Mark Mounts @markmounts@qoto.org

tbh I've always felt the Internet Archive's digital lending case was a tough one but I'm absolutely appalled by the judge finding the lending program "commercial" because it allowed AI to "solicit donations" and "bolster its standing."

That would transform everything a non-profit does into "commercial" activity. It's a ridiculous reach by a judge who seemed determined to rule against IA in every way he could find.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.537900/gov.uscourts.nysd.537900.188.0.pdf

Mechanical mathematicians (A new generation of automatic theorem provers eliminate bugs in software and mathematics). ~ Alexander Bentkamp, Jasmin Blanchette, Visa Nummelin, Sophie Tourret, Petar Vukmirović, Uwe Waldmann. https://matryoshka-project.github.io/pubs/mechanical.pdf #ATP #ITP #Math

We think that the past is somewhere different. Somewhere we've left behind. A place we used to be. We think that the future is something far off and away. Someplace way out there, but it isn't.Nothing escapes the gravitational pull of the present and that includes both the future and the past. It's all still right here...

https://duanetoops.substack.com/p/the-density-of-the-present

#reading #writing #art #poetry #collage @bookstodon

Interested in learning the basics of webscraping?
Sarah King (https://www.sarahasking.com), PhD researcher
@ucdpolitics and a member of the Connected_Politics Lab, will deliver a free, virtual workshop on Thursday, 23 March (13:00–15:00 Irish time).

Details and free registration at: https://www.ucd.ie/connected_politics/events/anintroductiontowebscrapingusingr/
All welcome!
@politicalscience #rstats #webscraping #coding #polisci #polsci

To meditate with these #metta phrases, just repeat a phrase to yourself then pause to allow your inherent instinct for care & compassion to well up….

may all beings be well-loved.
may all beings be filled with love.

may all beings feel safe and secure.
may all beings be a place of safety and refuge for others.

may all beings be free of envy and emnity.
may all beings delight in the joy of others.

may all beings be free of suffering.
may all beings be at peace.

#buddhism #meditation

I can't believe I missed this podcast last year: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Tony Judt
cc @mucida
🎧 👇

https://www.publicbooks.org/primary-sources-ta-nehisi-coates-on-tony-judt/

Here is your must-read article for the day, a profile of @emilymbender, and her efforts to deflate the ridiculous hype around large language models such as ChatGPT.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html

Reddit / math : Beautiful math with beautiful images, hyperbolic spaces, Coxeter groups, tilings, and circle packing meet together.
https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/113u41i/beautiful_math_with_beautiful_images_hyperbolic/
#mathematics #math #maths

A group of "Scared Scientists" created a website. Here is what one of them has to say...
________________________

SHAUNA MURRAY
Biological Scientist
University of Technology Sydney, University of Tokyo, University of New South Wales

STATEMENT:

We've recorded all sorts of climate change shifts in multiple areas. However, the scientific process is consistent. Every single individual study that has been done has gone through the same rigorous process, data collection, research analysis, and qualified peer review.

At the moment, we've at least 10,000 different papers completed over twenty years, each using different data sets, and they are all coming to the same climate change conclusions. We've a weight of evidence that the average person is simply not aware of — and this frightens me.

I'd like to think that we're not going to reach the projected four degrees of warming this century, because I can't even imagine what that would look like. Eighty years is not that long, and unless we act soon my seven-year-old daughter will probably have to live through that.

MORE HERE -- https://cargocollective.com/scared_scientists

#ClimateCatastrophe #Extinction

Apparently people don't just like emulated calculators in the browser - they love it, and want more.

So come enjoy the CALCULATOR DRAWER, a dozen plus emulated calculators and (where I could find them) the manuals. Get calculating!

https://archive.org/details/calculatordrawer

My latest for @thenation

While They “Have the Tools,” We Are Still Suffering and Dying in Our Thousands

In the Orwellian world of White House #Covid messaging, some Americans are more equal than others.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/orwellian-white-house-covid-policy/

As I’ve studied #Buddhism in more detail I’ve realised yet again just how important words are and how using a particular word can colour your understanding of a concept (especially in translation.) I find myself looking up words in the dictionary constantly these days to try and get more a feel for where some of these words that we take for granted in the English language even came from, which is often edifying.

Tunnel of love. Ukraine. It is a botanical phenomenon - a green tunnel in a forest about 4 km long, created by thickets of trees and bushes that intertwined with each other and created a dense tunnel of an exact arched shape. An industrial train passes along this track three times a day.

Populism coupled with increasing assaults on scientific integrity have dramatically shifted the political landscape & contributed to geopolitical instability.

The policy ramifications are yet to be understood, but anti-intellectualism has threatened public health, stymied environmental progress, influenced funding priorities & sculpted the rhetoric of local, state & national politics.

New post: The Rise of Anti-intellectualism https://sheril.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-anti-intellectualism #science #politics

I’ve been wondering why I’ve been so focused on #Buddhism lately- after all, it’s not a new thing in my life. But I think that, after seeing just how much what I’m finding out about the world due to my wide reading (from physics to ecology to music) of the last 2 years mirrors Buddhist insights, I’ve realised that becoming more serious about my practice is absolutely necessary to develop further— both as a theorist/philosopher and as a person generally.

#philosophy @philosophy thread🧵
1/9

I am starting a thread on education responses to chatGPT. Please feel free to add to it.

I am not really concerned about the reaction posts, I am looking for useful information and the impact.

@martin
https://www.openedtech.global/blog/open-edtech-news-2/thoughts-about-the-impact-of-ai-text-on-assessment-9

John Spencer https://spencerauthor.com/englishai/

Steve Heimler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvNm7aXYPJ8&ab_channel=Heimler%27sHistoryTeachers

@edutooters #chatGPT

Today in the Panopticon

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/major-tax-filing-websites-secretly-share-income-data-with-meta/

They Want to Kill Libraries by @doctorow https://link.medium.com/cTmKWe3gVub

"Libraries are the last place in America where you are valued for your personhood, rather than the contents of your wallet. At the library, you are a patron, not a customer."