Feeling quite out of love with #compsci today. I've been trying to do good, solid, fundamental work in this field for a quarter century, and getting nothing but sidelined and passed over in favor of flashy trash. #cs #academic

This was my effort to articulate that sentiment back in 2011 -- holds up more than ever, IMO.

This one of many reasons that 21st century liberalism should reorient itself around *places*, namely creating places that are actually pleasant to live in, with generous public spaces that bring people's physical bodies into proximity.

Over 40 years, we were collectively told to give tax cuts to rich people. And we were told that if we did that, wealth would trickle down and everyone would be better off. Over 40 years, pretty much everything got cut to fund these tax cuts. Schools. Hospitals. Public housing. Public […]

In 2011, Aaron Swartz was arrested after he downloaded millions of academic journal articles from JSTOR via the MIT network. He was charged under federal laws (including wire fraud and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) with up to 13 felony counts, carrying the possibility of […]

A NEW study of the Finland basic income experiment just dropped. Turns out psychotropic drug use decreased by 8 %–11 %, and incomes increased on average by 9% to 11% due to people not losing the income when they accepted a job, unlike traditional unemployment. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

https://www.computerworld.com/article/4059383/openai-admits-ai-hallucinations-are-mathematically-inevitable-not-just-engineering-flaws.html Some of us knew about- and have been talking about the relevant impossibility results here all along. What's relevant is what's between the lines here […]

Well, I appear to have gotten to the level of physics where there are open bug reports in the math. Me: "This operator seems to be analytic over there, but definitely not over here..." QFT prof: "Oh it's about to get a whole lot worse!" *Proceeds to show that the energy of the vacuum is […]

The Third Reich didn't last 1,000 years. Pinochet was ousted with a referendum. And the US isn't exactly dealing with the smartest, most competent fascists. Those of you insisting that 2025 is forever need to read a book, touch grass, go to therapy, anything other than trying to make others quit.

You know what's really great? Not getting polio.

This story, about a successful Wall Street trader who quit in middle age to become an FDNY paramedic, spoke to me in so many ways. It inverts the usual EMS career arc - eager kid becomes a paramedic, burns out after a few years, leaves to get a "real" career - and reflects on what it means to […]

Relativity: that's outside your light cone; you can't touch it! Quantum mechanics: I'm already there. #physics

https://floss.social/@fdroidorg/115106011601045051 ⚠️ 𝐅-𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐢𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 (...𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦-𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘫𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘍-𝘋𝘳𝘰𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳...) 👇 https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues […]

Well friends, I'm now starting quantum field theory in two weeks. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I have the impression of it being one for the most difficult classes in any academic department. I think I'm ready, though. Any advice? #physics #academicchatter #academia

Parallel between the dark lords of Tolkien's legendarium (Melkor and Sauron), and all this AI slop sprung into my head. The dark lords wanted more than anything to create life, but couldn't. They could only create mockeries of it, or twist and corrupt what was, so they came to hate it and seek […]

#freebsd crew, has anyone tried installing on a DC-ROMA II laptop? I know it's a StarFive JH110 (https://wiki.freebsd.org/riscv/StarFive) Wondering if anyone's had a success with it. #FreeBSD #oss #opensource

One of my coworkers refers to Open Source as “the most incredible thing humanity has ever accomplished.” When he says that, he’s not making a socioeconomic or political statement, nor is he ignoring technical shortcomings. Rather, he is making an observation about how millions of people have […]

https://www.webpronews.com/linux-breaks-5-desktop-share-in-u-s-signaling-open-source-surge-against-windows-and-macos/ OK now this is exciting news, as one who has lived through a significant portion of the OSS movement.

Observing more & more people with agendas talking about "AI Openness" instead of #OpenSource #ai so they can be vague and not have to commit to delivering actual freedoms. "Open" is an event leading to freedom, not a scale concealing monetisation. Watch out for phrases like "it's open enough" […]

This isn't the first time I've said this and will definitely not be the last time, but... To anyone who pushed anti-electoralism, to anyone who said "they're both the same", to anyone who sat this one out, and especially, to anyone who sanewashed, downplayed, laundered, platformed all this […]

https://futurism.com/commitment-jail-chatgpt-psychosis The implications of this are extremely dire. At the surface, this isn't surprising. The AI singularity cult (and I do mean cult literally) that has arisen in SI valley genuinely believes all these things: that they're creating a […]

I'm not sure exactly what threshold you cross when you order toilets off Amazon (like, the porcelain things you install in a bathroom), but it's definitely a threshold, and I've now crossed it.

all your half-finished projects are still experience that contributes directly to your skills and confidence. the dozen half-finished projects are the seeds of the finished one that you could never have handled a decade ago.

Constellation update: the system is at the point of a bare-minimum end-to-end demo. I can submit a basic request to a peer, have it send to a consensus pool (if needed), then to a processor, then report the result back. The "last mile" of code is janky and has lots of tech-debt to get to this […]

Really enjoyed David Gerard's amusing take on how programming with AI becomes like a gambling addiction for many. "Large language models work the same way as a carnival psychic. Chatbots look smart by the Barnum Effect — which is where you read what’s actually a generic statement about people […]

❝ But I just use AI for boilerplate!" you whimper, clutching your Co-Pilot subscription. Listen to yourself. If you’re writing the same boilerplate every day like some industrial-age cog monkey, automate it yourself. Write a library. Invent a macro. Reclaim some dignity. If AI’s doing your […]

What a potent appetizer: > “AI” is a sinister bubble pumped full of VC-grade helium. The business guys inhaling it — dizzy, cocksure — are pressuring creative workers to take a hit, too. The cartoonish repetition of ungrounded claims starts to resemble that old BuzzFeed video, “People Inhale […]

Apropos of something, there is a certain kind of communication tactic I'll call "Let Them Eat Privilege". (Not my phrase originally) This is tactically deployed- often hastily -by people whose jobs it is to defend status quo and hierarchy against any sort of egalitarianizing shift or movement […]

From #DaveZirin via Facebook: A couple years back, I saw Rage in concert. It was epic. Zack performed the entire show in a wheel chair due to a shattered ankle he experienced on stage during their last tour stop and was incredible, hitting every note from the […] [Original post on mastodon.world]

Some good #earthday news! "The US hit a new record low for fossil fuels in the electricity mix last month as solar and wind reached a record high, according to new data from global energy think tank Ember. In March 2025, fossil fuels accounted for less than 50% (49.2%) of electricity generated […]

Fediverse Report #112 - This week's #fediverse news: - @peertube has published their 2025 roadmap, focusing on improvements for instance administrators this year. The PeerTube app is also coming to tablets and TV users this year - building a blog using Lemmy as the backend - new spam protection […]

Well, thanks to my general relativity class, I think I have some idea how to navigate through a Kerr black hole to its ring singularity. No clue if that would really send me to another universe, but the way things are going, I could be convinced to give it a go. Now, if only I had a very large […]

ITT: thoughts on politics (US-centric) One of the most dangerous and destructive ideas I see manifested in at least US politics is something I call "political eschatology". This is a belief system that describes a predestined, inevitable end of history, brought about through violence, leading […]

Wow, SpaceBar (formlery called "Fosscord") looks a lot like Discord. SpaceBar is an open-source alternative to Discord. https://github.com/spacebarchat #discord #opensource #spacebar #spacebarapp

Hey @Em0nM4stodon, I seem to recall you posting a link to a tool suite called "crypto suite" or something, that purported to be a replacement for Google docs and such. It seems to have fallen off the back of the wagon, and search engines only return cryptocurrency trading stuff. If I'm not […]

Honest to God, anybody who was telling people before the election not to vote for Harris because of Gaza or whatever and who is still defending that can fuck right off into the sun and then fuck off some more. I can't even. What we are experiencing now is the most stark possible illustration of […]

Honestly, would Schumer survive a primary challenge? Let's not forget, AOC bumped out a supposedly "safe" party boss, and there was a lot less anger at the so-called "leadership" in 2018. #uspol #democrats

Semi-final decision about blogging platforms: Probably going with #writefreely. Also still open to #ghost, but it seems more geared toward a full-scale business operation. The key factor for me is LaTeX support, which #plume does not seem to have (let me know if I'm wrong). One major […]

After two decades as a faithful #mozilla user, I will be discontinuing use of #firefox and transitioning to @librewolf as an experimental alternative, possibly adopting it as my permanent solution depending on how it goes. I'll evaluate #thunderbird alternatives after I complete the browser […]

The American Medical Association has a YouTube page, where they are doing daily updates on bird flu, TB, measles and other outbreaks, as the CDC is no longer allowed to do this. https://www.youtube.com/@americanmedicalassociation #measles #COVID #BirdFlu […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I've been involved in the open-source movement in some capacity for almost a quarter century now. In all that time, I've seen a steady stream of assertions about how "open source has failed". We ignored them and we kept building. Here's the thing: in 2003 it was from large, powerful […]

Just a reminder that Germany was the center of scientific progress until the Nazis suppressed, drove away, or killed all the non-Nazi scientists.

Captain America may be super-strong, but even Steve Rogers has to be disciplined, train regularly, and learn how to fight & strategize. Alas, history is riddled with stories of young whippersnappers who think they can skip the boring routines of training & practice and jump right ahead to the […]

Constellation update: I resumed principal development around Christmas. The first effort was some technical debt resolution, to clean up after the mad dash to get it to MOC. Finished that up this morning. This greatly improves some of the main APIs and puts me in a much better place moving […]