Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

@mcnees Sophie Wilson, the designer of the ARM architecture, is also a trans woman . And before, she conceived my first computer: the 1980 Acorn ATOM, who could run inlined 6502 assembly in its BASIC programs!

Huh, interesting numbers for new cars sold in 2023 in Norway. Only 3.7% were pure fossil fuel cars. That's a pretty damn low number. In addition, 14% were hybrids and the remaining 82.4% were electric.

In general, 27% fewer cars were sold in 2023 compared to 2022. Most likely due to changes in taxes a year ago which caused a lot of planned purchases to happen before the end of 2022.

Source (Norwegian): https://e24.no/energi-og-klima/i/2B2GOx/2023-ble-en-kalddusj-for-bilbransjen

#ElectricVehicles #Cars #Renewable

Lynn Conway, electricial engineer and computer scientist, co-architect of the VLSI design revolution, and transgender activist, was born #OTD in 1938.

She invented Dynamic Instruction Scheduling at IBM, but IBM fired her when they learned she was transitioning.

Photo: Lynn Conway

"NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope continued to dazzle in 2023, with some of the most spectacular images of space ever seen." #NASAWebb
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-03872-z/index.html

Without any electronic equipment, piano tuners can tell if two strings are vibrating at almost but not quite the same frequency. They do it by listening for 'beats' - pulsations in loudness.

How does this work? If you add two sine waves of slightly different frequencies, say sin(ωt) and sin(ω't), they will add up and be loud for a while, but then drift out of synch and cancel out for a while. Then they'll drift back into synch and get loud again, etc.

There's even a formula for this:

sin(ωt) + sin(ω't) = 2 sin((ω+ω')t/2) cos((ω-ω')t/2)

We get a sine wave whose frequency is the average (ω+ω')/2, slowly pulsing because it's multiplied by a cosine wave with the low frequency (ω-ω')/2.

I got the animated gif from here:

https://ophysics.com/waves10.html

If you go there and choose ω = 500 hertz and ω = 510 hertz, you can hear nice pulsations at 10 hertz: that is, ten times a second.

Mickey Mouse Horror Movie Trailer Drops: Film Uses ‘Steamboat Willie’ Version Of Character That’s Now In Public Domain https://deadline.com/2024/01/mickey-mouse-horror-movie-trailer-mickeys-mouse-trap-1235693579/

This is a nice look at Lagrange points and all the spacecraft that are hanging out in these stable islands where the gravity from the Earth & Sun balance each other out https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/indias-aditya-l1-space-probe-heads-for-gravitational-island/

Thirty years ago, I used the holidays to rewrite our in-house 3d tool from scratch, based on specs and design I worked on for a year. On January 2nd 1994, the first version was running!
I'm incredible proud, humbled and impressed of where it went. Happy 30th birthday :) #b3d

lol at people trying to retcon history and pretend the Y2K bug wasn't real.

I literally worked for like a year from late 1998 to the end of 1999 to fix databases of utility companies and health systems to not, you know, completely and utterly fail come January 1st, 2000.

@robertatcara As someone who personally discovered and fixed bugs that would have had significant real world impact, it is disturbing to hear someone propagate this myth. And it is a myth.

https://time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/

The testing methodology insured that these impacts were not hypothetical. At my company, the testing was performed by "actually rolling the clock forward* on test. systems to see what would happen. For example, I discovered that every ATM in the state of Alaska operated by my company would have locked up until a chip was swapped. Someone had to fly all over the state to proactively swap the chip beforehand, to avoid significant customer impact.

And that was just one story. I personally oversaw investigation and fixes for other hardware and software at that company that would have failed.

And that was just my company. I spoke with others in IT at that time with similar stories. And that was just the people I knew.

So no, it wasn't "a big fuss about nothing" - and saying so is both dangerously revisionist, and disrespectful of the work it took to prevent real impacts.

Can we just stop using Discord and go back to using forum sites?

I realize it's (comparatively) super easy to set up, but y'all realize it's just going to bite us all in the ass as soon as someone at Discord decides they need to turn up the profit ratio?

It's a ticking time bomb. The whole thing is going to follow the enshittification process, and anything of value on there is going to be lost/sold/destroyed. Y'all are just feeding the monster.

Happy birthday to everyone working in security! 🥳

As a believer in the motivational power of streaks (thanks, Duolingo), massive respect to @tomscott who just ended a ten year streak of posting a video to YouTube once a week (and gained over 6 million subscribers in the process)

His sign-off video is an extremely stylish way to go out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DKv5H5Frt0

Obligatory #psychology post about motivation for new years resolutions, some stuff I've learned both as a psych researcher and this year as a person trying to stay committed to very complex rehab!

- when we say set attainable goals WE MEAN IT! Cut the goal in half. Ambition is the mind-killer. Attainable is the recursive motivation feeder.
- mindful tracking means make it easy for yourself to see your effort, not fixate on outcomes
- we overestimate the cost of lapse, remind yourself of this

One of the most important times to wear a mask is after you have attended a large gathering.

Wastewater data suggests there was a 50%+ chance you encountered someone with COVID if you attended an event with 20+ people.

You can transmit COVID before you develop symptoms, so now is a good time to wear a mask.

(Chart: Dr. Mike Hoerger)

That's my 2024 cheesy post, but something that warmed my heart in 2023 was mentoring students & young scholars, helping academics with funding and jobs, and in turn finding people helping, supporting and mentoring me.

Nobody needs a lot of publications but everybody needs kindness.

I timed AFTER THE THIN MAN on Max (formerly HBO Max) so the new year would strike simultaneously on film and in real life.

After it did, I paused. When I restarted, I got this message.

A good reminder for 2024: physical media doesn’t disappear at midnight.

#FilmMastodon #PhysicalMedia