Rowley @Rowley@qoto.org

The number of U.S. citizens and permanent residents working as #postdocs in the U.S. fell sharply in 2022. The new data underscore concerns that an increasing number of early career scientists are flocking to industry.

My latest for @sciencemagazine

https://www.science.org/content/article/fewer-u-s-scientists-are-pursuing-postdoc-positions-new-data-show

@Oggie @Adam_Cadmon1 @HeavenlyPossum also looting and cooperation aren't mutually exclusive. The social value of looting is very context sensitive.

Please enjoy my new book, "You Can't Build Bridges By Working With Saboteurs, and Other Political Observations So Bloody Fucking Obvious a Tadpole Could Grasp Them."

On a comment in a @cstross thread earlier today re: evidence of agricultural collapse, I said we were already in agricultural collapse, and someone (foolishly) asked me to expand on that… it got long and ranty so I’m pulling it out and giving it its own thread.

Caveats: I am not an expert, just a farmer. I’m from the US so this will be US centric. We have a dairy, so dairy and animal ag may make a disproportionate appearance.

"But if the Torment Nexus shuts down, what will happen to my community? We use this platform for organizing!"

Yeah I dunno, this is only the twentieth or thirtieth time this kind of shit has happened in recent years, maybe quit building your community in the middle of a Torment Nexus?

While the EU is forcing all social networks equally to become federated, protect user's data, delete misinformation, and stop monopolistic or gatekeeping behavior, the US is banning foreign social networks under the pretense of “national security”.

With members of congress enacting this ban only acting in their own financial interests, as they own the stock of the competing American big tech companies [1]. Seriously, when have you seen 81% of congress agree on anything? To elect the speaker of the house it needed 18 votes and the split was disastrous.

To ban TikTok? Bipartisan decision. When it comes to representing corporate interests, the United States of America has one party.

A fine of $5,000 - $10,000 or an imprisonment of up to 20 years was supposed to be given for a different TikTok Ban (RESTRICT) last year [2], it is not certain what using a VPN to circumvent the ban would mean now.

If the Twitter/X thing teaches you one thing, let it be this: Twitter was a neoliberal place. Then Elon Musk made it into X, a fascist place. Once again, neoliberalism laid the foundations of fascism. But that’s not the (whole) lesson… Neoliberal folks are still using X, calling it Twitter to make themselves feel better, and pining for the good old days. And there’s the real lesson: When neoliberalism turns into fascism, neoliberals will adapt to life under fascism. Right, class dismissed.

I disagree with the idea of billionaires.

Seems needlessly cruel to award just one Oscar to Wes Anderson, rather than two placed very precisely on either side of him.

“And the award for loudest chasm goes to… HOWLING VOID!”

HOWLING VOID: [howls]

The camera pans to Shrieking Abyss, just fucking glaring.

I want to try the "make 50 of something" technique again!

So this week, I'll try to find 50 things to do with a Software Defined Radio! 📻

I'll use this simple USB dongle, which you can get for around $30.

Chilling piece on that voice: "I pay attention to the voice when I hear it from folks in power. I am jolted awake when I hear the voice dripping sugar from a mouth that claims to love all while stripping rights from many."

https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/the-fundie-baby-voice

With 1 #transistor, I can make an inverter, a switch, or a not-very-good amplifier.

With 2 transistors, I can make a differential amplifier, a cascode, or a latch.

With 3 transistors, I can make a fairly good (Wilson) current mirror, or a Lorenz chaotic system.

20,000 transistors made a #computer that navigated spacecraft to the Moon and back.

But 10,000,000,000 transistors make a computer that's brought to its knees if it tries to interpret the Javascript used to load one #ad on a web page.

That feeling when you have a look at Linkedin and see a former boss write about how LLMs mean the end of coding and programming as a job. That now the only thing needed to get working software is to describe clearly what you want, something they were always manifestly incapable of doing

😑

Publishing fake superconductivity claims should have faced more resistance.

"transgender people are going to destroy Christianity and the traditional American family"

yes, and we need to make faster work of it. chop, chop, everybody!

My takeaway from the SOTU tonight is this: a guy with a speech impediment delivered an hour+ long speech with a handful of stumbles.

Y’all — I’m in my late 30s, scored in the top 2% on board exams, got my first choice in the competitive EM residency match, and make dozens of rapid-fire life and death decisions every day that I work, and I routinely mess up the order of words in common phrases, confuse names, or misspeak a word. Biden is ancient, but his cognition seems pretty damn intact.

Something exceptionally grim is happening on the Internet.

In the last few months, the constant flood of algorithmically generated junk content has kicked into an AI-powered overdrive, and it is cutting a swath of destruction as it overwhelms search engines, filters, and moderation systems

Call it Gresham's Law 2.0: bad content drives out good.

I'm starting this thread to document it, because there is a *lot* happening all at once.

#greshamslaw20

this is one of the most violently unhinged CSB report i've ever read https://www.csb.gov/file.aspx?DocumentId=6120