timorl @timorl@social.cleverlibre.org

"From 2015 to 2019, #Iceland ran the world's largest trial of a shorter working week. An analysis of the results was finally published this week, and surprise! Everyone was happier, healthier, and more productive. Please pretend to be surprised."
https://mashable.com/article/iceland-four-day-work-week-trial

🇮🇸

lmfao

panic! at the .unwrap()

@mary Why would copyright apply to a collection of subcooled particles in a Bose-Einstein condensate, whose current state we can't know unless we make a measurement, in which case the potential copyright infringing particles will lose their copyright infringement status?
I'm sure we'll find a way, the quest for copyright enforcement is too important to be left to the fundamental laws of nature.

Happy I took time to study some topology this summer. Algebraic topology is all the things I hoped for.

I am not sure I quite get it yet, but a topology of something seems to be usable as a definition to a lot of geometric notions. All of analysis work seems to just be applied topology. And with homotopy type theory, all sorts of data science, machine learning, and statistics work could be made easier and more precise.

Cubical type theory, (a computation friendly HOTT) is not even 2 years old. It is going to be big.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cangiuli/thesis/thesis.pdf

@georgia We. Have. Magic.

>magic: The application of rituals or actions, especially those based on occult knowledge, to subdue or manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces in order to have some benefit from them

I am typing this on a slab of glass that glows, buzzes, sings, and sees because we taught a sand golem how to think. A collective of thousands of mages, warlocks, witches, and all sorts of sorcerers contributed to the tomes upon tomes of knowledge and intricate spells that keep this pocket golem alive. I use it to write minor enchantments of my own.

If you think fantasy magic would look any different from what we have discovered and invented today, you are ignoring human nature. The same structures and processes you see with our technology are the exact same that would have developed with bona fide fantasy magic. Microsoft and Apple would exist, and they would build magic mirrors for businesses, and little nice-looking enchanted slabs for rich people. They would curse you if you tried to discover their workings, as that's Microsoft or Apple's intellectual property. Google would exist, and it would offer you a free crystal ball that shows you ads half of the time, all while Google's own golems looked back through it to record what you like. @chj0 would be summoning deprecated types of imps just to try and get them to do some weird trick. I would have studied the creation and maintenance of the magical channels that connect our various charms and trinkets. Opal would constantly be mad at how clunky the existing spells and rituals are, and vowing to write her own from scratch. Textbooks and papers would be written to fill the asinine magical theory circlejerk that modern math and science have become, and academic publishers would keep them locked up just like they do now. Most people would still be ignorant of the inner workings of the tools they use. A butcher doesn't care if he rings up your pound of ham on a magic record book or a cash register, so long as he can see how much he sold, and he doesn't need to figure out the taxes in his head.

You flip a light switch. The light comes on. There is no functional difference between some ethereal force powering it, and electricity.

straight up I am in love with water fountains. whenever I look at a public water fountain I go "this is literally a monument to a functioning civilization." when I look at a public water fountain I think about all of the technology, all of the water filtration and pipes and infrastructure that came together to provide Me drinkable water in a public space
some urban designer built Me a fountain to drink from because I might be thirsty. Literally the opposite of hostile architecture.