Same here, which is why my Bluesky feed is much better. Everyone wants to be where everyone else is (that isn’t X), and it seems like that’s Bluesky.

I’m gonna echo what others have said here. The mastodon signup process is too complex, and searching for instructions just leads to “what is the fediverse and/or activitypub” explainers.

I created a mastodon account a few years ago and it was my first introduction to the fediverse. It was frustrating and I only persevered because I REALLY wanted to replace twitter.

Once I got it set up, I realized that no one who I followed on twitter was there. My feed is currently like 2 people, plus a bunch of dead accounts from people who dipped their toe in but didn’t stay.

Joining Bluesky was simple, and there were already a bunch of accounts I wanted to follow. The recent influx has increased that, and it feels a lot like old school twitter without the nazis.

People originally joined twitter (and stuck with it for so long) because that’s where everyone else is. Mastadon is too clunky join and use, so people aren’t.

Line of “least bad” fit

That guy was Jared, the Subway spokesperson. That episode aged poorly, or really presciently, depending on your perspective.

Fun fact: fiestaware plates (this was the company that made the uraranium glazed ceramics) are commonly used by radiation safety folks as check sources and for teaching how to use survey meters. This is because they usually aren’t considered a radioisotope source, so there’s less paperwork to keep them around.

The yield is small enough that it isn’t a threat to the soldiers launching it. Still, I wouldn’t want to be the one tasked with firing it.

When will scientists just self-publish?

It’s commonplace in my field (nuclear physics) to share the preprint version of your article, typically on arxiv.org. You can update the article as you respond to peer reviewers too. The only difference between this and the paywalls publisher version is that version will have additional formatting edits by the journal.

If you search for articles on google scholar, it groups the preprint and published versions together so it’s easy to find the non-paywalled copy. The standard journals I publish in even sort of encourage this; you can submit the latex documents and figures by just putting the url to an arxiv manuscript.

The US Department of Energy now requires any research they fund be made publicly available. So any article I publish is also automatically posted to osti.gov 1 year after its initial publication. This version is also grouped into the google scholar search results.

It’s an imperfect system, but it’s getting much better than it was even just a decade ago.

Yeah, it’s quieter so there’s fewer overall responses even in “popular” posts, but it doesn’t feel like anything gets ignored. If a post is interesting, you’ll get at least a few replies even if it takes a few days.

That part is kinda nice - the lower turnover on the “front page” means you’ll have people reading and commenting on discussions for days. If you reply to a 1-day old post on Reddit the only person who might see/reply to you is the person you replied to.

Source is Department of Mind-Blowing Theories by Tom Gauld. I skimmed through some other comics from the book and it’s a goldmine of content for this community. It’s also absolutely something my SO and I would enjoy, so I ordered a copy.

Thanks for sharing!

Carol never wore her safety goggles

That’s wild. I’ve always sent people copies when they reach out. It’s especially easy to do so with ResearchGate, but that does require the requester make an account there.

Another option is to ask a librarian to find that specific article, rather than getting them to subscribe to the journal. I had to do this once in grad school for an article in a discontinued journal from the 70s. The librarian found another library that had it and they faxed a copy.

As annoying as it is to lug a bag around and find room for it, I much prefer this to checking it. There’s the small but nonzero chance your bag doesn’t make it to your destination, plus the added time waiting at baggage return.

I will run this thing until it dies.

Good luck with that. My 2011 MacBook Pro still works. I’m pretty sure it’ll outlive me.

Interestingly, the journal editors have released an expression of concern earlier this year for this article and others by the same author.

SAGE Publishing has been made aware of scientific concerns regarding the work of Dr. Nicholas Guéguen. Multiple concerns have been raised regarding the integrity of the research including but not limited to concerns around data fidelity, replicability of findings, and ethical consent and oversight for studies involving human participants. SAGE Publishing’s Research Integrity Team, in cooperation with this journal’s editors, are currently conducting an investigation into these articles.

This expression of concern will remain in place until the investigation is completed and any further needs for appropriate action have been taken.

Seek by iNaturalist

The app uses AI to identify the species of plants, animals, insects and fungi. In video mode you scan around something you want to ID as the AI narrows it down to the species. Then you can take a pic. The app keeps track of each unique species you’ve found (along with your photo of it). There’s also badges and achievements for identifying different numbers of species, if you want to gamify your nature sightseeing.

It’s basically real life Pokémon. Oh and it’s completely free.

I agree that anything generated by an LLM will need human verification for accuracy, but scientific abstracts are one of the few areas where LLMs can be immediately useful. I’ve played with having ChatGPT create abstracts in subjects that I’m familiar with and it’s been surprisingly good. It even respects word limits. If you have a block of text that needs to be condensed, ChatGPT can probably get you most of the way there.

For example, I had chatGPT summarize your comment in 5 words:

“Summarizing scientific articles demands precision.”

With betavoltaics it’s more a matter of physics than lack of engineering refinement. Even assuming 100% efficiency, you would need something like 250 gallons (1000 liters) of tritium gas at atmospheric pressure to power a 100 Watt lightbulb.

Nuclear reactors, however, absolutely should be supplying a larger fraction of our electrical grid. Traditional, large reactor facilities have such a high cost and long timescale for permitting/construction that it’s difficult to get newer, more modern reactors built in the US. There are some exciting developments in small, modular reactors that would sidestep these issues. I believe a few designs are in the process of being built for full scale testing.

www.charitynavigator.org

If you’re interested in a particular charity organization, you can look them up on Charity Navigator. They pull information from the charity’s IRS filings as well as their website to rate various aspects. They give a breakdown of things like the fraction of funds spent on administrative costs, privacy policies, fundraising efficiency, etc.

They also provide the contact information and website for the charity. This way you know you’re donating to the actual charity and not a scammer impersonating them.

Betavoltaic devices are exactly what you’re describing. They convert beta radiation (energetic electrons) into electricity in the same way that photovoltaic cells (solar panels) convert photons into electricity. You can create a nuclear battery by putting some radioactive material that decays via beta emission in one of these.

The downside of these devices is that they generate very little power. It takes a dangerous amount of radioactive material to generate the power needed for say a phone or laptop. Commercial betavoltaic devices generate ~tens of microwatts. They’re useful if you need a low power battery somewhere that you don’t want to replace, like in a remote sensor.

Lemmy has a slur filter feature that instances can choose to use. It seems that lemmy.ml has it enabled and has a fairly expansive list of what the instance owners consider to be slurs. For example, the “b” word (term for female dog) is censored since it’s a gendered slur.

Edit: removed explicit language in case it gets auto filtered