This NSF report from the Office of the Inspector General has some really horrendous examples of data fabrication, plagiarism, and other misconduct by PIs and graduate fellowship (GRFP) recipients. It’s true that bad behavior taints the whole program: how good is the GRFP selection process if students like this get awards?

This article on Bhagat Singh Thind is fascinating. We need a modern Ghadar Party here. But this is so bizarre: “[o]ut of necessity and ingenuity, Thind, along with several dozen South Asians during the interwar decades reinvented themselves as itinerant spiritual teachers and metaphysical lecturers who would travel from city to city, giving lectures and holding private classes.”

A photo gallery by Lotfi Zadeh: some of these are really beautiful portraits. Also the variety! I remember not really understanding portraiture when I was younger but I think I “get it” a bit more now. Or at least why it’s interesting. There’s even a photo of Claude Shannon… from the email:

Prof. Lotfi Zadeh, who passed away in 2017, was an avid photographer who grew up in a multicultural environment, surrounded himself with a cosmopolitan crowd, and always kept his mind open to new ideas. In the 1960s and 70s, he enjoyed capturing the people around him in a series of black and white portraits. His burgeoning career gave him access to a number of artists, academics, and dignitaries who, along with his colleagues, friends, and family, proved a great source of inspiration for him.

THE SQUIRCLE IS SO FASCINATING!

I helped organize a workshop at IPAM on privacy and genomics. Videos (raw) are up now.