John F. Wu

John F. Wu

Astronomer

Posts by Tags

academia

The benefits of slow growth, misguided rabbit holes, and painful mistakes

16 minute read

Published:

I am a self-confessed productivity junkie. I hate wasting time. And if you scroll through social media, or even my blog posts, you might think that the typical research or learning process is just a happy, monotonic hill climb, capped off with regular announcements of new discoveries or gained expertise. But what if the most important lessons emerge not from unencumbered progress, but rather from seemingly aimless pursuits and the frustration of doing things badly? This post is a tribute to all those times we got stuck and emerged with nothing to show for it, because those “unproductive” moments lead to some of the most important lessons we can ever learn. [...]

Tags: academia · personal · productivity

advice

astronomy

Foundation Models in Astronomy

6 minute read

Published:

Here’s a casual introduction to foundation models and how they might impact astronomy research in the coming years. I’m writing this on the train back from New York to Baltimore, having just wrapped up the Foundation Models in Astronomy workshop at the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics. My co-organizers and I are planning to write up a more comprehensive blog post based on our workshop discussions; in the meantime, you’ll just have to settle for this. [...]

Tags: astronomy · computer-vision · foundation-models · llms

On Pope Francis and galaxies

3 minute read

Published:

Back in 2014, I was privileged to participate in the Vatican Observatory Summer School (VOSS). Over those four weeks, I formed new friends, made new discoveries, and ate awesome food. But the most unforgettable moment of that trip was meeting Pope Francis. [...]

Tags: astronomy · galaxies · personal · politics

blogging

Hello World (again)!

7 minute read

Published:

Oh hey, it’s me again. Yes, I’m going to try to write more blog posts. Yes, I’ve promised that before. Sorry. This time it’ll be different. [...]

Tags: blogging · personal

computer-vision

Foundation Models in Astronomy

6 minute read

Published:

Here’s a casual introduction to foundation models and how they might impact astronomy research in the coming years. I’m writing this on the train back from New York to Baltimore, having just wrapped up the Foundation Models in Astronomy workshop at the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics. My co-organizers and I are planning to write up a more comprehensive blog post based on our workshop discussions; in the meantime, you’ll just have to settle for this. [...]

Tags: astronomy · computer-vision · foundation-models · llms

Deep learning with galaxy images

7 minute read

Published:

Welcome! In this first post to my blog, we will take a deeper look at galaxy images. Why should we bother measuring the metallicities, or elemental abundances, of other galaxies? And why would we use convolutional neural networks? Read more to find out! [...]

Tags: galaxies · computer-vision · original-blog

data-science

Identifying racial bias in health data

12 minute read

Published:

We are becoming more and more reliant on machine learning algorithms in our everyday lives. But what if these algorithms aren’t fair? In this exploratory data analysis of Obermeyer et al. 2019, we look at how racial biases can creep in to an algorithm’s decision-making process. [...]

Tags: tutorial · data-science · original-blog

evaluation

foundation-models

Foundation Models in Astronomy

6 minute read

Published:

Here’s a casual introduction to foundation models and how they might impact astronomy research in the coming years. I’m writing this on the train back from New York to Baltimore, having just wrapped up the Foundation Models in Astronomy workshop at the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics. My co-organizers and I are planning to write up a more comprehensive blog post based on our workshop discussions; in the meantime, you’ll just have to settle for this. [...]

Tags: astronomy · computer-vision · foundation-models · llms

galaxies

On Pope Francis and galaxies

3 minute read

Published:

Back in 2014, I was privileged to participate in the Vatican Observatory Summer School (VOSS). Over those four weeks, I formed new friends, made new discoveries, and ate awesome food. But the most unforgettable moment of that trip was meeting Pope Francis. [...]

Tags: astronomy · galaxies · personal · politics

Visualizing deep learning with galaxies, part 2

19 minute read

Published:

In the previous post, we examined the feature space of galaxy morphological features. Now, we will use the Grad-CAM algorithm to visualize the parts of a galaxy image that are most strongly associated with certain classifications. This will allows us to identify exactly which morphological features are correlated with low- and high-metallicity predictions. [...]

Tags: galaxies · visualization · tutorial · original-blog

Deep learning with galaxy images

7 minute read

Published:

Welcome! In this first post to my blog, we will take a deeper look at galaxy images. Why should we bother measuring the metallicities, or elemental abundances, of other galaxies? And why would we use convolutional neural networks? Read more to find out! [...]

Tags: galaxies · computer-vision · original-blog

llms

Foundation Models in Astronomy

6 minute read

Published:

Here’s a casual introduction to foundation models and how they might impact astronomy research in the coming years. I’m writing this on the train back from New York to Baltimore, having just wrapped up the Foundation Models in Astronomy workshop at the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics. My co-organizers and I are planning to write up a more comprehensive blog post based on our workshop discussions; in the meantime, you’ll just have to settle for this. [...]

Tags: astronomy · computer-vision · foundation-models · llms

Accelerate the Boring Stuff with AI

4 minute read

Published:

Need to perform a boring, repetitive task? Even if it can’t be fully automated, you may be able to dramatically speed up your task by partially automating it! Simply use a LLM to code up a throwaway app to help accelerate your mindless task. [...]

Tags: llms · productivity

Four ways I use LLMs

10 minute read

Published:

Large language models (LLMs) haven’t upped my productivity by 10x, but they have dramatically changed the way that I work. In this post I introduce four ways that I use LLMs every day. [...]

Tags: llms · productivity

machine-learning

original-blog

Visualizing deep learning with galaxies, part 2

19 minute read

Published:

In the previous post, we examined the feature space of galaxy morphological features. Now, we will use the Grad-CAM algorithm to visualize the parts of a galaxy image that are most strongly associated with certain classifications. This will allows us to identify exactly which morphological features are correlated with low- and high-metallicity predictions. [...]

Tags: galaxies · visualization · tutorial · original-blog

Identifying racial bias in health data

12 minute read

Published:

We are becoming more and more reliant on machine learning algorithms in our everyday lives. But what if these algorithms aren’t fair? In this exploratory data analysis of Obermeyer et al. 2019, we look at how racial biases can creep in to an algorithm’s decision-making process. [...]

Tags: tutorial · data-science · original-blog

Deep learning with galaxy images

7 minute read

Published:

Welcome! In this first post to my blog, we will take a deeper look at galaxy images. Why should we bother measuring the metallicities, or elemental abundances, of other galaxies? And why would we use convolutional neural networks? Read more to find out! [...]

Tags: galaxies · computer-vision · original-blog

personal

The benefits of slow growth, misguided rabbit holes, and painful mistakes

16 minute read

Published:

I am a self-confessed productivity junkie. I hate wasting time. And if you scroll through social media, or even my blog posts, you might think that the typical research or learning process is just a happy, monotonic hill climb, capped off with regular announcements of new discoveries or gained expertise. But what if the most important lessons emerge not from unencumbered progress, but rather from seemingly aimless pursuits and the frustration of doing things badly? This post is a tribute to all those times we got stuck and emerged with nothing to show for it, because those “unproductive” moments lead to some of the most important lessons we can ever learn. [...]

Tags: academia · personal · productivity

On Pope Francis and galaxies

3 minute read

Published:

Back in 2014, I was privileged to participate in the Vatican Observatory Summer School (VOSS). Over those four weeks, I formed new friends, made new discoveries, and ate awesome food. But the most unforgettable moment of that trip was meeting Pope Francis. [...]

Tags: astronomy · galaxies · personal · politics

Hello World (again)!

7 minute read

Published:

Oh hey, it’s me again. Yes, I’m going to try to write more blog posts. Yes, I’ve promised that before. Sorry. This time it’ll be different. [...]

Tags: blogging · personal

politics

On Pope Francis and galaxies

3 minute read

Published:

Back in 2014, I was privileged to participate in the Vatican Observatory Summer School (VOSS). Over those four weeks, I formed new friends, made new discoveries, and ate awesome food. But the most unforgettable moment of that trip was meeting Pope Francis. [...]

Tags: astronomy · galaxies · personal · politics

productivity

The benefits of slow growth, misguided rabbit holes, and painful mistakes

16 minute read

Published:

I am a self-confessed productivity junkie. I hate wasting time. And if you scroll through social media, or even my blog posts, you might think that the typical research or learning process is just a happy, monotonic hill climb, capped off with regular announcements of new discoveries or gained expertise. But what if the most important lessons emerge not from unencumbered progress, but rather from seemingly aimless pursuits and the frustration of doing things badly? This post is a tribute to all those times we got stuck and emerged with nothing to show for it, because those “unproductive” moments lead to some of the most important lessons we can ever learn. [...]

Tags: academia · personal · productivity

Accelerate the Boring Stuff with AI

4 minute read

Published:

Need to perform a boring, repetitive task? Even if it can’t be fully automated, you may be able to dramatically speed up your task by partially automating it! Simply use a LLM to code up a throwaway app to help accelerate your mindless task. [...]

Tags: llms · productivity

Four ways I use LLMs

10 minute read

Published:

Large language models (LLMs) haven’t upped my productivity by 10x, but they have dramatically changed the way that I work. In this post I introduce four ways that I use LLMs every day. [...]

Tags: llms · productivity

research

substack-blog

tutorial

Visualizing deep learning with galaxies, part 2

19 minute read

Published:

In the previous post, we examined the feature space of galaxy morphological features. Now, we will use the Grad-CAM algorithm to visualize the parts of a galaxy image that are most strongly associated with certain classifications. This will allows us to identify exactly which morphological features are correlated with low- and high-metallicity predictions. [...]

Tags: galaxies · visualization · tutorial · original-blog

Identifying racial bias in health data

12 minute read

Published:

We are becoming more and more reliant on machine learning algorithms in our everyday lives. But what if these algorithms aren’t fair? In this exploratory data analysis of Obermeyer et al. 2019, we look at how racial biases can creep in to an algorithm’s decision-making process. [...]

Tags: tutorial · data-science · original-blog

visualization

Visualizing deep learning with galaxies, part 2

19 minute read

Published:

In the previous post, we examined the feature space of galaxy morphological features. Now, we will use the Grad-CAM algorithm to visualize the parts of a galaxy image that are most strongly associated with certain classifications. This will allows us to identify exactly which morphological features are correlated with low- and high-metallicity predictions. [...]

Tags: galaxies · visualization · tutorial · original-blog