Cheng D.

Some news years in the making: My book EMPIRE OF AI, out May 20, is ready for pre-order at empireofai.com. It tells the inside story of OpenAI as a lens for understanding the moment we’re in: the tech elite's extraordinary seizure of power and its threat to democracy. 1/

@normalishvegan @RuxandraTeslo NYU did this and it resulted in 1) it becoming more selective, 2) no increase in students going into Family Med primary care, and 3) no increase in lower income students matriculating: statnews.com/2024/03/07/fre…

@RuxandraTeslo I'm legitimately confused how tuition free medical school is a bad thing. Even if medical school students can typically pay off their student loans, the high cost deters a lot of students.

Unpopular opinion but I don't think we should do wealth transfers to people who'll pursue one of the most stable and remunerative careers. Fund people who would take risks they wouldn't have otherwise taken

@typewriteralley A developer near me spent 2 years unsuccessfully fighting to cut down an exceptional wetland tree for a driveway. The house to be demolished doesn't have off-street parking. The final permit kept the tree, driveway, and 3 new units. The parking obsession wasted everyone's time.

@asher_971 Building housing costs the relatively same whether its for low-income vs high-income. Developers will charge what the market is willing to offer. To incentivize more affordable housing, we need to reduce the burden on those building for lower-middle income.

@asher_971 MHA shouldn't be required for low/moderate income housing, but the major "study" against MHA is from the lobbying group for developers, focusing only on townhomes, doesn't account for COVID, housing price jump/competition, supply chain and inflation. It's a correlative study.

This stuff is good... but the fact that we are exempting things from MHA and Design Review is an implicit acknowledgement that MHA and Design Review are barriers to housing affordability!

@logan_markwell @kaitlynmwerner Whether such a service is worth it is important to consider. I’ve had peers use them, esp folks who didn’t go to top school or have PIs with connections. It’s esp hard to understand job offers and negotiations if you don’t have peers to guide you - you could be forgoing money/opp

@logan_markwell @kaitlynmwerner I understand the view of not paying for advice you might find for free but - not everyone has a strong industry network to solicit feedback/advice/critique - many who have good networks “paid” for them via undergrad choice - sometimes, paying 100s can mean 1000s in higher salary

Under no circumstances should you be paying for consulting services from someone who is not transparent about their prices or what they offer. No one "needs" this person's services -- people have been finding jobs outside of academia long before these "coaches" popped up. 🧵

@Dwest2828 @GammaHerm @ketosnacks @ByERussell @jonostrower youtube.com/watch?v=YtY8bC…

@GammaHerm @ketosnacks @ByERussell @jonostrower It’s more likely that bolts vibrated out of their holes than they forgot to torque them?

Following @jonostrower's scoop on United finding 737-9s with loose door plug screws, a source sent this image of one of the door plug's lower hinge bracket with a note that 2 screws are not screwed all the way in. theaircurrent.com/feed/dispatche…

@typewriteralley Look at Shoreline - the amount of housing being built along Aurora from 175th to 200th is likely higher than the entire stretch of Aurora in all of north Seattle.

@typewriteralley TOD for BRT, while great, is hindered when we neglect the actual transportation infrastructure. Take the E line and Aurora Ave. It's been upzoned, yet SDOT fails to improve pedestrian experience and consequently housing development along it is slow.

@seattledot @GoogleAI How does this tie in with pedestrian safety? We've seen Aurora Ave N and the pandemic that the when cars expect little/no stoppage, average speed increase and so does pedestrian deaths (making Aurora the deadliest street for pedestrian in WA)

We adjusted signal timing along 15th Ave NW at NW Market St and NW 53rd St in Ballard, and in Greenwood at Greenwood Ave N and N 80th St. These locations were identified through our partnership with @GoogleAI's Project Green Light. sdotblog.seattle.gov/2024/01/04/pro…

@thaasophobia @MedUniGraz @gibbological @isbsci Congrats, Christian! So excited for your next adventure!

It is with great sadness that I have to resign as @eLife editor and early-career advisor after @mbeisen was fired as editor-in-chief for making use of his freedom of speech to stand up – once again – for the people who were silenced. A brief statement here:

@RyanGutenkunst @apragsdale 100% - the people hurt most in this are trainees who's whole career can hinge on the reputation of their mentor's name. Academia is feudalism and it's really just those at top duking it out half of the time.

@Nancy_Kanwisher PIs have the right to personally advocate for what they believe in, but to do so in a professional capacity when its unrelated to their work is unjust to their trainees

@Nancy_Kanwisher This is mixing personal and professional and honestly has the risk to harm trainees. When a trainee's future is are beholden to their PI's reputation, a PI's personals stance can directly impacts a trainee's professional future.

To my US Academic Colleagues with Tenure- Where are you? I don’t understand why I see almost none of you using your safe posts to denounce the atrocities being committed right now, in your names and on your dime. What else is tenure for, if not this? continued...

@serghei_mangul @blekhman One can make an empathetic statement without it being political. Most people are not sufficiently informed on geopolitics to make an informed political position, but we all should have empathy for those who were harmed. Your reference to shared values is empathy, not politics.

@blekhman But I like to hear it from my university Especially given the demonstrations by Hamas supporters around (which are terrifying). Again this is about shared values which I hope we have

Unpopular opinion (?): universities, scientific societies, and journals don't need to have a position or comment on geopolitical events All they should do is offer support to those impacted, and allow their members to express their opinions without fear of retaliation

@tkorem Interesting study. I'm curious why the authors found it *unlikely* that "the associations btwn microbial genetic diversity and pregnancy outcomes ... might also be a consequence of different processes or unmeasured confounders", esp given ABX acknowledged as having affect on both

@typewriteralley We can hate the Wallingford "historical district", but we shouldn't overlook historical district in actual marginalized neighborhoods like Chinatown, which has one of the lowest median income and non-English speakers. Let's not enable displacement out of spite.

University endowments should be taxed at a higher level. Large college endowments have reached a size where they have outsize effect on the free market (ie buy real estate/assets tax-exempt, fund LBOs). They’re no longer charitable funds.