Luis M. Rocha @lmrocha@social.cleverlibre.org

I really loved going back to live DJing in 2022, mostly at Roterdão Club in Lisbon's Pink Street. Here is a mix of various bits from those sets I collected the bits most inspired-but not exclusively' by 80s #electro-#disco from #NewYorkCity. #DJ #House #Funk
https://on.soundcloud.com/RJxLz

There is much movie taste homophily in those who see my toots :)

"We use this method to show that the model’s assumptions on ancient decision making allow the reconstruction of partially known road networks from the Roman era in good detail and from sparse archaeological evidence" #networkscience
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac313/6992882

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/26/nineteen-massacred-in-three-days-in-one-state-when-will-we-say-enough-is-enough?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@jgg Still, Scott has a number of highly influential films, though not as such a long production as Spielberg. While I do not hate Spielberg at all, I am often bored by his lack of subtlety. I prefer Alien to Jaws, Blade Runner to ET, Thelma and Louise to Schindler's List, Gladiator to Saving Private Ryan, Legend to Hook, and House of Gucci to Catch me if you Can. Still, I really love Indiana Jones, Close encounters, and Tintin!

@jgg Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator, etc...

Preference?

@cyrilpedia nice piece. Good movements. I would think that increasing funding for creating AI standards would be easier than a new agency.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/opinion/ted-lieu-ai-chatgpt-congress.html?smid=url-share

Teaching this #EvolutionarySystems and #BioinspiredComputing course this semester
https://casci.binghamton.edu/academics/i-bic
Just updated chapter 1 of lecture notes "What is Life?" https://casci.binghamton.edu/academics/i-bic/lec01.php

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jan/22/joseph-stiglitz-economist-income-tax-high-earners-70-per-cent-inequality?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Just came here Saturday morning to say that all things groovy started right here. #Jazz
Now's The Time / #CharlieParker　The Savoy Recordings https://youtu.be/YuVWNv2kEkE via

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jan/20/joe-biden-julian-assange-extradition-tribunal?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@tiago You raise several very important points. I agree with several. But I will just reply to a couple I disagree with.

I disagree with you regarding the neoliberal stronghold in Europe vs the US. As I said earlier, Biden (and Obama) were able to pursue economic policies more to the left than Europe (including leftist governments). These include substantial financial relief directly to workers, direct investment in companies to protect employment (unconstrained by EU's budget rules), vaccine development, and several other social programs. Indeed that is why the US economy rebounded quicker than Europe's from both the financial crisis and the pandemic.

Even on social norms, the US often precedes most European nations in establishing leftist goals such as gay marriage, pot legalizations, etc. Sure some states now have crazy abortion laws, but the EU also has Poland and others. But where I live in New York, abortion law is much less restrictive than Germany's, for instance. So it is by far not obvious that left-wing voices have no political options in the US as you claim.

Regarding privatization, Portugal has the private post office, but other European countries have crazy gun-ho privatizations in other areas (including retirement and health care systems). In the US the situation is not ideal for my political beliefs, but there is much more public welfare state than you seem to think---including social security, medicaid, medicare and many state-level programs. New Mexico even has free tuition now. The SUNY system where I work is free for New York state families who make less than $125,000/year. This is cheaper than tuition in many European countries.

I also disagree with your assessment of the US public school system. My kids completed most of it here---though also did some years of their K-12 in Portugal (and are in college there actually). I have also studied in the UK and Belgium and have interacted with many undergraduate and graduate students from all over the World. From those interactions, I have absolutely no reason to say that European K-12 (or from anywhere else) is better than American on average. I also find European university education, in general, pretty bad most of the time---typically not a very supportive environment capable of encouraging the best in students.

Maybe I also have the perspective of seeing European, American and Brazilian tourists in Portugal. Let me just say that I am not convinced at all that American education is worse ;)

I just came to Mastodon on my lunch break to say that my guilty pleasure du jour é Matias Damasio. Adoro. Obrigado e Boa tarde.
https://youtu.be/-h_5VnvE2SE

@tiago Either you are not reading what I say, or you choose to pick the points sideways. You are mixing historical reality, versus current policy. I very much doubt that given current rules and neoliberal orthodoxy, Europe would be able to establish today the welfare state that it currently has. My point is that even if someone like Melenchon had won the French presidency (alas, close but no cigar), he would not be able to enforce a political platform based on government spending without leaving or breaking the eurozone rules. In Portugal, even when the communists were in the government coalition, they had to settle and agree to more right-wing positions on spending than Biden's due to the EU budget and deficit rules. These are facts, not opinion. The fact that European workers inherited more rights than typical US counterparts does not change that political parties in the EU and especially the eurozone are locked-in to neoliberal financial orthodoxy---which sees all problems as needing "structural reform", meaning reducing the role of the state in the economy.

All countries have inherited some of their political and social rights. Yes, the US worker on average is likely wose off than european counterparts; I never disputed that. But the US also has many other features that are more socialist than most European countries. For instance, public mail (it is private in PT, for instance), a very good public school system, including public busing and public food, a phenomenal public library system, public roads, public retirement system (it has been privatized in several European countries), regulatory infrastructure that was able to catch such things as dieselgate that european consumers clearly were not able to defend themselves from, PubMed, open-access policy for publicly-funded research, etc, etc.

If I am the only person you know that has these views, maybe you should meet more people ;) However, I think you are misrepresenting my views, so no wonder you can't find people with the views you think I have.

My whole analysis is not how you represent it. What I say is that the Democratic party in the US is a very wide coalition, with some of its members to the left of most European centrists. Moreover, in a a multidimensional view, the Democrats have recently been able to apply *some* policies to the left of most European governments, even when they are formed by supposedly leftist parties. And yes, Sanders, Warren, AOC, and the like have had an effective role in those.

I do not follow an absolutist, all-or-nothing analysis a la Greenwald at all. I think it is ridiculous to claim that those leftist actors have "no actual influence". You can easily see their legislation record, which has made effective difference not only on the discourse---that even people like Biden adopted---but on actual living conditions from Veterans to consumer and financial protections.

This is so cool!
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.add1602

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/06/us-police-killings-record-number-2022?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other