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I have a very specific question about Matplotlib usage at NASA in the Science Mission Directorate:

Does anyone know of usage of Matplotlib specifically in the Biological and Physical Sciences Division?

@glyph No I don't mean you should deprecate the function. I think we, as a society, should heap approbation and disdain on humans who use 12 hour clocks. 12 hour clocks are ridiculous.

@glyph Needs a deprecation warning. Not that you can actually deprecate the use of 12 hour clocks by fiat in a random library, but it's worth a shot.

@alex @glyph I didn't think you need the `.time` there, right?

#pycon2024 #PyCon #PyConUS2024

If you are coming in person to #PyConUS in Pittsburgh this weekend, and are comfortable playing the guitar in public, let me know? I may be preparing a surprise for the 20th anniversary of Beautiful Soup harihareswara.net/posts/2024/c .

@hynek That is exactly what a criminal would do. Maybe I should print labels that say "Cocaine" and "Heroin", since that is something no smuggler would do.

@alex I've never seen it for sale in smaller containers.

@carlton They usually only sell it in bulk anyway, in my experience. I wouldn't even be able to get less than a 2 month's supply of the kind I like in the US. Looking at this: maps.app.goo.gl/Rud7VQcWetLP9D

Seems like it is a similar deal. Worst case scenario I can do it, but it is also a bit uncertain. Quality for this stuff varies a lot.

I'm thinking small, clearly labeled Tupperware containers and a few scoops will maybe put customs inspectors in a less suspicious frame of mind?

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Ok, I am traveling to Spain soon, and when I travel I usually bring a bit of protein powder (I put it in cottage cheese or yogurt to add some flavor and texture).

However, I suspect that my usual approach — Ziploc baggies in a freezer bag — might invite, uh... extra scrutiny... at customs (see photo).

Anyone have alternative ideas about how to transport this stuff without creating suspicion? The original packaging won't work because it is very bulky.

@webology Yeah but both "bullshit" and "enshittification" are not specific or descriptive. If "enshittification" were called something else like "extractive entropy" or "profit-driven degradation", it would be easier to understand and remember the term.

"LLM bullshit" is even worse, because it could refer to a lot of things, some of which are basically just anti-big tech rhetoric, and some of which are very legitimate. A taxonomy like "slop" and "hallucination" for the specific failure modes provide actionable targets that you can notice and work against, and they are evocative of what is actually going on.

@webology To be honest, I can't see this being helpful. I can't really take "enshittification" seriously, and it comes off as annoying and polemical to me.

I feel like taking rhetoric to the extreme like this is likely to enforce all-or-nothing thinking about AI, whereas coming up with descriptive terms for specific failure modes will improve awareness about them.

I've just released cibuildwheel 2.18.0, with prerelease support for CPython 3.13 - set CIBW_PRERELEASE_PYTHONS to test building 3.13 wheels! (No free-threading yet, waiting on binaries & pip) github.com/pypa/cibuildwheel/r #python #release

Next month, @the_compiler is organising a pytest sprint in Austria, next to the Swiss border.

There's also a possibility for paid travel/accommodation.

See github.com/pytest-dev/sprint for more info and signup.
#Python #pytest #sprint

What better way to spend Friday afternoon than watching me talk about Chapter 7 of Probably Overthinking It?

"Causation, Collision, and Confusion"

youtube.com/watch?v=8rUm46mk0Y

I was at Google today to give a talk about Chapter 7 of Probably Overthinking It: Causation, Collision, and Confusion.

I'll post the video when it's available, but in the meantime, the slides are here: docs.google.com/presentation/d

parenting, slightly negative, decisions 

@Greg Practice makes perfect 😉

I have set up Mixtral 8x7B to generate Spanish example sentences for my Anki deck and I came across one that seems to randomly be in Catalan. Fun times.

@brianokken That is a common misconception. Actually, they make shoes using a machine that also makes hats for gnomes. It is easier to make the shoes pointy in the middle than to have to recalibrate them to asymmetry whenever they switch workflows.

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