2023-07-30

If we want a shift to walking we need to prioritize dignity

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IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)

• The author praises IRC for its decentralized nature and privacy compared to Discord.
• Discord is criticized for its proprietary and surveillance practices.
• The author recommends using IRC instead and promotes their own IRC network.
• The benefits of using IRC for communication are discussed.
• An announcement is made about a Comic Chat event.
• The importance of using free and open protocols to preserve the old internet is emphasized.

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• The discussion compares IRC and Discord, highlighting the limitations and drawbacks of IRC.
• The importance of logging and search capabilities in chat platforms is emphasized.
• Discord is criticized for its limitations in logging and search functionality.
• The advantages and disadvantages of IRC and Discord are explored, including factors such as simplicity, searchability, privacy, and company control.
• The use of IRC bouncers and alternative communication tools is discussed.
• The risks of using Discord for sensitive discussions are addressed.
• There is a suggestion for IRC to modernize and add features.
• Other communication platforms and protocols like Matrix and XMPP are mentioned as potential alternatives.

Critical theory is radicalizing high school debate

• The article discusses the increasing use of critical theory, specifically kritiks, in high school debate formats.
• Judges and debaters are showing a preference for these arguments, which is impacting the activity.
• Concerns are raised about the potential negative consequences of promoting radical ideologies in debate.
• The influence of these arguments on students' political views is also examined.
• The article provides a historical perspective on debate formats and includes personal reflections from former debaters.

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• The article examines the role of critical theory in high school debate and emphasizes the importance of rhetoric and understanding different perspectives.
• It discusses the impact of the debate format on critical thinking skills and highlights its limitations.
• The influence of critical theory on debate and the flaws in the judging process are also explored.
• The effectiveness of debate as a learning tool and the value of diverse perspectives are debated.
• The discussions provide a balanced view of the benefits and drawbacks of high school debate and its impact on students' skills and knowledge.

What happened to Vivaldi Social?

• The Vivaldi Social Mastodon instance experienced a bug or possible attack that resulted in the deletion of 198 user accounts.
• The accounts were merged into one account on a different Mastodon instance due to a replication delay in the database.
• The Vivaldi internal security team investigated the issue and developed a patch to address the problem.
• The website was restored, and the issue was resolved with the help of colleagues and Mastodon developers.
• Some minor issues remained, but fixes and warnings were provided to prevent similar incidents in the future.
• The article also covers various topics related to web technologies, including privacy policies, code of conduct, terms of use, and the community.

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• The discussions encompass a range of subjects including databases, programming practices, system design, logging and metrics, and the decentralized social media platform Mastodon.
• Specific topics discussed include the use of NULL values, error handling, performance optimization, and the significance of logging and metrics for debugging and troubleshooting.
• The stability and popularity of Mastodon in comparison to centralized platforms such as Twitter are also discussed.

Big Tobacco knew radioactive Po210 in cigarettes posed cancer risk, kept quiet

• UCLA researchers discovered that tobacco companies were aware of the presence of radioactive particles in cigarette smoke since 1959 but chose not to disclose this information to the public.
• Internal industry documents indicate that the tobacco industry conducted investigations into the cancer-causing potential of these particles as early as the 1960s.
• The study found that tobacco companies opted not to implement a technique that could have eliminated these particles from cigarettes.
• The researchers recommend that the FDA focus on removing alpha particles from tobacco products to safeguard public health.

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• The discussions cover health risks, ethical concerns, and societal implications of tobacco use and addiction.
• Participants debate the need to take action against Big Tobacco and the role of corporations in society.
• The responsibility of individuals to boycott harmful products is also a topic of discussion.
• Navigating the complexities of politics in addressing tobacco use and addiction is another point of debate.
• The addictive nature of tobacco and its comparison to opioid addiction are discussed.
• Opinions differ on the level of regulation and personal responsibility in addressing these issues.

GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

• GNU Boot is a fork of the Libreboot project by the GNU project.
• It was created due to a disagreement with Libreboot's Binary Blob Reduction Policy.
• The author expresses support for GNU Boot and even creates an unofficial release for the project.
• However, they criticize GNU Boot for using outdated code and not having a website.
• The author received a cease and desist email from GNU Boot for trademark infringement, despite their efforts to help the project.
• The author concludes by expressing their willingness to send patches and support GNU Boot, despite not personally using or recommending it.

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• The GNU Boot and Libreboot projects are in a dispute over the use of the Libreboot name.
• The communication between the parties has been criticized as unprofessional, with accusations of name stealing and unethical behavior.
• Cultural and language differences have contributed to the poor handling of the disagreement.
• The discussion raises questions about the importance of trademark protection and the use of the term "unofficial."
• There is frustration with drama and conflicts within the open-source community.

Functions are vectors

• Functions can be represented as vectors and analyzed using linear algebra tools.
• Different types of vectors, vector spaces, and the standard basis for functions are explored in the article.
• Eigenfunctions, diagonalization, inner products, and the Laplacian are discussed in relation to functions as vectors.
• The applications of these concepts include Fourier series, image compression, computer graphics, and geometry processing.

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• Functions can be treated as vectors in mathematical analysis and control theory.
• There has been a historical development and ongoing debate about the need for an inner product in functional analysis.
• Different types of mappings and properties are considered in this field.
• Functions have a defined definition and properties, and they can have multiple values.
• Vectors can be used to express functions and their properties.
• Abstract vector spaces, bijective functions, and Fourier transformation are relevant concepts.
• Functions also have applications in big data analysis.
• The interchangeability of kilograms and joules, the pigeonhole principle, and the relationship between functions and computer programming are touched upon.
• Different disciplines of mathematics have various perspectives on the nature of functions and their connections to vectors.

Gzip beats BERT? Part 2: dataset issues, improved speed, and results

• The article provides an update on a previous analysis of a paper proposing gzip and kNN for text classification.
• The update discusses dataset issues, improvements in speed, and presents additional results.
• The previous analysis revealed that the classification method used in the paper was unfair.
• The author explores the implementation of zlib compression in Python and suggests ways to enhance performance.
• Despite concerns about the accuracy of the original paper's findings, the author recognizes the potential of text compression techniques for text classification.

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• The article critiques a paper that falsely claimed gzip compression is more accurate than the BERT language model for text classification.
• The paper's implementation is questioned, and its deceptive approach is defended.
• The lack of accountability and the pressure to publish in academia are highlighted.
• Compression algorithms are deemed interesting for text classification but may not be suitable for complex NLP tasks.
• A conversation thread on an online platform covers a range of language, communication, and machine learning topics.
• The discussion includes compression in poetry, text-similarity embeddings, data processing speed improvements, research ethical standards, dataset validation, and the role of HuggingFace in dataset reviews.
• ZSTD is proposed as a superior alternative to GZIP and bzip2 for compression purposes.

US Army Field Manual on Leadership (1990) [pdf]

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Universal and transferable adversarial attacks on aligned language models

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