Dave T-W @davoloid@qoto.org

𝓖𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓼𝓪𝓻𝔂

Blockchain: a slow database

Crypto: an expensive slow database

NFT: an expensive slow database to store URLs

AI: a way to write slow and inefficient algorithms

LLM: a database that stores text in a slow and inefficient way

Chat GPT: an expensive imprecise query language for slow and inefficient text databases that often returns wrong results

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

@DrALJONES

Fascism was on the ballot before trump got on it. Now its just on there one more extra time.

I love Elle Cordova and her clever, funny videos. This one is for all my writer and editor frends.

Trolley problem solution:

I think we should find out who keeps tying victims to the tracks, and next time they try it, we should free the victims and tie them up in their place. It's only fair!

Just to make this clear to the non-Germans amongst my mutuals: there were not "10s of thousands" on the streets against #fascism in #Germany but 100s of thousands, probably around 1.4 million in total. The largest demonstrations since reunification.

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!

@edutooters @academicchatter

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)

#PortTalbot

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

#books #literature