Sören Norrgård

@Sgns
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26 Following
21 Posts

Elon Musk and the Trump administration gleefully shutting down USAID “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.” according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande.

People throw around terms like genocide quite freely online but it’s hard to find other words to describe this level of man-made death.

https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/

USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to Harvard Chan School’s Atul Gawande.

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

@feedmd @daringfireball Bonus: one great definition of citizenship, by the excellent Engin F. Isin, is: “the right to be political”! (Okay folks, I misremembered: he actually says it’s ”the right to have rights”, — the same in essence, sort of, but I was wrong. Sorry!

But: Being Political is the name of his book!)

If you enjoy understanding—or *need to* understand how things come to be, this is a rabbit hole to consider venturing down.

@feedmd @daringfireball As a European, I find exhortations to avoid "being political" to often come from Russians. One can understand how that came to be, so I hope we (including the Russians!) can all avoid their fate, soon enough.

Shorter: that's a very political thing to ask for.

Lastly, it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me how few of us can afford to stay away from politics in the coming—uh—moments. So please try to have some empathy with us plebes.

@jrconlin @denschub @emma @mimsy_borogrove @glasspusher This is actually a very illuminating thread (to me, sorry!) Yes, it's true, ChatGPT is not misleading because it's evil (lots of people have actually sacrificed their mental health to make its answers somewhat safer), it rather does exactly what its code says. And because LLMs are not really intelligent, this is exactly what that's supposed to look like. Very far from intelligent. Startling!

@daringfireball This was really enjoyable, pointed out and interrogated lots of fertile ground!

Semi-related shout-out to: the kind souls that made sure you can move tabs in the macOS Safari tab bar, with the Command-button pressed, without losing the active tab! You are my heroes!

I read @gruber ‘s piece about Apple's pre-announcement of "more personalised Siri”, and I was moved to offer my own thoughts:

https://www.amyworrall.com/blog/why-did-apple-pre-announce-more-personalised-siri

Why did Apple pre-announce “more personalised Siri”? — Amy Worrall

In this post , John Gruber discusses how Apple dropped the ball by pre-announcing a feature that doesn’t exist yet in any semblance of a demoable form. I refer of course to the new Smart Siri features that ostensibly exist under the Apple Intelligence branding. Gruber describes how announcing featur

Amy Worrall
@amyworrall This is excellent, thanks!
This video of a much deeper overview of the fantastical complexity of a steam engine is incredible and has massive amounts of animation. https://youtu.be/Hszu80NJ438
How a Steam Locomotive Works (Union Pacific "Big Boy")

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

YouTube
@[email protected] Airpods Pro 2 are from two years ago. ”BUT,”last year, with new firmware, they received the Adaptive Noice Cancellation and lots more (https://support.apple.com/en-us/106340), and soon they may help with my hearing loss. An interesting form of marketing, for sure. :)
About firmware updates for AirPods - Apple Support

Learn about changes and features included in the firmware updates for your AirPods.

Apple Support

Interesting development to follow: Researchers from the University of Basel and the NCCR SPIN have achieved the first controllable interaction between two hole spin qubits in a conventional silicon transistor.

These qubits can be manufactured with FinFETs transistors using "classical" silicon fabrication methods, opening up the path to faster scaling than competing architectures.

https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/Experiment-opens-door-for-millions-of-qubits-on-one-chip.html

#QuantumComputing

Experiment opens door for millions of qubits on one chip

Researchers from the University of Basel and the NCCR SPIN have achieved the first controllable interaction between two hole spin qubits in a conventional silicon transistor. The breakthrough opens up the possibility of integrating millions of these qubits on a single chip using mature manufacturing processes.