@aram It still boggles my mind that people hype the fundamental excellence of modern machine learning when, in fact, the technology that goes into it is still largely based on the experiments of Hubel and Wiesel which were focused on the visual cortex of the common housecat.

Personally, while it's breaktaking how effective these technologies are ... there is a part of me that still goes, "But this is based on a housecat visual cortex (glances uncomfortably at his 2 treacherous cats)."

@aram Joking aside, I find it profound that such basic deep neural nets naturally exhibit hallucination. Since only about 25% of humans will hallucinate once in their lifetime, but artificial neural nets of the modern variety hallucinate strongly ... it makes me wonder what biological neurological mechanisms must be in place to inhibit or offset the active hallucination response.

I feel there is much to learn even from primitive tech. But I agree we should not over-hype it.

I've been managing a bit more self-care in the last few days. It's been hard this year. I was able to break the cycle of not going for a run and have gone for two runs in the last 3 days. This needs to continue more, but it's a start.

That said, I need to find the determination to got from a series of starts to a real routine, the way it used to be in the 2010s.

One thing that has made this tough is the increasing disrespect for free time in work calendars.

More and more over the last decade, as institutions allow people to book time in other people's calendars, there has been the presumption that "free" means "available".

NO.

NO.

NO.

Free means "ask me if I have time for you". Preemptive booking without consultation leads more and more to me hitting "Decline". When it comes to time, the verb should not be mine but, rather, theirs. They should ASK. I should not have to DECLINE just to begin the conversation.

@skinnylatte If there is a particular recipe you favour and you would be willing to share, I am delighted to learn more. This is one of my favourite things.

@skinnylatte Ah never mind! I see you got this question already. I will use your answer.

(Rethread of post)

Curious about radiation doses, and what is normal and what is not? Learn more from the #Sievert wikipedia page:

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

While 2 mSv is the typical ambient background radiation dose you get merely from living on this planet, the occupational dose limit (where health risks begin to increase) is 50 mSv per year.

Trace amounts of radioisotopes will generate much less, but potentially more than 60 nSv/h. Will be interesting to watch in coming days.

@vicgrinberg Thanks. It’s been some dark days recently. I went from “Pantera (Far Beyond Driven)” to “Frightened Rabbit (Painting of a Panic Attack)” in about 2 weeks. However, there is hope in sight in the coming weeks.

There is also a growing body of evidence that, at a minimum, some microorganisms suffer negative health consequences when DEPRIVED of ambient (background) radiation. Since life evolved in an ambient radiation environment, this would be evidence that too LITTLE radiation can have negative health consequences. There may be a “goldilocks” radiation zone for Earth life.

The #REPAIR experiment at #SNOLAB explores this question.

https://www.snolab.ca/experiment/repair/

@vicgrinberg 100% yes. Let me send a bibliography. It will take a moment.

@vicgrinberg I know. I am not good at life right now.

For those of you who are “nuclear curious”, the attack on Iranian nuclear sites could have resulted in trace amounts of radioactive material getting kicked into the atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere is a river that flows across the globe, and other places will “see” those isotopes with sensitive enough instruments.

Here is gamma radiation air monitoring open data, including data from #SNOLAB where I work. This data aids in nuclear non-proliferation.

https://remap.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Advanced.aspx

Had a great tour of the STOR-M plasma tokamak at University of Saskatchewan. The team showed us what it looks like when they inject a pulse and generate a plasma in the device, which you can see as the bright red-blue flash in the photo below. It lasts about 30 milliseconds. #USask #physics #CAPCongress25 #CAP

@evan Just to be clear, do you care how big or how small the site is? And if it is Wordpress-powered, you don't care whether it was using something like ActivityPub in, say, 2005. You just care that it was up and running and publicly available back then?

It has begun, as the story reported by Science Magazine suggested.

"The NSF Is Being Dismantled — With Broad Implications For The American Economy"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2025/05/09/the-national-science-foundation-is-being-dismantled-what-the-economy-needs-is-more-investment/

#nsf #damage #science

"There is nothing wasteful or elitist about public investment in science. On the contrary, it is one of the most reliable drivers of shared prosperity — benefiting not just institutions or industries, but society as a whole. Now is the time to expand that commitment, not withdraw from it."

@evan Deep breaths. Election night results are always big swings in all directions at the beginning.

You’ve got this. ;-)

Canada’s U.S. brain gain is risky without foundational support for science (The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)), Apr 03, 2025
https://globe2go.pressreader.com/article/281994678306437

Another perspective in the #GlobeAndMail about how to bolster #Canada as a broad and potent scientific powerhouse.

A U.S. brain drain could be Canada's brain gain | CBC News https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-brain-gain-trump-1.7496085

Some challenges:

“In October, the federal government announced a reduction in immigration levels in a bid to relieve pressure on the housing market… A cap on international students … has also triggered job cuts, lower enrollment and program cancellations at some post-secondary institutions due to the loss of revenue …Canada needs to invest more in pathways for U.S. talent to come to this country”

@intothewestaway Thankfully, most of the funding for public TV/radio in the US comes through the corporation for public broadcasting. A small percentage is federal funding. However, that federal funding disproportionately goes to support more rural broadcasters.