Nick has moved to Mathstodon @internic@qoto.org

Xavier 2024: "An evidence-based and critical analysis of the Fediverse decentralization promises" https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15383 "Our findings suggest that Fediverse will face significant challenges in fulfilling its decentralization promises, potentially hindering its ability to positively impact the social Web on a large scale." #nwit

"The US top rate of tax in 1944 was 97%. The postwar top rate from 1945-63 was 94%, and it was 70% from 1965-80. This was the period of the largest expansion of the US economy in the nation's history."

Taxing the rich is the most Conservative policy you can think of, but somehow conservatives keep claiming that is a radical Socialist idea. 🤷‍♂️

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/15/piketty-pilled/ by @pluralistic

Hello everyone - did I mention I wrote this a while back? #Space #Rockets

It's aimed at adults, it has no equations, and many young or very young adults have found it interesting and useful too. As have space scientists, astronautical students, and, apparently, astronauts.

Marie Curie didn't necessarily aim to hire women in her lab, but she didn't have anything AGAINST women, and so ended up creating a network of more than 45 women trainees who changed (and are still changing) the course of science. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-marie-curie-helped-a-generation-of-women-break-into-science/

One thing @pluralistic doesn't mention in his enthusiastic promotion of #RSS is that every #YouTube channel also has its own RSS feed. On desktop, press Ctrl+u to view the source and then search for /feeds/ .Copy the URI into your RSS reader and voilà! No need to rely on YouTube's terrible notification system; you get notified of each new video when it's posted, and the site can't put any obstacles in your way as they love to do.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/

Today on the arXiv:

Loading errors due to the system being spammed by requests from scrapers who want to keep stealing everyone's papers all at once.

We did not agree to have our work fed into the automated plagiarism machine.

QT Steinn Sigurðsson
2024 October 16

Dearest LLM script kiddies who are slashdotting @arxiv - if you're being blocked for being rude, the solution is not to try the same stupid thing again an hour later.

You're spoiling the Commons.

https://twitter.com/steinly0/status/1846519433621016675

If you're reading this, please #boost so I can get back to being federated with the #fediverse. Unfortunately, the data center I've been hosting with for years and years encountered some serious issues. I had to move suddenly, losing almost everything. I took the chance to change the software I use. But I've still lost all of my followers, all of my federation, etc! It's also taken down rblind.com, my passion project to get more #blind folks off #reddit. I'll be bringing that back over the coming days. In the meantime, hi! I'm a blind guy who uses the #NVDA #screenreader, loves #accessibility and works in the field, and reads tons of #fanfic, #litrpg, and #sciencefiction and #fantasy in my spare time. Nice to meet you!

“If you’ve suspected that you’re yelling into a void about the election on Instagram, Facebook or Threads, it might not be your imagination.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/16/instagram-limits-political-content-shadowban-election-posts/

Read about True Value hardware declaring bankruptcy today: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/true-value-declares-bankruptcy-sells-174128698.html

Which seemed odd to me, as they've been around for long time selling low-priced items.

It took me exactly one search to find perhaps another reason beyond the claimed "the housing market stalled and consumers have become far more picky about discretionary purchases like hardware” for the news:

To give you a glimpse into the vast image data that #ESAEuclid is observing in its surveys, #ESA published a new set of images: a section of 2 weeks of observations, 132 deg² on the sky, that's 500x the area of the Moon, and zoom-ins.

Check out the images in our Euclid Blog, where you can also find a link to ESA's full release with high-res images and all explanations and background.

https://www.euclid-ec.org/euclids-first-large-piece-of-the-sky

#astronomy #astrodon #space #cosmology

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/