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Ben Matthews @ benjhm @sopuli.xyz
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130
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • pH 7 being neutral only works at STP (lab temperature). Actually the dissociation constant Kw of water increases a lot across the normal range of seawater (0-30oC), so in tropical seas there's a lot more of both H+ and OH- around. I'd imagine that molecules of early life could be stable at some temperatures - i.e. in some regions, while not in others.

  • Can use Scala to gradually transition away from java - convert code module by module, interop just works, until eventually no java left, can then compile instead as js, native or even wasm (i recently tried this for my climate-system model which evolved from old java). Also, btw, made in europe, not big-tech, and scala3 looks more like python.

  • Interesting. Five million years is not so long in geological time, so how is that such "exposed section of lithified sediment deformed by the megaflood" (note photo) are now above sea-level, did Sicily rise so much since then?

  • Two thoughts:

    • I'm subscribed to 160 communities, most very small, but see interesting stuff due to the Scaled option - also deliberately avoid the big news communities. Evidently, it takes time to join 160 small cs, so to get started it could be handy to have an all/local except list, and remove the biggest news /memes unless people tick a box saying they like such. Or make an algorithm that prioritises stuff related to what I upvote (which is how other social sites seem to get people started - e.g. i just tried rednote and it quickly learned i like mountains and trains) - but i guess that's hard to implement as each instance would need to work out 'related to'.
    • 2nd point - there are other user-interfaces - I'm using Alexandrite which has a better layout than lemmy default, but how to make this easier (instructions suggest docker, how many casual users will do that ...)?
  • I've wondered through favelas in Rio. Nice people, tasty snacks, fine views (they are on hillsides), some great music. But that was over a decade ago, I heard situation got worse again during Temer/Bolso time, hope it's improving now.

  • This is hardly surprise news, it's just what the demographics projected. And if trends continue, China's population will halve by 2100. The big one to watch now is India, and then central Africa, those are harder to project.
    You can experiment with my model - click the 'model pop' plot on the left side.

  • I might try Friendica, although coming from lemmy I'd be more inclined towards Mbin, to combine topic-focus and people-focus.
    However as a developer I first check the code repos and see that both are based on php, which seems rather old, and i doubt this would scale efficiently if the network really took off. Recall that twitter was once based on ruby (like mastodon is) and shifted to scala for such reasons. So I feel, these are exploring well the potential user-experience, but the code may need a fresh structure (if somebody knows this tech issue better, please say). It's good to discuss these things, to help consolidate potential efforts.

  • A wee quote from the author of the original little red book ...:
    "the two slogans -- let a hundred flowers blossom and let a hundred schools of thought contend -- have no class character; the proletariat can turn them to account, and so can the bourgeoisie or others. Different classes, strata and social groups each have their own views on what are fragrant flowers and what are poisonous weeds".

    Seemed a good idea at the time (1957?), remember how that trick evolved thereafter ...?

  • At the end I read: "I found my ideal social network ... with the functionalities of Friendica, the UX/UI of Sharkey and the stability and reliability of Mastodon ..." - so - please forgive me if I missed something, what does this combination, do we have to make it ?

  • I was concerned about the gap between climate science and policy. So, having learned to program as a kid, I made an interactive model to help bridge that gap, to let people experiment. This evolved over 25 years - recently moved to scala.js, still developing, not for money but because we have to keep trying to solve complex problems.

  • As a kid, I learned to write i = i +1, before school maths taught me it can't. The point is, computers do iteration well, especially to model dynamics of real non-linear systems, while classical maths is good at finding algebraic solutions to equilibria - typically more theoretical than real. Calculus is great for understanding repeatable dynamics - such as waves in physics, also integrating over some distributions. But even without knowing that well you could still approximate stuff numerically with simple loops, test it, and if an inner-loop turns out to be time-critical or accuracy-critical (most are not), ask a mathematical colleague to rethink it - believe in iteration rather than perfect solutions.

  • I'm aware of the racism issue, I even observed it myself in China, even many years ago.
    But i've also seen similar problems in other corners of the world. Such cultural concepts can change slowly, as they did over here.
    Anyway, I doubt this would dissuade people trying to connect what will become the world's main supply of surplus young labour, with the world's greatest demand for care-services, combined with spare apartments, money, and a milder climate. Not saying it’s good or bad, just trying to anticipate future changes.

  • I agree. For global discussions, are many Indians going to learn Chinese, Swahili, Hausa, Arabic, and vice-versa ? Meanwhile international-english is the new latin... Even within India, the south insists to keep english as an official language, to avoid being dominated by more populous hindi-speaking north.
    Alternatively LLM-translation may facilitate multi-lingual discussion, but in this case the language of software development may still be influential during such transition.
    By the way - this is an important topic for future of lemmy, which should expand more towards the south - where's a good place to develop it (beyond such set of replies)?

  • That seems like a big change in one year. It may to some extent reflect delay, as on average chinese used to pair-up at a younger age than typical in europe, also maybe some feel old traditions aren't necessary to keep a stable family with children. But the article says, the core factors are economic. Even so, as they have built so many surplus apartments, the [real] prices must drop, I wonder how many years before they are trying to sell the chinese dream to migrants from Africa or elsewhere.

  • Hmm. I'm still using a 2014 iMac, as its 27" 5k screen still very good for coding (with added memory). Sometimes develops a bunch of thin vertical lines, which come and go maybe dependent on temperature, but hasn't changed for for ten years and i can live with those. Just wish they'd continue providing security updates for it.