Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

Oxford University mathematician reveals how to avoid spilling your coffee ☕️

You can bet if Finland or Denmark went Far Right instead of Left the Media would be talking about them today, but as they didn't, you'd never know how well Left candidates did and how poorly the Far Right fared.

They want you to give up and accept Fascism as inevitable, and people will oblige that fantasy when it's the only one they hear every day from the Media

"More than half of #Biden supporters say main reason for backing is to oppose #Trump"

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4712618-over-half-of-joe-biden-supporters-say-main-reason-for-backing-is-to-oppose-donald-trump-cbs-poll/

Some people think this is terrible

I consider it ideal

I don't like passion and #politics. That gives us cults like #MAGA. To me every #vote should be a cold calculation. That's an ideal society, to me

If enough people vote tactically, they can move a party in the direction they want, until they get a candidate worthy of love

But even then I will never mix passion and politics

Re: https://chaos.social/@joeposaurus/112586675829372436 by @joeposaurus:

I’m audiobooking a book on the #Luddites¹, which caused me to think how passive factory workers in my lifetime were during the Great Offshoring. They didn't smash the looms. Of course, the looms were an ocean away, but still: so passive.²… (1/10)

Also, shout-out to @letsencrypt for dramatically changing the security landscape of the Web for the better over the years.

Rarely is there an example of a project so effective and so directly improving everyone's lives, while at the same time keeping the original engineering mindset and just Doing Stuff Right™ humbly in the background.

Next November it will have been exactly a decade since LE started. We all owe them a huge 10th birthday party.

Get into the car in the morning and drive through France into Belgium on the way to the Netherlands. And the only sign of change of country is a sign along the road that I almost missed. Nobody checked our (German) IDs and we did not need a passport.

Living in the #EU, we tend to take it for granted that we can easily cross borders. But it's an wonder, an achievement, something worth fighting for.

#Europa #Europe

Let me clarify “indoor air revolution” for the contrarians — there are ways to design or retrofit buildings to increase air exchange and flow, including with window placements and passive ventilation and strategic use of basic fans. We can make schools and hospitals etc healthier for everyone by recognizing, as we once did with sewage and sanitation, that we can design sickness out of our living spaces

Here are some organizations working against authoritarianism in the U.S. I work with them and trust them. See if one of them suits you and get involved now.

Emily’s List https://emilyslist.org/
Sister District https://sisterdistrict.com/
Swing Left https://swingleft.org/
Indivisible https://indivisible.org/

3/

My girlfriend says I’m hopeless at fixing appliances.

Well, she’s in for a shock.

“Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet regime, or any other regime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.” – George Orwell.

I wonder how this will shake out in the US Republican Party if Trump loses. The press seems pretty willing to rehabilitate scoundrels they know. Is a whore a whore if no one mentions it?

a clear chart about the hot mess we’re in: the first 12-month streak of hottest months ever recorded!

https://climate.copernicus.eu/hottest-may-record-spurs-call-climate-action

#ClimateCrisis #DataVis #CopernicusClimateChangeService

I’ve repaired my fair share of vintage computers, but this one is by far the most interesting — especially since it isn’t supposed to exist.
https://youtu.be/OM64l8tZSwY

This sounds -- not good.

"Almost four out of every 10 #journalists covering the #climate crisis and environment issues have been threatened as a result of their work, with 11% subjected to physical violence, according to groundbreaking new research.

Despite the breadth and magnitude of the problems, 39% of journalists surveyed reported having #SelfCensored – mostly due to fear of repercussions from “those undertaking illegal activities” or the government."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/05/climate-crisis-journalists

The fact that he still wouldn't have complete financial disclosure if it weren't for investigative journalists' work is, on its own, enough reason to impeach and replace him.

You can't allow blatant corruption to go unpunished in the highest offices of the land and still expect people to believe in the system. This kind of thing is just begging for revolution or civil war.
QT: https://journa.host/@w7voa/112576328678108548

Ok enough me complaining about research that I want to read not existing (https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/112576085634643142), let's do something actionable.

So you're in an engineering org using something like Copilot. You want tips from science so YOU feel you are using them in a way that is efficient & grows your skills vs muting them. Or you want to help colleagues.

(Even if you profoundly disagree w/these tools, there is benefit in a harm reduction approach & knowing what helps the humans right here right now)

The media is the massage
#GiftArticle #USPolitics
https://wapo.st/45d5wpk

@grimalkina

"Developers produce more quantities of code with copilot"

Remember when the "best" patch was one with a net negative line count?

So many "developers produce more quantities of code with copilot" studies so few "the patterns of interleaving and retrieval change depending on active vs passive consumption of generated solutions and we have like fifty years of research on this in learning science and so maybe we can apply it to make good recommendations about the best usage of generated work output" studies