On December 19, 1953, US-American physicist Robert Andrews Millikan passed away. Millikan received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for his measurement of the elementary electronic charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect. His famous oil-drop experiment (1911) was far superior to previous determinations of the charge of an electron, and further showed that the electron was a fundamental, discrete particle.
I made an attempt to explain Minkowski #spacetime via an analogy (very) loosely based on Tolkien's Middle-Earth. https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2022/12/18/special-relativity-and-middle-earth/
https://t.me/KyivIndependent_official/13240 ⚠️🇺🇦 Explosions reported in Kyiv. Multiple local news sources reported two powerful explosions in central Kyiv overnight on Dec. 19. Air raid alerts were on in Kyiv Oblast when the explosions were heard. #Ukraine #News #War #Russia
https://t.me/KyivIndependent_official/13239 ⚠️🇺🇦 Governor: Air defense at work in Kyiv Oblast amid drone attack. Kyiv Oblast Governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram that the air defenses in Kyiv Oblast were operating "due to a Russian attack." Kuleba also asked residents to stay in shelters as the "drone attack continues." #Ukraine #News #War #Russia
Things I've learned about Mastodon this week:
1. Photo captions are read by screenreaders for people who have impaired vision. The more descriptive you make them, the more people can appreciate your post.
2. Hashtags should be "camel style" which means you capitalize each word in the tag - this enables screen readers to identify different words in the tag,
3. Reblogging boosts posts and favourites do not.
4. Hashtags are way more important here than on the birdsite.
@zeddary lol, that feeling when even your carefully crafted push poll is backfiring badly.
The group of people who are trying to divide the fediverse seem to have reached a new low.. They have a tool that lists how many instances block a particular instance, but it is highly manipulative.
For starters it is hand curated.. so they exclude blocks against their own instances and only includes instances they actually dislike.
Worse yet they curate a list ordered by "most blocked".. problem is they use the number of instances that block. They game the system by having large number of single-user instances. So instances in the top 50 may only be blocked by a few hundred people but still appear as if the blocks are significant....
This is why we need transparency, its why we need the https://UFoI.org
@iPedro
I've built my home feed like that over time but I haven't seen much boosting of new arrivals today after all links on twitter have been banned. so I think it is making things more difficult short term. long term you are right and it will not matter.
Update: I was locked out of my account. When it came back, all my following has been wiped out. Seems like a good way for Twitter to prevent users migrating to Mastodon to have a harder time finding their people.
@iPedro yes, this is clearly the intent. and it's succeeding in that. but not in preventing people from leaving.
"The Girl from Ipanema" Astrud Gilberto, João Gilberto and Stan Getz
#FavoriteMusic 36/
#NewUsers now above 5000 per hour.
We are now higher than last week's rate. Mastodon is managing this surge so far. Some servers are lagging. Please be patient as systems administrators manage the situation. It may get worse given the Twitter news.
@mastodon.social, @mastodon.lol, @mastodon.online, @mstdn.social, and now @mas.to closed to new user registrations.
Quick Scan - Mastodon Larger Instances >>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hN-0bNfjaV7UTuLP6eudmXCNNPdeNQoFtbfcqxl4FFQ/edit#gid=0
Fediverse tracker >>> https://mastodon.online/@mastodonusercount@bitcoinhackers.org
@gergelyorosz classic "I didn't think leopard would eat my face" moment for Graham
Refugee from twitter. I am into math, tech, clean energy, EVs, COVID info, books, movies, music.
Based in Toronto. Support Ukraine.
Boosts=endorsements twitter:https://twitter.com/heridfan