Three plus or minus five

Ex-professor, physicist, dad, gamer. I used to teach and do experimental particle physics; now I work on robotics software and deal with corporate culture shock. #exac #exacademic

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Pronouns: He/him

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threesigma_at_mastodon.online@momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2026-04-29 12:52:11 UTC

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The good news is that this means the next gen AI is training on this generation’s shit. This poison ensures that it will reinforce its blandest habits and learn nonsense, speeding up the downward spiral of AI and hopefully dying out.

2026-03-23 18:38:08 UTC

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In my last job I was pulled into an all-faculty meeting. President of the college then told us that the few-percent retirement contribution "temporarily paused" a couple of years ago was permanent and no one had ever said it was temporary.
I walked out. I was surprised to find myself the only one.

2026-03-09 10:54:29 UTC

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Might be causal the other way though: only places that actually want to fix the problem do reporting..

2026-03-08 13:56:23 UTC

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I’m not sure it’s big in the UK yet, but a major theme in the US right wing propaganda is “both sides are corrupt and competence is a myth”, in part to reduce voting enthusiasm and in part because they want people to distrust the whole idea of government so they can shrink it. “Your vote doesn’t matter” is complementary to that.

2026-01-13 21:15:11 UTC

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Maybe run each file through sort, then apply a simple diff with ignore-whitespace?

2025-12-25 20:46:48 UTC

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I’m not arguing about what rank and file conservatives believe, I’m saying this is what the ideology is. I think it’s quite likely that many conservatives voters do not subscribe to the ideology of their party. (And similarly on the left.). But the intellectual history on the right is one in which people have a natural position in the ladder of power and where being in the wrong place means disaster.

2025-12-24 21:29:49 UTC

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Well, yes, but one side’s ideology says this is a bad thing, while the other side says it’s a good thing.
Conservative movements have always been about the “right” people getting money and power and then saying that because they won the fight they deserve to keep it. You keep competition around so new heroes can be promoted, but it’s not the important part.

2025-12-22 22:48:04 UTC

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I don’t get it. Having more currencies is very capitalist. More currencies gives more opportunities for manipulation. I’d you want to stop capital from accruing power, how does having a new currency help?

2025-11-22 13:16:07 UTC

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Nvidia was a strong company before the ai boom, but not massive like it is now. (I work in one of those other markets and the dominate by being cheap and their software subsidized.)
The “doom storyline” only says that the largest growth of the company goes away, or customers in some of the other markets go away (or some linear combination).

2025-11-22 04:23:35 UTC

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One of the troubles with this is that it's totally insane. How can nvidia GROW it's market when it's building a whole bunch of AI farms that either
a) do as intended and put millions of people out of work and use all our power and clean water, or
b) dont' work as intended and go to rust
Either way, how does investing in nvidia help?

2025-11-21 12:04:21 UTC

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I don’t know stonks but this makes sense to me: no one gets sticks for dividends, so earnings are not directly relevant. Future size drives stock prices. So they are saying nvidia (and adobe) are peaking, running out of market to grow to.

2025-10-27 23:23:51 UTC

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I still don’t know what “breaking” means. Riots? Striking?
I mean, I’m up for it, but it’s not clear what.

2025-10-17 18:23:26 UTC

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13% is lot. No one should expect those kinds of returns on investment year-on-year in a healthy economy. It’s larger than inflation or interest or population growth or worker earnings, or even all of those added together. What real-world value can that possibly be meaningfully related to?

2025-10-17 00:44:42 UTC

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They're connected, but not the same. The stock market has been doing very well for the last few years, but none of that wealth has come down to many people. Conversely, I've lived through many stock crashes which affected my life not at all.
The economy is not the market.

2025-10-16 02:28:21 UTC

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Anyone who has a good pension is probably richer than most people. And if you're not about to retire in the next few years, then a market dip doesn't really hurt you, assuming it recovers somehow.
But a year of two of unemployment can completely destroy you.

2025-10-15 21:55:37 UTC

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I don’t care about stock market crashes. Who gives a shit about what rich people own? The problem is the economy collapsing, as employers cut jobs and people can’t spend.
And that is -very- predictable, if huge investments have been made in something clearly worthless.

2025-10-15 11:50:37 UTC

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I really dislike the use of the word "populism" because none of their policies are actually popular.
Both MAGA and Brexit are racism.
Weaponized racism, nationalism, xenophobia, with a heavy to moderate sprinkling of sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and general othering. Fascism.

2025-07-30 14:59:50 UTC

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Don't forget that after you get through all that and the page loads, their modern layout means that no actual content is visible on your old phone's smaller screen. The layovers on top and bottom and media mean there's no room for the text you wanted to read.

2025-07-26 15:38:53 UTC

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I dunno. If they had kept the licenses in a cardboard box in an unlocked building and it got stolen, I would still put at least some of the blame on the thieves. Not all, but some.

2025-07-10 11:51:28 UTC

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All the hallmarks of crackpottery: math is stated without proof. Few figures with meaningful calculations or data. One author, no institution. Grandiose abstract. If you scroll down into it, you see phrases in boldface, which is not a thing in physics papers. Scroll further and half of it is bold.
I totally admit I’m a dumb experimentalist and many good theory papers fly above my head, but this is pretty clearly bullshit.

2025-07-08 10:59:42 UTC

I know we all want distraction from the horribleness, but shouldn’t there be more media/social media attention on the fact that the stazi have just been given tons and tons of cash and there is no legal way to stop them? Do we have a plan for how to deal with this?

2025-07-05 18:51:29 UTC

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Maybe? But AI doesn't spit out spaghetti code, it spits out code that plausibly resembles code a human would have written. It purports to communicate, and often is says things that make some kind of sense.
The problem is when it doesn't, because it doesn't actually understand anything.

2025-07-05 18:34:16 UTC

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Because coders lean heavily toward the literal-minded, I think exaggerating to this extent is probably won't sway them much.
I sorta feel the way to get people onboard is: Undocumented obfuscated spaghetti code is functionally pointless; it's useful only in a very contrived situations.

2025-07-05 12:55:33 UTC

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I think that’s an exaggeration. Yes, it’s for communication in part, but I’ve written tons of useful code to be executed on the computer that was never read by anyone else. Not even me, sometimes. The silicon part isn’t everything, but it’s necessary.

2025-06-18 11:01:17 UTC

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I know this thread is about ChatGPT, but t you have to stop and wonder at the incompetence of police that can’t deal with such a case without lethal force. When warned!

2025-06-02 12:43:09 UTC

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This post got to me via the hashtag, but scrolling back through several pages of your post history I can’t find a synopsis or link to what the project is.

2025-04-29 22:13:57 UTC

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Yes, it wasn't the only one. I know of at least one other.
The problem is, I'm not sure there is standing to sue. The terms always allow the funder to review the grant every year and suspend payment, so any legal fight may be an uphill battle.
It's insulting and racist and badly done and maddening. And it's only a drop in the bucket, I'm afraid....

2025-01-30 01:37:59 UTC

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No worries. It’s not really a trigger, more like an itch. I think those of us that experience it don’t need CWs or anything.

2025-01-30 00:07:11 UTC

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Very cool. But also: trypophobia activated.

2025-01-09 21:37:25 UTC

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No caching at your local server? Or rather, no effective caching?

2025-01-09 21:30:53 UTC

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surely it’s the servers talking to you, not the users? Sorry to be daft, but I don’t understand the basic mechanism.

2025-01-09 21:00:11 UTC

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I’m not familiar with fediverse inner workings. Can someone explain why it’s such a big load? Each boost is maybe a kb of data, so even a million of them over a day is a GB of transactions. I assume other servers cache the actual post, which again is less than a kb. What’s the huge overhead?

2024-11-11 13:13:08 UTC

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What's your data on the efficacy of these protests, particularly in fascist-run countries as ours is about to be?

2024-11-11 13:10:05 UTC

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OK, but that's not happening any time soon in this country. Or other countries.
So what can I do?
I totally get that individual action is too small, but I don't see any collective action that I can help. Or that anyone can help for that matter.

2024-11-10 13:48:30 UTC

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How?
Writing letters won’t accomplish much. I’m middle class but I can’t afford solar power on my house or a new car that’s electric. I doubt I’ve ever educated or swayed anyone despite my efforts.

2024-08-26 17:19:12 UTC

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So, I was primarily an educator. Most people who know, say, a Newton as a unit know it from high-school or first-year physics. Generally those courses don't get to Bq or Ci units, and most units are single letters. Two-letter symbols are easily confused with elements or look like compound units to first blush.
I'm in generally in favor of such a naming, I just wish we had something less confusing. Perhaps a lowercase eta? Or script N?

2024-08-26 12:10:15 UTC

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maybe a lowercase n?

2024-08-26 12:08:40 UTC

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I honestly didn’t even see the link to the paper, overshadowed as it was by Noether’s.
Two-letter unit names are not awesome. We use them in a few places in physics but not much in the intro series. This may sound nitpicks but anything that makes units or math more confusing for students is something I would want to avoid.
All that said, I’m still pro. We need a unit, and Noether is one who deserves recognition.

2024-08-26 11:06:59 UTC

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I’d be all over this.. except there’s no good abbreviation.