tobychev @tobychev@qoto.org

Your Honor, the Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with

#CitationNeeded #crypto #cryptocurrency

Ça m'avait échappé: L'ex-dircab de Darmanin, Jérôme Fournel (dont je vous révélais qu'il a été placé chez Barnier à Matignon) est mis en cause pour avoir aidé le PSG à ne pas payer des dizaines de millions d’euros de taxes contre l’administration fiscale. En toute logique, il a donc été promus par Macron. Avec toutes les casseroles de la Macronie, je n'arrive plus à suivre. https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/070924/le-directeur-de-cabinet-de-michel-barnier-est-mis-en-cause-dans-l-affaire-darmaninpsg

#Politique #Mediapart #Darmanin #Barnier #Administration #Foot #PSG #Gouvernement

The framing on this story is wild. Summary: as a deadly fungal epidemic in bats spread across the US, increased insect activity resulted in an average 31% increase in pesticide use by local farmers, resulting in an average 8% increase in human infant mortality in affected areas.

And the message is: bats provide important economic benefits.

And yes, very true.

But also: The correlation between pesticide use & infant mortality is that well known & it's still allowed???

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/bats-north-america-research-1.7314579

Don't listen to websites telling you to "learn more". These days, basically every Unix system comes with less, which is a drop-in replacement that's more comfortable to use and has a lot of additional features.

'In their new paper 'Do large language models have a legal duty to tell the truth?', published by the Royal Society Open Science, the Oxford researchers set out how LLMs produce responses that are plausible, helpful and confident but contain factual inaccuracies, misleading references and biased information. They term this problematic phenomenon as ‘careless speech’ which they believe causes long-term harms to science, education and society.'

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-08-07-large-language-models-pose-risk-society-and-need-tighter-regulation-say-oxford

no no no *you* can't freely scan through the collected works of humanity, that right is reserved for the large language models.

Stockholm Resilience Centre "advances science for a liveable planet"

We are hiring

3 Postdocs
4 PhD positions
and 1 project manager

to work on:

+emerging pests and pathogens

+resilience and transformations in fragile contexts

+resilience and sustainability in food systems

+Building models of, with and for sustainability transformations

+financial risk analysis

+manager for Global Resilience Partnership

https://www.https://www.stockholmresilience.org/about-us/careers.html

Another deep dive into Putin’s private life with Alina Kabaeva from The Dossier Center. The main takeaway is that Putin leverages his inner circle's wealth to provide a princely life for his two young sons. dossier.center/succession-en/

Some other takeaways: they hire private tutors through publicly placed ads. Foreign national tutors (South Africans preferred) get healthcare at the same elite clinic that treats elites' prostitutes. Despite heavy isolation, there are strange loopholes in the family's security (unless Putin is visiting).

Their eldest son apparently loves Disney heroes despite Putin’s hatred of Hollywood decadence. Kabaeva and Putin are grooming the boys for major sports exploits, but it's unclear if they've got mom's talents. A planned stint at the Sirius Lyceum in Sochi fell through due to security concerns.

Kabaeva has a whole coterie of Putin’s rich friends and their wives. She's also apparently recruited her own family, especially two cousins, to basically raise the kids for her.

The family has whole fleets of yachts and planes, all owned and made available by Putin’s inner circle through a network of companies and shareholdings that made my eyes go crossed.

All in all, maybe a bit tabloidy of an investigation, but Putin’s royal secrecy makes it all public interest in the end, I'd argue, given that this whole lavish lifestyle is ruling class politics in the end. Thank goodness for one thing: it doesn't seem that Putin is grooming his boys for politics, though sometimes politics finds such people...

Sweden’s foreign minister announces shock departure from politics
https://apnews.com/article/sweden-tobias-billstrom-foreign-ministry-quits-politics-bf0d386980ec945f589040ac48a07231

Important news from BepiColombo, ESA’s Mercury mission, due to below par performance of its key ion thrusters:

1. This week’s 4th Mercury flyby (23:48CEST on 4 Sep) has been deliberately altered to be 35km lower than originally planned, just 165km above the surface.

2. This is the first part of a new lower-power cruise trajectory that will see Bepi now enter Mercury orbit in Nov 2026, 11 months later than originally scheduled.

More below 👇

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/Fourth_Mercury_flyby_begins_BepiColombo_s_new_trajectory

#SpaceScience

On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, explore two #RStats packages that provide crucial data on Latin American disappearances.

Digital tools can be important for understanding, documenting, and advocating for the victims and their families.

🇨🇱 pinochet: Data About the Victims of the Pinochet Regime, 1973-1990: https://danilofreire.r-universe.dev/pinochet

🇦🇷 presentes: Registry of Victims of State Terrorism in Argentina https://diegokoz.r-universe.dev/presentes

I’m happy to announce that our paper “Scenarios of future annual carbon footprints of astronomical research infrastructures” was published today by @NatureAstronomy.

In the paper we modelled the future evolution of the annual greenhouse gas emissions of astronomical facilities based on past trends for different scenarios. We demonstrated that without a #degrowth in the number of facilities astronomical research will not reach sustainability.

🧵 1/4

https://rdcu.be/dR0r8

Elon Musk said Tesla would open its Supercharger network, then nearly every automaker announced their vehicles would adopt Tesla’s charging standard.

Now, a year later, Tesla has fired the Supercharger team, the network still isn’t open, and charging adapters are nowhere to be found.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/business/energy-environment/tesla-electric-vehicle-charging.html

#tech #tesla #elonmusk #evs

The word "coach" originates from the Hungarian word "kocsi," which means "carriage of Kocs," named after a village in Hungary where these carriages were first made in the 15th century.

The term spread across Europe, becoming "kutsche" in German and "coche" in French.

By the 1830s, "coach" was used in English slang at Oxford University to describe a tutor who "carried" a student through exams.

The term was later applied to sports trainers in the 1860s.

#coach #coaching #language #etymology

Today (August 29) is the International Day against #NuclearTests. I spent over half my career so far advancing methods for the detection, location, and discrimination of nuclear explosions. It is a cause I am still passionately dedicated to and I still follow very closely research, technological, and political developments related to non-proliferation and test-ban verification. I will still contribute in any way within my capacity and expertise towards this aim.

https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-nuclear-tests-day

When Climate Change Funds Pay for Highway Expansion.

Several US states are tapping a federal carbon reduction program to fund highway projects, arguing that adding vehicle lanes can bring emissions down. #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #GlobalWarming

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-08-07/can-adding-highway-lanes-bring-transportation-emissions-down

Visst kan man tycka att Lund är Sveriges bästa stad, men urvalskriterierna var rätt märkliga. Att det finns många krogar med uteservering är tydligen mycket viktigt, men hur bra skolan är spelar ingen som helst roll. Hur enkelt det är att få bygglov (en process som majoriteten av invånarna i en stad aldrig någonsin befattar sig med) har tydligen också betydelse, men inte hur trygga invånarna känner sig. #lund https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2024-08-29/lund-vinner-timbros-stadsindex/

"Handlingar, inte bara ord". Så heter den antirasistiska kampanj som Finlands regering lanserar nu.

Bakgrunden till kampanjen var rasismskandalerna kring regeringspartiet Sannfinländarna förra året som höll på att knäcka regeringen men desarmerades av ett löfte om en antirasistisk kampanj.

Nu ska Sannfinländarna inte medverka i kampanjen. De menar att förra årets skandal bara var en konspiration mot partiet.

Ser skakigt ut för regeringen.

https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-10062793

#finland #sannfinländare

Massive Water Production from Lunar Ilmenite through Reaction with Endogenous Hydrogen: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666675824001280 -> Chang’e-5 samples inspire in situ water production on the #Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDNyMiC_MxY