The most true and terrible ‘one-sentence horror story’ goes like this:

We can get used to anything.

I checked on the trending topics a few times on X over the evening including after the Taylor Swift endorsement and "Taylor Swift" was not trending. Even after an hour or so the only Taylor related tag was "Tay Tay" and it wasn't in the top five.

It could be that there are simply no women on X anymore.

But, I can't shake the feeling a billionaire messed with his algorithm.

Of course I can't prove this. But it's reasonable, right?

I just explained how the fediverse works to my mom and she thinks I'm some kind of dark web cyber criminal now I think.

Not a coincidence public archives are disappearing at the same time unpolluted training data for LLMs & other content generation systems have become valuable. (even as we are told they have no value, so no one should get paid)

This is very ugly and we need to have a real conversation about preserving human history, expanding and archiving the body of human knowledge, attribution, and royalties.

Our leadership is too craven and not educated enough in these matters to do it.

@tenzochris

I love it... (and, of course, I'm thinking about the ant-themed version.)

Here is a good ant pose:

(Cataglyphis hispanica)

If you see a new youTube channel with a plain sounding name like "NatureView" or "BrightScience" etc. and there is what looks like a tempting video on a specific education topic "Most Active Volcanoes" or "Incredible Carnivorous Plants"

There is a 50/50 chance it will be a generated voice with stock footage and a script written by GPT.

I am now avoiding videos if I don't recognize the creator, or don't see signs it was made by a person.

So much spam!

@stefanlaser Wild wires sound much nicer than wild fires— and wild wires would be decidedly solarpunk imo

Someone in my building is BLASTING "New York New York"

Which is traditionally done after yankee games if they win in our building.

LOL.

@clacke

to be honest that post felt a little to much like a personal attack to me.

@clacke

oh wait I do see it, it's on the first post, but not the thread reblogging it. Which is also strange.

@clacke

What "sensitive label" ?

This timelapse of a fungus kept by leafcutter ants is remarkable. Thousands of ants monitoring humidity, the nutrition needs of the fungus, removing unwanted growths, keeping their brood and harvesting food. Inside: the queen. Totally inclosed in a living home. The walls are food, a place for her eggs, they slowly renew, tended by her daughters.

As every living organism maintains itself, but on a strange macro-scale. These are your cells shedding and being replaced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3AZffDtOlw

The ancients walk among us even now and boy are they cranky.

I love the fedi only more for being the only place I know full of exasperated FORTRAN defenders. How can we insult the original word? Yea, when it was first written we were not yet even born! 🥰

I was telling my students about cuneiform and one asked if it would be on the exam.

So I told them the exam would be in cuneiform and they need to bring clay and little triangle styluses.😡

They still have not realized that anytime anyone asks "will this be on the test?" I always say "Yes."

@Green_Footballs

I always thought it must be awkward and embarrassing for police to investigate swatting given what it implies— though they probably focus on the dishonesty and “wasted police resources” rather than realize our police are so violent and indiscriminate in applying that violence that everyone knows it and bad actors have learned to use it to their advantage.

Just got a card from a student who has been having a rough year. She was having a great deal of trouble until I started showing her how to really USE a calculator. (It's algebra and geometry not arithmetic, and she knows the algorithms just makes SO MANY little mistakes)

Since then she's really taken off. I find very few people who could benefit from calculators know how to use them effectively, and there is a lot of snootiness and stigma in the way of this happening.

1/

This has mostly been reported as "trans women banned from women's chess" but it's much more sinister. (as if it weren't already.)

ALL trans people are targeted by this ruling. Trans men will be stripped of all chess titles won, which can only be returned to them by “changing the gender back to a woman” (from the ICF’s ruling). ALL transgender chess players will be marked as trans in their files.

If you play or know anyone who does take a stand on this. It's ugly.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/international-chess-org-trans-women?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

This is the 3rd time I've seen someone who makes YouTube videos go mad trying to second guess "the algorithm."

YouTube provides creators with a firehose of data: How long people watch, when they stop watching, the distribution of views.

YouTube also sometimes selects videos using a secret, unknowable algorithm to be "promoted." For small and medium creators this is a huge deal and the difference between 500 views and 500,000.

For self-critical analytical minds it's a toxic combination. 1/

The worst kind of boss or parent is the inconsistent, unpredictable boss who inflicts punishment or anger seemingly at random- making you think you ought to be able to figure out why it's happening. Improve your thumbnails! (add exaggerated faces to them) Avoid these colors. Don't forget to ask people to like and subscribe!

(People really are more likely to like a video if you ask. So, you should ask because likes are a factor in the mysterious algorithm, right?) 3/