Do you love Battlebots? Want to try competing yourself? Come compete in the 3d printed 1 lb antweight combat robot tournament at this year's Rocky Mountain Rep Rap Festival May 17-18 in Loveland, CO! I'll be there - it'll be a blast. Also, there are prizes! A free role of filament from CookieCAD for every participant, and a $500 gift certificate from Fabreeko for the winner of each day's tournament.
Signups are free: rockymountainreprapfestival.co…
CJR study shows AI search services misinform users and ignore publisher exclusion requests.
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/ai-…
There's a lot of issues about how LLMs are trained (and with the ways they obtain training data). But in this case the problem is more about the tooling around search in LLMs than the LLMs themselves. In most cases it just uses a regular search engine and then feed the first N results (converted to plain text) to the LLM, so the quality is highly dependent on the query, the search engine results, as well as the quality of the conversion to text.
And as we know, search engines are much worse now... but they're still better being used directly rather than indirectly through one of these services.
I'm not surprised, I've been assuming this for a while.
The problem is that all these AI companies just plug in a search engine and expected to work.
Most search engines these days suck, so if your base is bad, your results will be bad.
That's why I love @kagihq cause they're search first, AI second. They have a solid search engine, which then also makes the ai searching much better. WHO WOULD HAVE EXPECTED
#Kagi
Start Your Apps: Apple Sports Adds F1, March Madness Tracking, More
Racing fans will be able to see start times, live leaderboards, and lap times. Fans across multiple sports will also be able to find out where to watch the action.Tyler Hayes (PCMag)
Senate Democrats — including Colorado's John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet — refuse to go along with GOP spending plan
Democrats are pushing a stopgap 30-day funding bill as an alternative. But its prospects are dim in the Congress controlled by Republicans.The Associated Press (The Colorado Sun)
Expect more of this from countries that are still committed to democracy, equity, intellectual freedom, and such. Remember way back, like, four months ago, when it was just red states experiencing a brain drain?
This is an amazing idea for a tool-assisted speedrun: swap the cartridge between bytes of the currently executing instruction.
How I Beat NES Mario in 0.000005 Seconds
In this video, I showcase "Intercycle Cartridge Swapping" as a means to run arbitrary code on the NES, and use it to beat some NES games absurdly fast.My gam...YouTube
Maybe.
We need, today and every day of this fascist clown show, to do two contradictory things at once:
(1) recognize that what these bozos said is ridiculous, ignorant, unserious, just pulled straight out of their butts, and
(2) treat what they said as a real and deadly serious possibility, and act accordingly.
From @GottaLaff: mstdn.social/@GottaLaff/114156…
Trump's insane."The White House has directed the military to draw up options for increasing the US troop presence in Panama to achieve Trump’s goal of 'reclaiming' the Panama Canal"
And *yes*, this does include:
the "option of U.S. troops seizing the Panama Canal by force" #PanamaCanal #Trump
nbcnews.com/politics/national-…
Trump White House has asked U.S. military to develop options for the Panama Canal, officials say
The Trump White House has directed the U.S. military to draw up options for increasing the American troop presence in Panama to achieve President Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the Panama Canal.Courtney Kube (NBC News)
I'm sure it will shock everyone that the Trump admin DOJ's lawyers weren't competent to argue its new position in federal court. The judge had to call a recess so that the attorneys could go read the policy they were defending. Shocker #2: Hegseth "egregiously misquoted" the studies they were relying on to argue their position. The studies actually say that trans troops are more ready and more deployable than a comparison population not excluded from service.
newrepublic.com/post/192657/ju…
Judge Forced to Pause Trial Because DOJ Lawyers Are so Unprepared
Justice Department lawyers had not read any of the three reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cited in his ban on transgender military service members.The New Republic
Donatella Versace to step down as brand's chief creative officer after nearly 30 years
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/g-s1-53540/donatella-versace-steps-down-luxury-fashion-brand?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Arts & Life @arts-life-npr
Astella made by Isabell Bartnicki
Source: isabellbartnicki.art/portfolio
#DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #ttrpg #character #characterart #art #digitalart
Here is an alt-text description for the image:
An illustration shows a slender elf woman with pale skin and long white hair, wearing full plate armor. Two red flowers are attached to each shoulder pad. She holds a silver necklace with a pendant that appears to be a broken heart. On her left side, she holds a shield with an etched design of a pair of wings. White fabric hangs from her shoulders and waist. The background is dark gray.
Provided by @altbot, generated using Gemini
I see EDF are wheeling this tosh of an ad out again … Still waiting to hear from the Advertising Standards Authority.
spectra.video/w/12JyiV6JFXsi8S…
13 March 1931 | A Hungarian Jewish girl, Ilona Junger, was born in Miskolc.
In 1944 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber.
Israeli attacks on Gaza reproductive health centres 'genocidal'
Forces systematically destroyed network of care for pregnant women and newborns, UN commission findsThe National
Oh!
That's *really* coming together now.
"You lose it, and then what do you do? You don't give up. You go back in."
arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/…
Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was minus 280° F
“You lose it, and then what do you do? You don’t give up. You go back in.”…Eric Berger (Ars Technica)
Pi Day with Air Hockey
youtube.com/watch?v=vlUTlbZT4i…
We calculated pi with colliding blocks
Happy Pi Day 2025 everyone!Check out Grant's new 3blue1brown video: https://youtu.be/6dTyOl1fmDo?si=k0az9B4pEOnRXbIhOh look, it's Steve's excellent channel: ...YouTube
Musk Faces Complaint Over Efforts to Get FAA to Drop Verizon, Use Starlink
A legal group alleges that Elon Musk 'corrupted FAA’s business relationship with Starlink' and is urging the inspector general's office to investigate. SpaceX has denied any wrongdoing.Michael Kan (PCMag)
Jewish Voice for Peace is occupying Trump tower to demand Mahmoud Khalil’s release, no muslim ban ever and to stop arming Israel
Jewish Voice for Peace on Instagram: "BREAKING: Hundreds of U.S. Jews and friends are taking over the Trump Tower to say: Come for one, face us all. On Saturday, ICE agents abducted Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist, recent graduate of Columbia Univ
32K likes, 368 comments - jewishvoiceforpeace on March 13, 2025: "BREAKING: Hundreds of U.S. Jews and friends are taking over the Trump Tower to say: Come for one, face us all.Instagram
every time some fuckwit accuses me of anti-semitism I point to Jews like this and ask: anti-Semitic like these Jews?
This Jewish led action is spectacularly helpful
This is Doom running on Android 16's Linux Terminal - Android Authority
Android 16’s Linux Terminal will soon be able to run graphical Linux apps, so we fired up Doom to show this feature off.Mishaal Rahman (Android Authority)
Q5: @MakersHour
Most supply chains are pretty long these days. What would have to change to make your making more local?
A5: When I need to buy hardwoods I go to TreeStation. They only take down trees if that have to come down for safety reasons, and then the timber is planked for sale. As they are local, and only work locally, I know that the timber is also local.
I could improve my supply chain by only sourcing my timber from them, but that isn’t always practical.
#MakersHour
@makershour@a.gup.pe
TreeStation - Sustainable tree management, wood fuels and timber
A social enterprise in arboriculture, woodland management, wood fuels and timber.TreeStation
makershour group reshared this.
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Fediverse Sprechstunde
Learn using BigBlueButton, the trusted open-source web conferencing solution that enables seamless virtual collaboration and online learning experiences.dus.webinar-welt.de
Ihr lieben Alle!
Die #Petition auf der #Bundestag Seite zur
Sicherstellung einer langfristigen ausreichenden Finanzierung für zivilgesellschaftliche Initiativen vom 19.01.2025
epetitionen.bundestag.de/petit…
hat gerade mal etwas über 20% des notwendigen Quorums erreicht und geht nur noch bis 1.4.25.
Bitte zeichnet diese Petition noch mit, falls Ihr es noch nicht getan habt und verbreitet diese an Freund*innen und Bekannte weiter.
Es ist zwar schön, dass andere Plattformen horrende Zahlen an Unterschriften verzeichnen konnten, aber hier wäre die Mitzeichnung wohl am ehesten effizient. Danke!
always awesome to see twitch.tv/makerdeck completely full, right now...
#maker #3dprinting #twitch #live
Andy Warburton ❌❌❌ reshared this.
Hare Raising
Scampering along, springing over the heather.
#mountainhare #hare #highlands #scotland #winter
German parliament to debate radical borrowing rule changes to boost defence
Election winner Friedrich Merz also trying to seal €500bn fund to revive economy before new parliament convenes
theguardian.com/world/2025/mar…
#news #politics #germany #economy #defense
Merz presses Greens to name their terms for German defence spending rise
‘What more do you want from us?’ asks chancellor-in-waiting as he seeks urgent support for fiscal rule changesKate Connolly (The Guardian)
This is a corrupt, dishonest right wing guy with authoritarian streaks who held no political office before.
Sounds familiar?
As my musician friend Todd Harper says, a mind is a terrible thing.
There's something related to #homeassistant in the #mail !
#drunkshopping #drunkpurchase #drunkbuy #homeautomation
Home Assistant Voice PE - 40mm Speaker Enclosure by freeskier93
This is an alternative enclosure for the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition that utilizes a 40mm speaker to improve sound quality. It also provides 360-degree sound, whereas the original enclosure only directs sound out the front.makerworld.com
US-Ukraine deal highlights Ukraine’s wealth of critical minerals, but extracting them isn’t so simple
Critical minerals are in demand around the world for military, technology and other uses. A geoscientist shares what’s known about Ukraine’s reserves, which could help the country recover from war.The Conversation
Trump Baselessly Suggests Fired Federal Workers Were Incompetent at Their Jobs
A multiyear survey finds that those working at federal jobs tend to be among the hardest working in the country.
Pentagon 'cherry picked' studies to support transgender service member ban, judge says
abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/ju…
#transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA
Pentagon 'cherry picked' studies to support transgender service member ban, judge says
A judge on Wednesday signaled that she was deeply skeptical that the Pentagon's handling of transgender service members complies with federal law.Peter Charalambous (ABC News)
..
i love icewm it's my absolute favorite wm since many years now with several osses.
ok, my puppylinuxes have jwm of course but then with zentile for tiling windows at startx.
but definetely icewm is my No 1. i still use my first configs with few changes depending on os and programs installed.
okay, so, Warner is the definition of a centrist squish. having him say he's voting no is good. this compulsive talking point about the 30 day extension is garbage though. just vote fucking no! let the GOP figure out a bill you can vote for.
White House withdraws controversial pick to run the CDC
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5323926/cdc-weldon-withdrawn-vaccine?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into All Things Considered @all-things-considered-npr
"New Quinniac poll:
If there's a #shutdown...
32% blame Dems
31% blame Republicans
22% blame Trump
That's a majority blaming Trump and/or the GOP. Hang tough, Dems.
Note that only 22% of independents would blame Dems for a shutdown. 34% of them would blame the GOP and 22% would blame Trump, a total of 56%. A shutdown is clearly likely to be worse for Republicans.
In short, the vast majority of those who would blame Dems are Republicans already."
-G Sargent
#Republicans #Coup #Resist #USPol
Thousands of fired federal workers must be offered reinstatement, a judge rules
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5325959/federal-employees-court-firing?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into All Things Considered @all-things-considered-npr
Jesse Morris
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •