Timo Ewalds

@tewalds@sigmoid.social
62 Followers
96 Following
547 Posts
I'm a software engineer, formerly at DeepMind where I worked on AlphaStar, fusion and weather prediction. I'm an urbanist, climate change worrier, climber, cyclist and general outdoors aficionado.
Timo Ewalds3d ago
The Seven Voyages Of Steve5d ago
It makes me laugh/cry that we spent decades trying to get the software industry to internalise that it takes far more effort to support & maintain systems than it does to write them in the first place, and yet seemingly every trendy development in the last 5-10 years has been about making that initial stage faster & sloppier at the expense of everything else
Timo Ewalds4d ago
mhoye4d ago

One acre of solar panels produces as much energy as a hundred acres of corn-based ethanol, with the added benefit that you aren't literally burning food.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46-billion-years-on-the-sun-is-having-a-moment

4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment

In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system, Bill McKibben writes.

The New Yorker
Timo Ewalds6d ago
Paris Marx6d ago

Canada needs to reduce its dependence on US tech companies — and cloud infrastructure is a perfect place to start.

For the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, I explain the threat posed by our dependence on US-owned data centres and why we need a public cloud that isn’t shaped by the pressure for shareholder profits.

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/canada-should-build-public-cloud-infrastructure-rather-than-relying-on-u-s-tech-giants/

#tech #cloud #datacenters #cdnpoli #cdntech #canada #markcarney

Canada should build public cloud infrastructure rather than relying on U.S. tech giants - CCPA

During the 2025 election campaign, prime minister Mark Carney made a striking admission about Canada’s dependence on U.S. tech companies. The Canadian government was in the process of choosing a partner for a 25-year cloud computing contract for the federal government. The contract’s length should have set off red flags of its own, but the…

CCPA -
Timo EwaldsJul 6
Regina MJul 5
Out camping and have reached the conclusion that camping is what suburbanites do to experience a densely populated, walkable neighbourhood where their kids can bike around safely. #camping #urbanism
Timo EwaldsJun 30
The IndexJun 25

People don’t change their minds from new evidence.

They change when they feel safe enough to lose status in their old tribe.

Timo EwaldsJun 27
Anuj AhoojaJun 26
In the last five years, we've gone from "employees will never have to go into an office" to "employees need to be in the office because creative and innovative work can only be done face-to-face between humans" to "lol we don't need humans"
Timo EwaldsJun 27
Christopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺Jun 26
It's a bit surreal to be in this #LPS25 panel discussion about the future of small sats and constellations, and no one talks at all about the fact that LEO is already on the way to runaway debris at the present number of space objects. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/391093502_CRITICAL_NUMBER_OF_SPACECRAFT_IN_LOW_EARTH_ORBIT_A_NEW_ASSESSMENT_OF_THE_STABILITY_OF_THE_ORBITAL_DEBRIS_ENVIRONMENT
Timo EwaldsJun 20
𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"Jun 19

I'd like to take a moment to congratulate all Americans for now legally being defined as women.

According to Executive Order 14168 (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/30/2025-02090/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal), the "biological truth" of the genders has been legally defined:

(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

Here's the problem, turns out that the universe isn't taking attendance at the time of conception and handing out little pink and blue genderino badges before your gonads even exist. At the moment of conception, EVERY embryo's default state is set to produce, eventually, the larger reproductive cell (the ova). It's not until 6-8 weeks AFTER conception that the Y chromosome, if present and activated, decides to show up to the party and begin the process of differentiation into a body that will, eventually, produce the smaller reproductive cell (the sperm).

So, once again, I'd like to congratulate literally everybody in America for, at this moment, being legally AFAB.

Timo EwaldsJun 20
David HoJun 19
Look people, no matter how much we destroy the Earth by polluting it with CO₂, microplastics, PFAS, etc. everywhere, and even if AMOC shuts down and both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt, the Earth will still be infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars is a shithole and we're not going.
Timo EwaldsJun 16
Rebecca SearJun 16
“Historically, no one lived past age 35” "I’ve heard *so* many versions of this claim, including recently from a menopause doctor (implying menopause is not “natural” because noone lived long enough to go through it). Every time someone states this “fact,” a demographer loses a piece of their soul"

There Were Still Old People Wh...
There Were Still Old People When Life Expectancy Was 35.

A demography myth that won't die

Data for Health
×
Christopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺Jun 26
It's a bit surreal to be in this #LPS25 panel discussion about the future of small sats and constellations, and no one talks at all about the fact that LEO is already on the way to runaway debris at the present number of space objects. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/391093502_CRITICAL_NUMBER_OF_SPACECRAFT_IN_LOW_EARTH_ORBIT_A_NEW_ASSESSMENT_OF_THE_STABILITY_OF_THE_ORBITAL_DEBRIS_ENVIRONMENT
Show threadKnud JahnkeJun 26

@skyglowberlin

#KesslerSyndrom intensifies... 😬

Here's the link to the actual conference PDF:

https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/305/SDC9-paper305.pdf

Show threadChristopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺Jun 26
@knud Thanks for sharing that! I agree with the 😬, it's astounding the extent to which people in EO simply do not talk about this.
Show threadKnud JahnkeJun 26

@skyglowberlin

I also wasn't aware of this. To be honest, it was good reading (skimming) this article because I had a wrong picture in my mind for "Kessler Syndrome". I thought it was more like the Hollywood ("Gravity") version than a slow but irreversible filling of certain orbits with more and more debris, which at some point would could/will start destroying sats in these simply by the impossibility of avoiding all debris.

I have to think about this. "My" sat luckily is at L2...

Show threadChristopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺Jun 26

@knud No, it's a gradual thing. From what I understand, collisions are expected to start within about a decade. Starlink's maneuvering buys some time, but due to satellite failures and unpredictable drag events during solar outbursts, collisions are literally inevitable.

@planet4589.bsky.social also said on a panel discussion that he's increasingly seeing events in which trackable debris is appearing from a satellite which wasn't incapacitated. So presumably something quite small has hit it and knocked off bits that were big enough to track, but not big enough to destroy the satellite.

If you're interested in the topic, you'll also want to follow @sundogplanets and @ProfHughLewis

Show threadKnud JahnkeJun 26

@skyglowberlin @planet4589.bsky.social @sundogplanets @ProfHughLewis

I was already following half of them. Now all :-)

Show threadSören Meyer-EpplerJun 26
@skyglowberlin I mean. We're almost done polluting the planet to a state of uninhabitability. So it seems appropriate that we continue with orbit and space. Not that you could have lived there in the first place...
Show threadcrypticceleryJun 27

@skyglowberlin huh, I did not know that higher orbits (in this range) support fewer objects.

Did you try to bring up this critical question in the panel (I find you can usually tell a lot by people’s reaction to unexpected questions)?

And, would you be okay with being provided an alt-text for this image?

Show threadChristopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺Jun 27

@crypticcelery Objects in low orbits decay quickly (at 500 km within a few years). This is even more true for debris. Once you get to the higher altitudes, the satellites will stay in orbit for hundreds or even thousands of years. So the problem is not the volume (which grows with r^3), but rather the lifetime. If you leave too much stuff up there, it will be circling the Earth for so long that collisions are inevitable.

#KesslerSyndrome #SpaceJunk #SpacePollution

Show threadChristopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺Jun 27

@crypticcelery I brought up the question at a mainly industry event a few months ago, and a bunch of people chuckled. It seems the industry isn't going to take it seriously until collisions start happening.

This event didn't have an opportunity for audience questions, and I added alt text.

Show threadcrypticceleryJun 27
@skyglowberlin thanks for the clarification, I did not consider the decay as much as I should have.
And Yikes, that is gonna be one hell of a find out moment for them, though sadly it will claim a lot of collateral damage.
Thanks for adding alt!
Show threadgnarfJun 27
@crypticcelery @skyglowberlin I think the capacity of an orbit is determined by two events:
- How fast do objects accumulate through collision events
- How fast are objects removed through atmospheric drag
So lower orbits have more leeway as it's harder for debris to accumulate. Though I'm no expert in the field
Show threadChristopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺Jun 27
@gnarf @crypticcelery It's driven almost entirely by the second, see here: https://fediscience.org/@skyglowberlin/114753900467181913
Christopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇪🇺 (@skyglowberlin@fediscience.org)

@crypticcelery@chaos.social Objects in low orbits decay quickly (at 500 km within a few years). This is even more true for debris. Once you get to the higher altitudes, the satellites will stay in orbit for hundreds or even thousands of years. So the problem is not the volume (which grows with r^3), but rather the lifetime. If you leave too much stuff up there, it will be circling the Earth for so long that collisions are inevitable. #KesslerSyndrome #SpaceJunk #SpacePollution

FediScience.org