VoxDei

rbreich, 19 hours ago to random

4 years ago, an exec for a top PPE producer testified to Congress that in Jan 2020 (as fear of covid began to spread) his firm offered to ramp up production to make 1.7 million N95 masks available to the public per week.

The Trump admin said no.

VoxDei, 1 day ago to statistics

Particularly egregious misuse of stats from the Guardian: "Although more than a third of the women in the study had been sexually inactive during the past month, fewer than half expressed dissatisfaction with their sex lives."

Sooo... 1/3 inactive, >1/3 dissatisfied. And yet the article is trying to suggest it's at the other end of the scale by framing it as "fewer than half" and behaving as if it's surprising?

#stats #statistics #guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/13/i-often-say-the-journey-time-is-longer-how-to-make-sex-after-50-work-for-you

VoxDei, 3 days ago to spiders

Ooof. Never argue with an ant colony. Cleaning out a storage box in the garden. One corner has an ant colony in it, partially destroyed by my clearing. Also present: Two 3cm-ish false widow spiders, shiny black. Can't escape the box now the contents have been removed, sides are too smooth.

Left the job and went to have lunch, expecting to need to re-home the spiders. Figured they had plenty of ants to eat. On return, no sign of the smaller spider. The larger has had a disagreement with the ants. It has not ended at all well for the spider.

#spiders #ants #bugs #insects #entomology

VoxDei, 4 days ago to uk

I have wanted to see this forever. This is outside Newton Abbot in Devon just before midnight. Doesn't look this dramatic to the naked eye, this is about a 3s exposure with a Google Pixel 7a.

#uk #Auroraborealis #Devon #northernlights

The Aurora Borealis seen facing North-West from a hill outside Newton Abbot. There is a dark tree-lined skyline at the bottom of the image, the aurora fill the sky above. The aurora is red with brighter vertical lines in the centre and towards the top of the image, greenish towards the bottom.

VoxDei, 4 days ago to ai

What we have at the moment isn't AGI and therefore its capacity for genuine harm is (I believe) limited. However, the idea that we seem to be teaching these things to deceive by accident is concerning.

#ai

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/10/is-ai-lying-to-me-scientists-warn-of-growing-capacity-for-deception?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

VoxDei, 13 days ago to ai

Argh... reviewing a colleague's python code, and he's used ChatGPT or Copilot or some other AI "helper" to write a bunch of the code. And it's just got a load of "Why the hell have you done this?" bits. Especially in the unit tests - it really doesn't know how to write pytest tests.

If you don't know what you're doing it looks halfway reasonable, and it kind-of-sort-of works, but... you'd never write that code if you were doing it yourself.

#ai #chatgpt #copilot #coding #botshit #python

VoxDei, 13 days ago to uk

I find this utterly baffling. You're a non-dom and you're complaining that removing that status will mean you have to pay so much tax that you'll leave. Right, well...

1. From what I've seen, the evidence that the super-rich actually do leave when taxes go up isn't there. So you might leave, but most of your fellows will pay more.

2. If you aren't paying your tax at the moment, then your argument that you have value to the country is essentially trickle-down economics. You have money, therefore you will spend it or give it to others. Trickle down has been shown to be bullshit.

So. You will leave and take your very small contribution with you. Fine. Most of your friends won't, they will compensate for the loss of your (to you) pittance. If you don't want to pay your share like everyone else, then you are not a loss to this country when you leave. Piss off and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/may/02/i-am-moving-tycoon-bassim-haidar-non-dom-tax-status-super-rich-exodus

#uk #tax #nondom #guardian #rich #superrich

GeePawHill, 14 days ago to random

Aperiodic reminder for anyone giving their first presentation:

You are the show.
Your story is what they came for.
Your slides are just props.

Do what you need to do, prop-wise, to feel comfortable, but remember the props are the third most important thing about your prezzie.

drandrewv2, 14 days ago to cfs

So, here’s some personal and professional news… I’m going to be leaving my job pretty soon. 😬

It’s a bit of a wrench, because this job has been a big and exciting thing, for lots of reasons. But, you know, I have been having a shit of a time with the old #CFS and #POTS lately, and…

📢 #LifeLesson 🚨

If you can’t do the job and preserve your health, there will come a point when you just can’t do the job.

That’s not a choice.

It’s an inescapable law of nature.

#chronicIllness #disability

cstross, 27 days ago to random

THEY HAVE PLAYED US FOR ABSOLUTE FOOLS!!!
https://mastodon.online/@Geri/112288236917634728

VoxDei, 29 days ago to windows

My PC has just told me that it can't run Windows 11, but that Windows 10 will be out of support from October 2025. I have news for you Microsoft, I don't have a spare £1k (or even half that) for a new gaming rig just because you don't like mine. It'll be Linux for me if you force me.

#Windows #Windows10 #Windows11 #Microsoft #Linux #pc

GeePawHill, 1 month ago to random

To the best of my knowledge, we have never seen a failed UBI program.

There's a lot of "logic" that opposes UBI. But, actual data? All of our actual data says, "Damn, this works."

cstross, 1 month ago to random

Q: Why is Donald Trump suddenly selling $60 bibles?

A: It enables churches to funnel money to him without violating the (US law) ban on political campaigning by churches—it's a form of money laundering, in other words.

freemo, 1 month ago to fediverse

I want to apologize to the whole #fediverse community, sincerely, for my recent behaviors over the last 4 months.

If i have been rude or even short tempered with any of you my apologies you likely did not deserve it. Read on if you’d like to know the story and you can decide if I should be forgiven or not.

I know several months ago I made a similar apology, and this may fall on deaf ears, but I hope some of you will hear me out.

First off my last apology came at the face of an Israeli mob death threat on both me and my family. That added a lot of stress at the time and certainly led to me being a bit rude with some people, not an excuse but I do want to rehash it a bit for context. Many of you have noticed since then I do not go out without an open-carry weapon on my hip, this is why.

That said that is not the source of this apology but it is loose related.

I have been dealing with some health issues that, while not life threatening they have severely limited me in some ways. Specifically a very severe sleep disorder. The sleep disorder, and a brain fog that made it very hard for me to think and function normally. In and of itself these werent the root cause, there were underlying issues. But my attempt to treat the symptoms (since the underlying causes we unknown) actually led to a worsening of symptoms long term despite providing some help in the short term. I will explain.

Most of my life I had ADHD as a diagnosis, but it had never been a hindrance to me, in fact I saw it as something that improved my intellectual abilities overall. However this diagnosis allowed me to receive an adderall prescription to try to address the sleep disorder and brain fog, not to treat the ADHD directly, which I have been on for about the last 4 months. It was a low dose (20mg once a day in the morning to wake up). At first it addressed my symptoms with amazing results, but over time it led to a cure to my sleep issue but the brain fog got much much worse. In addition to that my irritability when interacting with people was worse and I have been quite dis-tempered with some of you, and I am deeply sorry for that if this describes you. It certainly continued to cure the sleep issue however and since normal sleep is needed for me to do my work i felt i needed to continue.

Recently however I decided to take matters into my own hands and stop relying on doctors. Instead I got labs through shady means to test for things doctors were dismissive of and wouldnt in the past let me get authorization to have tested. Namely my testosterone levels, thyroid hormone levels, and various blood sugar indicators. These tests revealed three underlying issues: 1) A severely low T-level (so low the tests couldn’t even register trace amounts) 2) An extremely high Thyroid-stimulating hormone, 3x above the maximum normal range 3) metabolic disorder causing blood sugar and insulin irregularities (which likewise led to extreme runaway hunger).

At this point I found a doctor who was finally willing to listen to me, armed with a mountain of ill gotten blood tests and managed to convince her to test me properly for verification and finally treat my underlying diseases.

As of about a week ago I started treatment for my underlying diseases, needing to take injections of about 3 drugs, soon to be 4. Knowing that the root cause could finally be addressed I figured around the same time last week I could quit both the adderall and the sleeping medication entirely. Now that the underlying treatments are starting to work, and the old treatments out of my system I feel the best I’ve felt in years. I already lost 16 lbs, my brain fog has mostly evaporated, and while my sleep is still recovering it was quite improved last night… So while i have a ways to go to be 100% I am already back to my old self, how I used to be before the brain fog began. and certainly doing better than I was doing even 6 months ago.

I will do my best, going forward to treat you all with the respect and due consideration you deserve. Again my apologies.

VoxDei, 1 month ago to hongkong

"Yet, for all that, Hong Kong flourished... under the aegis of empire. ... Though denied full democratic rights, its people eventually prospered."

Simon Tisdall in the Guardian decrying China's destruction of Hong Kong's democracy by, er... harking back to the British Empire's undemocratic treatment of Hong Kong. China's treatment of Hong Kong is a disgrace, but I'm not sure this is the killer argument Tisdall seems to think.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/23/xi-jinping-seals-hong-kong-fate-as-failed-state?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

#HongKong #China #BritishEmpire #TheGuardian #SimonTisdall

janbartosik, 1 month ago to books

† Vernor Vinge (79)

Rest in peace. Loved the Zones of Thought series.

#books #amreading #reading #kindle #literature #bookwyrm #booktoot #book #books #knihy #scifi #sff @bookstodon @scifi @knihy

drandrewv2, 2 months ago to UKpolitics

Have we finally got to the season finale, where the government accidentally defines itself as an extremist organisation, and bans itself from talking to itself or to any public institutions?

Who had that on their bingo card? 🤷‍♀️

#UKPolitics

freemo, 2 months ago to random

I just had to solve a captcha that was a bunch of pictures of objects and it says "Select all the objects that can not spin"... I'm just thinking "My dude, anything can spin with if you put enough energy into it"

artemis, 2 months ago to random

You have to be a very specific type of person to name your surveillance company Palantir.

Either you don't understand the sinister symmetry of that or you're proud of the fact that you're a horrible person.

I know which one I think it is.

freemo, 2 months ago to chemistry

If a chemist tried to do a portrait of a person.

#Chemistry

VoxDei, 2 months ago to random

Sooo, the child benefit taper thing. Benefits anyone with children who earns between £50k (old lower threshold) and £80k (new upper threshold).

Explain to me again how this helps the worst off in this country?

#budget #ukpol

setebos, 2 months ago to internet

i'm a teapot. #internet #http

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Text_Coffee_Pot_Control_Protocol

VoxDei, 3 months ago to random

I see the Guardian is going for the could-have-been-published-by-the-Nazis look this morning.

(Going by the associated headline I think it's supposed to represent Iran. Separated from the headline, it's awful.)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/feb/04/ella-baron-us-british-airstrikes-iranian-backed-militias-cartoon?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

#theguardian #antisemitism

lowqualityfacts, 9 months ago to random

Everyone: Hello, we would like society to improve.

Billionaires: Too bad, go scream into the void instead.

Everyone: Okay.

Billionaires: Also, we have bought all the voids. It now costs $100 to scream into the void.