Paul Sutton @zleap@qoto.org
Interested in Technology, Science, Chemistry, Education, Fediverse, GNU/Linux and free software.
Joined Mar 2020
Paul Sutton
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Intriguing stuff on quite fundamental #chemistry: Phosphates form spectroscopically dark state assemblies in common aqueous solutions PR: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/975547 paper in PNAS is on open access: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2206765120
Paul Sutton
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Messier 45: The Daughters of Atlas and Pleione https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230105.html #APOD
Paul Sutton
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Paul Sutton
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Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The main guard tower - The Gate of Death. The rails were built in spring of 1944 as part of the preparation to deportation of Hungarian Jews and construction of selection platform inside the camp.
(📷 http://instagram.com/jyrkisaikko)
#Birkenau #Auschwitz #BlackAndWhite #photography #gate #history #site #historical #rails #architecture #evil #Remember #memorial #museum #NeverForget
Paul Sutton
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Ever wondered what #taphonomic and #diagenetic interactions occurred post-burial in the #Cretaceous red beds of China?
With colleagues we have just published this: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2022.105533
The paper deals with a lot of chemistry, but my interest is two fold: 1) in our explanation of why small refractory #fossil plant material was not utilized by the microbial community during its initial burial; 2) in bring together complimentary techniques.
Free access (50 day): https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1gMyC4t1lM9zEl
Paul Sutton
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Please reboot this information:
Those who declined to accept an honour (e.g an OBE, MBE, Damehood, Knighthood):
Michael Rosen (poet)
Danny Boyle (director)
Michael Faraday (scientist)
J.B Priestly (playwright)
Amartya Sen (economist)
Stephen Hawking (physicist)
Ken Loach (director)
C.S Lewis (writer)
Virginia Woolf (writer)
Alan Rickman (actor)
Jon Snow (journalist)
L.S Lowry (artist)
Dorothy Hodgkin (scientist)
Howard Gayle (footballer)
Benjamin Zephaniah (poet)
David Bowie (musician)
@thelinuxEXP Agreed, we already have the GDPR so would any new regulations be an extension / amendment of that or new laws?
Paul Sutton
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The more I learn about AI tools for writing, generating images, etc… The more I think they should all be put on pause while regulation is put in place to decide who owns what and how you can decide to not have your stuff used to train an algorithm, or what you’re entitled to if it is indeed used.
Datasets used should be fully open and accessible and it should be possible to say you don’t want your creations to be included, and have them « unlearned » as well, if that’s even technically feasible
Paul Sutton
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@atoponce @craigevil Big improvements to dark mode are coming in LibreOffice 7.5: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/7.5#GUI – But as always, we're a volunteer-driven project with very limited resources. We need help, to keep on improving things!
Paul Sutton
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You can play many chemical games with #perovskites. Removing inversion symmetry is one where the rules are still being written #JACS #Chemiverse #Chemistry https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jacs.2c12034
There is currently a thread on the STEM forum in the UK about digital skills, I will reply and suggest students need to be aware that companies such as adobe are doing things like this (as in using user intellectual property (rather than photos) for AI training, but making it opt in)
Students need to be aware that they own their photos and this sort of abuse is not acceptable or should not been seen as such. You should be GIVING consent not opting out of consent.
One hard hitting suggestion could be that AI could be applied to their photo and used to produce fake porn for example, and they have little rights to remove as they opted in as part of the long terms and conditions.
Trying to contact companies these days seems to be an afterthought on their part. It seems once they have your money you are on your own, unless you are prepared, like you said to search for a link. Even though in this case the feedback you are going to give is to make a good suggestion, so in that respect it is positive feedback.
Paul Sutton
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@zleap I was going to send a feedback message, but after spending about 30 seconds looking for a link I got bored and decided to spend more than 30 seconds to write the above post instead.
Next time I log in to their support site I'll send a request.
Paul Sutton
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Lenovo rant
Seriously. I have had mostly good thing to say about Lenovo. Their hardware is good. The laptops have great Linux support, and their service has been great.
But, I tried to change password on their support site today, and they made two terrible mistakes which makes me distrust them:
Maximum 20 characters password. What the hell? Minimum is 8, which is way too short if they really cared about security.
Explicitly blocking paste into the password field? Can anyone please tell me what the thinking is behind this? (I know they're not alone in this, but these are people who should know better)
Are they open to suggestions to changing the way they do things to fix the problem.
Oh for the old days when all sites had webmaster@domain.com you could occationally email person +clue directly and suggest such things.
That looks really nice, as long as the text colour contrasts nicely all the time should not be a problem, I would guess this can be set on a per user basis and would certainly support this if implemented.
Paul Sutton
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What do you think of this custom background gradient I used in Mastodon's CSS?
It doesn't help when Twitter blocks people who link here, even when that link is a thread that just carries on the conversation.
Perhaps another factor is that mainstream social media also provides metrics of interaction (if that is the right term) and to some extent an income stream, probably via advertising.
With my blog I try and encourage people to carry on the conversation on fedi, or post links to the original thread here. I also start threads on science forms and provide a link there.
@b6hydra @TheGuardian_uk Good point, also the revenue raised should go back in to funding the very people charged with clearing up the mess.
This all goes back to education, rather than simply issing fines. Making sure peole understand the impact, but makes sure that appropriate recpitcles are available for disposal, however we don't want ugly bins cluttering up our natural wild spaces.
Interested in Technology, Science, Chemistry, Education, Fediverse, GNU/Linux and free software.
Joined Mar 2020
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