Devastatingly, we have lost a bright light in our field. Felix Hill was not only a deeply insightful thinker -- he was also a generous, thoughtful mentor to many researchers. He majorly changed my life, and I can't express how much I owe to him. Even now, Felix still has so much to give -- to all of us. Below, I've compiled some of his writings that I think would be inspiring to anyone in the field. They reflect his unusual perspective, his incisive writing, and his irreverent, witty sense of humor. It's a pleasure and an epiphany to read any of these. I hope this is a small way to help ensure that Felix's light continues to shine, as it deserves to -- 1. Why do transformers work so well on language? (bit.ly/4h1IbeR) Atypically few jokes in this one, but starting around 0:32:00 Felix answers a fundamental question that I've never seen addressed so well. He ties the architectural properties of the transformer 1:1 to properties of language. I think this perspective is so illuminating and incredibly underappreciated. 2. What deep learning can teach us about linguistics and science (bit.ly/4gGFmzZ). It starts with a pretty entertaining refutal of Chomskian linguistics, and then dives into an optimistic and pretty irrefutable argument about why neural networks can teach us about language. 3. How to write a paper (bit.ly/40698qO). One of many things I learned from Felix -- he taught me to put together a research story from the beginning, including imagined results. This narrative helps guide the research, even if the story might change with each new set of experiments. 4. The bittersweet lesson (bit.ly/3BLsEky). Felix wrote this a few weeks before he died, and it's a unique, insightful take on the bitter lesson. He asked for feedback but sadly I got overwhelmed with other things and it stayed on my todo list for too long.. I didn't get to tell him what a beautiful essay I thought it was, and how much he still had to contribute... 5. Mental health in (AI) research (bit.ly/3BT3lwW). If you are struggling, please do reach out for help, and please do hold on. There may not always be a complete fix, but there are always ways to make things significantly better. I believe this from the bottom of my heart

Un Paese che ha tanti Laureati che fanno i camerieri e i netturbini e gente come Sangiuliano al governo a legiferare per questi laureati è un Paese senza alcuna speranza.

Vi racconto una storia sul Sistema Sanitario Nazionale per farvi capire alcune cose, anche se non vorrete: io lavoro (a contratto determinato) in una ASL del meridione. Nell'equipe ci sono un totale di 6 medici e 4 infermieri. Di questi 6 medici 5 hanno più di 70 anni [settanta]

No, non è un fotomontaggio, è la più concreta rappresentazione della propaganda populista e becera di Giorgia Meloni. I due bimbi in foto sono rifugiati, portati da G@za presso l’ospedale Meyer per effettuare delle cure urgenti a causa di ferite riportate per la guerra in atto. Sì, al Meyer, in Italia, il Paese che ha sospeso fondi per il soccorso dei profughi p@lestin3si nel vicino Oriente (UNRWA). Con lo stesso Governo, quello italiano, che all’Assemblea Generale ONU riunitasi per la risoluzione sul “cessate il fuoco a G@za” si è astenuto. Mentre sono circa 12.300 i bambini uccisi dal 7 ottobre ad oggi per mano dello Stato di Isr@ele, con il sostegno proprio dell’Italia. Ma intanto Giorgia Meloni si scatta foto con i bimbi p@lestinesi, disabili, bella sorridente. Mentre loro sono stati strappati dalle rispettive famiglie e da un’infanzia serena. Perché allo schifo non c’è mai fine. (Il volto dei ragazzini, ovviamente, l’ho censurato io).

Back in Oct 2019, before COVID, @ahrcpress @IrishResearch came together in Dublin with 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 digital humanities researchers. Nearly 4 years later, we are back this time in Belfast with the 11 research grants we jointly funded. We also funded 12 networking awards inc @UKIE_DH

I rarely praise the Guardian but this is a extraordinary visual investigation of the sheer level of destruction in Gaza: theguardian.com/world/ng-int… Absolutely crystal clear when you look through it that the objective is to render the place utterly inhabitable, and destroy Palestinian civil society. Places destroyed are homes, mosques, schools, hospitals, cemeteries, historical landmarks, supermarkets, etc. Everything that makes up a community. Complete disconnect from the stated goal of fighting Hamas.

NEW: an ideological divide is emerging between young men and women in many countries around the world. I think this one of the most important social trends unfolding today, and provides the answer to several puzzles.

It is really disappointing to see how the universities around the world choose to be silent about this educide!

The #CallforPapers for the conference "Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence" at @UniofReading is open until this Saturday 20th January 🔜 Read more here: research.reading.ac.uk/digit…

THE GENOCIDE MUST STOP!!

During this week you can download full PDF of my book "Cultural Analytics" (2020) for free. This my contributions for The Cultural Data Analytics Conference 2023 - Talinn, Estonia, December 13-16 #cudan2023 #cultureanalytics #culturalanalytics PDF: zurl.co/dH8V

A research article on brain tumor segmentation based on optimized convolutional neural network by @DCU's Annalina Caputo and Ramin Ranjbarzadeh, in collaboration with researchers from @istinyeunivedu and Lero, has been published on @sciencedirect Read: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

When do we #CURE pancreatic cancer? 🇮🇹 Multicentric analysis of 2.5k resections upfront / after chemo 🕊️ Cure = same life-expectancy (and tumor-free) as the matched general population 20% 💪 95% of certainty (time-to-cure) after 5.3 years 👉 journals.lww.com/annalsofsur…

I'd normally ignore Gemma O'Doherty's latest conspiracy theory: that "no children were stabbed in Dublin." However she is targeting this amazing Filipino nurse, who provided CPR to the little girl. I know how quickly Gemma's lies spread. I'll try counter it with the truth. /1

Call for Nominations: The new Keith van Rijsbergen (KvR) 2024 Award at #ecir2024 - to encourage & recognise researchers who significantly contributed to the use of theory in IR.   Deadline: 15 Jan 2024   Details & Nomination Form: ecir2024.org/2023/12/06/keit….   @ir_glasgow @GlasgowCS

A volte in Rete si trovano delle perle...

Sometimes Israel’s crimes are so horrific that at first you don’t even understand what you’re looking at. You just stare at it trying to make sense of what you’re seeing for a bit, like you would if you suddenly saw a space alien or a leprechaun or something. It happened to me yesterday when I was watching a Sky News report about a teenage boy who was shot by Israeli forces in Jerusalem for celebrating the release of Palestinian prisoners in the hostage negotiations with Hamas. I was watching it thinking to myself, I must be misunderstanding what I’m looking at. I know that Israel does gross things, but surely the story here isn’t that they shot a kid for being happy about something. Then, as has happened so many times over the last two months, I kept watching and learned that yes, that is indeed what happened. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum is seen defending the shooting by saying “part of the deal is that there would be no celebrations for the release of attempted murderers” (this was actually not a part of the deal, it was just a decree issued by Israel’s national security minister) and claiming dishonestly that “we’re talking about the release of attempted murderers” (the vast majority have not been convicted of any crime and have been denied any due process for the accusations against them). The band Eve6 nicely summed up what it felt like watching the clip of the deputy mayor’s comments, tweeting, “The remarkable thing about this clip is her self assurance. Like she’s supremely confident that ‘we shot the teenager because he was celebrating’ is a thing that people will find reasonable.” I had the same experience reading about the five premature babies who were left to die after the IDF raided al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital in Gaza earlier this month, their decomposing bodies only discovered when the temporary ceasefire allowed access to the hospital. It’s just too insane to believe — they attacked a pediatric hospital? And then they left the babies there to die? What?? The only reason we’re learning about this now is because the pause in fighting allowed journalists to get cameras into the building and show the dead infants to the world. This calls to mind the Politico report immediately prior to the ceasefire which said that the White House was worried “an unintended consequence of the pause” would be “that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.” Indeed, since the pause in fighting began the world has been receiving drone footage from mainstream platforms like Reuters and The Washington Post revealing vast expanses of urban terrain completely destroyed by a blanket of Israeli military explosives spanning from city block to city block. Looking at the blatantly indiscriminate devastation that’s been caused by Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 7 makes it clear that the IDF are not targeting Hamas but Gaza itself. I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve been sleeping since the ceasefire started; that’s why I haven’t been writing as much. I guess spending weeks staring at unbelievable horrors unfolding on your screen can be pretty hard on your system if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, so my body’s been resting up as much as it can while there’s an opportunity. And I’m just here watching this all unfold safely from my home in Melbourne. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be living in the midst of this horror for the last two months, trying to figure out the best way to survive while also grieving the family, friends and neighbors you’re losing along the way. These people have all been deeply traumatized in ways that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, if they survive the violence, disease and deprivation that’s to come. This thing is so astonishingly ugly, and it could get a whole lot uglier after the ceasefire ends. If there’s anything positive to be found in this living nightmare, it’s that it’s so earth-shakingly ugly that it just might shake the world awake.

Avete presente la Holostem? L'azienda italiana che si occupa di malattie rare, come i bambini farfalla? L'azienda che "ha sviluppato la prima e unica terapia genica cellulare per una condizione rara, l’epidermolisi bollosa,... 1/6