"Mundane Halloween" returns! It's that time of year again, when Japanese website デイリーポータルZ holds its annual contest to dress up as something super ordinary. Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2024 contest!

One day, our Sun will become a dense, planet-sized object called a white dwarf. 🤏☀️ To better understand what the future holds for our solar system, scientists are studying other white dwarf systems in the universe. And you can help! Get started: zooniverse.org/projects/exoas…

I guess she got remarried

Scary Credit: TwistedDoodles

Halloween's over

As OpenAI and Meta introduce LLM-driven searchbots, I'd like to once again remind people that neither LLMs nor chatbots are good technology for information access. A thread, with links: >>

We need to drop proxy benefits as a reason for justifying these degrees. It's fucking literature. The fundamental human innovation that keeps us from resetting to the Stone Age every generation. It's the scaffold of civilisation as we know it. Inherently moronic to cut it.

once again, really urging people to get a library card if you haven't already - and not just that, i'm begging you to USE your library resources. show up. though they're important, we do way more than just books. libraries are spaces that allow community building and care.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2412.00176

Paperback copies of ‘Our Accidental Universe’ arrived! The mistake on p174 is corrected! They look great.

oh dear this is one of the most sinister things I have ever seen in my life

On stage in ten minutes for a Gresham College lecture closer to home than usual: ‘Touching the Sun’ youtube.com/live/f_PuYQl8J…

W-WATI: Tell us about your experiences of wellbeing in the workplace! horizon.ac.uk/w-wati-tell-us…

Visual Artists and Art Lovers! We are looking for opinions on how AI is used in art and we'd love to hear from you: app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/nottingham/a… This survey is entirely anonymous and should take around 20 minutes. #AI #Art #GenerativeAI #artists

Microsoft study finds AI makes human cognition “atrophied and unprepared” 🔗 404media.co/microsoft-stud…

"have you been to space?" gayle, i'm trying to live no more than a 5 min walk from a grocery store

Sadly, some people have a really hard time figuring this out.

This is called extortion Mr. Mugshot. You bigoted POS!

The world map drawn with just aircraft icons.

fucking along