@kctipton@mas.to2025-12-24 03:02:10
Oklahoma instructor removed from teaching for failing a screed of an essay
https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-bible-essay-instructor-fulneckydei-f37ba4b8afdc9d9aba3b73b124f13b9b
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-09-26 00:31:28
Canada's anti-money laundering agency fines crypto exchange KuCoin ~$14M for failing to report large and suspicious transactions; KuCoin appeals the decision (Nivedita Balu/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/c
@kurtsh@mastodon.social2025-11-23 18:38:14
The problem with Las Vegas is that visitors are now treated like marks rather than guests.
The $50 gotcha charge at Paris Las Vegas for unplugging a cord in the room to charge a laptop is a perfect example:
https://view…
@ronaldsnijder@mastodon.social2025-12-25 14:17:55
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2025-11-25 06:20:51
PG-rated movies dominate the US Box Office, driven by films like A Minecraft Movie; an NRG study finds kids want a social experience with friends and family (Ben Cohen/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/wicked-
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-11-26 13:36:33
Writing unit tests for my random number generation library continues to be difficult. My tests are failing because the bias in the distribution exceeds my expectations, but I'm wondering whether I should just repeat the test more times and permit it to exceed expectations some of the time (as long as it does it symmetrically/rarely/etc. My gut tells me that second-order expectations aren't any better than first-order expectations, but another part of me disagrees.
Thinking more as I write this (writing is thinking): second-order tests can at least give me better info to work with towards fixing things I think! So maybe I'll invest in them.
#coding
@pre@boing.world2025-11-22 10:39:50
Despite much opinion to the contrary, the government money we use is crappy.
I'm at bitfest in Manchester to find out if Bitcoin could be a better money.
It could hardly be worse.
The mood is still good, people are joking about recent devaluation rather than crying. Those who aren't all in are trying to buy more at the discount.
After an introduction by Mad Bitcoins, Joe Bryan explains the problem with government money.
He imagines an island on which two types of money are tried, with a dividing wall between them.
When economic problems hit, government can just print more money on the fiat side. Everyone now using money which is worth less. Distorting prices, inflating asset prices, making the rich (who hold assets) richer and the poor (who have to pay inflated prices) poorer. Driving wealth inequality.
On the hard money side, government must tax properly. Take in more from the rich rather than inflating to take it from the poor. Reducing wealth inequality.
On the government money side, the wealthy monitize houses, stocks, resources. Saving in money is impossible, its inflated away. So they save in assets and hording resources. Capital is misallocated. The youth can't afford houses. Poverty traps are caused. The only way out is printing more for benefits. Making it all worse. More economic crises, more printing. More government debt.
Eventually, the wall is broken. Government money people can save in the hard money instead. It reduces the value of government money further. More printing. More inflation.
Eventually, war. Funded by printed money.
The dollar is the best of a bad bunch all other government money is falling in value even faster.
I wonder, is bitcoin really this better money though? It's limited, hard, and can't be printed without energy investment.
I'm still unsure that fixing money fixes the world.
--
Note: "crypto" is mostly more like government money than bitcoin. It can be printed indefinitely by it's makers, does not cost it's makers to print. Crypto is usually just a scam people to get more bitcoin. Bitcoin is not crypto.
#bitfest #bitcoin
@Dragofix@veganism.social2025-10-24 16:10:42
@arXiv_csCV_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-09-26 10:26:31
NewtonGen: Physics-Consistent and Controllable Text-to-Video Generation via Neural Newtonian Dynamics
Yu Yuan, Xijun Wang, Tharindu Wickremasinghe, Zeeshan Nadir, Bole Ma, Stanley H. Chan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.21309
@cdarwin@c.im2025-11-23 19:35:13
The Free Birth Society (FBS) is a business run from North Carolina that promotes the idea of women giving birth without midwives or doctors present.
It is led by Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark,
ex-doulas turned social media influencers who have gained a global following through the FBS podcast, which has been downloaded millions of times.
FBS profits from sales of its instructional video guide to freebirthing, and access to a paid-for membership group for pregnant …