David Tan

Episode 038: Dirty Data

October 18th, 2023  |  1 hr 15 mins

data, fraud, science

Grace and David talk about fudging data, data illiteracy, misaligned incentives, and all the ways in which data is used and misused in science.

Note: this will be our last episode.

Episode 037: An Episode about Wild Things

September 3rd, 2023  |  2 hrs 1 min

breath of the wild, gaming, nintendo

This episode is also two months late. Includes discussion about wild weather, Breath of the Wild, wild speedruns of Breath of the Wild, and wild things you can do in Breath of the Wild.

Episode 036: This Episode Is Two Months Late

May 17th, 2023  |  1 hr 6 mins

collecting, curation, retro

This episode was recorded sometime in March, and I somehow forgot to post it until now. We talk about old Pokémon games, the impulse to collect things, and curation inside and outside of museums.

Episode 035: Pokémon and Singaporean cultural history

March 10th, 2023  |  1 hr 57 mins

cultural history, culture, pokemon, singapore

Grace and David do surprise trades in Pokémon Violet, and somehow end up talking about cultural institutions in Singapore.

Episode 034: ChatGPT and Natural History

January 28th, 2023  |  1 hr 8 secs

academia, chatgpt, natural history

We discuss ChatGPT, professional subreddits, natural history in Singapore, and more ChatGPT.

Episode 033: Migration Assistant

September 23rd, 2022  |  58 mins 19 secs

computing, conversation, macos, technology

Grace and David talk about what happens when an operating system is so old, macOS doesn't know how to migrate from it. And some other stuff.

Episode 032: Teaching 101 courses

March 13th, 2022  |  45 mins 16 secs

college, teaching, university, writing

David and Grace discuss the challenges of teaching introductory courses and developing students' writing skills.

Episode 031: Weird travels and mice

February 22nd, 2022  |  37 mins 11 secs

lockdown, netherlands, trackball, travel

David survived a lockdown while travelling and tells the tale. Random diversion to 3D-printed mice.

Episode 030: Travel? Travel!

November 18th, 2021  |  52 mins 50 secs

academia, ecology, europe, travel

David plans to travel.

Episode 029: Stable Isotopes and Computer Systems

October 19th, 2021  |  49 mins 12 secs

biology, chemistry, computer engineering, computer science, school

David is taking a class on stable isotopes and talks about it. Grace is taking a class on computer systems and talks about it.

Episode 028: This episode has no theme

September 22nd, 2021  |  45 mins 14 secs

conversational

David is back in Albuquerque and is making Singaporean food. Grace switched from Brave to Firefox.

Episode 027: Camera Obscura

August 13th, 2021  |  40 mins 11 secs

birds, cameras, travel

David and Grace debate the relative merits of cameras of all shapes, sizes and ages, but only after discussing ways to cross borders with dead bodies.

Episode 026: Covid Vaccination Talk

July 26th, 2021  |  48 mins 32 secs

public health, science, science communication

We talk about Covid vaccines, efficacy vs effectiveness, and how on earth to get vaccination rates up.

Episode 025: Maps and Models

June 16th, 2021  |  43 mins 57 secs

David took the opportunity of a soft lockdown to add 98,000-ish buildings' worth of height data to his bird-building collision data set, one building at a time.

Episode 024: Protein Folding, Artificial Intelligence, and SkyNet

June 11th, 2021  |  1 hr 3 mins

In typical Monkey Mind fashion, David and Grace talk about vaccinations, then folding proteins, then using computers and gamers to fold proteins, then things computers can't do and things computers can't do yet, and things computers might never be able to do.

Episode 023: On the Economics of Science

June 11th, 2021  |  1 hr 22 mins

David and Grace discuss the problem of finding money to pay for science, and unsurprisingly end up talking about economics.