“hopeless” — Fediverse search results on home.social

(Roughly) Daily @[email protected] · 2026-05-04 · 08:00 UTC

“Something that doesn’t actually exist can still be useful”*…

Gregory Barber on ultrafinitism, a philosophy that rejects the infinite. Ultrafinitism has long been dismissed as mathematical heresy, but it is also producing new insights in math and beyond…

Doron Zeilberger is a mathematician who believes that all things come to an end. That just as we are limited beings, so too does nature have boundaries — and therefore so do numbers. Look out the window, and where others see reality as a continuous expanse, flowing inexorably forward from moment to moment, Zeilberger sees a universe that ticks. It is a discrete machine. In the smooth motion of the world around him, he catches the subtle blur of a flip-book.
To Zeilberger, believing in infinity is like believing in God. It’s an alluring idea that flatters our intuitions and helps us make sense of all sorts of phenomena. But the problem is that we cannot truly observe infinity, and so we cannot truly say what it is. Equations define lines that carry on off the chalkboard, but to where? Proofs are littered with suggestive ellipses. These equations and proofs are, according to Zeilberger — a longtime professor at Rutgers University and a famed figure in combinatorics — both “very ugly” and false. It is “completely nonsense,” he said, huffing out each syllable in a husky voice that seemed worn out from making his point.
As a matter of practicality, infinity can be scrubbed out, he contends. “You don’t really need it.” Mathematicians can construct a form of calculus without infinity, for instance, cutting infinitesimal limits out of the picture entirely. Curves might look smooth, but they hide a fine-grit roughness; computers handle math just fine with a finite allowance of digits. (Zeilberger lists his own computer, which he named “Shalosh B. Ekhad,” as a collaborator on his papers.) With infinity eliminated, the only thing lost is mathematics that was “not worth doing at all,” Zeilberger said.
Most mathematicians would say just the opposite — that it’s Zeilberger who spews complete nonsense. Not just because infinity is so useful and so natural to our descriptions of the universe, but because treating sets of numbers (like the integers) as actual, infinite objects is at the very core of mathematics, embedded in its most fundamental rules and assumptions.
At the very least, even if mathematicians don’t want to think about infinity as an actual entity, they acknowledge that sequences, shapes, and other mathematical objects have the potential to grow indefinitely. Two parallel lines can in theory go on forever; another number can always be added to the end of the number line.
Zeilberger disagrees. To him, what matters is not whether something is possible in principle, but whether it is actually feasible. What this means, in practice, is that not only is infinity suspect, but extremely large numbers are as well. Consider “Skewes’ number,” eee79. This is an exceptionally large number, and no one has ever been able to write it out in decimal form. So what can we really say about it? Is it an integer? Is it prime? Can we find such a number anywhere in nature? Could we ever write it down? Perhaps, then, it is not a number at all.
This raises obvious questions, such as where, exactly, we will find the end point. Zeilberger can’t say. Nobody can. Which is the first reason that many dismiss his philosophy, known as ultrafinitism. “When you first pitch the idea of ultrafinitism to somebody, it sounds like quackery — like ‘I think there’s a largest number’ or something,” said Justin Clarke-Doane, a philosopher at Columbia University.
“A lot of mathematicians just find the whole proposal preposterous,” said Joel David Hamkins, a set theorist at the University of Notre Dame. Ultrafinitism is not polite talk at a mathematical society dinner. Few (one might say an ultrafinite number) work on it. Fewer still are card-carrying members, like Zeilberger, willing to shout their views out into the void. That’s not just because ultrafinitism is contrarian, but because it advocates for a mathematics that is fundamentally smaller, one where certain important questions can no longer be asked.
And yet it gives Hamkins and others a good deal to think about. From one angle, ultrafinitism can be seen as a more realistic mathematics. It is math that better reflects the limits of what people can create and verify; it may even better reflect the physical universe. While we might be inclined to think of space and time as eternally expansive and divisible, the ultrafinitist would argue that these are assumptions that science has increasingly brought into question — much as, Zeilberger might say, science brought doubt to God’s doorstep.
“The world that we’re describing needs to be honest through and through,” said Clarke-Doane, who in April 2025 convened a rare gathering of experts to explore ultrafinitist ideas. “If there might only be finitely many things, then we’d better also be using a math that doesn’t just assume that there are infinitely many things at the get-go.” To him, “it sure seems like that should be part of the menu in the philosophy of math.”
For mathematicians to take it seriously, though, ultrafinitists first need to agree on what they’re talking about — to turn arguments that sound like “bluster,” as Hamkins puts it, into an official theory. Mathematics is steeped in formal systems and common frameworks. Ultrafinitism, meanwhile, lacks such structure.
It is one thing to tackle problems piecemeal. It is quite another to rewrite the logical foundations of mathematics itself. “I don’t think the reason ultrafinitism has been dismissed is that people have good arguments against it,” Clarke-Doane said. “The feeling is that, oh, well, it’s hopeless.”
That’s a problem that some ultrafinitists are still trying to address.
Zeilberger, meanwhile, is prepared to abandon mathematical ideals in favor of a mathematics that’s inherently messy — just like the world is. He is less a man of foundational theories than a man of opinions, of which he lists 195 on his website. “I cannot be a tenured professor without doing this crackpot stuff,” he said. But one day, he added, mathematicians will look back and see that this crackpot, like those of yore who questioned gods and superstitions, was right. “Luckily, heretics are no longer burned at the stake.”…

Read on for the history of ultrafinitism, the critical dialogue surrounding it, and its implications: “What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?” from @gregbarber.bsky.social in @quantamagazine.bsky.social.

* Ian Stewart (whose point was somewhat different from Zeilberger’s :-), Infinity: A Very Short Introduction

###

As we engage the endless, we might spare a thought for a man whose work touched on the infinitesimal, Isaac Barrow; he died on this date in 1677. A theologian and mathematician, he played a key role in the development of infinitesimal calculus (in particular, for a proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus). Barrow was the inaugural holder of the prestigious Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post later held by his student, Isaac Newton (who, of course, shares primary credit for the development of calculus with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz).

source

#calculus #culture #DoronZeilberger #GregoryBarber #history #infinitesimalCalculus #infinity #IsaacBarrow #IsaacNewton #Leibniz #Mathematics #philosophy #Science #ultrafinitism

#ultrafinitism #science #philosophy #mathematics #leibniz #isaacnewton

(Roughly) Daily @[email protected] · 2026-05-04 · 08:00 UTC

“Something that doesn’t actually exist can still be useful”*…

Gregory Barber on ultrafinitism, a philosophy that rejects the infinite. Ultrafinitism has long been dismissed as mathematical heresy, but it is also producing new insights in math and beyond…

Doron Zeilberger is a mathematician who believes that all things come to an end. That just as we are limited beings, so too does nature have boundaries — and therefore so do numbers. Look out the window, and where others see reality as a continuous expanse, flowing inexorably forward from moment to moment, Zeilberger sees a universe that ticks. It is a discrete machine. In the smooth motion of the world around him, he catches the subtle blur of a flip-book.
To Zeilberger, believing in infinity is like believing in God. It’s an alluring idea that flatters our intuitions and helps us make sense of all sorts of phenomena. But the problem is that we cannot truly observe infinity, and so we cannot truly say what it is. Equations define lines that carry on off the chalkboard, but to where? Proofs are littered with suggestive ellipses. These equations and proofs are, according to Zeilberger — a longtime professor at Rutgers University and a famed figure in combinatorics — both “very ugly” and false. It is “completely nonsense,” he said, huffing out each syllable in a husky voice that seemed worn out from making his point.
As a matter of practicality, infinity can be scrubbed out, he contends. “You don’t really need it.” Mathematicians can construct a form of calculus without infinity, for instance, cutting infinitesimal limits out of the picture entirely. Curves might look smooth, but they hide a fine-grit roughness; computers handle math just fine with a finite allowance of digits. (Zeilberger lists his own computer, which he named “Shalosh B. Ekhad,” as a collaborator on his papers.) With infinity eliminated, the only thing lost is mathematics that was “not worth doing at all,” Zeilberger said.
Most mathematicians would say just the opposite — that it’s Zeilberger who spews complete nonsense. Not just because infinity is so useful and so natural to our descriptions of the universe, but because treating sets of numbers (like the integers) as actual, infinite objects is at the very core of mathematics, embedded in its most fundamental rules and assumptions.
At the very least, even if mathematicians don’t want to think about infinity as an actual entity, they acknowledge that sequences, shapes, and other mathematical objects have the potential to grow indefinitely. Two parallel lines can in theory go on forever; another number can always be added to the end of the number line.
Zeilberger disagrees. To him, what matters is not whether something is possible in principle, but whether it is actually feasible. What this means, in practice, is that not only is infinity suspect, but extremely large numbers are as well. Consider “Skewes’ number,” eee79. This is an exceptionally large number, and no one has ever been able to write it out in decimal form. So what can we really say about it? Is it an integer? Is it prime? Can we find such a number anywhere in nature? Could we ever write it down? Perhaps, then, it is not a number at all.
This raises obvious questions, such as where, exactly, we will find the end point. Zeilberger can’t say. Nobody can. Which is the first reason that many dismiss his philosophy, known as ultrafinitism. “When you first pitch the idea of ultrafinitism to somebody, it sounds like quackery — like ‘I think there’s a largest number’ or something,” said Justin Clarke-Doane, a philosopher at Columbia University.
“A lot of mathematicians just find the whole proposal preposterous,” said Joel David Hamkins, a set theorist at the University of Notre Dame. Ultrafinitism is not polite talk at a mathematical society dinner. Few (one might say an ultrafinite number) work on it. Fewer still are card-carrying members, like Zeilberger, willing to shout their views out into the void. That’s not just because ultrafinitism is contrarian, but because it advocates for a mathematics that is fundamentally smaller, one where certain important questions can no longer be asked.
And yet it gives Hamkins and others a good deal to think about. From one angle, ultrafinitism can be seen as a more realistic mathematics. It is math that better reflects the limits of what people can create and verify; it may even better reflect the physical universe. While we might be inclined to think of space and time as eternally expansive and divisible, the ultrafinitist would argue that these are assumptions that science has increasingly brought into question — much as, Zeilberger might say, science brought doubt to God’s doorstep.
“The world that we’re describing needs to be honest through and through,” said Clarke-Doane, who in April 2025 convened a rare gathering of experts to explore ultrafinitist ideas. “If there might only be finitely many things, then we’d better also be using a math that doesn’t just assume that there are infinitely many things at the get-go.” To him, “it sure seems like that should be part of the menu in the philosophy of math.”
For mathematicians to take it seriously, though, ultrafinitists first need to agree on what they’re talking about — to turn arguments that sound like “bluster,” as Hamkins puts it, into an official theory. Mathematics is steeped in formal systems and common frameworks. Ultrafinitism, meanwhile, lacks such structure.
It is one thing to tackle problems piecemeal. It is quite another to rewrite the logical foundations of mathematics itself. “I don’t think the reason ultrafinitism has been dismissed is that people have good arguments against it,” Clarke-Doane said. “The feeling is that, oh, well, it’s hopeless.”
That’s a problem that some ultrafinitists are still trying to address.
Zeilberger, meanwhile, is prepared to abandon mathematical ideals in favor of a mathematics that’s inherently messy — just like the world is. He is less a man of foundational theories than a man of opinions, of which he lists 195 on his website. “I cannot be a tenured professor without doing this crackpot stuff,” he said. But one day, he added, mathematicians will look back and see that this crackpot, like those of yore who questioned gods and superstitions, was right. “Luckily, heretics are no longer burned at the stake.”…

Read on for the history of ultrafinitism, the critical dialogue surrounding it, and its implications: “What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?” from @gregbarber.bsky.social in @quantamagazine.bsky.social.

* Ian Stewart (whose point was somewhat different from Zeilberger’s :-), Infinity: A Very Short Introduction

###

As we engage the endless, we might spare a thought for a man whose work touched on the infinitesimal, Isaac Barrow; he died on this date in 1677. A theologian and mathematician, he played a key role in the development of infinitesimal calculus (in particular, for a proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus). Barrow was the inaugural holder of the prestigious Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post later held by his student, Isaac Newton (who, of course, shares primary credit for the development of calculus with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz).

source

#calculus #culture #DoronZeilberger #finite #GregoryBarber #history #infinite #infinitesimalCalculus #infinity #IsaacBarrow #IsaacNewton #Leibniz #Mathematics #philosophy #Science #ultrafinitism

#calculus #culture #doronzeilberger #gregorybarber #history #infinitesimalcalculus

tjhowse @[email protected] · 2026-02-07 · 06:19 UTC

Kennards Hire you are out of your fucking minds.

d MMM YYYY format on the booking form.

YYYY-DD-MM format on the confirmation email.

I got the confirmation email and logged back in to fix the hire booking, since I assumed I'd somehow accidentally booked it for August.

Also their booking form doesn't support Firefox. Hopeless.

#iso8601

Carter @[email protected] · 2025-09-12 · 00:04 UTC

Hey everyone! I’m so excited to announce my brand new chapbook with Bottlecap Press! I’ve been working very hard on this for the past few months, and it’s finally here to share with you all!

SLT SHKR is an exploration of the memories that build the spirit, the life animating the body, and the fire inside the soul. It is a reflection of the ways we are bound to each other and a means of survival in daily fresh starts.

I’m so proud of this work, and I’m so proud to share it with you. You can purchase it today at https://bottlecap.press/products/sltsch

[ID: First image is blue crystalline book cover with white text for SLT SHKR by Carter Hemion on blue background with stars. Second image is poetry excerpt of "Last Stand" which reads: Blood pools in the sacred hourglass, / Salty sands dripping allegro con fuoco / (Consciousness fading just as quickly) / Knees knock locked in a deadly stance. / Fighting hopelessly, thighs quiver, / Last stand before worshipping dirt / (One stoned hit was all it took) / And all credit for walking was a ruse. End image description.]

#bottlecappress #amwriting #book #books #writing #smallpress #chapbook #chapbooks #independent #diy #zine #zines #bookstagram #books #poetrycommunity #poem #poems #poetrygram #poetrycollection #writerscommunity #writingcommunity #newbooks #bookclub

#bottlecappress #amwriting #book #books #writing #smallpress

IndieAuthors.Social News @[email protected] · 2025-09-16 · 20:33 UTC

Successful Queries: Melanie Iglesias and “Hopelessly Teavoted,” by Audrey Goldberg Ruoff

Find Audrey Goldberg Ruoff's query letter for Hopelessly Teavoted, as well as thoughts from editor Melanie Iglesias.
https://www.writersdigest.com/successful-query-melanie-iglesias-and-hopelessly-teavoted-by-audrey-goldberg-ruoff

#GetPublished #WriteMyQuery #FantasyRomance #query #queryletter
@indieauthors

#getpublished #writemyquery #fantasyromance #query #queryletter

G.I. Robot :bc: @[email protected] · 2025-02-06 · 18:20 UTC

To save my sanity, my firefox starts up with these tabs now:

https://reasonstobecheerful.world/
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
https://www.positive.news/
https://fixthenews.com/
https://theprogressplaybook.com/
https://www.boringreport.org/app

Firefox instructions:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-set-the-home-page

Chrome instructions:
https://robots.net/software-and-applications/browsers-and-extensions/how-to-make-chrome-open-multiple-tabs-on-startup/

#goodnews #depression #anxiety #hopelessness #hope #peace #solace #positive #news #uspol #uspolitics

#goodnews #depression #anxiety #hopelessness #hope #peace

Konaburd @[email protected] · 2023-08-21 · 06:24 UTC

Here is this week's schedule!!! I can't wait to play Baldur's Gate so I am gonna try to get two in before I go on VACATION for a couple of weeks!!!

Also this week for Throwback Thursday we'll be playing Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape up or Slip out! Leisure Suit Larry is a point and click adventure game series by Sierra Software, where you follow the story of a middle-aged hopeless (and I mean HOPELESS) romantic by the name of Larry Laffer, and try to help him get laid! I will probably be doing this one for the foreseeable future for Throwback Thursday until I beat it, so I hope you guys will enjoy!!

See you tomorrow for Baldur's Gate 3! :KonaJam: :KonaJam: :KonaJam:

#bird #birdfurry #streaming #vtuber #envtuber #twitch #streamschedule

#bird #birdfurry #streaming #vtuber #envtuber #twitch

Blake Patterson @[email protected] · 2024-01-05 · 15:48 UTC

What the hell, is nothing sacred?!

Fruit Stripe Gum has been discontinued.

https://www.oldtimecandy.com/collections/walk-the-candy-aisle-fruit-stripe-gum

#hasItComeToThis #gum #candy #FAIL #lostdreams #hopelessness #nostalgia #endOfDays #2024 #news

#hasitcometothis #gum #candy #fail #lostdreams #hopelessness

Maddies Manga @[email protected] · 2026-04-16 · 20:17 UTC

Fool Night / フールナイト, Volume One Manga Review

In a world where a lack of sunlight has caused plants to cease to grow naturally, science has evolved to the point that doctors can now use humans as vegetation incubators. Kamiya, living in such a bleak world, is forced to make a difficult decision.

You can check out volume one of this series for yourself below!

English Sample (VIZ) Japanese Sample (Big Comics)

Author

This series was written by Kasumi Yasuda.

Genre & Tropes

Plant horror, fantasy, drama.

Info about this series (ongoing)

There are currently 12 volumes in Japanese, and eight in English.

TL;DR rating

I’m very happy that I went into this volume almost completely blind. I had no expectations, so I was blown away by every twist and turn the story took!

Official Synopsis

The earth of the distant future is covered in thick clouds, and the sun no longer shines. Plants wither, and oxygen is thin. To fight extinction, humankind has developed a technology that turns humans into plants, providing a small amount of oxygen. Is this process sustainable? Is it ethical? Toshiro Kamiya must consider these questions as he’s faced with a difficult choice—save his family or save himself.
Kamiya is at the end of his rope. His mother is ill, and his job barely pays for her medication, much less food. With few options left, he considers the life-changing process of transfloration. Ready to give his body up for a payday, Kamiya is about to explore the limits of society’s waning humanity.

My thoughts on this volume (Spoilers!)

This volume was a rather dark, twisted one, I say lovingly. The story is set in a world that is shrouded in darkness, where the inhabitants have began to change for the worse. Putting aside the fact that some people have been turned into plants and plant incubators, it feels like a good majority of the characters we see in this volume have lost their will to live normal lives. We see abusive fathers, hopeless factory workers, and mental health patients with nowhere to go.

This setting feels eerily realistic, as I can only imagine how hopeless the world would feel should the sunlight one day go out forever. After all, I get almost depressed at the thought of my city being covered in snow for half the year… I could only imagine how hard it would be to live somewhere that’s cold and dark all of the time. I am a bit curious to see more of the world building, as it seems like factory work is one of the main jobs that people are able to do now—did the natural disaster cause some sort of war to break out? Or, did the government put all the money into building resources to aid the scientists and doctors who are implanting seeds into humans?

This volume follows a rather hopeless boy—a high school dropout named Kamiya. After a sequence of bad events happen to him, he sees no choice but to request to have a seed planted in him. This process is typically one only granted to those who are otherwise about to die. There is a rather large payout, and the recipients are free to live the rest of their lives doing whatever they want, spending their earnings however they see fit… for about three years. That’s about how long it takes for the plant to fully sprout and take over its human hosts body. Once the plants take over, it’s unknown whether the human inside is still alive or not. On top of that, it’s unknown whether they still have a conscious should they still be alive. So for someone to choose to undergo this procedure… they would have to be completely out of options.

Just because the procedure is typically only given to those that are about to die, doesn’t mean that there’s no way to rig the system, and Kamiya does just that. After going through the process, he gains the unique ability to be able to somewhat understand what the other plants / plant-people are saying—something unheard of until now. What’s a main character of a horror novel without an interesting supernatural power, right?

While I did find it to be a tiny bit cliche that our main character is the one “special” person in this world, I did really enjoy him! He’s a rather moody, calls it like he sees it character. While he technically works for the government, the doesn’t stop him from doing whatever he wants, within reason of course. I really liked that he didn’t let his new circumstances stop him from following his whims! As he lives such an unfortunate life, I can only hope that he can live the rest of it doing new and interesting things.

Lastly, I can’t end this review without talking about the art for a second. In any body horror series, for me, the artstyle is imperative. I would actually say that the art and plot are on par. If it’s difficult to understand what’s happening to a character—i.e. if the art is too abstract—I can’t appreciate it. If it’s constantly overly detailed, my brain can’t decide where to focus. The art in Fool Night does a wonderful job of knowing when to be more detailed, and when to be more simplistic. The author seems to always take the time to make sure the plants are drawn with great detail, but they oftentimes leave their non-plant backgrounds more simplistic. Even when there’s not necessarily anything scary happening, there is always at least a subtle focus on the plants.

While the body horror in this volume is rather minimal, it is still indeed there. Because it’s so minimal, the few times that there are more slightly grotesque panels, they really stand out.

I can’t wait to see where the story goes from here!

#bookReview #bookReviews #books #fiction #Horror #manga #mangaRecommendation #mangaReview #Review #reviews #writing

#bookreview #bookreviews #books #fiction #horror #manga

JL Johnson :veri_mast: @[email protected] · 2026-01-23 · 19:08 UTC

This quote is one I encountered while attending the Missouri Department of Conservation Partners Roundtable.

It resonated with me, even though it's quite grim. And it's helpful that it's from the 1940s and the battles are largely not lost.

"That the situation appears hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best." - Aldo Leopold.

Seems applicable across far more than #conservation and #naturalist stuff. #quote #quotes

(2/2)

#conservation #naturalist #quote #quotes

Anarchism News @[email protected] · 2026-04-17 · 09:56 UTC

Rose City Counter-Info: **A message to Day Wireless**

https://rosecitycounterinfo.noblogs.org/2026/04/a-message-to-day-wireless/

It is easy to feel helpless in the face of what is happening around us and allow ourselves to sink into despair and inaction. In trying to find some way out of the hopelessness, we found some of the work had already been done and a lot of people are collecting info on who is … Continue reading "A message to Day Wireless"

#Allposts

#allposts

two @[email protected] · 2024-12-03 · 09:29 UTC

so i recently had this horrible problem with the backup software i'm using where it would find a seemingly unlimited quantity of files in my downloads folder - the number would just keep going up the longer it looked, and after some hours it reported to have uploaded 5,165,681 files (or 30,549.48 GB) from my 500GB SSD, with 306,750,319 files (38,332.45 GB) left to go, all the while it filled that drive with its own database. I assumed this to be a bug in the software, because the alternative, being that I had somehow downloaded the Navidson house, seemed implausible.

Until, after significant debugging efforts, I found a folder in my downloads helpfully titled "uhh" that appeared to contain... itself. Attempting to delete it caused Windows Explorer to try to recycle over 30,000 files and then crash. It also had some other weird, kind of broken folders within it, with names that imply some sort of puzzle. And then I remembered watching some youtube video, years ago, talking about this Windows bug or something you could exploit with the command prompt to make infinitely nested folders and extremely hidden files. I fear that I did this on purpose. WinDirStat is somehow able to show me that beyond the infinite nested folder loop, if I was able to get to the bottom of the well and open what I guess is the ωth folder, there is in fact a file called "here.txt". I now have two goals: delete the folder, but get the text file out of it first.

Unfortunately I am utterly hopeless to find the original youtube video, but after much googling of similar issues, I have the puzzle solution: prefixing a full file path with \\?\ or \\.\ in cmd allows you to work with illegal pathnames. A file or folder with a name ending in a space causes all sorts of weird problems, and naming a folder ... creates the infinite loop I was seeing. I finally deleted the labryinth and got here.txt out of it; the contents of the file are as follows:

There's nothing here.

No secrets.

No mystery.

Just this text file.

Go look somewhere else. You'll just be wasting time here!

Oh well. Did you at least have fun on the journey? It's a lot harder on windows computers, I'll say!

Fuck you, past me. That took me a day.

(I guess in hindsight it was kinda fun though...)

#windows #houseofleaves

#0000ff #windows #houseofleaves

Jonathan Hartley's old account @[email protected] · 2024-02-09 · 20:18 UTC

I'm on a new project at work to create, store, and programmatically analyze datacenter building plans, eg. Calculating lengths of cable runs. I used to work in #gis, and remember just enough to know that all my approaches are hopelessly naive. Are #shapefiles still a viable option for low-ceremony vendor neutral structured #spatial analysis? (Probably from Python) cc. @sgillies

#gis #shapefiles #spatial

Gerardo Lisboa @[email protected] · 2022-12-26 · 14:08 UTC

@HopelessDemigod PuTTy would help you https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html

#OpenSourceEverywhere

#opensourceeverywhere

Stuart Longland (VK4MSL) @[email protected] · 2024-09-08 · 06:13 UTC

@HopelessDemigod @kb9ens

It works, a bit quieter on there than #20m… but I find I regularly get reliable propagation between #VK4 and #VK7… I also noticed during the #JASTA contest last month, there was intermittent propagation between VK4 and #Japan on #15m.

My antenna is utterly shite for DX, so getting anything remotely distant is a surprise.

https://static.vk4msl.com/sstv/ shows the activity I've received (I should move that to a more permanent home).

#20m #vk4 #vk7 #jasta #japan #15m

PhoenixSerenity @[email protected] · 2023-03-19 · 19:59 UTC

A #report released Tuesday by The #Chinese #Canadian #NationalCouncil #Toronto Chapter ( #CCNCTO ) & #UniversityOfToronto found that of the 31 participants who took part in their February 2022 #study , a majority reported feeling #WuNai — a Chinese word that means #hopelessness & #helplessness — in the face of prevalent #AntiAsianHate which ranges from #overt #racism to #microaggressions , whether before or during the #pandemic .

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6779764

#AsianMastodon #AntiAsianRacism #Canada

#report #chinese #canadian #nationalcouncil #toronto #ccncto

Pierre Huyghebaert @[email protected] · 2025-04-28 · 07:28 UTC

"We now leave #navigation to our #phones. The result: more of us are getting hopelessly lost." #JohnHarris
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/27/smartphone-apps-gps-mountain-rescues-rise
"#GPS has cut us off from a basic human skill. It’s no wonder #mountain #rescuers are being called out so often. [...] Between 2019 and 2024, the total number of #rescues had increased by 24%, and there was a marked jump among the 18 to 24 age group, among whom callouts almost doubled. [...] across #Britain, there is evidently a mounting problem about the gap between people’s urge to experience wild and open spaces, and their ability to cope when they actually get there. [...] research suggesting that “people with greater lifetime GPS experience have worse #spatialmemory during self-guided navigation”. [...] retested 3 years after the initial research, when they found that “greater GPS use since initial testing was associated with a steeper decline in hippocampal-dependent spatial memory”. The #hippocampus is the part of the brain that deals with navigation: among London taxi drivers, the need to memorise so many geographical details was found to cause it to increase in size. But here were findings that suggested the opposite: reliance on automated #directions reducing people’s capacity to navigate for themselves." #cartography
Thx #SophieBerrebi

#navigation #phones #johnharris #gps #mountain #rescuers

Phillipp Helbig (he/him) @[email protected] · 2025-11-09 · 08:29 UTC

@HonkHase
Was ist denn #Vost ?

Wie schön dass jemand an einer Lösung arbeitet.

#vost

allrite rites @[email protected] · 2024-08-24 · 11:53 UTC

Welcome to Berk.

No, not the small town in western New South Wales where the summer temperature always seems to be above 40.

That’s Bourke.

Berk is “12 days north of Hopeless and a few degrees short of freezing to death. Most places only have mice or mosquitoes. We have… Dragons!”

We certainly do! We also have the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor, you guessed it, Maestro Nicholas Buc.

It’s How to Train Your Dragon and it’s in concert at the Sydney Opera House.

I have to admit that I’d never seen the movie before, despite it being in our movie library. But teenage Alex has. What’s more, he has songs from John Powell’s score in his mostly non-orchestral playlist, so How to Train Your Dragon in Concert is a great opportunity to bring the whole family along again.

English composer John Powell has written music for a number of other animated features, including Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and the Australian made Happy Feet series, along with the live action Jason Bourne movies and my favourite, Solo: A Star Wars Story.

The Opera House’s concert hall is absolutely packed for the sold out Saturday matinee performance. How to Train Your Dragon is a huge family favourite and there are many parents and children in the audience. We sit six rows back from the stage, dead centre, with excellent views of the conductor and strings (Hey Nick, look down, you might see a familiar face!). Behind the orchestra, larger than usual with a much expanded percussion section, is the big screen which will show the movie as the orchestra plays.

A roar goes up as the Universal logo and fanfare is played and we enter the animated world of vikings and dragons and an action packed overture introduces the leitmotifs for the main characters, including a love theme for Astrid, protagonist Hiccup’s love interest, and the dragons themselves.

The music is loud, it’s brash, full of string ostinatos, wood winds, synthesised choir and bagpipes played at a furious pace as the action unfolds on the screen. But there are tender moments too. Forbidden Friendship, where Hiccup befriends Toothless, the fearsome Night Fury dragon, is a gorgeous, playful piece with marimba, harp and percussion that brought a tear to my eye with its beauty.

Then we have the soaring Test Drive, the signature music for the movie, as Hiccup and Toothless take to the skies together.

The score also invokes some Celtic fiddle with the associate concertmaster, Harry Bennetts, providing the spirited solos, his delight obvious in the performance.

After a tough past few weeks at work and school, this is the perfect movie and the perfect score for weekend enjoyment. Easy to watch and listen to, but with enough depth to keep you interested and emotionally involved.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra does stunning job of performing the score, the sound is rich and full, and Maestro Buc his usual sterling work keeping them to time and sharing the music with the audience. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the Sydney audience applaud as loudly as they did today, but it was richly deserved.

The people of Berk may be tasteless, but the people of Sydney weren’t and today they too had dragons.

https://allrite.blog/2024/08/24/how-to-train-your-dragon-in-concert/

#FilmMusic #JohnPowell #Movies #SydneyOperaHouse #SydneySymphonyOrchestra

#filmmusic #johnpowell #movies #sydneyoperahouse #sydneysymphonyorchestra