Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

I'd be lost without computer algebra systems, but the fact that I can often solve equations they can't just because I know what the equations mean drives home just how far these programs remain from being able to solve every problem that (in some sense) “ought” to be easy.

As Twitter self-immolates, I am seeing people I know setting up on Bluesky.

I find this perplexing. Can people really not learn the lesson that a social network owned by a capitalist is a social network they don't control?

You can argue about whether Bluesky or Mastodon has the better technology, but what's 100% clear is that Mastodon is run BY users FOR users. And that difference is the only one that matters in the end.

#BurningMan Reno Gazette Journal: "3 p.m. update: Burning Man rationing ice sales; reopening could be days away... thousands of attendees are facing the potential of missing flights, failing to return rental cars or failing to return to work Tuesday. The event is set to officially end Monday but many people begin leaving Saturday night or Sunday." #disaster #mud https://www.rgj.com/story/life/arts/burning-man/2023/09/02/burning-man-2023-rain-keeps-burners-confined-to-camps/70749751007/

I read my first book by Gore Vidal - Messiah. A work of science fiction about how just one person with a superpower can change the entire world. A couple of other stories came to mind: Stranger in a Strange Land and the parts of the Foundation trilogy that concern the Mule. But also Star Trek the Movie because, in the end, like with V'Ger, it's not the direct effect of the individual at the centre that makes the difference as much as the entity that accretes around them.

Anyway, I highly recommend it - interesting along many different axes. I guess it's one of his less popular works as ChatGPT gave a completely wrong plot summary when I asked.

One of the things that’s always struck me as broken in big tech companies is how often there are products that millions of people use that deserve continued improvements that no one cares about while there are so many hot new projects with no meaningful shot at as much impact with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people working on them.

By the way Microsoft is pulling Wordpad from Windows because no one is working on it. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-is-killing-wordpad-in-windows-after-28-years/

Twitter's new privacy policy takes effect 09/29/23, giving them the right to use your posts & all of your data to train musk's "AI."

If you're still over there, now is the time to request your archived data, delete your posts, and stop using that site.

view-source:https://twitter.com/en/privacy

To those claiming that climate scientists are perpetrating a hoax to get rich off grant money, let me tell you about fossil fuel subsidies…

Good morning! This is your regular reminder to pretty please preorder our in-depth treatment of space settlement - scientific, legal, economic, including a discussion of international law pertaining to space cannibalism. Info at: www.acityonmars.com

Jordan Mechner @jmechner has been making extremely lovely art inspired by his vast career in video games. One of them was a Prince of Persia inspired work, and since @brewsterkahle plays Prince of Persia to demonstrate emulation on his tour each week, there is now a lovely print with explanation next to the machine he demonstrates on!

I started out very early with a #FollowFriday for @PhETsims . It seems natural to bring up a few more Fantastic Physics Folks.

@drskyskull for all your optics needs. His new book, “Invisibility,” is pictured below:

@_thegeoff for the fun science experiments he invents for schoolchildren.

@physgal - the clue is in the handle.

@mcnees who I’m often boosting for informative posts on science history.

A little sneak preview of what we are working on to support #DataFluency.

The #data from the sim gets automatically added to a table in #CODAP, where students can analyze as they see fit.
Supports the teaching of #dataAnalysis, #organizing and #dataprocessing

Hey, my paper on "Deterministic vortices evolving from partially coherent fields" with my student Wenrui Miao was just published in Optica! https://opg.optica.org/optica/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-10-9-1173&id=537123

Katherine Esau, born in 1898 in Ukraine, was a pioneering botanist who studied plant anatomy & viruses.

Esau began studying agriculture in 1916 in Moscow. Her family fled to Berlin & ultimately arrived in the US in 1922.

Esau earned a PhD & her research on plant structure spanned 7 decades. She wrote 6 textbooks & was the 6th woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

In 1989, Esau received the National Medal of Science. https://ccber.ucsb.edu/ucsb-natural-history-collections-library-and-historical-information-katherine-esau/life-katherine #HistoryRemix #science #history

Just had a nice memory of my teaching colleague Jan, who used to write letters to the editor at a grade 12 reading level. She gave a couple of them to me to proofread and dumb down because I was smart enough to understand what she was getting at, and ADHD-addled enough to want to simplify them for the attention-span-challenged 😄

I also remember sitting outside one of her classes (teacher’s offices near the classroom's back door), listening to a hilarious lesson on human reproduction and sperm count statistics. Nothing like sex to get the kids attention 😄

Public education lost a good one when she retired.

#BackToSchool

Following someone on the Fediverse is broken — the user-experience (UX) is not good.

Especially if the person you want to follow is on a server different from yours.

Sure it technically works, BUT in practice it doesn't —

I have done user testing with people who have used other social-media, but who have never used the Fediverse.

Virtually all of them fail at following someone on a remote server.

There is a lot wrong with the way it works now.

I'll explain —

#Fediverse #FediverseUX

Bonus panel here: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/threshold

#smbc #hiveworks #comics #webcomics

Weird hypothetical: what do you think would be (and should be) the response if Russia tried to launch a tactical nuke at a Ukrainian city, but it was shot down en route? Meaning, missile is shot down, then say a day later it is confirmed to have almost certainly had a nuclear warhead.

A new study has some sobering data about how COVID-19 affects people up to two years after infection, even for mild cases: heart problems, blood clots, diabetes, neurologic complications, fatigue, difficulties with mental health, and much more https://skepchick.org/2023/08/study-why-you-should-avoid-covid-even-if-youre-healthy/