The highlights. ML can only be used where "its OK to be wrong", which usually means "its OK to be a little more wrong to be a LOT cheaper", which is the edge. Oh, and LLMs are very niche as they can't be used with "untrusted input + do bad thing". There is no market for the GW datacenters.

In space, no one can hear you violate copyright. https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalable-ai-infrastructure-system-design/ #ai #copyright #space

Finally, knowing a thing or two about #quantum #physics allows me to earn some bragging rights on the internet... #pastpuzzle en-168 🟩🟩🟩🟩 (0) ▪️▪️▪️▪️ ▪️▪️▪️▪️ ▪️▪️▪️▪️ 1/4 🥇 https://www.pastpuzzle.de

Given the drama surrounding the arXiv for its dependence on Google and its recent ban on review articles in computer science, I have a question: Do we still need the arXiv? Wouldn't a federated network of institutional repositories be a much better option? #arxiv #academicchatter #physics […]

The privacy implications of the new Verification of Payee scheme (mandatory since October for SEPA transfers) are ... interesting. I've been able to obtain the name of the second holder of a bank account without even knowing that there was a second person. #privacy #banking #sepa #eu #gdpr

Killer quote: “I’m going back to the Fediverse. Back to Mastodon. To the nerds, the hobbyists, the idealists. The people who don’t talk about reach, but about relevance. To those who understand that decentralization isn’t nostalgic, it’s the future. That digital sovereignty isn’t a gimmick […]

Large language models are quite useful to perform searches through the literature, so you have a good point to start. So, this is what I just got asking ChatGPT for references for the numerical calculation of the replica correlation lengths in topologically ordered systems: 1. Pizorn & […]

If you rely on a for-profit supplier, you should be required to carry the transaction costs to switch away from them as a form of debt in your books. Because the financing cost of this debt is what your supplier is eventually going to charge you. Allowing to hide this debt is creating some of […]

"We've created a perfect storm: tools that amplify incompetence, used by developers who can't evaluate the output, reviewed by managers who trust the machine more than their people." https://techtrenches.substack.com/p/the-great-software-quality-collapse #vibecoding #ai #softwarequality

The option price betting that Nvidia's shares will crash below $40 (it's above $180 right now) by December 2027 went up by almost 50% last month, despite the underlying stock gaining over that time period. Looks like some people have started to run for the exit. #ai #nvidia #business #economy

TIL: apparently one of the main technical hurdles for universities to run their own #mastodon instances is to make the instance work with the institution's SSO (most often Shibboleth). It seems there would be a huge opportunity to facilitate the entrance of such major multiplicators into the […]

@dangillmor As Cory Doctorow repeatedly points out, apps are just websites wrapped in DRM. What about if we just start building websites again? It could be the future.

Large language models are essentially solutions to nonlinear optimization problems to predict the next token in the output text. Mathematically, these problems are quite similar to problems we routinely face in physics, like finding the ground state of a quantum system. In these physics […]

It is good IT Security practice to separate data from code. For example, an SQL Injection attack is to get the target to treat data (entered into a form) as code, that is break that barrier. Now take an "AI agent" doing a task for you like: "Download that podcast that Frank emailed me about" […]

Corporate fraudsters love AI because LLMs will fake it if necessary. For a while, company figures will look fine, and when the house of cards collapses, nobody will have to go to jail. Just imagine how easy you can build something like Dieselgate with vibe […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Sorry @brembs, but Open Research Europe is a recipe for disaster. It's centered around the idea of big publishing, i,e., there is one huge contract awarded to a big player who runs the entire platform. Currently, it's Taylor & Francis, but if that changes to one of the other big ones, it will […]

Q: What is the largest number that has been factorized using Shor's algorithm on a quantum computer? A: No number has ever been factorized using Shor's algorithm on a quantum computer. Even for factorizing 15, the smallest possible number, the modular exponentiation part of Shor's algorithm […]

The Ising model in a transverse field is one of the most fundamental models in quantum many-body physics. Despite being around for more than 60 years, we still make new discoveries in it. In our latest work, we show the existence of a dynamical phase […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

We've recently moved to @OpenSlides for our internal decision-making processes and it is awesome! #academicchatter

@brembs "ORE is implemented until 2026 through an EC public procurement contract with the publisher and publishing service provider F1000 Research Ltd., part of the Taylor & Francis publishing companies." Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Anyons are quasiparticles that differ from the familiar fermions and boson. Scientists led by Hanns-Christoph Nägerl have observed anyons in a one-dimensional quantum system for the first time. The results, published in Nature, may contribute to a better […] [Original post on social.uibk.ac.at]

What's going on when some universities jump more than 950% in one year on metrics used in #university #rankings? Are they gaming the metrics? https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.09.653229v1 "Key findings include publication growth of up to 965%, concentrated in STEM fields; surges […]

Great news! While Trump is busy dismantling the Library of Congress, the German National Library of Science and Technology (@tibhannover) is preparing for more to come: they've downloaded the entire 10 TB of the arXiv preprint server and safeguarded more than 2.6 million scientific articles […]

It appears that the rate of breaking backwards compatibility is inversely proportional to the rate of technological progress. https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/i-want-to-love-linux-it-doesnt-love-me-back-post-1-built-for-control-but-not-for-people/ #computing #opensource #linux

This year, we are celebrating 100 years of quantum mechanics. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Data Encryption Standard (DES), the first modern symmetric encryption algorithm in widespread use […]

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

"Three of the four most exploited vulns were zero days, all were in cybersecurity products (Palo-Alto, Ivanti Connect Secure, Ivanti Policy Secure and Fortinet)." https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/114391474274944937

Abrikosov vortices (fluxons) are quantum of magnetic flux (Φ~hc/e) which appear in type-II superconductors (SC) induced by persistent current loops. Fluxons allow magnetic fields to penetrate a type-II SC causing magnetic pinning. 🧪⚛️ #Science #Physics #QuantumMechanics See: doi.org/10.1038/srep...

And it is done 🎉 (although still not that pretty 🙈): Here is the always up-to-date sheet with more than 1000 official accounts by media organizations that you can follow from #mastodon & everywhere else in the #fediverse. ➡️ https://fingolas.eu/fediverse/overview.html There is a powerful […]

Experience the double-slit experiment! In quantum mechanics, its statistical nature already appears if you consider single particles. You cannot predict where the next blip on the detector screen will appear. But after running many identical experiments, you […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Unsure Calculator: calculate with numbers you're not sure about Pretty neat! https://filiph.github.io/unsure/

I have now started two projects, to collect verified accounts by the media that are bridged via #bridgyfed and media in the #fediverse but not on #mastodon, @Threads or #flipboard. But with both, I need help: Please, if you know of accounts, that fit in both categories then send me a handle […]

I'm probably the last person in the world to learn about this, but WebPlotDigitizer is an awesome tool every scientist should know: https://apps.automeris.io/wpd4/ If you're looking at a figure in a paper and want to get back the raw data, that's your go-to resource. #academicchatter #science

It is such a huge irony that the astronomy professor I replaced upon his retirement was known for getting farmers to bring him meteorites. *I* on the other hand, get farmers bringing me space garbage. Not a fair trade (and what a great statement about boomer-millenial relationships).

Given its size, the degree of civility of the discussions in the Fediverse is simply mind-blowing. I have taken part in online discussions for more than 30 years, and I have never seen anything remotely like that. The Fediverse has effectively solved the moderation problem. A big thanks to […]

I am returning from the American Physical Society (APS) Global Summit in Anaheim, California, which billed itself as the largest physics conference in the world. In addition to physics talks, I attended a town hall that was interesting. The society leadership seems to be pretty active in doing […]

Apparently, there is now a trend to pay publishers not once, not twice, but three times: the first time for subscription journals, the second time for publishing in open access journals, and now the third time for making articles in subscription journals available under an open-access license […]

Fun fact: By far, the largest fraction of federated users on Bluesky are actually posting from the fediverse. (In total, about 1% of active Bluesky users are not tied to the central instance. Source: https://blue.mackuba.eu/stats/) #fediverse #bluesky

Adminstration: This is a very difficult calculation... Me: I guess that means I need to grab my copy of Gradshteyn and Ryzhik? #academicchatter #mathematics #physics

The #altmetric service (Holtzbrinck corp.) supposedly tracks online attention to research, used by many journals/universities. They track X and Bsky but ignore the most impactful platform Mastodon: What isn't corporate doesn't exist. Great example of how data are never "neutral".

It is very interesting to see that this post on #standupforscience is gaining much more traction here on Mastodon (where there is no algorithm, just people boosting) than over on LinkedIn (where there is an algorithm). Hard to prove, but I would guess Microsoft decides to downrank any post that […]

#Microsoft has announced that they created topological qubits. The perspective of creating such qubits is one of the main reasons why scientists are interested in topological orders. A topological qubit will be based on the operations of braiding anyons (see my post about anyons here […]

@Lambo @hweimer @yunohost My idea would be, that we, who invest our efforts in Open Science, also promote Fediverse / Mastodon use locally. That would still be a pretty nerdy endeavour. It could, however, spread away from the shadows of the ivory tower over time as students find jobs in the […]

(heavily) inspired by the German petition, I have created one for Australia: www.openpetition.org/au/petition/...

I don't understand the prevalent techno-pessimism. Today, technological empowerment is at the greatest level ever in human history. Our computers can run @debian, our phones can run @GrapheneOS and @fdroidorg, our TVs can run @Kodi, we can turn to @wikipedia for vast troves of human knowledge […]

Anyons in spin liquids To see how anyons can arise in topological orders, one can look again on the simplified picture of the Z2 spin liquid (see the previous post:). Anyons can be created on the top of the spin liquid by altering the singlet pattern […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

This is a rather depressing thread, not because of the negativity & trolling on X, Facebook, &c. — this was expected, but because it demonstrates just how bad the reply guy problem is on @Mastodon. Mastodon has tried technological approaches to tackling the problem in the past and I am still […]