I've been involved with the Internet continuously pretty much since its earliest ancestor ARPANET days at UCLA ARPANET site #1.
I can assure you that the ARPANET and the Internet into which it evolved were NOT designed to provide a means for a handful of powerful AI firms to suck the world dry without permission or compensation of information en masse, that has mostly been put online for free as a public service, all to enrich the coffers and stockholders of those firms, while giving only lip service (if that) to ethical considerations, and giving the sites from which they slurp data the finger, while laughing all the way to the bank.
Much of the Internet "debate" about algebra seems to stem from lack of awareness of what the subject is (versus the arithmetic method it was long ago) #algebra#mathedhttps://tinyurl.com/2p9myzt5
@SmartmanApps Actually, my main point was that the arrival of modern mathematics at the start of the 20th Century changed the entire game, and eliminated the need for all those old calculating rules, with arithmetic becoming essentially a subdomain of algebra, based on axiomatically-defined modern numbers.
"Algebra Rules rules", if you like 🙂
[I was on the MSEB in 2001 when they published "Adding It Up" to accelerate the change.]
Yes I realize I am creating a bubble by blocking fascists, nazis, racists, misogynists, white supremacists, maga, trumpists, assholes, and idiots. However in my defense it is a bubble without fascists, nazis, racists, misogynists, white supremacists, maga, trumpists, assholes, and idiots.
I just found out X/Twitter unilaterally "verified" my old and dormant account there ("because you're an influential user"), now making me look like I'm an idiot who's voluntarily paying Musk eight bucks or whatever it is a month.
I’m flummoxed. Just saw on my inactive Twitter account (which still has 112k followers) that the blue tick is back. The Musk team had taken it away when anyone could begin to buy one. And there’s a notice my account is being reviewed because I purchased a subscription “on another device.” I did not, however, buy a subscription. 🙄
Maybe it's because I'm a naturalized U.S. citizen, but when people threaten to withhold their vote in protest I can't help but wonder what the actual fuck they think they're accomplishing by a) demoting themselves into non-citizen status and b) announcing their asinine decision
Breaking Away & American Flyers introduced cycling to the American mainstream in the 1980s every bit as much as the successes of LeMond, Hampsten, Phinney, et al.
What U.S. cyclist hasn't envisioned themself drafting a Cinzano semi? 😁
@parismarx@ZachWeinersmith Many years ago I spent an evening sitting at a bar table with Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and a few others. The latter was clearly widely read and very, very sharp. Musk came across as shallow and transparently unaware of his ignorance. I guarantee that Thiel remembers who I am and Musk hasn't a clue. Which suits me just fine.
"Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly — we could be in uncharted territory
Taking into account all known factors, the planet warmed 0.2 °C more last year than climate scientists expected. More and better data are urgently needed."
Good piece in Nature this week by Gavin Schmidt covers the extremely anomalous temperatures in 2023, well before El Nino got started as well as the loss of #Antarctic#SeaIce and aerosols...
In this week's Brexit downsides: the largest decline in external trade since 1997, biosecurity funding withdrawn from Dover, and much more | Anthony Robinson
@YorksBylines The most scary and depressing aspect of this summary is it is just one of what will be a long series of downward steps. Margaret Thatcher did many of us a good deed when she pushed us out of the UK in the mid-80s. (In my case b/c "math research is a waste of time and resources". Bigoted ignorance run amok.)
@VPS_Reports Well, that short reply resulted in my having to mute a bunch of uninformed responders. From now on, I'm spared wasting time reading their stuff ...🙄