RE: https://mastodon.social/@markhurst/116659569010108640 Wow. Great essay! A couple of highlights, but you should go read the whole thing "So, to recap: 1. The pope issues a warning against turning AI into an idol. 2. Silicon Valley techies scoff at the pope, saying that they’re too busy […]

Nairobi’s matatus turn commutes into cultural experiences. Formal systems erase the art and vibe. Great photos in this article. The nganya scene: graffiti, sound systems, and conductor hype... Your mom can take the BRT […]

Remember folks, if you want to properly demonstrate how much you don't like Nazis, you need to let them call the shots. They used a word once? It's their word now, and if you use it then you are one of them. They used a technology once? It's their technology now, and we don't need their filthy […]

"Most popular narratives about science concentrate on the task of extending the collective knowledge base, by making new observations about the world or new theories and models explaining such observations. Maintenance gets a lot less attention. It consists essentially of two processes: training […]

RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@dysfun/116572390536353481 This entire thread is a fascinating dive into some of Dijjstra's views. Thank you @dysfun

"I take full responsibility". Those words actually mean something. They mean that you can send the cosnequences my way. If that falsehood caused a harm then I'm claiming the responsibility to make it right. I will fix it. I will pay the damages. I will take the punishment. So. How can a bot do […]

Brooklyn Mosque, off #Koeberg Road, #capetown #southafrica https://www.deviantart.com/africanobserver/art/1336425967 #photography

NYC needs more funding for after school sports and clubs. Private schools often have a "club coordinator" on staff who helps ensure that there aren't too many or too few clubs, helps keep leadership positions for students evenly distributed. Checks that no student is in too many clubs and going […]

What we could do, vs what we should do: "University of Washington researchers planned to have preschool teachers wear cameras that would record everything they saw from a first-person perspective, including the children they were teaching, then use that footage to develop AI models […]

Briefly hacking at this with some Python code, checking the base 10 values 1 to 50000, the maximum number of steps to cycle is as follows: for base=2, maxSteps=4 for base=3, maxSteps=5 for base=4, maxSteps=8 for base=5, maxSteps=9 for base=6, maxSteps=14 for base=7, maxSteps=14 for base=8 […]

South Africa have won Best Exhibit and gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Again. www.goodthingsguy.com/team-sa-take...

I am staggered by the sheer hugeness of this. The #WelshGovernment has a policy of bilingualism. All meetings include translators, so that speakers of English or Welsh can participate equally. But every member of the Welsh Cabinet is a native speaker of #Cymraeg […] [Original post on mastodon.ie]

Paris has transformed more than 300 streets outside schools into pedestrian-only “garden streets,” replacing traffic and parking with trees, benches and light-coloured paving. Researchers found the redesigned streets were on average 5°C cooler than nearby roads during summer heat. The projects […]

did i do it right? where does the orange one go?

#education #privacy people - does anyone have any experience with or insights into the "RM Ava" platform? https://www.rm.com/assessment/services/end-to-end-digital-assessment I've never heard anything about it, either good or bad, and am curious about it, given that some "proctoring" software […]

Canvas hack is extremely bad, the "biggest student data privacy disaster in history" because it contains billions of messages between students and their professors, which can be extremely sensitive: "There's personal circumstances, medical circumstances, accessibility accommodations, disputes […]

For all the permutations, you're (particularly) appreciated today (cartoon by Mari Andrew)

A key cutting machine in a shop along Koeberg Road. The sparkle of the old keys and filings caught my eye. I'm not sure the photo captures what I thought I saw. #photography #capetown #southafrica #handcraft #workshop https://www.deviantart.com/africanobserver/art/1331141240

@tg Thanks for this. A valuable reminder when things can seem so bleak. "Some things need to become enormous to survive. Other things survive because they never needed to become enormous." I have a protocols section coming up in my A level teaching next week. This is going into the reading […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@oldaily/116539593115890720 "Some things need to become enormous to survive. Other things survive because they never needed to become enormous." #internetisfine

"ShisaNyama" - "Hot Meat" - braaied (sort of barbecued) over hot coals for sale down #Koeberg Road, #capetown #southafrica And since we can see the shop window, this can be a #venstervrydag Original: https://www.deviantart.com/africanobserver/art/1330793716?action=published

A lot of people stop taking notes because they feel like everything has to be neat and organized all the time. But the best notes are usually the quick, messy ones you write before the idea disappears. You can clean things up later. Joplin makes it easy to […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

#Higraph progress! Still got lots to do, but hyperEdges can now be saved & loaded in modified #graphml files. The "model tree" on the left highlights items in the graph on the right. I can see "minimum viable product"! The #hyperedge structure is both […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I have doubts about whether or not change.org petitions actually do anything. But if you need to do something small right now against space mirrors, a DarkSky International member set up a petition here: https://www.change.org/p/stop-space-mirrors

#python community question. What motivated the generally wise and insightful devs to make mutable parameters hold the history of every call? Given: class h(): def __init__(self,x,y=[]): self.instanceY = y self.instanceY.append(x) def __repr__(self): return(f"{self.instanceY}") h1 = h(1) […]

In the hunt for reviewers, an ARC of my #solarpunk novella is now on NetGalley via @SFWA This is the story of a country that decentralizes power, getting rid of presidents, politicians, ministers, and authoritarians. Instead, every citizen actively participates in running the country in a direct […]

Home-made condenser. A colleague couldn't get distilled water at the 2 garages she tried, so she made a plan ... #homelab #nerd

I'm not sure where I found it, but I really enjoyed this documentary about #python, and more particularly, the Python community. The explicit acknowledgement of work to be done to get pyladies going. The implicit inclusion of some neurodiversity, if not other diversities. The willingness - and […]

Ummm... . “We have no precedent to follow. There’s no manual, there’s no video"... maybe talk to Cape Town ? #muricans Climate Scientists Shake Their Heads as First US City Running Completely Out of Water https://futurism.com/science-energy/texas-water-crisis-climate

Reading unpublished empirical research on AI in UK schools from a project I'm involved in, and I'm sorry but anyone who thinks AI is simply improving teaching and learning is just wrong. It is interfering in classroom practices and relationships in complex ways that need documenting then addressing.

@autistics #actuallyautistic i've mentioned before how my workplace is obsessed with “assume positive intent" theory… …and as i was looking through the #randommovietvquotes master list i found this on point quote… Intent stops mattering when you keep doing it. —Lionel Higgins, Dear White People

at a job interview "whats your biggest weakness?" "understanding the semantics of a question but ignoring the pragmatics" "could you give an me an example?" "yes i could"

#higraph update. My wife has been squashing bugs and added an awesome hierarchical view of the blobs (sets). #hyperedges still need work, but this is getting tantalisingly close to a usable tool! #python #pyside6

Only 12 people on Earth saw this 'ring-of-fire' eclipse. Here's how one improvised to capture a once-in-a-lifetime photo from Antarctica. Via @spacedotcom #SkyWatchers 🌃✨🌠 #SolarEclipse #RingOfFire #Astrophysics #OrbitalMechanics #Astronomy 🚀 🌌 ☄️ 🛰️

The first proper wet cold front of the (southern) winter arrived in Cape Town this week. Table Mountain produces some very pretty cloud formations! #photography #capetown #southafrica #sunrise #cityscape The original: https://www.deviantart.com/africanobserver/art/1323099780

Stimm.co.za was founded to stimulate neuroinclusive communities and cultures across workplaces for neurodivergent adults.

Just occurred to me that many Americans may not realize that, to the rest of the world, "cowboy" is an insult. When a contractor looks at your roof or plumbing and whistles and says "looks like you had some real cowboys working here" they are insulting not just the workmanship but your own […]

Storm Trooper's laundry? #starwars

also I love how the How DNS Works table of contents sort of explains how DNS works a little bit

#Russia invented a completely made-up ‘expert’ - ‘Dr Manuel Godsin’ - complete with a stolen photo from a real Russian guy, fake PhD claims, and zero real existence. They used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to ghostwrite dozens of pro-Russia, anti-West articles under his name, planting them in #africa#russia[…]

Cattails at sunset. March 19, 2026. Wolverine Lake, Michigan. #photography #sunset #reflection #michigan #spring #art #mastoart

"Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software, collects the results, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers and to third-party companies including an American-Israeli cybersecurity firm. The user is never asked […]

On this occasion of the launch of Artemis II, I need to reshare this. This is a photo of 8 of the surviving Apollo astronauts, taken on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. The man wearing ... well ... a heat shield, is Buzz Aldrin. I have to imagine his […] [Original post on meow.social]

Our school put on Laura Wade's "Alice" - a story of a young girl processing her grief through imaginings based on Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". An amazing journey, with tears and laughter along the way. We built those lanterns and clouds from […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

This image is of a simulation of a simple directed #hypergraph , but using an n-ary line rather than a set for the #hyperedge I have written a working #graphTheory editor for binary edges, where nodes are extended to sets (a #Higraph) , and am contemplating […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

But, at the same time I see reason for hope. The fact that Russia has basically decided that it just can't deal with people having access to the internet anymore means that even the deeply propaganda filled and regulated internet was *still* having a destabilizing impact on the centralization of […]

So that White House App they just released? this won't come as a shock but hoo boy is it a treasure trove of terrible security and outright fraud to mine your data and track your location #whitehouse #trump https://blog.thereallo.dev/blog/decompiling-the-white-house-app The official White […]