Arfon Smith

Following the update of the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI, openscholarlyinfrastructure.org) to v2.0, @joss-openjournals.bsky.social has updated its commitment to the principles in blog.joss.theoj.org/2026/07/JOSS...

Join us for the inaugural science symposium for the Eric & Wendy Schmidt Observatory System and the first gathering of the teams, awardees, and researchers who'll help shape the tools and earliest science. 🗓 November 3–5, 2026 📍 Florence, Italy Interest form: symposium.schmidtobservatorysystem.org

Astronomers! New adverts for science editors for @publishing.aas.org are up at aas.org/jobregister. We're looking for astronomers across many fields (including instrumentation to work with me) to help us keep these open access, non-profit, society-run journals going. Happy to answer questions! 🔭

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here… On June 29, 2026, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially began the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)! 🔭🧪☄️🌌 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/action-...

Epic. Such an amazing achievement everyone 💖

For the benefit of the US: the man in the middle just won an election against an alien called @countbinface.bsky.social, a fox, 2 fascists (not pictured) & some normal politicians in suits. He is now odds on to topple a sitting prime minister & lead the country. You could learn a lot from this.

Origin Story people: All our fucking Christmases have come at once www.theguardian.com/business/202...

We’re delighted to welcome @schmidtsciences.bsky.social as a Silver sponsor of the International Research Software Conference (IRSC)! 🎉 Learn more: www.schmidtsciences.org & Virtual Institute for Scientific Software (VISS): www.schmidtsciences.org/viss/ IRSC26: www.researchsoft.org/irsc/

Corpse Reviver No. 2 (after a taste) www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/re...

The Journal of Open Source Software, JOSS, is embarking on the search for its next editor-in-chief. Founder EIC Arfon Smith is stepping down after a whole decade of incredible service. Interested in filling those big shoes? Apply by June 19, 2026: blog.joss.theoj.org/2026/05/call...

After 10 years, I'm stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of @joss-openjournals.bsky.social. A few thoughts on the decade: www.arfon.org/stepping-dow... The EiC call: blog.joss.theoj.org/2026/05/call... #opensource #openscience

Today we're launching the Open Source for Science Fund, a new multi-donor philanthropic fund by Renaissance Philanthropy, seeded by @biohub.org and @wellcometrust.bsky.social, with support from @kavlifoundation.org and @researchsoftware.bsky.social 🧵 os4science.org/news/open-so...

It lives! An updated and incredibly experimental website for #dotastro is now live at dotastronomy.com. we like to live our creed here: so it's absolutely untested and essentially a hack project.

Help shape the future of Research Software Engineering in the age of Generative AI. We’re collecting input for our March 2026 workshop. Take the survey: tinyurl.com/RSE-GenAI Closes 1 March. @schmidtsciences.bsky.social @arfon.bsky.social @danielskatz.org @softwaresaved.bsky.social

This looks cool, but researchers should also understand what this is (a clear attempt to generate additional training data) openai.com/prism/. The new frontier in GenAI products is understanding (in great detail) how users act/think/collaborate en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveil...

Exciting to be a part of the team introducing this to the world yesterday. Lots of work ahead of us, but a great team behind this plan. Also, we're hiring! www.schmidtsciences.org/careers/

We've shipped a major update to the JOSS submission scope requirements, affecting what is eligible for submission and what information we require from authors. You can read more about the changes and our motivations here: blog.joss.theoj.org/2026/01/prep... #joss #opensource #openscience

Looking forward to catching up with old friends and colleagues at #AAS247 – it has been a while! I'll be speaking in this session: "The Schmidt Observatory System – More Astrophysics for More People" on Wednesday at 3pm in 227A.

📣 New for #RSECon26! We’re launching a Research Software submission route! 🎉 Have software ready for publication? Submit to @joss-openjournals.bsky.social as part of RSECon26. Accepted or pre-reviewed papers get JOSS+RSECon26 branding and a 15-min talk. More info: tinyurl.com/rsecon26joss

Love astronomy + large-scale scientific data systems? Schmidt Sciences is hiring an Astrophysics Institute Program Scientist [Data & Software Systems] to help shape data pipelines and archives for new observatories: jobs.lever.co/schmidt-enti... #astronomy #astrophysics #spacescience #openscience

Cool new opportunity in the Schmidt Sciences climate team: jobs.lever.co/schmidt-enti... 🌏 #climate #science

"One of the challenges of Generative AIs is they amplify existing behaviours, and that is both good and bad." @arfon.bsky.social Watch Technomoral Conversations: How will AI change science? ▶️ edin.ac/3VSUXUt @edfuturesinstitute.bsky.social @shannonvallor.bsky.social

Great to see the big turnout for our annual Flagship Lecture yesterday - now we have our regular fireside chat series coming up 4 Nov on AI and Science, led by my amazing new colleague & co-Director Emily Sullivan, with @erantal.bsky.social @arfon.bsky.social and Anna Scaife! Registration link below

Scientists in nearly every field are reaching for new powerful machine learning & AI methods to see if AI has been the missing piece to solve longstanding problems & make new discoveries. Not only has AI started to change how science is done, but also how science is taught, organized & credited.

🎉 ReSA welcomes @schmidtsciences.bsky.social as our newest Organisational Member! Schmidt Sciences aims to accelerate scientific knowledge and breakthroughs with the most promising, advanced tools. Read the full announcement: preview.mailerlite.io/preview/7781... @arfon.bsky.social

🟥 We are happy to announce that the SSI has received £4.8m from @ukri.org to launch the Research Software Maintenance Fund. Find out more about this exciting opportunity at www.software.ac.uk/news/ukri-aw...

Cross-posting from LinkedIn as I'm going to try and be more present here going forward. tl;dr – I have a new job, at Schmidt Sciences: www.linkedin.com/posts/arfon_...

"Building LLMs is probably not going be a brilliant business": calpaterson.com/porter.html – interesting commentary by Cal Paterson on what makes for a good business, and why building LLMs might not be a good plan...