Dr Keith Walker @SteelFolk@qoto.org

Caption this!

Today I want to look at the economy from two angles: how it’s objectively doing, and how it’s perceived to be doing. Are things still bad, or is this largely vibes? And importantly, how will economic sentiment affect the crucial election next year? https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/election-factor-one-the-economy?r=1zr8b&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true

During her youth Ada Lovelace was introduced to the Scot, Mary Somerville, who was known as the ‘Queen of 19th Century Science’ and was in fact the first woman to be accepted into the Royal Astronomical Society. Mary further encouraged Ada’s mathematical and technological development. It was actually through Mary Somerville that Ada first heard of Charles Babbage’s idea for a new calculating engine. 5/ via @historicuk

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Ada-Lovelace/

#mathematics #computer #computerprogramming

While most people amongst its key western backers are busy with #Christmas celebrations, Israel's military escalates its crimes in #Gaza (and the #WestBank) yet further.

They are relying on us to not be paying attention.

Four of five people starving in the world right now are in Gaza, due to Israel's deliberate blocking of supplies and distribution for 80 days.

Flooding tunnels with sea water, as Israel is doing, will complete the poisoning of Gaza's aquifer, rendering the area uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.

The Israeli bombing campaign has exceeded the levels of destruction brought by the Allies upon Germany cities towards the end of WWII. And it has been done in a fraction of the time: more devastation in two and a half months than was caused in two and a half years.

In the opening weeks of the escalation, Israel's military was using its largest and most powerful explosives in the very places it was telling Gazans to flee to for refuge.

Beyond the bombs, there are many reports of summary executions and massacres, repeated testimony of extreme #torture, videos of degradation, humiliation and dehumanisation.

#Netanyahu says they are only getting started.

He is relying on you looking away, getting tired of the bad news, switching off for a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS1Tw-2cF2o

So I started a company and received funding to build the next generation of #AI / #agi

I know there are a lot of fears around AI, and I share in most of them. As such a top priority will be for me to address the ethical considerations. I am still branstorming how that should look but I want it to be an open forum where everyone can contribute to solve the ethical considerations.

For now I'd love to hear input from people on how one could build a community to address and solve ethical concerns in AI / AGI

English physicist and mathematician James Prescott Joule died #OTD in 1818.

Joule studied the nature of heat, & discovered its relationship to mechanical work. This led to the law of conservation of energy, which in turn led to the development of the 1st law of thermodynamics. The SI derived unit of energy, the joule, is named after him. He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, which came to be called the Kelvin scale.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40706

#physics

The transistor is first demonstrated by three physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Laboratories #OTD in 1947.

They performed experiments and observed that when two gold point contacts were applied to a crystal of germanium, a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input. William Shockley saw the potential in this, and over the next few months worked to greatly expand the knowledge of semiconductors. via @wikipedia

#science #physics

"Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do."

The novel Emma by Jane Austen is first published OTD in 1815. Emma was submitted to the London publisher John Murray II. He offered Austen £450 for this plus the copyrights of Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility, which she refused. Austen published two thousand copies of the novel at her own expense, retaining the copyright and paying a 10% commission to Murray.

Emma is available at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/158

#books #literature

Asteroid 323 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using photography #OTD in 1891.

Brucia was also the first of over 200 asteroids discovered by Max Wolf, a pioneer in that method of finding astronomical objects. He discovered it when he was 28 years old, it was named in honour of Catherine Wolfe Bruce. The asteroid is a member of the Phocaea family (701).  It was an outer Mars-crossing asteroid with perihelion less than 1.666 AU until July 2017. via @wikipedia

#science #astronomy

Me, too!

Happy Solstice, everyone!

#TheRealReasonForTheSeason

This is in fact what he did.

Ok, well done…

"Philosophy is the continuous search for meaning - broader, clearer, negotiated, articulated."

Susanne K. Langer American philosopher and educator was born #OTD in 1895. She was one of the earliest American women to achieve an academic career in philosophy. Langer is best remembered for her 1942 book Philosophy in a New Key which was followed by a sequel Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art in 1953. via @wikipedia

Books by Susanne K. Langer at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/51344

#books #philosophy

Like all sensible people, I have strong feelings about the correct place for the comma in 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen'.

And every year at the old place I used to tweet about this important topic.

But now such exertions are redundant, by reason of this fine video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxfxy-3dGz0

(Btw, the correct place for the comma is after 'merry' - and if you disagree, you are wrong.)

Gods rest ye merry, followers.

Dorothy L. Sayers English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic died #OTD in 1957. She wrote numerous mystery stories featuring the witty and charming Lord Peter Wimsey combined the attractions of scholarly erudition and cultural small talk with the puzzle of detection. In her later years she turned from detective fiction to writing theological plays and books. She made scholarly translations of Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio.

Dorothy L. Sayers at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/45867

#books

William Thomson, Baron Kelvin Irish engineer, mathematician, and physicist died #OTD in 1907.

Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in his honour. While the existence of a coldest possible temperature, known as absolute zero, was known prior to his work, Kelvin is known for determining its correct value as approximately −273.15 degrees Celsius. Kelvin's work in thermodynamics led to the idea that energy can not pass spontaneously from a colder object to a hotter object.

#physics

#Jasper
is an opaque variety of silica with a diverse range of colors and patterns. While most people associate it with red, the reality is much more diverse. Here's an overview of the different types and colors of jasper:
https://www.geologyin.com/2023/12/jasper-types-and-varieties-of-jasper.html?fbclid=IwAR1Vimh8LJl5aoBXaN9Ba2LTdrvlT9mCXXgnhXSEywrJXz5s4NXO4NuEQfE
By #GeologyWonders
#Geology #GeologyPage #Nature #minerals #crystals #gems #Nature #NatureLovers #NaturePhotography #Photographer

In August 1908, Hans Geiger published the first “gold foil” experiment which he conducted under Ernest Rutherford. There were many gold foil experiments, but this was the first. These experiments, also called the Geiger-Marsden experiments, were a driving factor behind the shift away from J. J. Thomson’s “plum pudding.” Then, in the gold foil experiments, alpha particles were shot at a very thin sheet of gold foil.

via Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics

#physics