@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-09-15 12:25:51
Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: significantly better fit, sound quality, noise cancellation, and battery life, but heart-rate monitoring is buried in fitness apps (David Carnoy/CNET)
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/my-apple-airpods-pro-…
@jerome@jasette.facil.services2025-07-12 14:14:48
@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca2025-08-15 16:32:39
1/2 Thanks to @… for this interesting article. It speaks to me. :)
I’ve been weather blogging @… since 2005. It is interesting how it has changed, and how I have changed.
My website used to be just data from the (expensive) station I bought when I moved back to Port Alberni. It was a hobby and a side project to practice web/coding skills I use at work. My focus was on creating useful data for people that was more local/relevant than the official EC station outside of the city.
Then I put up a webcam and learned how to make timelapses. This got the attention of local media… because pictures. :)
Then I added a blog and started to write about the weather almost daily. This was before Facebook. There was a popular local online forum where I would post things. The media would also follow my website and they started to call me when there was extreme weather (usually very hot or very wet/stormy).
Then Facebook started to get big and I made a page that eventually had a few thousand followers. I would blog often. Lots of traffic from Facebook… this was 2010 and on. I blogged about climate and weather pretty equally.
Like anyone in Port Alberni, I was/am obsessed with the Martin Mars and got wrapped up in that issue along with others which combined with the weather following probably gave me just enough exposure to have me elected as a councillor in 2014.
I continued through that 4 years, blogging often in addition to councillor duties and work, heavily on facebook, then it all went sideways on my own poor judgement (go ahead and google it, it’s ok :)) and I was not reelected, but Facebook by 2018 had also changed. Cambridge Analytica, etc.
….Continued…
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-weather-apps-data-wildfires-storms-preparation-obsession-social-media/
@arXiv_astrophIM_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-16 08:44:11
Euclid VI. NISP-P optical ghosts
Collaboration, Paterson, Schirmer, Okumura, Venemans, Jahnke, Aghanim, Altieri, Amara, Andreon, Baccigalupi, Baldi, Balestra, Bardelli, Battaglia, Biviano, Bonchi, Branchini, Brescia, Brinchmann, Camera, Ca\~nas-Herrera, Capobianco, Carretero, Casas, Castellano, Castignani, Cavuoti, Chambers, Cimatti, Colodro-Conde, Congedo, Conselice, Conversi, Copin, Courbin, Courtois, Da Silva, da Silva, Degaudenzi, De Lucia, Di Giorgio, Dinis, Dole, Dubath, Dupac, D…
@cdarwin@c.im2025-07-08 00:42:27
At least 104 dead in Texas floods
In Kerr County, at least 84 bodies have been recovered which includes 56 adults and 28 children.
Kerr County Sheriff’s Office said: “At present, 10 Camp Mystic campers and one counselor remain unaccounted for.
“We share our deepest condolences with all affected by this tragedy.”
@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca2025-08-15 16:40:43
2/2 I continued blogging Alberniweather and on FB and Twitter but I gradually removed my personal self from Facebook and eventually during the Pandemic, I decided the Facebook environment was just too toxic even for weather stuff and I shut down my page and left Facebook completely.
The impact on traffic to Alberniweather.ca and its prominence in the community was, and still is, significant.
I have diehard followers, many who have become friends over the years, I still get the odd call from media, or even the public about random weather things.
I have good connections with a few folks at Environment Canada (though their staff have become thinner and more transient :(
and major events still get spikes of local traffic but I since about 2022, and after I removed myself from Twitter that year, I don’t blog nearly as much. I would do a few posts in a week, and then go months without posting. I just got out of the habit I guess.
But I am still interested in the weather. I still feel like Alberniweather is a useful service for people in my community. I still feel a willing obligation to inform people about the weather and I believe I am trusted to do so by the public and local leaders. I’ve never made any money at it, I sold ad space on the website for a few years but it wasn’t worth the hassle and I didn’t feel comfortable taking the money when I was councillor. I have had some generous spontaneous donations at times.
But mainly I do it because it’s interesting, and I hope it is useful for people especially when people are looking for information during a major event.
The highest traffic I have ever had on Alberniweather pre-FB exit was the local Dog Mountain forest fire in 2015.
post-FB exit: the #underwoodfire
People want easy access to reliable local, trusted, information.
Large media orgs have mostly given up on this.
I am grateful we still have an active local newspaper and radio and that both trust me and I trust them.
@… @…
@gwire@mastodon.social2025-08-05 14:52:03
> "At one point during the press conference, Mr Finch acknowledged the risks attached to talking about a live legal case, saying: “I was told if I released this, I’d be in contempt of court.”
Contempt of court is being cynically used for self-promotion by right-wing activists.
Take action against them, and they become martyrs against "cover-ups". If a case collapses as a result of their actions, it's just proof of a corrupt system protecting criminals.
@metacurity@infosec.exchange2025-07-24 13:59:17
Happening now: CISA Director nominee Sean Plankey is finally getting his confirmation hearing. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/nominations-11/
@arXiv_astrophGA_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-09-10 10:13:21
Unveiling Galactic substructures with M Giant stars: A kinematic and chemical study based on LAMOST DR9, Gaia DR3 and APOGEE DR17
Longfei Ding, Jing Li, Xiang-Xiang Xue, Hao Tian, Zhengzhou Yan, Gang Zhao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07744
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-07-22 00:03:45
Overly academic/distanced ethical discussions
Had a weird interaction with @/brainwane@social.coop just now. I misinterpreted one of their posts quoting someone else and I think the combination of that plus an interaction pattern where I'd assume their stance on something and respond critically to that ended up with me getting blocked. I don't have hard feelings exactly, and this post is only partly about this particular person, but I noticed something interesting by the end of the conversation that had been bothering me. They repeatedly criticized me for assuming what their position was, but never actually stated their position. They didn't say: "I'm bothered you assumed my position was X, it's actually Y." They just said "I'm bothered you assumed my position was X, please don't assume my position!" I get that it's annoying to have people respond to a straw man version of your argument, but when I in response asked some direct questions about what their position was, they gave some non-answers and then blocked me. It's entirely possible it's a coincidence, and they just happened to run out of patience on that iteration, but it makes me take their critique of my interactions a bit less seriously. I suspect that they just didn't want to hear what I was saying, while at the same time they wanted to feel as if they were someone who values public critique and open discussion of tricky issues (if anyone reading this post also followed our interaction and has a different opinion of my behavior, I'd be glad to hear it; it's possible In effectively being an asshole here and it would be useful to hear that if so).
In any case, the fact that at the end of the entire discussion, I'm realizing I still don't actually know their position on whether they think the AI use case in question is worthwhile feels odd. They praised the system on several occasions, albeit noting some drawbacks while doing so. They said that the system was possibly changing their anti-AI stance, but then got mad at me for assuming this meant that they thought this use-case was justified. Maybe they just haven't made up their mind yet but didn't want to say that?
Interestingly, in one of their own blog posts that got linked in the discussion, they discuss a different AI system, and despite listing a bunch of concrete harms, conclude that it's okay to use it. That's fine; I don't think *every* use of AI is wrong on balance, but what bothered me was that their post dismissed a number of real ethical issues by saying essentially "I haven't seen calls for a boycott over this issue, so it's not a reason to stop use." That's an extremely socially conformist version of ethics that doesn't sit well with me. The discussion also ended up linking this post: https://chelseatroy.com/2024/08/28/does-ai-benefit-the-world/ which bothered me in a related way. In it, Troy describes classroom teaching techniques for introducing and helping students explore the ethics of AI, and they seem mostly great. They avoid prescribing any particular correct stance, which is important when teaching given the power relationship, and they help students understand the limitations of their perspectives regarding global impacts, which is great. But the overall conclusion of the post is that "nobody is qualified to really judge global impacts, so we should focus on ways to improve outcomes instead of trying to judge them." This bothers me because we actually do have a responsibility to make decisive ethical judgments despite limitations of our perspectives. If we never commit to any ethical judgment against a technology because we think our perspective is too limited to know the true impacts (which I'll concede it invariably is) then we'll have to accept every technology without objection, limiting ourselves to trying to improve their impacts without opposing them. Given who currently controls most of the resources that go into exploration for new technologies, this stance is too permissive. Perhaps if our objection to a technology was absolute and instantly effective, I'd buy the argument that objecting without a deep global view of the long-term risks is dangerous. As things stand, I think that objecting to the development/use of certain technologies in certain contexts is necessary, and although there's a lot of uncertainly, I expect strongly enough that the overall outcomes of objection will be positive that I think it's a good thing to do.
The deeper point here I guess is that this kind of "things are too complicated, let's have a nuanced discussion where we don't come to any conclusions because we see a lot of unknowns along with definite harms" really bothers me.