spontaneous symmetry breakdance
@t8erboi.bsky.social
a.k.a. Matt. Physicist, conformal bootstrapper, and #1 Leonid Kantorovich respecter. Idaho → Colorado → Connecticut → Italy. he/him.
Unionize the radiation lab!
Unionize the radiation lab!
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There's multiple ways to make a useful and informative test, one way is to have tougher problems, the other way is to give time pressure on normal difficulty problems. The former is generally better and should be preferred
Tests should be structured such that the time limit doesn't matter for anyone. If anyone is running out of time, give everyone more time. You aren't intending to test speed under pressure, so just don't test that.
the thing about extra-time accommodations is that either they help you a lot or they don't matter much, and if they help you a lot that is evidence that you should get them
December 2, 2025 at 8:07 PM
There's multiple ways to make a useful and informative test, one way is to have tougher problems, the other way is to give time pressure on normal difficulty problems. The former is generally better and should be preferred
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one of the reasons that the STEM-humanitiies culture war is stupid is that there's a lot of interesting stuff there at the intersection of the two. like it's very sociologically interesting the way that programming languages are maintained, propagated, and evolve.
December 2, 2025 at 9:23 PM
one of the reasons that the STEM-humanitiies culture war is stupid is that there's a lot of interesting stuff there at the intersection of the two. like it's very sociologically interesting the way that programming languages are maintained, propagated, and evolve.
This isn't applicable to most red state public schools because of public employee collective bargaining laws, but grad unions should really make sure they have language in place for these attacks.
the actual merits of the grade are mostly beside the point, but i do think it’s worth thinking about how to insulate yourself a bit from bad faith actors if you’re a professor or TA. this M.O. (on a smaller scale) is common on the right.
December 1, 2025 at 7:14 PM
This isn't applicable to most red state public schools because of public employee collective bargaining laws, but grad unions should really make sure they have language in place for these attacks.
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Has this been posted yet
December 1, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Has this been posted yet
Not to say this isn't worth trying. But I think Nolan's numbers underrate how hard it is for organizers to get an appreciable fraction of their members out canvassing.
Labor Party as a Green Party-esque national ego trip to run a losing presidential candidate who will just suck votes from Democrats: No.
Labor Party as a strategic plan by unions to recruit and fund Dan Osborn-esque independent candidates in red states: Yes.
www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/how-to-win...
Labor Party as a strategic plan by unions to recruit and fund Dan Osborn-esque independent candidates in red states: Yes.
www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/how-to-win...
How to Win Red States With a Labor Party
We can take political power without asking Democrats for it.
www.hamiltonnolan.com
November 30, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Not to say this isn't worth trying. But I think Nolan's numbers underrate how hard it is for organizers to get an appreciable fraction of their members out canvassing.
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I am a pretty STEM-brained person, I can acknowledge that. but it is always frustrating to me to see people react to biases in STEM communities by reacting against STEM rather than correcting those imbalances
November 30, 2025 at 9:16 PM
I am a pretty STEM-brained person, I can acknowledge that. but it is always frustrating to me to see people react to biases in STEM communities by reacting against STEM rather than correcting those imbalances
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the primary thing that TPUSA provides to young conservatives is a blueprint for weaponizing the abject cowardice of university administrators against individual teachers and instructors, and university admins should take a long look in the mirror and think about what that says about them
OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:
November 30, 2025 at 8:51 PM
the primary thing that TPUSA provides to young conservatives is a blueprint for weaponizing the abject cowardice of university administrators against individual teachers and instructors, and university admins should take a long look in the mirror and think about what that says about them
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unbelievable. the canonical example of an illegal order in the Law of War Manual is "an order to fire upon the shipwrecked."
November 30, 2025 at 5:04 PM
unbelievable. the canonical example of an illegal order in the Law of War Manual is "an order to fire upon the shipwrecked."
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did Kraft Mac & Cheese get weirdly sweet in the past few months?
November 30, 2025 at 2:20 AM
did Kraft Mac & Cheese get weirdly sweet in the past few months?
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My posts on this character limited website are written better than this.
Turning Point at OU posted this girl's essay in full and man is it rough
November 30, 2025 at 1:08 AM
My posts on this character limited website are written better than this.
Tracy Jordan vindicated
November 27, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Tracy Jordan vindicated
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Been thinking about the SSC / NYT kerfuffle recently, and whatever your opinion of Scott Alexander, I think it's telling that most elite journalists' defense of Metz was "it's only doxxing if it comes from the kiwifarms region of France."
Deeply unserious profession.
Deeply unserious profession.
November 27, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Been thinking about the SSC / NYT kerfuffle recently, and whatever your opinion of Scott Alexander, I think it's telling that most elite journalists' defense of Metz was "it's only doxxing if it comes from the kiwifarms region of France."
Deeply unserious profession.
Deeply unserious profession.
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i’m sorry but if i have to eat the amount of shit i do on here for keeping up to date with my field (programming and data science) somehow making me responsible for sam altman, journalism doesn’t get to plead uwu small not true scotsman
November 27, 2025 at 5:14 AM
i’m sorry but if i have to eat the amount of shit i do on here for keeping up to date with my field (programming and data science) somehow making me responsible for sam altman, journalism doesn’t get to plead uwu small not true scotsman
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it's like doing a BUCKLE UP CHUCKLEFUCKS true crime podcast about a crime that you were an accessory to
this fuckin guy ...dropping allegations of journalistic malpractice and source betrayal in separate piece meal events like it’s delicious media gossip and then writing, “we haven’t reached the halfway point, and I haven’t yet described the most bizarre, consequential, and newsworthy events”
November 27, 2025 at 2:57 AM
it's like doing a BUCKLE UP CHUCKLEFUCKS true crime podcast about a crime that you were an accessory to
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People will die, and are currently dying, because RFK was granted one of the most powerful megaphones in the country. Two people who could have thrown barriers in front of his climb decided not to; there's a sex scandal here but it is not the biggest scandal.
November 26, 2025 at 11:30 PM
People will die, and are currently dying, because RFK was granted one of the most powerful megaphones in the country. Two people who could have thrown barriers in front of his climb decided not to; there's a sex scandal here but it is not the biggest scandal.
getting absolutely slaughtered in my trivia league through very little fault of my own
November 26, 2025 at 8:45 PM
getting absolutely slaughtered in my trivia league through very little fault of my own
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I had the privilege of conducting some labor law inspections at farms in Imperial Valley back when I worked for the Labor Commissioner, and the skill and speed on display always floored me
This Monterey Mushroom facility has a strong union contract. The good union wages and benefits make for low overturn, which makes for extremely skilled workers like this.
November 26, 2025 at 8:08 PM
I had the privilege of conducting some labor law inspections at farms in Imperial Valley back when I worked for the Labor Commissioner, and the skill and speed on display always floored me
I use Claude for a few things (programming, explaining jargon, advice for weird integrals), but have spent two years mystified as to why someone in a non-technical job would find LLMs useful at all.
This is probably part of it.
This is probably part of it.
I think this is an underrated source of the extent to which Bluesky is in a false consensus about public AI hatred. If you are a power user on a microblogging site you are basically by definition not going to see the "take the effort out of reading and writing" machine as being useful
I think more than anything else AI feels like a miracle to people with questionable literacy because it can read and write for you, and a lot of us who are highly literate underestimate how many of our society's leaders, esp in business, struggle with literacy.
November 26, 2025 at 8:07 PM
I use Claude for a few things (programming, explaining jargon, advice for weird integrals), but have spent two years mystified as to why someone in a non-technical job would find LLMs useful at all.
This is probably part of it.
This is probably part of it.
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There's a classic joke list of how different programming language handle shooting yourself in the foot.
In the spirit of that, I'm going to make a collection of how the current media landscape would handle Trump shooting himself in the foot.
I encourage you to submit your own.
In the spirit of that, I'm going to make a collection of how the current media landscape would handle Trump shooting himself in the foot.
I encourage you to submit your own.
www.eecs.yorku.ca
November 26, 2025 at 7:10 PM
There's a classic joke list of how different programming language handle shooting yourself in the foot.
In the spirit of that, I'm going to make a collection of how the current media landscape would handle Trump shooting himself in the foot.
I encourage you to submit your own.
In the spirit of that, I'm going to make a collection of how the current media landscape would handle Trump shooting himself in the foot.
I encourage you to submit your own.
He's also been showing up to a lot more picket lines, especially considering the SB-8 veto. Primary challenges work.
Great news! Connecticut governor Ned Lamont, a noted coward, has finally located his big-boy pants and signed the legislature's amazing, ambitious housing bill. Among other things, it nukes parking mandates!
Gov. Lamont signs much-debated CT affordable housing bill after vetoing previous version
The bill is Connecticut's most significant housing legislation in decades.
www.ctinsider.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:16 PM
He's also been showing up to a lot more picket lines, especially considering the SB-8 veto. Primary challenges work.
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it's normatively bad in many ways and also clearly useful for millions of people. it can run on a laptop, thinking that it's going away is cope. gotta engage with the world at it is.
this is a bluesky bubble opinion. 800M+ people use chatgpt every week. I hate Facebook and Instagram and I wish they didn’t exist, but 3B and 2B people use them every month, respectively. it’s very hard to picture a mass or even a niche left backlash against them
i think tech and ai positive people are going to be in for a big shock when anti tech and anti ai sentiment becomes a major part of leftwing politics going forward especially as datacenters continue to destroy communities and raise electricity bills
November 26, 2025 at 5:26 PM
it's normatively bad in many ways and also clearly useful for millions of people. it can run on a laptop, thinking that it's going away is cope. gotta engage with the world at it is.
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my health insurer's website has nine fives of reliability
November 26, 2025 at 3:00 AM
my health insurer's website has nine fives of reliability