François Rincon

#Introduction Hello fediverse, I'm an interdisciplinary theoretical and numerical physicist working at #CNRS and newly affiliated with the SETE in Moulis, Ariège, France, a cutting-edge experimental and theoretical ecology lab researching the impacts of global anthropogenic changes on biodiversity and ecosystems. For 20+ years before, I was an astrophysicist working at the large Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie IRAP in Toulouse . In 2023, deeply concerned by the ongoing global crises, I decided to initiate a gradual shift of my research in theoretical and numerical astrophysics (from the Sun to cosmological scales) , plasmas physics and fluid dynamics at IRAP to research the impacts of global anthropogenic changes on ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity. I tell the ongoing story of this academic transition and related ethical research musings in a blog, "Looking up". I am still in the process of building the foundations of my research in ecology, oriented on the theoretical and numerical modelling of ecosystem dynamics in space and time, and how they may shift through sudden bifurcations or more gradual erosion under anthropogenic pressures, with the long-term goal of informing their conservation and restoration. In parallel, I am due to take on a leadership role at SETE in a few months. While I already had an account on mastodon and even before that on twitter mixing my personal and scientist life, from now on this will be my main academic account talking about environmental science and research policy in an official capacity, while the other will become private and strictly personal. I may still post the occasional #Birdphotography and #NaturePhotography of #LariegeCestMoche here to pimp this new TL though 😎 https://lookingup.francois-rincon.org/ #science #physics #ecology #climatecrisis #ecologicalcrisis #academicchatter

Day after day we learn about new institutionalized malpractices of bigtech AI companies, so much that I now imagine openAI as some kind of large US university or multidisciplinary research institute like mine, except that instead of traditional departments and buildings like maths, physics, biology, computer science, library, or a campus restaurant they have a "perfide doom-marketing building", a "mathematical plagiarism institute", a "copyright infringement and property theft study library", a "Palantir hacking-gone-bad lab", a "microsoft copilot vibe-coding obfuscation school", a dean of snooping, an "Exxon Mobil environmental trashing plaza", a "soul-destroying psychology department", or a "toxic shit-tart campus deli".