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Reposted by Serge Thill

Jennifer Kretchmer

@dreamwisp.bsky.social

Because it feels relevant as we continue to evaluate the media and our representatives’ statements, my favorite way to identify the active vs. passive voice.

A post by Rebecca Johnson:
“I finally learned how to teach my guys to ID the passive voice. If you can insert "by zombies" after the verb, you have passive voice.”

A tumblr respond from mightymur:
“The final, brilliant word on passive voice.
"She was killed [by zombies.]"<--passive
"Zombies killed [by zombies] her." <-- active”

October 7, 2025 at 10:02 PM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

Sadly, it feels like more people than you’d hope can still learn from this. 😉https://www.smbc-comics.com

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Protocol

www.smbc-comics.com

August 1, 2025 at 3:44 PM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

Heh, apparently MS stuff has crashed enough times for macOS to think it appropriate to auto-add the error reporting tool to my dock 😂

Image of the Microsoft Error Reporting tool being auto-added to the macos dock.

June 6, 2025 at 11:01 AM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

Since you all need more animals in your timeline, meet Smokey and Sparkles 😉

black with golden speckles araucana chicken

April 27, 2025 at 3:50 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Satan’s Niece

@krissychula.bsky.social

This is high art

April 6, 2025 at 9:37 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Matt Spike

@matspike.bsky.social

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WELCOME TO HELL, AI INDUSTRY

Nora Belrose
@norabelrose
·
3h
Neural networks don't have "representations"

They have embeddings, or meaningful patterns of neuron activation

They're meaningful in the sense of enabling us to do certain things

Differences that make a difference (to us)

They don't copy, reflect, or re-present the world
Liv
@livgorton
·
1h
what does a "representation" mean here?

April 1, 2025 at 11:56 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

@thebulletin.org

Elon Musk's quest to colonize Mars could upend international cooperation and the establishment of space as a commons—a risk to Earthlings everywhere.

An illustrated essay by @weinersmith.bsky.social and @zachweinersmith.bsky.social, based on their Hugo Award-winning book, "A City on Mars."

Mars Attacks: How Elon Musk's plans to colonize Mars threaten Earth

Elon Musk's quest to colonize Mars could upend international cooperation and the establishment of space as a commons—it's a risk to Earthlings everywhere.

thebulletin.org

March 20, 2025 at 1:12 PM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

Spearheading the attempt at a new record

March 10, 2025 at 8:03 AM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Joachim Vandekerckhove 🏖️

@joachim.cidlab.com

Still from ST:DS9

Gul Dukat: But to this day, is there a single... statue of me on Bajor?

March 3, 2025 at 6:09 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ

@olivia.science

Tired but happy to say this is out w @andreaeyleen.bsky.social: Are Neurocognitive Representations 'Small Cakes'? philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/

We analyse cog neuro theories showing how vicious regress, e.g. the homunculus fallacy, is (sadly) alive and well — and importantly how to avoid it. 1/

In order to understand cognition, we often recruit analogies as building blocks of theories to aid us in this quest. One such attempt, originating in folklore and alchemy, is the homunculus: a miniature human who resides in the skull and performs cognition. Perhaps surprisingly, this appears indistinguishable from the implicit proposal of many neurocognitive theories, including that of the 'cognitive map,' which proposes a representational substrate for episodic memories and navigational capacities. In such 'small cakes' cases, neurocognitive representations are assumed to be meaningful and about the world, though it is wholly unclear who is reading them, how they are interpreted, and how they come to mean what they do. We analyze the 'small cakes' problem in neurocognitive theories (including, but not limited to, the cognitive map) and find that such an approach a) causes infinite regress in the explanatory chain, requiring a human-in-the-loop to resolve, and b) results in a computationally inert account of representation, providing neither a function nor a mechanism. We caution against a 'small cakes' theoretical practice across computational cognitive modelling, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, wherein the scientist inserts their (or other humans') cognition into models because otherwise the models neither perform as advertised, nor mean what they are purported to, without said 'cake insertion.' We argue that the solution is to tease apart explanandum and explanans for a given scientific investigation, with an eye towards avoiding van Rooij's (formal) or Ryle's (informal) infinite regresses.

Figure 1 in https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/

Box 1 in https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/

Box 2 in https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24834/

March 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

And for today’s class, we‘ll talk about calculating forward and inverse kinematics of spring-damper systems vs more traditional motors.

February 21, 2025 at 5:31 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Jelena Brankovic

@jelena3121.bsky.social

resonates.

February 20, 2025 at 12:27 PM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

Hey Meta, friendly reminder.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzy...

February 21, 2025 at 6:53 AM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

Anyone else remember this argument from when it was just kids downloading their favourite movie?

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn’t illegal without proof of seeding

Meta’s copyright defense may hinge on court ignorance of torrenting terminology.

arstechnica.com

February 21, 2025 at 6:52 AM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Donders Institute

@dondersinst.bsky.social

🤝 The Donders Institute, Radboud University, and Maastricht University are joining forces by establishing a platform for research, education and medical applications. The first project to make use of this platform is #Neural #Control: 👉

www.ru.nl/en/donders-i...

Radboud University and Maastricht University collaborate for Neural Control Research | Donders Institute

The Donders Institute, the Radboud University and the Faculties of Psychology and Neuroscience and Health, Medicine and Life Sciences of the Maastricht University are launching an innovative platform ...

www.ru.nl

February 5, 2025 at 2:26 PM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

Not sure how to feel about the fact that Luxembourg's the only thing not getting renamed in this 🤔

Ronald Steenblik @ronsteenblik.bsky.social · Jan 29

Sent by a friend from Zutphen.

Map of the North Sea and surrounding countries, headlined “Make Rotterdam GREAT again!”. The geographical names have all been changed, however. For example, the North Sea is called the “Golf van Rotterdam”.

January 30, 2025 at 11:30 AM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Donders Institute

@dondersinst.bsky.social

🧠 🤝 DI and @nin-knaw.bsky.social have awarded €500,000 to five research projects. The goal of this DI-NIN Fund is to support new and innovative research and to strengthen collaboration: 👉

www.ru.nl/en/donders-i...

DI-NIN funding for five projects | Donders Institute

The Donders Institute and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) have awarded €500,000 from the DI-NIN Fund to five research projects. There were 13 applications, and after a careful review,...

www.ru.nl

January 30, 2025 at 10:50 AM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Donders Institute

@dondersinst.bsky.social

✒️ 🔝 In 2024, the #Donders #Wonders #blog received 94k visits! Every week, our researchers dive into the brain, cognition, and behaviour. Our latest blogs:

🔹 Why do we #dream?
🔹 Does your #zodiac #sign influence your #happiness?

Discover more on www.donderswonders.nl!

January 28, 2025 at 2:19 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Bon Pote

@bonpote.com

Le 20 janvier sera l'occasion d'une grande vague de départs de Twitter. Si vos contacts hésitent à venir sur Bluesky, voici un article synthétique qui explique son fonctionnement et ses différences avec Mastodon, Twitter etc. : bonpote.com/bluesky-enfi...

Bluesky : enfin une vraie alternative à Twitter ?

Bluesky est une alternative à Twitter, construit à l’origine au sein même de l’entreprise Twitter, initié par son cofondateur et PDG

bonpote.com

January 19, 2025 at 7:19 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

Keith Wischmann Wilson

@keithwilson.eu

For a forensic analysis of Truss’s letter, see: davidallengreen.com/2025/01/a-cl... It’s even worse than it seems to be. 😄

A close look at Truss’s legal threat to Starmer – a glorious but seemingly hopeless cease-and-desist letter

9th January 2025 This post is about a “cease-and-desist” letter that has reportedly been sent on behalf of the former Prime Minister Elizabeth Truss to the current Prime Minister Keir Starmer. For …

davidallengreen.com

January 10, 2025 at 6:04 PM

Serge Thill

@thill.bsky.social

How about I just tell you which squares don't have a bus instead?

CAPTCHA asking to mark all squares with a bus. The bus occupies 15 out of 16 squares.

January 9, 2025 at 1:06 PM

Reposted by Serge Thill

McSweeney's

@mcsweeneys.net

"I forgot something important. Something really powerful and kind of beautiful: So many of you—a critical mass of you, possibly a majority of you—are really fucking stupid. And I’ve always loved that about you!"