tobychev @tobychev@qoto.org

@mwl the hippo can run faster than you can; the hippo can swim faster than you can. Your only chance to outpace the hippo is during the bicycle stage of the triathlon.

The U.S. Defense Dept has “indefinitely postponed” military exercises in Georgia and initiated a “comprehensive review” of Washington’s bilateral relations with Tbilisi amid all the bad blood boiling over “pressure” and “coup plotting” allegations. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3827839/postponement-of-exercise-noble-partner-announcement/

Numeronyms are fun, but they have one major problem: namespace collision.

What is a11y? Is it accessibility? Associatively? Axiomatically? Autobiography?

This is obviously a problem that needs solving.

My solution? SHAsum hashing. We can avoid the ambiguity of "a11y" with this unique, cryptographically sound alternative:

Accessibility? a884a5f3609f2cca635fed56d4ec5795da56fb970y

Axiomatically? a20c4bcee8f977a3f5a3b6b499d52d7dd32584771y

SImple, easy to visually distinguish, everyone wins.

@aral Female hair is either long or political. Sexual orientation is either heterosexual or political. Gender identity is either cis or political. Clothing is either gender stereotyped and boring or political. City infrastructure is either car-focused or political. Energy is either fossil fuels or political. Education is either white christian propaganda or political.

Everything follows the same pattern, tech included.

The State Duma’s Info Policy Committee dep chair praises Apple as “one of the few U.S. companies striving to comply w/ Russian legislation & hold a dialogue w/ the regulator.” Why? AppStore just blocked access to a bunch more VPNs for users inside Russia. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6807172

It looks like this Labour 'landslide' has been secured with a voter turnout and voter share substantially less than Labour's "worst ever defeat" in 2019.
It would also have been a smaller victory, had Reform not taken huge swathes of the Tory vote, enabling Labour to win constituencies they would normally have lost.
Many people didn't bother to vote, which is the big takeaway from this election and one that Reform will exploit in the next 5 years. Disaffected voters are fascism's food.
#GE2024

Filing this story in the same "climate change used to be a priority" category as America placing 100% tarrifs on Chinese EVs to protect American automakers.

Don't look up because capitalism can't be stopped.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51yvz51k2xo

#astronomy #Astrodon impressive list of all molecules detected so far in space (>300) and even in external galaxies (>70) by Paola Caselli at #eas2024

Grid scale sodium ion batteries have arrived!

The first phase of Datang Group’s 100 MW/200 MWh sodium-ion energy storage project in Qianjiang, Hubei Province, was connected to the grid.

The technology has less energy density than lithium ion (which matters little for stationary grid-scale applications) and avoids the use of critical minerals.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/07/02/worlds-largest-sodium-ion-battery-goes-into-operation/

Place de la République ce soir.
#frontpopulaire #frontrepublicain

These Supreme Court decisions just made it harder to solve climate change.

Four key rulings limiting federal power will curtail the ability of the EPA and other agencies to write and enforce climate policies. #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #GlobalWarming

https://grist.org/politics/these-supreme-court-decisions-just-made-it-harder-to-solve-climate-change/

'In a pre-print paper posted earlier this month, four researchers from Germany's University of Tubingen and Northwestern University said they were inspired by studies that measured the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at excess deaths compared to the recent past. By taking a similar look at "excess word usage" after LLM writing tools became widely available in late 2022, the researchers found that "the appearance of LLMs led to an abrupt increase in the frequency of certain style words" that was "unprecedented in both quality and quantity."'
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/07/the-telltale-words-that-could-identify-generative-ai-text/

Quick reminder on how hurricanes (tropical cyclones) are affected by climate change. Hurricanes that form will be:
1) more intense
2) bring more rain
3) bring higher storm surge

The only real uncertainty is how climate change will affect the *number* of these storms. There is significant uncertainty in both the magnitude and sign of the change, but most of the evidence suggests fewer tropical cyclones.