Nick has moved to Mathstodon @internic@qoto.org

Just got back from my dentist. Her boss has introduced #AI into the clinic. It claims to automatically detect many conditions and right away it found 4 issues affecting my teeth.

The only downside was that its findings were 100% wrong, which my dentist of many years' experience spotted immediately.

We couldn't get enough of code review anxiety, so we ALSO assessed our code review anxiety toolkit to get a more ecologically valid understanding of how to mitigate it (aka how well something works in real world scenarios, rather than in a controlled lab setting). Please enjoy this mixed methods follow up to the popular code review anxiety study by myself, @grimalkina & @KFosterMarks

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/hz3et

@seresearchers #SoftwareEngineering #developers

to celebrate selling out the first print run of How Integers and Floats work, we're giving away 500 PDF copies of the zine!

use code BUYONEGIVEONE at checkout to get a copy for free. (no need to enter your real address)

As usual this works with the honour system, this code is for you if $12 USD is a lot of money for you!

https://wizardzines.com/zines/integers-floats/

Achievement unlocked: contributed code to AUCTeX! This will be included in a future version of emacs ^_^

VOTING PRO TIPS:
—if you are mailing in your vote, send it NOW — post office delays are going to be epic this year, intentional and otherwise

—if you have Early Voting available DO IT — early enthusiasm counts plus you avoid any unforeseen illnesses/accidents that might keep you from voting

—most states track your mail-in ballot, from when they send it to you to when they receive it back; use the online tools to make sure your ballot is safely returned and counted

1/2
#vote @KamalaHarrisWin

Hi everyone! I just wanted to give you a heads up that Perforce has forcibly seized control of the #Puppet Community Slack. They've banned me and removed the Community team and all moderators. This means that there is currently no spam or harassment moderation. It means that the community no longer has the ability to limit monetization. And it means that Perforce has direct access to your account info and no longer needs to go through the Community team when they need sales and marketing leads.

If you’re an experienced aerospace engineer who is very knowledgeable about both rockets generally and Starship, and you’d be willing to answer a few questions for me via email, can you let me know?? Feel free to PM. (Looking for a reputable source who actually works in the field and ALSO keeps up with Starship forums, not just the latter. I know plenty of fans, would like actual engineering knowledge).

“But, but … humans hallucinate all the time! How dare you set the bar for AI so much higher!”

Yes, we all remember the many stories written by human journalists that accused Woodward and Bernstein of breaking into the Watergate Hotel.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/26/microsoft_bing_copilot_ai_halluciation/

The Internet Archive and its 916 billion saved webpages are back online

Wayback Machine back in read-only mode after DDoS, may need further maintenance.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/the-internet-archive-and-its-916-billion-saved-webpages-are-back-online/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

The weather here in Heidelberg looks as unpromising as yesterday for viewing Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS this evening, but there's always this nice video showing the view that the ESA/NASA SOHO mission had when the comet rounded the Sun between 7 & 10 October ☄️

Nice processing by my friend @stim3on & happy to see that he got "in movie" credit as appropriate 🙂👍

Fingers crossed for opportunities to see it myself later in the week 🤞

#SpaceScience

Original link: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2024/10/Comet_C_2023_A3_brightens_SOHO_s_week

Our new paper (led by newly minted graduate, Florian Lalande) on using machine learning to impute unknown exoplanet properties has just dropped!

Let's talk deets...

We're edging towards a stunning 6,000 exoplanet discoveries. It's a huge database that should be outright PLUNDERED for trends that can reveal how planets form and evolve. However, use is throttled by the fact that database has so many missing properties it's got more holes than a sponge. (cont...)

📘 : https://astro.theoj.org/article/124538-estimating-exoplanet-mass-using-machine-learning-on-incomplete-datasets

Thread on international conferences, remote attending etc...

So for the first time ever I was invited in the SOC (=Scientific Organising Committee) of a conference abroad.

Before joining, I made clear that a prerequisite for me was that a minimum amount of remote attendees/speakers should be allowed: we cannot go fully back to pre-covid.

I was reassured and so was happy to serve in the past months by setting up the program, deciding speakers etc.

Sadly...

#astrodon #astronomy #science

Parking machine scam, Ireland.

Your 80-year old reminder of the ethical decision you make if you choose to dissociate your fantasies of space exploration & love of rockets from the politics of the people building & launching them.

Credit: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_141-1879,_Rakete_V2_nach_Start_cropped.jpg

So grateful in an era where so much online advice comes from generative AI without any grounding in evidence, that someone has actually made a robot to test the best phone cables.

It may seem like a small thing, but it really matters.

https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/chargers/which-charging-cables-last-longest-a2032406624/

Mosaic Netscape 0.9 was released 30 years ago today.

According to my notes, it went live shortly after midnight on Oct 13, 1994. We sat in the conference room in the dark and listened to different sound effects fired for each different platform that was downloaded. At some point late that night I wandered off and wrote the first version of the page that loaded when you pressed the "What's Cool" button in the toolbar. (A couple days later, Jim Clark would go ballistic...

https://jwz.org/b/yka7

Ever wonder when your system last updated a package when using a Debian or Ubuntu Linux? Let's check Firefox, for example. Type this:

```
grep -B4 firefox /var/log/apt/history.log
```

See https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/debian-ubuntu-linux-find-package-installed-updated-date/ for more info.

#debian #ubuntu #linux #sysadmin

In the past few weeks, Apple canceled the following:

a) A multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI

b) Apple officially cancels autonomous driving permit (Apple already scrapped its self-driving electric car project after ten years of research)

c) Apple engineers confirmed that AIs don't understand reasoning and stuff like that.

While the whole tech industry is going AI-first, Apple is more cautious and isn't buying AI buzz. What do you think this indicates?