Posts by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
(DIR) Post #AzfgnfjZrTxA7G0A76 by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-10-28T15:03:36Z
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@ricci In a previous US government shut down, I was attending a fruit fly neurobiology conference where one of the attendees was from the NIH intramural program, and said, paraphrasing: I am not here today, and you aren't hearing anything I am saying, in case anyone asks. And proceeded with the talk as if just happening to have casually walked into the room and thought of discussing with us some matters.
(DIR) Post #AzgHWhvy7sAqJtZUZM by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-10-28T21:55:04Z
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@futurebird Take a smaller ant:https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4361805138/ant-figurine-metal-sculpture-antI have a wasp/bee sculpture from this artist on my office coffee table and it's brilliant.
(DIR) Post #AzngbsqMqieaZ2EgT2 by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-01T11:39:07Z
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@futurebird There was a National Geographic article about tea varieties earlier this year, and I found screenshots of its informative graphs here below. The second photo shows the "From one leaf, six styles" which tells a lot about how tea gets its flavour.https://www.reddit.com/r/tea/comments/1hngvl6/tea_article_in_jan_2025_national_geographic/The article is here but doesn't show the graphs:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/tea-ancient-forest-china
(DIR) Post #Azpf18skXpczxCBcfo by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-02T10:30:43Z
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@futurebird With insects having been around for 400 million years and primates for only 70, and humanoid ones for up to 7 if we stretch it a lot to include Ardipithecus. In other words insects have survived all major mass extinctions since. It's not even a contest. As long as Earth is habitable there will be insects, but the same isn't true for humans.The only advantage humans have is the possibility, quite remote at this point, of leaving planet Earth. But in doing so we'd take with us the ecosystem that supports us, and that incluedes insects as a key component.
(DIR) Post #AzrqVM95HdfHaaM9bM by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-03T11:48:50Z
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@futurebird Relatedly:>>> int('111', base=37)Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>ValueError: int() base must be >= 2 and <= 36, or 0What. So is there a standard library function for converting number bases in python?#python
(DIR) Post #B05Y4tuSv74RHClocS by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-07T08:30:29Z
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@ricci @petergleick
(DIR) Post #B06TFTO7Yv7Zarp65w by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-07T20:00:44Z
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@futurebird Wait until there aren't any bees left, or flies to decompose leaves, and beetles to collect faeces...
(DIR) Post #B0AUz5mQXsG2HYLgAK by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-12T11:47:13Z
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@futurebird When I left home to go to university, living in a dorm was transformative: there was a TV but on a separate room and felt like going to the cinema. Out of casual access and everyday activities like lunch and dinner, TV disappeared from my life. Never returned. So much time in my hands ever since. I cannot fathom how I could have committed so much to that box in my childhood.
(DIR) Post #B0CKJZRJGuDcsgxAWG by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-13T08:57:08Z
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@ricci I used to tell graduate students upon ariving to the lab, remember how in group projects you were the one who did everything and felt responsible for delivering? Now all your peers are that kind of person, so you can rely on them. I wonder how's that going to change.#academia
(DIR) Post #B0HLOmv9QrXFZU3r6G by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-15T18:56:54Z
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A company selling flying drones to target and kill mosquitoes:https://tornyol.com/Have they never heard of birds and bats? Have they not understood that perhaps the issue is stale water and lack of an ecosystem that supports predators in the first place? Of course, it's easier to engineer and commercialise a gadget to cope with the proximate problem that to think about or address the root causes.Why aren't engineering schools including a compulsory course on ecosystems biology?#mosquitoes
(DIR) Post #B0MynuIIOcYIEjKhpA by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-18T12:17:53Z
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@futurebird Bigger items for the same percent of profit yield bigger profits.In Europe there are plenty of options for small fridges, small dishwashers, small ovens and small ranges. So it's not a market force that keeps them out, rather, it's a deliberate choice to focus on appliances that yield larger profit margins.
(DIR) Post #B0XK4CwF9djRz6Pg4e by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-23T12:03:16Z
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@ricci This place is as genuine as it gets. I wonder how much of the good bibes can be attributed to not being mainstream. No brands advertising here, no money to be made or political bias to push into readers, hence not targeted by the bot armies.
(DIR) Post #B0YDkgWB401TMiULaa by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-23T22:10:08Z
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Obviously the UK surrendered its technology sovereignty quite some time ago. But it's amusing that this light piece – it's all too self evident – comes from Tim Wu, whose signature includes "former special assistant to President Biden and author of «The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity»".https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/23/has-britain-become-an-economic-colony#UK #TechSovereignty
(DIR) Post #B0dTdt5bmd3tTaWFvM by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-26T11:18:49Z
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@futurebird I take every occasion when at a car dealer to explain in gore detail to whoever is listening how the square high front of such cars – right in front of us there and then – destroys a pedestrian. I then call them "murder cars" and further add it doesn't help the fuel consumption is so bad, whatever happened to making cars both aerodynamic and pedestrian-friendly? There's no point to such cars. And I really hope the image of death and destruction I create in the mind of the listener never fades away.
(DIR) Post #B0gO0yyc2p5i91kwPA by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-27T20:59:54Z
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@ricci @regehr These confidence guys are currently flooding public open source code repositories with their pull requests. Guess we are all going to go private, invitation-only to avoid them, and the code hungry companies – they need source code for training – are going to lose access. Quite the negative feedback loop.
(DIR) Post #B0kQwbUgUIY4ePCVYO by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-29T19:51:31Z
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@futurebird The company behind the opioid crisis surely deserves those two words.
(DIR) Post #B0s6rl375e6b1GOc4G by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-12-03T12:44:14Z
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@futurebird Plus, Amazon is now hard work: the actual good deals are hidden and one ends up paying up more just out of convenience."Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?" by Doctorow – an extract from his book in enshitification.https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/05/way-past-its-prime-how-did-amazon-get-so-rubbish
(DIR) Post #B1koj62MqLUoUeJmu8 by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-12-29T22:10:07Z
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@futurebird You mean, self-hosted like in a neocities.org page of your own, or a magazine like @Locusmag ?
(DIR) Post #B1nzdpbYC3jf3DLXzk by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2025-12-29T22:03:51Z
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@davidho An excellent reminder to use free open source software instead of ̶r̶a̶n̶s̶o̶m̶w̶a̶r̶e̶ rent-extracting subscriptionware.
(DIR) Post #B21PZkUn34ngxmh3Vg by albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz
2026-01-06T22:17:51Z
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@aral What an excellent time to ... continue using open source software entirely and completely free of this expensive (in more than one way) nonsense.