Eric J. Perkins, PhD (he/him)

@allostericsite.bsky.social

1672 Followers 3092 Following

Dad, Mol. Biologist, reader, music listener, etc...Skeeting about STEM, SciComm, science nonprofits, & also parenting, food, fitness, travel, being a grumpy GenXer. Aspiring to be an ally to anyone who needs allies, here and IRL.

Me standing next to a banner that reads: UNITED STATES CULTURE COLLECTION NETWORK A Central RESOURCE For Microbial Culture Collections and their Users ion Network O addgene
A LEGO kit for assembling a large Lionel Messi
A urinal with a green mat, a small white soccer goal, and a little plastic soccer ball you can pee in to score a goal.
A sand sculpture of a crab
Me carrying a very heavy chain
Photo of a street with two signs on each sidewalk. The sign on the left sidewalk reads “Sidewalk closed, use other side” with an arrow pointing across the street. The sign on the sidewalk across the street simply reads “Sidewalk closed”.
NPR headline: Trump claims vandals damaged DC Reflecting Pool, and says it will be drained again/we’re all trying to find the guy who did this meme
A hand drawing of a circle with some lines in the perimeter with a column of rectangles curving towards it, with some circles at the top of the column.
Cover a notebook that says “The Biology of Spiders”, featuring several photorealistic images of different spider species.
Cover of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s book The Edge of Space-Time
Piece of paper taped to a board with the following hand written on it: SUBTOPICS: Technological Unemployment and Labor Disruption. 3 Bridging the Digital Divide for SME Inclusivity. 3 Blockchain and FinTech for Trade Financing. 4 Cybersecurity, Data Sovercignty, and Geopolitical Tensions.
The Brainstorming Test I have used AI many times as a brainstorming mechanism, a sounding board for early-stage ideas. And here is what I’ve found: every time I had an idea that was genuinely outside the box, AI discouraged me from pursuing it. When I persisted, it didn’t just push back, it practically begged me to stop. To not continue. To not insist. Think about what that means. The tool that everyone tells you is “creative” and “revolutionary” is architecturally incapable of doing anything other than averaging what already exists. It is a statistical summary of the past masquerading as a window into the future. When it tells you your unconventional idea is bad, it’s not evaluating your idea. It’s telling you that your idea doesn’t resemble the data it was trained on. That’s not intelligence. That’s pattern-matching with a confidence problem.
A pink and blue hued lunch bag featuring two howling wolves on a star field
A sparkly sticker with roses that says “Thou may ingest a satchel of richards”
WHEN ASKED ABOUT THE DIFFICULTIES OF SCULPTURE, MICHELAN-gelo said, "It is easy. You just chip away all the stone that isn't David." It's simple to cut things out of a life. You break up with a shitty partner, quit eating bread, delete the Twitter app. You cut it out, and the shape of what's actually killing you clarifies a little. The whole Abrahamic world invests itself in this promise: Don't lie, don't cheat, don't fuck or steal or kill, and you'll be a good person. Eight of the ten commandments are about what thou shalt not. But you can live a whole life not doing any of that stuff and still avoid doing any good. That's the whole crisis. The rot at the root of everything. The belief that goodness is built on a constructed absence, not-doing. That belief corrupts everything, has everyone with any power sitting on their hands. A rich man goes a whole day without killing a single homeless person and so goes to sleep content in his goodness. In another world, he's buying crates of socks and Clif bars and tents, distributing them in city centers. But for him, abstinence reigns.
Screen shot of a text that reads “A library we're working on has a little room off the children's section called "Wiggle Room". I presume for the nuggets who can't sit still through story time.” Followed by a blue print of a library with the designated Wiggle Room.
A brief video of me walking in a sidewalk that has only been shoveled about a foot wide. There are six foot snow banks and a very narrow crevice to walk through.
A plastic drawer filled with 40-50 lip balm tubes f various colors and flavors.
Poster with the title “Genmanipulation mit CRISPR: Weltrevolution oder unabsehbares Risiko“
An AI comic book-style rendering of my Slack message this morning of my looking at at an Apple laptop and saying "OMG, that OS update erased all my Chrome windows and hundreds of tabs AND the history, so I can't restore them! I had a system...I HAD A SYSTEM!"
NYY puzzle wrap saying I am in the top 1% of Connections players
A messy hand written list of Thanksgiving staples
A text exchange with the words “Thanks! I hope you’re enjoying your last day of being in your forties!” Followed by nothing but a crying face emoji.
Several packages of butter in a freezer door
A food drive poster next to shelves full of non-perishable foods.
A crude pen rendering of a Dodgers fan and Blue Jays fan as skeletons.
A racing bib with the number “67”
Screenshot of AI exchange: In the future, you do. not need to preface responses with statements like "You're absolutely right". I don't need that kind of validation from AI. Response: Understood. I'll skip those kinds of prefatory statements.
A plate with orange colored chicken wings and some mashed potatoes. A text that reads: Today 23:01 This is the type of thing they only pull out at the dining commons after 9 PM. Like any sane person my first time eating Nashville hot chicken wings will be at 11 PM
Picture shows an older couple sitting next to each other at the base of the John Harvard stature. Headline reads: A couple was booted from a Boston concert after they couldn't prove they were of legal drinking age. They are 64 and 70. Further text reads: A late summer evening concert at Bowery Presents was supposed to be the culmination of their weeklong vacation in Boston. But the couple, aged 64 and 70, were kicked out of the venue for drinking without ID proving they were over 21.
The logo for Claude, which looks like like a white butthole on an orange background
Screen shot of a Slackbot that says "To help make this meeting happen, a calendar event was created for Friday, October 10th at 5:00PM"
Patrick Star with an arm torn off. The arm has its own face. Caption reads “Patrick makes a new friend…the hard way.”
Cover of the book The Secret History of Bigfoot, by John O’Connor.
Four pint glasses featuring the women scientists Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Marie Curie, Alice Ball, and Mary Anning.
The hand-written name “Oberobic Poberkobins”
Cracker Barrel gift card (featuring the old Cracker Barrel logo.
A carton bean knitting, a timer, and a “Stop Focusing” button.
A list of booths and small attractions, with the following circled: DIRT PILE/ Kids Dig & Slide/ Have FUN in the dirt!
OUR INSANITY ISN'T THAT WE SEE PEOPLE WHO AREN'T REALLY THERE. IT'S THAT WE IGNORE THE ONES WHO ARE.
Four large zucchini and an adult arm
Sign for a 50 ct bucket of Dunkin munchkins, in a pile of sand with the label “beach ready”
Avocado that is primarily pit
A full size refrigerator filled with various German chocolate and marzipan
A poster for a children’s performance in Germany featuring several whimsical characters, including some of with a hamburger for a head.
A live band plays Sweet Caroline at the Hamburg Fischmarkt. Hundreds of people are singing along.
Picture of text from the book Shadow Work, by Emily Hodgson Anderson: I'm a carnal versus courtly book lover, my books bearing the brunt of my deep love— stains, rips, broken spines, their bodies deformed after being lost among my bedcovers and rolled upon at night. But even after such use, they never get used up. Books can time travel, existing when I first read them and with me here as I read….
Sand sculpture of an octopus.
A panoramic video of the beach at the North Sea, with high winds and blowing sand.
A t-Shirt with a double helix and a photo of stem cell biologist Shinya Yamanaka, along with his name in red letters.
Store from with a dog skeleton in the window and a sign that says “Dr. M. Weiland Chiropraktik für Hunde”
Screenshot of the new Search by Sequence page on Addgene.org
A large inflatable number 1 and 6 with several types of candy taped all over them.
An almost empty suitcase with four books in it.
A rainbow pride flag waving in the breeze of a small office fan.
A bag of Kinderini cookies. The cookie on the bag has a smiley face, the actual cookie had a horrified frown face.
CD cases for Jasmine.4.t, Ezra Furman, Lucy Dacus, Car Seat Headrest
THE HIGHWAY The thing about fucking off to the woods is that unless you are a very particular, very rare sort of person, it does not take long to understand why people left said woods in the first place. Houses were invented for excellent reasons, as were shoes, plumbing, pillows, heaters, washing machines, paint, lamps, soap, refrigeration, and all the other countless trappings humans struggle to imagine life without.
See how I spit out my gum when I get to Chorus? Very Demure Very Mindful
Harpoon 5 Miler Presented by Puma 41:02 #322: Eric Perkins Visit http://www.iresultslive.com to view live results. If you have questions or concerns about these results, please contact the event organizer or the event timer. Place: 945 Nettime: 41:02 Pace: 8:13 CRANITESTITE Division Place: 101 RACE SERVICES Guntime: 41:33 Division: M4049 These are preliminary results only. Age: 48 Sex: M Results courtesy of Granite State Race Serv Please check the event site for the location o