tobychev @tobychev@qoto.org
Not sure what this account will be about, mostly boosting things I find interesting.
Joined Nov 2022
tobychev
boosted
If every Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim voter stayed home on election day, Trump should still not win. But he would win.
If every Black voter joined the Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian voters in staying home on election day, Trump should still not win. But he would win, by a landslide.
Please stop angrily telling people whose families are being killed, that "Trump is worse!" Please focus that energy on your own family members who you know will vote for Trump, and who outnumber those that won't.
@mrundkvist
I think the term of art is "politician" ;)
More seriously there is obviously a lot of social infrastructure needed to allow everyone to participate meaningfully, instead of the current system where the mechanics allow the well off an excess amount of influence simply because they can afford to actually attend everywhere and prepare extensive materials.
@mrundkvist
I think the bitter truth is that we have to participate in all those meetings and processes ourselves, not just delegate to someone else once every four years...
@kevinrothrock
Is Apple on the Ukrainian list of companies funding Russia?
tobychev
boosted
An update from the JAXA SLIM team (on twitter):
- SLIM was indeed powered down at 17:57 UTC (which is exactly when AMSAT-DL reported loss of signal; see post 27 in this thread). Battery level was 12% at that time.
- Telemetry shows that the solar panels are facing west and there is hope that later in the lunar day, the system may revive. Many of us concluded that from the webcast images.
- No mention of SLIM being upside down.
- Lots of data received before shutdown.
tobychev
boosted
"I have inherited tons of money from Nazis and that gives me a unique understanding of antisemitism in the way that its victims don't" wasn't on my bingo card but here we are.
https://portside.org/2024-01-20/german-elites-are-redefining-antisemitism-so-they-can-be-victims
@mrundkvist
Sure, that's why it is important that the other people take care of their buildings as that ensures your land is close to something valuable. Simply being close to something valuable makes land valuable!
I think this is not true in general, but it is definitely true for land. Other more complicated reasons for something being valuable is having been created by a certain person, or having been owned by a certain person (admittedly these are less common in practice).
@seindal
@mrundkvist
I think it is simply that the value of the land itself can increase despite there being a decaying house on it, and while there might be better short term ways to manage the building it probably is a lot of work and not that much more profit over just holding 'till the ground itself makes you rich?
tobychev
boosted
@Pashhur
Apparently it has mostly shut down transports to Eliat (85% decrease in December). There is also like only a third of the usual number of container ships in the Red Sea, so locally it is having strong immediate effects.
On the wider economy it hasn't done as much, but then economic sanctions are never very quick at showing their results nor do they always produce the intended effects.
The attacks themselves are not likely to directly bring about any significant impact, but the danger they introduce *does* strongly effect shipping in the region. This in turn can get Egypt to ask itself if the fallout of imposing onerous conditions to transit the Suez if going to Israel is bearable if it means it can go back to mostly normal income from the Suez traffic?
There is also some political pressure put on other arab leaders to take more forceful actions in support of Palestinians now that the poorest Arab nation in the region has displayed this level of resolve: already the popular demand for stronger actions against Israel is such that the big Arab states, despite all being some form of dictatorships, stay out of the taskforces set up to counter the Houthis.
However, the Houthis primary motivation is largely internal: as the war with the Saudis winds down they need another strong outside enemy, at least temporarily, to keep political control over the populations they conquered as the economy and infrastructure is all shit after the civil war and that takes time to restore even if you are dilligent and competent.
@InternetEh
tobychev
boosted
As an educator, it’s my job to do my best to make sure that every student is seen, valued, and safe in school •so that it is possible• for them to be challenged, both intellectually, socially, and emotionally.
Flatten that out into that one word, and it’s my job to “make students comfortable so it it possible to be uncomfortable.” And that’s catchy — but it’s nonsense, because we’re not talking about a single dimension here!
6/
tobychev
boosted
long, greenhouse gas data, us
At the top of this page, you see the totals for the company that were on the top 100 table. Below that are a number of links to other information you can find out about the company, such as: a list of all of the company's monetary penalties over $5,000 under all U.S. laws since 2000, a list of the company's subsidies, information on the company as a supplier of fossil fuels rather than as a direct emitter of greenhouse gasses, and information on the company as a toxic air polluter and toxic water polluter. This project is able to link back and forth to all of those other sources of information with the same company definition because I work on all of those other projects.
Below that is the main part of the information: the facility display showing everything in the GHG emissions database that Southern Company owns. In particular, you can now see that that 25% of company emissions comes from the James H Miller Jr plant in Quinton, Alabama. The link on the city name takes you to a mapquest map of the area around the facility, the link on the name is supposed to take you to whatever information EPA has on the facility but it doesn't because EPA evidently changed its link style and I have to fix it. 2/n
tobychev
boosted
PSA for visual artists:
Nightshade is out!
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/
Nightshade is an ML-poisoning algorithm that causes models trained with treated images to malfunction. Use in conjunction with Glaze to protect your work and give a big "fuck you" to the capitalists stealing your shit for their own profit.
tobychev
boosted
Big news in bug math. This is the first year since 1803 when both 13-year cicadas and 17-year cicadas will emerge from the ground simultaneously in the US!
13 and 17 are both prime. It's believed cicadas evolved to have prime-number life cycles to avoid predators that emerge more frequently, like once every 4 years or 5 years or... whatever. By showing up infrequently, with a prime number life cycle, they can starve out those predators.
And since 13 and 17 are both prime and 13 × 17 = 221, both kinds of cicadas emerge simultaneously only once every 221 years. And
1803 + 221 = 2024
so now they'll both emerge simultaneously and we'll have 𝑙𝑜𝑡𝑠 of cicadas!
Also, this year the two kinds can interbreed!
The last time the Northern Illinois Brood’s 17-year cycle aligned with the Great Southern Brood’s 13-year cycle, Thomas Jefferson was president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/science/cicadas-emergence-broods.html
tobychev
boosted
Samma dag som en skollobbyist tar klivet från SVT till politiken meddelas det att ÖB blivit entreprenör.
Det är hög tid att göra upp med lobby-Sverige, skriver Leonidas Aretakis.
tobychev
boosted
X Community Notes now means that opinion/analytical criticism can’t be tweeted without a stamp of disapproval from the EU, the Council of Europe, and Chatham House.
@thriveth
Not too distant *future*? You don't mean a recent interaction in its past?
tobychev
boosted
JAXA's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is getting ready for landing on the lunar surface tomorrow Friday Jan 19 at 15:20 UTC.
The spacecraft, nicknamed the “Moon Sniper,” will demonstrate precision landing in a target area less than 100m in diameter, using real-time image recognition technology.
The spacecraft will land on a sloping surface near the crater Shioli.
SLIM carries a number of science instruments and will also deploy 2 rovers.
1/n
@erik
well good news (?) apparently customer data got stolen after all!
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/coop-varmland-bekraftar-medlemslacka-ror-over-hundratusen-medlemmar
@GossiTheDog
tobychev
boosted
As of yesterday? Trogdor, the Burninator, is old enough to buy alcohol in the united states.
Not sure what this account will be about, mostly boosting things I find interesting.
Joined Nov 2022
