tingilinde

fun piece on ffts

a surprise bit on the long forgotten original discovery..  I learned of it some years ago when Andrew Odlyzko casually mentioned it.

 

evan greer on twitter

I've known Evan for about fifteen years..  she's a serious digital rights activist.  She managed to get a piece on Twitter into Time.

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But even if he were the courageous, rights-defending super genius that his supporters seem to think he is, Musk’s claim that “the bird is freed” would be bluster at best. The truth is that we will never have meaningful free speech or human rights as long as we’re all digitally landless, paying rent in dollars or data. If we want a modern town square we can leave to our children and our children’s children, we need to build online spaces that can’t be owned or controlled by a single person, with tools to address harm, harassment, and injustice that give individuals and communities power over our own online experience.

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the emergence of great britain and ireland

From the last ice age...

 

heart problems and covid-19

Doctors and researchers are finding more heart problems - even with minor symptoms.  

Get the bivalent vaccination now if you haven't had it and mask indoors.  There's strong evidence that multiple bouts of Covid increase the odds and perhaps the severity of long covid.

 

republicans and social security and medicare

Paul Krugman on the Republican wet dream.  

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Before I get to what Republicans appear to have in mind, let’s note that the push to slash major benefit programs may be the ultimate example of an elite priority completely at odds with what ordinary Americans want.

Political scientists have found several areas in which the wealthy want to see spending cut, while most voters want to see it increased. The biggest gap in views is on Social Security, where the rich, by a large margin, want to see benefits reduced while the general public, by an even larger margin, wants to see them increased.

And Republicans are taking the side of the rich.

Now, there isn’t an official G.O.P. position on Social Security and Medicare — or, actually, any policy issue. But the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of House members that often sets the party’s agenda, has released a fairly detailed set of proposals titled “Reclaiming Our Fiscal Future” that would, I suspect, raise howls of outrage from many voters if they knew about it.

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Expect chaos if the Senate or the House falls to the Republicans.

 

 

the fcc should reexamine its review process for satellite constellations

The Government Accounting Office notes there are several science based questions about large satellite constellations and recommends the FCC take another look at something they glossed over.

 

here's the full report

 

 

long covid clinics

There aren't many, but there's a need.

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

 

 

a physical manifestation of information

When I was a teenager the Great Falls International Airport (daily service to Calgary and Edmonton) added a large map/clock to the main lobby that displayed the time of day in several cities as well as where it was night or day. It adjusted itself for the seasons and struck me as attractive - even desirable. Of course that type of display is easily done on a phone or PC now, but there was something special about the physical manifestation of the information.

Today a self-described nerdy friend in Cambridge sent a note on his latest toy - a status display of Boston MBTA. It makes a network connection via your home wifi and displays train status in real time. At a bit over $200 it’s not cheap, but he says he hasn’t been so delighted with a purchase in over a decade. The company has units for London, NYC, DC, Chicago, and the Bay Area BART system. It wouldn’t be terribly difficult for someone with EE chops to do the hardware and software design, but if you value your time at anything more than half minimum wage, these are something of a bargain.

So if you’re into this sort of artwork or want to give an unusual gift to someone who might appreciate something they probably haven’t thought about:

Traintrackr

 

a comment on twitter's check marks

Musk doesn’t seem to realize the checkmark is effectively a trademark for Twitter - giving users confidence about some of its most important users. He’s turning it into a vanity copyright that devalues the community.  Of course the value of community may not be important to him...

 

 

three norths come together over great britian

A short-lived grand alignment of sorts.

snip

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In 2014, for the first time in Great Britain since the 1660s, magnetic north moved from being to the west of grid north to the east. The change started in the very south-west corner of Britain and will slowly progress across the whole country over the next 12 to 13 years. We wrote a blog on the progress of alignment between magnetic and grid north in Britain back in 2019, which you can read here.

Now, there is a third line about to come into alignment – true north. This is the direction of lines of longitude that all converge at the north pole.

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