Mastodon Feed: Posts

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
gutenberg_org ("Project Gutenberg") wrote:

Esther Lederberg (December 18, 1922 – November 11, 2006) pioneered bacterial genetics, discovering lambda phage and F factor, inventing replica plating and furthered the understanding of the transfer of genes between bacteria by specialized transduction. She founded Stanford's Plasmid Reference Center. Despite groundbreaking work, she never got tenure and her discoveries are often credited to her Nobel laureate husband.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther%5FLederberg

#microbiology #womeninStem

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"This weekend the Republican Chairs of The Senate and House Armed Services Committees announced probes into what sure appears to be illegal actions, and even possible war crimes, by Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior members of the Pentagon."

~ Simon Rosenberg

#Trump #Hegseth #WarCrimes #murder #Venezuela
/2

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/putting-the-trump-regimes-corruption

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

"We are living through the most disgraceful episode in American history since slavery and it’s not even close. Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt had told Adolph Hitler in 1941: 'I’ll force the British and French to let you keep half of Poland in exchange for some kickbacks to my friends and family.'”

~ Julie Roginsky

#Trump #Putin #Ukraine #Russia #PutinsPoodle
/1

https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/the-dangerous-thieving-crooks-selling

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
SeanCasten ("Sean Casten") wrote:

Trump will deport an Afghani living in the US with Temporary Protected Status if he is *accused* of stealing $1000. But he’ll set a white dude free who was *convicted* of stealing $1.6B from American citizens to go commit more crime. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/us/politics/trump-david-gentile-commutation.html?smid=url-share

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
georgetakei@universeodon.com ("George Takei :verified: 🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽") wrote:

He’s letting white collar criminals walk free:

More than 1,000 people submitted statements attesting to their losses…‘hardworking, everyday people,’ including small business owners, farmers, veterans, teachers and nurses.

“I lost my whole life savings,” one wrote, adding, “I am living from check to check.”

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Muting this conversation because it's taking off and it's Sunday.

Boosted by kornel ("Kornel"):
timbray@cosocial.ca ("Tim Bray") wrote:

Amazon Employees for Climate Justice strike again! https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-employees-open-letter-artificial-intelligence-layoffs/?emci=8691f2d4-53cb-f011-8195-000d3a1d58aa&emdi=1d2dafc8-a1cb-f011-8195-000d3a1d58aa&ceid=1503948

[disclosure: Former member]

Boosted by kornel ("Kornel"):
jschauma@mstdn.social ("Jan Schaumann") wrote:

What comes first?

db@social.lol ("David Bushell ☕") wrote:

Advent of Code begins tomorrow!

https://adventofcode.com

I'll be attempting it in TypeScript, Zig, and Rust!

db@social.lol ("David Bushell ☕") wrote:

"give me 1500 words on a tired stereotype"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2465lndrnno

quality stuff from the Beeb here

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

LLMs are not automation. That would have economic value. The generated text artefacts look coherent and we, as a society, don’t even value the coherent kind. We underpay most forms of writing. Even code has no inherent value (see open source) outside of the associated integration and expertise

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

More and more, generative models are looking like productivity tobacco. Promoted by biased research, it’s addictive, harmful, and the little benefit it has (nicotine is a somewhat effective ADHD drug, for example) cannot outweigh the fact that it’s hurting us all, directly and indirectly.

This shit is already turning out to be one of the most harmful tech innovations of the 21st century. It needs to be regulated at least as much as tobacco, if not banned outright from most economic spheres

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

But, unfortunately I don’t see that happening. If we’re lucky, a bubble pop will clear it out of education and the economy, but if we’re unlucky, governments in charge will use public funds to try and rebuild after LLMs with more LLMs, baking this shit into the foundation of our economy for a generation

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Between diffusion models and LLMs, tech has inflated a trillion dollar bubble around automating activities that have immense social and cultural capital—writing, art, photography—but little actual capital. It’s harmful to education, culture, and society with minimal overall benefit

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“AI sceptics” who work on policy and education continue to overestimate the utility of LLMs—portraying it as a potential revolution even as they warn against overhype—simply because they can’t see that generating seemingly coherent text has very little economic value

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“You can support Pivot to AI’s work! – Pivot to AI”

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/11/29/you-can-support-pivot-to-ais-work/

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“‘What makes something data?’ by Emily M. Bender”

https://medium.com/@emilymenonbender/what-makes-something-data-f6d9f498f312

> As a general rule, you can’t reason about the results of some scientific study based on data without clear information about the data itself

db@social.lol ("David Bushell ☕") wrote:

new visual regression tester just dropped

https://onemillionscreenshots.com/dbushell.com/screenshot

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“Jim Nielsen’s Notes”

https://notes.jim-nielsen.com/#2025-11-29T2054

> Say that again? The costs for operational software failures in the US were more than the defense budget?!?

Back in the day, this was called the Software Crisis (capitalised) but today it's just business as usual

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“Needy programs @ tonsky.me”

https://tonsky.me/blog/needy-programs/

Boosted by jwz:
sharif@fosstodon.org ("Sharif Naas") wrote:

Seen at @dnalounge #dnalounge

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
skjeggtroll@mastodon.online ("Skjeggtroll") wrote:

@datarama @regehr

There is one important question that keeps getting overlooked in all the talk about LLM code generators replacing human developers, and that is "Where's the software?"

Where _is_ the software? If LLMs are actually useful and yields a significant productivity boost in software development, where's all the new software? Where are the more rapid release cycles, the more frequent updates, the long-requested features finally being added? Why has nothing changed on _that_ end?

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
pikesley@mastodon.me.uk ("Guillotines for a better world") wrote:

Sometimes I just get an idea and it won't go away

Edited to add, since this is now doing Numbers:

Fuck the Tories, fuck the Labour party, fuck the TERFs, free Palestine

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Wealth taxes now.

https://youtu.be/6DXZMXZCY0I?si=4tZCG81u-J5YXl7t

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
Schneems@ruby.social ("Richard Schneeman") wrote:

@yosh something I internalized in the Texas winter storm of 2021: the opposite of "efficiency" isn't "waste" it's "redundancy"

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
thecasualcritic@writing.exchange ("The Casual Critic") wrote:

"The reason billionaires urge you to vote with your wallets is that their wallets are so much thicker than yours. This is the only numeric advantage the wealthy and powerful enjoy. They are in every other regards an irrelevant, infinitesimal minority. In a vote of ballots, rather than wallets, they will lose every time, which is why they are so committed to this wallet-voting nonsense. The wallet-vote is the only vote they can hope to win."

@pluralistic is spot on, as usual.

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
jciv ("John Coates") wrote:

Harvard Professor Jack Goldsmith (a Republican) provides details on the obviously illegal order our Secretary of Defense just executed - murder - on behalf of all US citizens.

https://www.execfunctions.org/p/a-dishonorable-strike?utm%5Fcampaign=post&utm%5Fmedium=web

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
juliusgoat.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("A.R. Moxon") wrote:

We need to start to understand that “respecting people’s beliefs” means giving the people holding anti-society beliefs what they want, which is separation from society. Respect their agency that they want what they say they want. Give them credit for the natural logical effect of their belief.

taral ("JP Sugarbroad") wrote:

Thought of the day: What would #riscv look like if you made #CHERI integral?

1. CSRs could be "capability-mapped". No need for separate CSR instructions. This might be a win or a loss depending on your use case?
2. Traps could generate special sentry capabilities that encode complex execution state. I see a common pattern of per-mode "save" registers for traps. How much of that can we avoid with this? Is LDM/STM an option?
3. Instead of hidden extended registers, could we require pair support?

Boosted by jwz:
jascha@ohai.social ("tomate 🍅") wrote:

We just celebrated Black Friday in memory of Rebecca Black who invented Friday back in 2011.