John Timmer

@jtimmer.bsky.social

5447 Followers 364 Following

Ars Technica's science editor. Various other things that are far less interesting. Check my author profile on Ars for my email. jtimmer.95 on Signal.

Screenshot of the following text: Scientists and environmentalists say that offshore wind farms could play a crucial role in the fight against climate change. Unlike burning fossil fuels, wind turbines do not generate any of the greenhouse gases that are dangerously warming the planet. And unlike large-scale solar farms, they do not take up vast amounts of valuable land. The Trump administration, however, has criticized offshore wind projects as ugly and inefficient.
Sidney Poitier standing on a train platform wearing a suit, from In the Heat of the Night.
The NYT spelling bee game, with the species Tiktaalik spelled out.
Image of a bicycle computer showing the odometer at 10,000 miles.
A screenshot of some text, with the following sentence highlighted: "As health secretary, Mr. Kennedy has demonstrated an unorthodox view of what makes for reliable findings about vaccines."
Image of the back of a bunch of people's heads. They are seated in front of a wall that is all windows that allow the viewing of a space telescope shrouded in dark material.
An enormous room with a two-story space telescope sitting in the center. It's a large cylinder with panels on one side, and mostly covered in dark protective fabric. The bottom end and stand is silvery metal.
A press release announcing that the Secretary of Energy will be holding a press conference at the site of the currently closed Indian Point nuclear power plant.
Image of polling data on confidence in scientists, showing it to be considerably lower among Republicans.
Image of a tangle of green christmas cactus segments sprinkled with magenta-pink blooms.
What is the point of having "Fuck You" money if you never use it to say "Fuck You" to those trying to fuck you?
A black and yellow bicycle propped up against a single that says "Highest Point on Drive". The background is heavily wooded, and a road curves off to the right and into the woods.
An image of the following text: "Unlike the previous administration, the Trump EPA is focused on protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback, not left-wing political agendas," the spokesperson said in an email that did not identify the sender. "As such, this agency no longer takes marching orders from the climate cult."
Image of Aretha Franklin flanked by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in Blues Brothers costumes (black jacket and tie, white shirt, black hat, and sunglasses).
A google query for "it's not my goddamn planet understand monkey boy?" Google's AI responds with: "I understand you are upset, but the use of abusive or demeaning language is not acceptable. I am an Al, a large language model trained by Google, designed to be helpful and harmless. I do not have a physical form, species, or personal feelings, so insults directed at "monkey boy" or calling someone a "goddamn planet" do not apply to me."
A feedback email filled with insults from a user who claims their name is "Biggus Dickus Cockasaur".
"Nothing in this order shall be construed to discourage or prevent the use of peer review methods to evaluate proposals for discretionary awards or otherwise inform agency decision making, provided that peer review recommendations remain advisory and are not ministerially ratified, routinely deferred to, or otherwise treated as de facto binding by senior appointees or their designees."
Screenshot of an email response to one with the subject "Re: Hot Head Burritos Expands Catering + Delivery Capabilities with DoorDash & Foods" The text of the email reads: "Just wanted to make sure you know that i'm marking this as spam and blacklisting your entire agency for following up on a PR pitch that has nothing to do with anything I've ever written about.
A meme with the top frame being a person labelled "medical contrarians" shooting a person labelled "Public trust in medicine". In the second frame, with the body still smoking and covered in bullet holes, the shooter pronounces "we need reform because the public no longer trusts medicine".
Screenshot of the following text: "We are the only company where the mission is truth," Mr. Musk told his workers as part of an hour-and-a-half presentation that was listened to by The New York Times. "If you force the A.I. to lie or believe things that are not true, you're at great risk of creating a dystopian future."
A headline reading: "You can hold on to your butts thanks to DNA that evolved in fish"
A series of warning icons above the intake slot of a paper shredder
Text with the following excerpt highlighted: For the Government, the incremental expenditure of money is at stake. For the plaintiffs and the public, scientific progress itself hangs in the balance along with the lives that progress saves.
Screenshot of some text, with the following highlighted: William Carlos Williams was born the first of two sons of an English father and a Puerto Rican mother of French, Dutch, Spanish, and Jewish ancestry, and he grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. He was a medical doctor, poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright.
Image of a person in an orange shirt, sunglasses, and tanned hat, holding a spool of line with a hook at the end, with a fish head as bait. Behind him is an expanse of blue-green water. Someone has photoshopped in the shark from jaws erupting from that water.
Image of the rear wheel, gears, and cranks of a road bike lifted off the ground on a work stand. Various equipment is in the background.
A young man in a wooded area near the side of the road. He's wearing a dark blue shirt, and has a beard and hair down below his shoulders.
Trump sits with his wife in a crowd of officials, appearing extremely unhappy.
A yellow and black road bike leaning against a park bench, with lots of greenery behind the bench.
Screenshot of the following text: Second, people rarely publish papers about when Al methods fail, only when they succeed. The authors of the original PINN paper didn't publish about the PD Es their method hadn't been able to solve. I didn't publish my unsuccessful experiments, presenting only a poster at an obscure conference. So very few researchers heard about them. In fact, despite the huge popularity of PINNs, it took four years for anyone to publish a paper about their failure modes. That paper now has almost a thousand citations, suggesting that many other scientists tried PINNs and found similar issues.
A response to an email titled "These Star Signs Are Built for NBA Greatness, According to the Data". The response text: You do realize i'm a science editor, right? And that you're not just pitching me an astrology story, but following up when i don't respond?
Email showing the following text: This is the 5th email you sent me pitching this individual this month alone. As a result, I'm marking all of these messages spam. The possibility that you will eventually send me a pitch i cared about will be greatly outweighed by the gain in productivity|
Image of a woman standing serenely as police in heavy riot gear approach her.
Screenshot of the following text: This cooperative agreement suggests that the Earth will have a significant fluctuation in its water availability as a result of global warming. Using federal funds to perpetuate these narratives does not align with the priorities of this Administration and such time and resources can be better utilized elsewhere.
A list of author affiliations with major research institutions, plus a highlighted one where the author is affiliated with Wal Mart.
Text from a technical document, including lots of formulas. A subset is highlighted in blue - it's discontiguous, with highlighted text scattered up and down two different columns.
Screenshot of text that's too long for Alt Text. An excerpt: Back when I was an undergrad, I did a molecular biology project lab. Molecular biology involves lots of incubating with enzymes, so we spent a lot of time chatting with each other. One of the people in the lab had been to a rough NYC high school, and told the story about how the guy next to him at lunch had ended up with a knife in his back. We wanted to know more about the environment, and he told us how he had to deal with the fact that, if the drug dealers found out you were smart, they'd force you to do all of their homework - and do it different for each of them, so that it wasn't flagged as cheating. So he described how he used to go up to his teachers at the start of the school year, explain how they couldn't ask him questions in class, and he'd play stupid if they did, how they should never mention his grades in class, etc. It took me a decade or more to understand the significance of all of that. At a time where my biggest challenges were figuring out how to squeeze as many AP classes as possible into my schedule, this guy was navigating an extremely adult world with a degree of insight and maturity that I probably didn't have until about 15-20 years afterwards. if thrown into a job or some other real-world situation at that age (ie, not grad school), I have absolutely no doubt he'd have handled it better than I would. Because I had opportunities that his school lacked, and had a safe environment to engage in after school activities like sports, I would wager money that I looked better on paper than he did when it comes to the standard college admissions criteria. But I have no doubt now that if I had been rejected in favor of him, the school would have been making the right choice.
A huge crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
The flag of Ukraine, blue over yellow.
A screenshot of a paragraph with the following text highlighted: "This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles"
An email with the following text: Good afternoon, We wanted to highlight The Atlantic’s writers, including Nicholas Florko, Katherine Wu, and David Frum, who are covering the latest science and health news, including RFK Jr.’s confirmation, the rise of bird flu, and the fifth anniversary of COVID-19. If you’re interested in talking to any of our writers, please reach out.
A person with a large backpack stands on a trail where it enters a wooded section, with cloud covered mountains in the background
Image of a mountain bile leaning up against a tree next to a trail running through the woods
Image of a view over a railing, showing a valley and lots of tree-covered mountains on the other side.
A group of people in blue gowns walking in a graduation procession
Image of six people in outdoor gear, sitting on a pile of reddish rocks against a blue sky.
Partial text of a PR email, with the phrase "In the automotive industry" highlighted.
A graph of expected greenhouse warming, showing a linear ramp up between 1970 and 2024. Separately, a black line showing annual temperatures closely parallels the slope of expected warming.
Image of a black and yellow bike leaned up against a wall with its lower portion painted green, and its upper portion yellow.
Image of a Cal Berkeley student ID from 1995 belonging to John TImmer, showing him with long hair and a beard.
Screenshot with the following text highlighted: Congress statutorily designated a singular “day for the election” of members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors. Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm this “day for the election” is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.
Shot of CNN headlines, including one that says "‘Arnold Palmer was all man’: Trump tells meandering story for more than 10 minutes."
Sunlight filtering through trees on a wooded hillside, with a trail starting at the bottom center and curving left. A mountain bike leans against a tree on the edge of the trail.
Picture of an article's text: Some of the interviewees presented diametrically opposing viewpoints. While Zaidi touted this administration's efforts to reduce pollution and support clean energy, Roberts questioned climate science and argued that Biden's policies were harming Americans. That was by design. Our mission at The Times is to seek the truth and help people understand the world, and we do that by asking tough questions and letting the facts speak for themselves.
A quote from an article: Steven Kaplan, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago who has tracked such deals since the 1980s, said Twitter isn't only the biggest hung deal by dollar amount since the 2008 financial crisis but one of the biggest of all time. "The loans have weighed on the banks for much longer than other hung deals we've seen," he said. The banks that agreed to underwrite a deal that even Musk said was overvalued did so largely because the allure of banking the world's richest person was too attractive to pass up, according to people involved in the deal. Musk and other investors ponied up around $30 billion to buy the company,
Part of an article, with the following quote highlighted: "Exxon pointed to its public-facing 2023 Global Outlook as its most current thinking on the potential of carbon capture. That report states: “Carbon capture is a proven and safe technology that reduces emissions from manufacturing and power generation.”"
Image of a Google maps search showing a NYC street grid, and the text claiming that Google "can't find bagels".
Image of the following text: To the Editor: The Times has published a guest essay by Alina Chan presenting a scientific argument. Has The Times decided to become a scientific journal? Has science become a matter of opinion? In publishing this essay, The Times has implicitly invited nonexperts to weigh a scientific argument. Yet however persuasive the evidence presented may seem, we nonexperts are not in a position to know all the evidence. We cannot detect cherry-picked data. We are not aware of all the alternative theories and the reasons to endorse them instead. This deliberation is the job of the community of experts. The Times's responsibility is to report the scientific consensus, not to parade every alternative view. Dr. Chan has not been able to persuade her peers. That is enough for me to dismiss her claims outright. Douglas Allchin St. Paul, Minn. The writer is a philosopher of science and science educator.