university textbooks, and finally professional domain expertise and school education for a wider public.","title":"Knowledge refinement in the digital era","updated_at":1790435361,"url":"https://blog.khinsen.net/posts/2026/09/25/knowledge-refinement.html","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"One of the great things about modern HTML is that it tries to standardise stuff that developers are already doing. If there are a myriad ways of, for example, loading video onto a page - then browsers and other interested parties should work out how to make a standard <video> element.
An interesting new proposal has been brought forth by Microsoft. There are a dozen ways to show a preview of an <img> element before the src= attribute has loaded. So why not standardise on previewsrc=? There's an excellent explainer on Patrick Brosset's blog.
I instinctively like the idea - if only to simplify source code and reduce JS usage. But I do have some concerns which I've shared with the team.
\n\nThis is the thing I always bang on about when I'm discussing standards. Additions to HTML should primarily benefit end users, not developers.
\n\nDo end users want this? Is there a bunch of research that shows normal people are confused that they don't see a preview image? Do they recoil in fear and distress while waiting for a full resolution picture to appear?
\n\nWhen people see a blurry or blocky image, do they understand that they need to wait for the full thing - or do they assume their computer is broken?
\n\nMicrosoft has a bazillion dollars - it can afford to spend a few thousand on interviewing some real users and mapping out what they're likely to want from this.
\n\nI begrudgingly admit that developers need love too.
\n\n\n\nWhat are the pain points of the current implementations? Is it hard to dynamically generate multiple images? Is the syntax hard to use? Do blurs slow down the page?
\n\nAgain, MS needs to pony up some cash to talk to developers. At the very least run a survey of all existing websites in the BING! database and see what they use.
\n\nWhen an image doesn't load, or loads slowly, a user will normally be shown some alt text - like this:
\n\n![\"Terence](\"http://example.test/unicorn.avif\")
\n\nIs that more or less useful than this?
\n\n![\"A](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/unicorn.webp\")
\n\nAccessibility isn't just for people with visual impairments! This is an issue I've raised with them.
\n\nI've written before about the usability of HTML elements. Some of the newer ones like <picture> have very poorly named attributes in my opinion.
One alternative for previewsrc is poster. That would match with the poster attribute on the <video> element. They both show a preview image before the main content is loaded.
Given their functionality is identical, I think it makes sense for them to have the same name. You wouldn't expect to see <video horizontal=\"1920\" vertical=\"1080\"> would you? No. That's why they use the same width and height attributes as images.
There are several interesting objections and discussions on the GitHub repo. I'm delighted that this is being talked about in the open, rather than just being presented as a fait accompli (remember the toast proposal?).
\n\nAs I said, I genuinely think that there's a useful idea in here. But after writing all of this, I think it would be better and simpler for developers to use progressive images rather than overload HTML with a new attribute.
\n\nIf website owners can't be bothered to save progressive images, I don't see why they'd bother to create a separate preview image.
\n\nKeeping preview images in sync with their full images is also likely to be a problem.
\n\nIf you think I'm wrong, read the explainer and then chat with Microsoft.
![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=75856&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/twr9x-eh003","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=75856","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HTML5_Badge_512.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790208000,"rid":"bke8v-4h802","summary":"One of the great things about modern HTML is that it tries to standardise stuff that developers are already doing. If there are a myriad ways of, for example, loading video onto a page - then browsers and other interested parties should work out how to make a standard element. An interesting new proposal has been brought forth by Microsoft.","tags":["/etc/","HTML","Standards"],"title":"Some thoughts on HTML's proposed previewsrc attribute","updated_at":1790407829,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/some-thoughts-on-htmls-proposed-previewsrc-attribute/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"![\"Book](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/how-to-build-a-space-station.webp\")
\n\nThis book, by The Times' former Architecture Correspondent, stands in direct opposition to A City on Mars. Whereas that book presented a (perhaps too) sceptical look at the realities of living on other planets, Jonathan Morrison's book goes (perhaps too far) in the opposite direction.
\n\n\n\nHow to Build a Space Station is a beautiful examination of just how important architecture will be to our colonisation of other worlds. Not just in terms of physical safety - but psychological safety as well. It is a direct and forceful rebuttal to those who say it cannot be done.
\n\nIt is, in my opinion, just a touch too credulous about some of the ludicrous claims from the hype merchants. I want to believe that Martian igloos can be conjured out of the ice and that Musk's rockets will deliver a steady stream of supplies to distant worlds. But the evidence presented is rather thin. The book works best when it focuses on what architecture can bring to the table when it comes to designing the future.
\n\n\n\nIn short, a spacecraft is not just a machine; it is also a home, an office, a refuge. If people are asked to go to the most remote environments, to live in spaces scarcely larger than a few rooms, and to perform work of immense complexity and risk, then comfort, efficiency and ergonomics are not just luxuries.
Space has to be worth living in. Putting people into a tin-can with no windows, blank walls, and an infernal background hum will drive them mad. All this is backed up with extensive descriptions of the engineering challenges of polar research bases, spaceports, and previous craft.
\n\nDespite being rightly scathing about Wernher von Braun's involvement in atrocities and his eventual political rehabilitation - he is somewhat more muted in his criticism of Messrs Musk & Bezos. There's a lot of praise for celebrity architects and designers - without any real examination of whether their designs are practical rather than just award fodder.
\n\nSimilarly, the book takes on trust that autonomous robots can ingest extraterrestrial soil, process it, and 3D print structures from it all while in a hostile environment. The fact that we don't have swarms of drones prefabbing houses in the relatively benign atmosphere of our planet should be evidence that maybe these claims aren't quite matched with reality.
\n\nFinally, the \"why?\" question. A City on Mars points out that the cost of mining gold from asteroids would be more profitably spent improving mining technology here on Earth. How to Build a Space Station takes a different approach; it'll improve things here:
\n\n\n\nSpace architecture is not just escapism, a thrilling sci-\u00adfi fantasy \u2013 it is a forge for creating the tools we need at home. These include but are not limited to circular systems, low-\u00adenergy fabrication, modular construction and buildings that take psychology seriously.
I have a lot of sympathy for that. Except\u2026 the Internation Space Station has shown us how to endlessly recycle water relatively cheaply. Yet every modern building on Earth pays only lip-service to reusing grey-water. 3D printing is amazing, but the number of structures built using autonomous robots extruding concrete is approximately zero.
\n\nWe have the technology - but we don't seem to be interested in using it.
\n\nThe book is mostly well illustrated - with some gorgeous drawings of actual craft and possible future inventions. Sadly no photos, maps, or anything to help illuminate some of the other challenges faced by living and working in space.
\n\nThis book is endlessly fascinating and bang up to date, with lots of talk of events that happened in 2025. The way it brings together the sciences of engineering and psychology is marvellous. But, as much as I'd like to believe in a Martian habitat built by robot trebuchets flinging microwave sintered tetrapods into each other, I just don't find it convincing.
\n\nI really hope I'm wrong.
\n\nMany thanks to Netgalley for the review copy - the book is available to buy now.
![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=75653&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/0vqd8-3qy21","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=75653","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/how-to-build-a-space-station.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1789862400,"rid":"8s9qs-35530","summary":"This book, by The Times' former Architecture Correspondent, stands in direct opposition to A City on Mars. Whereas that book presented a (perhaps too) sceptical look at the realities of living on other planets, Jonathan Morrison's book goes (perhaps too far) in the opposite direction.","tags":["/etc/","Book Review","NetGalley"],"title":"Book Review: How to Build a Space Station by Jonathan Morrison","updated_at":1790407827,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/book-review-how-to-build-a-space-station-by-jonathan-morrison/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"![\"Book](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/slags.webp\")
\n\nI'm really not sure what to make of this book. It was recommended by my book club as something between tragedy and comedy. The characters are excruciatingly well written - if you (or your friends) shoplifted Impulse body-spray back in the 1990s, you'll be hit by a terrifying wave of nostalgia.
\n\nIt reminds me of this excellent essay by Marie Le Conte about consent. What can a teenage girl consent to? What will fuck her up for years to come? What if she doesn't mind being a little fucked up?
\n\nThe prose is amazing, the plotting perfectly paced, and the denouement satisfying - with lots of retrospectives \"Oh! I get it now\"s.
\n\nDespite the hectic and hilarious story, I still felt a little sordid reading it. There's a streak of sadness running through it, intertwined with some unbearably heartbreaking poetry.
\n\n\n\nIt's always raining and there's nothing to do except dream and they don't even give you much time to do that with all the coursework.
It is entertaining and fun - but you need a strong stomach and a casual disregard for the overall happiness of your protagonists.
\n\nOne note - there are a few odd / broken styles in the ePub. Nothing too disruptive, but some passages have a slightly smaller font size for no discernable reason.
![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=72687&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/fq0at-xga66","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=72687","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/slags.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1786752000,"rid":"p2yaq-9mn76","summary":"I'm really not sure what to make of this book. It was recommended by my book club as something between tragedy and comedy. The characters are excruciatingly well written - if you (or your friends) shoplifted Impulse body-spray back in the 1990s, you'll be hit by a terrifying wave of nostalgia. It reminds me of this excellent essay by Marie Le Conte about consent.","tags":["/etc/","Book Club","Book Review"],"title":"Book Review: Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth","updated_at":1790407825,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/book-review-slags-by-emma-jane-unsworth/","version":"v1"}}],"items":[{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"Ahhh! PSB's RFS! A delightfully indulgent soundscape of melodic wonder, performed here on its 10th (ish) anniversary. Is it really nostalgia if an album is only a decade old? It feels like it has been in the air forever.
\n\n\n\nFor something which is seemingly made up of samples, it would have been easy for them to half-arse it and basically just play the CD. Instead we got a full band, guest singers, and 360\u00b0 video projection,
\n\n\n\nOh, also a disco Sputnik flying over the crowd!
\n\n\n\nSimply magical! As were the indoor fireworks.
\n\n\n\nI might quibble a little with their song choices (no Gagarin!) but hearing the crowd repeatedly scream \"GO!\" was magnificent.
\n\nAlly Pally isn't a raked venue, so the video projection of the band was most welcome. An excellent gig in a splendid location.
\n\nAs I've written about before, the art of the Pre-Show and Post-Show is vital for getting people to pay for events outside of their homes. Right now I can stream all the music in the world for a year for about the same price as a couple of gig tickets. Why should I freeze my arse off outside, paying stupid money for mass-produced lager, when I could be at home?
\n\nPSB kept up a constant stream of emails talking about the gig. Not an overwhelming amount, just letting people peek behind the curtain of organising it, giving helpful information about logistics, and letting us know about merchandise which was available.
\n\nCrucially, they also gave us stage timings for them and their support act! How many times have you turned up on time to a gig only to spend an hour listening to some crap DJ before the crew even started setting up the stage? PSB treat their fans with respect.
\n\nAlly Pally isn't a venue I've been to before. It was well laid out with decent toilet provision - including a big block of portaloos at the back of the hall. The beer prices weren't ruinous, but I kind of resented paying \u00a315 for a veggie hotdog and a handful of chips.
\n\nSome venues seem to think that screaming at punters to open their bags will make for an enjoyable visit. Here the security staff were polite and not overly officious. Water bottles were allowed in with a cheery wave.
\n\nPost show - although the train stations are downhill, there were several buses waiting to take punters directly back. That's a perfect way of treating guests at your venue - ensuring that they get home safe and sound.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/exck1-pr238","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=75993","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PSB-RFS.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790467200,"rid":"9ewy3-fm172","summary":"Ahhh! PSB's RFS! A delightfully indulgent soundscape of melodic wonder, performed here on its 10th (ish) anniversary. Is it really nostalgia if an album is only a decade old? It feels like it has been in the air forever.","tags":["/etc/","Gig","Review"],"title":"Gig Review: Public Service Broadcasting's Race For Space at Alexandra Palace","updated_at":1790508914,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/gig-review-public-service-broadcastings-race-for-space-at-alexandra-palace/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/02jz4aj89","name":"Maastricht University"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Willighagen","given":"Egon","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7542-0286"}],"blog":{"authors":[{"name":"Egon Willighagen"}],"community_id":"7f57028e-9d03-489c-b3b4-3d60de06bc9e","created":1710288000,"current_feed_url":"https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/feed.json","description":"Chemblaics (pronounced chem-bla-ics) is the science that uses open science and computers to solve problems in chemistry, biochemistry and related fields.","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/chem_bla_ics","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/7f57028e-9d03-489c-b3b4-3d60de06bc9e/logo","feed_format":"application/feed+json","feed_url":"https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/archive.json","filter":null,"generator":"Jekyll","home_page_url":"https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"chem_bla_ics","status":"active","subfield":"1606","title":"chem-bla-ics","updated":1790467200,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"chem-bla-ics","blog_slug":"chem_bla_ics","content_html":"\n
\nSelf-protrait by Gustave Courbet.
\nSource: Wikipedia. CC-BY-SA\n
One blog that I have been (occasionally but repeatedly) reading for a long time is the What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate blog by Neil Saunders. HT to WoW!ter for pointing me to this nice post where Saunders shows how to calculate the number of entries in PubMed marked as retracted (in two seperate ways). The spoiler (you should check his R scripts anyway!): about 3900 retractions.
\nI have been quite interested in this idea of retractions and recent discussions with Chris (Christopher: mostly offline this time, and even some over a beer :) about if retractions are good or bad (BTW, check his inaugural speech on YouTube). He points out that retractions are not always for the right reasons, and, probably worse, have unintended consequences. An example he gave is a more senior researcher with two positions; in one lab someone misbehaved and this lab did not see any misconduct of this senior researcher; however, his other affiliation did not agree and fired him.
\nFive years ago I would have sad any senior researcher on a paper should still understand things in detail, and if misconduct was found, the senior authors are to blame too. I still believe this is the case, that's what you're co-researcher for, but feeling the pressure of publishing enough and just not having enough time, I do realize I cannot personally reproduce all results my post-docs and collaborators do. But we all know that publishing has made a wrong turn and, yes, I am trying to make it return to a better default.
\nWhy I am interested in retractions
\nBut that is not why I wanted to blog and discuss Saunders post. Instead, I want to explain why I am interested in retractions and, another blog you should check out, Retraction Watch. In fact, I am very much looking forward to their database! However, this is not because of the blame game. Not at all.
\nInstead, I am interested in noise in knowledge. Obviously, because this greatly affects my chemblaics research. Particularly, I like to reduce noise or at the very least take appropriate measures when doing statistics as we have plenty of means to deal with noise (like cancelling it out). Now, are retractions then a appropriate means to find incorrect, incomplete, or just outright false knowledge? No. But there is nothing better.
\nThere are better approached: I have long and still am advocating the Citation Typing Ontology, though I have to admit I am not up to date with David Shotton's work. The CiTO allows to annotate if two papers disagree or if it agrees and perhaps even uses the knowledge. It can also annotate the citation as merely being included because the cited paper has some authority (expect many of those to Nature and Science papers).
\nBut we have a long way to go before using CiTO becomes a reality. If interested, please check out the CiteULike support and Shotton's OpenCitations.
\nWhat does this mean for databases?
\nResearch depends on data, some you measure, some you get from literature and increasingly databases. The latter, for example, to compare your own results with other findings. It is indeed helpful that databases provide these two functions:
\nThese database will have two different approaches: the first will present the data as reported or even better as raw data (as it came from the machine, unprocessed, though increasingly the machines already do processing to the best of its knowledge); the second will filter out true facts, possibly normalizing data along the way, e.g. by correcting obvious typing and drawing errors.
\nIndeed, database can combine these features, just like PubChem and ChemSpider do for small compounds. PubChem has the explicit approach of providing both the raw input from sources (the substances with SIDs) and the normalized result (the compounds with CIDs).
\nBut what if the original paper turned out the be wrong? There are (at least) two phases:
\nThe first clearly reflects my interest in CiTO and retractions. We must develop means to filter out all the reported facts that turn out to be incorrect. And, can we efficiently keep our thousands of databases clean (many valid approaches!)? Do retractions matter here? Yes, because research in so-called higher impact journals is also seeing more retractions (whatever the reason is for that correlation), see this post by Bjoern Brembs.
\nWhere we must be heading
\nWhat the community needs to develop in the next few years is approaches for propagation of knowledge about correct and incorrect knowledge. That is, high impact knowledge must enter databases quickly, e.g. the exercise myokine irisin, but also the fact that it was recently shown it very likely doesn't exist, or at least that the original paper most likely measured something else (doi:10.1038/srep08889). Now, this is clearly a high-profile \"retraction\" of facts that few of us will have missed. Right? And that's where the problem is, the very long tail of disproven knowledge is very long, and we cannot rely on such facts to propagate quickly if we do not use tools to help us. This is one reason why my attention turned to semantic technologies, so that contradictions can be found more easily.
\nBut I am getting rather desperate about all the badly annotated knowledge in databases, and I am also getting desperate about being able to make a change. The research I'm doing may turn out rather desperate.
\nTo celebrate the upcoming series Doctor Who staring Jodie Whittaker, I'm attempting to chronicle all the mobile phones used in previous shows.
\n\nIf you think you've spotted something that's not listed here, or think I've made a mistake, drop it in the comments.
\n\nYou can follow along with all 10 series.
\n\nA cracking episode - perfectly directed. But what's the device Donna's teasing us with?\n\nA little too indistinct for now. Let's wait for a clearer view later.
Again, we only get a glance at the phone used to call the Doctor.\n\nAll we can see is that bottom port. But don't worry - all will be revealed in a few episodes' time!
Here's a curio! One of the few PDA's featured in the show.\n\nSD Card slot on the top, and a cluster of buttons at the bottom. An iPaq? A PocketPC? An XDA? There's no Windows button...
It is the Acer n300!\n\nPossibly the most obscure one yet! The props department have covered up the Acer logo and added in two fake buttons. Cunning!
A phone borrowed from a UNIT guard. But what is it?\n\nThe trapezoid camera and circular logo on the back means this is a Motorola. One of the SLVR line. Probably an S9.\n\nBit of an odd choice for a soldier, no?
Donna's turn to get her phone super charged.\n\nNot much detail here, sadly. The square button for the d-pad is characteristic of Nokia phones. There's a silver thing on top. I thought it was the N78 due to the placement of the flash - but that was launched after the episode aired.
Therefore, I reckon this is the Nokia 6500 Classic.
\n\nThe silver gap at the top is the charging port.
Do we get any more clues as to Martha's new phone? Oh yes!
\n\n\n\nObviously she kept her number, so The Doctor could call her. Wait... does that mean the Universal Roaming upgrade is applied to the SIM and not the terminal????
\n\nAnyway, based on the huge lens cover, and button placement, it's a Sony Ericsson K750.
\n\n\n\nLoads and loads and LOADS of phones in this!
\n\nDr Jones has yet another new phone!\n
Tough to say, but given the fat lower lip on the phone and circular control I'm going for the Motorola Z6w.\n\nClose enough, do you think?\n
The Sarah Jane Adventures crew get a look in. Here's Luke with a candy-bar phone.\n\nWhat's the perfect phone for a cool teenager? Nokia 5310 XpressMusic.\n\nA perfectly sourced prop.
Mr Lover-Lover has upgraded the phone he had in Series 1's \"Boom Town\" to this nifty flipper.\n
Not much detail. Zoom! Enhance!\n
Aha! That's a Motorola RAZR! No mistaking the thinness and the circular control. Could be one of several variants, but I'm going with Motorola Razr2 V8.
\n\n\n\nHonourable mentions to Torchwood's finest.\n\nHer phone is only in view for a few frames. If you've any idea what she's packing - let me know!
While everyone is trying to call The Doctor, we get this lovely shot of THREE PHONES AT ONCE!\n
Wilf's first. I recognise this - the first \"business phone\" I ever owned. The Nokia 6310i - you can tell by the red band over the top, and the battery cover button. Ancient by the time this was filmed - perfect phone casting for Wilf.
\n\nSylvia's is trickier. A flipper, but with only a small display of front. The circular logo looks like the placement for a Motorola. I reckon it's the Razr V3X.
\n\nThere's a close-up on Rose in the next shot.\n
OMG! She's using the same phone as The Master in The Sound of Drums!\n
It's our old friend the Samsung D600!
\n\n
What an action packed series! Before we get to S05, we've got the four \"specials\".
\n\nFollow along at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/doctor-who-phones/
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/3n7zh-fwr23","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=29808","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Martha-looking-off-camera.jpg","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1538006400,"rid":"k9ahp-qss07","summary":"To celebrate the upcoming series Doctor Who staring Jodie Whittaker, I'm attempting to chronicle all the mobile phones used in previous shows. If you think you've spotted something that's not listed here, or think I've made a mistake, drop it in the comments. You can follow along with all 10 series. Donna - Partners in Crime A cracking episode - perfectly directed.","tags":["/etc/","Doctor Who Phones"],"title":"The Mobile Phones of Doctor Who - Series 4","updated_at":1790498881,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/09/the-mobile-phones-of-doctor-who-series-4/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence"}],"content_html":"It has been over a year since I cancelled my Cloudflare account. They keep emailing me and haven't taken me off their marketing lists despite repeated requests. Their CTO told me he would investigate, but nothing changed. Their Data Protection Office hasn't respond to my requests.
\n\nCloudflare do not appear to respect the GDPR.
\n\nI've escalated this to the highest levels of Cloudflare, but they just don't seem to be able to take any action. This is concerning.
\n\n
![\"Bottom](\"https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EgwO3k3XkAAWegK.jpg\")
![CC-BY-SA](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustave_Courbet_auto-retrato.jpg\"){kind=link}
Sadly, John Graham-Cumming - the CTO - deleted his Tweet saying that he'd look into it. I assume that JGC doesn't like his personal data being misused. If only I were able to delete my personal data from Cloudflare, eh?
\n\nLuckily, the Internet Archive has a backup
\n\nDespite promising an investigation and a response from their Data Protection Office - I've received no assurance that they have respected my rights.
\n\nAt the start of August last year, I cancelled my Cloudflare account. I received confirmation from them that I was no longer a customer. My login was disabled. That should have been the last I heard from them.
\n\nTwo months later, I received an email update about their privacy policy.
\n\n\n\nI complained on Twitter, and their CTO promised he'd look into it:
\n\n
(Again, tweet deleted, but saved in the Internet Archive)
\n\nI never heard back from John. But one of his minions sent me this:
\n\n\n\nWhen we receive a request for account deletion, we may retain the email address on the account up to a year to ensure that we comply with internal policies and legal obligations.
*Pffft* Whatever. No mention of that is made in their privacy policy.
\n\nAt the end of August this year - well over 12 months after I unsubscribed - I received another email from Cloudflare. This time apologising for their downtime!
\n\nReplying to @edentJust received more spam from @Cloudflare. With no unsubscribe link.
It has been more than a year since I asked them to delete my account.
You cannot trust Cloudflare with your personal data. pic.x.com/y3qkyagm81
There was no option to unsubscribe. I'm not a customer - but apparently I still have to receive emails from them.
\n\nI got a message from someone at Cloudflare who said that they have multiple customer mailing lists and they are rarely in sync with each other. They don't have a good idea of who they are sending emails to, or whether people have consented. I think this is unacceptable for a company of this size to be so lax about their GDPR obligations.
\n\nI asked Cloudflare to report this breach to the Information Commissioners Office, and I suggested that they may need to notify the SEC if they are expecting a large fine. They may also need to let investors know if they have misrepresented their customer numbers.
\n\nI asked JGC and Cloudflare PR for a comment - but they were not inclined to provide one. They said their DPO would get back to me last week, but I heard nothing.
\n\nAt this point, I can only conclude that Cloudflare do not respect their users' privacy. Cloudflare has no idea who its customers are, nor how many they have. Cloudflare doesn't care about your data rights.
\n\n\n\nCLOUDFLARE'S PROMISE
\n\nOur mission to help build a better Internet is rooted in the importance we place on establishing trust with our Customers, users, and the Internet community globally. To earn and maintain that trust, we commit to communicating transparently, providing security, and protecting the privacy of data on our systems.
\n\n
*bitter laugh*
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/gjsb7-m6208","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=36764","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Screenshot_2020-09-18-John-Graham-Cumming-on-Twitter.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1601164800,"rid":"msdfc-xyw98","summary":"It has been over a year since I cancelled my Cloudflare account. They keep emailing me and haven't taken me off their marketing lists despite repeated requests. Their CTO told me he would investigate, but nothing changed. Their Data Protection Office hasn't respond to my requests. Cloudflare do not appear to respect the GDPR.","tags":["/etc/","Cloudflare","Data","Gdpr"],"title":"Don't trust Cloudflare with your personal data","updated_at":1790498880,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/09/dont-trust-cloudflare-with-your-personal-data/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"\"The problem with defending the purity of the HyperText Markup Language is that HTML is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. The standard doesn't just borrow concepts from better languages; on occasion, HTML has pursued other programming languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new syntax0.\"
\n\n\n\nEnglitch is an pretty goode langwidge. even you no grok all the pacific bits you got the jist & the splelling & grandma dont mattr to much.
\n\nHTML is much the same. You can write utterly malformed, derranged, non-standards complaint HTML and most browsers will just say \"Yeah, sure, whatever dawg!\" and render it adequately. Take a look at the source code for TodePond - a lovely website but some of the most abused HTML I've seen.
\n\nThere's a brilliant blog post by Jens Oliver Meiert which looks at whether HTML validity is seen as a priority for major sites. Basically, no.
\n\n\n\nIt's time for the annual analysis of how much of the HTML code in the field is error-free and valid. The short version: 1% of the most-frequented sites on this planet uses valid HTML\u2014and 99% don't.
\n\n
iS ThAt A pRoBlEm????
\n\nMy site is proudly HTML Valid. Run it through the HTML Validator or the Schema.org Validator and you'll see that it is fucking perfect! Same with my RSS Feed and Atom Feed. Not so much as an advisory bit of info, a couched warning, or a sternly worded suggestion1.
\n\nEvery last bit pure and holy.
\n\nOf course, syntactically valid HTML is neither necessary nor sufficient for any purpose.
\n\nPerfect HTML doesn't imply that a site is accessible (although, I'm proud to say mine meets or exceeds all WCAG guidance2).
\n\nPerfect HTML doesn't guarantee that the information it contains is accurate3.
\n\nPerfect HTML, at best, merely implies that the author gives a damn about such things. Much like Knolling, it leaves a suggestion that order is preferable to chaos4.
\n\nIt is said that one of the reasons HTML succeeded is that it is lax about validation. Most programming languages will shit the bed if you dare to leave out so much as a single semicolon. The compiler wails can be heard throughout the land.
\n\nBy contrast, HTML is designed to be sympathetic to the frailty of the human mind. \"Oh, you didn't close an element? Well, you opened a new one which I guess implies the same thing. Did you forget the correct syntax? Never mind - it'll be our little secret.\"
\n\nThat's why XHTML failed - the browser would literally refuse to render a page if it didn't meet the spec. Who can be bothered with that?! HTML just lets you get on with things.
\n\nAs I've mentioned before, humans don't write or speak in Backus\u2013Naur form. Our ideas are loosely expressed in a floating grammar which lends itself to paradoxical impossibilities and logical tautologies. And yet most of us can still parse weird sentences without too much effort.
\n\nBut most computer languages are different. It might be obvious to you that if (x = 42) means \"compare the value of x to 42\" - but what the computer sees is \"if assign x the value of 42\". Within computing our code needs to be rigorously formal and any syntax errors will lead to show-stopping bugs.
Imagine if every time a human wrote Romanes eunt domus the world simply crashed. It would be intolerable.
\n\nHTML is more like a human language than a computing language. You can understand human speech over a crackly phone line in a foreign accent - Web Browsers understand CP-1252 encoded text with bizarre syntax errors.
\n\nIf it is OK to write bad HTML, why do some of us fetishise \"pure\" HTML?
\n\nI think it comes down to an ingrained belief that it is polite to reduce ambiguity. It is nice to be precise5. It reduces the cognitive burden on anyone (or anything) which reads what we have written. We are holding up our end of the social contract by producing something unadulterated and easy to comprehend. It reduces the likelihood of different browsers rendering things differently but, almost on a cellular level, we feel that things must be done properly.
\n\nThe browser doesn't care about your inability to follow standards. But you should have some fucking self-respect and do it anyway.
\n\nWith the appropriate amount of apologies to James Nicoll \u21a9\ufe0e
\nAt the time of writing. Who knows what batshit bugs I'll accidentally include in the future \ud83d\ude43 \u21a9\ufe0e
\nAgain, it is possible to make something pass automated testing while still being an accessibility mess. \u21a9\ufe0e
\nAlthough, of course, everything you read in this site is 100% accurate. \u21a9\ufe0e
\nOr some horrifying psychological issue. Potato / Tomato. \u21a9\ufe0e
\nI will grant you, there's also a strain of 100% Completionist which compels me to get \"top score\" on all the benchmarks. But that's just pure vanity. \u21a9\ufe0e
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/aaajy-vhb90","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=74960","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HTML5_Badge_512.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790380800,"rid":"skm7j-47q74","summary":"\"The problem with defending the purity of the HyperText Markup Language is that HTML is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. The standard doesn't just borrow concepts from better languages; on occasion, HTML has pursued other programming languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new syntax.\" Englitch is an pretty goode langwidge.","tags":["/etc/","HTML","Webdev"],"title":"No errors, no warnings, no gods, no masters - HTML Purity is a Fetish","updated_at":1790494211,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/no-errors-no-warnings-no-gods-no-masters-html-purity-is-a-fetish/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/0153tk833","name":"University of Virginia"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Turner","given":"Stephen","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9140-9028"}],"blog":{"authors":[{"name":"Stephen Turner"}],"community_id":"382941a7-2ffa-41df-8bbb-5f772188517f","created":1780876800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"A practicing data scientist's take on AI, genomics, biosecurity, and the ways AI is reshaping how science gets done. Weekly updates from the field. Occasional notes on programming.","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/stephenturner","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/382941a7-2ffa-41df-8bbb-5f772188517f/logo","feed_format":"application/rss+xml","feed_url":"https://blog.stephenturner.us/feed","filter":null,"generator":"Substack","home_page_url":"https://blog.stephenturner.us","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"stephenturner","status":"active","subfield":"1311","title":"Paired Ends","updated":1790414839,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Paired Ends","blog_slug":"stephenturner","content_html":"Personal essay, weekend edition. Starting with a familiar quote often attributed to English economist John Maynard Keynes:1
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I've argued here that refusing a useful tool on principle is stubbornness. And after a few weeks of trying to go without AI at all, I still feel that way for the most part. But my relationship with AI is changing, especially around writing and scientific inquiry.
My inboxes (personal and otherwise) are filled with slop. My social feeds are filled with slop. Many of the papers I read are slop. My Hacker News links are slop. Many of the blogs I read are becoming increasingly filled with slop.2 People who I know and deeply respect are churning out AI slop at a pace I find simultaneously dizzying and disappointing (I'm not innocent here: there's some slop on some older posts here I'm embarrassed about, but I'm keeping them here unedited as a reminder). It's not just writing. I can't go a day without seeing a slide deck that looks exactly like this. IYKYK.
David Dewhurst is a program manager at DARPA. He described watching capable people he respects lose their creativity in real time as they present AI-generated content as original work. They point to length and coverage as achievements. I get some long comprehensive document and I can't find the sender's judgment anywhere in it. If I wanted Claude's analysis or opinion on this or that, I'm very well capable of asking Claude for Claude's analysis or opinion on this or that. Don't be a meat proxy.
I feel the same way when I'm reading the scientific literature. Anshul Kundaje argues that papers have stopped working as measures of productivity, expertise, or accomplishment.
The argument is obviously correct if you think about it for a half a minute. A publication on someone's CV tells me way less than it used to about what they contributed or understand. But as a newly returned academic, I can tell you Anshul is also correct that it'll take (too much) time before we figure out new ways to assess impact and expertise, while we desperately try to hold onto our old ways, bean counting glam journal publication and H-indices and such. We still need ways to document research impact and contribution, but these days a publication doesn't really tell us much about what its authors contributed or even understand. Earlier this week the Washington Post describes a full professor at University of Chicago having published more than 200 papers and 14 books this year alone. Case in point.
TMLR editor Nihar Shah contacted authors of 10 submissions that were already going to be desk rejected. One of them withdrew their submission. One said they were unavailable, and one didn't show up to the scheduled meeting. Of the remainder he met with, three authors couldn't answer basic questions about their papers, and three more struggled with technical details. The authors of the one remaining paper were able to answer basic questions, but Shah identified major errors in a central claim. Now this small sample can't tell you how common the problem is or how much AI caused it, but it says something. Shah also noted that this took >20 hours so it's obviously not a scalable solution.
Related, Giorgio Gilestro wrote an essay that's been making the rounds this week, calling where this ends the Weimar of Knowledge. The marginal cost of producing content is essentially zero, but the cost of attention is still high. The worry is that overwhelmed readers will rely even more on institutional prestige to decide what to read or whose work you should pay attention to. Obviously making it harder for good researchers outside well-known institutions to ever get read.
Tom Dietterich, arXiv editor in chief, shared a few thoughts on this problem. Ultimately I think the scale of the problem makes oral interviews for preprints unworkable even though I think this could really help cut down on the slop we see flooding academic publications. I've written about AI for peer review, and I do think there's a real place for it, but I'm also not bullish on an AI-written, AI-reviewed journal without human authors, for papers which will surely never be read by an actual human being. What are we even doing here.
Then there are proposals. I can't personally speak to the degree to which NIH study sections or NSF review panels are dealing with wholly AI-generated proposals. I'm serving on a NSF panel later this year so I'll get a sense of things soon. But I'd be willing to wager the number is far higher than any of us wish.3
I've noticed a change in myself, and I don't like it. I'm losing interest in reading.
If you've spent any time using AI yourself you can smell the Claudish a mile away, no Pangram needed.4 Maybe these things will get better at writing eventually, but that's kind of beside the point. Even flawless prose wouldn't make me less reluctant to spend an hour reading something that its author spent less than 10 minutes \"writing.\"
Part of the reason I read the things I read is to understand how another person thinks. To understand their own internal thought process, whether that's about a genetics paper, how to run a research lab and mentor students in the AI age, the optimal cover crop for Virginia winters, or traffic-calming approaches for improved bike and pedestrian safety. These days I wonder how much of that person is actually present.
With some AI sparkle \u2728 thing built into everything these days the persistent temptation to use AI for literally every part of thinking and writing is hard to resist. My AI Dry July experiment which I eventually aborted, gave me reasons to write more myself. I could better recall my arguments when I wrote 100% of them, I could better understand how the sections fit together because I fussed around with the story arc for hours, and I found revision to be much easier and less frustrating. I enjoyed it more, too. People much smarter than me on the topic have written volumes about writing and thinking, so I'll just confirm here: every time I delegated the writing I missed out on much of the thinking that I would have done while trying to think through or explain an idea.
I think this should make you feel concern about your professional value. If you outsource all your proposals or lectures or manuscripts or whatever creative work you do to a competent AI, you're choosing to let atrophy the judgment and creativity your employer pays you to do. You become less capable while appearing more productive. If you think people around you won't notice, you're very wrong.
I still want AI's help. Paul Bloom describes models catching errors that human reviewers miss. I recently published a preprint on AI and biosecurity, and while I actually think AI disclosures are actually a net negative in most cases, I did write a lengthy disclosure describing in detail how I'm using a multi-agent workflow to check my work against the papers I cited, including numbers and stats and my descriptions of their findings. This was useful, until it wasn't: the biosecurity subject matter quickly led both models I used to refuse further fact-checking.
I haven't settled on some kind of policy for every part of my work. I expect to keep using these tools and finding them useful. They're great for anything I do involving code. Lately I've been using Claude Code extensively to make little throwaway web apps to demonstrate a concept to my students far better than I could do with a janky PowerPoint animation. And I recently submitted a large proposal to develop a closed-loop AI scientist connected to a wet lab for autonomous biomedical research. But since that failed experiment in July I'm really trying to hand over less of my writing and thinking to the machines, and the majority of what I consume these days gives me more reason to take that commitment seriously as much as I can. I want to remain capable of doing the work I put my name on.
Although the attribution is questionable.
Substack, which hosts this blog you're reading now, and the vast majority of things I like to read, recently made a controversial decision to integrate Pangram's AI detection into the platform itself. If you're reading on the Substack web reader or iOS app you can click a button to check this. Screenshot below. I think Substack made a correct strategic move here. I love that blogs are making a comeback. But with more and more slop polluting the blogosphere, Substack is making a bet (one that I think will pay off) that most people, in fact, don't want to read slop. Much less pay for the privilege of doing so. It's really interesting, and telling, to see the reaction to this. My new favorite genre of essays are those vehemently and dogmatically anti-AI everything, which are, in fact, written mostly or entirely by AI. I'm hoping that writers here, now knowing that slop will be exposed, will be incentivized to not produce so much slop. And sure, you can turn off the AI detection feature, but that's a glaring admission that the whole post is, in fact, slop.
Free research-on-research project idea. Go to NIH RePORTER ExPORTER, and download CSV files of all the abstracts for funded grants in the last 10 years. Do the same for all the JSON files you can download from NSF. Pick a subset of a few thousand, and run them through Pangram's API. Compare pre-2023 to post-2024. Now here's the part that won't make you any friends. Do the same analysis, stratified by institution, department, or dare I say, even by PI. Pangram isn't perfect but it's surprisingly accurate by way of personal experience.
I've even tried writing my own Claudish to English translator for the writing I shouldn't be doing anyway, but it only goes so far.
Knowledge refinement is the ever ongoing process in science (and beyond it) that shepherds knowledge from lab notebooks into journal articles and then on to review articles, monographs, reference handbooks, university textbooks, and finally professional domain expertise and school education for a wider public. It has been going on for a few centuries, but we hardly talk about it. In fact, I made up the term because I couldn't find an established one. Computational knowledge has not yet found its place in the knowledge refinement process. Why not? And what can we do to make it happen?
\n\nFirst of all, what is the role of knowledge refinement?
\nOne answer is that knowledge becomes more reliable in the refinement process. Any single experiment, no matter how carefully done, can turn out to be wrong for lots of reasons. In contrast, the synthesis of hundreds of independent related experiments will remain trustworthy even if one flaky input experiment has to be withdrawn.
\nAnother role of knowledge refinement is making knowledge more accessible. When we learn from others, rather than from our own experience, we start with a highly refined view of a domain, and dive into the details only later and when we see a need for it. Schools teach only refined knowledge, which thus shapes general culture.
\nFinally, with refinement, knowledge also becomes more long-lived. A useful picture here is pace layers: each refinement step pushes knowledge down into a more slowly evolving layer.
\nEach knowledge refinement step has several interrelated aspects:
\nSummarization. A large number of works from the preceding step are cooked down into a common essence that emerges from them.
Curation. Domain experts select what they see as most relevant, discarding what they consider technical details, or only of historical importance.
Integration. Each step draws on broader domain coverage than the preceding one. The relation to already established knowledge is made clearer.
Simplification and clarification. Each step is written for a wider and less specialized audience than the preceding one. Jargon is replaced by more widely understood vocabulary. New concepts are introduced and the explanation is structured around them.
All these processes require reformulation. The output of a refinement step is not simply an annotated collection of quotes from its inputs. You can't edit a journal article into a chapter for a university textbook.
\nIn the digital era, it has become widely accepted that software and electronic datasets are representations of scientific knowledge. See for example pages 9 to 11 of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, which discuss \"open scientific knowledge\". For now, however, this is mostly wishful thinking. While code and data certainly are scientific information, it is difficult to consider them to be knowledge as long as they don't participate in the knowledge refinement process.
\nLet me illustrate this with analogies from pre-digital science. The predecessors of today's digital datasets are tables of observations recorded in lab notebooks. The predecessors of today's scientific software are mathematical equations. Consider the foundational research on electromagnetism that was done in the 19th century. Examples of original sources are the lab notebooks of Michael Faraday, or on the theoretical side James Clerk Maxwell's paper \"A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagneticm Field\" (already a refined version of his personal notes, which are probably lost). Today's textbooks in physics or electrical engineering mention both Faraday and Maxwell in historical overviews, but they don't ask you to consult their original work, nor do they cite passages from it in their pedagogical presentation. Instead, they show highly refined versions of Maxwell's theory in modern vector notation, which was largely created for this purpose. The textbooks also summarize the kind of experiments done by Faraday and many others, with pictures and diagrams of modern rather than historical instruments and experimental setups. Instead of real data, they show plots of idealized synthetic data for illustration.
\nWhereas nobody would seriously consider publishing a lab notebook as a journal article after just some light editing, many researchers seem to believe that computational notebooks, such as the popular Jupyter notebooks, could replace journal articles. However, the history and practice of Jupyter shows that it is by design a tool for interactive computational exploration. A Jupyter notebook is an annotated chronological record of a single computation. There is no way to summarize multiple computations. There is no way to focus on the essential aspects of a computation while relegating implementation details to an appendix. There is no way to explain, in more than words, algorithms from a library that is used in the notebook. Moreover, the order of presentation is constrained by the flow of the computation. In a typical Jupyter notebook, one of the very first lines says import matplotlib, a technical detail that in a journal article should be relegated to a reference list, because it is irrelevant to the scientific message.
If you look at today's published Jupyter notebooks, most of them are complements to journal articles. The play the role of an appendix, a repository for technical details. Notebooks that are independent publications do exist, for example in the Journal of Digital History, but the computations they contain, basic data analysis and visualization, are simple and not the main topic of the paper. Moreover, the Journal of Digital History has developed its own extensions to Jupyter that add support for hiding technical details from view while reading the article.
\nWhile I focused on Jupyter because of its popularity, other notebook technologies such as Quarto or Emacs' Babel extension to org-mode are not fundamentally different. As long as the executable content is a single computation that runs from top to bottom, the above criticisms remain valid.
\nVarious ideas for improving the publishing technology for code are being explored. One of them is removing the linear execution constraint, e.g. by using the dataflow paradigm. A few notebook systems have adopted this approach, most notably Observable. The most interesting system I have seen so far in this space is Lopecode, which adds a hypertext structure to Observable's dataflow model for computation. My own experiment on supporting the publication of refined digital knowledge is HyperDoc, which focuses on (1) integrating code and its execution into hypermedia networks and (2) building bridges to existing hypermedia systems. It has the advantage of being applicable to existing code in any programming language (though this requires significant implementation work that hasn't been done yet), and thus avoids a complete break with the past six decades of computational research.
\nMuch more remains to be done, however, before computational knowledge can become an integral part of the refinement process. Computational knowledge is most of all formalized knowledge, meaning knowledge expressed in terms of a formal system that can be processed mechanically, by a computer. Refinement techniques for formalized knowledge are constrained by the formal system they depend on. Program source code lives in a formal system defined by a programming language. It is processed mechanically by a compiler or an interpreter. The focus of a programming language is, not surprisingly, the construction of executable programs. There is a well-established refinement process for source code: scripts become library modules, which are complemented by tests and documentation and then published to become off-the-shelf ingredients for constructing more complex programs. Like knowledge refinement, code refinement makes code more reliable, more accessible, and long-lived, but only from the \"code as a tool\" perspective. It tends to reduce rather than augment its value as a knowledge repository. Software engineering priorities such as optimization and reducing redundancy tend to make the code less readable for researchers who are not professional software developers, and impenetrable to anyone who is just starting to explore a new domain of knowledge.
\nThis is why knowledge refinement in computational science remains limited to non-formal language. Textbooks remain printed books (or their digital twins, PDF files), merely referring to and writing about machine-readable artifacts such as code. The textbooks discuss concepts, including algorithms and data structures, but don't provide examples that readers could run and then build on in their own explorations. On the code side, there are often highly refined implementations for use as off-the-shelf tools, but their correspondence to what the textbooks say is unclear and not verifiable by the reader.
\nThere has been work on improving the explanation side, for example Bret Victor's explorable explanations that integrate interactive exploration tools into formerly passive textbook material. However, the strict divide between explanation and code for use in practice remains.
\nThis state of the art is tolerable for low-complexity computational knowledge, e.g. in linear algebra or signal processing. A textbook on Fourier transforms and good FFT library are good enough for learning these methods. But we need something better for complex models and methods.
\nConsider computational models of complex systems such as force fields for biomolecules, or climate models. On the machine side, they are implemented as software modules for use in simulation, using standard programming languages. On the human side, there are papers describing the principles behind their design, but lacking many details because these details would be overwhelming to a human reader. So if you really want to know how such models work, your only choice is wading through enormous amounts of source code, taking notes carefully of the findings that are relevant to your question. And if you ever want to compare two such complex models... good luck exploring two large software packages in parallel. Unfortunately, that's something you can't avoid doing during knowledge refinement. For example when you write a review paper on protein force fields, or on climate models.
\nWhen models become too complex to be represented in traditional scientific notations (equations, diagrams, etc.), they need to be represented in digital scientific notations. They need to be represented in formal systems that are made for documentation and exploration, rather than for plugging into a simulator. And they require tools that treat them as data, not code.
\nAn idea I have been pursuing for a while is the use of specification languages as digital scientific notations. See my project Leibniz for the details. Specification languages are more general than programming languages in the same way that mathematical equations are more general than mathematical functions (see here for a discussion). In particular, specification languages do not impose an executability condition on everything you write. This allows you to write incomplete function definitions or data structures. I am working on this idea and I remain optimistic that it will work out, but I won't declare victory before I have actually written that review of biomolecular force fields. Meanwhile, I'd be happy to see other work in this space, ideally pursuing very different ideas.
\nDigital scientific notations are a necessary first step for enabling the refinement of digital scientific knowledge, but the real works starts once we have them. We must then develop the tools that let researchers explore and examine publications containing formalized knowledge. We must also find refinement strategies that actually work in practice. There remains a lot to be done!
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/5vb7q-rnw59","guid":"https://blog.khinsen.net/posts/2026/09/25/knowledge-refinement.html","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790294400,"rid":"kn021-31216","summary":"Knowledge refinement is the ever ongoing process in science (and beyond it) that shepherds knowledge from lab notebooks into journal articles and then on to review articles, monographs, reference handbooks, university textbooks, and finally professional domain expertise and school education for a wider public.","title":"Knowledge refinement in the digital era","updated_at":1790435361,"url":"https://blog.khinsen.net/posts/2026/09/25/knowledge-refinement.html","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"One of the great things about modern HTML is that it tries to standardise stuff that developers are already doing. If there are a myriad ways of, for example, loading video onto a page - then browsers and other interested parties should work out how to make a standard <video> element.
An interesting new proposal has been brought forth by Microsoft. There are a dozen ways to show a preview of an <img> element before the src= attribute has loaded. So why not standardise on previewsrc=? There's an excellent explainer on Patrick Brosset's blog.
I instinctively like the idea - if only to simplify source code and reduce JS usage. But I do have some concerns which I've shared with the team.
\n\nThis is the thing I always bang on about when I'm discussing standards. Additions to HTML should primarily benefit end users, not developers.
\n\nDo end users want this? Is there a bunch of research that shows normal people are confused that they don't see a preview image? Do they recoil in fear and distress while waiting for a full resolution picture to appear?
\n\nWhen people see a blurry or blocky image, do they understand that they need to wait for the full thing - or do they assume their computer is broken?
\n\nMicrosoft has a bazillion dollars - it can afford to spend a few thousand on interviewing some real users and mapping out what they're likely to want from this.
\n\nI begrudgingly admit that developers need love too.
\n\n\n\nWhat are the pain points of the current implementations? Is it hard to dynamically generate multiple images? Is the syntax hard to use? Do blurs slow down the page?
\n\nAgain, MS needs to pony up some cash to talk to developers. At the very least run a survey of all existing websites in the BING! database and see what they use.
\n\nWhen an image doesn't load, or loads slowly, a user will normally be shown some alt text - like this:
\n\n\n\nIs that more or less useful than this?
\n\n\n\nAccessibility isn't just for people with visual impairments! This is an issue I've raised with them.
\n\nI've written before about the usability of HTML elements. Some of the newer ones like <picture> have very poorly named attributes in my opinion.
One alternative for previewsrc is poster. That would match with the poster attribute on the <video> element. They both show a preview image before the main content is loaded.
Given their functionality is identical, I think it makes sense for them to have the same name. You wouldn't expect to see <video horizontal=\"1920\" vertical=\"1080\"> would you? No. That's why they use the same width and height attributes as images.
There are several interesting objections and discussions on the GitHub repo. I'm delighted that this is being talked about in the open, rather than just being presented as a fait accompli (remember the toast proposal?).
\n\nAs I said, I genuinely think that there's a useful idea in here. But after writing all of this, I think it would be better and simpler for developers to use progressive images rather than overload HTML with a new attribute.
\n\nIf website owners can't be bothered to save progressive images, I don't see why they'd bother to create a separate preview image.
\n\nKeeping preview images in sync with their full images is also likely to be a problem.
\n\nIf you think I'm wrong, read the explainer and then chat with Microsoft.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/twr9x-eh003","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=75856","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HTML5_Badge_512.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1790208000,"rid":"bke8v-4h802","summary":"One of the great things about modern HTML is that it tries to standardise stuff that developers are already doing. If there are a myriad ways of, for example, loading video onto a page - then browsers and other interested parties should work out how to make a standard element. An interesting new proposal has been brought forth by Microsoft.","tags":["/etc/","HTML","Standards"],"title":"Some thoughts on HTML's proposed previewsrc attribute","updated_at":1790407829,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/some-thoughts-on-htmls-proposed-previewsrc-attribute/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"\n\nThis book, by The Times' former Architecture Correspondent, stands in direct opposition to A City on Mars. Whereas that book presented a (perhaps too) sceptical look at the realities of living on other planets, Jonathan Morrison's book goes (perhaps too far) in the opposite direction.
\n\n\n\nHow to Build a Space Station is a beautiful examination of just how important architecture will be to our colonisation of other worlds. Not just in terms of physical safety - but psychological safety as well. It is a direct and forceful rebuttal to those who say it cannot be done.
\n\nIt is, in my opinion, just a touch too credulous about some of the ludicrous claims from the hype merchants. I want to believe that Martian igloos can be conjured out of the ice and that Musk's rockets will deliver a steady stream of supplies to distant worlds. But the evidence presented is rather thin. The book works best when it focuses on what architecture can bring to the table when it comes to designing the future.
\n\n\n\nIn short, a spacecraft is not just a machine; it is also a home, an office, a refuge. If people are asked to go to the most remote environments, to live in spaces scarcely larger than a few rooms, and to perform work of immense complexity and risk, then comfort, efficiency and ergonomics are not just luxuries.
Space has to be worth living in. Putting people into a tin-can with no windows, blank walls, and an infernal background hum will drive them mad. All this is backed up with extensive descriptions of the engineering challenges of polar research bases, spaceports, and previous craft.
\n\nDespite being rightly scathing about Wernher von Braun's involvement in atrocities and his eventual political rehabilitation - he is somewhat more muted in his criticism of Messrs Musk & Bezos. There's a lot of praise for celebrity architects and designers - without any real examination of whether their designs are practical rather than just award fodder.
\n\nSimilarly, the book takes on trust that autonomous robots can ingest extraterrestrial soil, process it, and 3D print structures from it all while in a hostile environment. The fact that we don't have swarms of drones prefabbing houses in the relatively benign atmosphere of our planet should be evidence that maybe these claims aren't quite matched with reality.
\n\nFinally, the \"why?\" question. A City on Mars points out that the cost of mining gold from asteroids would be more profitably spent improving mining technology here on Earth. How to Build a Space Station takes a different approach; it'll improve things here:
\n\n\n\nSpace architecture is not just escapism, a thrilling sci-\u00adfi fantasy \u2013 it is a forge for creating the tools we need at home. These include but are not limited to circular systems, low-\u00adenergy fabrication, modular construction and buildings that take psychology seriously.
I have a lot of sympathy for that. Except\u2026 the Internation Space Station has shown us how to endlessly recycle water relatively cheaply. Yet every modern building on Earth pays only lip-service to reusing grey-water. 3D printing is amazing, but the number of structures built using autonomous robots extruding concrete is approximately zero.
\n\nWe have the technology - but we don't seem to be interested in using it.
\n\nThe book is mostly well illustrated - with some gorgeous drawings of actual craft and possible future inventions. Sadly no photos, maps, or anything to help illuminate some of the other challenges faced by living and working in space.
\n\nThis book is endlessly fascinating and bang up to date, with lots of talk of events that happened in 2025. The way it brings together the sciences of engineering and psychology is marvellous. But, as much as I'd like to believe in a Martian habitat built by robot trebuchets flinging microwave sintered tetrapods into each other, I just don't find it convincing.
\n\nI really hope I'm wrong.
\n\nMany thanks to Netgalley for the review copy - the book is available to buy now.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/0vqd8-3qy21","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=75653","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/how-to-build-a-space-station.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1789862400,"rid":"8s9qs-35530","summary":"This book, by The Times' former Architecture Correspondent, stands in direct opposition to A City on Mars. Whereas that book presented a (perhaps too) sceptical look at the realities of living on other planets, Jonathan Morrison's book goes (perhaps too far) in the opposite direction.","tags":["/etc/","Book Review","NetGalley"],"title":"Book Review: How to Build a Space Station by Jonathan Morrison","updated_at":1790407827,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/09/book-review-how-to-build-a-space-station-by-jonathan-morrison/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eden","given":"Terence","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9265-9069"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc","created":1788652800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Regular nonsense about tech and its effects \ud83d\ude43","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/shkspr","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/61ce553a-bafd-4aba-a952-d3bab5e85bcc/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/feed/DOI","filter":"category:-1982","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog","issn":"2753-1570","language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"shkspr","status":"active","subfield":"1712","title":"Terence Eden's Blog","updated":1790499944,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Terence Eden's Blog","blog_slug":"shkspr","content_html":"\n\nI'm really not sure what to make of this book. It was recommended by my book club as something between tragedy and comedy. The characters are excruciatingly well written - if you (or your friends) shoplifted Impulse body-spray back in the 1990s, you'll be hit by a terrifying wave of nostalgia.
\n\nIt reminds me of this excellent essay by Marie Le Conte about consent. What can a teenage girl consent to? What will fuck her up for years to come? What if she doesn't mind being a little fucked up?
\n\nThe prose is amazing, the plotting perfectly paced, and the denouement satisfying - with lots of retrospectives \"Oh! I get it now\"s.
\n\nDespite the hectic and hilarious story, I still felt a little sordid reading it. There's a streak of sadness running through it, intertwined with some unbearably heartbreaking poetry.
\n\n\n\nIt's always raining and there's nothing to do except dream and they don't even give you much time to do that with all the coursework.
It is entertaining and fun - but you need a strong stomach and a casual disregard for the overall happiness of your protagonists.
\n\nOne note - there are a few odd / broken styles in the ePub. Nothing too disruptive, but some passages have a slightly smaller font size for no discernable reason.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/fq0at-xga66","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=72687","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/slags.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1786752000,"rid":"p2yaq-9mn76","summary":"I'm really not sure what to make of this book. It was recommended by my book club as something between tragedy and comedy. The characters are excruciatingly well written - if you (or your friends) shoplifted Impulse body-spray back in the 1990s, you'll be hit by a terrifying wave of nostalgia. It reminds me of this excellent essay by Marie Le Conte about consent.","tags":["/etc/","Book Club","Book Review"],"title":"Book Review: Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth","updated_at":1790407825,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/book-review-slags-by-emma-jane-unsworth/","version":"v1"}],"out_of":57663,"page":1,"per_page":10,"total-results":57663}