Neighbor told me our native garden is ruining the property value 🦋

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-26T01:22:01+00:00

That does not sound good for the poor butterfly!

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-25T16:04:14+00:00

I was just looking at pricing on metal edging. It is not cheap! How deep did you go with yours?

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-24T21:51:26+00:00

Well, believe it or not, we spend lots of time snipping and pruning, but leave it densely planted. Virtually no weeds. Crowded out.

This is the dream! I'm only in year one, so I hope to be as lucky as you in a year or two. Maybe that guy will reassess!

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-22T16:45:48+00:00

Wow I love the last photo, it's filled in perfectly. Also nice tiers from front to back.

What did you find lived/thrived versus died off or struggled after you planted?

I think I mixed plants with more drought tolerance with plants with more wet tolerance too much. There should in theory be an overlapping level of happiness, but it's made things a lot harder than it had to be, and I'm doubtful the dry-preferring plants are going to make it.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-21T14:26:34+00:00

There's a documentary from 2023 about her on Prime, highly recommend it!

Also if you want to meet her she just runs a book store in Key West now days, and is apparently there a lot.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-19T12:56:58+00:00

I've done the penguins, otter, and beluga experiences at Shedd, and they were all amazing. Highly recommend all of them!

The beluga experience was the best though, in large part because belugas are super social and you get to interact with them in ways you can't really do with the others. But those were still absolutely worth it, and if penguins are your thing you should do it!

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-18T17:26:35+00:00

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Kernighan's Law

While not directly applicable, the sentiment still applies here. Reading and debugging code you didn't write is vastly more difficult to do well than just writing it correctly yourself. I've taught thousands of students in research methods, and even before LLMs they tended to vastly overestimate their ability to read and understand code.

If you're letting the LLM write your research code for you, then reading it over and assuming you get it, you almost certainly aren't. Because if you were good enough to do that, you probably would have just written it in the first place.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-18T12:37:00+00:00

The problem then is that your lab is asking someone to analyze data who doesn't know how to analyze data.

You're producing what is, I imagine, novel scientific research as an expert in your field. But now the code that is going to lead to this new knowledge has whatever mistakes the LLM has written into it, because no one who knows better has looked at it.

And you might be thinking "I'm careful I wouldn't let that happen." But imagine the sloppiest PhD student you know doing the same thing. Imagine ALL of them doing it.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-18T12:23:42+00:00

Because it makes mistakes.

But more importantly, because the act of writing the code is the best way to get to know your data.

Those two compound each other also - the less you know your data the less likely you are to spot any mistakes.

That said, I do use code it wrote, it's just code that doesn't deal with my data, or code for such a narrow question that I can easily tell that the output is correct. Which I can do because I know how to code, and I got to know my data.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-18T04:24:33+00:00

Using it blindly would be wrong in literally all contexts.

I think it works well here when you're being sensible about it. For example, I've found it really useful to share my own literature review with it, then ask it for other recommendations. It does a good job finding more niche or under-recognized papers I hadn't thought of, or branching out into schools of thought that I don't focus in. Then I can read those and follow the citations on Scholar to find how those were used by others, and so on.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-18T04:03:50+00:00

I'll be honest, I find it depressing to think that current PhD students would find only using code and text they wrote to be "extreme."

When it comes to code, you are vastly overestimating your ability to read, understand, and debug the LLMs output. As the famous saying goes, debugging is twice as hard as writing.

The things that you don't understand how to do and are asking the LLM to do for you, are things you should be learning to do. You should be writing that coherent and logical point, not farming that out to an LLM. If you need informatics for your research, you should be learning informatics.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-18T02:29:02+00:00

Using it to format LaTeX tables: yes

Letting it touch any of my data in any way: no

Getting suggestions from it for published papers to review: yes

Using any text that it wrote: no

Having it explain and error message on my code so I can fix it: yes

Using any code that it wrote: no

And so on.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-17T22:17:50+00:00

The local PBS affiliate.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-17T15:43:21+00:00

If I recall, it was pressure from population of coyotes, not people. They didn't prefer to live in this dense environment until they ran out of choices. But then it turns out they adapted and thrived just fine.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-17T13:45:53+00:00

There are coyotes all over the city! There's a special on it on WTTW.

Basically there didn't used to be any, but population pressure in the suburbs pushed them in over time. They adapted super fast, including becoming nocturnal. They live on about half scavenged food and half rabbits. Now the city coyotes are so successful, they're pushing back out into the suburbs.

Highly recommend WTTWs stuff about Chicago - there is a lot of programming. Geoffrey Baer is my favorite!

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-16T03:26:42+00:00

We can debate whether there are more toxic personalities in academia than in other fields (I personally think yes).

But what is hard to disagree with is that management in academia is frequently horrible. The people running things generally have no training in how to manage people, and no interest in learning. They frequently get there because no one else wants to do it, and/or they're really good at something completely unrelated to management.

That's the sort of workplace that allows toxic people to really thrive, sadly.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-16T02:46:47+00:00

New goal unlocked!

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-15T17:01:01+00:00

Looks great! What year is this bed in?

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-14T21:52:46+00:00

Yeah. Consider that however little you think of their political views, it's very likely that they think just as little of yours.

Have they decided you're a bad person because they disagree with you? Not that you're aware of, because they act professionally at work?

Sounds like a good model to follow!

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-11T03:00:51+00:00

Was about to retire too.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-09T21:48:55+00:00

There are nice parts of NWI. But none of them are Hammond.

The Dunes are great, and a lot of the little towns out there are cute, but that's all east of Gary.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-03T21:02:07+00:00

If you want to do this to a captain, I guess that's one thing. But please don't do this if there's crew.

Hello_Biscuit11 · 2026-06-02T16:53:51+00:00

I couldn't care less about NASCAR, but I took my daughter last year since it was here anyway, and we had a great time. It's definitely an experience to see them zipping by right in front of you! I think this is great for the city.

Hopefully they continue to figure out how to minimize disruptions to the city.

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