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这个学期我又调整了组里的文献阅读组会。 

一年级学生依旧是每次分享一篇论文。然后其他同学提问。必要时我再把问题引导到更基础更深层次的问题上。或者问一些问题,比如“为什么这个实验一定要做?它揭示了哪些其他实验无法揭示的规律,或者证伪了哪些假说?还有没有更好的实验来替换它?”
我觉得好论文和普通论文常常有的一个重要区别是,普通文章做机理解释时常常只能勉强做到自圆其说,而没有探讨别的可能的机制,所以做不到滴水不漏,只能用“可能”“或许”之类的词掩饰自己的薄弱。而好论文通过多种角度来证明它提出的机理是“正确且唯一正确”的。
所以对于新生而言,学习新知识是一方面,学会如何做这样的逻辑推理也非常重要。很多学生面对问题的第一反应是“我不知道”,就此卡住。我会引导他:“如果这个问题你不知道答案,想一想怎么把它拆解成几个小问题,再一个一个的处理?”
除了逻辑推理,还有学术交流。“如果提问者问了一个你不大明白的问题,你把问题重新表述一遍。看看双方在哪个地方出现了误会?”“你把刚刚分析的机理用自己的语言再表达一遍,看看是哪个点上出现了卡壳?”这种复盘对于讨论双方都很有价值。表述的一方可以通过它了解自己从什么时候开始丢失了听众,改善表述能力。听众也可以看看自己听到的、理解的和再次表达出来的是不是同一个东西。
但是实际操作下来,阻力非常大。很有一批学生沉浸不到这种思考的状态里面,早早地表现出了放弃,开始放空,或者用手机打字聊天。但也有一些学生很容易就进入到这种状态,比如这位(douc.cc/2wLyVt 10 points to xmu, btw)。下面会继续推行一段时间,看看每个人会不会在自己的基础上取得了一定的进步,毕竟“研究生要逼着自己去想问题,最大的浪费是聪明人不思考”(douc.cc/1dkTNx )。

The flight of NASA's Artemis (purple) uses two very close encounters with the moon's gravity (green) to changes its trajectory to get back to the earth (blue.) Amazing.

Fedi vs advertisers speculation 

If the Fediverse becomes sufficiently popular, the following might happen:

1. Advertisers start using tags or direct messages to get into people's eyeballs.
2. We can block individual accounts, or servers that allow this sort of thing, but it's easy to set up new servers.
3. Moderators (or maintainers of public block lists) adopt a defensive policy of not federating with any server that hasn't been around and active (with believable human conversations) for at least, say, a year.
4. This makes it very hard, but not impossible, for individual people to set up new servers; they just have to create a community through some other means and hang out in their isolated space (or with each other) for the first year.
5. An industry arises of using AI to create thousands of fake "communities" that, once federated, let loose with the advertising.

Alternately, after step 1, we might start using anti-spam software to filter our tags/DMs the same way we currently filter our email.

最近在听Annie Proulx的Barkskins,因为是陌生的历史+跨度太长+人物太多我已经lost了,但在lost之后突然听到原住民血统的孩子被送到寄宿学校(父母听说要把孩子送到寄宿学校去时还是很开心的,觉得孩子能受到教育,以后不再过自己这样的生活),在各种虐待下致死,而父母们痛苦又茫然的情节……

#读书

#TIL
刚刚在《speed reading》这本书里学到了一个震惊我整个人生观的(英文)阅读小技巧:不要看单词文字,而把眼睛聚焦在间隔单词中间的空格上。
我浅试了一下。效果立竿见影,我震惊到下巴脱臼!卧槽,我为什么今天才知道!

大家来试试。记住,不要看单词,把眼睛聚焦在单词中间的点上:
Even • though • you • are • not • looking • at • any • of • the • words • in • this • paragraph • your • eyes • and • mind • are • still • able • to • pick • up • the • text.  • This • happens • because • paying • attention • to • the • spaces • prevents • your • eyes • from • narrowing • their • focus • on • individual • words.

是不是立刻快了很多!!
熟悉了以后,就不用看每两个单词中间的空白了,而是每三个、每四个单词的空白。
比如:

Even though you • are not looking • at individual words • in this paragraph • your eyes and mind • are still able to • pick up the text. • This happens because • paying attention to • spaces between words • prevents your eyes • from narrowing their focus • on individual words.

甚至再往后,可以只看每行中间部分,然后就可以立刻扫描过了。

Another portrait image, please expand!

Taken on a street in Cambridge (2020) with a Samsung S8! Phone camera opportunity strikes again :)

#photography
#mastoart

This is the binary black hole animation I made for Black Hole Week 2021 and the reason I joined twitter at the time. So I guess it is fitting to start with it here.

Just in case anyone is curious it costs me a little over $1,200 a month to run QOTO and all its services.

fundraiser for librarian fighting censorship 

The New York Times ran a profile on Amanda Jones, a Louisiana school librarian who spoke up about censorship at her public library and was then defamed by the group promoting the censorship. The fund raiser seems to be going well, but a small contribution towards her lawsuit seemed worth it. I hope some strong legal advocates help her team win.

gofund.me/6a0e1f56

Rio Tomebamba 上的石拱桥上挂着的紫伞☔️
不知道为什么……但看着还蛮有意思的。Rio Tomebamba是amazon河的支流,流经Cuenca,南边是新城区。

#南美过冬

认识一个之前在新疆网信办工作的人
他说他们每天都要开早会
每个人都要说昨天又发现了什么“负能量帖子”
他们有权限可以看外网
也有权限看到已经被删除的帖子
每天的工作就是坐在电脑前找这种内容然后汇报……

[In °C)] Be sure to catch the end of this clever NASA "climate spiral" video showing monthly global temperature changes between 1880 and 2021
climate.nasa.gov/climate_resou #dataviz #boost #climatechange #climate #cop27

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Elon Musk tweeted an image on a whiteboard from a "Twitter HQ code review" that wrapped up early Saturday. The image has attracted nearly 12k upvotes and over 1,000 comments over at the subreddit r/ProgrammerHumor, under the title "Twitter for Dummies". The image itself is an architecture schematic, not code. I put it on a Miro Board and Luke Dubois and Mark Hansen helped annotate it. If you're curious how Twitter's bits work, check it out here: miro.com/app/board/uXjVPBnTJmM

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