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42,028,720 | mayfer | 2024-11-02T19:41:20 | MBRV: Run React TS front end/back end on the same port. Powered by Bun | null | https://mbrv.org | 2 | 1 | [
42028721
] | null | null | no_error | MBRV Bun/React/Vite TypeScript template | null | null | mbrv.orgBun backend & React frontend on the same port,all in TypeScript.GitHub Clone on GitHub Download .zipBenefitsSingle port convenienceServer & client run on the same process, same portNo proxies or CORS issuesBun's flexibilitySpeed aside, bun makes it a pleasure to run TypeScript without a transpilerrun.ts as single entry pointReact hot module reloadsUI code changes appear instantly in the browserPage will reload if any server code is changedShared filesServer & client can use shared TypeScript interfaces, types, and functions via shared/ folder Sane server-side renderingSSR is done with explicit code, no framework magicEnabled by default, with entry point in server/ssr.tsxUse --ssr=false to disable SSRInstructionsSetupbun i to install packagesbun run dev provides hot reloads & source mapsbun run build prepares production buildbun run prod serves productionMake changesclient/ contains React UI codeshared/ folder contains shared interfaces, types, and functions that both client & server can useserver/ contains http & socket APIsExpress endpoints in server/apis/http.tsSocket.io setup in server/apis/sockets.tsBy Murat | 2024-11-08T13:13:11 | en | train |
42,028,724 | yamrzou | 2024-11-02T19:41:30 | Depressive Realism | null | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism | 6 | 0 | [
42028735
] | null | null | cut_off | Depressive realism | 2005-02-13T15:03:01Z | Contributors to Wikimedia projects |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Depressive realism is the hypothesis developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson[1] that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than non-depressed individuals. Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs,[2][3][4] depressive realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals' appraisals are positively biased.[1]
When participants were asked to press a button and rate the control they perceived they had over whether or not a light turned on, depressed individuals made more accurate ratings of control than non-depressed individuals.[5] Among participants asked to complete a task and rate their performance without any feedback, depressed individuals made more accurate self-ratings than non-depressed individuals.[6][7][8][9] For participants asked to complete a series of tasks, given feedback on their performance after each task, and who self-rated their overall performance after completing all the tasks, depressed individuals were again more likely to give an accurate self-rating than non-depressed individuals.[10][11][12][13][14][15] When asked to evaluate their performance both immediately and some time after completing a task, depressed individuals made accurate appraisals both immediately before and after time had passed.[16]
In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of the brain, depressed patients were shown to be more accurate in their causal attributions of positive and negative social events than non-depressed participants, who demonstrated a positive bias.[17] This difference was also reflected in the differential activation of the fronto-temporal network, higher activation for non self-serving attributions in non-depressed participants and for self-serving attributions in depressed patients, and reduced coupling of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex seed region and the limbic areas when depressed patients made self-serving attributions.
When asked to rate both their performance and the performance of others, non-depressed individuals demonstrated positive bias when rating themselves but no bias when rating others. Depressed individuals conversely showed no bias when rating themselves but a positive bias when rating others.[18][19][20]
When assessing participant thoughts in public versus private settings, the thoughts of non-depressed individuals were more optimistic in public than private, while depressed individuals were less optimistic in public.[21][22][23][24][clarification needed]
When asked to rate their performance immediately after a task and after some time had passed, depressed individuals were more accurate when they rated themselves immediately after the task but were more negative after time had passed whereas non-depressed individuals were positive immediately after and some time after.[10][14]
Although depressed individuals make accurate judgments about having no control in situations where they in fact have no control, this appraisal also carries over to situations where they do have control, suggesting that the depressed perspective is not more accurate overall.[25]
One study suggested that in real-world settings, depressed individuals are actually less accurate and more overconfident in their predictions than their non-depressed peers.[26] Participants' attributional accuracy may also be more related to their overall attributional style rather than the presence and severity of their depressive symptoms.[27]
Criticism of the evidence[edit]
Some have argued that the evidence is not more conclusive because no standard for reality exists, the diagnoses are dubious, and the results may not apply to the real world.[28] Because many studies rely on self-report of depressive symptoms and self-reports are known to be biased, the diagnosis of depression in these studies may not be valid, necessitating the use of other objective measures. Due to most of these studies using designs that do not necessarily approximate real-world phenomena, the external validity of the depressive realism hypothesis is unclear.[28] There is also concern that the depressive realism effect is merely a byproduct of the depressed person being in a situation that agrees with their negative bias.[5][29][30]
Defensive pessimism – Cognitive strategy for preparation
Depression – State of low mood and aversion to activity
Dunning–Kruger effect – Cognitive bias about one's own skill
Dysthymia – Mental disorder characterized by chronic depression
List of cognitive biases – Systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment
Major depressive disorder – Mood disorder
Perspective – Concept of personal perspective in philosophy
Philosophical pessimism – Family of philosophical views
Positivity offset – Phenomenon where people tend to interpret a situation more positively than it is
Self-serving bias – Distortion to enhance self-esteem, or to see oneself overly favorably
^ a b Alloy, L.B.; Abramson, L.Y. (1988). Depressive realism: four theoretical perspectives.
^ Beck, A.T. (1967). Depression: Clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects. Vol. 32. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
^ Beck, Aaron T., ed. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 9780898629194.
^ Beck, A.T.; Brown, G.; Steer, R.A.; Eidelson, J.I.; Riskind, J.H. (1987). "Differentiating anxiety and depression: a test of the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 96 (3): 179–183. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.96.3.179. PMID 3680754.
^ a b Alloy, L.B.; Abramson, L.Y. (1979). "Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser?". Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 108 (4): 441–485. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.108.4.441. PMID 528910. S2CID 18002755.
^ Alloy, L.B.; Abramson, L.Y.; Kossman, D.A. (1985), "The judgment of predictability in depressed and nondepressed college students", in Brush, F.R.; Overmeir, J.B. (eds.), Affect, conditioning, and cognition: Essays on the determinants of behavior, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 229–246
^ Alloy, L.B.; Abramson, L.Y.; Viscusi, D. (1981). "Induced mood and the illusion of control". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 41 (6): 1129–1140. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.41.6.1129. S2CID 54890341.
^ Musson, R.F.; Alloy, L.B. (1989). "Depression, self-consciousness, and judgments of control: A test of the self-focused attention hypothesis". Unpublished.
^ Vasquez, C.V. (1987). "Judgment of contingency: Cognitive biases in depressed and nondepressed subjects". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 52 (2): 419–431. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.2.419. PMID 3559899.
^ a b DeMonbreun, B.G.; Craighead, W.E. (1977). "Distortion of perception and recall of positive and neutral feedback in depression". Cognitive Therapy and Research. 1 (4): 311–329. doi:10.1007/bf01663996. S2CID 12735350.
^ Dennard, D.O.; Hokanson, J.E. (1986). "Performance on two cognitive tasks by dysphoric and nondysphoric students". Cognitive Therapy and Research. 10 (3): 377–386. doi:10.1007/bf01173473. S2CID 40508547.
^ Gotlib, I.H. (1983). "Perception and recall of interpersonal feedback: Negative bias in depression". Cognitive Therapy and Research. 7 (5): 399–412. doi:10.1007/bf01187168. S2CID 24017766.
^ Lobitz, W.C.; Post, R.D. (1979). "Parameters of self-reinforcement and depression". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 88 (1): 33–41. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.88.1.33. PMID 422802.
^ a b Nelson, R.E.; Craighead, W.E. (1977). "Selective recall of positive and negative feedback, self-control behaviors and depression". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 86 (4): 379–388. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.86.4.379. PMID 903490.
^ Rozensky, R.H.; Rehm, L.P.; Pry, G.; Roth, D. (1977). "Depression and self-reinforcement behavior in hospitalized patients". Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. 8: 35–38. doi:10.1016/0005-7916(77)90102-1.
^ Wenzlaff, R.M.; Berman, J. S. (August 1985), Judgmental accuracy in depression, The Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Seidel, Eva-Maria; Satterthwaite, Theodore D.; Eickhoff, Simon B.; Schneider, Frank; Gur, Ruben C.; Wolf, Daniel H.; Habel, Ute; Derntl, Birgit (2012). "Neural correlates of depressive realism — An fMRI study on causal attribution in depression". Journal of Affective Disorders. 138 (3): 268–276. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2012.01.041. PMC 3565123. PMID 22377511.
^ Gotlib, I.H.; Meltzer, S.J. (1987). "Depression and the perception of social skill in dyadic interaction". Cognitive Therapy and Research. 11: 41–54. doi:10.1007/bf01183131. S2CID 25349029.
^ Javna, C.D. (1981), "Depressed and nondepressed college students' interpretations of and memory for feedback about self and others", Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
^ Pyszczynski, T.; Holt, K.; Greenberg, J. (1987). "Depression, self-focused attention, and expectancies for positive and negative future life events for self and others". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 52 (5): 994–1001. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.5.994. PMID 3585706.
^ Benassi, V.A. & Mahler, H.I.M. (1985). "Contingency judgments by depressed college students: Sadder but not always wiser". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 49 (5): 1323–1329. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.49.5.1323. PMID 4078679.
^ Sacco, W.P.; Hokanson, J.E. (1978). "Expectations of success and anagram performance of depressives in a public and private setting". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 87 (1): 122–130. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.87.1.122. PMID 649845.
^ Sacco, W. P. & Hokanson, J. E. (1982). "Depression and self-reinforcement in a public and private setting". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 42 (2): 377–385. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.42.2.377. PMID 7057358.
^ Strack, S.; Coyne, J.C. (1983). "Social confirmation of dysphoria: Shared and private reactions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 44 (4): 798–806. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.44.4.798. PMID 6842366.
^ Dykman, B.M.; Abramson, L.Y.; Alloy, L.B.; Hartlage, S. (1989). "Processing of ambiguous and unambiguous feedback by depressed and nondepressed college students: Schematic biases and their implications for depressive realism". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 56 (3): 431–445. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.56.3.431. PMID 2926638.
^ Dunning D, Story AL (1991). "Depression, realism, and the overconfidence effect: are the sadder wiser when predicting future actions and events?" (PDF). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 61 (4): 521–532. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.4.521. PMID 1960645. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-11-19. Retrieved 2011-01-02.
^ Michael Thomas Moore; David Fresco (2007). "Depressive realism and attributional style: implications for individuals at risk for depression" (PDF). Behavior Therapy. 38 (2): 144–154. doi:10.1016/j.beth.2006.06.003. PMID 17499081. S2CID 15551427.
^ a b Michael Thomas Moore; David Fresco (2012). "Depressive Realism: A Meta-Analytic Review". Clinical Psychology Review. 32 (1): 496–509. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2012.05.004. PMID 22717337.
^ Langer, E.J. (1975). "The illusion of control". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 32 (2): 311–328. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.32.2.311. S2CID 30043741.
^ Msetfi RM, Murphy RA, Simpson J, Kornbrot DE (2005). "Depressive realism and outcome density bias in contingency judgments: the effect of the context and intertrial interval" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Psychology. General. 134 (1): 10–22. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.134.1.10. hdl:10344/2360. PMID 15702960. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-29.
Adelson, Rachel (April 2005). "Probing the puzzling workings of 'depressive realism'". APA Monitor. 36 (4): 30.
Cummins, R.A.; Nistico, H. (2002). "Maintaining life satisfaction: The role of positive cognitive bias". Journal of Happiness Studies. 3: 37–69. doi:10.1023/A:1015678915305. S2CID 58940818.
Taylor, Shelley E.; Armor, David A. (December 1996). "Positive Illusions and Coping with Adversity". Journal of Personality. 64 (4): 873–898. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00947.x. PMID 8956516.
Hayden, Ben (2011). "Depressive Realism May Not Be Real". Psychology Today.
| 2024-11-08T17:26:05 | en | train |
42,028,731 | elisaado | 2024-11-02T19:42:14 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42028738
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,756 | ibobev | 2024-11-02T19:45:57 | MarkeyJester's Motorola 68000 Beginner's Tutorial | null | https://mrjester.hapisan.com/04_MC68/ | 11 | 0 | [
42028855
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,770 | drcwpl | 2024-11-02T19:47:16 | Curiously Uncurious | null | https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/curiously-uncurious | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,822 | BiteCode_dev | 2024-11-02T19:55:59 | A game to understand AI alignement by making paperclips | null | https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html | 2 | 1 | [
42028880,
42028843
] | null | null | no_title | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T07:23:10 | null | train |
42,028,824 | rbanffy | 2024-11-02T19:56:35 | NYU Researchers Develop New Real-Time Deepfake Detection Method | null | https://spectrum.ieee.org/real-time-deepfakes | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,832 | rbanffy | 2024-11-02T19:57:28 | Can people be 'inoculated' against misinformation? – Science – AAAS | null | https://www.science.org/content/article/can-people-be-inoculated-against-misinformation | 7 | 4 | [
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42030123,
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42028931
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42,028,833 | ksec | 2024-11-02T19:57:30 | Next Generation Out of Band Garbage Collection | null | https://railsatscale.com/2024-10-23-next-generation-oob-gc/ | 171 | 81 | [
42029538,
42029101,
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] | null | null | no_error | Next Generation Out of Band Garbage Collection | 2024-10-23T00:00:00+00:00 | Jean Boussier |
In 2023, I wrote about how we’ve tuned Ruby’s garbage collector for Shopify’s monolith,
including how we implemented out-of-band garbage collection to reduce the impact of major collection on latency.
While the latency improvements were massive, we weren’t entirely satisfied with the heuristics used to trigger out-of-band
garbage collection. It was purely based on averages, so we had to trade latency for capacity.
More importantly, it didn’t fully eliminate major collection from request cycles, it only made it very rare.
But in December 2023, while discussing with Koichi Sasada, we came up with a new idea.
Disabling Major GC Entirely
If we want major GC to never trigger during a request cycle, why not disable it entirely?
In March 2024, during our annual Ruby Infrastructure team gathering, we fleshed out the details of the new feature we wanted,
and Matthew Valentine-House started working on a proof of concept, which we then deployed to a small percentage of our production servers to see how effective it could be.
First, we needed a way to entirely prevent the Garbage Collector from automatically performing a major collection, but
also to stop promoting objects to the old generation. Ideally in a web application, aside from some in-memory caches, no object allocated as part of a request should survive longer than the request itself.
Any object that does is probably something that should be eagerly loaded during boot, or some state that is leaking between requests.
As such, any object promoted to the old generation during a request cycle is very unlikely to be immortal, so promoting it is wasteful.
We also needed a way to ask the GC whether it would have run a major collection so that we could manually trigger it outside
of the request cycle, and only exactly as much as needed.
The initial proposal was for three new methods, GC.disable_major, GC.enable_major and GC.needs_major?.
After some back and forth with other Ruby committers, it became a single new method: GC.config(rgengc_allow_full_mark: true/false).
We also exposed a new key in GC.latest_gc_info, :needs_major_by, for use in checking whether a major GC needs to run: GC.latest_gc_info(:needs_major_by).
This new feature was released as part of Ruby 3.4.0-preview2.
Effectiveness
Since Shopify monolith runs on Ruby’s master branch, we don’t have to wait for the December release to use these new features,
so recently I went to work on enabling the new out-of-band GC implementation on 50% of production servers, and the results are amazing on all metrics.
First, as we anticipated, the time spent in GC during request cycles at the very tail end (p95/p99/p99.99) dropped very significantly.
However, more surprisingly, it also improved median latency:
The overall impact on service latency is of course more modest, but still very nice with a 5% reduction of average latency and a 10% reduction of p99 latency:
The impact on capacity, however, is less significant than we had hoped for. During the day, when there are frequent deploys, this doesn’t make much of a difference.
However when deploys pause for a few hours, the new out-of-band collector runs much less often than the old implementation:
Implementation
In addition, to be more effective, this new implementation is also radically simple, thanks to the hooks provided by Pitchfork
# pitchfork.conf.rb
after_worker_fork do |_server, _worker|
GC.config(rgengc_allow_full_mark: false)
end
after_request_complete do |_server, _worker, _rack_env|
if GC.latest_gc_info(:need_major_by)
GC.start
end
end
Next Steps?
Now that the major collection is out of the picture, the next step is to look at the minor collections.
We can’t disable minor collection, as otherwise large requests that allocate a lot would run out of memory. However, we could try to
additionally use heuristics from GC.stat to eagerly trigger minor garbage collection out-of-band, so that the majority of requests don’t have
to spend any time at all in GC.
But the potential gains are much smaller because minor collection is quite fast even on our monolith.
| 2024-11-08T12:05:25 | en | train |
42,028,839 | rbanffy | 2024-11-02T19:58:09 | iPod fans evade Apple's DRM to preserve 54 lost clickwheel-era games | null | https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/11/ipod-fans-evade-apples-drm-to-preserve-54-lost-clickwheel-era-games/ | 10 | 0 | [
42028842
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,847 | lapnect | 2024-11-02T19:59:04 | New Regularization Method for Divergent Series | null | http://geometriadominicana.blogspot.com/2024/11/new-regularization-method-for-divergent.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,849 | rbanffy | 2024-11-02T19:59:19 | To understand physics, we need to tell – and hear – stories Essays | null | https://aeon.co/essays/to-understand-physics-we-need-to-tell-and-hear-stories | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | Failed after 3 attempts. Last error: Quota exceeded for quota metric 'Generate Content API requests per minute' and limit 'GenerateContent request limit per minute for a region' of service 'generativelanguage.googleapis.com' for consumer 'project_number:854396441450'. | To understand physics, we need to tell – and hear – stories | Aeon Essays | 2024-11-01 | Jamie Zvirzdin | C P Snow’s lecture ‘The Two Cultures’ (1959) argued that the perceived divide between scientists and literary scholars is narrower than commonly believed. They both fundamentally seek to understand and express the relationships that structure reality – whether human relationships in literature, or physical relationships in science.
In 1961, on the heels of that lecture, a children’s book came out – The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, a funny, punny allegorical fantasy that made the same argument but in a way that captivated readers well into the 1990s, when I first encountered this story: Milo, a boy already besieged by adult-like ennui and existential despair, takes on the quest to bring back the princesses Rhyme and Reason, reuniting them with their two quarrelsome brothers: King Azaz the Unabridged, Ruler of Dictionopolis, and the Mathemagician, Ruler of Digitopolis.
King Azaz claims that words are superior to numbers; the Mathemagician insists the reverse. In the end, the brothers reconcile and rebuild the City of Wisdom with the help of Rhyme and Reason, and Milo returns to his own world with renewed curiosity for words and numbers. By age 13, I’d already been convinced of the value of interdisciplinarity.
Eventually, I would learn that stories are not just a way of communicating science; they are intrinsic to science, actually part of doing science. My own story of merging these Two Cultures – for me, literary writing and particle physics – was complicated by a Third Culture, religion. I grew up in Utah, in an era when Mormon women could have physics careers, technically, but following this path was difficult, lonely, and considered a threat to the traditional family model. We were encouraged to pursue education, not to prepare for competitive careers but for traditional roles as wives and mothers. This worldview, where a woman’s education is merely a safeguard if her husband can’t work, exemplifies what George W Bush’s speechwriter Michael Gerson called ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’. It is a mindset that stifles ambition and curiosity. In fact, in my world, ambition in a woman signified pride, selfishness, sin.
Yet I loved my advanced high-school mathematics and physics classes. With friends, I won team competitions in physics and computer programming. As a teenager, I even interned for three summers with the Cosmic Ray Research Group at the University of Utah – the High Resolution Fly’s Eye collaboration that detected the Oh-My-God particle in 1991. This rare ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray – probably a proton – was an atomic shard travelling close to the speed of light, bombarding our detector with an absurd amount of energy. This event defied physics models and opened new questions about the limits of energy in the Universe, presenting a cosmic mystery story I wanted to pursue.
Despite my interest in cosmic rays, the Third Culture reigned supreme. The pressure to conform was invisible but visceral: during my first semester at Utah’s Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2002, led not by reason or rhyme but by a fear of angering God and my Church, I walked out of the introductory physics class – the only woman in attendance – and changed my major from astrophysics to English. Burying myself in stories and syntax, I felt sad about the physics but decided to make the most of my education before I married. BYU’s editing and linguistics courses were truly superb, and I learned to find patterns in natural language, and improve those patterns to benefit readers and increase the quality of communication. Editing, I thought, was something I could do from home with a family. Maybe I’d even dare to be a science editor.
Fast-forward 10 years, and that’s exactly what I was doing, while my toddler slept. I loved reading upper-level STEM textbooks as a freelance editor for Taylor & Francis; it was as physics-adjacent as I could manage. I could search the pattern of writing for errors while absorbing the patterns of mathematics and physics, even if I didn’t understand it perfectly.
But I wanted to, though the desire still felt dangerous. I started writing fiction and essays, and my frustrations seethed onto the page. As soon as my son woke up, however, I would focus on him. Like me, he had a natural affinity for both letters and numbers, and we spent hours laughing and learning together. His intense curiosity reignited my own.
In October 2012, still wrestling with deeply ingrained but self-limiting patterns of thought, I interviewed the psychologist LaNae Valentine, who directed the BYU Women’s Services and Resources Center. She told me that the counsellors for college women were explicitly instructed to use the word ‘education’ instead of ‘career’ – an omission reflected in the name of the centre itself. It grated on her, she said, but she complied.
In the midst of disaster, I came full circle, back to the beginning of my story
The explicit omission was a revelation to me. Second-wave feminism had come and gone, but its reverberations were reaching me for the first time. My husband read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949), liked reading it, and handed it to me, which started a tsunami of good, hard questions. What was I good at, drawn to, excited by? Was it too late to develop previously abandoned skills? Confronting the self-limiting story from my Third Culture led to a breakthrough: like Andrew, I could take myself and my career seriously, and still be a great spouse and parent.
Over the next 10 years, I began to level up in writing, then science writing, then physics. I contended with a Fourth Culture: life as the spouse of a US Foreign Service Officer. Moving from Washington, DC to the Marshall Islands, then Montreal, Virginia and Nicaragua, I had to actively resist the feelings of loss that come for those supporting a spouse’s job abroad. Fortunately for me, Andrew supported my personal and professional ambitions in return, so I could thrive alongside his career even as we moved country every two or three years. I started publishing science essays and teaching science writing at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, both of which could be done remotely.
In April 2018, political violence erupted in Nicaragua, and embassy families were sent back to safety in the US. Max and I evacuated to Utah while Andrew remained in Managua as essential personnel. Making the sweetest lemonade with the bitterest of lemons, I returned to work for the Cosmic Ray Research Group, now known as the Telescope Array Project. In the midst of disaster, I came full circle, back to the beginning of my story.
From left: John Matthews of the Telescope Array, the author Jamie Zvirzdin and her former supervisor, Stan Thomas, at a café at the University of Utah
I have been making up for lost time ever since. I couldn’t influence a dictator in Nicaragua, but I could traipse out to the Utah desert, fix detectors, and operate telescopes to help solve the mystery of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Reunited with Andrew in October 2018 following his time in Nicaragua, I picked up my work for the Telescope Array Project remotely from Maryland, writing programs, analysing data and even operating telescopes during night shifts from my work computer. I am now more than halfway through a Master’s in applied physics from Johns Hopkins, a remote programme I can pursue from our current post in Germany.
My unconventional path to physics reveals an important insight for those who may feel excluded from the field or intimidated by its complexities: at its core, physics is fundamentally a word problem. A story problem. Personal stories, history stories, thought experiments, formal proofs, metaphors, cautionary tales: surround yourself with the various stories embedded in physics, and you’ll find firm footing wherever you tread in this field.
Some of the best physicists and physics teachers are also great storytellers: they tell wild tales of things that happened to them, both real and perhaps slightly embellished for comedic effect.
One such tale comes from my friend Jihee Kim, now a postdoc at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. As a new PhD student with the Telescope Array collaboration, she was asked to take a picture of one of our fluorescence detectors. Housed in dark sheds, these detectors use large mirrors to capture faint ultraviolet light produced by cosmic-ray showers in the atmosphere during moonless nights. Not realising the potential danger, Kim opened the shed doors a little to let in more afternoon light for the photo. Almost immediately, she smelled something burning – indirect light from the Sun had reflected off the mirror and was now focused, like a magnifying glass, onto a nearby cable.
To make sure no one else made the same mistake, our boss, John Matthews, put up DANGER signs in black, red and white, warning students never to let sunlight touch the telescope mirrors. He added a picture of the melting face from the film Raiders of the Lost Ark – just in case anyone needed an extra reminder.
The history-based stories we tell in physics model the scientific method itself
We need to hear stories of people who surmount difficulties large and small, who push past ennui and cynicism and embarrassment and discouragement, who act with honesty and courage, who humbly ask for and receive help, to advance the frontline of knowledge. I hope my story will spur more women and minorities to take the best of the cultures they belong to and give themselves permission to enter academic gates they thought were closed to them. Work hard and work smart, and record your stories for others.
Jihee Kim and Jamie Zvirzdin with a Telescope Array fluorescence detector near Delta, Utah, shed doors safely closed. Photo supplied by the author
Beyond personal anecdotes, the history-based stories we frequently tell in physics model the scientific method itself. Consider the Austrian physicist Victor Hess who, from 1911 to 1912, conducted a series of risky hydrogen balloon flights, the most famous of which reached an altitude of 5,350 metres – about as high as Mount Everest’s Base Camp – to measure radiation intensity in the atmosphere.
As the atmosphere grew thinner and thinner, Hess, with his two-man crew, stared through the eyepieces of two electroscopes. He carefully counted how frequently the electroscope’s hanging fibres lifted, which meant they were detecting radiation from charged particles (ions) in the atmosphere. He found that, at the highest altitude, the atmosphere had 22 to 24 more ions than at ground level, which meant a significant increase in radiation intensity. Hess’s daring – he also did balloon flights at night, to rule out effects from the Sun – led to the discovery of cosmic rays, proving that Earth is constantly bombarded by these high-energy particles from space. For his efforts, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936.
Victor Hess back from his balloon flight on 7 August 1912. Image courtesy of the American Physical Society
This story introduces us to cosmic rays, yes, but also follows the classic progression of a short story: on 7 August 1912, at 6:12am, from Aussig, now the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem (setting), Hess and his crew (characters), curious about this mysterious radiation (exposition) decided to follow a hunch (inciting incident) and go up in a balloon to gather data (rising action, literally), making a groundbreaking discovery (climax), landing safely at 12:15pm in Bad Saarow-Pieskow, Germany, and arriving at important conclusions that were confirmed and rewarded (denouement).
The story’s arc is echoed in the scientific method itself. We start by identifying a problem that needs explanation or further investigation, and we gather research and materials. From a question, we propose a testable hypothesis. We design and conduct an experiment to test the hypothesis, meticulously collecting data and controlling variables as carefully as we can. We analyse and interpret the data to see if it supports or refutes our hypothesis, and from this we draw a conclusion and report our results. It is a satisfying pattern to follow, this roadmap. It is a critical one.
The power of science stories like this lies in their concrete details, an insight that not only helps us be more interesting teachers of physics but also better communicators when reporting our findings. Hess in a balloon, the high altitude, the sensation of flight, the cold metal of the electroscopes – these finite, sensory elements help anchor concepts like cosmic-ray radiation in our minds. As I learned when I did my MFA in writing and literature at Bennington College, using vivid imagery and sensory details – anything you can see, touch, taste, smell, hear – makes new, complex information easier to absorb and remember. As you follow the scientific method, keeping track of these details makes it easier to recount what happened and what you did.
Some stories in physics are straight-up science fiction: aka, thought experiments. These ground abstract concepts in fictional characters, scenarios and sensory details. Take the Twin Paradox, as told by Amber Stuver in an excellent TED-Ed video.
Stuver’s Twin Paradox explanation is the best I’ve yet heard, in contrast to fairly confusing ones out there. Some people don’t know how to tell a good story, perhaps through no fault of their own. It’s worth taking the time to learn how.
The physicist Robert Resnick anthropomorphised Einstein’s story to a travelling twin returning to his brother
As with Hess and his balloon, the Twin Paradox has characters, setting, actions, pacing, concrete details, the works. Once we can properly see the outline of the story, either directly or by imagining it, we can attach formulae like the Lorentz factor (which shows how time slows down for objects moving near the speed of light) and other mathematical details. I now see mathematics equations as sentences in their own right, adding concrete, sensory details that flesh out these stories and even providing fundamental plot points that advance the story.
The characters in thought experiments have taken on lives of their own as the culture of physics has evolved through time: the original Twin Paradox thought experiment came in 1905 from Albert Einstein in the form of some pretty basic clocks. To explain special relativity in his original paper, Einstein wrote about two synchronised clocks, one of which moved from point A to point B along a line. The moving clock story then evolved, as stories do: in 1911, Einstein himself reimagined the travelling clock in terms of ‘a living organism in a box’. The physicist Robert Resnick then anthropomorphised the story to a travelling twin returning to his brother.
A similar evolution happened to my favourite thought experiment, Maxwell’s demon. In 1867, James Clerk Maxwell pictured two compartments linked by an intelligent valve that could sort fast particles from slow particles, but Lord Kelvin embellished the story to include a demon with hands and feet, much to the delight of bored physics students everywhere. The demon selectively allows faster (hotter) molecules to pass one way and slower (cooler) molecules to pass the other, seemingly creating a temperature difference and violating the second law of thermodynamics, which says that the Universe always tends toward chaos. However, the demon’s work requires energy to gather information and sort the molecules. This energy expenditure ensures that the overall entropy of the system still increases, preserving the second law of thermodynamics.
Character archetypes like Alice and Bob make frequent appearances in quantum cryptography, a way of securing communication by applying principles of quantum mechanics to encrypt data. Alice and Bob first appeared in the paper ‘A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems’ (1978) by the computer scientist Ronald L Rivest et al, where Alice and Bob share a secret encryption key to secure against an eavesdropper (often called Eve). It is fun to have Alice and Bob pop up in different problems. These characters have the additional value of finding their way into popular culture, enticing new people to come to imagine these strange science scenarios.
In his book Knowledge and Error: Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry (1905), Ernst Mach argued that these imaginary, proxy experiments were ‘a necessary precondition for physical experiment’. Imagining these stories could ‘enliven enquiry, tell us about new properties and promote insight into their connections.’ Such stories – complete with characters, setting, a story arc and sensory details – are tools we use to think through a specific problem deliberately and systematically.
In physics courses, we’re often expected to write formal proofs in our weekly problem sets, showing how one equation evolves into another. We’re shown the beginning and the end of the story, like a flashforward in time, and asked to fill in the plot points that lead to the conclusion, ending as dramatically as ‘The End’ with the initials QED (in Latin, quod erat demonstrandum – what was to be demonstrated).
I really like proofs – I find them satisfying. There is something lovely in the way they sway back and forth between words and equations. A proof, like a narrative, is a carefully crafted sequence of ideas, leading the reader from assumptions and definitions to a logical conclusion. I see physics quantities – Force, Entropy, Volume, Current Density, Energy – as fully fledged characters, each possessing dimensionality (literally: dimensions of mass, length, time, charge – more formally, current – temperature, number of moles, and luminous intensity), affecting how they perform on the page. Their nicknames are their symbols in an equation: F for Force, S for Entropy, V for Volume, J for Current Density, and so on. As in a story with many characters, sometimes it takes a while to learn them all, particularly since everyone has preferred pet names.
But the naming is important. My friend and fellow literary aficionado Pierre Sokolsky, dean emeritus of the University of Utah College of Science, told me: ‘Once you give something a name, you are using language, with everything that implies. The concept “Force”, once stated, has all the power of language to bring up images, similarities, even stories.’ Through the process of naming, physics quantities thus become characters in a grand story of not just the proof but the Universe. Each quantity shapes and is shaped by the natural laws it obeys.
In a successful story, all main characters must evolve in some way; they must be subjected to processes that reveal their fundamental nature as the proof unfolds. The same is true with physics quantities. Since more than one quantity is usually involved, the relationships between multiple characters deepen and become more complex; their combinations and machinations produce new versions of themselves.
Ultimately, both story and proof lead the reader on a journey towards understanding
Some textbook writers and teachers drive me bananas when they treat their physics characters on the page like a shell in the shell game: they shuffle quantities around as fast as possible, switching characters and perspectives without care. Certain physics quantities are renamed willy-nilly with the most squiggly Greek characters possible, which is as jarring as renaming the main character in your story without bothering to signal the change to the reader or explain why. Instead of illuminating the deeper connections between physical quantities, poor physics communicators obscure rather than explain what they’re doing, robbing the process of the intellectual and narrative clarity that makes physics so compelling. If you don’t explain what is happening, even briefly, or if you skip too far forward in your proof, your reader will quickly grow frustrated and lose interest in your narrative. If your reader is your teacher, you’ll lose points. If your reader is a grant-giver, you won’t get your grant.
The warp and weft of proofs, weaving words with numbers, sentences with equations, became familiar to me while editing formal proofs for Taylor & Francis. It was my job to ensure that the equations were properly punctuated when part of a sentence. Beyond keeping track of your characters, you need clarity, precision, structure and progression. These are all skills learned when studying language arts. Ultimately, both story and proof lead the reader on a journey towards understanding, closure and insight about the Universe.
Physicists love metaphor, even if they claim otherwise. The Italian rhetorician Giambattista Vico in the 1700s called the metaphor ‘a fable in brief’. Metaphors and their relatives – comparisons, similes, analogies – are far more important in physics than you might think. An astute metaphor – a mini-story – can be the beginning of understanding a concept in physics, even the beginning of a new field of enquiry, as Michael Faraday’s analogies ‘current’ and ‘lines of force’ did for electromagnetics.
Beyond sheer repetition of stories and cultural exposure to mathematics and physics concepts – which not everyone has the privilege of receiving, particularly if you had a heavy-handed Third Culture – metaphors and similies are the primary way humans learn. We connect something we do know to something we don’t. Here’s an example: a Fourier analysis is like turning a symphony into its individual musical notes. Just as we could break down a complex orchestral performance into distinct instruments, Fourier analysis allows us to decompose a complicated signal or waveform into simpler wave shapes. Here’s another example: working with physicists whose egos are bigger than supermassive black holes is like poking yourself in the eye with a needle, over and over.
I am guilty of loving metaphors. I’m not sorry. To me, they breathe life, light and colour back to that which was deadly boring. When I become bored, I stop paying attention, so I try to fight this inclination by at least amusing myself with metaphors. In my book Subatomic Writing (2023), where I compare two traditionally dry subjects (grammar and particle physics), I liken particles of language to particles of matter and, through six lessons, build from word to paragraph as we build from a quark to a chain of carbon atoms – a pencil’s graphite. The ability to create such mini-stories as I learn is, for me, part of why I’ve been able to level up quickly in physics.
In cosmic ray science, metaphors play a key role, too. For example, the Oh-My-God particle had an energy of 3.2 × 1020 electronvolts. To explain this quantity to those unfamiliar with units of energy like electronvolts and Joules, we used analogies: the OMG particle had the same kinetic energy as a bowling ball dropped from shoulder height, or a baseball thrown at 28 metres per second (63 miles per hour). We also describe ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays as ‘tiny bullets’ striking Earth’s atmosphere with incredible force. These analogies not only simplify complex phenomena but also help convey the scale and impact of these particles in a way that resonates with both scientists and the public.
By connecting the unfamiliar with the familiar, metaphors make it easier to internalise and recall new information
These kinds of analogies light up our brains. According to the article ‘The Neural Career of Sensory-motor Metaphors’ (2011) by the cognitive neuroscientist Rutvik H Desai et al, metaphors engage the neural networks of the brain that deal with sensory processing, motor planning, abstract thinking, emotion and memory. They do excellent things to keep us awake and engaged, these mini-stories.
In other words, metaphors bridge abstract concepts and sensory experiences, allowing our brains to process complex ideas more naturally. By connecting the unfamiliar with the familiar, metaphors make it easier to internalise and recall new information, which is why they are such powerful tools in teaching and learning, especially in subjects like physics.
But metaphors can also skew our thinking about a phenomenon. Beau Biller is a forensic mechanical engineer and an assistant instructor for the Johns Hopkins applied physics programme. He sees many students wrestle with difficult physics concepts. In the early stages of studying Einstein’s theory of general relativity, teachers often help students ‘see’ the curvature of space by showing them a rubber sheet with a bowling ball in the middle. Biller told me:
It is very difficult to make analogies for the geometry in which we live. As far as we know, we’re not on a four-dimensional rubber sheet embedded in a higher dimension that we can ‘look in’ upon … Much like learning a new language, some of the concepts encountered in modern physics are simply … hard. No shortcuts allowed.
All the same, metaphors can approximate a difficult concept. They are rough models that can be modified the more we learn. Maxwell, one of my favourite physicists, used billiard balls as a starting point to explain the interaction of molecules in his book Theory of Heat (1871), but he also explained that ‘two hard spherical balls is not an accurate representation’. He went on to explain why and relabelled this interaction as an ‘Encounter’, modifying the mental metaphor.
At the beginning of each semester of my Master’s in applied physics, I think of a reigning metaphor I can use to learn the upcoming subject matter. During quantum mechanics last semester, since I often play the computer game ARK: Survival Evolved with my brother on Sunday afternoons, I started with the axiom ‘A particle is like a triceratops named Alice.’ As silly as it sounds, it was enjoyable and memorable. It was a fable that gave me a rough outline of the story of quantum particles and their interactions. I studied hard, wrote down all my dinosaur-related metaphors in detail, particularly mathematics details, in an Overleaf document just for my own sake, and experienced the pleasurable shock of earning an A+ in quantum mechanics.
Fun and helpful mnemonic aids aside, physics is most thrilling when we can pull away the scaffolding of metaphors and see mathematics itself as the storytelling framework. ‘We have to read the story behind the equation,’ as Biller said, and I fully agree. The deeper we go in physics, the more the language of mathematics empowers us to precisely narrate the epic tale of the Universe.
Some stories in physics are downright Kafkaesque – like the Monkey and Hunter thought experiment, which teaches projectile motion at great cost to the monkey; or Schrödinger’s Cat, which is forever being murdered or not murdered in a box containing a vial of poison.
Just as Schrödinger’s Cat demonstrates quantum paradoxes, the man behind this thought experiment embodies the uncomfortable paradox of a brilliant mind who nevertheless chose to engage in predatory behaviour towards young girls, acts documented in his own diary. Erwin Schrödinger groomed a 14-year-old girl he was tutoring and impregnated her when she was 17. The abortion made her sterile.
Richard Feynman’s FBI files, released in 2012, show the physicist’s private behaviour did not match his playful, charming public persona. One page of the report says:
His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture.
Feynman also told boastful stories of frequenting strip clubs and having manipulative approaches to women in his earlier years.
Hero worship in physics culture becomes insidious when we refuse to challenge unethical behaviour
In his diary, Einstein recorded wildly racist things about people from China and other countries when he visited the Far East and the Middle East in 1922-23. He cheated on his first wife. And his second wife. The list of bad behaviour by intellectual elitists goes on. This grim reality reminds us that the emotional and physical abuse perpetrated by physics ‘geniuses’ has been catastrophically downplayed – a trend we must confront and reform.
The problem of hero worship in physics culture becomes especially insidious when we refuse to challenge unethical behaviour in revered figures, allowing misconduct to persist unchecked. It is crucial to confront these darker narratives, not to diminish the scientific contributions of these individuals but to ensure that harmful legacies don’t continue to thrive in our institutions.
Other sombre stories serve to promote empathy rather than tyranny. Sokolsky told me his favourite physics tool is a hammer, ‘to remind me’, he says, ‘to allow students to finish their PhD theses.’ He alludes to the 1978 incident where a Stanford mathematics student, Theodore Streleski, killed his faculty advisor with a hammer after failing to complete his dissertation for 19 years.
The narratives we construct about our abilities and challenges in life are as vital as the equations we solve. ‘Being a stubborn/persistent scholar who loved the process of understanding how everything works has been key,’ says Rasha Abbasi, an astroparticle physicist at Loyola University Chicago. I’ve known Abbasi since she was a PhD student – and I, a 16-year-old intern – studying cosmic rays at the University of Utah. Today, she studies gamma-ray flashes from lightning with our cosmic ray detectors in the Utah desert. We’ve kept in contact through the years, and she inspires me with her tenacity, good nature, humour and intellect. When I ask Abbasi if she has any thoughts on the role of language in physics, she says: ‘I discovered later on in my career that language is a big part of being a scientist. Training in writing and communication needs to be emphasised more in our field.’
She’s right. Physics students can forget writing is a critical part of being a physicist: there are white papers, reports, journal articles, National Science Foundation grants, posters, presentations. Every type of writing involves some connection to story, even if the character of your story is a variable in an equation.
In the end, the stories we tell shape our trajectories in life as profoundly as the cultural forces that mould us, serving as both barriers and bridges to our greatest ambitions. I have found a healthy balance among the cultures I subscribe to, and ambition is no longer a dirty word. I want to work with my friends to uncover the origins of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, a longstanding mystery. I want to change the way we teach physics. I want to win a Nobel Prize. My story of finding physics again is over, but the story of what I’ll do with it has just begun, and I’m excited to see what happens next.
In political science, supporters of ‘horseshoe theory’ believe that far-Left views and far-Right views are more similar to each other than they are to more moderate, centrist views. Perhaps there exists a corollary between literary writing and physics, an academic horseshoe theory. You will find me happily oscillating back and forth in the cheerful space between Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, building bridges and repairing fences. I invite you to step out of your comfort zone, continue to confront and conquer challenging material, and join me in building the City of Wisdom, one story at a time.
This Essay was made possible through the support of a grant to Aeon Media from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. Funders to Aeon Media are not involved in editorial decision-making. | 2024-11-08T20:48:27 | null | train |
42,028,861 | marvinborner | 2024-11-02T20:00:46 | Bluesky and Enshittification | null | https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/ | 17 | 3 | [
42031288,
42028897,
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] | null | null | no_error | Daily links from Cory Doctorow | null | null |
Today's links
Bluesky and enshittification: No one is the enshittifier of their own story.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Hoisted from the comments: Smart stuff from readers.
This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.
Bluesky and enshittification (permalink)
I would like to use Bluesky. They've done a bunch of seriously interesting technical work on moderation and ranking that I truly admire, and I've got lots of friends there who really enjoy it.
But I'm not on Bluesky and I don't have any plans to join it anytime soon. I wrote about this in 2023: I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/06/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again/
When a platform can hold the people you care about or rely upon hostage – when it can credibly threaten you with disconnection and exile – that platform can abuse you in lots of ways without losing your business. In other words, they can enshittify their service:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess
I appreciate that the CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber, has evinced her sincere intention never to enshittify Bluesky and I believe she is totally sincere:
https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-wont-enshittify-ads/
But here's the thing: all those other platforms, the ones where I unwisely allowed myself to get locked in, where today I find myself trapped by the professional, personal and political costs of leaving them, they were all started by people who swore they'd never sell out. I know those people, the old blogger mafia who started the CMSes, social media services, and publishing platforms where I find myself trapped. I considered them friends (I still consider most of them friends), and I knew them well enough to believe that they really cared about their users.
They did care about their users. They just cared about other stuff, too, and, when push came to shove, they chose the worsening of their services as the lesser of two evils.
Like: when your service is on the brink of being shut down by its investors, who demand that you compromise on privacy, or integrity, or quality, in some relatively small way, are you really going to stand on principle? What about all the users who won't be harmed by the compromise, but will have their communities and online lives shattered if you shut down the company? What about all the workers who trusted you, whose family finances will be critically imperilled if you don't compromise, just a little. What about the "ecosystem" partners who've bet on your service, building plug-ins, add-ons and services that make your product better? What about their employees and their employees' families?
Maybe you tell yourself, "If I do this, I'll live to fight another day. I can only make the service better for its users if the service still exists." Of course you tell yourself that.
I have watched virtually every service I relied on, gave my time and attention to, and trusted, go through this process. It happened with services run by people I knew well and thought highly of.
Enshittification can be thought of as the result of a lack of consequences. Whether you are tempted by greed or pressured by people who have lower ethics than you, the more it costs to compromise, the fewer compromises you'll make.
In other words, to resist enshittification, you have to impose switching costs on yourself.
That's where federation comes in. On Mastodon (and other services based on Activitypub), you can easily leave one server and go to another, and everyone you follow and everyone who follows you will move over to the new server. If the person who runs your server turns out to be imperfect in a way that you can't endure, you can find another server, spend five minutes moving your account over, and you're back up and running on the new server:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/04/pick-all-three/#agonism
Any system where users can leave without pain is a system whose owners have high switching costs and whose users have none. An owner who makes a bad call – like removing the block function say, or opting every user into AI training – will lose a lot of users. Not just those users who price these downgrades highly enough that they outweigh the costs of leaving the service. If leaving the service is free, then tormenting your users in this way will visit in swift and devastating pain upon you.
That not only helps you steer clear of rationalizing your way into a bad compromise: it also stops your investors and other people with leverage over you from pressuring you into taking actions that harm your users. These devils only sit on your shoulder, whispering temptations and threats because they think that you can make things worse without spoiling their investment. They're not cruel, they're greedy. They will only insist on enshittification that they believe they can profit from. If they understand that forcing you to enshittify the service will send all your users packing and leave them with nothing, they will very likely not force you to wreck your service.
And of course, if they are so greedy that they force your hand anyway, then your users will be able to escape. Your service will be wrecked and you'll be broke, which sucks for you, but you're just one person and your pain is vastly outweighed by the relief for the millions of people who escape your service when it goes sour.
There's a name for this dynamic, from the world of behavioral economics. It's called a "Ulysses Pact." It's named for the ancient hacker Ulysses, who ignored the normal protocol for sailing through the sirens' sea. While normie sailors resisted the sirens' song by filling their ears with wax, Ulysses instead had himself lashed to the mast, so that he could hear the sirens' song, but could not be tempted into leaping into the sea, to be drowned by the sirens.
Whenever you take a measure during a moment of strength that guards against your own future self's weakness, you enter into a Ulysses Pact – think throwing away the Oreos when you start your diet.
There is no such thing as a person who is immune to rationalization or pressure. I'm certainly not. Anyone who believes that they will never be tempted is a danger to themselves and the people who rely on them. A belief you can never be tempted or coerced is like a belief that you can never be conned – it makes you more of a mark, not less.
Bluesky has many federated features that I find technically admirable. I only know the CEO there slightly, but I have nothing but good opinions of her. At least one of the board members there, Mike Masnick, is one of my oldest friends and comrades in the fights for user rights. We don't agree on everything, but I trust him implicitly and would happily give him the keys to my house if he needed a place to stay or even the password for my computer before I had major surgery.
But even the best boards can make bad calls. It was just a couple years ago that we had to picket to stop the board of ISOC – where I had several dear old friends and comrades – from selling control of every .ORG domain to a shadowy hedge-fund run by mustache-twirling evil billionaires:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/how-we-saved-org-2020-review
Bluesky lacks the one federated feature that is absolutely necessary for me to trust it: the ability to leave Bluesky and go to another host and continue to talk to the people I've entered into community with there. While there are many independently maintained servers that provide services to Bluesky and its users, there is only one Bluesky server. A federation of multiple servers, each a peer to the other, has been on Bluesky's roadmap for as long as I've been following it, but they haven't (yet) delivered it.
That was worrying when Bluesky was a scrappy, bootstrapped startup with a few million users. Now it has grown to over 13 million users, and it has taken on a large tranche of outside capital:
https://fediversereport.com/on-bluesky-and-enshittification/
Plenty of people have commented that now that a VC is holding Bluesky's purse-strings, enshittification will surely follow (doubly so because the VC is called "Blockchain Capital," which, at this point, might as well be "Grifty Scam Caveat Emptor Capital"). But I don't agree with this at all. It's not outside capital that leads to enshittification, it's leverage that enshittifies a service.
A VC that understands that they can force you to wreck your users' lives is always in danger of doing so. A VC who understands that doing this will make your service into an empty – and thus worthless – server is far less likely to do so (and if they do, at least your users can escape).
My publishing process is a lot of work and adding another service to it represents a huge amount of future labor:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/13/two-decades/#hfbd
But I would leap into Bluesky and gladly taken on all that extra work, every day – if I knew that I couldn't get trapped there.
I don't know why Bluesky hasn't added the federation systems that would enable freedom of exit to its service. Perhaps there are excellent technical reasons to prioritize rolling out the other systems they've created so far. Frankly, it doesn't matter. So long as Bluesky can be a trap, I won't let myself be tempted. My rule – I don't join a service that I can't leave without switching costs – is my Ulysses Pact, and it's keeping me safe from danger I've sailed into too many times before.
Hey look at this (permalink)
Vanishing Culture https://blog.archive.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Vanishing-Culture-2024.pdf (h/t Chris Freeland)
The Rookie: W. Kamau Bell on Olivia Rynberg-Going of the DOJ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/rookie/ (h/t James Boyle)
Hey Brendan Carr, Next Time Link To Our Article That Proves You’re Full Of Shit, Coward https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/24/hey-brendan-carr-next-time-link-to-our-article-that-proves-youre-full-of-shit-coward/ (h/t Gregory Charlin)
Hoisted from the comments (permalink)
Tallsimon on "Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon": When you “vote with your wallet” you try to control for some future outcome, but if your wallet isn’t big enough to survive losing a big bet, then you are constrained to go with a certain outcome. That can be an outcome that is certainly worse for you. The rational, measurable cost of the randomness can be so high that taking a loss makes sense.
https://chinwag.pluralistic.net/t/pluralistic-conspiratorialism-as-a-material-phenomenon-29-oct-2024/1356/4
This day in history (permalink)
#20yrsago Diebold voting machines hacked https://web.archive.org/web/20041102084048/http://www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/78#breaking
#15yrsago Newspaper columnist quits over paywall https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/media/02elderly.html
#15yrsago Congressional record exposes military officers to identity theft, covers up https://web.archive.org/web/20100506125320/http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/foia/gov.ftc_20081117_from.pdf
#15yrsago Hallowe’en night out as floppy disk and XKCD Cory https://www.flickr.com/photos/24876360@N03/4068253019/in/photostream/
#15yrsago Mechanical computer uses matchboxes and beans to learn Tic-Tac-Toe http://shorttermmemoryloss.com/menace/
#15yrsago Elegy Beach: sequel to Ariel, a sword-and-sorcery post-apocalyptic adventure story about the reinvention of software in the age of magic https://memex.craphound.com/2009/11/02/elegy-beach-sequel-to-ariel-a-sword-and-sorcery-post-apocalyptic-adventure-story-about-the-reinvention-of-software-in-the-age-of-magic/
#10yrsago UK cultural institutions leave their WWI cases empty to protest insane copyright https://web.archive.org/web/20141105051638/http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/news/campaign-free-our-history-reform-copyright
#10yrsago FBI secretly seeking legal power to hack any computer, anywhere https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/29/fbi-powers-hacking-computers-surveillance
#10yrsago 42 rich white people account for 1/3 of Super PAC spending https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/whos-buying-midterm-elections-bunch-old-white-guys/
#10yrsago Philadelphia schools have $5/student/year for supplies https://www.salon.com/2014/11/01/we_must_still_hate_our_kids_philadelphia_and_education_reformers_fight_demented_war_on_elementary_schools/
#10yrsago Mechwarrior dad/baby costume https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIln1LTtvzc
Upcoming appearances (permalink)
TusCon (Tucson), Nov 8-10
https://tusconscificon.com/
International Cooperative Alliance (New Delhi), Nov 24
https://icanewdelhi2024.coop/welcome/pages/Programme
ACM Conext-2024 Workshop on the Decentralization of the Internet (Los Angeles), Dec 9
https://conferences.sigcomm.org/co-next/2024/#!/din
IA et “merdification“ d’internet: peut-on envisager un nouveau web? (Remote), Dec 12
https://www.unige.ch/comprendre-le-numerique/conferences-publiques1/cycle-5-2024-2025/ia-et-merdification-dinternet-peut-envisager-un-nouveau-web/
ISSA-LA Holiday Celebration keynote (Los Angeles), Dec 18
https://issala.org/event/issa-la-december-18-dinner-meeting/
Cloudfest (Europa Park), Mar 17-20
https://cloudfest.link/
Recent appearances (permalink)
Enshittification Was a Choice (SOSS Fusion)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSelmMUO0c
Maximum Iceland Scenario – Data Caps, 3rd Party Android Stores, Nuclear Amazon (This Week in Tech)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5MkCwktKz0
Speciale intervista a Cory Doctorow (Digitalia)
https://digitalia.fm/744/
Latest books (permalink)
The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
"How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)
"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
"Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.
Upcoming books (permalink)
Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025
Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025
Colophon (permalink)
Today's top sources:
Currently writing:
Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Friday's progress: 848 words (76255 words total).
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING
Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025
Latest podcast: Spill, part four (a Little Brother story) https://craphound.com/littlebrother/2024/10/28/spill-part-four-a-little-brother-story/
This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.
How to get Pluralistic:
Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):
Pluralistic.net
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https://pluralistic.net/plura-list
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https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic
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https://doctorow.medium.com/
Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):
https://twitter.com/doctorow
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https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic
"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
| 2024-11-07T23:34:37 | en | train |
42,028,868 | ibobev | 2024-11-02T20:01:27 | Meshlet Compression | null | https://gpuopen.com/learn/mesh_shaders/mesh_shaders-meshlet_compression/ | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,873 | ksec | 2024-11-02T20:02:23 | Spann: Highly-Efficient Billion-Scale Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search (2021) | null | https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.08566 | 123 | 33 | [
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42029673,
42030901,
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42,028,890 | rmason | 2024-11-02T20:05:17 | Hacking cars in JavaScript (Replay attacks in the browser with the HackRF) | null | https://charliegerard.dev/blog/replay-attacks-javascript-hackrf/ | 30 | 1 | [
42029192
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,906 | rntn | 2024-11-02T20:08:04 | Asteroid Mining Is the Path to a 'Shitload of Money,' Astroforge CEO Says | null | https://gizmodo.com/asteroid-mining-is-the-path-to-a-shitload-of-money-astroforge-ceo-says-2000517583 | 7 | 2 | [
42029093,
42029029,
42028924
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42,028,911 | todsacerdoti | 2024-11-02T20:09:27 | Sortledton: A Universal, Transactional Graph Data Structure [pdf] | null | https://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol15/p1173-fuchs.pdf | 95 | 14 | [
42029268,
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42,028,922 | null | 2024-11-02T20:11:16 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
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42,028,925 | decafquest | 2024-11-02T20:11:57 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,927 | rmason | 2024-11-02T20:12:09 | Building an aircraft radar system in JavaScript (2022) | null | https://charliegerard.dev/blog/aircraft-radar-system-rtl-sdr-web-usb/ | 8 | 1 | [
42033134
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,937 | denisshilov | 2024-11-02T20:14:02 | MathPile: A Billion-Token-Scale Pretraining Corpus for Math | null | https://synthical.com/article/MathPile%3A-A-Billion-Token-Scale-Pretraining-Corpus-for-Math-92870c67-e40a-4ae2-9028-c56cde9be782 | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | missing_parsing | MathPile: A Billion-Token-Scale Pretraining Corpus for Math | 2023-12-28T16:55:40.000Z | Pengfei Liu | High-quality, large-scale corpora are the cornerstone of building foundation models. In this work, we introduce MathPile, a diverse and high-quality math-centric corpus comprising about 9.5 billion tokens. Throughout its creation, we adhered to the principle of "less is more", firmly believing in the supremacy of data quality over quantity, even... Show moreSimilar articlesLoading recommendations...x1MathPile: A Billion-Token-Scale Pretraining Corpus for MathClick on play to start listeningEnjoying Synthical? Enjoy our browser extension | 2024-11-08T11:35:57 | null | train |
42,028,950 | amrrs | 2024-11-02T20:15:15 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42028994
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,957 | mailyk | 2024-11-02T20:16:12 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,962 | sandwichsphinx | 2024-11-02T20:18:13 | Sweet Precision: CT and Food Safety | null | https://www.lumafield.com/article/sweet-precision-ct-and-food-safety-candy | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,028,988 | aoakley711 | 2024-11-02T20:23:41 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42028989
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,018 | akhileshthite | 2024-11-02T20:27:34 | Social Media as RSS: Meet Social Reader–Your Algorithm-Free, Ad-Free Feed | null | https://distributed.press/2024/10/29/escape-the-algorithm-meet-social-reader-your-personal-feed/ | 6 | 1 | [
42029035
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,024 | itronitron | 2024-11-02T20:29:04 | Life on Earth Blossomed After Giant Meteorite Ripped Up Seafloor, Boiled Oceans | null | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-giant-meteorite-boiled-earths-oceans-and-ripped-up-the-seafloor-326-billion-years-ago-then-life-blossomed-in-its-wake-180985336/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,037 | null | 2024-11-02T20:31:50 | null | null | null | null | null | null | [
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42,029,048 | ZacnyLos | 2024-11-02T20:33:54 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,051 | ZacnyLos | 2024-11-02T20:34:29 | One year after X: Embracing open science on Mastodon | null | https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/blog/one-year-after-x-embracing-open-science-on-mastodon | 12 | 0 | [
42029074
] | null | null | no_error | One year after X: Embracing open science on Mastodon | 2024-10-18T16:38+01:00 | null |
One year after X: Embracing open science on Mastodon
Date:23 October 2024
Author:Babette Knauer
Mastodon logo
Introduction
In October 2023, the University of Groningen Library (UB) made the decision to leave X (formerly Twitter) and fully transition to Mastodon, a decentralized, non-commercial social media platform. This move, prompted by growing misalignment with X’s commercial interests and ethical dilemmas with regard to our core values as a public organization, marked a significant shift in our approach to digital communication. The transition was met with enthusiasm. It allows us to practice what we preach, aligning our communication with the open science principles we advocate, while at the same time leading to deeper engagement. In this case study, we reflect on the reasons behind our switch, the challenges faced, and the key lessons learned. We hope to offer insights and inspiration for other academic institutions considering making the switch to Mastodon.
The paradox of open science communication
As an academic library, we have long been at the forefront of the open science movement, providing crucial infrastructure and support for researchers. We have developed strong expertise in open access publishing, open education, and FAIR data management. In regard to our communication tools, however, we recognized a paradox: while advocating for openness and transparency in research, we, like many academic institutions, relied on closed, commercial social media platforms for our communication.
The 'enshittification' of digital spaces, a concept coined by Cory Doctorow, describes the deterioration of online platforms as they prioritize profit over user experience. This phenomenon is increasingly relevant for social media use in academia, where platforms often rank engagement over accuracy, potentially undermining the principles of transparency and objectivity central to open science. Opaque algorithms can hinder rational debate and create echo chambers, which are antithetical to the academic pursuit of knowledge. Just as commercial social media platforms have been corrupted by profit-driven interests, academic online spaces – intended for open discourse and nuanced debate – face similar threats, including the amplification of sensationalism over thoughtful discussion.
Our decision to switch
Recognizing these challenges, we realized that supporting academic staff in their open research and teaching practices while developing an open communication strategy requires a credible approach that ensures digital autonomy and self-determination. This realization prompted our decision to switch to alternative platforms that better align with academic values and the pursuit of knowledge.
Our decision to leave X was driven by several factors:
Our growing discomfort with the platform's direction and ethical dilemmas that misaligned with our core values of openness and trustworthy information provision
Rising misinformation and harassment of researchers, which created a toxic environment hindering constructive academic discourse
Our need to align our communication strategy with our core values as a university library
Calls for greater digital sovereignty in the public sector, which resonated with our mission as a public institution
Algorithmic limitations to reach our target audience on X, indicating a need for a fresh approach
Signaling our shift in focus from X to Mastodon
We identified Mastodon as an ideal alternative, offering a decentralized, community-driven nature that aligns perfectly with our open science principles. As a non-commercial platform, Mastodon presents a sustainable model that resonates with our values and fosters openness by allowing diverse communities to set their own moderation policies.
Planning and executing our transition
We carefully planned a gradual transition to retain our audience and…
began cross-posting on both platforms to maintain our presence while introducing our audience to Mastodon during November 2022 and October 2023
realized that our content resonated more strongly with Mastodon users than X followers
gradually reduced our activity on X to signal our shift in focus
openly communicated with our audience about the impending change, explaining our rationale and guiding them on how to follow us on Mastodon
adopted social.edu.nl as our new home base, a Mastodon instance set up by SURF (the ICT cooperation for Dutch education and research organization)
set 20 October 2023, as our official 'cut-over date', with the International Open Access Week theme "Community over Commercialization" serving as catalyst.
The impact of our switch
Our transition to Mastodon was met with overwhelming enthusiasm and support, particularly from the Mastodon community. Within one weekend, we gained approximately 900 new followers, and our #LeavingTwitter post received 1,300 likes and around 800 reposts. This immediate growth and engagement, particularly the encouraging (qualitative) responses, surpassed our expectations and validated our decision.
A quick follower analysis revealed a significant shift from a primarily local audience on X to a diverse international one on Mastodon. Our followers include academics from various disciplines, open science and open-source enthusiasts, library professionals, historians, and advocates for a better online ecosystem. This broadened reach has opened up new opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Announcing our transition on Mastodon
Redefining our content strategy
Our transition prompted a reevaluation of our content strategy. We recognized that Mastodon's design emphasizes peer-to-peer interactions. Furthermore, we considered the broader context of the open science movement, which is inherently community-driven.
This led us to realize that our former, rather traditional strategy of broadcasting information was not leveraging the platform's interactive nature. We also believe that a top-down communication approach is at odds with the collaborative ethos of open science. This motivated us to align our content strategy more closely with the participatory nature of both Mastodon and the open science community.
By adapting our approach, we aim to foster more engaging dialogues, encourage community participation, and better reflect the collaborative spirit of open science in our communications.
Our new strategy integrates open science as the central theme, featuring for example:
A recurring series highlighting open access publications across disciplines, showcasing the breadth and impact of open research presented by their authors
In-depth interviews with academics sharing their experiences with open science practices, such as open access publishing, FAIR data management or teaching concepts using open educational resources, offering practical insights for academics worldwide
Presenting digitized material from our Special Collections, ensuring open accessibility and bringing rare and valuable resources to a global audience
Highlighting new open access acquisitions from our library collection
Sharing tools, tips and tricks applicable to researchers everywhere, not just locally or in the Netherlands
We are also working on a research project to investigate the motivation and patterns of (non)usage, challenges faced, and potential benefits perceived by academics who use Mastodon for professional purposes. This will help us to better understand how we can serve the academic community on this platform.
Navigating a new landscape
Unlike X, Mastodon does not offer detailed analytics due to privacy considerations. This can present a challenge if one is accustomed to traditional metric-focused approaches. We decided to embrace this change, focusing on content quality and community interaction rather than chasing numbers.
Despite the lack of detailed analytics, we are observing a significant growth and reach on Mastodon. Since November 2022, we have built a community of more than 1,970 [Update 29 Oct 2024: 2,303] followers compared to 2,700 followers we had on X (2009-2023).
In the pre-Musk era on Twitter, even our most popular posts barely reached an average of 1,500 to 2,000 views. Although, on Mastodon, we cannot determine how many users will have seen any specific post, our top-10 performing posts on average reached nearly 52,000 accounts through our own followers and the followers of those who shared them; with an overall average reach of about 6,800 accounts per post (based on our around 200 posts published in the period 10/2023-10/2024). Some recent toots even succeeded beyond our expectations with a potential reach of almost 224,000 accounts.
However, these numbers, while notable for a university library, are secondary to the quality of interactions. Users thoughtfully respond to our posts and questions, offering valuable insights. The community provides constructive feedback, creating a collaborative learning environment. Through these interactions, we gain new perspectives and knowledge, enriching our experience on the platform.
Conclusion: Practicing what we preach
Our transition to Mastodon allows us to practice what we preach, aligning our communication methods with the open science principles we advocate. We joined a vibrant, international community and also reinforced our role in fostering a digital, democratic space for the academic community. Our experience underscores the importance of an open science-driven communication approach that is transparent, meaningful, and dialogue-oriented.
Institutions must carefully weigh platform transitions, including potential short-term reductions in reach and engagement. However, by aligning digital presence with core academic values, organizations can build deeper trust and foster more meaningful connections with their communities – outcomes that ultimately matter more than raw follower counts.
For organizations committed to open science, embracing such changes is both a necessary and rewarding endeavor, paving the way for more sustainable, values-driven academic communication while encouraging collaborative knowledge exchange.
As we look to the future, we remain committed to exploring innovative ways to advance open, ethical science communication. Through these efforts, we hope to inspire other academic institutions to join in building a more transparent, collaborative, and resilient academic digital ecosystem.
About the author
Babette Knauer
Babette Knauer is team leader Communications at the University of Groningen Library.
Comments
| 2024-11-08T13:54:30 | en | train |
42,029,062 | mbskydis | 2024-11-02T20:37:10 | AI Agent Store | null | https://aiagentstore.ai | 1 | 1 | [
42029063
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,069 | gmays | 2024-11-02T20:38:47 | Discovery Finds How Ovarian Cancer Disables Immune Cells | null | https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2024/10/discovery-finds-how-ovarian-cancer-disables-immune-cells | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,072 | amichail | 2024-11-02T20:39:29 | Ask HN: Why is functional code more readable than Python-style comprehensions? | Or at least, many Swift developers think so.<p>There is a lot of resistance to adding Python-style comprehensions to Swift. | null | 1 | 2 | [
42029956,
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,073 | ZacnyLos | 2024-11-02T20:39:38 | Possible Futures for Bridgy Fed | null | https://snarfed.org/2024-11-01_53932 | 3 | 0 | [
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,077 | bookofjoe | 2024-11-02T20:40:01 | The future of transcranial ultrasound as a precision brain interface | null | https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002884 | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,079 | esimhola | 2024-11-02T20:40:15 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
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] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,087 | PaulHoule | 2024-11-02T20:40:45 | Unique mRNA delivery method could fix faulty genes before birth | null | https://phys.org/news/2024-10-unique-mrna-delivery-method-faulty.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,134 | belter | 2024-11-02T20:51:24 | Susan Kare | null | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare | 3 | 0 | [
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,155 | marcelokunze | 2024-11-02T20:54:16 | Walksmart.ai – Free Walking Tour Generator | null | https://www.walksmart.ai/ | 3 | 2 | [
42029991,
42029156
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,161 | sbuttgereit | 2024-11-02T20:55:07 | An Opinion on Age and Creativity [video] | null | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxR6Zi1euvc | 1 | 1 | [
42029321,
42029170
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42,029,194 | CharlesW | 2024-11-02T20:59:47 | GPL Clarification | null | https://ma.tt/2024/11/gpl-clarification/ | 2 | 0 | [
42029198
] | null | null | no_error | GPL Clarification | 2024-11-01T17:00:10Z | Matt |
A quick followup on my prior conversation with Theo.
During that chat, I talked briefly about a trademark infringer that was also distributing nulled plugins. I said “Not illegal. Legal under the GPL. But they weren’t changing the names. They were selling their customers Pro Plugins with the licensing stuff nulled out.”
I want to be clear that my reference to legality and GPL was solely focused on the copying and modifying of the code. That is one of the key freedoms of open source and GPL: the right to copy and modify GPL code.
I was not speaking about their right to charge money for nulled plugins. GPLv2 prohibits that because they aren’t providing physical copies or support. This is very different from reputable web hosts, who provide hosting and support for websites and e-commerce stores.
Post navigation
| 2024-11-07T22:35:54 | en | train |
42,029,204 | Curioni | 2024-11-02T21:01:18 | OpenAI's O-1 and Inference-Time Scaling Laws | null | https://www.tanayj.com/p/openais-o-1-and-inference-time-scaling | 4 | 0 | [
42029208
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,209 | MollyRealized | 2024-11-02T21:02:15 | Ask HN: Org-mode, Emacs, and non-Emacs editors | I've heard so much over the years about org-mode and how it is an absolute lifesaver, it is the god of organization for one's brain. (That isn't meant mockingly, but I'm trying to convey how much it has been built up.)<p>Unfortunately, even when I was on Linux, I went for nano or pico, and on other systems I've been a BBEdit or Notepad++ user.<p>For someone who never learnt the keystrokes necessary for emacs, and so never really experienced org-mode, can someone explain why org-mode is so lauded, and what it does that is so unique when compared to other organizers, to-do lists, etc.?<p>Is there any way to achieve that effect outside of emacs?<p>Thank you. Please note: this is meant sincerely and is simply a plea for insight and/or to look at the product from the view of someone who uses it and understands it. I'm basically looking for that insight of the knowledgable, wanting to know, I suppose, what I'm missing out on ... | null | 4 | 3 | [
42030570,
42029221,
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,225 | Tomte | 2024-11-02T21:04:33 | A 10% swing in win probability corresponds to a 0.4% swing in predicted vote | null | https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/11/02/a-10-swing-in-win-probability-corresponds-approximately-to-a-0-4-swing-in-predicted-vote/ | 5 | 0 | [
42029352
] | null | null | no_article | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T15:42:52 | null | train |
42,029,240 | lapnect | 2024-11-02T21:08:58 | Blender's prehistory – Traces on Commodore Amiga (1987-1991) (2018) | null | https://zgodzinski.com/blender-prehistory/ | 5 | 0 | [
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,282 | ccc4 | 2024-11-02T21:19:24 | Shhs (Show HaShes), Anybody | null | https://github.com/Qwer-TeX/shhs | 1 | 1 | [
42029283
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,293 | MBCook | 2024-11-02T21:21:01 | Kindle Colorsoft owners complain of a yellow bar on the e-reader's screen | null | https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/2/24286289/kindle-colorsoft-yellow-bar-display-e-reader | 4 | 0 | [
42029354
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,305 | sandwichsphinx | 2024-11-02T21:23:04 | Erythromer (EM), a Nanoscale Bio-Synthetic Artificial Red Cell (2016) | null | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006497119310286 | 1 | 0 | [
42029408
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,308 | Marius_Manola | 2024-11-02T21:23:26 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,338 | gjvc | 2024-11-02T21:28:15 | Monitorix – a free, open-source, lightweight system monitoring tool | null | https://www.monitorix.org/ | 12 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,355 | chirau | 2024-11-02T21:32:10 | Ask HN: Did Elon Musk buy Twitter for a political agenda? | I do not follow any politician. My timeline has always been tech and venture capital. Now when I open "X" it is all Donald Trump. I fucking hate it. No opinion on the man, but I hate that I have to see all this. Is it just me? Did Elon buy X for this specific purpose? | null | 17 | 13 | [
42030546,
42029972,
42032729,
42033221,
42031878,
42029523,
42029358,
42029491,
42029967
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,367 | tosh | 2024-11-02T21:34:22 | Plussing Disneyland | null | https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/walts-own-words-plussing-disneyland | 3 | 0 | [
42029376
] | null | null | no_error | In Walt's Own Words: Plussing Disneyland | null | Posted on Thu, 07/17/2014 - 10:00 |
One of our most valuable artifacts is Walt’s voice. The museum is designed so that Walt himself is the narrator, taking you through his life. In this spirit, Storyboard presents Walt’s own words, on a variety of topics, regularly. In celebration of Disneyland's 59th anniversary today, here’s what Walt said to journalist Pete Martin about "plussing" Disneyland current during an interview, ca. 1956.
Your browser does not support this audio element.
"The park means a lot to me in that it's something that will never be finished. Something that I can keep developing, keep plussing and adding to—it's alive. It will be a live, breathing thing that will need changes.
The Model of the Disneyland of Walt's Imagination at The Walt Disney Family Museum.
"A picture is a thing that once you wrap it up and turn it over to Technicolor, you're through. Snow White is a dead issue with me. The last picture I just finished—the one I just wrapped up a few weeks ago—it's gone; I can't touch it. There's things in it I don't like? I can't do anything about it."
"I wanted something live, something that could grow, something I could keep plussing with ideas, you see? The park is that. Not only can I add things but even the trees will keep growing; the thing will get more beautiful every year. And as I find what the public likes—and when a picture's finished and I put it out—I find out what they like, or they don't like, and I have to apply that to some other thing; I can't change that picture, so that's why I wanted that park."
— Walt Disney
| 2024-11-08T08:47:55 | en | train |
42,029,373 | MathCatHat | 2024-11-02T21:34:56 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42029374
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,390 | fzliu | 2024-11-02T21:36:50 | Double Delusion | null | https://lichess.org/@/Gyllenstierna/blog/another-double-delusion/czUhpCst | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,392 | geox | 2024-11-02T21:37:11 | Researchers create first map of the spliceosome, an Achilles heel of cancer | null | https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2024-11-01/researchers-create-first-map-of-the-spliceosome-an-achilles-heel-of-cancer.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Researchers create first map of the spliceosome, an Achilles heel of cancer | 2024-11-01T21:03:04+01:00 | Manuel Ansede | It is a disconcerting fact that defies intuition: the 30 billion cells that make up a person share the same instruction manual, whether it is a neuron in the brain or a bone in the big toe. This common manual functions like an unusual cookbook, allowing each cell to prepare a different dish from the same recipe. Imagine the classic ingredients for paella listed on a page: rice, chicken, rabbit, saffron, garlic, oil, and so on. Each cell reads only a few select words, leading one to create paella, while another makes rabbit in garlic or rice with chicken. The same DNA yields different results, which is why a foot does not resemble a brain. On Thursday, a team of scientists from the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona achieved a historic milestone by creating the first map of the intricate machinery responsible for this process: the spliceosome.Geneticist Juan Valcárcel, 62, points out that in reality, the process is a little more complicated. “Words, as they are written in DNA, are separated by a bunch of meaningless letters. Cells have developed a machine, which I believe is the most complex they have, to eliminate those pieces that don’t make sense, in a process called splicing,” explains Valcárcel.Following the same example, the DNA recipe would be written like this: rice osdlsdkjg chicken ugdlsgjls rabbit igosgsjodi saffron bpnemrac garlic efffeouu oil. The spliceosome machinery, made up of 150 proteins, splices out what doesn’t make sense: rice, chicken, rabbit, saffron, garlic, oil. And a second phenomenon, known as alternative splicing, selects only certain words: rice with chicken, rabbit with garlic.Human DNA is a two-meter-long molecule folded within each cell. It is divided into approximately 20,000 sections known as genes, which contain the recipes for producing essential proteins for life, such as collagen in bones, hemoglobin for oxygen transport in the blood, and myosin in muscles. Thanks to the spliceosome’s work, human cells can produce 100,000 different types of proteins, despite having only 20,000 genes.Valcárcel has been studying this intricate machinery since 1986. Reading errors in the spliceosome can lead to millions of cases of cancer, as well as rare and neurodegenerative diseases. Valcárcel’s team has spent over a decade producing the first map of the spliceosome, published on Thursday in the journal Science, which showcases the best research in the world. This machinery consists of 150 proteins, plus an additional 150 proteins that function as regulators on its exterior. The researchers meticulously deactivated each of the 300 proteins one by one to observe the effects. For their experiments, the authors utilized cells derived from Henrietta Lacks, a tobacco worker who died in 1951 in Maryland from uterine cancer.“There is enormous potential,” says Valcárcel. “The really interesting thing is alternative splicing. The same gene can produce a protein that kills cells or another that inhibits cells from dying. Or proteins that make cancer cells proliferate a lot or not at all. If we understand these mechanisms, we can reverse these decisions or, with genetic engineering, make customized proteins,” says the geneticist. “This new work gives us a kind of functional map of the 300 components of the spliceosome. It tells us what they do in cancer cells when reading the messages from the genes.”Valcárcel is sitting in a large meeting room in the building of the Centre for Genomic Regulation. Next to him is the Polish biologist Malgorzata Rogalska, 37, the lead author of the study. “Understanding the function and the structure are very different. The structure is a stable image in perfect conditions, but perfect conditions do not exist in our body. Understanding how the spliceosome adapts to different conditions is what has allowed us to draw up the first map,” says Rogalska.The biologist compares splicing to the process of editing a film, where dozens of participants can take control and change the meaning of a scene. One of her main conclusions is that the 300 components of the spliceosome are so interconnected that the failure of one can trigger a domino effect. The researchers manipulated the SF3B1 component, whose mutations are linked to various types of cancer, including breast cancer, melanoma, and leukemia. Their experiment revealed that this alteration triggered a chain of errors that inhibited the growth of cancer cells.“It is a potential Achilles’ heel that we can take advantage of to design new therapies. Our map offers a way to discover these weak points,” says Valcárcel. Her spliceosome map is now available to the scientific community.Scientist Marina Serna, who has studied the structure of the spliceosome at the National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid, commends the accomplishment of her colleagues in Barcelona, although she did not take part in their research. “Splicing has fundamental implications in cancer,” she says. “This work has not only identified all the regulatory factors that, when altered, clearly affect the function of the spliceosome, but it has also revealed how these factors regulate themselves and each other in an extremely complex way. If you adjust one, it doesn’t affect just one other factor, it directly affects almost all the others.”Serna underscores the scale of the challenge. A water molecule consists of two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom (H₂O), while the formula for hemoglobin, the protein that gives blood its red color, is C₂₉₅₂H₄₆₆₄N₈₁₂O₈₃₂S₈Fe₄. The structure of a single protein is already intricate, but the spliceosome, with its 300 components, is even more formidable. “And the same protein has different conformations and interactions at various stages of the splicing cycle. The spliceosome is one of the most complex molecular machines known,” says the researcherSign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition | 2024-11-08T09:56:14 | en | train |
42,029,394 | belter | 2024-11-02T21:37:35 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42029397,
42029400
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,413 | gslin | 2024-11-02T21:41:35 | Meta Denied Regulator's Request to Test Rights Manager's Effectiveness | null | https://torrentfreak.com/meta-denied-regulators-request-to-test-rights-managers-effectiveness-241102/ | 8 | 0 | [
42029422
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,419 | tosh | 2024-11-02T21:42:55 | iPhone 16 Pro review: Control before Intelligence | null | https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/10/iphone-16-pro-review-control-before-intelligence/ | 2 | 0 | [
42029425
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,428 | bookofjoe | 2024-11-02T21:43:43 | For some elite athletes, neurodivergence can be a super strength | null | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/11/01/adhd-autism-hyperfocus-elite-atheletes/ | 2 | 1 | [
42029430
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,480 | lienmt | 2024-11-02T21:57:15 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42029481
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,496 | jogsoham2003 | 2024-11-02T21:59:24 | Rust Library for Reed Solomon Error Correction with Berlekamp–Welch Decoding | null | https://github.com/SohamJog/reed_solomon_rs | 3 | 1 | [
42029497
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,535 | psnehanshu | 2024-11-02T22:06:02 | Memorystore Isn't Redis | null | https://redis.io/compare/memorystore/ | 2 | 0 | [
42030205
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,536 | grokk_run | 2024-11-02T22:06:07 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,542 | fanf2 | 2024-11-02T22:07:09 | Breaking CityHash64, MurmurHash2/3, wyhash, and more | null | https://orlp.net/blog/breaking-hash-functions/ | 49 | 23 | [
42030492,
42029868,
42031644,
42030320,
42030213
] | null | null | no_error | Breaking CityHash64, MurmurHash2/3, wyhash, and more... | null | null |
2024-11-02
Hash functions are incredibly
neat mathematical objects. They can map arbitrary data to a small fixed-size
output domain such that the mapping is deterministic, yet appears to be random.
This “deterministic randomness” is incredibly useful for a variety of purposes,
such as hash tables,
checksums, monte carlo
algorithms,
communication-less distributed
algorithms, etc, the list
goes on.
In this article we will take a look at the dark side of hash functions: when
things go wrong. Luckily this essentially never happens due to unlucky inputs in
the wild (for good hash functions, at least). However, people exist, and some of
them may be malicious. Thus we must look towards computer security for answers.
I will quickly explain some of the basics of hash function security and then
show how easy it is to break this security for some commonly used
non-cryptographic hash functions.
As a teaser, this article explains how you can generate strings
such as these, thousands per second:
cityhash64("orlp-cityhash64-D-:K5yx*zkgaaaaa") == 1337
murmurhash2("orlp-murmurhash64-bkiaaa&JInaNcZ") == 1337
murmurhash3("orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-haaaPa*+") == 1337
farmhash64("orlp-farmhash64-/v^CqdPvziuheaaa") == 1337
I also show how you can create some really funky pairs of strings that can be
concatenated arbitrarily such that when concatenating $k$ strings together
any of the $2^k$ combinations all have the same hash output, regardless of the
seed used for the hash function:
a = "xx0rlpx!xxsXъВ"
b = "xxsXъВxx0rlpx!"
murmurhash2(a + a, seed) == murmurhash2(a + b, seed)
murmurhash2(a + a, seed) == murmurhash2(b + a, seed)
murmurhash2(a + a, seed) == murmurhash2(b + b, seed)
a = "!&orlpՓ"
b = "yǏglp$X"
murmurhash3(a + a, seed) == murmurhash3(a + b, seed)
murmurhash3(a + a, seed) == murmurhash3(b + a, seed)
murmurhash3(a + a, seed) == murmurhash3(b + b, seed)
Hash function security basics
Hash functions play a critical role in computer security. Hash
functions are used not only to verify messages over secure channels, they are
also used to identify trusted updates as well as known viruses. Virtually every
signature scheme ever used starts with a hash function.
If a hash function does not behave randomly, we can break the above security
constructs. Cryptographic hash
functions thus take
the randomness aspect very seriously. The ideal hash function would choose an
output completely at random for each input, remembering that choice for future
calls. This is called a random
oracle.
The problem is that a random oracle requires a true random number generator, and
more problematically, a globally accessible infinite memory bank. So we
approximate it using deterministic hash functions instead. These compute their
output by essentially shuffling their input really, really well, in such a way
that it is not feasible to reverse.
To help quantify whether a specific function does a good job of approximating a
random oracle, cryptographers came up with a variety of properties that a random
oracle would have. The three most important and well-known properties a secure
cryptographic hash function should satisfy are:
Pre-image resistance. For some constant $c$ it should be hard to find
some input $m$ such that $h(m) = c$.
Second pre-image resistance. For some input $m_1$ it should be hard to
find another input $m_2$ such that $h(m_1) = h(m_2)$.
Collision resistance. It should be hard to find inputs $m_1, m_2$ such
that $h(m_1) = h(m_2)$.
We generally consider one of these properties broken if there exists a method
that produces a collision or pre-image faster than simply trying random
inputs (also known as a brute force attack). However, there are definitely
gradations in breakage, as some methods are only several orders of magnitude
faster than brute force. That may sound like a lot, but a method taking
$2^{110}$ steps instead of $2^{128}$ are still both equally out of reach for
today’s computers.
MD5 used to be a common hash function, and
SHA-1 is still in common use today. While
both were considered cryptographically secure at one point, generating MD5
collisions now takes less than a second on a modern PC. In 2017 a collaboration
of researchers from CWI and Google and announced the first SHA-1
collision. However, as far as I’m aware, neither MD5 nor
SHA-1 have practical (second) pre-image attacks, only theoretical ones.
Non-cryptographic hash functions
Cryptographically secure hash functions tend to have a small problem: they’re
slow. Modern hash functions such as BLAKE3
resolve this somewhat by heavily vectorizing the hash using
SIMD instructions, as well as parallelizing over multiple threads, but even then
they require large input sizes before reaching those speeds.
A lot of problems don’t necessarily require secure hash functions, and people
would much prefer a faster hash speed. Especially when we are computing many
small hashes, such as in a hash table.
Let’s take a look what common hash table implementations actually use as their
hash for strings:
C++: there are multiple standard library implementations, but 64-bit
clang 13.0.0 on Apple M1 ships CityHash64.
Currently libstdc++ ships
MurmurHash64A,
a variant of Murmur2 for 64-bit platforms.
Java: OpenJDK uses an incredibly simple hash algorithm, which essentially just computes
h = 31 * h + c for each character c.
PHP: the Zend engine uses essentially the same algorithm
as Java, just using unsigned integers and 33 as its multiplier.
Nim: it used to use MurmurHash3_x86_32. While writing this article they appeared to have switched to use
farmhash by default.
Zig: it uses
wyhash by default, with 0 as seed.
Javascript: in V8 they use a custom
weak string hash, with a randomly initialized seed.
There were some that used stronger hashes by default as well:
Go uses an
AES-based hash
if hardware acceleration is available on x86-64. Even though its construction is custom
and likely not full-strength cryptographically secure, breaking it is too
much effort and quite possibly beyond my capabilities.
If not available, it uses an algorithm inspired by wyhash.
Python and Rust use SipHash by
default, which is a cryptographically secure pseudorandom function.
This is effectively a hash function where you’re allowed to use a secret key
during hashing, unlike a hash like SHA-2 where everyone knows all information
involved.
This latter concept is actually really important, at least for protecting
against HashDoS in hash
tables. Even if a hash function is perfectly secure over its complete output,
hash tables further reduce the output to only a couple bits to find the data it
is looking for. For a static hash function without any randomness it’s possible
to produce large lists of hashes that collide post-reduction, just by brute
force. But for non-cryptographic hashes as we’ll see here we often don’t need
brute force and can generate collisions at high speed for the full output, if
not randomized by a random seed.
Interlude: inverse operations
Before we get to breaking some of the above hash functions, I must explain a basic
technique I will use a lot: the inverting of operations. We are first exposed to
this in primary school, where we might get faced by a question such as “$2 + x = 10$”.
There we learn subtraction is the inverse of addition, such that we may find
$x$ by computing $10 - 2 = 8$.
Most operations on the integer registers in computers are also invertible, despite
the integers being reduced modulo $2^{w}$ in the case of overflow. Let
us study some:
Addition can be inverted using subtraction. That is, x += y can be inverted
using x -= y. Seems obvious enough.
Multiplication by a constant $c$ is not inverted by division. This would
not work in the case of overflow. Instead, we calculate the modular
multiplicative
inverse of
$c$. This is an integer $c^{-1}$ such that $c \cdot c^{-1} \equiv 1 \pmod
{m}$. Then we invert multiplication by $c$ simply by multiplying by $c^{-1}$.
This constant exists if and only if $c$ is coprime with our modulus $m$, which for
us means that $c$ must be odd as $m = 2^n$. For example, multiplication by $2$ is not
invertible, which is easy to see as such, as it is equivalent to a bit shift
to the left by one position, losing the most significant bit forever.
Without delving into the details, here is a snippet of Python code that computes
the modular multiplicative inverse of an integer using the
extended Euclidean algorithm
by calculating $x, y$ such that
$$cx + my = \gcd(c, m).$$
Then, because $c$ is coprime we find $\gcd(c, m) = 1$, which means that
$$cx + 0 \equiv 1 \pmod m,$$
and thus $x = c^{-1}$.
def egcd(a, b):
if a == 0: return (b, 0, 1)
g, y, x = egcd(b % a, a)
return (g, x - (b // a) * y, y)
def modinv(c, m):
g, x, y = egcd(c, m)
assert g == 1, "c, m must be coprime"
return x % m
Using this we can invert modular multiplication:
>>> modinv(17, 2**32)
4042322161
>>> 42 * 17 * 4042322161 % 2**32
42
Magic!
XOR can be inverted using… XOR. It is its own inverse. So x ^= y can be
inverted using x ^= y.
Bit shifts can not be inverted, but two common operations in hash functions
that use bit shifts can be. The first is bit rotation by a constant. This
is best explained visually, for example a bit rotation to the left by 3
places on a 8-bit word, where each bit is shown as a letter:
abcdefghi
defghiabc
The formula for a right-rotation of k places is (x >> k) | (x << (w - k)), where w is the width of the integer type. Its inverse is a
left-rotation, which simply swaps the direction of both shifts.
Alternatively, the inverse of a right-rotation of k places is another
right-rotation of w-k places.
Another common operation in hash functions is the “xorshift”. It is an operation
of one of the following forms, with $k > 0$:
x ^= x << k // Left xorshift.
x ^= x >> k // Right xorshift.
How to invert it is entirely analogous between the two, so I will focus on the
left xorshift.
An important observation is that the least
significant $k$ bits are left entirely untouched by the xorshift.
Thus by repeating the operation, we recover the least significant $2k$ bits,
as the XOR will invert itself for the next $k$ bits.
Let’s take a look at the resulting value to see how we should proceed:
v0 = (x << k) ^ x
// Apply first step of inverse v1 = v0 ^ (v0 << k).
v1 = (x << 2*k) ^ (x << k) ^ (x << k) ^ x
// Simplify using self-inverse (x << k) ^ (x << k) = 0.
v1 = (x << 2*k) ^ x
From this we can conclude the following identity:
$$\operatorname{xorshift}(\operatorname{xorshift}(x, k), k) = \operatorname{xorshift}(x, 2k)$$
Now we only need one more observation to complete our algorithm: a xorshift of $k \geq w$ where $w$ is the width of our integer is
a no-op. Thus we repeatedly apply our doubling identity until we reach
large enough $q$ such that $\operatorname{xorshift}(x, 2^q \cdot k) = x$.
For example, to invert a left xorshift by 13 for 64-bit integers we apply the following sequence:
x ^= x << 13 // Left xorshift by 13.
x ^= x << 13 // Inverse step 1.
x ^= x << 26 // Inverse step 2.
x ^= x << 52 // Inverse step 3.
// x ^= x << 104 // Next step would be a no-op.
Armed with this knowledge, we can now attack.
Breaking CityHash64
Let us take a look at (part of) the source code of
CityHash64 from libcxx that’s used for hashing strings on 64-bit platforms:
static const uint64_t mul = 0x9ddfea08eb382d69ULL;
static const uint64_t k0 = 0xc3a5c85c97cb3127ULL;
static const uint64_t k1 = 0xb492b66fbe98f273ULL;
static const uint64_t k2 = 0x9ae16a3b2f90404fULL;
static const uint64_t k3 = 0xc949d7c7509e6557ULL;
template<class T>
T loadword(const void* p) {
T r;
std::memcpy(&r, p, sizeof(r));
return r;
}
uint64_t rotate(uint64_t val, int shift) {
if (shift == 0) return val;
return (val >> shift) | (val << (64 - shift));
}
uint64_t hash_len_16(uint64_t u, uint64_t v) {
uint64_t x = u ^ v;
x *= mul;
x ^= x >> 47;
uint64_t y = v ^ x;
y *= mul;
y ^= y >> 47;
y *= mul;
return y;
}
uint64_t hash_len_17_to_32(const char *s, uint64_t len) {
const uint64_t a = loadword<uint64_t>(s) * k1;
const uint64_t b = loadword<uint64_t>(s + 8);
const uint64_t c = loadword<uint64_t>(s + len - 8) * k2;
const uint64_t d = loadword<uint64_t>(s + len - 16) * k0;
return hash_len_16(
rotate(a - b, 43) + rotate(c, 30) + d,
a + rotate(b ^ k3, 20) - c + len
);
}
To break this, let’s assume we’ll always give length 32 inputs. Then the
implementation will always call hash_len_17_to_32, and we have full control
over variables a, b, c and d by changing our input.
Note that d is only used once, in the final expression. This makes it a
prime target for attacking the hash. We will choose a, b and c arbitrarily,
and then solve for d to compute a desired hash outcome.
Using the above modinv function we first compute the necessary modular multiplicative
inverses of mul and k0:
>>> 0x9ddfea08eb382d69 * 0xdc56e6f5090b32d9 % 2**64
1
>>> 0xc3a5c85c97cb3127 * 0x81bc9c5aa9c72e97 % 2**64
1
We also note that in this case the xorshift is easy to invert, as x ^= x >> 47
is simply its own inverse. Having all the components ready, we can invert
the function step by step.
We first load a, b and c like in the hash function, and compute
uint64_t v = a + rotate(b ^ k3, 20) - c + len;
which is the second parameter to hash_len_16. Then, starting from our
desired return value of hash_len_16(u, v) we work backwards step by step, inverting
each operation to find the function argument u that would result in our target hash.
Then once we have found such the unique u we compute our required input d.
Putting it all together:
static const uint64_t mul_inv = 0xdc56e6f5090b32d9ULL;
static const uint64_t k0_inv = 0x81bc9c5aa9c72e97ULL;
void cityhash64_preimage32(uint64_t hash, char *s) {
const uint64_t len = 32;
const uint64_t a = loadword<uint64_t>(s) * k1;
const uint64_t b = loadword<uint64_t>(s + 8);
const uint64_t c = loadword<uint64_t>(s + len - 8) * k2;
uint64_t v = a + rotate(b ^ k3, 20) - c + len;
// Invert hash_len_16(u, v). Original operation inverted
// at each step is shown on the right, note that it is in
// the inverse order of hash_len_16.
uint64_t y = hash; // return y;
y *= mul_inv; // y *= mul;
y ^= y >> 47; // y ^= y >> 47;
y *= mul_inv; // y *= mul;
uint64_t x = y ^ v; // uint64_t y = v ^ x;
x ^= x >> 47; // x ^= x >> 47;
x *= mul_inv; // x *= mul;
uint64_t u = x ^ v; // uint64_t x = u ^ v;
// Find loadword<uint64_t>(s + len - 16).
uint64_t d = u - rotate(a - b, 43) - rotate(c, 30);
d *= k0_inv;
std::memcpy(s + len - 16, &d, sizeof(d));
}
The chance that a random uint64_t forms 8 printable ASCII bytes is
$\left(94/256\right)^8 \approx 0.033%$. Not great, but cityhash64_preimage32
is so fast that having to repeat it on average ~3000 times to get a purely
ASCII result isn’t so bad.
For example, the following 10 strings all hash to 1337 using CityHash64, generated
using this code:
orlp-cityhash64-D-:K5yx*zkgaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-TXb7;1j&btkaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-+/LM$0 ;msnaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-u'f&>I'~mtnaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-pEEv.LyGcnpaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-v~~bm@,Vahtaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-RxHr_&~{miuaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-is_$34#>uavaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-$*~l\{S!zoyaaaaa
orlp-cityhash64-W@^5|3^:gtcbaaaa
Breaking MurmurHash2
We can’t let libstdc++ get away after targetting libc++, can we?
The default string hash
calls
an implementation of MurmurHash2
with seed 0xc70f6907. The hash—simplified to only handle strings whose
lengths are multiples of 8—is as follows:
uint64_t murmurhash64a(const char* s, size_t len, uint64_t seed) {
const uint64_t mul = 0xc6a4a7935bd1e995ULL;
uint64_t hash = seed ^ (len * mul);
for (const char* p = s; p != s + len; p += 8) {
uint64_t data = loadword<uint64_t>(p);
data *= mul;
data ^= data >> 47;
data *= mul;
hash ^= data;
hash *= mul;
}
hash ^= hash >> 47;
hash *= mul;
hash ^= hash >> 47;
return hash;
}
We can take a similar approach here as before. We note that the modular
multiplicative inverse of 0xc6a4a7935bd1e995 mod $2^{64}$ is
0x5f7a0ea7e59b19bd. As an example, we can choose the first 24 bytes
arbitrarily, and solve for the last 8 bytes:
void murmurhash64a_preimage32(uint64_t hash, char* s, uint64_t seed) {
const uint64_t mul = 0xc6a4a7935bd1e995ULL;
const uint64_t mulinv = 0x5f7a0ea7e59b19bdULL;
// Compute the hash state for the first 24 bytes as normal.
uint64_t state = seed ^ (32 * mul);
for (const char* p = s; p != s + 24; p += 8) {
uint64_t data = loadword<uint64_t>(p);
data *= mul;
data ^= data >> 47;
data *= mul;
state ^= data;
state *= mul;
}
// Invert target hash transformation.
// return hash;
hash ^= hash >> 47; // hash ^= hash >> 47;
hash *= mulinv; // hash *= mul;
hash ^= hash >> 47; // hash ^= hash >> 47;
// Invert last iteration for last 8 bytes.
hash *= mulinv; // hash *= mul;
uint64_t data = state ^ hash; // hash = hash ^ data;
data *= mulinv; // data *= mul;
data ^= data >> 47; // data ^= data >> 47;
data *= mulinv; // data *= mul;
std::memcpy(s + 24, &data, 8); // data = loadword<uint64_t>(s);
}
The following 10 strings all hash to 1337 using MurmurHash64A with the
default seed 0xc70f6907, generated using this code:
orlp-murmurhash64-bhbaaat;SXtgVa
orlp-murmurhash64-bkiaaa&JInaNcZ
orlp-murmurhash64-ewmaaa(%J+jw>j
orlp-murmurhash64-vxpaaag"93\Yj5
orlp-murmurhash64-ehuaaafa`Wp`/|
orlp-murmurhash64-yizaaa1x.zQF6r
orlp-murmurhash64-lpzaaaZphp&c F
orlp-murmurhash64-wsjbaa771rz{z<
orlp-murmurhash64-rnkbaazy4X]p>B
orlp-murmurhash64-aqnbaaZ~OzP_Tp
Universal collision attack on MurmurHash64A
In fact, MurmurHash64A is so weak that Jean-Philippe Aumasson, Daniel J.
Bernstein and Martin Boßlet published an
attack that creates sets of
strings which collide regardless of the random seed used.
To see how it works, let’s take a look at the core loop of MurmurHash64A:
uint64_t data = loadword<uint64_t>(p);
data *= mul; // Trivially invertible.
data ^= data >> 47; // Trivially invertible.
data *= mul; // Trivially invertible.
state ^= data;
state *= mul;
We know we can trivially invert the operations done on data regardless of what the
current state is, so we might as well have had the following body:
state ^= data;
state *= mul;
Now the hash starts looking rather weak indeed. The clever trick they
employ is by creating two strings simultaneously, such that they
differ precisely in the top bit in each 8-byte word. Why the top bit?
>>> 1 << 63
9223372036854775808
>>> (1 << 63) * mul % 2**64
9223372036854775808
Since mul is odd, its least significant bit is set. Multiplying 1 << 63 by
it is equivalent to shifting that bit 63 places to the left, which is once again
1 << 63. That is, 1 << 63 is a fixed point for the state *= mul operation.
We also note that for the top bit XOR is equivalent to addition, as the overflow
from addition is removed mod $2^{64}$.
So if we have two input strings, one starting with the 8 bytes data, and the
other starting with data ^ (1 << 63) == data + (1 << 63) (after doing the
trivial inversions). We then find that the two states, regardless of seed,
differ exactly in the top bit after state ^= data. After multiplication we
find we have two states x * mul and (x + (1 << 63)) * mul == x * mul + (1 << 63)… which again differ exactly in the top bit! We are now back to state ^= data in our iteration, for the next 8 bytes. We can now use this moment to
cancel our top bit difference, by again feeding two 8-byte strings that
differ in the top bit (after inverting).
In fact, we only have to find one pair of such strings that differ in the top
bit, which we can then repeat twice (in either order) to cancel our difference
again. When represented as a uint64_t if we choose the first string as x we
can derive the second string as
x *= mul; // Forward transformation...
x ^= x >> 47; // ...
x *= mul; // ...
x ^= 1 << 63; // Difference in top bit.
x *= mulinv; // Backwards transformation...
x ^= x >> 47; // ...
x *= mulinv; // ...
I was unable to find a printable ASCII string that has another printable
ASCII string as its partner. But I was able to find the following pair of 8-byte
UTF-8 strings that differ in exactly the top bit after the Murmurhash64A input
transformation:
xx0rlpx!
xxsXъВ
Combining them as such gives two 16-byte strings that when fed through the hash
algorithm manipulate the state in the same way: a collision.
xx0rlpx!xxsXъВ
xxsXъВxx0rlpx!
But it doesn’t stop there. By concatenating these two strings we can create
$2^n$ different colliding strings each $16n$ bytes long. With the current
libstdc++ implementation the following prints the same number eight times:
std::hash<std::u8string> h;
std::u8string a = u8"xx0rlpx!xxsXъВ";
std::u8string b = u8"xxsXъВxx0rlpx!";
std::cout << h(a + a + a) << "\n";
std::cout << h(a + a + b) << "\n";
std::cout << h(a + b + a) << "\n";
std::cout << h(a + b + b) << "\n";
std::cout << h(b + a + a) << "\n";
std::cout << h(b + a + b) << "\n";
std::cout << h(b + b + a) << "\n";
std::cout << h(b + b + b) << "\n";
Even if the libstdc++ would randomize the seed used by MurmurHash64a, the
strings would still collide.
Breaking MurmurHash3
Nim uses
used to use
MurmurHash3_x86_32,
so let’s try to break that.
If we once again simplify to strings whose lengths are a multiple of 4 we get the following code:
uint32_t rotl32(uint32_t x, int r) {
return (x << r) | (x >> (32 - r));
}
uint32_t murmurhash3_x86_32(const char* s, int len, uint32_t seed) {
const uint32_t c1 = 0xcc9e2d51;
const uint32_t c2 = 0x1b873593;
const uint32_t c3 = 0x85ebca6b;
const uint32_t c4 = 0xc2b2ae35;
uint32_t h = seed;
for (const char* p = s; p != s + len; p += 4) {
uint32_t k = loadword<uint32_t>(p);
k *= c1;
k = rotl32(k, 15);
k *= c2;
h ^= k;
h = rotl32(h, 13);
h = h * 5 + 0xe6546b64;
}
h ^= len;
h ^= h >> 16;
h *= c3;
h ^= h >> 13;
h *= c4;
h ^= h >> 16;
return h;
}
I think by now you should be able to get this function to spit out any
value you want if you know the seed.
The inverse of
rotl32(x, r) is rotl32(x, 32-r) and the inverse of h ^= h >> 16 is
once again just h ^= h >> 16. Only h ^= h >> 13 is a bit different, it’s the first time
we’ve seen that a xorshift’s inverse has more than one step:
h ^= h >> 13
h ^= h >> 26
Compute the modular inverses
of c1 through c4 as well as 5 mod $2^{32}$, and go to town.
If you want to cheat or check your answer, you can check out the code
I’ve used to generate the following ten strings that all hash to 1337 when
fed to MurmurHash3_x86_32 with seed 0:
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-haaaPa*+
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-saaaUW&<
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-ubaa/!/"
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-weaare]]
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-chaa5@/}
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-claaM[,5
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-fraaIx`N
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-iwaara&<
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-zwaa]>zd
orlp-murmurhash3_x86_32-zbbaW-5G
Nim uses 0 as a fixed seed.
Universal collision attack on MurmurHash3
Suppose that Nim didn’t use 0 as a fixed seed, but chose a randomly generated
one. Can we do a similar attack as the one done to MurmurHash2 to still generate
universal multicollisions?
Yes we can. Let’s take another look at that core loop body:
uint32_t k = loadword<uint32_t>(p);
k *= c1; // Trivially invertable.
k = rotl32(k, 15); // Trivially invertable.
k *= c2; // Trivially invertable.
h ^= k;
h = rotl32(h, 13);
h = h * 5 + 0xe6546b64;
Once again we can ignore the first three trivially invertable instructions as we
can simply choose our input so that we get exactly the k we want.
Remember from last time that we want to introduce a difference in exactly the
top bit of h, as the multiplication will leave this difference in place.
But here there is a bit rotation between the XOR and the multiplication.
The solution? Simply place our bit difference such that rotl32(h, 13) shifts
it into the top position.
Does the addition of 0xe6546b64 mess things up? No. Since only the top bit
between the two states will be different, there is a difference of exactly
$2^{31}$ between the two states. This difference is maintained by the addition.
Since two 32-bit numbers with the same top bit can be at most $2^{31} - 1$
apart, we can conclude that the two states still differ in the top bit after
the addition.
So we want to find two pairs of 32-bit ints, such that after applying the first
three instructions the first pair differs in bit 1 << (31 - 13) == 0x00040000
and the second pair in bit 1 << 31 == 0x80000000.
After some brute-force searching I found some cool pairs (again forced to use
UTF-8), which when combined give the following collision:
a = "!&orlpՓ"
b = "yǏglp$X"
As before, any concatenation of as and bs of length n collides with all
other combinations of length n.
Breaking FarmHash64
Nim switched to
farmhash
since I started writing this post. To break it we can notice that its structure
is very similar to CityHash64, so we can use those same techniques again. In
fact, the only changes between the two for lengths 17-32 bytes is that a few
operators were changed from subtraction/XOR to addition, a rotation operator had
its constant tweaked, and some k constants are slightly tweaked in usage. The
process of breaking it is so similar that it’s entirely analogous, so we can
skip straight to the result.
These 10 strings all hash to 1337 with FarmHash64:
orlp-farmhash64-?VrJ@L7ytzwheaaa
orlp-farmhash64-p3`!SQb}fmxheaaa
orlp-farmhash64-pdt'cuI\gvxheaaa
orlp-farmhash64-IbY`xAG&ibkieaaa
orlp-farmhash64-[_LU!d1hwmkieaaa
orlp-farmhash64-QiY!clz]bttieaaa
orlp-farmhash64-&?J3rZ_8gsuieaaa
orlp-farmhash64-LOBWtm5Szyuieaaa
orlp-farmhash64-Mptaa^g^ytvieaaa
orlp-farmhash64-B?&l::hxqmfjeaaa
Trivial fixed-seed wyhash multicollisions
Zig uses wyhash
with a fixed seed of zero. While I was unable to do
seed-independent attacks against wyhash, using it with a fixed seed makes
generating collisions trivial. Wyhash is built upon
the folded multiply, which takes two 64-bit inputs, multiplies them to a 128-bit product before XORing
together the two halves:
uint64_t folded_multiply(uint64_t a, uint64_t b) {
__uint128_t full = __uint128_t(a) * __uint128_t(b);
return uint64_t(full) ^ uint64_t(full >> 64);
}
It’s easy to immediately see a critical flaw with this: if one of the two sides
is zero, the output will also always be zero. To protect against this, wyhash
always uses a folded multiply in the following form:
out = folded_multiply(input_a ^ secret_a, input_b ^ secret_b);
where secret_a and secret_b are determined by the seed, or outputs of
previous iterations which are influenced by the seed. However, when your seed is
constant… With a bit of creativity
we can use the start of our string to prepare a ‘secret’ value which we can
perfectly cancel with another ASCII string later in the input.
So, without further ado, every 32-byte string of the form
orlp-wyhash-oGf_________tWJbzMJR
hashes to the same value with Zig’s default hasher.
Zig uses a different set of parameters than the defaults found in the wyhash
repository, so for good measure, this pattern provides arbitrary multicollisions
for the default parameters found in wyhash when using seed == 0:
orlp-wyhash-EUv_________NLXyytkp
Conclusion
We’ve seen that a lot of the hash functions in common use in hash tables today
are very weak, allowing fairly trivial attacks to produce arbitrary amounts of
collisions if not randomly initialized. Using a randomly seeded hash table is
paramount if you don’t wish to become a victim of a hash flooding attack.
We’ve also seen that some hash functions are vulnerable to attack even if
randomly seeded. These are completely broken and should not be used if attacks
are a concern at all. Luckily I was unable to find such attacks against most
hashes, but the possibility of such an attack existing is quite unnerving.
With universal hashing it’s
possible to construct hash functions for which such an attack is provably
impossible, last year I published a hash function called
polymur-hash that has this property. Your
HTTPS connection to this website also likely uses a universal hash function
for authenticity of the transferred data, both Poly1305
and GCM are based on
universal hashing for their security proofs.
Of course, if your data is not user-controlled, or there is no reasonable
security model where your application would face attacks, you can get away with
faster and insecure hashes.
More to come on the subject of hashing and hash
tables and how it can go right or wrong, but for now this article is long enough as-is…
| 2024-11-08T12:23:17 | en | train |
42,029,546 | mpweiher | 2024-11-02T22:07:58 | Apple's M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max compared to past generations, and to each other | null | https://arstechnica.com/apple/2024/10/apples-m4-m4-pro-and-m4-max-compared-to-past-generations-and-to-each-other/ | 42 | 22 | [
42030226,
42030117,
42035944,
42030182,
42030186
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,563 | BerislavLopac | 2024-11-02T22:10:55 | The Measurement Trap | null | https://mikefisher.substack.com/p/the-measurement-trap | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,570 | imadjourney | 2024-11-02T22:11:13 | Show HN: I made a tool to create shadcn components visually and export the code | I built a visual editor that helps you:
- Create shadcn/ui component variants without writing code
- Test hover, focus, and disabled states in real-time
- Export production-ready TypeScript code with proper styles
- Manage semantic colors and themes visually<p>It's designed to make shadcn/ui component customization more accessible while maintaining its code quality and best practices!<p>Perfect for developers who love shadcn but want a visual way to customize components. | https://www.robustlaunch.com | 5 | 2 | [
42031669
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,573 | lifeisstillgood | 2024-11-02T22:11:20 | Belgium: Salary Indexation Forecasted Rates – Agility | null | https://agilityeor.com/blogs/belgium-salary-indexation-forecasted-rates-2024/ | 1 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Belgium: Salary Indexation Forecasted Rates | Agility | null | null | Blog | 19th October 2024Forecasted Rates 2024In Belgium there is an automatic, mandatory enforceable salary increase at the start of every year for all employees working for companies subject to the Joint Industrial Committee 200 (JC 200).Amazing right? Maybe for the employees, but not so much for the employers if budgets are tight.In January 2023, Belgian employers (subject to JIC 200) increased staff compensation by 11.08%. The rate was a record high and considerably higher than 2022’s increase of 3.58%.As we enter Q4, finance experts are looking to see the rates expected for 2024 and if we will need to prepare for another big increase.Current forecasts project that the increase will be approximately 1.5%. Although this is significantly lower than the increase in 2023, employers need to prepare and begin budgeting for the new financial year.It is important to note that the rate of indexation is automatically applied from 1 January and is mandatory for all employees subject to JC200, which is applicable to most white-collar workers in Belgium.So why does this unique thing happen every year?Belgium’s salary indexation is a system that adjusts salaries to keep pace with the cost of living. This system operates through a series of regularly updated indices that track changes in the prices of a basket of goods and services.When the index surpasses a predetermined threshold, salaries are adjusted upwards to match the cost-of-living increase. This ensures that workers can maintain their real income levels in comparison to cost of living.However, the employers might not always like this and after 2023’s increase employers have been calling for a series of measures to safeguard businesses competitiveness and white color business describe the continuous increases and “untenable”.These include caps, social cost free bonus values. One thing we know is this will not be passed for 2024.Inform your finance leads so they can budget for next year and keep an eye on our updates as the rates are confirmed.We at Agility would love to hear your thoughts on Belgium’s Indexation so please reach out and lets chat.Want to know more about hiring in Belgium? Contact one of our team to discuss our hiring solutions. Get in touchOur team of Employer of Record experts are ready to discuss your global expansion requirements. Fill out your details in the form provided and we will be in touch as soon as possible. | 2024-11-08T06:44:40 | en | train |
42,029,574 | todsacerdoti | 2024-11-02T22:11:28 | Don't return named tuples in new APIs | null | https://snarky.ca/dont-use-named-tuples-in-new-apis/ | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,578 | CanYouSmellIt | 2024-11-02T22:12:26 | Remembering Dave Chappelle's Howard Dean Impression (Tim Walz-Ish) | null | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpHEaAMprGM | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,583 | PaulHoule | 2024-11-02T22:13:17 | Urban green spaces have vital role in cutting heat-related deaths, study finds | null | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/22/urban-green-spaces-vital-role-cutting-heat-related-deaths-study | 8 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Urban green spaces have vital role in cutting heat-related deaths, study finds | 2024-10-22T22:30:00.000Z | Andrew Gregory | Green spaces in cities play a vital role in reducing illness and deaths caused by climate breakdown, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind.The findings of the review suggest that adding more parks, trees and greenery to urban areas could help countries tackle heat-related harms and improve public health.The record for the world’s hottest day tumbled twice in one week earlier this year when the global average surface air temperature reached 17.15C (62.87F) breaking the record of 17.09C set days earlier.The climate crisis is driving up global temperatures as greenhouse gas emissions released when humans burn fossil fuels warm the Earth’s atmosphere.The overall beneficial effects of green spaces is well established, but until now their effects on heat-related health risks were poorly understood.Now a review of the evidence led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine suggests that abundant green space in urban areas is linked to lower rates of heat-related illness and deaths, as well as better mental health and wellbeing.“Urban green spaces play a vital role in mitigating heat-related health risks, offering a potential strategy for urban planning to address climate change and enhance public health,” the researchers wrote in the journal BMJ Open.“A review of urban greenery and its effect on heat-related morbidity and mortality suggests that urban green spaces, such as parks and trees, can have a positive impact on reducing the negative health effects associated with high temperatures,” they added.“Studies have found that areas with more green space have lower rates of heat-related morbidity and mortality compared with areas with less green space. Moreover, urban greenery can also have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing, which can also contribute to reducing the negative health effects of high temperatures.”In recognition of the harmful heat-related effects of climate breakdown, one of the UN’s sustainable development targets stipulates the provision of universal access to safe and accessible green and public spaces, especially for vulnerable groups, such as children, elderly people, and those living with long-term conditions, by 2030.For the review, researchers looked at the effects of green zones on death and ill health in urban areas across the globe, drawing on relevant published research.They included content published in English between January 2000 and December 2022, and reviewed 12 studies out of an initial haul of more than 3,000 from Hong Kong, Australia, Vietnam, the US, South Korea, Portugal and Japan.These included epidemiological, modelling, and simulation studies, as well as experimental research and quantitative analyses.The review showed that urban green spaces such as parks and trees could help offset the adverse health effects of high temperatures. Areas with more green space had lower rates of heat-related ill health and death than areas with less green space, particularly among vulnerable groups.Access to green spaces is an example of health inequalities facing people worldwide.A Guardian investigation revealed earlier this year that children at the top 250 private schools in England had more than 10 times as much green space as those who go to state schools.Doctors also warned that a “truly alarming” lack of access to green space for some families was exacerbating the child obesity crisis. | 2024-11-08T17:16:33 | en | train |
42,029,639 | jarsin | 2024-11-02T22:23:15 | Bowery, once a leading indoor farming company valued at $2.3B, shuts down | null | https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/bowery-indoor-farming-agtech-company-ceases-operations | 31 | 28 | [
42031177,
42031528,
42031146,
42032323,
42030597
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,666 | scrapetolead | 2024-11-02T22:27:36 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
42029667
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,672 | shcheklein | 2024-11-02T22:28:23 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,679 | linguae | 2024-11-02T22:30:04 | Ask HN: Are There Any Fully-Documented Computers | I am writing an operating system as a side project. I am still in the design phase of the project, and I’ve been brushing up on my low-level programming skills. Recently there was a discussion here about the Asahi Linux team’s efforts reverse-engineering ARM Macs, and it had me thinking: are there any fully-documented modern computers? I know that RISC-V and POWER are open source. However, there are still other parts of a computer system to consider, such as boot firmware, buses, disk controllers, GPUs, networking devices, USB, etc. It would be cool to target fully-documented hardware for my OS project, but I don’t know if there are any complete stacks of fully-documented hardware. | null | 9 | 5 | [
42029807,
42030011,
42030087,
42043946,
42030220,
42029854
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,729 | jackbravo | 2024-11-02T22:38:11 | Civilizational Triumph | null | https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/on-civilizational-triumph | 2 | 0 | [
42030198
] | null | null | no_error | On Civilizational Triumph | 2024-11-02T12:53:50+00:00 | Dean W. Ball | I was on a plane yesterday and got a little stir crazy. The result is that I have a bonus post for you. I hope you enjoy.I. Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency.Daniel H. BurnhamIn 2023, a group of Chinese military research institutions used a version of Meta’s Llama language model to answer some basic questions about warfare and military organizations, such as “describe the US Army Research Laboratory.” Specifically, they fine-tuned the model on publicly available information about military affairs, and then it answered questions about those documents. Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that their fine-tuned model was better at answering basic questions about military affairs than comparable models that hadn’t been trained on the same data.The 13 billion parameter variant of Llama—Llama 1, folks—used by these researchers is 18 months old and is ranked dead last (155th place) on the LMSYS Chatbot Arena Leaderboard. There are currently Chinese models ranked as high as 6th on Chatbot Arena—ahead of Meta’s Llama 3.1, for what it’s worth. Open-source models from Chinese firms Alibaba and DeepSeek are especially well regarded—so well, in fact, that I hear of more than a few US startups opting for such models over American open models. For now, at least, the Chinese have their own perfectly good models they can use for military purposes—and I am sure their government prefers that, for the same reason that our military would prefer to use American models.America’s lead in language modeling is real, but it is not so overwhelming that the Chinese have no choice but to copy our models. And by the way, some prominent industry observers believe the Chinese are pulling ahead in modalities like video and images because their firms do not have the same intellectual property litigation risks that ours do.Setting the AI race aside for a moment, this use of Llama by a Chinese military institution is easily the least impactful use case of AI I have ever written about in these digital pages. But that’s not how some people see things. Reuters breathlessly reported that Meta’s model had been used by the Chinese “to construct a military-focused AI tool to gather and process intelligence, and offer accurate and reliable information for operational decision-making.”The Jamestown Foundation, a foreign policy think tank, turned up the volume even further. Associate Fellow Sunny Cheung chose to describe this deeply pedestrian use case of AI as “optimiz[ing] Meta’s Llama for specialized military and security purposes,” and “enhanc[ing] the capabilities of foreign militaries.” Jamestown, of course, believes that this anecdote “highlight[s] gaps in enforcement for open-source usage restrictions,” which is think tank scholar speak for “Congress should pass the ENFORCE Act to give the Commerce Department the authority to ban frontier open-source AI.”This hyperventilating by Reuters and Cheung is profoundly misleading. But it occurred to me that I haven’t written much about open-source per se since one of my first posts on Hyperdimensional back in January. While I still believe my core thesis in that piece, some of my thinking has changed. Now seems like a good time, then, to offer some additional thoughts on open-source AI.II. Consider the fact that almost all software in the world is written in English. What I mean is that the built-in functions of nearly every programming language (“print,” “if,” “else,” “for,” “class,” “return,” “continue”) are English words, or abbreviations of them. Every coder in the world, whether Chinese or French, Israeli or Bangladeshi, learns to speak at least some English because of this. English speakers are far from the most populous group of people on Earth, and yet all coders everywhere learn to speak our language. This is true because America won. To code is to submit to a staggering American civilizational victory, to acknowledge, just a little bit, the indisputable dominance of America—our people, our technology, our ideas, and, you better believe it, our words. One byproduct of this staggering civilizational victory is that the Chinese military almost certainly uses open-source software that is primarily maintained by American and Western programmers. And I would be willing to bet that programming languages (themselves very often a form of open-source software) invented by Americans are a fundamental enabler of all sorts of Chinese weapons.And it’s about more than weapons, too. As I write this, I am sitting on an airplane drinking a ginger ale given to me by a flight attendant. Software implicitly and explicitly enables all three of those things. I am writing this, of course, using software—that much is obvious. But the plane is almost certainly on autopilot (also known as “software”), and hundreds of its systems are similarly enabled by software. The ginger ale I’m drinking was manufactured and delivered my tray table through miraculously well-orchestrated global supply chains and corporate operations, all of it undergirded by software in countless millions of ways. And as I write this, a Chinese think tank researcher is flying over his country, using just as much software—some of it probably the same exact software, or very similar.It is likely that all, or nearly all, of this Chinese software was made using our programming languages and open-source software development tools made by Americans. Much of it was given away for free, by us, to them. To describe any of this as a mistake is to misunderstand how technologies, ideas, and economies grow and develop over time. Far from a mistake: this state of affairs is downstream of one of the greatest civilizational victories in human history.It's not just a linguistic or cultural victory, either. Large portions of that open-source software is licensed (even if is free) using terms set by Americans. That is because it is Americans who led the creation of the most popular open-source software licenses, too. And those licenses reflect American customs, preferences, and laws. They get adjudicated, more often than not, in American courts.America derives unbelievable power from these facts. And yet we do not appreciate it. To us, it is like white paint. It’s just there. We wield it blindly, without even realizing that we are doing so.The Chinese, lacking this power, absolutely do appreciate it. They want what we have. They have their own open-source software licenses, written on their terms, pointing back to their courts, to name just one of many examples. They want to set the global standard for the next century. I would like for AI to result in a similar smashing victory for America. To do that, we will need to set the global standard yet again. And to do that, we will almost certainly need to lead in open-source AI, because it is open protocols and open software that tend to define global standards in information technologies.That probably means that if America “wins,” many people beyond our borders—even people in China—will use American AI for many things, including things we do not like. III.It’s not so simple, of course. There are plenty of things we would never sell a foreign adversary. We would never sell them our fighter jets or our missiles. We’d never sell them a nuclear bomb. That would be senseless. Yet we might well sell them (or even give them) the software tools that they, in turn, use to help build such weapons for themselves. Indeed, we already do. How many computers owned by the People’s Liberation Army run Windows? How many of them run Linux? How many of the AI models the PLA trains are built with PyTorch, the open-source machine learning library made by—you guessed it—Meta?So which kind of a thing is AI? Is it a weapon, or is it more like the information technologies I’ve described? Well, AI is an information technology, but that does not necessarily mean that the geopolitical dynamics of AI will be quite the same as it has been with operating systems, programming languages, and other basic software infrastructure.In all likelihood, AI will resemble neither bombs nor programming languages in the precise geopolitical, economic, and technological dynamics that govern its use. AI is a different technology, and the world is a different place than it was in the 20th century, when America laid the foundation for its present-day digital dominance.Will AI be more like weapons, though, than it is like programming languages? I don’t know. My instinct is that it will behave more like other software-based information technologies, since it is, in fact, a software-based information technology. Most facts currently in evidence suggest this about AI as well. Could I be wrong? Sure.But the people who are convinced that weapons are the better analogy with which to reason about AI are only guessing, too. Anyone who expresses certainty about these issues is either wildly overconfident or is trying to manipulate their audience. And those who wish to hoard our software technologies may well be foreclosing on—or perhaps not even understand—the staggering civilizational victory that we earned through openness.Might there come a day when we no longer want to open-source models at the frontier of AI, when the models are simply too much like weapons for us to be comfortable selling, or giving, to the Chinese? There might, and Mark Zuckerberg himself has said as much. Might that decision entail hard tradeoffs between the preferences of our national security or AI safety communities and the broader goal of maintaining America’s technological leadership? Yes. Might it be in the economic interest of the closed-source frontier labs to convince us to ban frontier open-source AI? You bet.The central fact is that hoarding our technology within our borders is in fundamental tension with the strategy that earned us the civilizational victory whose fruits we enjoy each day. That does not mean the pro-hoarding crowd is wrong—maybe this time really is different!—but it is a tension worth pondering. Certainly I will not tolerate being told that those of us who support open-source AI are the ones endangering America’s technological leadership. If history is any guide, the opposite is true. And might it be, in practice, impossible to stop open-source AI? Might the cat be out of the bag in many important ways? Oh my goodness, yes. While the federal government probably can bully Meta into changing its corporate strategy,1 its broader ability to project control over extremely capable neural networks is very much in doubt. OpenAI’s o1-mini model demonstrates that it is possible for shockingly small models—small enough to run on a laptop, maybe—to achieve state-of-the-art performance.The o1 approach is fundamentally based on a reinforcement learning-based trick—ultimately, this is simply knowledge. It does not require a massive data center to discover this knowledge; it requires ingenuity. Others will discover this knowledge (perhaps even the Chinese!). Some of them will open-source their discovery—indeed, I would not be shocked if we see this happen before the end of the year. And then cat will be, yet again, out of the bag, lest the government choose to restrict the speech of AI researchers—probably not the recipe for maintaining our leadership in AI.Depending on the development trajectory of AI, there may well be many very useful (and dangerous) AI models that do not need to be big, and thus are easy for a wide range of actors to create and deploy. I know many very accomplished AI researchers who believe this is possible. And if that ends up being the case, the ability of governments to control the “export” of advanced AI to China will be essentially nil.It is shockingly possible that in the next year, we will ban open-source at the frontier and cede leadership in open-source to China. Their models would dominate in poorer countries all over the world. And we would be a bit like BMW or Hermes, making exquisite, luxury AI for the well-heeled. Until, of course, the Chinese get better at that too. And if highly capable open models are indeed unstoppable, we might hobble ourselves for nothing. And this is to say nothing of the fact that if we eliminate frontier open-source AI—setting aside what exactly what means or whether it is even possible—we will be guaranteeing that what I believe will be the most powerful technology ever developed is controlled exclusively by the largest corporations on Earth.IV.The day may come when frontier AI really is too dangerous to open source. If so, that will be a sad day. But we’re not there yet. Today’s models are not sufficiently useful—or dangerous—to justify such a drastic shift in public policy. And while the future of AI is coming into view, we cannot quite yet grasp its precise contours. Don’t be so sure you know what the future holds. Our path to AI has been consistently surprising. There is no reason to think the surprises end here.It's an exceptionally difficult call to make—one among many facing us. We’ll have imperfect information we do so, and limited time. So we will need, collectively, to exercise judgment. Such is life at the frontier in a self-governing commercial republic.We need to be empirical. We need to be honest about what we see in front of us, and not hyperbolic in service of some agenda or another. We need to avoid hyperventilating about a foreign adversary using American software. We need to be level-headed. We need to understand that everything entails tradeoffs. We need to resist giving into anxiety and paranoia.And we must keep in mind that staggering civilizational victories do not come easy. | 2024-11-08T01:09:48 | en | train |
42,029,732 | tpush | 2024-11-02T22:38:48 | Organic foods are not healthier or pesticide free | null | https://news.immunologic.org/p/organic-foods-are-not-healthieror | 20 | 5 | [
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42,029,772 | rbanffy | 2024-11-02T22:44:43 | Hopepunk, explained: the storytelling trend that weaponizes optimism – Vox (2018) | null | https://www.vox.com/2018/12/27/18137571/what-is-hopepunk-noblebright-grimdark | 7 | 3 | [
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] | null | null | no_error | In the era of Trump and apocalyptic change, Hopepunk is weaponizing optimism | 2018-12-27T19:20:08+00:00 | Aja Romano | Literary and artistic movements often arise spontaneously, out of specific moments — as a response to great cultural change, to geopolitical shifts, and/or to specific ebbs and flows within subcultures.In the modern world, we find most of our rebellious clusters of artists online. So it makes sense that the literary world’s most defiant response to impending climate disaster and the rise of right-wing extremism around the globe has not been voiced from the pages of prestigious literary reviews, but rather from the home of one of the internet’s most stridently progressive and rowdily defiant creative communities: Tumblr.“The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk,” declared Alexandra Rowland, a Massachusetts writer, in a two-sentence Tumblr post in July 2017. “Pass it on.”With this simple dictum, the literary movement known as hopepunk was born.Depending on who you ask, hopepunk is as much a mood and a spirit as a definable literary movement, a narrative message of “keep fighting, no matter what.” If that seems too broad — after all, aren’t all fictional characters fighting for something? — then consider the concept of hope itself, with all the implications of love, kindness, and faith in humanity it encompasses.Now, picture that swath of comfy ideas, not as a brightly optimistic state of being, but as an active political choice, made with full self-awareness that things might be bleak or even frankly hopeless, but you’re going to keep hoping, loving, being kind nonetheless.Through this framing, the idea of choosing hope becomes both an existential act that affirms your humanity, and a form of resistance against cynical worldviews that dismiss hope as a powerful force for change.To understand the place that hopepunk occupies under the broader storytelling umbrella, it helps to understand its origins, and how it blossomed into a phenomenon that, in 2018, finally reached the mainstream.The concept of hopepunk arose from a political mood of resistanceWhen pressed by other Tumblr users to expand on her two-sentence Tumblr post that coined the term, Rowland elaborated on what she meant by “hopepunk,” touching on themes present in both her own psyche and in the spirit of resistance and political agitation all around her:Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts. Rowland was responding to the idea of “grimdark” — a literary descriptor for genre texts and media which evoke a pervasively gritty, bleak, pessimistic, or nihilistic view of the world. These are the worlds of modern-era Batman, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and so many other contemporary pop culture properties — universes in which cruelty is a given and social systems are destined to betray or disappoint.Yet it was immediately apparent in Rowland’s expanded definition that she was also responding to a real-world mood. “I was having a lot of feelings about the catastrophizing and despair that I was seeing amongst my social circles at the time,” Rowland told Vox earlier this month. “Everything was new and different suddenly.”Rowland’s initial definition of hopepunk as “the opposite of grimdark” embraced the current political moment by drawing upon a number of established inspirations for how to act when faced with what seems to be encroaching darkness. In her follow-up, she crucially offered examples of both mythical and real-world political figures: “Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Robin Hood and John Lennon” — heroes who chose to perform radical resistance in unjust political climates, and to imagine better worlds.Hopepunk is part of a wider cultural and storytelling trend toward optimism and positivity in the face of bleak timesIf you’re thinking, “Okay, but if hopepunk is just about fighting back against an oppressive force, wouldn’t that make just about everything hopepunk?” then you’re not alone! The broad strokes of Rowland’s definition mean that a lot of things can feel hopepunk, just as long as they contain a character who’s resisting something. For instance, her original explanation posits that The Handmaid’s Tale is an example of hopepunk, because even though the world of that story is a grim dystopia, the main character never stops fighting against the system.As the term has gained wider resonance, however, a few distinct parameters have emerged that more clearly align hopepunk with specific aesthetic and literary trends, and paint it as a counter to others. We can define these parameters loosely as:A weaponized aesthetic of softness, wholesomeness, or cuteness — and perhaps, more generally, a mood of consciously chosen gentleness. “Being soft is not a weakness,” wrote Nikita Mor in a 2017 essay on softness. “It’s what makes you strong.”A worldview that argues that the fight to build positive social systems is a fight worth fighting. “Feeling resigned is not hopepunk,” Rowland wrote in her expanded definition.An emphasis on community-building through cooperation rather than conflict. For an example, think of the movie Pacific Rim, which unites its robot pilots by essentially having them soulbond in the cockpit. A depiction of the fight to achieve human progress as something permanent, with no fixed ”happy” end. For example, see the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff TV series Angel, which ends just before the big climactic fight in which all our heroes are hopelessly outnumbered.A sense of self-awareness about weaponizing kindness and optimism — and even emotion itself — in the face of that fight. As Rowland noted in her definition of the term, “[C]rying is also hopepunk, because crying means you still have feelings, and feelings are how you know you’re alive.”The aesthetic of hopepunk can be seen as part of a broader cultural embrace of “softness,” wholesomeness, and gentleness. We see this in a growing emphasis on what might be thought of as an extreme, even aggressive form of self-care and wellness in response to stress created by bleak sociopolitical times. Embedded into this idea are trends like the high-end sleep industry; the popular home and lifestyle trend hygge, which emphasizes comfort and coziness; the rom-com resurgence; the ever-growing popularity of kawaii, or “cute” culture; “JOMO,” a.k.a. the joy of missing out; and the online shift away from cynicism to wholesome memes.There’s a growing push to see consciously chosen simple pleasures — relaxation, self-care and communal care, and softness — as valid and important lifestyle choices. There’s a bit of millennial contrariness involved, too: After all, when you’re constantly characterized as “lazy,” why not turn laziness into a show of defiance? In essence, aggressive relaxation is starting to emerge as a new form of resistance against the dominant social narrative that ceaseless hard work, constant social “effort,” and profit-driven lifestyles are what define success.And while that may sound paradoxical, it’s a perfect aesthetic accompaniment to the hopepunk philosophy that aggressively choosing kindness, optimism, and softness over hardness, cynicism, and violence can be a powerful political choice.“Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness,” Rowland wrote in her expanded definition, “and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act.”Hopepunk combines the aesthetics of choosing gentleness with the messy politics of revolutionHopepunk’s roots as a form of literary resistance aren’t necessarily recent. “Hopepunk is a feeling,” Rowland told me, “and the feeling has been around for ages — I didn’t invent the feeling, I just put a word on it. All throughout history you can find examples of people standing up to terrifying regimes and holding the line against them, and surviving against all odds just by force of sheer, bloody-minded obstinacy.”After 9/11, stories like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings films provided essential tales of optimism in response to widespread narratives of war and anti-globalization. Andrew Slack, creator of the non-profit Harry Potter Alliance, which works to bring the fictional progressive values of fantasy worlds like Harry Potter to bear on real-world activism, said in an email that those fantasies “gave us an alternative to the [post-9/11] mainstream political narrative of fear.”“[They] readied us for a message of hope, change, and global citizenry [that was advocated by] Barack Obama,” he wrote, noting that Obama’s presidency was also “met by a giant swell of popularity around fantasies that dwelled in the darkness: vampires, dystopias, and Heath Ledger’s nihilist Joker.” In essence, grimdark.Because the immediate post-9/11 years involved such a strong embrace of “gritty realism,” antiheroes, and bleak dystopias, it’s taken us a while to return to a fuller appreciation of wholesomeness, virtue, and positivity in storytelling.In describing the recent finale of what is perhaps the most hopepunk TV series to emerge in recent years, Sense8, Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff noted that the show is “endlessly empathetic, endlessly generous,” and an “expression of radical empathy,” before pinpointing that Sense8’s “audacious” story — which earned a mixed critical reception — walks hand-in-hand with its unending optimism. “The final sequence leaves viewers with the idea that love might save the world,” VanDerWerff wrote. “Is that beautiful or naive?”In the framework of hopepunk, it’s neither. “Hopepunk is a radical call to arms for us to imagine better,” Slack said. “To embrace the fact that fantasy is not simply an escape from the world but an invitation to go deeper into it. That we must fall in love with the world that we so deeply wish to change.” Instead, he argues that love may be beautiful, but it’s also messy and painful, and far from being naive, it’s a conscious, hard-won and fully self-aware choice.That self-awareness is a vital element of hopepunk because it sits partly in opposition to the fantasy trope known as “noblebright,” in which social systems are good because the leaders we choose are inherently good. The “chosen one” is chosen because they are mythically wise, noble, and just, and heroes win the day by virtue of being heroes.“Hopepunk knows that everything is impermanent and that nothing is promised,” Rowland said. “Noblebright says that we can eventually win the fight and have a happy ending, and hopepunk says that there’s no such thing as winning, and that we have to keep doing the work every single day for the rest of civilization.”Rowland characterized this distinction as the difference between the human prince Aragorn and the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. Aristocratic and born to rule, Aragorn is inherently noble, and brings stability and unity to his realm mainly by possessing heroic qualities. Meanwhile, the hobbits, particularly Frodo and Sam, struggle at every step of their trek. The question of whether Frodo will succumb to the evil lure of the One Ring as he carries it to Mordor is perpetually in doubt — yet the two survive by leaning on one another and continually choose to fight despite highly uncertain outcomes.In this context, Sam’s famous “It’s like in the great stories” speech from The Two Towers — in which he encourages Frodo to keep fighting by comparing their journey to those of mythical heroes who never gave up — could double as something of a hopepunk manifesto:Ultimately, Sam and Frodo are able to succeed because they remain true to their well-established hobbit values of love, community, coziness, and friendship as they fight.Even more, in the literary sense, hopepunk has the power to embed the conscious kindness that Sam encourages within the worldview and worldbuilding of a story itself. A primary hallmark of hopepunk is that hopepunk narratives portray the fight to build positive social systems as an inherently good thing. The definition of a “social system” in this context is nebulous, but at minimum, it starts with community-building.“Community is a huge part of hopepunk,” Rowland told me. “We accomplish great things when we form bonds with each other. We’re stronger, we can build higher, and we can take better care of each other.”In other words, a story like Game of Thrones would be the opposite of hopepunk, because although many of its main characters are hopeful, positive characters who fight to overthrow an unjust system of government, and who ultimately need to unite to defeat a larger enemy, the entire world is defined through violent conflict.Characters overthrow the system by joining it or manipulating it from within, making morally gray choices to survive and advance. Throughout the storyline, attempts at peacemaking, cooperation, and parlays are met again and again with bloodshed, betrayal, and cyclical violence. No character is left untarnished.But just as The Lord of the Rings’ Frodo and Sam represent a thread of “hopepunk” through the grimmer world in which they walk, the storyline of Game of Thrones has steadily built the character of Jon Snow, with all his allegorical “chosen one” signifiers, into its literal hope for the future stability of the realm. Though Jon’s secret nobility gives him noblebright status, the fact he doesn’t know he’s royalty means he’s had to make his way through the world using a combination of persistence, gentleness, dealmaking, natural leadership, and famously unkillable determination. Above all, though he’s a capable fighter, Jon is known for his softer qualities. Because he chooses kindness and optimism despite his perpetual experience of violence and death, he is the essence of hopepunk in a grimdark world.2018 has seen hopepunk come into its ownRowland’s original hopepunk definition has now been widely shared and discussed throughout the sci-fi and fantasy community, in online forums and in panel discussions at a number of conventions, and writers have frequently started to describe their own works as hopepunk.If the idea took hold in 2017, it seemed to really catch fire in 2018. In May, the prominent Nebula Conference (overseeing the annual Nebula Awards, which along with the Hugo Awards are the premier awards for fiction within the science fiction and fantasy genres) hosted a panel on hopepunk and optimistic sci-fi/fantasy. In August, acclaimed author N.K. Jemisin, whose works carry themes of resistance in a time of apocalypse and bear sharp signifiers of hopepunk, won a historic Hugo Awards threepeat.As the first black woman to nab the top prize in 2016, and then the first writer to win it three years in a row thanks to her 2017 and 2018 repeat wins, Jemisin’s 2018 win became a moment of convergence in which literary hopepunk evolved into real-world activism — a show of defiance in an ongoing battle against radical right-wing extremism within the sci-fi/fantasy community. In recognizing her work, with its themes of finding humanity and love amid apocalyptic change, Hugo voters sent a message that they would not allow blights like racism to undermine the sci-fi community’s humanism and idealism.Ever since, Hopepunk has seemed to be suddenly everywhere, becoming a true force in the literary landscape in the last couple months of 2018: At IO9, Eleanor Tremeer argued that we need utopian fiction now more than ever; the piece didn’t explicitly identify hopepunk, but many of its readers did. Return to the Stars, a tabletop game and online zine billed as an optimistic hopepunk sci-fi role-playing game, featured a popular essay by Rowland herself on hopepunk as a method of resistance.Vox sister site The Verge announced its upcoming Better Worlds science fiction series, intended to promote sci-fi that “imagines better worlds” — in essence, hopepunk. Another Vox sister site, Polygon, released a recommendation list of hopepunk podcasts (including, full disclosure, a rec for my podcast, which I did not consider hopepunk until it showed up on this list). Tor wrote about “high epic fantasy hopepunk.” And popular radio show 1A recently did a segment on hopepunk and utopian fiction.As the idea of hopepunk has caught on, many people have expressed gratefulness to Rowland for coining the term. When I first introduced and explained the term to Slack, for example, he wrote me an ebullient 15-paragraph email, exclaiming, “This is some seriously important and sacred shit!”Part of the reason that hopepunk feels so important in the current moment is that two years into Donald Trump’s presidency, it’s arguably difficult for many people to stay motivated and alert to the many political crises happening at once. Hopepunk, then, is a way of drawing energy and strength from fictional inspirations in order to keep fighting the good fight in the real world.“This is not an easy task,” Slack wrote. “It shakes us to our core. But hopepunk reminds us to thank fucking goodness that we have such a beautiful core.”A hopepunk recommendation listIf you’re wondering where to start on the ever-widening world of hopepunk media, here’s a handy starter list for you, culled from other recommendation lists, conversations with friends, and my own media consumption.BooksAngels in America by Tony KushnerAn Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank GreenCarry On by Rainbow RowellCity of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeerThe Dangerous Angels series by Francesca Lia BlockThe Discworld series by Terry PratchettDon’t Call Us Dead — poetry by Danez SmithThe Expanse series by James S. A. CoreyFledgling by Octavia ButlerThe Fly By Night series by Frances Hardinge (as well as each of Hardinge’s other fantasy novels)The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — which is arguably the quintessential hopepunk fantasy novel, and written as an explicit response to the concept of “grimdark”The Guardians of Aandor Trilogy by Edward LazellariThe Hate U Give by Angie Thomas — and the 2018 film adaptationLong Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky ChambersThe Martian by Andy Weir — and the 2015 film adaptationNation by Terry PratchettNo Sad Songs by Frank Morelli The Oxford Time Travel Series by Connie WillisSaga by Brian K. VaughnThe Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster BujoldWatership Down by Richard Adams — despite or even perhaps because of its notorious darkness, this story is ultimately committed to a hopepunk sense of community-building and gentleness in the face of a perpetual fight. And its softness is undeniable (it’s about bunnies, after all).MusicThe Mountain Goats, “This Year”Billy Bragg, Fight SongsDear Evan Hansen, Original Cast RecordingFrank Turner, Be More Kind and Positive Songs For Negative PeopleJanelle Monae, Dirty ComputerMimi Page, Dark Before the Dawn and Hope for the HauntedSifu Hotman, “Matches” — “There is no light at the end of this tunnel, so it’s a good thing we brought matches”Vienna Teng, AIMS — as a quick test, if you read this review of AIMS and are possessed with the urge to listen to the album immediately just to spite this reviewer, then hopepunk is probably for you.Movies and TVOther media17776: What football will look like in the future Be the Serpent — a fannish literary podcast co-hosted by Rowland; the first episode includes an extensive discussion of literary hopepunkThe Verge’s upcoming Better Worlds series, featuring noted authors writing optimistic science fictionChuck TingleFinal Fantasy VIThis excellent playlist of hopepunk fanvidsKind WorldMercury: A Broadcast of HopeThe Pure and Simple Truth by letteredUndertale | 2024-11-08T09:27:24 | en | train |
42,029,779 | morhafsh | 2024-11-02T22:46:26 | null | null | null | 1 | null | [
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42,029,794 | zdw | 2024-11-02T22:49:21 | Thelounge: Modern, responsive, cross-platform, self-hosted web IRC client | null | https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | GitHub - thelounge/thelounge: 💬 Modern, responsive, cross-platform, self-hosted web IRC client | null | thelounge |
Modern web IRC client designed for self-hosting
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Overview
Modern features brought to IRC. Push notifications, link previews, new message markers, and more bring IRC to the 21st century.
Always connected. Remains connected to IRC servers while you are offline.
Cross platform. It doesn't matter what OS you use, it just works wherever Node.js runs.
Responsive interface. The client works smoothly on every desktop, smartphone and tablet.
Synchronized experience. Always resume where you left off no matter what device.
To learn more about configuration, usage and features of The Lounge, take a look at the website.
The Lounge is the official and community-managed fork of Shout, by Mattias Erming.
Installation and usage
The Lounge requires latest Node.js LTS version or more recent.
The Yarn package manager is also recommended.
If you want to install with npm, --unsafe-perm is required for a correct install.
Running stable releases
Please refer to the install and upgrade documentation on our website for all available installation methods.
Running from source
The following commands install and run the development version of The Lounge:
git clone https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge.git
cd thelounge
yarn install
NODE_ENV=production yarn build
yarn start
When installed like this, thelounge executable is not created. Use node index <command> to run commands.
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Development setup
Simply follow the instructions to run The Lounge from source above, on your own
fork.
Before submitting any change, make sure to:
Read the Contributing instructions
Run yarn test to execute linters and the test suite
Run yarn format:prettier if linting fails
Run yarn build:client if you change or add anything in client/js or client/components
The built files will be output to public/ by webpack
Run yarn build:server if you change anything in server/
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Execute yarn githooks-install to do so.
| 2024-11-08T00:30:33 | en | train |
42,029,810 | bookofjoe | 2024-11-02T22:51:45 | The Giant Supercomputer Built to Transform an Entire Country–Paid for by Ozempic | null | https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-ozempic-novo-nordisk-gefion-ai-supercomputer-bed48309 | 2 | 1 | [
42029813
] | null | null | http_other_error | wsj.com | null | null | Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker | 2024-11-08T07:18:07 | null | train |
42,029,827 | zdw | 2024-11-02T22:53:49 | Why Pg_dump Is Amazing | null | http://rhaas.blogspot.com/2024/11/why-pgdump-is-amazing.html | 3 | 0 | [
42030166
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,836 | geox | 2024-11-02T22:55:16 | The property empires that make Charles and William millions | null | https://www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-family/article/how-royals-make-millions-king-charles-prince-william-27lkftd2n | 14 | 1 | [
42030343
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,870 | amichail | 2024-11-02T23:01:31 | Ask HN: Could the web disappear due to mobile apps and AI? | Of course, the internet will remain, but maybe not websites? | null | 6 | 7 | [
42030826,
42030033,
42030478,
42030271,
42030200
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,877 | lialopx | 2024-11-02T23:02:28 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,880 | NaOH | 2024-11-02T23:02:46 | The Little Brass Box Company | null | https://www.littlebrassbox.com | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,915 | LorenDB | 2024-11-02T23:09:42 | KDE's New Distro: Btrfs-Based, Immutable Linux OS, with Flatpak and Snap | null | https://linuxiac.com/kde-announced-its-kde-linux-distro/ | 12 | 0 | [
42030164
] | null | null | no_error | KDE's New Distro: Btrfs-Based, Immutable Linux OS, with Flatpak and Snap | 2024-11-01T14:55:45+00:00 | Bobby Borisov |
Surprises never end. The KDE project is about to take a bold step by introducing its own Linux distribution. Here’s what it’s all about.
Introduced at Akademy 2024, KDE Linux (codenamed “Project Banana”) is a brand-new, still-in-development initiative by the KDE devs to bring a seamless, user-friendly experience that merges KDE software’s reliability and rich interface with cutting-edge Linux technologies.
Immediately, we want to clarify that this isn’t a rebranded version of the well-known KDE Neon developed by the KDE community. KDE Linux is an entirely new project with a completely different technical approach under the hood and ambitious goals for both developers and end users.
KDE Linux: A Vision for the Best KDE Experience
The distro is designed to be a bulletproof, highly user-friendly operating system that showcases the best of KDE technology—a system that KDE can confidently recommend to casual users and hardware manufacturers.
With an eye on simplicity, the OS will use Btrfs for its file system and introduce an image-based (immutable) approach, allowing users to easily switch between different OS versions, ensuring a secure, flexible experience without the stress of traditional system management.
KDE Linux will feature rolling OS updates based on snapshot releases and employs systemd-boot with custom theming. All mutable data, such as user home directories and cache locations, is encrypted for enhanced security.
Moreover, the architecture also includes an image-based A/B update mechanism with rollback capabilities and a recovery partition for added resilience. Users can benefit from an automatic backup system using Btrfs snapshots, which includes a user-friendly GUI similar to Apple’s Time Machine.
Using Arch as a base, KDE Linux aims to attract a broad audience, including KDE developers, enthusiasts, and hardware vendors. It will include applications from Flatpak (and possibly Snap), helping to keep the core system and applications separate for greater stability.
Among KDE Linux’s top priorities are a high-quality user experience and a system that “doesn’t break”—or, at the very least, is easy to recover if things do go awry. To keep development accessible, KDE Linux requires no packaging knowledge, simplifying the process for anyone wanting to contribute to its growth.
In keeping with modern expectations, KDE Linux will feature technologies like Wayland by default and a read-only base system, similar to other immutable Plasma-focused Linux distros like openSUSE Kalpa and Fedora Kinoite. This approach ensures that the core operating system remains tamper-proof and reliable while user-specific data remains flexible.
There are several editions planned for KDE Linux, each built to suit a different group of users:
Testing Edition: Updated daily and aimed at quality assurance testers and KDE developers.
Enthusiast Edition: Targets KDE enthusiasts and power users with beta and stable releases.
Stable Edition: Built for everyday users, with a delayed release schedule that prioritizes stability.
These will allow users to choose between the latest features or a more conservative, stable environment. Moreover, should their needs change over time, switching between editions will be simple and risk-free.
What Makes KDE Linux Unique?
Now, on to the other main question—why do we need another heavily KDE-focused distribution when we already have KDE Neon and KaOS? The main difference lies in the fact that, unlike some other Linux distributions, KDE Linux will be distributed by KDE itself, which brings many advantages.
First, it ensures a clear chain of responsibility that isn’t reliant on third parties, enabling KDE to build direct relationships with hardware partners and recommend KDE Linux without favoritism.
Furthermore, KDE Linux will use systemd tooling, such as systemd-sysupdate, for seamless updates, making it more efficient compared to other distros relying on different update methods.
For those unfamiliar, systemd-sysupdate is a system service that allows unprivileged clients to update the system, which brings the benefits of an image-based design, including immutability, automatic updates, adaptability, factory resets, and uniformity.
On top of that, the distro will also distinguish itself by its forward-thinking approach to software distribution.
Instead of relying on legacy packaging systems, KDE Linux will focus on modern deployment systems, such as Flatpak and systemd-sysext, a set of useful functionalities for managing system extension images, thus keeping the applications and the immutable base system separate for easier maintenance and development.
This means developers don’t need traditional packaging skills—they simply target Flatpak and other containerized formats.
Lastly, another unique aspect is KDE Linux’s approach to long-term maintenance. In case the distribution reaches its end of life, the KDE team plans to push a final update that transforms KDE Linux into a different supported distribution, ensuring users always have a path forward.
Refer to the announcement, or look here for a more detailed overview of the new KDE Linux initiative.
Personal Reflections
With that in mind, here’s my take on the subject. I believe KDE Linux will primarily appeal to a smaller, specific group of users—mainly enthusiasts eager to explore the latest KDE advancements and developers—rather than the average Linux user. The main reason for this is the buzzword in recent years, “immutability.”
Don’t get me wrong; I genuinely appreciate immutable Linux systems and use them daily, especially in contexts where they shine, like containerized workloads. However, immutability on a desktop is still a tough sell for the everyday Linux user who has relied on traditional package managers for decades.
While immutability does simplify things for developers by sidestepping the “dependency hell” of package management and provides a secure and very reliable OS foundation, it often complicates things for non-developers outside of the DevOps community. But again, this is just my personal view on the matter.
Anyway. We’re excited to see how things progress and look forward to the first stable release. Meanwhile, the distribution is currently available as an 11 GB RAW file for those eager to try it out. You can write it to a USB stick or import it into virtualization software like KVM’s virt-manager.
| 2024-11-07T22:09:13 | en | train |
42,029,943 | bx376 | 2024-11-02T23:15:00 | null | null | null | 4 | null | [
42030159,
42030162
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,957 | zhengiszen | 2024-11-02T23:16:43 | Israeli assault has caused 'apocalyptic' situation in northern Gaza, UN warns | null | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/01/un-northern-gaza-israel | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,968 | jethronethro | 2024-11-02T23:19:06 | 2024 Guide to Safe Online Shopping | null | https://blog.thenewoil.org/2024-guide-to-safe-online-shopping | 4 | 0 | [
42030152
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,029,975 | nkurz | 2024-11-02T23:21:43 | The Limits of Arbitrage | null | https://rajivsethi.substack.com/p/the-limits-of-arbitrage | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,030,029 | Jimmc414 | 2024-11-02T23:36:00 | Emu War of 1932 | null | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War | 1 | 1 | [
42030040,
42030148
] | null | null | no_error | Emu War | 2004-12-14T01:20:35Z | Contributors to Wikimedia projects |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Emu WarA man holding an emu killed by Australian soldiersLocationCampion district, Western AustraliaPlanned bySir George PearceObjectiveReduce the local emu populationDate2 November – 10 December 1932(1 month, 1 week and 1 day)Executed by Australian Army, led by Major Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith of the Royal Australian ArtilleryOutcome986 emus confirmed killed.[1] Minimal impact on the overall emu population.
The Emu War (or Great Emu War)[2] was a nuisance wildlife management military operation undertaken in Australia over the later part of 1932 to address public concern over the number of emus said to be destroying crops in the Campion district within the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. The unsuccessful attempts to curb the population of emus employed Royal Australian Artillery soldiers armed with Lewis guns—leading the media to adopt the name "Emu War" when referring to the incident. Although many birds were killed, the emu population persisted and continued to cause crop destruction.
Background
Fallow caused by emus
Following World War I, large numbers of discharged veterans who served in the war were given land by the Australian government to take up farming within Western Australia, often in agriculturally marginal areas. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, these farmers were encouraged to increase their wheat crops, with the government promising—and failing to deliver—assistance in the form of subsidies. Because of the recommendations and the promised subsidies, wheat prices continued to fall, and by October 1932 the situation intensified, with the farmers preparing to harvest the season's crop while simultaneously threatening to refuse to deliver the wheat.[1]
The farmers' difficulties were worsened by the arrival of approximately 20,000 emus.[3] Emus regularly migrate after their breeding season, heading to the coast from the inland regions. With the cleared land and additional water supplies being made available for livestock by the Western Australian farmers, the emus found that the cultivated lands were good habitat, and they began to foray into farm territory—in particular the marginal farming land around Chandler and Walgoolan.[1] The emus consumed and spoiled the crops and left large gaps in fences where rabbits could enter and cause further problems.[4]
Farmers relayed their concerns about the birds ravaging their crops, and a deputation of ex-soldiers were sent to meet with the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce. Having served in World War I, the soldier-settlers were well aware of the effectiveness of machine guns, and they requested their deployment. The minister readily agreed, although with conditions attached: the guns were to be used by military personnel, troop transport was to be financed by the Western Australian government, and the farmers would provide food, accommodation, and payment for the ammunition.[1][5] Pearce also supported the deployment on the grounds that the birds would make good target practice,[6] while it has also been argued that some in the government may have viewed the operation as a way of being seen to be helping the Western Australian farmers, as well as to stave off the brewing secession movement. Towards that end, a cinematographer from Fox Movietone was enlisted.[1]
The "war"
Defence minister Sir George Pearce ordered the army to cull the emu population. He was later called the "Minister of the Emu War" in parliament by Senator James Dunn.[7]
Military involvement was due to begin in October 1932.[5] The "war" was conducted under the command of Major Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery's 7th Heavy Artillery,[1][6] with Meredith commanding soldiers Sergeant S. McMurray and Gunner J. O'Halloran,[8] armed with two Lewis guns[9] and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.[6] The operation was delayed by a period of rainfall that caused the emus to scatter over a wider area.[5] The rain ceased by 2 November 1932,[1][5] whereupon the troops were deployed with orders to assist the farmers and, according to a newspaper account, to collect 100 emu skins so that their feathers could be used to make hats for light horsemen.[10]
First attempt
On 2 November, the men travelled to Campion, where some 50 emus were sighted.[1] As the birds were out of range of the guns, the local settlers attempted to herd the emus into an ambush, but the birds split into small groups and ran so that they were difficult to target.[6] Nevertheless, while the first fusillade from the machine guns was ineffective due to the range, a second round of gunfire was able to kill "a number" of birds. Later the same day a small flock was encountered, and "perhaps a dozen" birds were killed.[1]
The next significant event was on 4 November. Meredith had established an ambush near a local dam, and more than 1,000 emus were spotted heading towards their position. This time the gunners waited until the birds were in close proximity before opening fire. The gun jammed after only 12 birds were killed and the remainder scattered before any more could be shot.[8] No more birds were sighted that day.[1]
In the days that followed, Meredith chose to move further south, where the birds were "reported to be fairly tame",[11] but there was only limited success in spite of his efforts.[1] By the fourth day of the campaign, army observers noted that "each pack seems to have its own leader now—a big black-plumed bird which stands fully 1.8 m (6 ft) high and keeps watch while his mates carry out their work of destruction and warns them of our approach".[12] At one stage Meredith even went so far as to mount one of the guns on a truck, a move that proved to be ineffective, as the truck was unable to gain on the birds, and the ride was so rough that the gunner was unable to fire any shots.[1] By 8 November, six days after the first engagement, 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired.[6] The number of birds killed is uncertain: one account estimates that it was 50 birds,[6] but other accounts range from 200 to 500, the latter figure being provided by the settlers. Meredith's official report noted that his men had suffered no casualties, except for their dignity.[1]
Summarising the culls, ornithologist Dominic Serventy commented:
The machine-gunners' dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month.[13]
On 8 November, members in the Australian House of Representatives discussed the operation.[6] Following the negative coverage of the events in the local media,[14] that included claims that "only a few" emus had died,[4] Pearce withdrew the military personnel and the guns on 8 November.[4][6][15][16]
After the withdrawal, Major Meredith compared the emus to Zulus and commented on the striking manoeuvrability of the emus, even while badly wounded.
If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world ... They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop.[12]
Second attempt
In November 1932, during parliamentary question time, Prime Minister Joseph Lyons (pictured) was mockingly asked by Lang Labor MP Rowley James whether a medal would be struck for the soldiers.[17]
After the withdrawal of the military, the emu attacks on crops continued. Farmers again asked for support, citing the hot weather and drought that brought emus invading farms in the thousands. James Mitchell, the Premier of Western Australia lent his strong support to renewal of the military assistance. At the same time, a report from the Base Commander was issued that indicated 300 emus had been killed in the initial operation.[16]
Acting on the requests and the Base Commander's report, by 12 November the Minister of Defence approved a resumption of military efforts.[16] He defended the decision in the Senate, explaining why the soldiers were necessary to combat the serious agricultural threat of the large emu population.[4] Although the military had agreed to lend the guns to the Western Australian government on the expectation that they would provide the necessary people, Meredith was once again placed in the field due to an apparent lack of experienced machine gunners in the state.[1]
Taking to the field on 13 November 1932, the military found a degree of success over the first two days, with approximately 40 emus killed. The third day, 15 November, proved to be far less successful, but by 2 December the soldiers were killing approximately 100 emus per week. Meredith was recalled on 10 December, and in his report he claimed 986 confirmed kills with 9,860 rounds, at a rate of exactly 10 rounds per confirmed kill. In addition, Meredith claimed exactly 2,500 wounded birds had also died from their injuries.[1] In assessing the success of the cull, an article in the Coolgardie Miner on 23 August 1935 reported that although the use of machine guns had been "criticised in many quarters, the method proved effective and saved what remained of the wheat".[18]
Aftermath
Despite the problems encountered with the cull, the farmers of the region once again requested military assistance in 1934, 1943, and 1948, only to be turned down by the government.[1][19] Instead, the bounty system that had been instigated in 1923 was continued, and this proved to be effective: 57,034 bounties were claimed over a six-month period in 1934.[6]
By December 1932, word of the Emu War had spread, reaching the United Kingdom. Some conservationists there protested the cull as "extermination of the rare emu".[20] Dominic Serventy and Hubert Whittell, the eminent Australian ornithologists, described the "war" as "an attempt at the mass destruction of the birds".[21][22][23]
Throughout 1930 and onward, exclusion barrier fencing became a popular means of keeping emus out of agricultural areas (in addition to other vermin, such as dingoes and rabbits).[12][24]
In November 1950, Hugh Leslie raised the issues of emus in federal parliament and urged Army Minister Josiah Francis to release a quantity of .303 ammunition from the army for the use of farmers. The minister approved the release of 500,000 rounds of ammunition.[25]
Legacy
In 2019, a musical adaptation of the story was workshopped in Melbourne by playwright Simeon Yialeloglou and composer James Court.[26] An action-comedy film, titled The Emu War, premiered at Monster Fest on 22 October 2023.[27][28] Another action-comedy movie retelling of the events, written by John Cleese, Monty Franklin, Rob Schneider, Camilla Cleese, and Jim Jefferies, was aiming to begin production in 2023 or 2024.[29][27][needs update]
See also
Brumby shooting
Dingo Fence
Four Pests campaign
Rabbits in Australia
References
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Johnson, Murray (2006). "'Feathered foes': soldier settlers and Western Australia's 'Emu War' of 1932". Journal of Australian Studies. 30 (88): 147–157. doi:10.1080/14443050609388083. ISSN 1444-3058. S2CID 144598286.[page needed]
^ Shuttlesworth, Dorothy Edwards (1967). The Wildlife of Australia and New Zealand. University of Michigan Press. p. 69.
^ Gill, Frank B. (2007). Ornithology (3rd ed.). Macmillan. p. xxvi. ISBN 978-0-7167-4983-7.
^ a b c d "'Emu War' defended". The Argus. Canberra. 19 November 1932. p. 22.
^ a b c d "Rain Scatters Emus". The Argus. Perth. 18 October 1932. p. 7.
^ a b c d e f g h i Robin, Libby; Joseph, Leo; Heinshohn, Rob (2009). Boom and Bust: Bird Stories For a Dry Country. CSIRO Publishing. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-643-09606-6.
^ "Over the Speakers Chair". The Canberra Times. Canberra. 19 November 1932. Retrieved 10 January 2010.
^ a b Burton, Adrian (1 August 2013). "Tell me, mate, what were emus like?". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 11 (6): 336. Bibcode:2013FrEE...11..336B. doi:10.1890/1540-9295-11.6.336. ISSN 1540-9309.
^ Arthur, Jay Mary (2003). The Default Country: A Lexical Cartography of Twentieth-century Australia. UNSW Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 978-0-86840-542-1.
^ "Machine Guns Sent Against Emu Pests". The Argus. Perth. 3 November 1932. p. 2.
^ West Australian, 4 March 1932, quoted in Johnson (2006), p. 152.
^ a b c Special Correspondent (5 July 1953). "New Strategy in a War on the Emu". Sunday Herald. p. 13.
^ John P. Rafferty; Richard Pallardy, eds. (2009). "casuariiform". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 5 February 2011. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ "Elusive Emus". The Argus. Perth. 5 November 1932. p. 4.
^ "War on Emus". The Argus. 10 November 1932. p. 8.
^ a b c "Emu War Again". The Canberra Times. 12 November 1932. p. 1.
^ "Questions in Representatives". The West Australian. 9 November 1932.
^ "Another "Emu War"?". Coolgardie Miner. 23 August 1935. Retrieved 9 December 2019 – via Trove.
^ "Request to Use Bombs to Kill Emus". The Mail. Perth. 3 July 1943. p. 12 – via Trove.
^ Jenkins, C.F.H. (1988). The Wanderings of an Entomologist. Cornell University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-7316-2888-9.
^ Serventy, Dominic Louis; Hubert Massey Whittell (1948). A Handbook of the Birds of Western Australia (with the exception of the Kimberley Division). Patersons Press; Original: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 63.
^ Gore, Jasper Garner (2 November 2016). "Looking Back: Australia's Emu Wars". Australian Geographic. Archived from the original on 21 April 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2017.
^ Crew, Bec (4 August 2014). "The Great Emu War: In which some large, flightless birds unwittingly foiled the Australian Army". Scientific American Blogs. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
^ McKnight, Tom (July 1969). "Barrier Fencing for Vermin Control in Australia". Geographical Review. 59 (3): 330–347. Bibcode:1969GeoRv..59..330M. doi:10.2307/213480. JSTOR 213480.
^ "Control of emus". Coolgardie Miner. 30 November 1950. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023.
^ "Grassroots 2019". Home Grown. Archived from the original on 7 December 2022. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
^ a b Shepherd, Tory (6 October 2023). "Australia's emu war: John Cleese outrun in race to shoot movie of how flightless birds thwarted army's machine guns". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
^ "Trailer Drops for Monster Fest 2023 Official Selection THE EMU WAR". Monster Fest. 8 September 2023. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
^ "British and US comedy legends bring bizarre chapter of Australian history to big screen". 7NEWS.com.au. 8 March 2021. Archived from the original on 31 July 2022. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
External links
Plants & Animals: Emu
"Attack on Emus". The Argus. 12 November 1932.
| 2024-11-08T01:58:09 | en | train |
42,030,042 | nailer | 2024-11-02T23:40:00 | Journal writers reflect on the Trump vs. Harris campaign | null | https://www.wsj.com/opinion/journal-writers-reflect-on-presidential-campaign-biggest-surprise-best-vp-choice-and-more-a10112ac | 1 | 0 | [
42030147
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,030,065 | MilnerRoute | 2024-11-02T23:44:23 | Can the 'Safe C++' proposal copy Rust's memory safety? | null | https://thenewstack.io/can-the-safe-c-proposal-copy-rusts-memory-safety/ | 4 | 0 | [
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] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,030,074 | illaig | 2024-11-02T23:45:34 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42,030,089 | mbreese | 2024-11-02T23:49:18 | How Can MySQL Catch Up with PostgreSQL's Momentum? | null | https://www.percona.com/blog/how-can-mysql-catch-up-with-postgresqls-momentum/ | 3 | 0 | [
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