For those that also didn't know what skeumorphism is, via wikipedia:

a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were necessary in the original.[3] Skeuomorphs are typically used to make something new feel familiar in an effort to speed understanding and acclimation. They employ elements that, while essential to the original object, serve no pragmatic purpose in the new system, except for identification. Examples include pottery embellished with imitation rivets reminiscent of similar pots made of metal and a software calendar that imitates the appearance of binding on a paper desk calendar.

So, you know, familiarity.

Because the payment is from the journal, not the authors. Likewise reviewers are anonymous for peer review, specifically to avoid such potential conflicts. So 'pay for positive review' isn't an option. Peer review is actually a well worked out system, go figure.

"Eh, that's okay. It's not like it's your computer anyway." [presumed all companies now]

To add on in agreement, key to the 'Trump followers pleading with Musk to take a second look' is not that damage is being done to the government, it's (to quote thehill article):

"There are good people, people that voted for Donald Trump, who are losing their job," Levi said."

Unfortunately it's not 'things are off the rails', it's back to 'wait, I didn't think this would also affect our side too'.

I gave a tutorial, an AI notetaking/summarizing tool then produced an "Engagement" metric, with a low 30%. It did not say how this was produced, only hints in their FAQ. Basis included # of cameras turned on, % of eyes watching screen versus off-screen, and # people talking.

There were 50+ people but for the tutorial only 3 had cameras on: me, the moderator (frequently looking off-screen) and a Guy. So if the Guy looked away, that plunged the "Engagement" metric. Plus that it was a Tutorial (95% me speaking) and *poof* low engagement.

My fear is management will latch onto these undocumented AI-generated Metrics and use them in performance evaluations. "Get your scores up, A., 30% is terrible!" But it's not a real measure!

The main change in AI coding for me, is my next job will probably be repairing/re-doing other people's AI-generated code after it inevitably fails. I've used ChatGPT 4o to make code and agree with the folks saying it's like a quick google to stack overflow, with all the same concerns on whether it picked the right answer (out of many) or not.

AI makes simple yet catastrophic errors, for example it coded an API call as 'meta, data = ...' instead of the actual API of 'data, meta = ...'. You think someone that doesn't know that API will verify that or catch that? It's not the kind of error a coder or a cut-and-paster would make, it's a hard-to-spot bug that simply means headaches (and employment) for coders in the future.

Thanks, AI, for future job security?

The problem with the 'we are in a simulation' is that, of all the eras to mimic, why the 2020s? Is this really the best the VR writers could come up with? There are so many more interesting decades to loop us over.

Bonus points if the simulation was as we imagined things, not as they were. Why not put us into Bridgerton? Or the SCA's version of medieval? If we have to stick to history, why not loop over the dot-com era?

If you go with the matrix idea of utopias made the captives unsatisfied and such, there's still a much wider choice than the current rise of fascism etc. Unless the current negatitivity is the intentional backplot for a really interesting culminating storyline. Still, if this is a simulation, they need to fire the writers and start over.

Clearly they lack a sense of irony. These loan-laden self-deemed leaders "convened a private dinner in Las Vegas ... Over rib-eyes and chicken piccata at Scarpetta ... the group brainstormed strategies to weather the slump"

A rather flawed idea that 15 rivals are really going to tell each other their solutions. I guess 'spend less, do actual work' wasn't on a topic that evening. Call this 'expensive dinners that could have been a Slack'.

A professor told me he would post technically correct but overly compex solutions to his own homework problems on Chegg. If a Physics 100 student solved an F=ma problem using his Lagrange equivalent answer, he knew they'd cut-and-pasted. Hard to do in ML, which is more likely to hallucinate a wrong answer than to provide a ridiculous yet correct one.

Wait, "citizen shot by officer" counts as a critical incident sufficient to let robots apply deadly force? So basically the first shot is free ('I felt threatened and in fear of my life!'), the rest is up to the robots to mop up. RoboCop was optimistic.

> Our state spends about $8900 a kid a year and our average classroom size is 29. $8900 x 29 = $258,100 per classroom.

That seems like $260K per cadre, not per class. Each kid has 6-8 classes. Each teacher probably has 4 classes/day. So now we're at $130K per 'classroom' aka per teacher + overhead. Salary.com says avg Alabama high school teacher salary is $58K. Multiply by 2x to cover benefits/admin/overhead and that's $116K, about a match.

Certainly not enough to provide higher teacher pay, more non-class school support, improvements to infrastructure, tech, etc. Definitely not enough to reduce class sizes by 50%.

Other fun fact: the military tends to provide 1 leader per ~10 soldiers (squad is 8-12). So teachers-- leading a group of untrained kids-- are at 3x the amount the army recommends for leading highly trained and disciplined forces.

Things not to say to the DART team: "Sorry your spacecraft crashed", "So, what's the spacecraft going to do next?" and "So this asteroid is moseying along, minding it's own business, and you did WHAT?"

The current one can be called the Colaninno Minimum. "Around 2006, solar physicist Robin Colaninno described the current minima as both extended and unusual, both similar to the Maunder Minimum (in that it's longer than usual in the Cycle) but also being quite different (in that it won't be the exact same length, nor have the same climate effect)." http://www.science20.com/daytime_astronomer/sunspots_colaninno_minimum_and_pascals_wager

Meteorite fragments! Thought-provoking, and under $20. I love walking into a classroom, putting one in a kid's hands to pass around, and asking them what they think it is. That they are common blows their minds. At the risk of mentioning my own column, I go into in depth here: http://www.science20.com/daytime_astronomer/gifts_sky

Nintendo is releasing the DSi 3D next year, and people say they aren't innovating? I think they're smart. A new console, a new gameboy, a new console, a new gameboy. So we're always buying a new Nintendo thing but we don't feel overtapped, or like we have to choose between which to get.