Nick @internic@qoto.org

Given that I am surrounded by Mathematicians here, let me ask for help for what should be a simple problem I can't seem to be able to solve:
Assume you have n fair dice with m faces (i.e. each can roll an integer from 1 to m with a uniform probability). You roll all n, and keep the k (with 0<k<=n) highest results. What is the probability that the sum of the k dice you kept is X?
(If one keeps all the dice, probability-generating functions give the answer straightforwardly. If I roll 2 dice and keep 1 I can easily enumerate the outcomes and calculate the probabilities, but I am stumped by the general case).

#ProbabilityTheory #IShouldKnowHowToSolveThisButIDoNot 😞

The atmosphere can hold 7% more water for every 1 degree warmer it gets.

A warmer world is a much floodier world.

#ClimateChange

The empire of light.
#brussels

Watching #StarTrek TNG as it aired was appointment watching in my family, especially with my dad. I have never forgotten "The Inner Light" and how it affected us as we watched in '92.

Tonight I watched that episode again, this time with my daughter, who is watching TNG with us for HER very first time. She is around the same age I was when I first saw "The Inner Light."

And she is named after my father, who died the year before she was born. That ep packs a new punch now.

@rhandos Turns out it was a Cellebrite! @mattblaze @SteveBellovin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/07/16/thomas-crooks-phone-motive-parents-trump-shooting

I’m thrilled to announce that after over 3 great years with the Stanford Internet Observatory, I’ve joined the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI as a Policy Fellow. Some of my most impactful work has been on emergent issues relating to AI (e.g., “deepfakes” in the courtroom, AI-generated CSAM). In my new role, I’ll get to expand on those threads and devote more of my time to studying AI’s effects on society and (hopefully) proposing solutions to mitigate the existing downsides of AI.

Did anyone else notice that - during his sad-serious interlude about the shooting - Colbert quoted Asimov? "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

Many Judges Don't Recuse in Cases Involving Their Families’ Interests
==

Ambiguous — and unenforced — recusal standards mean few checks and balances for top judges when cases involve their #family members.

#News #CriminalJustice #Courts #Law #Ethics #Transparency #Florida #Minnesota #Ohio

https://www.propublica.org/article/judges-ethics-codes-recusal-conflict-of-interest-families

Spacecraft dynamics is just 🤯

To get to Jupiter in 2031, #ESA's #Juice will have to fly by Earth three times: this August, in August 2025 and again in August 2029. Only this complicated route enables Juice to get to Jupiter - and get into the orbit instead of just passing by (the way the amazing Voyager spacecrafts did)!

Here some infos on what to look out for this August, during the first ever Lunar-Earth flyby:

▶️ https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/Juice_s_lunar-Earth_flyby_all_you_need_to_know

I'm delighted to see that the 6.10 release of the Linux kernel adds support for the Allwinner H700 (H616 variant) and explicitly calls out the Anbernic RG35XX series of #gamedad devices as a motivating reason!

However it _kills_ me that even with this addition, the thing stopping hundreds (thousands?) of excellent cheap handheld gaming decks from becoming e-waste is a 64-bit Mali G31 GPU blob extracted from an automotive firmware package².

¹: https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/07/15/linux-6-10-release-notable-changes-arm-risc-v-and-mips-architectures/

²: https://plus.rg35xx.com/en/the-future-of-rg35xx-firmwares/

Thanks to extraordinary open science & archival practices by someone in the 1980s, I am now in the fascinating situation of trying to load data into R from punch cards exported to a text file O_O

(send help)

Recurring offer reminder: I'll help / mentor / teach / tutor / troubleshoot with anyone who wants to learn git for basic version control, collaboration, managing personal projects, or for a day job. I'll work to connect people with mentors other than me if they prefer - no need to explain why.

Same for bash, command line tools, and so on.

I want using & contributing to FS/OSS to be easier for way more people.

Boosts appreciated!!

#gittutors #git #help #teaching #troubleshooting #ohShitGit

Important pulsar fact!

The cover of the Joy Division album "Unknown Pleasures" was adapted from a plot that radio astronomer Harold Craft made for his PhD dissertation, using data collected at Arecibo while studying the pulsar discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Yup, it's true. Firefox 128 includes new adtech features that are opt-in by default and announced with very little fanfare, so most people might not even know they're there.

Well, this is me telling you they're there. You might want to go ahead and take a minute to opt out.

Here's the little helpful explainer from Mozilla about how it all works:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution

My read seems to be: Mozilla says website surveillance is generally bad and should be defended against. Cool. No notes. Firefox actually has a lot of nice anti-tracking and privacy features there and that's the main reason why I like Firefox.

But, and I swear I'm not even joking a little bit here, Mozilla goes on to say that advertisers might be happier if Firefox itself just tracked you directly and sent activity reports back to them.

Doesn't that sound great?

Now, to Mozilla's credit, they claim to anonymize the activity reports. And you can still meaningfully opt out of the whole system.

But WTF, mate?! I use Firefox *because* it fights against adtech. Or at least it used to. Now, Mozilla just lets adtech right in the front door and hopes you won't notice?

Well, we noticed. Mozilla is damage and we need to route around it.

In India, ‘vegetarians only’ is just another form of Islamophobia and surveillance

This Vittles essay has more details

https://open.substack.com/pub/vittles/p/vegetarians-only

#Food

We've uncovered #malware hidden in a Microsoft logo JPG, shipping as fake #AWS packages on #npm! 😲

https://blog.phylum.io/fake-aws-packages-ship-command-and-control-malware-in-jpeg-files/

#steganography #opensource #cybersecurity #npmjs #javascript #typescript #software #infosec #js

If you want access to free books, please get a library card.

In the US, the more people there are with library cards, the more funding libraries have access to.

Libraries provide more than books. They are a community resource.

As an author and reader, I support libraries!

#books #bookstodon #libraries

Switzerland passes law requiring #OpenSource software in the public sector. "All public bodies must disclose the source code of software developed by or for them, unless precluded by third-party rights or security concerns" Well done @maemst, great work!

https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/new-open-source-law-switzerland