Winner of the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics -
"We propose novel urinal designs that were generated by solving differential equations derived from the isogonal curve problem to ensure the urine stream impacts at or below this critical angle. Experiments validate that these designs can substantially reduce splashback to only 1.4% of the splash of a common contemporary commercial urinal."
Winning designs: Nautilus and Cornucopia.
💦 🤔
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/4/pgaf087/8098745
https://improbable.com/ig/winners/
1/n
Remember if you lose a sock in the dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn't fit anything.
True love is peeling pomegranates for your partner and eating the bits of salad they don't like.
20,000 mail accounts.
20,000 blogs.
5,000 mailing lists.
1,500 websites.
In Europe.
Run by volunteers of @cavallette, perfectly legal, and decidedly antifascist, feminist, queer.
Destroyed and shut down by Trump's administration, extra legally.
It is astonishingly quiet.
If you have a snac follower, and they like your posts, take a moment to appreciate them.
#snac @grunfink@comam.es #fediverse
Fuck the AfD and everyone who voted for them today. You should be ashamed of yourself. Fascist losers. #nazisraus #noAfD
There are forks of the #GameOfTrees version control system popping up merely because of worries that the project might eventually succumb to accepting LLM-generated contributions, then ending up on other people's lists of #noAI LLM-free alternatives.
Fork the code as much as you want, but please don't let your potential users hanging when important issues get fixed upstream, and keep in mind that I don't work with LLMs, have never even once asked an LLM for anything, and I don't intend to start. I don't believe the other developers involved are all as pristine as myself, but I've met most of them in person, do trust them, and have never seen anyone commit code which looked like they didn't write it.
As a community we are losing trust in established projects within the FOSS ecosystem very fast right now. I understand and share many of the concerns about LLMs, but the trend to quickly fork projects out of spite and fear without communication is also worrying. If you maintain a list of recommendations, please ask upstream projects which do not already have an obvious pro-LLM stance before recommending forks with little to no track record, especially when the software in question might handle sensitive data.
I have added the following to the project's README file. Not sure if this counts as a policy. To me it feels more like I'm writing down what should be common sense.
"""
Game of Trees is entirely handwritten and contributions generated by LLMs
will not be accepted. The main author (Stefan Sperling) has successfully
been avoiding LLMs and would prefer to keep it that way, even if/when legal
uncertainties around the copyright status of LLM-generated output settle.
Should you feel a need to ask an LLM questions in order to help you understand
something, try asking us first. If you are truly trying to wrap your head
around something then you will learn from us, and we will learn from you.
We may have some expertise you are lacking, but because we cannot ignore what
we already know, we can be blind to problems you are seeing. Our code and
documentation can likely be improved as a result of communication, even before
you send a first patch.
"""
couple's t-shirts: THE PURPOSE OF A SYSTEM IS WHAT IT DOES and IM THE SYSTEM'S PURPOSE
When it comes to the shutdown of Autistici/Inventati we really should reserve most of our anger for our leaders right here in Europe. They allowed this to happen.
Sure, the US government is beyond evil and before that, optimistically, merely problematic. But they only hold this power over Europe and European companies, initiatives and whatnot because we've allowed for it. That's on us.
The shutdown of A/I saddens me but it is also the only reasonable choice they had and they should be commended not wanting to cause harm to their users.
Europe needs to do better. Today. There's absolutely no reason for us to be in this embarrassingly submissive position.
Use these graphics by @subvertising to show your solidarity with the Autistici/Inventati Collective.
May they be gone, but not forgotten.
Graphics hosted for download on our campaign page at https://sabot.media/campaigns/autistici-inventati
Facism is very effective. A/I shuts down. Stay human. https://keepitfree.ai/announcements/a/i-shuts-down-stay-human/ @Marloezovic @avandeursen @anneroth @cavallette @bert_hubert