Thomas

@aviationdoctor.eth

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@aviationdoctor.eth

What is the name for that occasional derealization feeling that you don’t belong to the same species as your fellow humans? As if you were an alien anthropologist gazing at them from space. I get that feeling a lot https://x.com/TheOnlyDSC/status/1917339812366819604

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Wen Canvas on Publish? There was a feature request raised 2.5 years ago and I'd love to know if it's on the roadmap at all, before investing any meaningful time building canvases. I'd rather not use third-party tools like Sharecanvas.io. Hopefully @kepano can weigh in 💕

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@aviationdoctor.eth

A great one-hour interview with Prof. Stephen Kotkin from Stanford’s Hoover Institution about China-US relations. My own TL;DW: https://youtu.be/4aQfzDs7RzI 1/7 China is first and foremost characterized by its Leninist regime, in that the CCP has a monopoly on power and inserts itself into all institutions both public and private. Previous regime attempts to bring the private sector to the CCP by allowing business people to become ranking members failed; so now the policy is to have CCP presence in every private companies' boards and executive teams. 2/7 Whether China is also a Marxist regime is subject to interpretation, given the latitude extended to the private sector which generates wealth and employment. 3/7 The regime’s primary goal is its own perpetuation, which limits how much it can open up both economically and politically. The Pygmalion approach of expecting China to embrace the international order is, therefore, naive and unrealistic. China would rather reshape the international order.

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@aviationdoctor.eth

I too updated my validator today. Quote-cast if you are also Pectra-ready™ https://x.com/nixorokish/status/1916319955152158958

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Time to update the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling for the age of ubiquitous AI. Do these things and you’ll be a Human, my son!

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@aviationdoctor.eth

If LLM-assisted vibe coding turned every computer-illiterate pleb into a developer, I have to wonder what LLM-assisted vibe thinking will do to the collective discourse

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@aviationdoctor.eth

The more I read about Euler, Gauss, Riemann, etc. — the more I wonder what more they could have achieved if they had been able to pair their superhuman intuition with modern computers. It's unfathomable what they managed to do with just pen, paper, and buckets of sweat

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@aviationdoctor.eth

https://www.npr.org/2007/10/24/15323690/researchers-track-boobies-for-climate-change-data

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Quote cast with the first machine you wrote a line of code on

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@aviationdoctor.eth

The average human reading speed is 249 words per minute, and the average English word has 5.1 characters. So a person reading sustains a processing rate (OCR + comprehension) of 21 bytes per second. Likewise, the average typing speed is 40 words per minute, or 3.4 bytes per second. We do this by spelling out every letter of every word in the correct order without even consciously thinking about it. We take reading and typing for granted, but they’re kind of amazing feats to process entirely on wetware

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@aviationdoctor.eth

It's funny how paranormal claims have shrunk as science has filled the mystery-shaped hole within us. In the 19th century, you'd expect a clear photograph of a ghost lady in a white dress walking down the stairs of a Victorian mansion, or for the dinner table to levitate during a seance. In the 21st century, you'll get lucky if your flash photo of a rainy landscape at night has a tiny out-of-focus orb in the corner, or if you find your keys inside the couch that you swear weren't there when you last checked. Not to say that there isn't still plenty of scamming, gullible, and mentally ill people — but at least they're mostly keeping to crypto now

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@aviationdoctor.eth

I wasn’t planning on learning about the spermaceti and the paradoxical killing of sperm whales in the age of petroleum, but here I am. Fascinating article and apt metaphor for the inertia that stubborn problems display even when superficially solved by technology

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Dammit I hastily closed the in-app banner notification and now I don’t know how to get back to the weekly tipping window (Warpcast iOS)

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Il papa è morto

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Meanwhile, in China, twenty humanoid robots just ran a half-marathon and six completed the race (including one on a single charge) https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-04-19/World-s-first-humanoid-half-marathon-held-in-Beijing-1CHpYdjwIOA/p.html

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Some much-needed hopium https://x.com/l3olanza/status/1913321311541379272

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Big if true — a team of mathematicians has generalized the derivation of the Navier-Stokes equation from the Boltzmann equation, and of the Navier-Stokes equation from Newton’s equations. Essentially deriving the macroscopic behavior of atoms from the mesoscopic and then the microscopic scales. This would be a big step forward in axiomatizing physics (i.e., modeling the whole of physics from fewer first-principle rules). This was one of Hilbert’s “sixth problem” on his list of 23 problems delivered to the International Congress in 1900. Lay article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lofty-math-problem-called-hilberts-sixth-closer-to-being-solved/ Pre-print: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.01800

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@aviationdoctor.eth

Something I have noticed in the current political climate is how casually commentators and pundits frame the current direction of travel as if it was logical, natural, and ineluctable for the world in the 21st century. Under their new narrative, it becomes self-evident that policies of "might is right" (power and strength over ethics as the ultimate arbiter of morality); "the ends justify the means" (utilitarianism over deontology); authoritarianism (executive supremacy over rule of law and checks & balances); jingoism (tribalism over good-faith diplomacy and value-driven alliances); and isolationism (transactional, bilateral deals over global collaboration and open trade) — are inevitable. 1/2

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@aviationdoctor.eth

We misread the current zeitgeist as the good old sociopolitical pendulum swinging back from left to right. In reality, the pendulum grew a second arm, and is now exhibiting classic chaotic behavior. Dibs on the name “nonlinear politics”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_pendulum

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