@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-05-23 00:30:06
@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-05-23 00:30:06
@simon_lucy@mastodon.social2025-07-22 14:40:17
I doubt these are the last 3 Tandon Data PACs in captivity but they may be.
I'm considering dismantling them and driving a spike through the drives.
For anyone wondering, they were removable drives that had 30Mb and 40Mb capacities. There was no controller electronics that was a separate board on the PC. And we had dual bay small tower PCs as well.
The original customer was Xerox.
Essentially they ate up remanufactured drives which otherwise had become difficult…
@cdarwin@c.im2025-08-23 05:35:10
A judge ruled late Friday
the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties
because of policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco extended a preliminary injunction
blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds
for so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions.
His earlier order protected…
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2025-08-21 14:25:57
Nielsen and Adobe: the Premier League's opening weekend averaged 850K viewers across six matches on NBC/Peacock and USA Network, a record and up 4% on 2024-25 (Abid Rahman/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-ne
@kubikpixel@chaos.social2025-08-22 17:00:01
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-08-22 11:20:48
Email: TikTok plans to lay off several hundred UK trust and safety staff in the UK and Asia, citing "technological advances" such as LLMs in content moderation (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/d277c456-4518-4994-8afd-c45a399db342
@prachisrivas@masto.ai2025-06-23 13:10:38
@azonenberg@ioc.exchange2025-06-23 07:37:12
First round PI workup on the switch line card is done.
All of the other rails are fine, the only one with any significant issues of concern is 1V0 which I am suspecting might be a nothingburger (test point too close to the DC-DC so the local bypass caps dont have much of an impact).
Gonna solder a probe on to get a measurement at the actual BGA vias and see how noisy the rail is there, then probably put some diff probes on the QSGMII while I've got the thing decabled.
@catsalad@infosec.exchange2025-06-22 15:35:12
The shared braincell was late to work :neocat_woozy:
@wraithe@mastodon.social2025-06-21 20:34:46
So, first off, this is a beautiful video, about #LosAngeles and the #LosAngelesProtests and community.
So, watch this and we’ll move on to the next piece of the story.
@davidaugust@mastodon.online2025-06-22 21:48:08
New York Times op-ed coming soon (probably):
Why Ionizing Radiation is Actually Good for You
“Sprinkle fallout on your breakfast cereal and you’ll feel warm all day,” says HHS Secretary rfk jr, “I did that starting this morning, and aside from the hair loss and my stomach lining sloughing off, I feel great!”
#USpol
@nemobis@mamot.fr2025-08-22 15:15:40
I randomly bought this book in a quirky bookshop in Copenhagen for the sole reason that it said all the wrong things right on the cover.
(Sales: the single most important profession. NLP™: not natural language processing but neuro-linguistic programming. Meta: the Meta Model™ and Meta Publications™.)
I just started reading it and boy oh boy, I was not disappointed. It's outrageously hilarious.
"Persuasion engineering".
@philip@mastodon.mallegolhansen.com2025-07-22 16:12:14
@… I've been thinking on and off over the past few months if I should sign up (And make my employer pay the membership dues of course).
On one hand I would love to support the concept of professional organizations in our field, seems like there are way too many cowboys just slapping together barely cohesive code and making billions of doll…
@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-05-23 00:30:06
@patrick_townsend@infosec.exchange2025-08-21 18:18:59
It is not wise to piss off your partners and allies.
The EU is starting an initiative to define an EU-specific technology stack. There is an impressive set of companies and organizations signing on. If you are a US technology firm you need to start tracking this and figure out a strategy. Caving in to autocrats has its downsides. More here:
https://…
@jonippolito@digipres.club2025-07-22 13:15:14
An AI-generated song just showed up on Blaze Foley’s Spotify page—despite the fact he was murdered in 1989. Blocking fake content is a Sisyphean task; we're better off re-jiggering the web to ensure users can tell content from a valid source.
https://www.
@yaxu@post.lurk.org2025-08-21 15:58:53
Just off to @… for the evening to learn lace making
I once was involved in a performance collab with a lace maker, although she was too busy so couldn't join us and sent a video. We jammed over her explaining the numerical patterns. I remember the performers on stage were all men so it looked a bit dodgy in terms of gender p…
@Tupp_ed@mastodon.ie2025-08-23 09:49:17
Yesterday was leaving certificate results day, and for the first time in 29 years it had some domestic relevance. Once it was comfortably established that my son's results were going to see him go on to his choice of third level course, I felt oddly off-kilter.
The Leaving Cert results are a moment where all of the kids your child has grown up with, and who you are (to a greater or lessor extent) aware of as their friends suddenly, all at once, jump forward to a new stage in their…
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2025-08-21 14:44:44
Bucs' Godwin, Wirfs to come off PUP but not play https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46037465/bucs-chris-godwin-tristan-wirfs-come-pup-not-play
@blackknight95857669@social.linux.pizza2025-06-23 02:21:59
Chrono Odyssey (Playtest)
Requested access to CO's Playtest this weekend and got the notification on Friday I was in. Installed and launched the game. Game defaulted to Epic settings. Left it there and started the game. Right off the bat, the cinematics had strange artifacting on them. Almost looked like the Steam browser in the background was ghosting into the game somehow.
Created a character. Decent customization. Male doesn't look absurdly buff. Femme isn't overl…
@arXiv_astrophSR_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-22 08:02:50
The impact of stellar rotations and binaries on the shape of upper main sequence near turn off in open cluster NGC\,6067
Jayanand Maurya, Yu Zhang, Sebastian Kamann, Hubiao Niu, Yves Fr\'emat, Kaixiang Lang, Y. C. Joshi, M. R. Samal, Peter De Cat, Ali Esamdin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14433
@arXiv_physicsplasmph_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-22 08:56:30
Effects of turbulence spreading and symmetry breaking on edge shear flow during sawtooth cycles in J-TEXT tokamak
Xiaoguan Ding, Kaijun Zhao, Yaoyu Xie, Zhipeng Chen, Zhongyong Chen, Zhoujun Yang, Li Gao, Yonghua Ding, Siyu Wen, Yingxin Hu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.15201
@blakes7bot@mas.torpidity.net2025-08-21 21:18:47
Series C, Episode 02 - Powerplay
CALLY: More survivors from the battle?
NURSE: Just one, apparently. We picked up a voice signal a couple of hours ago. We're homing in on it now. It will be a quick touchdown and immediate lift-off. The local inhabitants are hostile, apparently. Ah, let's see how your burns are healing.
https://
@berlinbuzzwords@floss.social2025-08-22 11:00:15
At this year's Berlin Buzzwords, Adrien Grand and Luca Cavanna shared their fascinating journey to the release of version 10.0 of the popular Java search engine, Apache Lucene. They discussed the challenges and successes they encountered along the way, the team effort required to achieve this milestone, and much more.
Watch the full session: https://youtu.be/GRhzgCEL_ac?si=WEnUqlFLbZD5SUew
Berlin Buzzwords returns on 7-9 June 2026! Get 36% off with our Trust Us Ticket: https://tickets.plainschwarz.com/bbuzz26/c/8Hvk0ZvJA/
@arXiv_csDB_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-22 07:41:00
Schemora: schema matching via multi-stage recommendation and metadata enrichment using off-the-shelf llms
Osman Erman Gungor, Derak Paulsen, William Kang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14376
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems2025-07-21 20:15:49
Do you know what I truly hate? Biting horse-flies.
Like, a whole swarm of them just starts flying around you, and won't let go. If you're walking fast, they usually don't manage to sit on you, but that doesn't stop them from trying. So they keep bouncing off your legs, trying to fly into your nose, walking over your glasses… and after a little time your skin is so irritated that you can't tell anymore if it managed to sit this time, or just bounced — until you feel the painful bite.
I think I've killed a record number of them today.
@hex@kolektiva.social2025-06-23 07:33:43
Everybody is wondering if some ICE agents are actually just bounty hunters, and that's possible but not super likely. What's much more likely is that a good chunk of the agents deployed today are the American equivalent of Wagner, which is currently named "Tripple Canopy" but you probably know as "Blackwater."
It's reasonably likely that the mercenaries who were grabbing people off the streets in Portland in 2020 are back at it for round 2. After all, this is just another opportunity for Trump to dump money in Erik Prince's pocket and wouldn't it be good for Trump to have a man on his side who happens to own a private army?
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/inside-federal-protective-service-homeland-securitys-domestic-police
@arXiv_statML_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-23 08:34:52
PAC Off-Policy Prediction of Contextual Bandits
Yilong Wan, Yuqiang Li, Xianyi Wu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16236 https://arxiv.org/…
@w6kme@mastodon.radio2025-07-21 22:29:33
Part of being the retired guy whose wife works 45 miles away in a job that doesn't allow her to always catch her shuttle home means always being ready to hop into the car and brave LA traffic. Off I go!
On one hand it sorta sucks, but on the other hand at least I get to spend half the drive with my wife, which is something I like.
@arXiv_csNI_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-23 08:37:32
An Experimental Study of Split-Learning TinyML on Ultra-Low-Power Edge/IoT Nodes
Zied Jenhani, Mounir Bensalem, Jasenka Dizdarevi\'c, Admela Jukan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16594
@arXiv_condmatmtrlsci_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-23 09:47:30
Electric-field control of zero-dimensional topological states in ultranarrow germanene nanoribbons
Lumen Eek, Esra D. van 't Westende, Dennis J. Klaassen, Harold J. W. Zandvliet, Pantelis Bampoulis, Cristiane Morais Smith
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16158
@gedankenstuecke@scholar.social2025-07-22 21:36:02
«You could probably sneak some bot code into these projects if you were some sort of performative dickhead. But you’re the one signing off on it and you’ve just nuked your reputation.»
Aye!
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/22/open-source-projects-reject-ai-code-over-copyright-concerns/
@arXiv_astrophIM_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-22 09:59:50
Impact of Geant4's Electromagnetic Physics Constructors on Accuracy and Performance of Simulations for Rare Event Searches
H. Kluck (Institut f\"ur Hochenergiephysik der \"Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, Austria, Atominstitut, Technische Universit\"at Wien, Wien, Austria), R. Breier (Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia), A. Fu{\ss} (Institut f\"ur Hochenergiephysik der \"Osterreichis…
@samvarma@fosstodon.org2025-08-22 13:40:20
@… noticed that if I turn off lock screen, notification center and banners in the notifications preference pane, Mona's icon will not show badges anymore. Turning notification center back on brought them back. This is how it was with the previous (non-beta) release for the last few years and I could never figure out what the problem was. Don't know if tha…
@arXiv_hepph_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-23 11:44:50
Theoretical modeling of QCD radiation in off-shell Higgs production through gluon fusion
Rafael Coelho Lopes de S\'a, Martina Javurkova, Matteo Lazzeretti, Raoul R\"ontsch
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17022
@mpsgoettingen@academiccloud.social2025-06-20 09:46:55
It may appear to be looking empty and quiet at the MPS Göttingen right now - but we have been bustling about and are very busy getting everything ready for our visitors at the Night of Science tomorrow! Care for a few sneak previews in today's thread?
@…
#ndwgoe
@ErikUden@mastodon.de2025-08-20 14:25:49
there's another reason for why i hate gemini other than it just being AI, whenever it (randomly!!) opens on my phone it turns off my headphones. It doesn't stop the video or plays a different sound, it doesn't simply disconnect the bluetooth, it somehow TURNS OFF my headphones.
whenever gemini does this i need to put the earbuds back in the case and take them out again. how is this a thing
@pre@boing.world2025-07-19 22:29:10
Went to see a Hoopla improv show at The Bell, a mix of half a dozen different groups doing different thin
gs. "Shuffle improv" were basing their scenes on a shuffled playlist built by the audience on the way in
and an interesting format from a improv-as-a-second-language group chatting about their experiences in a
foreign land and basing their scenes off it. The group called "twelve people" only had six but were good
chaotic fun.
Lots of stuff about cooking and food.
I found myself pondering optimum size for an improve group. In general the larger groups seemed more fun to me, with the exception of three-person "burn the script" who did excellent work. More than eight wouldn't fit in the tiny stage at that venue. In rehearsal I like to have the group split in half and perform for each other. Hard to do that with fewer than six. Still up in the air if our group will get off the ground or not. More people does mean more calendar clashes even if it makes for a cheaper-per-person room hire.
Everyone has instagram pages, which are no use to me. Won't link or visit there. Interesting that nobody has a Twitter profile any more and of course nobody seems to have just a damned website which still strikes me as madness. Imagine not wanting to own your own space on the web?
#improv #london
@Stomata@social.linux.pizza2025-06-20 18:33:13
It's one of those " I told you! " moment.
They Trusted ChatGPT To Plan Their Hike — And Ended Up Calling for Rescue - The Trek
https://thetrek.co/they-trusted-chatgpt-to-plan-their-hike-and-ended-up-calling-for-rescue/
@hynek@mastodon.social2025-07-21 07:31:34
One of my most… lasting… memories from the #EuroPython sprints is when I almost threw this gentleman’s notebook against the wall. And that was AFTER he switched off his colemak crimes.
@cdarwin@c.im2025-06-23 13:36:06
Trump’s “two weeks” statement was just one aspect of a broader effort at political and military misdirection that took place over eight chaotic days,
from the first Israeli strikes against Iran to the moment when a fleet of B-2 stealth bombers took off
Trump seemed almost gleeful in telling reporters that he could make a decision “one second before it’s due,
because things change, especially with war.”
All the while, Trump was making blustery statements indicating he…
@azonenberg@ioc.exchange2025-06-23 09:00:38
Next step in final line card validation: SI workup.
Here's the lab setup, measuring the QSGMII TX waveform through the cable harness and adapter board.
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-08-12 09:01:39
Long post, game design
Crungle is a game designed to be a simple test of general reasoning skills that's difficult to play by rote memory, since there are many possible rule sets, but it should be easy to play if one can understand and extrapolate from rules. The game is not necessarily fair, with the first player often having an advantage or a forced win. The game is entirely deterministic, although a variant determines the rule set randomly.
This is version 0.1, and has not yet been tested at all.
Crungle is a competitive game for two players, each of whom controls a single piece on a 3x3 grid. The cells of the grid are numbered from 1 to 9, starting at the top left and proceeding across each row and then down to the next row, so the top three cells are 1, 2, and 3 from left to right, then the next three are 4, 5, and 6 and the final row is cells 7, 8, and 9.
The two players decide who shall play as purple and who shall play as orange. Purple goes first, starting the rules phase by picking one goal rule from the table of goal rules. Next, orange picks a goal rule. These two goal rules determine the two winning conditions. Then each player, starting with orange, alternate picking a movement rule until four movement rules have been selected. During this process, at most one indirect movement rule may be selected. Finally, purple picks a starting location for orange (1-9), with 5 (the center) not allowed. Then orange picks the starting location for purple, which may not be adjacent to orange's starting position.
Alternatively, the goal rules, movement rules, and starting positions may be determined randomly, or a pre-determined ruleset may be selected.
If the ruleset makes it impossible to win, the players should agree to a draw. Either player could instead "bet" their opponent. If the opponent agrees to the bet, the opponent must demonstrate a series of moves by both players that would result in a win for either player. If they can do this, they win, but if they submit an invalid demonstration or cannot submit a demonstration, the player who "bet" wins.
Now that starting positions, movement rules, and goals have been decided, the play phase proceeds with each player taking a turn, starting with purple, until one player wins by satisfying one of the two goals, or until the players agree to a draw. Note that it's possible for both players to occupy the same space.
During each player's turn, that player identifies one of the four movement rules to use and names the square they move to using that rule, then they move their piece into that square and their turn ends. Neither player may use the same movement rule twice in a row (but it's okay to use the same rule your opponent just did unless another rule disallows that). If the movement rule a player picks moves their opponent's piece, they need to state where their opponent's piece ends up. Pieces that would move off the board instead stay in place; it's okay to select a rule that causes your piece to stay in place because of this rule. However, if a rule says "pick a square" or "move to a square" with some additional criteria, but there are no squares that meet those criteria, then that rule may not be used, and a player who picks that rule must pick a different one instead.
Any player who incorrectly states a destination for either their piece or their opponent's piece, picks an invalid square, or chooses an invalid rule has made a violation, as long as their opponent objects before selecting their next move. A player who makes at least three violations immediately forfeits and their opponent wins by default. However, if a player violates a rule but their opponent does not object before picking their next move, the stated destination(s) of the invalid move still stand, and the violation does not count. If a player objects to a valid move, their objection is ignored, and if they do this at least three times, they forfeit and their opponent wins by default.
Goal rules (each player picks one; either player can win using either chosen rule):
End your turn in the same space as your opponent three turns in a row.
End at least one turn in each of the 9 cells.
End five consecutive turns in the three cells in any single row, ending at least one turn on each of the three.
End five consecutive turns in the three cells in any single column, ending at least one turn on each of the three.
Within the span of 8 consecutive turns, end at least one turn in each of cells 1, 3, 7, and 9 (the four corners of the grid).
Within the span of 8 consecutive turns at least one turn in each of cells 2, 4, 6, and 8 (the central cells on each side).
Within the span of 8 consecutive turns, end at least one turn in the cell directly above your opponent, and end at least one turn in the cell directly below your opponent (in either order).
Within the span of 8 consecutive turns at least one turn in the cell directly to the left of your opponent, and end at least one turn in the cell directly to the right of your opponent (in either order).
End 12 turns in a row without ending any of them in cell 5.
End 8 turns in a row in 8 different cells.
Movement rules (each player picks two; either player may move using any of the four):
Move to any cell on the board that's diagonally adjacent to your current position.
Move to any cell on the board that's orthogonally adjacent to your current position.
Move up one cell. Also move your opponent up one cell.
Move down one cell. Also move your opponent down one cell.
Move left one cell. Also move your opponent left one cell.
Move right one cell. Also move your opponent right one cell.
Move up one cell. Move your opponent down one cell.
Move down one cell. Move your opponent up one cell.
Move left one cell. Move your opponent right one cell.
Move right one cell. Move your opponent left one cell.
Move any pieces that aren't in square 5 clockwise around the edge of the board 1 step (for example, from 1 to 2 or 3 to 6 or 9 to 8).
Move any pieces that aren't in square 5 counter-clockwise around the edge of the board 1 step (for example, from 1 to 4 or 6 to 3 or 7 to 8).
Move to any square reachable from your current position by a knight's move in chess (in other words, a square that's in an adjacent column and two rows up or down, or that's in an adjacent row and two columns left or right).
Stay in the same place.
Swap places with your opponent's piece.
Move back to the position that you started at on your previous turn.
If you are on an odd-numbered square, move to any other odd-numbered square. Otherwise, move to any even-numbered square.
Move to any square in the same column as your current position.
Move to any square in the same row as your current position.
Move to any square in the same column as your opponent's position.
Move to any square in the same row as your opponent's position.
Pick a square that's neither in the same row as your piece nor in the same row as your opponent's piece. Move to that square.
Pick a square that's neither in the same column as your piece nor in the same column as your opponent's piece. Move to that square.
Move to one of the squares orthogonally adjacent to your opponent's piece.
Move to one of the squares diagonally adjacent to your opponent's piece.
Move to the square opposite your current position across the middle square, or stay in place if you're in the middle square.
Pick any square that's closer to your opponent's piece than the square you're in now, measured using straight-line distance between square centers (this includes the square your opponent is in). Move to that square.
Pick any square that's further from your opponent's piece than the square you're in now, measured using straight-line distance between square centers. Move to that square.
If you are on a corner square (1, 3, 7, or 9) move to any other corner square. Otherwise, move to square 5.
If you are on an edge square (2, 4, 6, or 8) move to any other edge square. Otherwise, move to square 5.
Indirect movement rules (may be chosen instead of a direct movement rule; at most one per game):
Move using one of the other three movement rules selected in your game, and in addition, your opponent may not use that rule on their next turn (nor may they select it via an indirect rule like this one).
Select two of the other three movement rules, declare them, and then move as if you had used one and then the other, applying any additional effects of both rules in order.
Move using one of the other three movement rules selected in your game, but if the move would cause your piece to move off the board, instead of staying in place move to square 5 (in the middle).
Pick one of the other three movement rules selected in your game and apply it, but move your opponent's piece instead of your own piece. If that movement rule says to move "your opponent's piece," instead apply that movement to your own piece. References to "your position" and "your opponent's position" are swapped when applying the chosen rule, as are references to "your turn" and "your opponent's turn" and do on.
#Game #GameDesign
@arXiv_csAI_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-23 09:20:22
Micromobility Flow Prediction: A Bike Sharing Station-level Study via Multi-level Spatial-Temporal Attention Neural Network
Xi Yang, Jiachen Wang, Song Han, Suining He
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16020
@thesaigoneer@social.linux.pizza2025-05-23 01:44:14
Okay, I have my page on Codeberg as a guide on how to install Chimera Linux. That helps a lot (and it works 😄)
But 28 minutes for an install, everything updated, services started, some bells and whistles and a running terminal in a labwc session is still pretty good.
Off to the races!
Cc @…
#ChimeraLinux
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2025-08-22 17:35:59
A look at SiriusXM's podcasting business; 2024's "off-platform earnings" were $606M, with podcast advertising making up most of that sum, up from $475M in 2022 (Jessica Testa/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/busines
@arXiv_csRO_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-23 11:48:40
DRIVE Through the Unpredictability:From a Protocol Investigating Slip to a Metric Estimating Command Uncertainty
Nicolas Samson, William Larriv\'ee-Hardy, William Dubois, \'Elie Roy-Brouard, Edith Brotherton, Dominic Baril, Julien L\'epine, Fran\c{c}ois Pomerleau
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16593
@aral@mastodon.ar.al2025-07-20 19:04:26
Folks, don’t be so hard on AOC, she didn’t vote against cutting off weapons to Hitler, she voted against reducing the defensive capabilities of the Nazi regime. Did I say Hitler, sorry, I meant Netanyahu. Oh, and I meant, Israel, not the Nazi regime.
https://www.
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2025-07-23 12:39:17
George Pickens reveals 'split personality' with epic princess quote https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/news/dallas-cowboys-george-pickens-reveals-split-personality-epic-princess-quote
@threeofus@mstdn.social2025-08-21 08:25:54
I’m on another #weightloss mission. I can never maintain a steady weight. I enjoy weight loss though because it’s so trackable. I put the effort in and the kgs come off. I’ve upped my exercise (am doing 6 workouts a week) and have cut out all of the shitty junk food and drink. I’m shedding 0.8% of my body weight per day at the moment and it feels good. In
@primonatura@mstdn.social2025-07-18 10:00:52
"Floating platform to produce synthetic fuels using wind, seawater, and air"
#Energy #Renewables
https://
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-06-23 07:50:52
The music industry is developing tools to detect AI-generated music across the music pipeline, with a focus on licensing and control rather than takedowns (Jack Buehrer/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-int
@groupnebula563@mastodon.social2025-06-21 20:48:48
for whatever reason my phone gradually deteriorates the longer it's on without rebooting and so I just got a tumblr recommended notification (I cannot figure out how to turn those off) in Spanish
@GroupNebula563@mastodon.social2025-06-21 20:48:48
for whatever reason my phone gradually deteriorates the longer it's on without rebooting and so I just got a tumblr recommended notification (I cannot figure out how to turn those off) in Spanish
@muz4now@mastodon.world2025-07-15 18:27:06
Musician Liam Benzvi on taking risks that pay off
https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/musician-liam-benzvi-on-taking-risks-that-pay-off/?utm_…
@arXiv_csLG_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-08-18 09:43:10
On-Policy RL Meets Off-Policy Experts: Harmonizing Supervised Fine-Tuning and Reinforcement Learning via Dynamic Weighting
Wenhao Zhang, Yuexiang Xie, Yuchang Sun, Yanxi Chen, Guoyin Wang, Yaliang Li, Bolin Ding, Jingren Zhou
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11408
@arXiv_astrophGA_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-08-22 07:49:10
The Fraction of Clumpy Galaxies in JWST Surveys over $2<z<12$
Alexander de la Vega, Bahram Mobasher, Faezeh Manesh, Niloofar Sharei, Nima Chartab, Zahra Sattari
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14972
@arXiv_csAR_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-23 09:02:40
Profile-Guided Temporal Prefetching
Mengming Li, Qijun Zhang, Yichuan Gao, Wenji Fang, Yao Lu, Yongqing Ren, Zhiyao Xie
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15985 ht…
@peterhoneyman@a2mi.social2025-07-17 17:25:21
I love the non-profit block of the Art Fair, I love to go and argue with the anti-tax people and the Mars society dweebs, to glare at the Republicans, to donate to Planned Parenthood and some of the off-brand religions, to smile and wave and loudly greet the communists HI COMMUNISTS!!! They always wave back. It is such a welcoming feeling!
I’ve been twice already today, once with four grandchildren who collected tons of swag and were cute as hell.
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2025-07-19 19:58:26
Ice Cube Sounds Off About the Raiders https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/ice-cube-sounds-off-on-las-vegas-raiders-pete-carroll
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social2025-07-19 18:03:17
Content warning:
Have a joyful #DayOfDionysos here at Erotic Mythology! 🍇
"Dionysos caused Lykourgos to go mad. In this state, thinking he was cutting a vine-branch, Lykourgos killed his son Dryas by cutting off his arms and legs with an axe. Then he regained his senses."
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 34-35
🏛 The Lycurgus Cup, made from dichroic glass, which changes colour w…
@lilmikesf@c.im2025-08-18 20:50:22
London #FT reports on investors that lost billions on #PumpAndDump stock scheme that inflated values of little known traded entities of small US-listed #ChineseStocks that plunged in value shortly after being heavily
@mlawton@mstdn.social2025-06-19 16:51:15
We hoofed it up Mill Mountain before the heat ~really~ set in. The humidity did not wait, unfortunately, but we enjoyed it all the same.
We are now decamped in a coffee shop and pondering lunch options. I think we’re off to a bistro and bakery we’ve heard great things about. Their Better Than Sex cake is reputed to be true to its name.
@arXiv_physicsoptics_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-08-21 08:39:30
Observation of stability of Gaussian beams and off-axis beam-cleaning in graded-index media
Varun Sharma, Nicholas Bender, Henry Haig, Myungjoon Kim, Demetrios N. Christodoulides, Frank W Wise
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14193
@scott@carfree.city2025-07-20 22:20:42
49 bus on Mission full of people held up by single Waymo double-parking to drop off one person. Sign the petition to stop Daniel Lurie from bringing this "innovation" to Market Street: https://keepmarketstmoving.org/sign-the-petition
@arXiv_condmatsoft_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-23 10:29:40
Measuring Cyclic Tensile Properties of Fluids with Composite Harmonic Exponential Waveforms (CHEW)
L. A. Kroo, R. A. Nicholson, M. W Boehm, S. K. Baier, P. A. Underhill, G. H. McKinley
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16747
@mariyadelano@hachyderm.io2025-08-14 15:01:03
I’m so proud of my little brother.
I just spoke to him in his dorm room at a top 30 college here in the US, he just arrived for freshman orientation.
He got in on a full ride - tuition, housing, food, books, travel, stipend for daily expenses. Won a competitive scholarship to do so.
More than that, he’s had a tougher road than most to get there:
- he had to suddenly move away from Manila, Philippines (where he grew up) in middle school because of COVID restrictions that didn’t let kids go outside (2020)
- then, just as he adjusted to school and a different language in our home country, Ukraine, Russia invaded (2022)
- he stayed in Greece for a month while I was calling our congressional representative here in NY and negotiating with the US embassy to get them a visa ASAP to enter the US and be with me and my husband. There were no paths for Ukrainian refugees yet, we just wanted them with us temporarily for a few months to figure out what options they even had next.
- he had to wait, not going to school, with no clue where they’d move next, until TPS became available to Ukrainians and they got to stay here in the US
- then he had to continue high school in yet another system, yet another country, amidst news of bombings and destruction back home
- my mother wasn’t allowed to work for months while their documents were pending, so we had to raise money with a public GoFundMe campaign and my husband and I maxed out our credit cards to help them get by
- they shared a one-room cottage for the first year, graciously hosted for free by an elderly local couple
- he saw a therapist who also graciously took him in for free while they didn’t have insurance
- he had to graduate high school amidst news of other immigrant students getting arrested, detained, and deported at their own graduations around the country
- he wasn’t sure if he would even make it to college as this administration publicly considered canceling TPS for Ukrainians and cutting off their pathway to maintaining legal status.
We don’t know what tomorrow holds. But he’s there. He’s on campus. He got to go to college.
I love him so much.
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2025-07-22 18:11:39
Matthew Stafford will begin Rams training camp working on the side https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6509153/2025/07/22/matthew-stafford-rams-injury-update-camp/
@arXiv_physicsplasmph_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-23 08:43:02
Efficient dataset construction using active learning and uncertainty-aware neural networks for plasma turbulent transport surrogate models
Aaron Ho (MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Cambridge, USA), Lorenzo Zanisi (UKAEA Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, Abingdon, UK), Bram de Leeuw (Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands), Vincent Galvan (MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Cambridge, USA), Pablo Rodriguez-Fernandez (MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Cambridge, USA), Nath…
@timbray@cosocial.ca2025-08-18 20:37:32
How about having a new /.aibots.txt (or maybe just /.ai.txt)?
All AI-focused crawlers expected to read it.
Start off with the exact same syntax as /.robots.txt - then there’s scope for adding genAI-specific stuff like iP claims and optimized paths and so on.
#genAI
@rasterweb@mastodon.social2025-08-16 14:39:12
I went for a ride, and 5 miles in the chain sort of got "stuck"... it didn't come off, but I had to pedal backwards a few seconds and then forwards, and it seemed to be okay again...
But then it started shifting on its own as I kept riding. It's always been a poor shifter, sometimes it can be difficult to get it to change gears, and sometimes it changes gears on its own...
@jtk@infosec.exchange2025-08-20 18:50:39
#NANOG staff are collecting stories about first meeting experiences. I'm not sure they'll use mine so I'll share it here in case anyone finds it amusing.
In earlier days there was a lot of good discussion on the list, but I felt it could be very intimidating. People could be merciless in critiquing what you said or proposed. Some came off very aggressive and not-to-be-messed-w…
@sauer_lauwarm@mastodon.social2025-08-12 19:34:33
@arXiv_csNI_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-21 08:49:40
On the Trade-Off Between Sum-Rate and Energy Efficiency through the Convergence of HAPS and Active RIS Technologies
Bilal Karaman, Ilhan Basturk, Ferdi Kara, Metin Ozturk, Sezai Taskin, Halil Yanikomeroglu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.13889
@arXiv_astrophIM_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-23 09:11:32
The SST-1M stereoscopic system
C. Alispach, A. Araudo, M. Balbo, V. Beshley, J. Bla\v{z}ek, J. Borkowski, S. Boula, T. Bulik, F. Cadoux, S. Casanova, A. Christov, J. Chudoba, L. Chytka, P. \v{C}echvala, P. D\v{e}dic, D. della Volpe, Y. Favre, M. Garczarczyk, L. Gibaud, T. Gieras, E. G{\l}owacki, P. Hamal, M. Heller, M. Hrabovsk\'y, P. Jane\v{c}ek, M. Jel\'inek, V. J\'ilek, J. Jury\v{s}ek, V. Karas, B. Lacave, E. Lyard, E. Mach, D. Mand\'at, W. Marek, S. Michal, J. Micha…
@arXiv_condmatmtrlsci_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-06-23 10:29:50
High-speed quantitative nanomechanical mapping by photothermal off-resonance atomic force microscopy
Hans Gunstheimer, Gotthold Fl\"aschner, Jonathan D. Adams, Hendrik H\"olscher, Bart W. Hoogenboom
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16226
@hex@kolektiva.social2025-07-21 01:50:28
Epstein shit and adjacent, Rural America, Poverty, Abuse
Everyone who's not a pedophile thinks pedophiles are bad, but there's this special obsessed hatred you'll find among poor rural Americans. The whole QAnon/Epstein obsession may not really make sense to folks raised in cities. Like, why do these people think *so much* about pedophiles? Why do they think that everyone in power is a pedophile? Why would the Pizzagate thing make sense to anyone? What is this unhinged shit? A lot of folks (who aren't anarchists) might be inclined to ask "why can't these people just let the cops take care of it?"
I was watching Legal Eagle's run down on the Trump Epstein thing earlier today and I woke up thinking about something I don't know if I've ever talked about. Now that I'm not in the US, I'm not at any risk of talking about it. I don't know how much I would have been before, but that's not something I'm gonna dig into right now. So let me tell you a story that might explain a few things.
I'm like 16, maybe 17. I have my license, so this girl I was dating/not dating/just friends with/whatever would regularly convince me to drive her and her friends around. I think she's like 15 at the time. Her friends are younger than her.
She tells me that there's a party we can go to where they have beer. She was told to invite her friends, so I can come too. We're going to pick her friends up (we regularly fill the VW Golf well beyond the legal limit and drive places) and head to the party.
So I take these girls, at least is 13 years old, down to this party. I'm already a bit sketched out bringing a 13 year old to a party. We drive out for a while. It's in the country. We drive down a long dark road. Three are some barrel fires and a shack. This is all a bit strange, but not too abnormal for this area. We're a little ways outside of a place called Mill City (in Oregon).
We park and walk towards the shack. This dude who looks like a rat comes up and offers us beer. He laughs and talks to the girl who invited me, "What's he doing here? You're supposed to bring your girl friends." She's like, "He's our ride." I don't remember if he offered me a beer or not.
We go over to this shed and everyone starts smoking, except me because I didn't smoke until I turned 18. The other girls start talking about the rat face dude, who's wandered over by the fire with some other guys. They're mainly teasing one of the 13 year old girls about having sex with him a bunch of times. They say he's like, 32 or something. The other girls joke about him only having sex with 13 year olds because he's too ugly to have sex with anyone closer to his own age.
Somewhere along the line it comes out that he's a cop. I never forgot that, it's absolutely seared in to my memory. I can picture his face perfectly still, decades later, and them talking about how he's a deputy, he was in his 30's, and he was having sex with a 13 year old girl. I was the only boy there, but there were a few older men. This was a chunk of the good ol' boys club of the town. I think there were a couple of cops besides the one deputy, and a judge or the mayor or some kind of big local VIP.
I kept trying to get my friend to leave, but she wanted to stay. Turns out under age drinking with cops seems like a great deal if you're a kid because you know you won't get busted. I left alone, creeped the fuck out.
I was told later that I wasn't invited and that I couldn't talk about it, I've always been good at compartmentalization, so I never did.
Decades later it occurred to me what was actually happening. I'm pretty sure that cop was giving meth he'd seized as evidence to these kids. This wasn't some one-off thing. It was regular. Who knows how many decades it went on after I left, or how many decades it had been going on before I found out. I knew this type of thing had happened at least a few times before because that's how that 13 year old girl and that 32 year old cop had hooked up in the first place.
Hearing about Epstein's MO, targeting these teenage girls from fucked up backgrounds, it's right there for me. I wouldn't be surprised if they were involved in sex trafficking of minors or some shit like that... but who would you call if you found out? Half the sheriff's department was there and the other half would cover for them.
You live in the city and shit like that doesn't happen, or at least you don't think it happens. But rural poor folks have this intuition about power and abuse. It's right there and you know it.
Trump is such a familiar character for me, because he's exactly that small town mayor or sheriff. He'll will talk about being tough on crime and hunting down pedophiles, while hanging out at a party that exists so people can fuck 8th graders.
The problem with the whole thing is that rural folks will never break the cognitive dissonance between "kill the peods" and "back the blue." They'll never go kill those cops. No, the pedos must be somewhere else. It must be the elites. It must be outsiders. It can't be the cops and good ol' boys everyone respects. It can't be the mayor who rigs the election to win every time. It can't be the "good upstanding" sheriff. Nah, it's the Clintons.
To be fair, it's probably also the Clitnons, a bunch of other politicians, billionaires, etc. Epstein was exactly who everyone thought he was, and he didn't get away with it for so long without a whole lot of really powerful help.
There are still powerful people who got away with involvement with #Epstein. #Trump is one of them, but I don't really believe that he's the only one.
#USPol #ACAB
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2025-06-23 08:50:40
The music industry is developing tools to detect AI-generated music across the music pipeline, with a focus on licensing and control rather than takedowns (Jack Buehrer/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-int
@berlinbuzzwords@floss.social2025-08-21 11:00:04
At this year's Berlin Buzzwords, Justin Mclean addressed common misconceptions, common compliance issues, and the evolution of policies to mitigate these challenges, and shared practical insights to ensure smoother project releases and foster a compliant, collaborative open source community.
Watch the full session: https://youtu.be/7u8Rn5cpQsY?si=TMmcTO031-TFyjEB
Berlin Buzzwords returns on 7-9 June 2026! Get 36% off with our Trust Us Ticket: https://tickets.plainschwarz.com/bbuzz26/c/8Hvk0ZvJA/
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2025-07-19 18:12:19
Ice Cube Sounds Off About the Raiders https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/ice-cube-sounds-off-on-las-vegas-raiders-pete-carroll
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-08-18 23:35:45
Nvidia debuts the Nemotron-Nano-9B-v2, a hybrid Mamba-transformer model, saying it achieves scores comparable to or better than Qwen3-8B on reasoning benchmarks (Carl Franzen/VentureBeat)
https://venturebeat.com/ai/nvidia-rele
@wraithe@mastodon.social2025-06-19 14:31:29
Since “Get Your War On” (the post 9/11 webcomic) came up as a subject on BlueSky, I’ve also been zipping through the old comics and JFC…”Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes”
http://www.mnftiu.cc/2001/11/08/war4-4/
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2025-08-21 16:46:40
Cowboys Make Major Announcement About Legend as Training Camp Wraps Up https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/darren-woodson-tom-landry-award/?adt_ei=[email]
@pre@boing.world2025-06-02 20:28:08
Content warning: re: Doctor Who - Reality War
Confusing episode. Let me clear it all up.
The world is sinking into the doubt needed to rescue Omega, remember, and The Doctor is falling with a balcony that's separated from the building.
How does he get out of that?
Well, saved by a literal magic door that pops out of nowhere, leading back to the time hotel. 🤨
Anita, who he spent a year with once a couple of Christmases ago, has been popping around the Doctor's entire long life, peeping on him with the Daleks and stuff. Trying to find him on the Earth's last day. Today.
And now he's rescued, today turns into a groundhog day. Same day over and over again. 😆
There's another woman that's been stalking him through time lately, Mrs Flood. She was following him everywhere, but she had Xmas off she reckons, so didn't see the Time Hotel bit. Thus the element of surprise in the deus ex machina rescue. 😀
The Doctor is broken free of the wish spell now anyway, popped his conditioning, and can use the time hotel's door to recall Unit and break them all out of the wish too.
The Rani pops in to say hi and explain her plans. 😝
How did the Rani survive the end of the Timelords? She flipped her DNA to sidestep the genetic bomb apparently? Well that makes no sense, but nor does anything else so no time to ponder.
The end of the Time Lords made them all Barons... No, made them barren. There can be no more children of the time-lords.
She's popping Omega back out of the underworld for his DNA because the timelords are all barren and she wants to recreate Galifrey.
But wait a minute: Poppy is the Doctor's kid in wish world! So she should have Timelord DNA too! Maybe that could work?
No. The Rani is a nazi, don't like the kid's contaminated blood. She's got human all over her DNA. Eww.
Rani pops off back to her Bone Palace, and makes the bone beasts attack.
The Doctor explains that the Giant dinosaur skeletons are beasts that pop in to clean up the world when there's a reality flux, and the Rani has turned them on Unit HQ.
So the UNIT HQ turns into some kinda ship? Like the Crimson Permanent Insurance. Lol. It's blasting lasers at the bone beasts and turning around, and has a steering wheel like pirate ship now. 🤣
During the battle, the Doctor pops out to take a ride on the sky-bike, looking like something from Flash Gordon, and crashes into the Bone Palace.
Too late though! Omega is pretty much here now. He's a giant boney CGI zombie, become his own legend. Looks great but doesn't really seem like Omega, who ought to be held together by pure will.
Omega eats the Rani! One of the Ranis anyway. Mrs Flood avoids being eaten. She pops off with the time bracelet. "So much for the Two Rani's. It's a goodnight from me!" as she disappears off into time. Great gag. 😁
The Doctor just shoots Omega to get him back into his box. Pops a rifle off the wall. The Vindicator has apparently also got a built in laser as well as locator beacons. So that's handy. The Doctor doesn't use guns but some of his devices work like one. 🔫
So all is well! The day is saved and the wish is over and baby Poppy survives in a time box! 🍻
They're going to take the space baby off to do space adventures. Ruby is jealous of seeing The Doctor and Belinda vibing like that, as they plan a life in space with the space baby. Aww. Poor Ruby. 😭
But then Poppy pops off! Disappears entirely, and everyone other than Ruby forgets. Ruby remembers because she's disappeared from time herself in the past they say.
Okay: to save his child and on Ruby's word alone, the Doctor will sacrifice himself to turn reality one degree.
He goes off to commit suicide by Regeneration, but Thirteen is here! She's popped out of her timeline to stop him! Or maybe to help, with a motivational chat instead. Gives him a pep talk then pops back off again.
The Doctor zaps reality with his Tardis, dying but holding off on the actual regeneration for a few moments to go check on the kid.
The kid is safe! But isn't his own kid any more. Poppy has popped all her Timelord DNA and is just all human now. Poppy's pop isn't the doc, it's someone called Richie.
And Belinda has been so keen to get home all this time in order to get back to her Baby! Who isn't a timelord, and definitely didn't exist until she was wished into being.
This may not be the most ethical action The Doctor has ever taken: To bend the whole universe in order to recreate a baby that was accidentally wished into being out of nothing. Twisting time to give a child to a nurse who didn't previously have a child, or even remember the wish. Then it's not even the same child that disappeared, coz this one is all human. 🤷
But the doc is popping off to regenerate with Joy in the stars, and... Turns blonde: "oh. Hello?" 🤯
It's Rose! Billie Piper is back? Fantastic!
Is Rose doing a David Tennant Impression there?
Billie playing the Doctor, doing a Tennant impression as Bad Wolf? Amazing. Can't wait.
#doctorWho
@aral@mastodon.ar.al2025-08-16 08:12:07
Yeah, I knew some lovely people who worked at Twitter too. And did you know they once had unfettered API access and anyone could create their own client? Some of us loved that so much we built things that helped legitimise them as an open platform. And then one day they just switched that off.
Legitimacy is gold to venture-capital-funded startups. They need people with it to convince everyday folks that this latest iteration of the same old rug pull is different. Until they’ve grown s…
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-08-04 15:49:00
Should we teach vibe coding? Here's why not.
Should AI coding be taught in undergrad CS education?
1/2
I teach undergraduate computer science labs, including for intro and more-advanced core courses. I don't publish (non-negligible) scholarly work in the area, but I've got years of craft expertise in course design, and I do follow the academic literature to some degree. In other words, In not the world's leading expert, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about course design, and consider myself competent at it, with plenty of direct experience in what knowledge & skills I can expect from students as they move through the curriculum.
I'm also strongly against most uses of what's called "AI" these days (specifically, generative deep neutral networks as supplied by our current cadre of techbro). There are a surprising number of completely orthogonal reasons to oppose the use of these systems, and a very limited number of reasonable exceptions (overcoming accessibility barriers is an example). On the grounds of environmental and digital-commons-pollution costs alone, using specifically the largest/newest models is unethical in most cases.
But as any good teacher should, I constantly question these evaluations, because I worry about the impact on my students should I eschew teaching relevant tech for bad reasons (and even for his reasons). I also want to make my reasoning clear to students, who should absolutely question me on this. That inspired me to ask a simple question: ignoring for one moment the ethical objections (which we shouldn't, of course; they're very stark), at what level in the CS major could I expect to teach a course about programming with AI assistance, and expect students to succeed at a more technically demanding final project than a course at the same level where students were banned from using AI? In other words, at what level would I expect students to actually benefit from AI coding "assistance?"
To be clear, I'm assuming that students aren't using AI in other aspects of coursework: the topic of using AI to "help you study" is a separate one (TL;DR it's gross value is not negative, but it's mostly not worth the harm to your metacognitive abilities, which AI-induced changes to the digital commons are making more important than ever).
So what's my answer to this question?
If I'm being incredibly optimistic, senior year. Slightly less optimistic, second year of a masters program. Realistic? Maybe never.
The interesting bit for you-the-reader is: why is this my answer? (Especially given that students would probably self-report significant gains at lower levels.) To start with, [this paper where experienced developers thought that AI assistance sped up their work on real tasks when in fact it slowed it down] (https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09089) is informative. There are a lot of differences in task between experienced devs solving real bugs and students working on a class project, but it's important to understand that we shouldn't have a baseline expectation that AI coding "assistants" will speed things up in the best of circumstances, and we shouldn't trust self-reports of productivity (or the AI hype machine in general).
Now we might imagine that coding assistants will be better at helping with a student project than at helping with fixing bugs in open-source software, since it's a much easier task. For many programming assignments that have a fixed answer, we know that many AI assistants can just spit out a solution based on prompting them with the problem description (there's another elephant in the room here to do with learning outcomes regardless of project success, but we'll ignore this over too, my focus here is on project complexity reach, not learning outcomes). My question is about more open-ended projects, not assignments with an expected answer. Here's a second study (by one of my colleagues) about novices using AI assistance for programming tasks. It showcases how difficult it is to use AI tools well, and some of these stumbling blocks that novices in particular face.
But what about intermediate students? Might there be some level where the AI is helpful because the task is still relatively simple and the students are good enough to handle it? The problem with this is that as task complexity increases, so does the likelihood of the AI generating (or copying) code that uses more complex constructs which a student doesn't understand. Let's say I have second year students writing interactive websites with JavaScript. Without a lot of care that those students don't know how to deploy, the AI is likely to suggest code that depends on several different frameworks, from React to JQuery, without actually setting up or including those frameworks, and of course three students would be way out of their depth trying to do that. This is a general problem: each programming class carefully limits the specific code frameworks and constructs it expects students to know based on the material it covers. There is no feasible way to limit an AI assistant to a fixed set of constructs or frameworks, using current designs. There are alternate designs where this would be possible (like AI search through adaptation from a controlled library of snippets) but those would be entirely different tools.
So what happens on a sizeable class project where the AI has dropped in buggy code, especially if it uses code constructs the students don't understand? Best case, they understand that they don't understand and re-prompt, or ask for help from an instructor or TA quickly who helps them get rid of the stuff they don't understand and re-prompt or manually add stuff they do. Average case: they waste several hours and/or sweep the bugs partly under the rug, resulting in a project with significant defects. Students in their second and even third years of a CS major still have a lot to learn about debugging, and usually have significant gaps in their knowledge of even their most comfortable programming language. I do think regardless of AI we as teachers need to get better at teaching debugging skills, but the knowledge gaps are inevitable because there's just too much to know. In Python, for example, the LLM is going to spit out yields, async functions, try/finally, maybe even something like a while/else, or with recent training data, the walrus operator. I can't expect even a fraction of 3rd year students who have worked with Python since their first year to know about all these things, and based on how students approach projects where they have studied all the relevant constructs but have forgotten some, I'm not optimistic seeing these things will magically become learning opportunities. Student projects are better off working with a limited subset of full programming languages that the students have actually learned, and using AI coding assistants as currently designed makes this impossible. Beyond that, even when the "assistant" just introduces bugs using syntax the students understand, even through their 4th year many students struggle to understand the operation of moderately complex code they've written themselves, let alone written by someone else. Having access to an AI that will confidently offer incorrect explanations for bugs will make this worse.
To be sure a small minority of students will be able to overcome these problems, but that minority is the group that has a good grasp of the fundamentals and has broadened their knowledge through self-study, which earlier AI-reliant classes would make less likely to happen. In any case, I care about the average student, since we already have plenty of stuff about our institutions that makes life easier for a favored few while being worse for the average student (note that our construction of that favored few as the "good" students is a large part of this problem).
To summarize: because AI assistants introduce excess code complexity and difficult-to-debug bugs, they'll slow down rather than speed up project progress for the average student on moderately complex projects. On a fixed deadline, they'll result in worse projects, or necessitate less ambitious project scoping to ensure adequate completion, and I expect this remains broadly true through 4-6 years of study in most programs (don't take this as an endorsement of AI "assistants" for masters students; we've ignored a lot of other problems along the way).
There's a related problem: solving open-ended project assignments well ultimately depends on deeply understanding the problem, and AI "assistants" allow students to put a lot of code in their file without spending much time thinking about the problem or building an understanding of it. This is awful for learning outcomes, but also bad for project success. Getting students to see the value of thinking deeply about a problem is a thorny pedagogical puzzle at the best of times, and allowing the use of AI "assistants" makes the problem much much worse. This is another area I hope to see (or even drive) pedagogical improvement in, for what it's worth.
1/2
@philip@mastodon.mallegolhansen.com2025-08-21 04:32:06
I look forward to 6-18 months from now when the novelty wears off, and I can just pop in for a quick burger on my lunch.
@arXiv_csAI_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-08-20 09:17:40
HiFo-Prompt: Prompting with Hindsight and Foresight for LLM-based Automatic Heuristic Design
Chentong Chen, Mengyuan Zhong, Jianyong Sun, Ye Fan, Jialong Shi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13333
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2025-08-22 01:45:47
Giants QB Jaxson Dart caps impressive preseason with third touchdown pass in as many appearances https://www.nfl.com/news/giants-qb-jaxson-dart-caps-impressive-preseason-with-third-touchdown-pass-in-as-many-appearances
@mlawton@mstdn.social2025-08-20 15:56:56
Yesterday we got the boy off to college & sorted his dorm room. We all left behind letters for him. A less emotional excerpt of mine:
"It will take me some time to get accustomed to not looking to see if the light is on under your door each night, to buying fewer apples each week, to stealing a glance across the table with a wink and a smile as I prepare to say something ridiculous to your mom."
Proud & happy for him to start this grand new adventure. House feel…
@cdarwin@c.im2025-06-19 18:23:40
There are far more ways for an air strike on Iran to go wrong than for it to go the way it is being sold to Trump.
The illegal attack launched by Israel against Iran already set off a war that raises the stakes -- and brings the U.S. increasingly closer to getting directly involved -- even if it doesn’t strike.
But if it does strike, it sets off a series of consequences that likely lead to a long, drawn-out commitment with no clear exit strategy, again.
An American strike…
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2025-08-21 12:39:25
The best picks for each draft slot in Rounds 1 and 2 in 10-team leagues https://www.espn.com/fantasy/football/story/_/id/46021173/2025-fantasy-football-draft-best-picks-draft-slot-10-team
@cdarwin@c.im2025-08-19 14:34:02
Europe’s Leaders Avoided A Giveaway to Putin, but Emerged Without a Clear Path
The leaders dropped everything to travel to Washington
to ensure President Trump didn’t force a bad deal on Ukraine.
A road map for peace remains elusive.
The seven European leaders put forward a show of support for Mr. Zelensky and unity with each other.
They won a potentially vital, if vague, expression of support from Trump for postwar security guarantees for Ukraine
and sid…
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-07-04 20:14:31
Long; central Massachusetts colonial history
Today on a whim I visited a site in Massachusetts marked as "Huguenot Fort Ruins" on OpenStreetMaps. I drove out with my 4-year-old through increasingly rural central Massachusetts forests & fields to end up on a narrow street near the top of a hill beside a small field. The neighboring houses had huge lawns, some with tractors.
Appropriately for this day and this moment in history, the history of the site turns out to be a microcosm of America. Across the field beyond a cross-shaped stone memorial stood an info board with a few diagrams and some text. The text of the main sign (including typos/misspellings) read:
"""
Town Is Formed
Early in the 1680's, interest began to generate to develop a town in the area west of Natick in the south central part of the Commonwealth that would be suitable for a settlement. A Mr. Hugh Campbell, a Scotch merchant of Boston petitioned the court for land for a colony. At about the same time, Joseph Dudley and William Stoughton also were desirous of obtaining land for a settlement. A claim was made for all lands west of the Blackstone River to the southern land of Massachusetts to a point northerly of the Springfield Road then running southwesterly until it joined the southern line of Massachusetts.
Associated with Dudley and Stoughton was Robert Thompson of London, England, Dr. Daniel Cox and John Blackwell, both of London and Thomas Freak of Hannington, Wiltshire, as proprietors. A stipulation in the acquisition of this land being that within four years thirty families and an orthodox minister settle in the area. An extension of this stipulation was granted at the end of the four years when no group large enough seemed to be willing to take up the opportunity.
In 1686, Robert Thompson met Gabriel Bernor and learned that he was seeking an area where his countrymen, who had fled their native France because of the Edict of Nantes, were desirous of a place to live. Their main concern was to settle in a place that would allow them freedom of worship. New Oxford, as it was the so-named, at that time included the larger part of Charlton, one-fourth of Auburn, one-fifth of Dudley and several square miles of the northeast portion of Southbridge as well as the easterly ares now known as Webster.
Joseph Dudley's assessment that the area was capable of a good settlement probably was based on the idea of the meadows already established along with the plains, ponds, brooks and rivers. Meadows were a necessity as they provided hay for animal feed and other uses by the settlers. The French River tributary books and streams provided a good source for fishing and hunting. There were open areas on the plains as customarily in November of each year, the Indians burnt over areas to keep them free of underwood and brush. It appeared then that this area was ready for settling.
The first seventy-five years of the settling of the Town of Oxford originally known as Manchaug, embraced three different cultures. The Indians were known to be here about 1656 when the Missionary, John Eliott and his partner Daniel Gookin visited in the praying towns. Thirty years later, in 1686, the Huguenots walked here from Boston under the guidance of their leader Isaac Bertrand DuTuffeau. The Huguenot's that arrived were not peasants, but were acknowledged to be the best Agriculturist, Wine Growers, Merchant's, and Manufacter's in France. There were 30 families consisting of 52 people. At the time of their first departure (10 years), due to Indian insurrection, there were 80 people in the group, and near their Meetinghouse/Church was a Cemetery that held 20 bodies. In 1699, 8 to 10 familie's made a second attempt to re-settle, failing after only four years, with the village being completely abandoned in 1704.
The English colonist made their way here in 1713 and established what has become a permanent settlement.
"""
All that was left of the fort was a crumbling stone wall that would have been the base of a higher wooden wall according to a picture of a model (I didn't think to get a shot of that myself). Only trees and brush remain where the multi-story main wooden building was.
This story has so many echoes in the present:
- The rich colonialists from Boston & London agree to settle the land, buying/taking land "rights" from the colonial British court that claimed jurisdiction without actually having control of the land. Whether the sponsors ever actually visited the land themselves I don't know. They surely profited somehow, whether from selling on the land rights later or collecting taxes/rent or whatever, by they needed poor laborers to actually do the work of developing the land (& driving out the original inhabitants, who had no say in the machinations of the Boston court).
- The land deal was on condition that there capital-holders who stood to profit would find settlers to actually do the work of colonizing. The British crown wanted more territory to be controlled in practice not just in theory, but they weren't going to be the ones to do the hard work.
- The capital-holders actually failed to find enough poor suckers to do their dirty work for 4 years, until the Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution in France, were desperate enough to accept their terms.
- Of course, the land was only so ripe for settlement because of careful tending over centuries by the natives who were eventually driven off, and whose land management practices are abandoned today. Given the mention of praying towns (& dates), this was after King Phillip's war, which resulted in at least some forced resettlement of native tribes around the area, but the descendants of those "Indians" mentioned in this sign are still around. For example, this is the site of one local band of Nipmuck, whose namesake lake is about 5 miles south of the fort site: #LandBack.
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-06-18 10:02:00
Hands-on with Apple's new Speech framework components in the macOS Tahoe beta: the APIs deliver transcription speeds significantly faster than OpenAI's Whisper (John Voorhees/MacStories)
https://www.macstories.net/stories/hands-o…
@cdarwin@c.im2025-06-19 20:07:45
Trump has suggested to defense officials it would make sense for the US to launch strikes against Iran
-- only if the so-called “bunker buster” bomb was guaranteed to destroy the critical uranium enrichment facility at Fordow.
Trump was told that dropping the GBU-57s,
a 13.6-tonne (30,000lb) bomb
would effectively eliminate Fordow
but he does not appear to be fully convinced,
and has held off authorizing strikes as he also awaits the possibility that the t…
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2025-08-20 22:06:28
Myles Garrett wants to keep the focus on the Browns amid speeding ticket questions https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6565898/2025/08/20/myles-garrett-speeding-ticket-browns/
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-07-15 19:41:03
Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and CLI Codex, terminal-based AI tools launched since February, have surprisingly gained ground on AI code editors with traditional UIs (Russell Brandom/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/ai-coding-tools-a…
@cdarwin@c.im2025-08-17 04:16:37
Smash-and-grab thieves in Seattle made off with an estimated $2m in diamonds, luxury watches, gold and other items in a daring midday jewelry store robbery that took just about 90 seconds, police said on Friday.
Video from the west Seattle store’s surveillance cameras shows four masked suspects shattering the locked glass front door with hammers and then ransacking six display cases on Thursday.
One display held about $750,000 worth in Rolex watches, police said in a statement, and…