Simon @spoltier@social.cleverlibre.org

It’s getting a little bit crowded
#SavageGarden #carnivorousplants #bloomscrolling

@whitequark I'm working on a lightning talk about how automated code formatters remove an important signal from your code, making it all look the same, and making reviewing it harder. And also how running automated tests on the gate trains contributors to make subtler bugs.

This paper titled "Methodological Irregularities in Programming-Language Research" does not mince its words.

> Substantial industry and government investments in software are at risk due to changes in the underlying programming languages, despite the fact that such changes have no empirically verified benefits. One way to address this problem is to establish rigorous evidence standards like those in medicine and other sciences.

ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7999115

@elmine you can't even get tech people to shift from WhatsApp to Signal. The alternative needs to be way way way better, visibly, before anyone changes their ways.

Its a rare pleasure to have the time and good reason to help some ppl doing a project you like pay down some technical debt. Its like social grooming, sometimes its more fun to eat the bugs out of someone elses fur.

Regarding AI *in* Firefox, this has brought us a built-in translator that does not outsource the work to the cloud. That's amazingly good work. I'd love to see the browser do more of that kind of thing. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/features/translate/

If the U.S. will play a smaller role in European security going forward, we need to have a conversation about nuclear weapons. The current UK and French arsenals are not sufficient to deter Russia, but the big question is if the solution is to grow their stockpiles, or if more countries need to join the nuclear club.

(The fact that this is now a discussion just goes to show the shortsightedness of American isolationalism.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/uk-europe-nuclear-shield-donald-trump-germany-nato-deterrent

From Oliver Burri via #ImageJ mailing list:

SwitZerland’s Image and Data Analysis School #ZIDAS2024

At ETH Zurich from June 23th (Yes, Sunday!) to June 28th 2024.

Are you a life scientist working with microscopy images?
Do you feel like you could use a nudge in the right direction in order to dive into quantitative image analysis ?
Want to learn to program in ImageJ macro language, use novel deep learning tools, discover best practices in image processing all while working on your own data?

The program will focus on hands-on work using the best open source tools available to the BioImage Analysis community.

Registration is open until 2024-03-16.

https://2024.zidas.org
#BioimageInformatics #ImageProcessing

Edmondma wiggles.

If this flame is beautiful, ⭐ or boost this post to improve its chances for future breedings.
#fractalArt

Criminal that Emily Oster has a clothing line and Gavin Yamey doesn't.

https://www.axios.com/2023/12/04/an-economist-walks-into-a-fashion-website

Indeed, Git provides us with powerful commands and workflows to tackle these pesky issues. However, instead of getting good at Git, we should remember that nearly all the need for advanced Git tactics stems from insufficient working methods.

Listen. All I know that all the evil people are over on bluesky. Mastodon is the good place. Everybody who's already inside here is cool. We checked.

@whitequark the really fun part is aiui everyone got Too Good At Aerodynamics and every racing league has increasingly draconian rules to stop you from building horrible nightmares.

my favourite being:

rules to prevent "dirty air" which is basically just aerodynamic caltrops that keep you in the lead if you ever get it

rules to force your wheels to be aligned with your chasis, because just tilting your entire car is aerodynamically favourable if you're driving in a circle

@whitequark the Americas Cup sailboats are, more of less, half a glider that can get away with dipping its toe in a few inches of water

was watching videos about racecars and had concluded (i know very little about racecars) that a racecar is more or less an airplane that is optimized solely for landing, and must be landing as hard as it can at all times

The idea in this paper is that wings could have evolved to flush camouflaged or otherwise-concealed insects into flying up and revealing their presence. Some modern birds do this.

(Images from Macaulay Library, via Park et al 2024)

Naming my new AI startup DemiUrge™

Imagine a cave, where various persons are imprisoned since birth. They are chained so as to create a fixed gaze upon a wall, on which can be seen the shadows of various entities walking past outside the cave— people, horses, carts. This audience would be, by nature, highly engaged with these shadows, which we may call "content". So what if— among these shadows— we were to include advertisements?