I find it strange that governments focus on identity verification for accessing the Internet while rejecting the most basic technical controls to address the worldwide leading cause of death for children – traffic accidents. Use existing identity infrastructure to check the right to drive, payment of tax, valid insurance and safety certificate before the car can be driven. While doing that, impose appropriate speed limits. This could be done in a privacy-preserving way. https://english.elpais.com/technology/2024-01-19/experts-warn-of-the-dangers-and-difficulties-of-a-government-instituted-anti-porn-app-this-has-never-been-successful.html
They don't want homeless people concentrating, forming communities, and establishing themselves in one area, because that starts looking less like isolated "bums" and more like a capitalist refugee camp.
This is some serious cyberpunk dystopia shit, where poor people live below ground and the rich up high.
'The most important thing to keep in mind is that the entire concept is essentially nonsensical on multiple levels. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking of this supposed headroom as a pot of money ... In reality, what is called headroom is simply the gap between the government’s tax and spending plans and what would be allowed under the fiscal rules, which the government itself sets and which have been changed almost annually over the past decade.'
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/24/uk-budget-tax-cuts-jeremy-hunt
Fascism was on the ballot before trump got on it. Now its just on there one more extra time.
It was definitely a snub. The creativity, weaving a complex story, honouring Hollywood classics, the sheer joy that exudes from the cast and crew is a testament to Gerwig's skill and confidence as a Director.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/24/barbie-ryan-gosling-margot-robbie-greta-gerwig-oscars-snub
#Oscars #Barbie
"I came across a cache of old photos and invitations to teenage parties..." - Pet Shop Boys, Being Boring.
One aspect of getting older is realising you have to get rid of lots of stuff. Events and memories that we marked at the time, but friends who have moved on, acquaintances on a fun weekend. For me a reminder of good times in my youth, but meaningless to my kids who will one day have to soft through and discard, as my own parents are doing.
So thanks to Matt, Annette, Richard, Maeve, Aoife, Alex and the rest I have forgotten the names of. These were good times, and that's all my kids need to know. It was 1999 and we did party hard in Ireland.
Academic colleague telling me yesterday of one of his students that used ChatGPT in an assignment, which referenced a set of non-existent papers. He asked student to provide links as he didn't recognise the authors and was having trouble finding them. Student provided a completely different, unrelated set, and claimed the first batch were "placeholders".
Hmm.
Re-post: I would like to ask for your help.
As part of my dissertation project, I'm aiming to collect a large research sample to help construct a validated measure on Teacher Attitudes towards Multilingualism.
If you are a teacher (primary, secondary, tertiary education), and you teach multilingual students, could I please ask for 10 minutes of your time?
The survey is available here:
https://uofg.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6tZfFXjn5SD2PtA
Please boost—thank you so much!
By sheer coincidence spotted this today. Kettle shut off due to bimetallic strip, not kettle boiling sentience.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1mJYli-aNrI
Chapter 8: Theory of the Leisure Class:
"Since conservatism is a characteristic of the wealthier and therefore more reputable portion of the community, it has acquired a certain honorific or decorative value. Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar.
...
The difference in this respect between the wealthy and the common run of mankind lies not so much in the motive which prompts to conservatism as in the degree of exposure to the economic forces that urge a change. The members of the wealthy class do not yield to the demand for innovation as readily as other men because they are not constrained to do so."
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/833/pg833-images.html#link2HCH0008
There's also some great points about how societal changes (e.g. female suffrage, taxes) are framed as to raise fear of chaos and disorder, but also that institutions need to adapt or they will either and die by a process similar to biological evolution.
I will try to assemble these thoughts but I'm still trawling through an economic classic from 1899 which is not my usual bedtime reading.
Once again, I am drawn to Veblen's explanation that conservatism arises as a result of people and institutions largely being unaffected and removed from the consequences of economic change.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/22/england-conservative-politics-tories-labour 1/n
By the 1740s up to 6,000 marriages a year were taking place in the Fleet area, compared with 47,000 marriages in England as a whole. One estimate suggests that there were between 70 and 100 clergymen working in the Fleet area between 1700 and 1753. The social status of the couples varied. Some were criminals, others were poor. Some were wealthy while many simply sought a quick or secret marriage for numerous personal reasons.
@jknodlseder @jaztrophysicist @cazencott I think it’s a bit deeper than that. We have been gaslit into thinking of computation as a free resource where CPU cycles cost nothing. The reality of course is that all computation is energy intensive - even our own brains use 20% of our calorific intake.
For those of you keeping track of #NigelFarage's mendacity, in light of the shift of the UK's #steel industry into the recycling business (with the closure of facilities that produce steel from scratch), you may recall this tweet from Farage in advance of the #Brexit vote.
h/t DoctorMartinRemains (at the other place)
Eric Arthur Blair, English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the name George Orwell died #OTD in 1950. He is known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), and Homage to Catalonia (1938) are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture. via @wikipedia
Just another worried little citizen of this modern-day Pompeii. Techie at UCL, working on Process Automation with MS Power Platform. Scatterbrain, interested in education, languages, Space and lots of disparate things. sorry.
Keeping my space toots at @astrodad as an experiment in self-moderation :)
*Background banner is a photo Yorkshire flag in blue and white, in front of a classic bell tent, in a field of similar tents at a festival.