Greg Spradlin @spradlig@social.cleverlibre.org

Peter Woit exposed the problems with string theory. Then Sabine Hossenfelder brought the news to a bigger audience. Now, in this hilarious video, Angela Collier is bringing it to the Gen Z gamer crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kya_LXa_y1E

Yes, she shreds the repeated grandiose claims of string theorists while gaming!

I agree with her main points. Some pedants (like me) will notice mistakes. I think they arose because she has a PhD in astrophysics, not particle physics. Also, she said she didn't want to talk about the physics, just the sociology. None of these mistakes affect her actual point, but just to keep up my nerd cred:

1. The pion was not one of the particles whose existence was predicted by the Standard Model. Yukawa predicted it way back in 1935, and it was found in 1947.

2. The cost of the never-finished Superconducting Supercollider would have been $11 billion, not $200 billion. I think she was just being flip here. By the way, the US spent $2 billion building it before giving up.

3. There are 5 superstring theories, not 10.

4. Bosonic superstring works best in 26 dimensions, not the numbers she haphazardly guessed.

A bit more importantly, I think she said the Superconducting Supercollider was cancelled much later than it actually was: October 1993. So this gums up her chronology a bit.

Still, I enjoyed this a lot!

Mastodon fixes “confusing” sign-up process to attract users fleeing Twitter

Mastodon forms a plan to make decentralized social networks go mainstream.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/mastodon-fixes-confusing-sign-up-process-to-attract-users-fleeing-twitter/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

NPR is the only major journalism org to have shown a spine in dealing with Musk. So he's threatened to give the NPR username to someone else.

Yet even now -- despite Musk's growing contempt for and acts against journalism -- most media organizations and their employees STILL pour their work and some of their advertising money in to his rancid site.

What will it take for journalists to wake the hell up?

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1173422311/elon-musk-npr-twitter-reassign

OK, you Model UN and 3-D political chess types. You’ve been preparing for something like this for a long time, so here is your moment. The Democrats just deployed a parliamentary stealth weapon on the debt ceiling that could be a game changer. Here’s why. https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/the-democrats-unveil-a-secret-weapon?sd=pf

Techdirt leaving #Twitter. https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/03/goodbye-twitter-techdirt-will-soon-end-our-automated-posting/

You asked for it, and it’s coming. Quote posts, search, and groups are on their way. In the meantime, check out the new onboarding experience launching today. https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

CNN has decided to promote a presidential candidate who, when he was president, tried to prevent his elected successor from taking office. It was an attempted coup d'etat.

CNN to democracy: Up yours.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/01/politics/donald-trump-town-hall/index.html

Big Journalism is deliberately repeating the worst of its past performance. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

The Republicans' corruption of the judicial system includes funding a law school that lavishes expensive gifts on -- you guessed it -- Supreme Court justices. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/us/supreme-court-scalia-law-school.html

CNN is fascinating because one week they'll fire a high profile anchor on the basis of being difficult to work with and the next week they'll carve out generous primetime coverage to a disgraced former president who is under criminal indictment separate from his rape trial.

Robert Carl on Postmodernism, Spectralism, Studying with Xenakis, and More https://youtu.be/TuVNxkV7ULA via @YouTube

Now the willful incompetents at the New York Times political desk are normalizing George Santos. It's hopeless to expect better from this crew. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/nyregion/george-santos-washington.html?smid=tw-share

If you become a Supreme Court Justice and your spouse embarks on a new line of work collecting more than $1,000,000 a year from law firms doing business before the Court—that’s corruption.

https://www.businessinsider.com/jane-roberts-chief-justice-wife-10-million-commissions-2023-4

All Federal employees must file a full financial disclosure every year, including spouses and immediate family, to prevent conflicts of interest. And Chief Injustice's wife Jane Sullivan Roberts was making millions from law firms seeking to try cases in front of her husband?? This is the most corrupt #scotus in our history. Congress needs to CLEAN UP #scotus CORRUPTION. It won't do that as long as the #gop holds ANY power. Remember that in 2O24.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/whistleblower-raises-alarm-over-john-roberts-wife-making-10-3-million-in-legal-commissions-i-knew-immediately-that-it-was-wrong/ar-AA1aunSy?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=5da69187317c4f5292880094a7c47919&ei=6