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2026

Fable is not a useful model

The release of Anthropic’s Fable (the “safety conscious” version of Mythos) has been a roller coaster ride for many reasons. Originally released on June 9th, the US government placed export controls on Fable and Mythos on June 12. This meant that Anthropic could not serve the model to anyone who is not a US citizen, including their own employees. The impossibility of verifying all users at the risk of severe legal action made it functionally impossible to continue serving the model so Antrh…


The skeptic’s guide to generative AI assisted coding

OK; it’s not really a guide, but I needed a good title, this is more a story about how, and why, my perspective on AI assisted coding has evolved.

Since the AI-assisted coding hype began, I have been an outspoken skeptic of these technologies. In large part, this was due to my own experience with the early models. While I am a techie, I am very much deliberate in how I adopt and use technology. I love useful tech that makes my life easier, and lets me accomplish more of my goals. However…

2022

Why use Rust for bioinformatics? Part 2: You can depend on me.

rust programming bioinformatics tools computer science

For part 2 in our “Why use Rust in bioinformatics?” series, I want to focus on one of my favorite parts of the Rust ecosystem, Cargo. In fact, there is so much to like about Cargo, that I won’t even be able to cover that in a single post. Instead, I’ll focus in this post mostly on the use of Cargo for dependency management and will likely return later to some of my favorite cargo commands / plugins (like clippy).

What is Cargo?

Cargo is the package manager for Rust and, more than that, it’s…


Why use Rust for bioinformatics? Part 1: Defining the problem space.

rust programming bioinformatics tools computer science

As has been well noted on the interwebs, I am a staunch advocate of the Rust programming language. This is particularly true in my home domain of bioinformatics and computational biology. In fact, so persistent am I in my advocacy for the use of Rust in bioinformatics applications that some of my colleagues have claimed I am an overfit bot.

So, an obvious question a reader may ask is “why?”. Why am I so zealous in my advocacy for Rust and its use in Bioinformatics? What benefits do I th…