Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

What you tell people: I study necromathematics

What they think: Wow, that must be arcane dark magic involving numerology or geomancy

What you really mean: The only active researchers in your area are very close to retirement

Hi all. I'm running out of funds for the Galaxy Map project and may have made my last map.

One thing that could save the project is if I could get a job in scientific visualization or virtual reality.

I even have a prototype virtual starship that I can give tours on so people can check out my Unity coding skills!

Does anyone have job leads or suggestions?

A former president and current leader of his political party called for the execution of the nation’s highest ranking military officer, upon his retirement.

The nation’s highest ranking military officer, in his farewell address, called the former president a “wannabe dictator.”

But sure, everything’s normal. https://indieweb.social/@WillRobinson/111150947128994240

"We demonstrate how to create a radio telescope using kitchenware" https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15163

#wok #hydrogen #RadioTelescope #astronomy

Honestly, at this point if you try to make the case that LLMs aren't actually useful for anything I take a little bit of personal offense

You're effectively saying that people like me are deluding ourselves, falling for the hype when there's actually nothing there

There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize LLMs - but not being useful genuinely isn't one of them

(For more detailed thoughts on this, see the "comparing LLMs to crypto" section here: https://simonwillison.net/2023/Sep/29/llms-podcast/#comparing-llms-to-crypto)

If I weren’t running for Prefect of Bajor, and winning, none of these lawsuits would be taking place! Does anyone notice that, after years & years, they are all happening right in the middle of my campaign??? WE WILL TAKE BACK TEROK NOR AND MAKE CARDASSIA GREAT AGAIN!

It can happen to the best of us.
#academia #research #science #scifi

Have you heard about JWST seeing galaxies that shouldn’t exist? There’s more to that story!

My latest for BBC Science Focus: https://www.sciencefocus.com/comment/james-webb-space-telescope-ancient-galaxies

I love it: you know those zillion Chinese brands that sell mediocre stuff on amazon and seem to change names every two weeks?

One of those vendors managed to grab the brand name "Generic". So if you ever search for "generic" anything, you get a pageful of nothing but their products.

Today's fun rabbit hole: there's a mechanical watch feature called a "hack". Why is it called that?

The hack (aka a "hacking seconds watch") is a feature where the seconds hand of the watch stops advancing when you click over to the time-setting function. IOW, as you adjust the hour/minute, the seconds hand is frozen in place until you finish the time adjustment.

The same day that Elon Musk fired the entire Twitter team concerned with fighting election disinformation, he also endorses a post where people are being encouraged to vote for the far-right German AFD party. The AFD thanked him for his endorsement and for disbanding the team that was fighting election disinformation.

#News #EuropeanNews #Europe #Germany #FarRight #AFD #ElonMusk #Musk #Twitter #X

A #gulfstream G650ER (Reg: N194WM) reportedly owned by #billgates has been detected in flight since Fri Sep 29 2023 13:53:19 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time). Since then it has emitted an estimated 13412 kg of #CO2. If owner had flown commercial, the predicted average #emissions would have been 695 kg. #CO2emissions

It warms my heart to see so many lighthouses beaming out into the chilly night in the far north of the British Isles, near Orkney and the Shetlands.

But what are those two lighthouses due west of Orkney? I know of no land there. They're well north of the Hebrides.

It's also fun to see there's a lighthouse in the middle of Scotland! I think that one is on Loch Ness. But where, exactly?

Odd that there are none on the west coast of Ireland.

So you can see the details, I'm only showing you the top of this beautiful map made by @terence, The whole thing is here:

https://mathstodon.xyz/@terence@fosstodon.org/111132853426508413

The electric guitar, of any form, is a pinnacle of 19th Century physics and 20th century engineering.

Then my music teacher colleague mentions their carbon-fibre per-string pickup harp. That's a LOT OF PICKUPS.

‘Dramatic’ acceleration: Switzerland has lost 10% of its glaciers in the last two years.

Glaciers across the entire country were affected, with those in southern and eastern Switzerland melting almost as much this year as in the record year 2022.

The biggest decline since measurements began was seen in 2022, followed by the second biggest this year, the Swiss Academy of Sciences and Glacier Monitoring Switzerland announced today.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/09/28/dramatic-acceleration-switzerland-has-lost-10-of-its-glaciers-in-the-last-two-years

#Switzerland #Glaciers #ClimateChange

Government Shutdown and Impact to Military, Veterans
https://veteran.com/government-shutdown/
(I will get to work without pay, but some of the active duty in my unit won't get paid until it's over 😠 )

Also, this piece of trivia ... 😆

"In Stargate SG-1 and its spin-offs, Cheyenne Mountain houses "Stargate Command", a top-secret unit of the United States Air Force that uses the titular Stargate to explore other planets. In recognition of the series' close relationship with the real-life Air Force, there is now a broom closet in the real Cheyenne Mountain Complex called "Stargate Command"."

#Stargate #SciFi #USAF

If you're a #privacy proponent donating to @eff, if you're celebrating the #GNU Project's 40th anniversary, if you're a user of the internet feeling helpless towards the claws that large corporations dug in the way we interact with each other as humans, and especially if you're a user of #mastodon, I urge you to take a listen to @pluralistic 's talk at #DEFCON about #enshittification:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rimtaSgGz_4

If #CoryDoctorow doesn't manage to rile you up in the first 3 minutes, nothing will!

There's a new major (paywalled) piece in the Financial Times by Hannah Murphy this week about Linda Yaccarino and her role at X. It's a really good report.

Takeaways:

- The “The new CEO will be starting in six weeks" Musk post came as a shock to Yaccarino.
- She's had her eye on the job "from the moment Musk took over.”
- In most companies, the CTO reports to the CEO. Here, the CEO reports to the owner. Big difference.

https://www.ft.com/content/18508c6f-c5f7-4e40-ad6f-ad46476d17bf

Overall, 4 in 10 people in the US have taken recent precautions (inc. masking or avoiding spaces) because of increases of COVID-19.

Imagine how many more would if instead of minimizing, the government told them it was important to continue precautions.

https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-september-2023/