@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

bthalpin

@bthalpin@mastodon.social

Sociologist in Limerick

Mostly playing with unrealistic computer models of real world processes

Emacs, Stata, Shiny & Rstats, Julia, Python

Linux on the desktop since about 1997

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bthalpin, to random
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

I made a submission to Waterways Ireland a while back, when their proposals included a very low speed limit for cycling on greenways along the canals and Shannon navigation. I just received notification that the limit has been scrapped.

@ccferrie @irishcycle @ownohmanny

bthalpin, to emacs
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

In 29 and before, and possibly earlier builds of 30, M-x buffer-menu RET opens a buffer menu with the (previously) current buffer at the top, with point on it.

Now in Emacs 30, if a buffer-menu already exists, it opens that, without refreshing it. I.e., the previously current buffer is not automatically at the head of the list. I keep killing the wrong buffer by mistake ๐Ÿ˜ž ๐Ÿคฆ

When did this happen? Where should I moan about it?

bthalpin, to emacs
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

In approximately 3 weeks, the oldest dated comment in my configuration file will turn 30.

And my email address was halpin@vax.ox.ac.uk and had relatively recently changed from JANET style little-endian to Internet style big-endian.

bthalpin, to bluesky
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

I've established I can use the AT Protocol API to post to from or I tried to re-post a Mastodon toot, but received this error message:

"Invalid app.bsky.feed.post record: Record/text must not be longer than 300 graphemes"

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Aaron jokes, but this is deadly serious.

Via Aaron Rupar:

  1. Krusty the Clown for HHS Director

Jim VandeHei:

๐Ÿšจ๐Ÿšจ โ€™s loyalty-first cabinet. EXCLUSIVE details: 1. Melania wants Tucker Carlson for VP. 2. Stephen Miller 4 Attorney General. 3. Tucker pushing Steve Bannon as Chief of Staff. 4. JD Vance up for a big gig, on VP short list

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff I thought Steve Bannon was Krusty the Clown

bthalpin, to bluesky
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

Who's who on ?

I'm running a completely non-scientific crawler, looking at what blueskites are being mentioned by others, recently.

There are ways of doing this properly and this is not it, but here is my top 10: The most @-ed blueskites (on the basis of about 2500 accounts checked)

65: pfrazee.com
45: neilhimself.neilgaiman.com
39: bsky.app
37: nytimes.com
34: jay.bsky.team
34: darthbluesky.bsky.social
25: washingtonpost.com
23: alttext.bsky.social
22: scalzi.com
20: deck.blue

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@mackuba Is that very big? It would be interesting to see if what I am finding (and in particular what it converges on if I run it overnight) is similar to the "ground truth".

But I'm doing this mainly for fun, so not if it's any trouble.

bthalpin, to Germany
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

Am I being completely cynical to suggest that 's enthusiasm for is just a way of masking continued investment in CH4 infrastructure?

Hydrogen at scale is not that effective, green or "blue", and investment in hydrogen is money taken away from investment in green electrification.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/rome-berlin-plan-massive-hydrogen-pipeline-to-africa/

RaphaelKohl, to TodayILearned

Is there any application which gives me the possibility to gather and process data in realtime in a classroom? Like coin thows and dice rolls etc.
I tried Microsoft Forms, but since I only have a few students they have to throw a few times. I cannot find a solution to combine the data. Let them fill out the same form multiple times seems awkward and time consuming. Is an option @rstats

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@RaphaelKohl @rstats should work but it would take (a) some programming and (b) being able to host it. I've done a coin-toss exercise with Shiny backed with sqlite3. I haven't used it in practice very often though; I find it disruptive.

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@RaphaelKohl @rstats
Check out http://teaching.sociology.ul.ie:3838/heads/

It's oriented to an N=4 binomial distribution example. It's in "showcase" mode for the moment, so you can see the code.

To create the sqlite file, in sqlite3 do:

create table responses(scode text, toss1 integer, toss2 integer, toss3 integer, toss4 integer);
.save headsdata.sqlite

You need to manually reset the sqlite file to empty between classes.

micahflee, to random

MY LATEST: Several thousand American Jews have mobilized across the U.S. to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Anti-Defamation League calls these Jewish organizations "hate groups." https://theintercept.com/2023/11/11/palestine-israel-protests-ceasefire-antisemitic/

ADL publishes a map of "Antisemitic Incidents and Anti-Israel Rallies in the U.S. Since Hamasโ€™s Attack on Israel." 46% of the points are antisemitic vandalism, harassment, and assault, much of it from neo-Nazis. The other 54% are anti-war protests which ADL calls "anti-Israel rallies"

Here are some examples of "Anti-Israel Rallies" from ADL's map, all organized by Jews:

  • Oct 16, blockading entrances to the White House
  • Oct 19, marching on Capitol Hill, hundreds arrested at sit-in in Capitol
  • Oct 27, Grand Central Station, largest sit-in in NYC in over two decades

"Weโ€™re seeing a genuine rise in antisemitic attacks and white nationalist, white supremacist, antisemitic hate and violence. When white nationalism is on the rise, to cheapen the accusation of antisemitism by applying it to Palestinian rights advocates, including Jews, is incredibly irresponsible and dangerous." - Eva Borgwardt, IfNotNow

Jewish protesters marching on the White House with a large "CEASEFIRE" sign
Roughly 500 Jews doing a sit-in at the Capitol, with signs saying "JEWS SAY CEASEFIRE NOW!" And "MOURN THE DEAD AND FIGHT LIKE HELL FOR THE LIVING"
Several thousand Jews and their allies taking over all of the main terminal Grand Central Station in NYC

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@micahflee Very interesting. I was playing around with similar tasks using Julia when I saw your post, and worked up a Julia example (using a slightly different technique to de-duplicate). I'm going to point some undergrads at your blog...

bthalpin, to emacs
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

;; Nov 7 2023
;; Exploit mastodon.el to toot the region

(require 'mastodon)
(defun toot-this (slug)
(mastodon-toot)
(insert slug)
(mastodon-toot--send))

(defun toot-region ()
(toot-this
(buffer-substring-no-properties (region-beginning) (region-end))))

M-: (toot-region) RET

lakens, to random
@lakens@mastodon.social avatar

Learning a bit of Python. "The first character has index 0" is going to be 50% of my programming mistakes in the first month, isn't it?

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@lakens 50% of the rest will be due to incorrect indentation

bthalpin, to random
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

I approve of this tendency: retiring the word billionaire and replacing it with oligarch.

The likes of Bezos and Musk don't (just) want more money, they want control.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/11/01/kathy-sheridan-oligarchs-like-elon-musk-are-most-dangerous-when-they-become-too-big-to-fail/

bthalpin, to ubuntu
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

Has anyone any idea why I am getting these graphics artifacts on Google Maps? Firefox, 22.03, Dell XPS 13. Some odd symptoms elsewhere too.

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@Millennium OSM is fine

glynmoody, (edited ) to random
@glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

UK government keeping files on teaching assistants and librariansโ€™ internet activity - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/21/uk-government-keeping-files-on-teaching-assistants-and-librarians-internet-activity Is this a good use of the DfEโ€™s limited time and resources? No.โ€ tories going full-on fascist dictatorship here... (V @davidpnice)

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross @glynmoody @davidpnice The only thing that doesn't sound like current Tory values is raising the pension.

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross @glynmoody @davidpnice You're not wrong, but it's a triple lock on a shitty pension

dangoodin, to random

Remember how bitflips skewed an election in Belgium by giving one candidate an extra 4,096 votes?

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

Is there something that caused that number to be 4,096 or is that just a coincidence?

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@dangoodin Given it's a power of 2, very likely a simple computer glitch. Not sure I believe in the cosmic rays argument, but it is consistent with a bitflip at position 13 in an integer. It could be another process, e.g., something that doubled a 1-unit error 12 times before adding it. But you know all this, obvs...

dgar, to random
@dgar@aus.social avatar

The adjective for metal is metallic.

Not so for iron, which is ironic.

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@johninfante @dgar @Gargron That's wild

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

WRITERS: anyone else taking Semaglutide (Ozempicโ„ข, Wegovyโ„ข, Rybelsusโ„ข, etc) and finding it demotivates you for writing?

GLP-1 agonists aren't just antidiabetic drugs that cause weight loss, they also seem to reduce reward-seeking behaviour, eg. alcoholism. And for me, writing has always been my obsession.

But I'm on Rybelsus (for type II diabetes) and it's been a real slog this past year. I'm just starting a project that SHOULD be obsessive and instead I'm just โ€ฆ meh, don't wanna.

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@afhomer @cstross
It's a big-pharma/govt conspiracy. A population dosed with fluoride^W vaccines^W 5g^W semaglutide is a passive population.

bthalpin, (edited )
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross Like @afhomer, not commenting on your personal situation (and it's a wonder how many things that would have been deadly are easily manageable with new treatments), but your observations about the effects on motivation are really interesting.

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

As noted in my bio, I post long threads from this account and there are many ways to get my essays if my Mastodon style doesn't suit - RSS, newsletter, Medium, Tumblr, a blog, etc. I recommend unfollowing me here and subscribing to one of those if you prefer. Links at pluralistic.net.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/17/so-youve-decided-to-unfollow-me/

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@pluralistic I always say, if you come across a thread from @pluralistic, read it, it'll be interesting. OTOH if you don't want to read it (just then) it's the perfect use-case for the temporary mute. Just mute Cory for 5 or 30 mins, clutter gone.

bthalpin, to random
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

More & more of my Gmail inbox is crap, but a lot of it comes from really peripheral things I did (hey, I bought some Levis, hey, I clicked on a Substack link) & quite a bit is from people who are not me but think they have the same e-mail address (thanks guys for the offer of a lacrosse scholarship, mortgage, car insurance claim details, sports club membership). Since I mostly read it via IMAP (behind , thanks @jmason) I am v inclined to leave the crap there to confuse Google Inc!

bthalpin,
@bthalpin@mastodon.social avatar

@socprof @protonmail I have a protonmail a/c but I don't use it much because you have to pay to use it via IMAP (and I won't check the website often enough for it to work as a means of communication). But if they're as good as they say they are, maybe it's worth paying.

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