timorl @timorl@qoto.org

A colleague mentioned today that the April Fools tradition of pranking unsuspecting people into believing something false can be very unwelcome on the receiving side. That made me think of better ways to observe April Fools and I think I've found a slightly Discordian one that I wish I'd thought of years ago.

Let's share puzzles/riddles that often leave the listener very confused and help them realize that something they might have believed about the world is inaccurate. I think it's much better, because it's educational, there's no temptation not to ask the recipient whether they wish to take part beforehand, and I don't expect recipients to feel like they're being made fun of.

Let me start with a physics puzzle I'm fond of:

Consider a car that travels northward with speed v. Assume there are no losses (no rolling friction, vacuum, etc.) so the car travels at constant speed with engine off. At a point in time, the car engages its engine and speeds up to 2*v northward. How much work did the car engine do?

Well, we can compute the increase of car's kinetic energy: m/2*((2v)^2-v^2)=m/2*3v^2

Alas, let us consider a different (inertial) reference frame: one that moves northward with speed v (note that it's not tied to the car, even though it starts stationary in it). In that reference frame the car sped up from 0 to v, so the increase in car's kinetic energy is m/2*v^2.

What gives? How much energy did the engine actually have to use to speed the car up?

h/t to Ryszard Zapała, my HS physics teacher

Celebrating my first commit making it into the mainline Linux kernel: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/drivers/usb/typec/tps6598x.c?h=v5.12-rc4&id=3cac9104bea41099cf622091f0c0538bcb19050d
Lines added: 0
Lines removed: 1
Can I call myself a "contributor" now even though technically I didn't add anything, just removed one line? 😃

“Ruby off the Rails: Code library yanked over license blunder, sparks chaos for half a million projects • The Register” https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/25/ruby_rails_code/

The ergonomics of modern proof writing just get better and better.

This is just a proof about a C program. Nothing in the program is important from a philosophical standpoint. But the logic and implementation is swell.

The logic is called higher-order impredicative concurrent separation logic. The separation part allows me to only have to think about small parts of the C program at a time. Multiple people can work on the same proof without stepping on each other.

The implementation allows for a lot of automation in proof writing. Most of the heavy lifting and boring stuff, like interfacing integers to registers of 64 bits are done. There is plenty of room to create more automation for common proof strategies.

#chatcontrol is an EU plan to spy in real time on *all* your communication, including encrypted messengers like Signal. Let me put it bluntly: If the state doesn't trust me, I will never trust the state. This is unacceptable. Period.

There is a nice example for weaponized language in contracts and politicians:

best-effort

What native speakers familiar with contract terms understand: you make no guarantees or commitments in the fulfillment of something

What non-native speakers or unfamiliar with this term understand: wow, they committed to maximum effort

So the EU official complaining about AstraZeneca deliveries not being “best effort”: they were exactly that! Bottom-barrel, no guarantees service.

Pat #animation done! Took a while! Lots of #Blender #3D and #lowpoly related learning on the way. Also my first hand painted textures! I'm kinda proud of the fennec one.

cc @amaral @polychrome @MadestMadness @codepuppy

The hand crafted pats I promised like a month ago 😅

Hello everyone, my name is Tamara (she/her), I am a PhD student in cultural anthropology and my research focusses on the development of artificial intelligence in the context of humanoid robotics. To really get a grasp of what is going on, I also study computer science and program parts of the robots’ software myself.

I am new here and would love to connect with people working on similar or related topics!

#introductions

In the last couple of years the biggest mistakes I’ve made was to assume things are working.

When something is important, don’t assume it is working, or that the people in charge of said thing know what they are doing. Verify it.

Australian News Sites Shocked & Upset To Learn They Don't Need To Rely On Facebook For Traffic! - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210220/23410646285/australian-news-sites-shocked-upset-to-learn-they-dont-need-to-rely-facebook-traffic.shtml "It seems the truth is pretty self-evident: this was all a greed play." #linktax

Heavy metal legends and outspoken copyright maximalists Metallica played a concert on Twitch, only to find their audio replaced with royalty-free chiptune library music by an automated copyright filter:

https://www.stereogum.com/2116933/metallica-twitch-concert-audio-swapped-with-twinkly-8-bit-music-because-of-copyright-fears/news/

😘👌

Curve25519 implementation is both the most blessed and cursed code in the world.

On one hand, it has the cleanest math and attracted the best minds to work on it. Now the code deployed in most projects have been fully optimized, and formally verified to be mathematically correct and secure. One of the biggest accomplishment in crypto applications in recent years.

On the other hand, the monstrous, machine-generated assembly or C code will give any unsuspected programmer a heart attack.

Seriously, "you are not expected to understand this."

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/lib/crypto/curve25519-fiat32.c

A niech Was wszystkich szlag! Przez Was instaluję wciąż jakieś aplikacje i czytam o nowych projektach. Najpierw #Mastodon, #Friendica i całe to #fediversum. Potem #OSM, #Element, a wczoraj #DeltaChat. Kiedy ja mam pracować? A na dokładkę stałem się ewangelizatorem otwartych technologii! Jakbym nie miał co robić... Dzień dobry.

I recommend this reading list. There are a lot of great topics in here for a budding analytic philosopher.

https://fuckyeahlogical.tumblr.com/post/128964910533/analytic-philosophy-reading-list-for-the-self

Republican North Dakota legislators have introduced SB2333, a bill that prohibits large tech companies from locking their users into a single app store or payment processor.

https://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/67-2021/documents/21-1044-01000.pdf

While his has implications for Android and other large tech platforms, its most immediate and far-reaching effects with be on Apple, whose Ios platform uses lock-in to monopolize both apps and payments (and another domain, not mentioned in the bill: repairs).

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Wrzucam dzisiaj taki mój tekst sprzed ponad 3 lat, który wydaje mi się całkiem niezły. Analizuję w nim rolę tekstu w naszej cywilizacji i konsekwencje odchodzenia od niego. Może znajdziecie go ciekawym lub użytecznym. https://informaton.blog/2017/09/05/nastepny-skok-cywilizacyjny-moze-wypchnac-osoby-niewidome-za-burte/

Czy wiesz że w Polsce jest darmowy dostęp do internetu poprzez sieć komórkowa?

Prośba o podbicie :)

/tak wiem że jest beznadziejny bo korzystałem, tylko jestem ciekaw ile osób sobie w ogóle zdaje sprawę z jego istnienia.