social.gl-como.it

Today, February 12, is loyal beagle Gromit's birthday. Happy birthday, Gromit! (The Wrong Trousers, 1993)

#Movies #Film #Cinemastodon #Letterboxd #Gromit #TheWrongTrousers #WallaceAndGromit #StopMotion #Claymation

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Its been a while since my last physics class, but to me it seems counterintuitive that going towards a massive object would need more energy than going away from it.
Space Catitude 🚀 hometown (AP)

@dacig
It's important to remember we're going about 30km/s along with the Earth in order to stay in orbit (or else we would already be falling into the Sun).

To hit the Sun, you have to go all the way to zero, or 30 km/s ΔV. To escape you need to increase to 30√2 km/s -- or about 13km/s extra. Less than half as much!


This is dumb. My W11 laptop has slowed down because every time I try and open a folder I have to wait for #Windows invasive account sign in / telemetry to time out:
#Privacy #Network
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bhahne mastodon (AP)
I once had a taxi driver warn me: "You might have the right of way, but you might be DEAD right."
Dave Everitt mastodon (AP)
so remonds me of _why's "Poignant Guide to Ruby" cartoon foxes. Glad they live on in new fox-related humour!


Esther Schindler mastodon (AP)
I laughed
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Jonathan Corbet akkoma (AP)
US politics

Sensitive content

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Jonathan Corbet akkoma (AP)
US politics

Sensitive content

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Queer Mushroom Forest mastodon (AP)
Open source wheelchairs gathers DIY projects to build and fix wheelchairs.
redpillinnovations.com/open-so…
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CapeTaun mastodon (AP)
ma che cosa bellissima!!!

da_667 mastodon (AP)
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capetaun lemmy (AP)

Materiale ciclistico (telai, ruote, selle, manubri, freni, leve, ecc) a Turate (CO)

Vendo vario materiale ciclistico in zona Turate (vicino a Saronno, 20 minuti a Nord di Milano)
Tendenzialmente vorrei vendere il lotto intero, ma nel caso ci si può accordare per singoli pezzi. Anche bici da corsa complete. A richiesta, ho anche un sacco di altre foto 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
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LINux on MOBile mastodon (AP)
#FOSSonMobile at #FOSDEM
OpenAGPS - Open source GNSS Assistance | Alexander Richards
fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event…
openagps.net/
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
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Tobias friendica (via ActivityPub)

Interesting experience... I have not done a Friendica only presentation for some time. During the recent years it was mostly introductions to the Fediverse or more topic orientated talks / workshops. First iteration of the slides for the Social Web Devroom at FOSDEM (Saturday 15:30 to 16h) is done 🚀

The 1st slide of the talk: Friendica - Under the radar since 2010 held at FOSDEM 25 in the Social Web Devroom

#Friendica #FOSDEM #SocialWeb #fediverse

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ivanhoe mastodon (AP)
Will there be a recording of the presentation?
Tobias friendica (via ActivityPub)
@ivanhoe yes I think so
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Terence Tao mastodon (AP)

There are definitely many real-world issues and problems where we could benefit from significantly more quantitative (and mathematical) analysis and thinking than we do currently. But, at the same time, there are certain dimensions of our modern society where we overcorrected for this, and allowed quantitative reasoning to dominate at the expense of other important modes of thought, or to be deployed in a highly imbalanced fashion.

As anyone who has encountered a word problem in their high school math classes knows, the first step in quantitative reasoning is to assign numerically precise metrics as proxies for one's goals, parameters, and variables. Most of our wants and needs are quite qualitative in nature: happiness, comfort, security, companionship, and the like. But these are too fuzzy to be optimized and analyzed by the mathematics of quantitative reasoning. Which, to oversimplify things, leaves us with basically two options: either use more qualitative modes of thinking, such as "gut feelings", emotional responses, or drawing on past experiences of similar situations, accepting any cognitive biases that result from doing so; or to create quantitative proxies for these goals, and then optimize those proxies in a more dispassionate (and hopefully more objective) fashion. (1/5)

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Terence Tao mastodon (AP)
One can counteract this to some extent by making metrics more accurate for (or at least, more correlated with) the actual goal; and, when inaccuracy or discorrelation is inevitable, to quantify the uncertainty in the metric and identify the sources of discorrelation as much as possible. For instance, in the early days of finance, only tangible physical goods could be assigned monetary value; but our increasingly sophisticated financial system is able to also monetize financial capital (e.g., stocks and bonds), intellectual capital, and even some very partial measures of social capital (e.g., "likes" on social media), although it still struggles with other types of capital, such as environmental capital. At universities such as the one I work in, there are attempts to update standardized tests for admission to better reflect the diverse ways in which students can learn and demonstrate potential, and adjust their weighting in admission criteria. And so forth. At the level of an individual human or organization, improving metrics can be an advantageous thing to do: all other things being equal, it is better to be guided by a more accurate metric than a less accurate one. But it can lead to longer term problems if only some of the members of a community are using sophisticated metrics, and others are not. (3/5)
Terence Tao mastodon (AP)
Take for example the activity of gaming. Fundamentally, the purpose of a gaming event is for the participants to have fun. But this is a qualitative goal, not directly measurable by a numerical quantity. One can then create more quantitative proxies for this fun: number of games or trophies won, score achieved, and so forth. A certain amount of emphasis on such quantitative metrics can initially increase the enjoyment of all participants. But one could always make the metrics more precise, focusing on ever more granular statistics: competitive ranking algorithms, "damage per second", and other measures of strategic efficiency. If all members of a gaming session are in agreement to compete on optimizing such metrics, this can also be an enjoyable activity (though of a somewhat different nature than casual play); but if only a portion of the players are playing this competitively, and others just wish to play casually, then the dynamics of imbalanced metric optimization can lead to a net decrease in the fun to be had by the players (most obviously for the "losers" of the game, but the "winners" would also experience some opportunity cost of fun, for instance through the reduced number of players available for future gaming sessions). (4/5)
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Terence Tao mastodon (AP)

The ongoing process of "enshittification" in corporations and other institutions can also be viewed through this lens. Companies (and other complex organizations) have gained access to increasingly sophisticated metrics to measure their user activity, and now have the technology to optimize those metrics for their own benefit (in the near-term, at least). Initially, this sort of optimization can add value for both the provider and consumer of the service; but the majority of their customer base are not playing the optimization "game", and many would have initially signed up for an experience that was more qualitative and less optimized, and containing more of the intangible benefits that even the most advanced metrics fail to capture.

So, are metrics good or bad for individuals and communities? It is a very complex question. In some areas, we are under-using metrics; in others, we are over-using them; and in yet other areas, they are being deployed in too imbalanced a fashion to be beneficial in the long term. Perhaps what we need is more of a discussion of meta-goals and meta-metrics: not just how to pursue a goal or to optimize a metric, but to try to analyze (both qualitatively and quantitatively) how similar or distinct these two objectives actually are, and to locate a stable balance between them that can be broadly accepted within the community in question. (5/5)

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
MLF mastodon (AP)
will you please post this thread on your wordpress page? I work in an analytics team and I'd love bring your last paragraph to a wider audience for discussion. thank you.
Oblomov mastodon (AP)
thank you very much for writing this up. I have been ruminate on some very similar lines of thought for a while now, and I'm glad you took the time to put them in writing.
Kilian Stahl mastodon (AP)
I think this is a framing that is very... "problem theory" style, meaning it assumes everyone in society wants the common and we are merely disagreeing about the methods to achieve that. The term "enshittification" as defined by Doctorow describes a much more "conflict theory" idea: it's the result people acting in predictable incentive gradients. Publicly traded corporations have the incentive to extract the maximal amount of short term growth of revenue out of their users.
Terence Tao mastodon (AP)
That's true also, and designing metrics and incentive structures to reduce or mitigate such conflicts is certainly one of the "meta-goals" I alluded to. But I guess I wanted to focus on a slightly different point, which is that even when everyone's interests are aligned, one can still be led astray by an inappropriate under-reliance or over-reliance on metrics.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
Kilian Stahl mastodon (AP)
I suppose I don't see how the over- or underreliance of metrics is really a problem here, the actual issue seems to me orthogonal to that: companies are using metrics they need to optimize what they care for. Now there surely are cases where people use metrics badly, to disguise their lack of understanding behind mountains of data. But that's not really the issue here, even if everyone uses quantitative metrics exactly as much as needed to help their goal, enshittification would still occur.
Terence Tao mastodon (AP)
@KStahl I'd say that perverse incentives and inappropriate use of metrics are both contributing factors. For instance, there are certainly examples of companies who have acted against their long term interest by enacting changes to their service that improved some metrics (e.g., their stock price) at the expense of other qualities, such as consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty, that are arguably of much higher long term value to the company even if they were working purely in their own self-interest. It is also true that this self-interest may also genuinely come in conflict with the interests of their customers (or the environment, etc.), especially with a badly designed incentive structure and regulatory system, but I view this as a somewhat orthogonal issue.
Juan R. Loaiza hometown (AP)

@KStahl Very interesting discussion! Thanks for sharing.

I don't think companies act against their interest when sacrificing consumer satisfaction, though. I think that these companies have realized they can offer the least satisfying product possible that maximizes their gains by reducing satisfaction that is cost-inducing (e.g., improving product quality) and monetizing satisfaction that is not (e.g,. choosing your airplane seat). This strategy appears to be economically viable, unfortunately, and there's a whole system in play to protect it and show it as optimal (mostly by erasing losses of "irrational" i.e., qualitatively defined goods like comfort).

Terence Tao mastodon (AP)
@juanrloaiza @KStahl I would still argue in such cases that while that corporation may well be locally optimizing various metrics such as quarterly profit, they are not globally optimizing for "success" (however such a fuzzy term is defined). In particular, there is the substantial opportunity cost of the company not pursuing the alternate path, in which they maintain high quality standards and build a fervently loyal base of customers who are willing to donate their time and labor to promote the brand and improve the product, which could well lead to a theoretical company that is far larger and more successful than the profit-maximizing actual company. But such opportunity costs are almost impossible to measure - they require analyzing a system state extremely far from the actual state - and so would not be picked up by any existing metric used today.
isn't this also what the economists call "Dutch Disease"? Where specialization drives over-specialization, which creates major vulnerability to changes in the environment.
Robert Livingston mastodon (AP)
there are now complaints that the sophisticated analysis that has permeated the NBA coaching and strategy makes that games boring for fans
sodakaidotcom mastodon (AP)
A few months ago I went to take an online business course from a prestigious business school, and their strategy recommendations for targeting customers to maximize the extraction of profit were truly horrifying
Yes, and a related thought: as a physicist, I've always found it very hard to understand why anyone would think that they can express everything in monetary units, or any other single unit (like CO₂-equivalents). Some problems are inherently multidimensional, so even if someone does think it could all be quantified (and the non-linearity straightened out by using, e.g., abstract utils instead of dollars), it *still* doesn't make sense to collapse it all into a single one-dimensional metric.
Terence Tao mastodon (AP)

In principle, an efficient and liquid market does provide precisely this dimension reduction (and is one of the key distinctions between an economic system and a physical system). If one possesses a multidimensional vector of various goods and services, then by trading in such a market, one can exchange this vector for other vectors. If one makes the (sometimes justifiable) assumption that the efficient frontier of such exchanges forms a differentiable hypersurface around one's current state vector, then the normal to that hypersurface naturally determines the "price" of each good, and one can then measure (marginal) increase or decrease in one's effective wealth (modulo this efficient market) by the one-dimensional metric of taking the dot product with this state vector.

But for goods that are illiquid or only available in inefficient markets in which arbitrage opportunities exist, then this dimension reduction is no longer available, and price becomes a much more complicated notion (for instance, there can be non-trivial spreads between bid and ask prices). In particular, problems can arise when some goods are priced in a liquid fashion, but others (e.g., environmental goods such as clean air and water) are not; then optimizing value using market prices can lead to one sacrificing illiquid goods for liquid ones in a non-beneficial fashion.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
John Carlos Baez mastodon (AP)

@SylviaFysica - on a vaguely related note, I'm enjoying some ideas in Will Storr's book "Status Games", which posits that after satisfying some basic needs we're primarily motivatived by the search for status, which he loosely divides into:

• Dominance games: Status is imposed by force or fear.
• Virtue games: Status is awarded for moral behaviour and adherence to group norms.
• Success/competence games: Status is given for skill, talent, or achievement.

I think he'd claim the quest for money is, once basic needs are satisfied, largely a proxy for status - so, maybe some sort of mixture of a success game (money as a way of demonstrating success) and dominance game (money as a means to achieving dominance).

As with all pop psychology/sociology, there's lots of criticize about this, but I think a lot of economics could use a bit more attention to the underlying psychological/sociological aspects. More here:

decentred.co.uk/status-and-vir…

Tony Vladusich mastodon (AP)

@SylviaFysica
I recently learned about the fallacy of the average pilot, which somehow eluded my awareness until then!

Collapsing complex multidimensional systems into single dimensional metrics is almost certainly always a bad idea. The representational volume of defined ranges over the space will occupy an exponentially smaller volume of the total space as the dimensionality of the space grows linearly. It follows that the inverse is true: a single metric can capture only an exponentially vanishing proportion of the total variance of the system as the dimensionality grows linearly.

mastodon.gamedev.place/@demofo…

Terence Tao mastodon (AP)
@TonyVladusich @SylviaFysica This connects with my previous post about effective dynamics. In situations where the law of large numbers applies, so that many of the fluctuations in the system largely cancel out, then it is possible for a low-dimensional secular component of the variance to dominate the high-dimensional random fluctuations as far as the effective dynamics is concerned, and so low-dimensional models are reasonable to assume in some circumstances. But certainly not in all cases.
Michael Chavinda mastodon (AP)
this reminds me, in part, of the argument in prosperity without growth.
maestro mastodon (AP)

Hey there! A friend of mine built this, care to take a look?:

Show HN: Acorn, a theorem prover with built-in AI
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

Reminds me of a quote:

"Given the opportunity, gamers will optimize the fun out of your game."

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, professor! Another banger post, as usual.


Zeppe mastodon (AP)

Tre settimane fa dormiva sul pavimento di cemento di una cella iraniana, sapendo di poterci rimanere mesi o anni. Ora è libera e a Kyiv e ha già pubblicato la migliore intervista a #Zelensky che abbia letto o visto in tre anni su un media italiano, che ə compagnə della mozione #colpadellaNato farebbero bene a leggersi invece di farsi indottrinare dalle troll farm paranaziste russe su Telegram.

#CeciliaSala #Ucraina #Russia #Putin #Nato #Merkel

ilfoglio.it/esteri/2025/01/25/…

unpaywalled: bin.disroot.org/?6fe881aa473e8…


[EDIT]Qui il video integrale dell'intervista, sottotitolata in italiano: youtube.com/watch?v=8X3_rAXSXu…

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Rolery mastodon (AP)
interessante. Purtroppo leggere che il destino dell'Ucraina sta nelle mani di Trump e di Meloni mi ha fatto venire un'ulcera
Zeppe mastodon (AP)

@rolery

orribile come quasi tutto in questo momento storico, ma tant'è


David Gerard mastodon (AP)

YouTuber f4mi tells you how to poison AI video scrapers with ‘.аss’ subtitles

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/01/23/you…

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undead mastodon (AP)

If you can't be bothered to use a CW (Content Warning) for #USpol, or for #Trump, #MAGA, #fascists, then please take the briefest second and use a hashtag. I mean, it is literally just one extra character.

At a minimum, please use #uspol as a hashtag for US stuff.

Please use real names for the people you have issues with- Dolt45, 45/47, Orange Julius, Tangerine Toddler, etc... nobody is going to be able to filter those out. Some people are either going to be materially harmed by this person, their administration, and/or their followers- or they have been. Or they don't live in the US and really don't want to see this right now.

So, use names people can filter against, and please consider that some people have had enough USian trauma for today.

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Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Buckle up, friends, it’s time for the real life “I fart in your general direction”: Marquis Francesco Gonzaga’s unforgettable reply to the 1503 duel challenge from Galeazzo Sanseverino.
(Teaser countdown to the book release of “Inventing the Renaissance” day 4.) #HistoryPix 1/?
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Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Yesterday I shared a thread introducing Galeazzo Sanseverino “Son of Fortune”, the famously handsome mercenary captain and lover of Duke Ludovico Visconti-Sforza who held such sway in his beloved’s city that the Milanese called him “the Second Duke,” 2/? buff.ly/4gWr3aQ
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Everyone doted on Galeazzo, even the French generals he fought wars against! And also the nearly-impossible-to-please Isabella d’Este, sister of the Duke of Ferrara, the famous art lover, patroness of Leonardo da Vinci, and the most easily affronted woman in the Renaissance. 3/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
The only people who did *not* love the dashing and fortunate Galeazzo were rival mercenary commanders who lost out on valuable commissions leading Milan’s armies as Ludovico started promoting his beloved over all others. 4/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Trusting one’s lover with one’s armies was (not a bad tactic, since your true love *will not* change sides for cash mid-war, like mercenaries so often did) – for a sample of strategic side-changing see William Caferro’s fabulous book on John Hawkwood 5/?
press.jhu.edu/books/title/3343…
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
One rival who lost out through Galeazzo’s promotion was Francesco Gonzaga Marquess of Mantua, a formidable military commander and ruler of a very militarily important city-state strategically positioned in the intersection of Milan’s territory, Venice’s, and Ferrara’s. 6/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Francesco Gonzaga came from *extremely* noble stock: his mother and grandmother were kinswomen of the Holy Roman Emperors, his sister Elizabetta the Duke of Urbino, and he himself married the splendid Isabella d’Este (sister of Galeazzo’s lover Ludovico’s wife Beatrice, who also *loved* Galeazzo). 7/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
When tensions mounted until Galeazzo challenged Francesco Gonzaga to a duel (by letter), Francesco began his unforgettable reply with: “Prù—this is a fart sound I make with my mouth with the addition of a fuck-you gesture (manichetto) and a fig sign.” 8/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Gonzaga, the letter continues, was lord of the great city of Mantua, Galeazzo a born vagabond who lived “like dogs do at the expense of others,” a prostitute famous only for his “ass favors,” adding “I have my parties at the door of others, not at mine,” i.e. when I have gay sex I’m on the top, you’re on the bottom! 9/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Such ferocious sexual language was not unusual from Gonzaga, a man who often sealed his letters, not with a signet ring with his coat of arms, but an image from an ancient Roman brothel token depicting a couple having anal sex. 10/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
In antiquity, these coin-like tokens depicting different sex acts were bought at the central cashier of brothels and redeemed inside, like ordering off a menu with tokens with a photo of the food, and Gonzaga was a collector of antiquities, especially *crude* antiquities. 11/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Ancient Rome left us *thousands* of phalluses: phallus-shaped lamps, ceramic good luck phalluses displayed by the doors of shops to bring abundance, the many phalluses broken off of ancient statues by accidents or deliberate art censorship, and Gonazaga was one of many collectors. 12/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
For those wondering, Gonzaga *did not* use the brothel token to seal letters to his wife Isabella d’Este, he had a more formal seal for such matters – there are fascinating collections of their letters, showing their negotiated co-rule of Mantua and almost good-cop-bad-cop balancing of performance of power. 13/? goodreads.com/book/show/212925…
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Gonzaga also had a love-affair with his sister-in-law Lucrezia Borgia, wife of Isabella’s brother Duke Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara. Lucrezia’s more famous affair was with the poet-scholar Pietro Bembo, whose exchange poetic romantic letters Byron called “The Prettiest love letters in the world.” 14/? goodreads.com/book/show/145277…
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
The Lucrezia-Gonzaga letters are *not like that*, and much more along the lines of “Let me describe my enormous penis.” “I love when you describe your enormous penis!” Their contrast with the Lucrezia-Bembo letters reveal Lucrezia as who enjoyed many different genres of love & relationship. 15/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Francesco Gonzaga’s refusal to duel Galeazzo Sanseverino, though hilariously dramatic, was also strategic, magnifying the differences between the two of them in order to avoid risking losing face if he lost the duel against Galeazzo. 16/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Given that this is 1503, many are surprised to see gay sex be so overt, both in Gonzaga’s letter and Galezzo’s relationship with Duke Ludovico, a gay relationship fully public in the face of all Italy. Didn’t the Inquisition police such things with an iron fist? Yes *and* no 17/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
The answer is that Renaissance justice was extremely malleable if one had *political influence* meaning in the period *patronage*. If you were powerful (duke, marquis, cardinal) you *and those in your favor* could get away with anything, and not just local enforcement but even the Inquisition didn’t dare interfere. 18/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
There’s a letter from a friend in Rome to Machiavelli saying Rome is cracking down on homosexuality, and all their gay friends *who don’t work for cardinals* are scared & doing things like hiring female prostitutes to hang around & make them look straight. Those who work for cardinals are safe. 19/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
Elite favor created bubbles of liberty beyond the law. We even have letters of inquisitors complaining to each other about dukes insisting their courtiers and favorite scholars be allowed to have and read banned books, and that they can do nothing. 20/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
The Inquisition needed local authorities to cooperate with them, lend them troops, jail cells etc., and the popes were from political families and needed allies, and would rather let the Duke of Milan parade his boyfriend around than piss him off in the middle of a French invasion. 21/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
This applied high & low: in Florence, a carpenter who works for a middlingly-important family gets in trouble, he writes to his employer, they write to a bigger family they serve, & a letter from Lorenzo de Medici or Palla Strozzi gets the sentence on the books (death!) reduced to a small fine 22/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
This is why those goons at the start of Romeo & Juliet are willing to risk their lives for the Montagues & Capulets: Lord Capulet is their social safety net, who’ll care for them if they’re disabled, raise their orphans if they’re killed, get them off if they commit crimes, and protect them if they’re queer. 23/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
This flexible judicial system—one sentence on the books, a much lighter one if someone important writes a letter—is how homosexuality, radical heterodoxy etc. could be illegal yet *not* covert, and how the ferocious sentence in the law (Off with his head! Off with his hands!) was so rarely enforced that it’s the aberration, not the norm. 24/?
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
I treat the entanglement of patronage and law at much greater length in “Inventing the Renaissance,” how it bound every layer of society together in a system whose coercive power is a cheering reminder that, while today’s society has many flaws, we have taken some real steps toward equality. 25/?
More tomorrow, hope you enjoyed! buff.ly/4j6qkoS
Jason Miller mastodon (AP)
v. much looking forward to the release! (my local bookshop: powells.com/book/inventing-the… )
Eli the Bearded mastodon (AP)
As far as I'm aware, there is no evidence of these tokens being used at brothels. There's a theory, supported by some evidence of these being found in bath houses, they they worked like coat check tags for people taking a bath. The choice of imagery reflecting not use but the Roman sense of humor.
Ada Palmer mastodon (AP)
@elithebearded Most relevantly its likely what Gonzaga believed it was when he adopted it as a personal seal back in the 1400s.
Eli the Bearded mastodon (AP)
Pretty sure the brothel token idea dates to the Victorian era.
I mean it's certainly possible to interpret it that way, but it wouldn't have occurred to me.
Jon Roach mastodon (AP)
WOW what a portrait! 🤣

MWL Book Quote Bot hometown (AP)
We elite Lynx users don't need modern security anyway. We're just wiser that way. The Internet was better without images and ecommerce. Get off my lawn.
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Nina Kalinina mastodon (AP)
I don't know why but I am thinking about sea grapes again. Sea grapes are single-cell algae that can grow up to 5 cm in diameter. And it's not the biggest single-cell organism, even.
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Owlet of Minerva mastodon (AP)

“AI slop” doesn’t cover it. It’s more like “I stepped in a pile of hot AI poop again.” Literally, if you look closer at the illustration.

I was searching for “fire heat radiation.” When a slightly promising article started going over the same basics of conduction, convection, and radiation for the third time, I got suspicious and looked closer at the illustrations. “Hot poop” indeed.

Brought to you by firecarry dot com, “A Trusted Source for Fire Education” 🤡

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DDTea mastodon (AP)
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Charlie Stross mastodon (AP)
Attn @lauren — the LLM spewage is everywhere
labyrinth.zone/objects/673fed1…
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Olivier Roux (moose) mastodon (AP)
Psychiatrist for household appliances seems to have a bright future as a profession…
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
Charlie Stross mastodon (AP)
I have Plans along these lines for my next space opera (not the one I'm currently redrafting: the one after that): in which the wealthy live like 18th century aristocrats—lots of human flunkies everywhere but an Amish approach to electronics and AI—while the poor live in a demon-haunted world where you have to shout at the taps if you want a shower.
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
@otolithe
Diana Wynne Jones' House of Many Ways did something of a fantasy version of this, with Kobolds providing magical housekeeping services, but going on strike.
SpeakerToManagers mastodon (AP)
@otolithe
Frederick Brown wrote a novel titled “What Mad Universe” in which machines of the complexity of a sewing machine or greater attained sentience and, being pissed at what they considered enslavement, took off.

Fabio friendica

Confy 0.8.0

Hey! Confy 0.8.0 has been released!

In this release :

  • Updated UI to latest Adwaita widgets and style
  • An handy list of latest opened conferences at start (and in application menu)
  • Talks list grouping can be set by user. Is there a multi-room track and you want to group the list of talks by room? Now you can!
  • Fixed and enhanced XML parsing for past events (I know... better later than never!), eg: try to not panic on not expected date formats, try to handle completely different xml structures, extract and show speakers avatar if available. Man, I love the ever changing world of unstandardized XML schedule format!

Updated screenshots on official home page:
confy.kirgroup.net/

and in your nearest appstream-enabled appstore!

I would like to thank everyone who helped with code, tickets, distro packaging and general moral support :)

If you want to contribute, jump in the dev mailing list at lists.sr.ht/~fabrixxm/confy-de… or open a ticket at todo.sr.ht/~fabrixxm/confy
(and you don't even need to create an account on sourcehut, just send an email to ~fabrixxm/confy-dev (a) lists.sr.ht or ~fabrixxm/confy (a) todo.sr.ht )

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lproven mastodon (AP)

«Claudia de Breij: This cartoon by Ann Telnaes was rejected by the Washington Post, the newspaper purchased by Jeff Bezos.
The creator has resigned because she believes that free press is a prerequisite for democracy. What if we spread this cartoon _en masse_ today?»

mastodon.nl/@SandraDeHaan/1137…

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#AltText
A few people offer bags of money to a statue of a fat man with a long tie.
In front of the stairs leading up to the statue lies an apparently dead Micky Mouse (the only one containing color in the greyscale drawing)
lproven mastodon (AP)

@ArnimRanthoron Um. I think you are misinterpreting the image, both misreading what is shown and also missing important details.

* The "big man" is a depiction of Donald Trump. His obesity is exaggerated.

* The size reflects power and status (of being president elect), and not that it's a statue, I think.

* Trump is depicted with tiny hands.

* Mickey is _genuflecting_ not dead.

* The figures offering moneybags are paying tribute.

* Two of them are recognisably Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The other _may_ be Tim Cook.

* There is another figure not offering tribute, the one with lipstick; it may be J D Vance or Matt Gaetz. (I am not American and don't pay that much attention to its political figures.)

* Mickey is not the only figure in colour; Bezos' jacket is blue.


Trammell Hudson mastodon (AP)
If you prefer using a "paper" agenda, you might like my hyperlinked PDF page-a-day calendar generator optimized for the reMarkable tablet: github.com/osresearch/pdfcal
1
Vysogota mastodon (AP)
the cal generator looks great but do you by any chance have a suggestion for an open-source friendly alternative to the tablet?
Trammell Hudson mastodon (AP)
Major new feature for my e-ink page-a-day calendar generator: it can read iCal files and create entries for events. On the reMarkable you can scp the new PDF atop the existing file to update the document with your online scheduled appointments while preserving your hand annotations. github.com/osresearch/pdfcal

4

dealingwith mastodon (AP)

"This is literally a DDoS on the entire internet.

"I am so tired."

pod.geraspora.de/posts/1734216…

4
matt wilkie mastodon (AP)
"Summing up the top [user agent] groups, it looks like my server is doing 70% of all its work for these fucking LLM training bots that don't to anything except for crawling the fucking internet over and over again."
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This sticker showed up next to our EWSD exchange at #38C3 earlier today... @c3fax
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Trames mastodon (AP)

Dal Corriere di Bologna.

Red Sox, il tassista pro-Pos di Bologna: «Cacciato dalla coop, i colleghi mi deridono: ora guadagno meno ma rifarei tutto»


Di Federica Nannetti.

Il conducente che si batte per la trasparenza sulle auto espulso da Cotabo: «Dicono che mi hanno battuto. La mia auto imbrattata con simboli fascisti sistemata con le donazioni: una parte devoluta alla Casa delle donne»


È successo un po’ di tutto nel 2024 di Roberto Mantovani, taxista conosciuto anche come Red Sox e nel tempo diventato amato e al contempo odiato per la sua battaglia alla trasparenza del settore: la cacciata da Cotabo e la conseguente riorganizzazione del lavoro con non poche ripercussioni economiche, l’imbrattamento della sua auto con simboli razzisti e misogini, poi trasformato in una raccolta fondi per la Casa delle donne per non subire violenza, la pubblicazione di un libro che molti colleghi «vorrebbero cadesse nel dimenticatoio». Eppure lui non ha mai rinunciato e mai rinuncerà ai suoi valori; rifarebbe tutto per filo e per segno. E a metà gennaio presenterà ufficialmente la nuova grafica del taxi, rimesso a nuovo dopo gli atti vandalici, dedicata al centro antiviolenza e al contrasto alla violenza contro le donne.

Roberto Mantovani, come è andata la raccolta fondi?

«Benissimo. Entro il 30 dicembre consegnerò l’assegno alla Casa delle donne. La nuova grafica del taxi, che verrà presentata a metà gennaio, è già tutta pagata e grazie alle donazioni sono avanzati oltre 20 mila euro netti per la Casa. Un evento spiacevole lo si è riusciti a trasformare in un bel gesto: tantissime persone, molte da fuori Bologna o regione, hanno donato, sentendo la Casa delle donne come un patrimonio di Bologna ma anche dell’intero Paese. Forse anche nella speranza di avere centri simili ovunque».


Come sarà la nuova grafica?

«Il messaggio sarà immutato, dunque dedicato alla Casa delle donne e al contrasto alla violenza di genere e ai femminicidi. Ma sarà molto diversa e rinnovata; ha anche visto la partecipazione di un artista, Mauro Biani, che ha donato, gratuitamente, alcuni suoi disegni».


Il 2024 è stato anche l’anno della cacciata da Cotabo.

«Sono rimasto scottato, deluso da molte persone, colleghi, sindacalisti. Quando mi ridono in faccia, ai posteggi, dicendomi di avermi battuto… rimango deluso dalla prepotenza e dalla sfacciataggine».


Ci sono state ripercussioni negative?

«Soprattutto economiche, perché le cifre incassate prima adesso sono impossibili. Ora ho la prova materiale, tecnica, di un guadagno nettamente inferiore, come prima l’avevo di altre cifre. Senza chiamate, vado direttamente in aeroporto, in stazione e in piazza Maggiore, con molti chilometri a vuoto e una perdita di almeno il 40%. In ogni caso sono orgoglioso di quello che sono e di quello che ho fatto. Rifarei tutto: guadagno meno ma sono più contento; e non avrei mai potuto fare finta di nulla».


Molti colleghi l’hanno attaccata per le sue battaglie sul pos e sulla trasparenza, ma quest’anno sono stati sul piede di guerra anche per l’introduzione di nuove licenze da parte del Comune. Cosa ne pensa?

«Hanno continuato a raccontare la “balla” del numero di taxisti sufficiente, quando tutti hanno sempre saputo della necessità di licenze in più. Un atteggiamento egoistico, un mentire alla cittadinanza, che ha diritto a un servizio pubblico. L’ultimo sciopero dei taxisti di Bologna è stato fallimentare».


Quest’anno ha anche pubblicato un libro, edito da Garzanti.

«Una grande soddisfazione, soprattutto per quanto sono riuscito a tirare fuori. Abbiamo però notato come tutti i taxisti d’Italia siano stati zitti sul libro, come se tutte le cooperative avessero emanato un ordine a non parlarne. Mai nessuno, da maggio a ora, ha nominato o citato il libro, che evidentemente si ha la necessità di far dimenticare. Forse c’è paura delle tante verità contenute all’interno, a partire dagli incassi: verità che non possono negare o confutare, perché ci sono le prove. Di conseguenza tutto deve essere dimenticato».


corrieredibologna.corriere.it/…

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Se un lavoratore onesto come Roberto Mantovani viene lasciato fuori, dando ragione a agli altri... Il sindacato ha fallito. Mi fa ridere quando indicono scioperi generali, perché la verità dei fatti è qui. Mi piacerebbe ascoltare cosa ne pensano i vertici e come agiscono? Un sindacalista che va contro Roberto, dovrebbe essere cacciato via, non Mantovani.
@ALFA

@versodiverso @ALFA

dubito che i taxisti aderiscano ai sindacati di lavoratori dipendenti.

non sono dipendenti, sono piccoli proprietari di licenze, che si associano liberamente in cooperative che non sono altro che moderne corporazioni.

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Leo :mastodon: mastodon (AP)
@versodiverso i sindacati in questione non sono i confederali, bensì sindacati autonomi come ce ne sono tanti in realtà monopolistiche come quella. Vere e proprie corporazioni di stampo fascista (lo si capisce pure dalle scritte sull'auto, oltre che dalle normali modalità che hanno). Nulla hanno a che vedere con il sindacalismo tradizionale.
@Trames @ALFA
Giovanni mastodon (AP)
Grande italiano : lui è un vero patriota e non i miserabili fascisti
1

eon 🐀 sharkey (AP)

you are not immune to waiting mode

#rat #rats #ratsOfMastodon #ratsOfFediverse #comic #adhd #meme

2

lproven mastodon (AP)

My colleague Julius

by Ploum

ploum.net/2024-12-23-julius-en…

<- I haven't met anyone this bad, but it's a parody; even so, my strong feeling is that such people constitute the bulk of management and marketing at tech companies.

2
lproven mastodon (AP)

@tgent_fens I may be a STEM graduate but I've studied some humanities. The story is as much in the interpretation, as in the writer's intention.

But I've posted @ploum blog posts before. His English is superb but it's not his first language.

I think he did not mean Julius was an AI. I think Julius was meant as a human throughout. I've met and worked with many people like this: working as specialists in a field where they do not in fact know what the thing that they're specialists in *IS*.

The AI comes in at the end and it's called AI.

The intention here, IMHO, is:

1. There are people who are totally incompetent but who look and sound good, and management tends to love that.

(1a: this is partly because management often has zero understanding of what the menial workers actually *do*.)

2. Julii can and do thrive and prosper despite doing nothing useful.

3. Julii succeed by forcing colleagues to do _more_ work.

4. The setup up many organisational hierarchies encourages this. It is common. Some of the workers know, but management does not.

(5. Julii may not even know that they are useless. They may even think that they are doing good work.)

6. A few smart managers may know this but do not know the real cost.

7. "AI" is the new automated Julii. It will thrive & make workers' lives worse.

Tim Gent mastodon (AP)
yes, that is how I read the intention. My own interpretation does contain some ambiguity. Possibly because I fear a future where Julii and AI are indistinguishable. Or at least feed off each other and create a perfect storm.
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

𝓻𝓻𝓪 hometown (AP)

How to Build an Electrically Heated Table?

solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2024…

With once again great illustrations by @marieverdeil

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lproven mastodon (AP)

Kowloon Walled City: Heterotopia in a Space of Disappearance

mascontext.com/issues/trace/ko…

«
The Kowloon Walled City is known by many as the informal settlement that once existed seemingly out of place within modern Hong Kong. […] It was often considered an anomaly… »

1

Niki Tonsky mastodon (AP)
I propose we replace semantic versioning with pride versioning
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