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scifly.bsky.social
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@scifly.bsky.social
16 followers 70 following 9 posts
I lied to get here.
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scifly.bsky.social
@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

In universe op-ed by David Brooks in the new Marvel movie.
May 4, 2025 at 5:23 PM
scifly.bsky.social
@ctrlcreep.bsky.social

#InvisibleNetworks
0. Tragedy of the Uncommons.
April 2, 2025 at 3:37 AM
Reposted by 7
an-alexa-k.bsky.social
Invisible Networks Day 0: Novelty #InvisibleNetworks
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. How can we help? How can we not just provide novelty but actively encourage it’s creation? (A square labelled "All Possible Culture") Imagine all possible culture as a 2 dimensional space. (Of course this is a simplification - we now believe the space of all possible cultures to have between three and four thousand dimensions). Within this space there is an area covering all currently extant cultural forms, and larger one for all historical forms. (A large circle in the square labeled "All Historical Culture" and a smaller circle inside the first circle labelled "All Current Culture." Dots in the second circle have arrows pointing them towards the borders.) By recommending more obscure content to users, we can push them into the long tail and towards the borders of cultural area. But attempts to produce new culture purely through recommendations have largely failed. We believe the novel cannot be produced alone. Instead, groups of 2-7 are drafted as cultural vanguards. They are put into contact and their most novel impulses encouraged. (The same diagram with a clustering of overlapping dots around the circle and in the square at large) Once established, these groups encourage each other and drive themselves further into the new. The culture they create can then be fed back into the network at large, providing users with the novelty they desire. There are risks. Take group b1ad84e8-559c-4198-8ce1-b7f6d96b6c46 (circled) and a typical item created by a member of the group. (The cluster to the farthest left is circled, with red lines leading from it to an image of orange static with five diagonal lines on it.) It is too novel. It is useless to us. After four years cultural vanguardism, they are producing content that which the larger network simply has no context for. Attempts to guide them back towards the cultural core have failed. They may be lost forever.
April 1, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by 7
erikhoffner.bsky.social
At @mongabay.bsky.social we published a related piece about how even some rare aquatic creatures rely on managed fire to survive, an interesting and unexpected finding:
Counterintuitive conservation: Fire boosts aquatic crustaceans in U.S. savannas
As a field biologist, Keith Perchemlides has often watched flames dance around tiny ponds that mark the remains of a vast wetland that once covered a large part of southwestern Oregon’s Rogue River ...
news.mongabay.com
February 6, 2024 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by 7
scifri.bsky.social
Chances are you don’t give much thought to seaweed. But the thousands of seaweed species around the world are a key part of our coastal ecosystems.

Dr. John Bothwell joins us to talk about the importance of seaweeds to the global ecosystem.

www.sciencefriday.com/segments/sea...
The Unseen World Of Seaweeds
A new book celebrates the beautiful and underappreciated seaweeds shaping coastlines around the world.
www.sciencefriday.com
December 22, 2023 at 8:41 PM
scifly.bsky.social
I had a dream were Jesus was doing the "he who is without sin cast the first stone" speech but he also said "let he who is without hate swing the stick" and a guy from the crowd appeared with a stick and without a word began savagely beating the women and Jesus had a shocked look on his face.
November 26, 2023 at 5:53 PM
scifly.bsky.social
The cyber knife is a laser they put up your butt, just to be clear
November 19, 2023 at 11:24 PM
scifly.bsky.social
This was a mistake.
November 19, 2023 at 11:16 PM