tobychev @tobychev@qoto.org

#EarlyModern #History needs your help! Bartmann / Bellarmine jugs were made in a very specific region of the rhineland between 1500 -1750 to be exported to England & the Netherlands. With colonial expansion they've found there way across the globe. Now an international research projects seeks to establish a comprehensive history & typology of the jugs. So if you have seen one of those shown in the Wanted Foto attached, get in touch with the researchers!
@histodons

https://fit.uni-tuebingen.de/Project/Details?id=10576

The share of voters who say they have high interest in the 2024 election has hit an all-time low for this same point in a US presidential race, according to the latest national NBC News poll, with majorities holding negative views of both Biden and Trump. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-biden-trump-tight-race-election-interest-low-rcna148170

After Novaya reports that Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov is terminally ill, his team releases this video showing him looking as lively as the title character in Weekend at Bernie’s. The camera movement reminds me of Spaceghost trying to breathe life into Ole Kentucky Shark. Context: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/04/22/chechnya-leader-ramzan-kadyrov-reportedly-suffering-from-pancreatic-necrosis

Ramzan Kadyrov is suffering from pancreatic necrosis, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe. The video of his teenage son beating up a defenseless prisoner last year was reportedly part of a wide-ranging campaign to divert attention from his health problems.
https://t.co/xbuQ09NLF1

The myth of "descriptivist" linguistics

I keep meeting students who feel they *must* test their variables for normality before analysis.

I tell them there's no need, & if the test tells them it's normal it's only because N is too small.

I decided to run some simulations to check, though, that e.g., t-tests degraded more for non-normal data & small Ns.

I was a bit surprised by the result: CI coverage degrades for normal vars just as badly as other symmetric dists, but skewed distributions do better.

https://brendanhalpin.net/blog/posts/testingnormality/

Since I see that a notable VC-famous is now telling us that he wish he'd "stood by" Eich way back, I'd like to tell you a true fact that situation: Eich didn't lose the CEO's job for his (reprehensible) Prop-8 donation.

Everyone wants to believe that's true, because fits nicely into narratives a number of invested camps want to believe, whether it's somebody being ousted for reprehensible views the woke SJW mob somehow pulling down a great leader (tm) but that's not what happened.

It turns out you don’t get to argue “code is law” if you exploit a loophole in poorly written smart contracts to steal $110 million.

I guess crypto advocates were wrong about that too 😮

SD:s partistyrelse kallar i läckt epost sina egna kommunföreträdare för "muppar". Folk som inte riktigt håller för att sitta i en nämnd brukar ibland bli erbjudna att tjänstgöra som nämndemän i tingsrätten i stället. SD utgår redan från början från ett svagt material, och när man gör sina allra svagaste kort till nämndemän, då snor de dasspappret på nämnemannatoaletten. Tyvärr fattar de ibland även utvisningsbeslut i strid med juristdomarens åsikt.

https://www.mitti.se/nyheter/sdpolitiker-doms-till-boter-efter-toapappersstold-6.3.217165.3db9d70cbf

#svpol

I've been working for a year to measure, for the first time, the effect of lawful crossings of the US Southwest border on unlawful crossings.

My study just came out at @piie —> https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/2024/effect-lawful-crossing-unlawful-crossing-us-southwest-border

With a less technical summary —> https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/offering-more-lawful-pathways-us-border-crossings-reduces-unlawful

#FollowTheMoney 🧵 6/n This is important: in contrast to most other Central Bank, which simply sit out losses, the Bank of England has an indemnity arrangement requiring the Treasury to cover its losses. This has resulted in £38-£40 billion going in effect from taxpayers to private banks in 2023, and same this year. Adding a second hashtag: #SEEtheOligarchy

FT article only for subscribers, I know (i get it through work). Here screenshots of key passages.

https://on.ft.com/4bUtp80

Brits ask “A penny for your thoughts?” and Americans respond with “Just my two cents”. At current exchange rates ($1.00 = £0.80) this means Brits are receiving 1.6p of American thoughts for just 1p. In this paper we propose an alternative asset pricing model for the marketplace of ideas, considering—

Democratic rights have become a Big Tech trade secret. Google imposed a gag order on city officials elected by the public, warning them that they must not tell the public anything about the Google project, particularly how much public water Google was taking. Using a slew of aliases to buy land, getting secret tax breaks, getting electricity at less than half of what ordinary people pay, being sold public land for less than half the market value, all in secret, this is how Big Tech rolls.

Antonio Turok, Solar eclipse black and white film, 1991

Chiapas, Mexico

No-one (?) would seriously say “With AI, people can make awesome Eclipse images whenever they like! No need to learn how, or wait for one to arrive!” But for many activities, AI types often do in effect argue “Why learn to do anything/have any experience that someone else—or a machine—can do better?”

Despite all their hype in AI, we found that Transformers do not outperform #Cellpose for cellular segmentation tasks: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.06.587952v1

#bioinformatics #biology #machinelearning

Alexander Demidenko, a Russian man who helped hundreds of Ukrainians return from Russia back to Ukraine after the start of the full-scale war until his arrest in October 2023, has reportedly died in pre-trial detention.
https://t.co/AntzZmzDUN

I think it should be obvious now that our international laws of war, like the Geneva Conventions, are only as good as our ability and willingness to enforce them.
I.e., not good at all right now.
Violators are still war criminals. Just unpunished ones.