Peter Cock

#Bioinformatician / #ResearchSoftwareEngineer working in Scotland, initially in plant pathology (including nematodes and Phytophthora). #Python programmer, with a focus on #OpenSource like #Biopython. He/him/his.

CodeBerg: https://codeberg.org/peterjc/
Blog: https://blastedbio.blogspot.com/
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9513-9993
GitHub: https://github.com/peterjc/

Last Notes

2026-06-18 21:57:02 CEST

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More news on #DundeeUni latest cut plans, including:
"Our academic provision will stay broadly the same, but there are proposals to suspend degrees to varying levels in some subjects, most notably Mathematics, Languages and Philosophy."
"There is no change to our undergraduate course provision for September 2026 entry, and any student who starts in September will be able to finish their degree at Dundee."
#Dundee #Mathematics #languageEducation #Philosophy https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5520326/dundee-university-suspend-degrees-merge-departments/

2026-06-16 12:19:04 CEST

#DundeeUni in the news again - another 190 FTE job cuts coming in another round of voluntary redundancies https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/education/5517948/live-blog-dundee-university-job-cuts/
"The total headcount at the university fell from 3,432 in August 2024 to 2,757 in May this year – a reduction of 675 jobs.
The bulk of these are due to two previous voluntary severance schemes."

2026-02-12 10:14:14 CET

On the back door privatisation of the NHS by @npub1fdr…lvhs “Doctors' union may yet save the NHS from Palantir“ https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/12/palantir-is-ice/#robo-mengele - talks up #OpenSAFELY“the latest iteration of Goldacre's Trusted Research Environment (TRE), arguably the most successful patient record research tool ever conceived.” https://www.opensafely.org/ - a very cool project, I applied for a post these (didn’t get it).

2026-02-01 00:26:20 CET

Yikes! https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/three-uk-research-councils-suspend-funding-opportunities “Three UK research councils suspend funding opportunities.
Temporary block on grant applications by #MRC, #BBSRC and #EPSRC heightens concerns over funding cuts” #ScienceIsVital

2025-10-24 10:51:28 CEST

I do like it when people I follow use #hashtags for their posts - particularly when I can then filter out topics like hobbies or sports stuff I have no interest in (like Eurovision or football). I try to tag my own posts in part so you can do this too.

2025-02-05 01:30:19 CET

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any that I’ve asked in the past did too, but sometimes they knew people using the JIS kana layout. I suspect more manufacturers will stop labelling Japanese keyboards with the JIS kana keycaps, and just focus on romaji (with the extra keys of course).

2025-02-04 20:53:40 CET

How do people usually type in #Japanese on a computer #Keyboard? I'm particularly curious about usage of other options like JIS-X6004, #NicolaThumbShift, #NewStickney, …

2024-11-02 20:59:57 CET

I'm liking typer for defining #Python commad line interfaces (#CLI) except for a limitation https://github.com/fastapi/typer/issues/554 it inherits from click https://github.com/pallets/click/issues/484 that it can't handle options with arbitrary numbers of inputs.
i.e. What argparse did with nargs="*" or nargs="+" https://docs.python.org/dev/library/argparse.html#nargs
Unfortunately this makes adopting typer or click impossible without breaking existing tool's API - or fragile workarounds pehaps?