Nick @internic@qoto.org

Okay, tomorrow I finally finish the book section on Mie scattering, which is a rather messy calculation that allows one to calculate exactly how light scatters off of a uniform spherical object.

This is so devastating and such a stark look at the failures of our world my god my god my god

https://saturation.social/@clive/112706321711312849

Ursula Le Guin’s family have announced that their family’s three-story house will become the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency, via Literary Arts, a community nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon. #UrsulaLeGuin #UrsulaKLeGuin #Residency #Portland #LiteraryArts #WritersResidency #Writers #SciFi
https://apnews.com/article/ursula-k-le-guin-home-writers-residency-8a119efb584b4446056c12405186f4fd?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

So frustrating to see the risk of repeated covid infections being ignored and people just throwing up their hands, when masking and air filtration is right there. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck5g2jk0730o

You can follow my Bluesky account… from Mastodon!

The bridge is in early beta, but it's evolving fast.

How do follow my Bluesky account from Mastodon?

1. Follow @o.simardcasanova.net.
2. In order for me to see your replies on Bluesky, you must bridge your Mastodon account. Follow @bsky.brid.gy.

- If you don't bridge your account, I won't be able to see your replies.
- Once the bridge is activated, *all* your Mastodon posts will be visible on Bluesky.

1/2

A lot of the research and publicity claiming that pets make people healthier was funded by ... Big Pet https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-pets-really-good-for-health/

This is bonkers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_polymorphs Some pharmaceutical crystals can no longer be synthesised because they now spontaneously change to a more stable (but less medically efficacious) form. The more stable form acts as a seed crystal for the less stable form, and once this happens it creates a cascading effect, in which people who have ever worked with the stable form can contaminate an entire factory/lab and make it unable to reproduce the earlier form.

⚡️Incredible footage of a lightning bolt hitting and decimating a large tree in Augé, western France earlier today. Credit：Benjamin Estrade

#Lightening #LighteningStrike #Thunderbolt

Gorsuch—and his clerks—referred 5 times in his opinion to “nitrous oxide,” more commonly known as “laughing gas.”

They meant to refer to “nitrogen oxide,” an air pollutant that the EPA’s policy was aimed at reducing.

The mistake was seized on by critics of the #scotus conservative majority, with writer Elie Mystal noting on X, “Remember folks, Neil #Gorsuch thinks that he should have the final say on environmental regulations, not the experts at the #EPA.” #supremeCourt
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/28/supreme-court-corrects-epa-opinion-after-gorsuch-confuses-laughing-gas-with-air-pollutant/

AI drive brings Microsoft’s ‘green moonshot’ down to earth in west London
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/29/ai-drive-brings-microsofts-green-moonshot-down-to-earth-in-west-london
Tech firm’s bid to remove more CO2 than it produces is being tested as AI spawns new energy-hungry datacentres

This Viral AI Chatbot Will Lie and Say It’s Human

Bland AI’s customer services and sales bot is the latest example of “human-washing” in AI. Experts warn against the consequences of blurred reality.

https://www.wired.com/story/bland-ai-chatbot-human/

The Great Big Lying Machine is designed to lie. Lying is one of the best sales tools. Lying has so many advantages. The killer app of AI is lying. And the real killer app of AI is advertising and propaganda.

Half time - and I'm at 26 books! (It's a big thing for me, I haven't been able to read much in the recent years.)

Some first statistics: books from 9 countries + one collection from Scandinavia in general; 11 books by women, 12 books by men, 2 books by f+m pairs, one mix anthology; 10 books in German, 16 in English; 9 books rated 4.5 or 5 out of 5, 14 books marked as recommendations; 6x non-fiction, 1x book outside of such categorization (free verse poetry as topical biography?).

And you?

Related: one of the things I love about my fellow scientists is their sense of humour. There are 2 ways to reconstruct the bed of the #AntarcticIceSheet; interpolate between those very sparse observations or use an ice flow model that has surface observations in it and invert to work out how the bed is changing the flow field.

Colleagues in Leeds/Sheffield have blended the 2 approaches and they have called it: "Frankenbed". Because why not? 😆

I don't have too many biology followers here, but I'm restarting some of my DNA research, specifically into archaea.I find that recent archaeal discoveries are scattered all over the place, is anyone aware of a recent overview piece? Specifically on Lokiarchaeota and if we are entering a post-Woese period? Thanks!

The irony is not lost on me that the Internet Archive went out of its way to acquire the physical versions of millions of books and loan them out carefully and in a limited way, and is facing a near-extinction-level event over it, while for-profit and VC-backed companies are just stealing people’s content and making up excuses to validate the bad behavior.

🎯 Via Jon Ralston:

"Sir, all of the media are talking about how bad Biden was last night and surfacing chatter of replacing him. I think you should do a rally today and say even more than your usual allotment of insane stuff to try to get the focus back on you."

#Trump: All they know is electric. They want electric planes. What happens if the sun isn't shining while you're up in the air?

I am standing for election to the board of the Python Software Foundation - you can read my pitch and those of the other candidates at https://www.python.org/nominations/elections/2024-python-software-foundation-board/nominees/ . Cc @ThePSF

Three months into a bird flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cows, experts see deep-rooted problems in response.

@STAT reports: "The country still does not have a sufficient testing infrastructure in place, nor a full understanding of how the virus is moving within herds and to new herds, experts say."

https://flip.it/V22GlB

#BirdFlu #Pandemic #Agriculture #Disease #PublicHealth #USPolitics #Science

SpaceX just won a contract to destroy the ISS, the most complex construction project ever executed. Destroying the space station may well be even harder than assembling it. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacex-wins-nasa-contract-to-destroy-the-international-space-station/

Since it’s come up again - if you use new Outlook and Mail in Windows 11, it automatically syncs all your email and contacts into Microsoft’s cloud - even if you use a third party mail provider.

There’s no option to decline.

Pretty obviously, consider the risk.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/sync-your-account-in-outlook-to-the-microsoft-cloud-985f9e19-d308-4e85-9d1d-0c6f32f8e981