I read op’s question about whether money was the primary bottleneck facing scientists.

And that’s actually a reasonable question.

There is, unfortunately, a real efficiency problem in science.

The money spent is generally a great investment: you’re not just funding discovery: you’re also financially supporting millions of jobs that support discovery that include the businesses that sell to scientists and the restaurant staff in small college towns.

However if we look at where the money goes, it’s long been an open secret that a lot of the support costs are taking unjustifiable slices of the pie. Examples include what’s called “overhead expenses”, which are essentially astronomical rents universities charge their science departments. Also, equipment and repair costs are wildly inflated.

I would like more funding of research, but I would also like reforms to limit this kind of exploitative price gouging in science. But to answer the question: yes, science would still produce more social impact faster if given more money.

Gotta pay the gravity tax

The federal government is sending masked agents to brutalize and terrorize people is cities that are adversarial to their agenda.

It’s bad.

I wrote a long answer and then accidentally hit the back button and don’t have the patience to retype it.

The short version is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. I don’t want any confusion about that.

NATO’s influence was that the US has been advancing against Russia for decades even after their country collapsed, and it was obviously nakedly escalatory. Combined with the US is overall foreign policy, which has always been imperial, we’ve acted as though putting a gun to someone’s head and telling them to stay cool was an actual way of calming things rather than the exact opposite.

I’m not saying that a version of NATO couldn’t have done what it claims to do. But that’s never been the version that has existed.

Yes, 100%. That’s more than a red flag. A red flag is a warning sign of a problem. That’s just a problem.

Thank fucking God that they’re finally waking up. This is long overdue.

GoddlessCommie’s take is valid.

Nato is the core organizing instrument of western imperialism. Nato is like Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense shield. It’s easy to look at it and say, 'Well how could anyone object to a tool of defense??’ But if you know anything about war then you know that establishing an unbreakable defensive capability is what allows an imperial army to slaughter their weaker targets with impunity.

I’m not co-signing GodlessCommie’s point. But we gotta ask: did you like Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Korea? Venezuela? Nicaragua? Georgia? Libya? Ukraine? Gaza? Because arguably, all of this shit rests upon the conditions established by NATO and US imperialism. So… It’s not unreasonable to ask whether NATO has actually fostered peace or just fostered peace for the people who wage wars.

I think that if we want new folks, it would make a big difference is we organized the equivalent of a new member drive.

Currently, look at a default front page for your home instance and ask how enticing it is to a total newbie. There might be some good stuff, but it’s foreign and overwhelming. You feel out of place.

Now imagine if the first Friday of January had been “new subscriber day”. People on Reddit and Bluesky are taking about the fediverse and if it’s any good. And on Lemmy there’s a bunch of posts about finding the best instances and memes about being new on Lemmy. That’s a much more inviting beginner experience, and it makes it more likely for folks to come back the next day.

I really think planning for bursts of new folks is the way to welcome people.

This. Put another way: mammals use our mouths for sensing and manipulating. Note that people naturally use their mouths and noses to kiss and smell babies and pets on places other than their mouths.

If we instinctively use our mouths to kiss things, it’s natural that when two people want to do this at the same time they’re going to both do it to the other person’s mouth.

For what it’s worth, I just asked my sommelier husband, and he independently answered Billiecart-Salmon, Runart, and Krug.

I appreciate the distinction, but open source is always a spectrum, so I think the description is a reasonable application here.

This, 100%.

If I apologize to you, the apology is but the words themselves: it’s the contract I make with you. It’s a memorandum of understanding of how I fucked up and a promise not to do so again.

LLMs can write words, but they cannot understand their actions or make honest promises to modify their behavior. They cannot be accountable in any way. Blaming them is like an actual scapegoat: a blameless things meant to have a debt if sin transferred to it before it’s sacrificed. Expect we’re not even getting the sacrifice.

That’s true. I don’t think it’s generally a problem, but I do find it funny when you see someone politely correct someone else deep in a chain where no one else is reading, and the correction says “0”.

To anyone who downvotes like that: you look like an insecure clown.

Corey Doctorow had a presentation this past week at the C3 hacker conference arguing that all our allies only agreed to be ruled by US tech hegemony in exchange for free trade agreements, and if they want a win-win solution to getting f’d, they should repeal their laws against jailbreaking US tech.

Tech sovereignty is already (finally) an issue the rest of the world is waking up to. I hope they go much farther and faster.

I’m not saying both sides are equally culpable. Obviously Trump, Biden, Obama, and all of their Sec. of State are the primary villain.

You know, I’ve been keeping my mouth shut because I don’t know that much about Venezuela…

But now that Maduro’s VP has expressed a willingness to cooperate with Trump, I think everyone who disputed the claims that Maduro and Chavismo were corrupt has some explaining to do.

I feel like the leftists who supported Chavismo and the right-wingers who backed US intervention should all go out for drinks and commiserate over their foolishness for thinking that they could overlook their allies obvious corruption. Am I wrong?

First, the most honest answer is that it’s a shitty question. This ‘Sophie’s Choice’ promise is inherently designed to disrespect someone. In real life, you just react and try to save both, most likely based on who is a better swimmer, is closer, etc.

But the question between who you prioritize is valid. The answer is subjective, of course, but my advice would be that you prioritize your mother over a casual girlfriend/bf, but you prioritize a finance or spouse over your mother. And this isn’t hard to explain to Mom. I did. I said, “Hey Mom: remember how Dad always put Grandma in front of you because he was such a wimp, and it made you feel absolutely terrible? Well good news: you raised a better man than she did.”

She didn’t love it, but she got it. And she respected it.

It’s pretty wild, because this is genuinely great politics and great policy. It’s weird that folks haven’t realized this and acted on it yet. Fingers crossed.

That’s what I said! Fifteen minutes isn’t far. But it’s no longer close.

About twelve.