herid @herid@social.cleverlibre.org

Mostly in order to practice the Mastodon interface, I'm going to reproduce one of my posts from the now-defunct Google+ service (on probability paradoxes, first posted Sep 11, 2014) as a thread here. 🧵

I never properly introduced myself when I joined Oct. 29.

I have been teaching #journalism at NYU since 1986. I have a PhD in media studies. My masters thesis was on McLuhan. My PhD thesis was about the concept of "the public."

I write a lot about press coverage of politics, and try to puzzle out what journalists as a group are thinking, which is why my site is called pressthink.org

I've been on line since 1996. Been blogging since 2003. On Twitter since 2008.

Thanks for making Mastodon.

Pom & Dave on the set of the Guardians Holiday Special (just a few days away!!)

Simon And Garfunkel The Sound of Silence

https://youtu.be/nkUOACGtGfA

#FavoriteMusic

Twitter was special. But it's time to leave

https://www.pwnallthethings.com/p/twitter-was-special-but-its-time

"Each dot is an entire galaxy containing billions of stars... The galaxies seen in this image are all in the distant Universe and appear as they did 10-12 billion years ago. They are colour coded in blue, green, and red to represent the three wavebands used for Herschels observation. Those appearing in white have equal intensity in all three bands and are the ones forming the most stars. The galaxies shown in red are likely to be the most distant, appearing as they did around 12 billion years ago." ([Source](https://www.herschel.caltech.edu/image/nhsc2010-008a ))

And, yes, the image does look like a picture of a 1970's brown carpet.

#Astronomy, #Galaxies, #HerschelSpaceObservatory, #Science

There is far too little recognition of the fact that the US Intelligence Community’s ability to discover Russian invasion plans and share them with Ukraine is one of the greatest intelligence successes of the last 50 years and has had a critical impact on thwarting Putin’s imperialist ambitions.

They knew the Russian war plans better than most of the Russian military executing the invasion (who mostly had no idea they were going to war) and even members of Putin’s Security Council! Remarkable!

So, mathstodon. Something a little lighter since it's Sunday and all that. What's your favourite maths fact?

Bonus points if it's incredibly trivial! 😊

#maths #mathstoots

Eilidh Stimpson discovered a 135-year-old message rolled up inside an empty whisky bottle beneath her floorboards at her home in Edinburgh.
Signed and dated by two male workers, the message read: “James Ritchie and John Grieve laid this floor, but they did not drink the whisky. October 6th 1887. Who ever finds this bottle may think our dust is blowing along the road.” https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/history/edinburgh-mum-finds-incredible-135-25537021?fbclid=IwAR0xCycSiQ7p9Gn3ppJPZ7jxab1EslEti4QXhSiuqSxCUDVD7afwzqTk-6g

FYI:

A company banning a guy who used their platform to incite a deadly insurrection mostly because they're terrified of massive liabilities isn't about free speech.

A state banning teachers from saying gay or acknowledging their same-sex spouses exist absolutely is.

Understanding #Mastodon gets easier once you get the basic idea that federation between servers can be understood as homeomorphisms across hyperplanes between the Riemannian manifolds of toots, whereas the servers represent countable finite sets of discrete entities.

Goodmorning Mastonauts! Before we get acquainted today, just one small ask.

Ontario is in crisis right now. Our healthcare system is crumbling, and our pediatric hospitals are overflowing. This link is an impassioned speech by Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden. Please consider listening to this, sharing it, and getting just as angry about what's going on.

https://twitter.com/JoelHardenONDP/status/1593255865095553026?s=20&t=h5GNMJPUY94Y46ouin0j5g

#Ottawa #Ontario #Canada #COVID