mathling

matthewskelton, 5 days ago to random

"Surprisingly, our results show that women's contributions tend to be accepted more often than men's. However, when a woman's gender is identifiable, they are rejected more often. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists nonetheless."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308716997_Gender_bias_in_open_source_Pull_request_acceptance_of_women_versus_men

🤬

blair_fix, 5 days ago to random

Counterintuitively, efficiency is not a tool for conservation. It's a catalyst for technological sprawl.

Here's my deep dive into the Jevons paradox.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/05/18/a-tour-of-the-jevons-paradox-how-energy-efficiency-backfires/

KathyReid, 13 days ago to stackoverflow

Like many other technologists, I gave my time and expertise for free to #StackOverflow because the content was licensed CC-BY-SA - meaning that it was a public good. It brought me joy to help people figure out why their #ASR code wasn't working, or assist with a #CUDA bug.

Now that a deal has been struck with #OpenAI to scrape all the questions and answers in Stack Overflow, to train #GenerativeAI models, like #LLMs, without attribution to authors (as required under the CC-BY-SA license under which Stack Overflow content is licensed), to be sold back to us (the SA clause requires derivative works to be shared under the same license), I have issued a Data Deletion request to Stack Overflow to disassociate my username from my Stack Overflow username, and am closing my account, just like I did with Reddit, Inc.

https://policies.stackoverflow.co/data-request/

The data I helped create is going to be bundled in an #LLM and sold back to me.

In a single move, Stack Overflow has alienated its community - which is also its main source of competitive advantage, in exchange for token lucre.

Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow's former instantiation, used to fulfill a psychological contract - help others out when you can, for the expectation that others may in turn assist you in the future. Now it's not an exchange, it's #enshittification.

Programmers now join artists and copywriters, whose works have been snaffled up to create #GenAI solutions.

The silver lining I see is that once OpenAI creates LLMs that generate code - like Microsoft has done with Copilot on GitHub - where will they go to get help with the bugs that the generative AI models introduce, particularly, given the recent GitClear report, of the "downward pressure on code quality" caused by these tools?

While this is just one more example of #enshittification, it's also a salient lesson for #DevRel folks - if your community is your source of advantage, don't upset them.

nicksherman, 15 days ago to random

Pro tip for anyone exporting SVG web images where the fonts are converted to outlines:
If the typefaces in your original design files are offered as both .otf and .ttf fonts, use the .otf fonts.

All the major design apps use significantly more data points when outlining TTF curves, resulting in much larger file sizes (with or without compression).

In my tests on a large set of type specimen graphics, exporting identical designs with TTF fonts resulted in SVGs that were almost double the size.

mekkaokereke, 21 days ago to random

I told y'all, cops don't do what you think they do.🤷🏿‍♂️

Black folk know this from lived experience. Some white folk only learn this when they go to report a theft or sexual assault and find out that the $11B/year NYPD are not equipped to handle that.

15K NYC bikes stolen a year!

https://www.404media.co/nypd-bike-lock-chain-kryptonite-columbia-university-protests/

1/n

nixCraft, 21 days ago to random

I can't believe a paid OS needs a tool like this. Here's a GUI tool called OFGB (Oh Frick Go Back) to remove all the ads in Windows 11. It's understandable if a free OS or app needs ad support, but this is just crazy https://github.com/xM4ddy/OFGB

jeffowski, 22 days ago to random

There is no red in this picture.
Your brain is filling the Red colour.
The picture is made entirely of light blue, black and white.
Zoom in and you'll see.😅😬😎

tuckerteague, 25 days ago to random

#SilentSunday

MostlyHarmless, 1 month ago to random

gvwilson, 1 month ago to random

Nobody on the Voyager team should have to pay for their own drink ever again.

returntosender, 1 month ago to animals

look again
it's four
#catsofmastodon #cats #Humor

cstross, 1 month ago to random

I swear, in the long term the most useful part of my tech education—which includes a master's degree in computer science from 1990—has turned out to be reading comp.risks religiously since the late 80s and watching every new grift and scam and dark design pattern and type of malware on the internet emerge in realtime.

I hate that in this century everyone needs the paranoia and skill set of a 90s network security administrator.

brood, 1 month ago to random

download everything. that service is going to die. be your own librarian.

luckytran, 1 month ago to random

This was avoidable.

inthehands, 1 month ago to random

Because they bring me such joy, I will share with you all the software testing videos I share with my Software Design and Development students.

Video 1/3: “We don’t need user testing! We already know our users”

Children at a playground completely ignoring the slide, and sliding down the smooth hill upon which the slide is mounted

mattblaze, 1 month ago to random

Especially if this will be your first total eclipse, my advice is to go light on cameras and optics and focus on just experiencing the event. There’s a lot more to see and feel during totality than just the occlusion of the sun.

I’m planning on bringing a tripod (it gets dark!) and wide angle lens to capture the overall environment. But I’m leaving the “portable solar observatory” stuff to the astronomers.

laurahelmuth, 1 month ago to random

Fascinating! Does anybody else have ticker-tape synesthesia? Some people see spoken words converted into text in their heads. This is a great description of the research & experience, which is like a mental closed captioning https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/my-synesthesia-transforms-speech-into-text-i-see-in-my-head/

Mer__edith, 1 month ago to random

I have a lot more to say, but I'll hold it for now and simply wonder aloud...

Which BigTech clouds are the "Lavender" & "Where's Daddy?" AI systems running on? What APIs are they using? Which libraries are they calling?

What work did my former colleagues, did I, did you contribute to that may now be enabling this automated slaughter?

(Also, content warning. This is some of the sickest shit I've ever read.)

https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

grimalkina, 1 month ago to random

Contest cultures ("constantly prove you belong! Prove you're smart! Everything here is a dog eat dog competition!") tear people down under the guise of "toughness" and "identifying brilliance." In psych, we know this is destructive to long term sustainable work and mastery. We know it's systematically leveled at marginalized folks more.

These beliefs are at the heart of it all. This cannot be what we continue to let define who belongs in technical work and cultures.

https://mastodon.world/

timbray, 1 month ago to random

I think the #xz incident is teaching us that our infrastructure is dangerously fragile in the face of well-organized/funded attackers. The response isn’t “try harder” or “donate to your OSS project”, it needs to be institutional, professional, and at scale.

So, here’s my proposal, called “OSQI”, aimed at starting a how-to discussion: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/04/01/OSQI

baldur, 1 month ago to random

“Don’t modernize your code just for the heck of it | Go Make Things”

This. “Modernising” a code base is quite often a prelude to some of the worst software disasters you’ll ever see. It requires much greater expertise than just writing for a new project https://gomakethings.com/dont-modernize-your-code-just-for-the-heck-of-it/

GossiTheDog, 1 month ago to random

deleted_by_author

stux, 1 month ago to Fifa

Yes it is, #FIFA is nothing more then corrupt old money

bitprophet, 1 month ago to linguistics

https://rootlgame.net/ continues to be good fun. Just remembered it today after discovering it (on here, natch. forget who offhand, a mutual probably?) and added it to my first-thing morning tab set.

Also! You can play the entire historical run of the game, so I'm probably going to have /a/ Rootl tab open like, near permanently, until I finish the backlog 😂

#linguistics #etymology #vocabulary #language #English

AkaSci, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

The venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft is experiencing another glitch. Instead of sending science and engg. data, it is sending a 0101 bit pattern.

The problem has been narrowed down to the flight data system (FDS), which is not communicating properly with the telecom unit (TMU). A reboot did not help.

Stay tuned as NASA engrs work out a fix for this 1970's era computer, which has performed magnificently during its long 46-year journey to the planets and to outer space.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/
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