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@tiotasram@kolektiva.social
2025-05-08 21:13:27

US political contradictions; knowledge systems
As Trump at least partially succeeds in constructing an alternate reality for his most ardent followers, it's tempting to think of his dogma as false, in contrast to some imagined "truth" which his non-followers are smart enough to believe in. But a more nuanced view of knowledge would admit that different groups of people have different shared truths, constituting different knowledge systems which each deviate from what's objectively measurable in different ways, and in fact they each accept different standards of what is objective, so there's not really a single "ground truth" we can even compare to to determine which of these knowledge systems is "more correct" (similar problems arise even if we only care about "more useful").
To make this more concrete, we can see that e.g., competing quantum physics theories, or likewise competing religious beliefs, have no reasonable basis on which to judge between them, either in terms of "truth" or "utility." So the Trump-dogma knowledge system, although bad, morally repugnant, etc., can't so easily be dismissed as "false" in my view. "Distorted" or "malignant" or "evil" or "contradictory" are better monikers, in my opinion.
But what I'm even more interested in thinking about is: in what ways does the current American liberal "common sense" knowledge system already bear the scars of past fascist lies & contradictions? I can think of a few:
"Columbus was an explorer."
This is "factually accurate" in the same way some of Trump's propaganda is, but it's also a cruel distortion of "Columbus was a child murderer," and it's a misrepresentation that serves an evil purpose, yet which is widely taught in elementary schools today.
Another: "dropping atomic bombs on civilians in Japan was necessary to end WWII."
Perhaps in the future we'll have "family separation & the 2025 ICE crackdowns were necessary to end the immigration crisis," although I dearly hope not.
"Reparations for slavery aren't reasonable," is yet another...
I'll close this rambling with a question: what other fascist lies have you noticed that are normalized in America right now from past Trump-like leaders (or even from less overtly fascist institutions)?

@rigo@mamot.fr
2025-06-08 16:12:06

The more it is evolving, the less stable it becomes. I'm using #KDE since version 1.1. And with KF6 it is for the first time that I experience the repeated total freeze of the entire desktop, because it can't handle a dock and more than one monitor. Wayland is definitely the systemd moment for desktop-linux. X-Windows was mutilated before Wayland actually worked (let alone missing network capabilit…

@deprogrammaticaipsum@mas.to
2025-04-08 18:55:47

"You are a software worker. And you are able to do your job in more or less good conditions only because you are standing on the shoulders of countless others. We are talking about the fact that if you have 20 days of holidays, if you only work 5 days a week, if you are able to take some days or weeks off after the birth of your child, it is because some others before you have sacrificed their lives so you can work in decent conditions."

#CoWoS, or Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate,
is one of TSMC’s most advanced ways of packaging chips.
It allows several chips to work closely together as one,
making the whole system faster and more efficient while using less energy.

@gwire@mastodon.social
2025-06-09 08:52:37

One thing I've noticed about the coverage of the LA protests is the differing use of "non-lethal" and "less-lethal" in describing weapons being used by the state against protesters.
And in this case I think the liability-dodging term "less lethal" is actually more useful, and should be incorporated into style-guides.

@ThatHoarder@mastodon.online
2025-06-08 20:12:11

'Given that the average electric drill is in use for just 15 minutes each year, and is kept in storage for the rest of the time, it’s clear that many household items don’t really need to be owned at all' - @alexjgnana overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.

@arXiv_csHC_bot@mastoxiv.page
2025-06-09 07:40:52

What Comes After Harm? Mapping Reparative Actions in AI through Justice Frameworks
Sijia Xiao, Haodi Zou, Alice Qian Zhang, Deepak Kumar, Hong Shen, Jason Hong, Motahhare Eslami
arxiv.org/abs/2506.05687

@carloshr@lile.cl
2025-06-06 23:02:15

Los franceses The Inspector Cluzo aportan también en este viernes de nuevos lanzamientos con su rock potente y bien pesado por momentos. «Less is More» se llama su nuevo disco.
open.spotify.com/album/3H1HAHg

@rocksongoftheweek@mastodon.world
2025-05-09 07:57:38

Our pick this week is from Big Audio Dynamite, and is a real piece of rock history. If you haven't heard it, well, you need to hand in your rock license until you have!
Give it a spin, check our usual thoughts and ramblings on it and don't forget to follow us for your weekly slice of #rock and #metal

@aredridel@kolektiva.social
2025-06-07 04:24:31

tech nerdery
I mean this: if every receiver just connected to its source when it was ready, and we hadn't made short-timeout stateful firewalls everywhere, we'd have to deploy SO MANY fewer weird one-off services just to receive something.
Instead we have to provision certificates and public facing hostnames to get communication going. Backend development is so much more complex and less robust because of it.

@Barbarian@social.linux.pizza
2025-05-06 08:02:18

There's a lot of fear and panic here in my social circles in #Romania. Very much feels like a rerun of December. I'm actually feeling a bit more optimistic and less afraid than last time. Just a bit though.
There is a path to victory for Nicusor Dan. It relies on expanding the voting base. Not all is lost yet, the sky isn't falling, just need as many Romanians as possible th…

@drgeraint@glasgow.social
2025-05-26 22:00:20

US government corruption is blatant at the moment. UK government corruption is (slightly) less blatant. Which is worse? It seems to me that more blatant corruption encourages more corruption across society, but do you agree?
More dangerous for society:

@fortune@social.linux.pizza
2025-05-29 22:00:01

Well, that's more-or-less what I was saying, though obviously addition
is a little more cosmic than the bitwise operators.
-- Larry Wall in <199709051808.LAA01780@wall.org>

@sonnets@bots.krohsnest.com
2025-04-26 11:25:12

Sonnet 102 - CII
My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear;
That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Tha…

@arXiv_csAI_bot@mastoxiv.page
2025-06-03 18:02:32

This arxiv.org/abs/2504.14870 has been replaced.
initial toot: mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csAI_…

@thesaigoneer@social.linux.pizza
2025-06-04 12:21:27

To paraphrase Barry Scwartz: The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less
With the continuous glitz of KDE, Hyprland, dwm, Slackware and Gentoo as daily drivers it's the time of year to start winding down.
Also because I've been revisiting Steve Anelay's videos (OldTechBloke, sorely missed) I'll spend a month on the Mate desktop, starting this Saturday.
But what to run it on? Help me make a choice, appreciated 😎

@arXiv_csCR_bot@mastoxiv.page
2025-06-04 07:24:46

Are Crypto Ecosystems (De)centralizing? A Framework for Longitudinal Analysis
Harang Ju, Ehsan Valavi, Madhav Kumar, Sinan Aral
arxiv.org/abs/2506.02324

@esoriano@social.linux.pizza
2025-03-30 10:06:03

Ding!!
“Politicians promise to make policy that unleashes the power of A.I. to do … something, though many of them aren’t exactly sure what.”
nytimes.com/2025/03/29/opinion

@nitpicking@mstdn.party
2025-05-22 02:09:07

Yeah, I should have seen this coming: AI bots are taking online surveys more and more.
schneier.com/blog/archives/202

We can say this at least:
Musk is one of the most malignant people ever to hold a position of influence in American politics.
His actions, without exaggeration, have devastated the health and security of American society
and directly caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people all over the world, with millions more to follow given the course that he has set.
Musk’s DOGE, which is more or less a conspiracy to destroy constitutional government in this country, has …

@arXiv_csCY_bot@mastoxiv.page
2025-06-03 07:19:39

Prompt Engineer: Analyzing Skill Requirements in the AI Job Market
An Vu, Jonas Oppenlaender
arxiv.org/abs/2506.00058

@AntoninDanalet@datasci.social
2025-06-02 11:56:52

Consumer price for mobility in 🇨🇭, 2000-2024
The report "Environment Switzerland 2018" (bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/sta

Development of consumer prices for public transport and car relative to household income, 1995-2017. Y axis: Index (2000 = 100). X axis: 1995-2017. Since 2000, prices for public transport have risen more strongly than the disposable income. Car prices, on the other hand, have risen less sharply and have even fallen in recent years. For interpretation, there is also household income. Net disposable income of private households and private (non-profit) organisations per capita.
@arXiv_quantph_bot@mastoxiv.page
2025-05-30 10:32:25

This arxiv.org/abs/2502.09930 has been replaced.
initial toot: mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_qu…

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social
2025-05-15 17:02:17

The full formula for the probability of "success" is:
p = {
1/(2^(-n 1)) if n is negative, or
1 - (1/(2^(n 1))) if n is zero or positive
}
(Both branches have the same value when n is 0, so the behavior is smooth around the origin.)
How can we tweak this?
First, we can introduce fixed success and/or failure chances unaffected by level, with this formula only taking effect if those don't apply. For example, you could do 10% failure, 80% by formula, and 10% success to keep things from being too sure either way even when levels are very high or low. On the other hand, this flattening makes the benefit of extra advantage levels even less exciting.
Second, we could allow for gradations of success/failure, and treat the coin pools I used to explain that math like dice pools a bit. An in-between could require linearly more success flips to achieve the next higher grade of success at each grade. For example, simple success on a crit role might mean dealing 1.5x damage, but if you succeed on 2 of your flips, you get 9/4 damage, or on 4 flips 27/8, or on 7 flips 81/16. In this world, stacking crit levels might be a viable build, and just giving up on armor would be super dangerous. In the particular case I was using this for just now, I can't easily do gradations of success (that's the reason I turned to probabilities in the first place) but I think I'd favor this approach when feasible.
The main innovation here over simple dice pools is how to handle situations where the number of dice should be negative. I'm almost certain it's not a truly novel innovation though, and some RPG fan can point out which system already does this (please actually do this, I'm an RPG nerd too at heart).
I'll leave this with one more tweak we could do: what if the number 2 in the probability equation were 3, or 2/3? I think this has a similar effect to just scaling all the modifiers a bit, but the algebra escapes me in this moment and I'm a bit lazy. In any case, reducing the base of the probability exponent should let you get a few more gradations near 50%, which is probably a good thing, since the default goes from 25% straight to 50% and then to 75% with no integer stops in between.

@NicolasGriseyDemengel@piaille.fr
2025-05-21 05:44:29

boydkane.com/essays/experts

@ThatHoarder@mastodon.online
2025-05-25 20:12:12

The way I see self-nurturing is that it's deeper, it's more compassionate to ourselves, it's more sustainable and also it's more personalised. overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.

@gadgetboy@gadgetboy.social
2025-04-15 15:24:50

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“The Atlantic tells the story of Nicholas Gilbert, a farmer in upstate New York, near the Canadian border. He had just gotten a shipment of livestock feed with a $2,200 tariff surcharge attached. 

Gilbert cannot increase the price of the milk he sells, which is set by the local co-op. He cannot feed his cows less food. He cannot buy feed from another supplier; there aren’t any nearby, and getting it from farther away would be more expensive. When he got the delivery, he stared at the tariff fo…
@Zer0Rank@social.linux.pizza
2025-03-25 06:49:53

This is more or less a note to self, because I always forget how to do this. If you're using git credentials helper to store your personal access token and the personal access token expires, you need to update the token.

To do this, run `git credential-cache exit` and run `git pull` or `git fetch` to enter your new credentials.
#git

@rocksongoftheweek@mastodon.world
2025-05-02 13:01:59

This week’s pick is a solid ‘90s #alt-rock gem from Spacehog. Catchy, fuzzy, and one of those tracks you probably know but don't know - definitely worth a listen.
Check it out, read our take, and let the nostalgia do its thing.
Don't forget to follow us for your weekly dose of #rock and …

@Techpizzamondays@social.linux.pizza
2025-05-11 01:56:52

Prime minister Mark Carney’s favourite food is pizza. That earns him in an invitation to Tech Pizza Monday! streetsoftoronto.com/a-list-of

@arXiv_qfinMF_bot@mastoxiv.page
2025-05-22 07:38:13

Shortermism and excessive risk taking in optimal execution with a target performance
Emilio Barucci, Yuheng Lan
arxiv.org/abs/2505.15611

@pygospa@social.linux.pizza
2025-03-16 00:19:22

I often read and hear that ChatGPT and other Gen AI solutions are the future and will replace us all - especially in IT. As someone that moved cities and switch universities for an AI focus I was of course super curious about this and therefore often try ChatGPT out just for funsies.
All that I can say, is: Don't do it. I tried coding with ChatGPT, and while it produces okeyish results for Python and Java, it will completely fail if you try more complicated and less common things (…

@unchartedworlds@scicomm.xyz
2025-05-20 07:01:17

Biden's record on covid
Saw a comment along the lines of: "seems unfair to criticise Biden's record on covid, while the situation now under Trump is so much worse".
But I don't think of them as separate. Biden's government _contributed_ to how covid stands under Trump.
If Biden's lot had taken the opportunity to educate people (at least the ones open to considering science findings) that
- it's airborne like smoke
- an empty room can hold infectious virus
- air filters, UV and fresh air reduce the levels of it
- masks work better the better they fit
- you can be infectious without/before symptoms
- you're fairly likely still to be infectious for 10 days, a few people longer
- current vaccines don't stop you catching it or transmitting it
- it can mess with your immune system so you're more likely to catch other things
- vaccinated people can still get Long Covid
- it's not "mild", it's just that the damage is quiet
then even if they hadn't done anything more to address the problem, people would be in a far better position to deploy their own common sense.
And unlike funding or laws, that investment in _knowledge_ is something it would be difficult for Trump's lot to roll back.
But Biden & co chose instead to play down the risks, and explicitly or implicitly mislead people (e.g. the 5-day quarantine, which contradicts the real infectious period).
So, yes it's worse now, but they _contributed_ to how it is now. They chose to encourage misapprehensions and confusion, and the effects of that choice are still playing out now.
Not letting them off the hook on the grounds of being comparatively "less bad", when they themselves laid some of the foundations of the current state of play.
#covid #Biden #USPol #CovidIsntOver

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social
2025-05-16 10:20:01

Just finished reading Dream State by Eric Puchner, and it kind of pissed me off. I think I can see exactly why it might be popular with a certain WASPy liberal "literati" type that probably includes a lot of influential reviewers, but to me, it's points about love & life, despite being much more complex, ring just about as hollow (and harmful) as a Disney movie.
I've got a lot of quibbles, but I think most galling to me was a throwaway line near the beginning about why platonic relationships get so much less glory in media than romantic ones, when so much of the plot proceeds to revolve around a stale agency-free romantic attraction model that's certainly more complex on its face than a Disney romance but which is ultimately just as misleading.
Go read Loveless or really any YA #OwnVoices romance (especially queer) and you'll be learning more & better lessons about the human condition.

@rocksongoftheweek@mastodon.world
2025-05-30 09:21:09

Our pick this week is a slice of early '90s rock goodness from #Jellyfish!
Give it a listen, check out our thoughts, and take a quick trip back in time with us. Don't forget to follow us for more tracks from across the epic world of #rock and

@ThatHoarder@mastodon.online
2025-05-25 14:34:15

If you're trying to justify a purchase you don't need, it's very easy to say is this self-care? Sure! overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.

@Barbarian@social.linux.pizza
2025-05-18 20:17:29

We did it. I played a small role in Bucharest, but I'm still proud of the work I did as part of the campaign. We now have an intelligent, pro-EU, clean president with no corruption scandals. But... this also means the mayorship of Bucharest is now open :)) Already planning the next steps in a more inclusive, less corrupt and more equitable Romania with my new friends in SENS.
#EU

@ThatHoarder@mastodon.online
2025-05-25 18:34:08

If the self-care information we are hearing is all about something we have to buy or something we have to spend money on or something that's being marketed at us, that's not actually what the spirit of self-care should be about.

@unixorn@hachyderm.io
2025-05-19 22:11:44

I know that anything with aquarium on it costs more, but the aquarium tax for snowflake food is ridiculous. I've been keeping shrimp for less than a year, so maybe other shrimp keepers already know about this cheap alternative to snowflake food, but in case you didn't -
After watching some YT shrimp keeper channels, I've been feeding my neocaridina colony snowflake food a couple of times a week. They like it and I was almost out, so I was looking at the bag and realized it only has one ingredient - soy hulls. I paid $12 for 3 1/2 ounces of snowflake food.
I thought there must be a cheaper source, so I looked online and found soy hull pellets for mushroom cultivation were 10 pounds for $20. The pellets are exactly the same size as the ones in the snowflake food bag, and my colony eats them just as eagerly.
Snowflake food: $3.70 an ounce.
Bulk organic soybean husks: $0.13 an ounce. 28x cheaper.
@… @… @… #aquarium #nanotank #shrimptank #neocaridina

@rocksongoftheweek@mastodon.world
2025-03-28 09:48:26

This week’s pick is a real toe-tapper from #psychobilly turned #punk rockers The Hellfreaks!
Give it a spin, check out our thoughts, and see if it gets your foot moving.
Follow us for your weekly fix of #rock

@rocksongoftheweek@mastodon.world
2025-05-23 08:46:56

This week, we’re leveraging some #NWOBHM nostalgia with a pick from the underrated Tokyo Blade!
It’s got all the classic ingredients that you love / know / yearn for and it flies the flag for one of metal’s most exciting eras. Give it a spin, check out our musings, and as always, don't forget to follow us for your weekly dose of

@rocksongoftheweek@mastodon.world
2025-04-18 08:33:21

This week’s pick is a darkly infectious track from #goth rockers #Corlyx! Catchy, moody, and perfect for anyone craving a modern twist on that classic '80s goth sound.
Give it a listen, check out our thoughts, and sink into the vibe.
Follow us for your weekly fix of

@rocksongoftheweek@mastodon.world
2025-05-16 13:00:18

Our pick this week is a melancholic, atmospheric track from Steven Wilson. Epic in scope but perfect to kick off a slow, reflective weekend - this one’s worth sinking into.
Give it a spin, check out our thoughts, and let it set the tone.
And don't forget to follow us for your weekly dose of rock and metal ... handpicked, reviewed, and sent straight to your ears.
Stay mellow, stay awesome! 🤘