The only way to stop a bad guy with an exploding cybertruck is a good guy with another exploding cybertruck

Welcome to the public domain, THE SKELETON DANCE (1929). 🎞️ 🎶👻 Walt Disney Studios' first Silly Symphony cartoon is a wordless masterpiece of synchronized animation & music featuring dancing skeletons in a graveyard.

Learn more about the creative works from 1929 & sound recordings from 1924 that have moved into the public domain in the US in 2025: https://blog.archive.org/2025/01/01/welcome-to-the-public-domain-in-2025/

A camp for HIV positive kids in Northern Minnesota is closing and going up for sale.

The reason? Anti-retroviral HIV drugs work. There are now not enough HIV-positive kids to need the camp.

Some good news to start your 2025

🥺 🥳

https://www.startribune.com/closure-of-northern-minnesota-camp-is-the-greatest-story-heres-why/601199362

#HIV

The era of ChatGPT is kind of horrifying for me as an instructor of mathematics... Not because I am worried students will use it to cheat (I don't care! All the worse for them!), but rather because many students may try to use it to *learn*.

For example, imagine that I give a proof in lecture and it is just a bit too breezy for a student (or, similarly, they find such a proof in a textbook). They don't understand it, so they ask ChatGPT to reproduce it for them, and they ask followup questions to the LLM as they go.

I experimented with this today, on a basic result in elementary number theory, and the results were disastrous... ChatGPT sent me on five different wild goose-chases with subtle and plausible-sounding intermediate claims that were just false. Every time I responded with "Hmm, but I don't think it is true that [XXX]", the LLM responded with something like "You are right to point out this error, thank you. It is indeed not true that [XXX], but nonetheless the overall proof strategy remains valid, because we can [...further gish-gallop containing subtle and plausible-sounding claims that happen to be false]."

I know enough to be able to pinpoint these false claims relatively quickly, but my students will probably not. They'll instead see them as valid steps that they can perform in their own proofs.

TIL about the Lavon Affair, a Mossad covert operation in Egypt where agents planted bombs in places frequented by American and British citizens, intending to frame Muslims and strain Egypt’s relations with Western powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1hq25q3/til_about_the_lavon_affair_a_mossad_covert/

Former President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100. Easily the most impactful former President in US history and, too rarely for that powerful position, a good man. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/29/jimmy-carter-dead-longest-lived-us-president

"To all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning – the good life – study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility. He showed that we are great nation because we are a good people – decent and honorable, courageous and compassionate, humble and strong."
- President Biden

Will the "no" win this poll?

Boost if you like formal logic.

The Wormhole is considered a VITAL Asset for the Federation. A secure Wormhole is crucial for Commerce & rapid deployment of Starfleet, between the Alpha & Gamma quadrants. It was given to Bajor to manage. The fees being charged by Bajor are a complete “rip-off” and will stop…. #StarTrek

Miles: You're the love of my life and my best friend. I would do anything for you.
Benjamin: I want you to eat three meals a day and have a decent sleep schedule.
Miles: Absolutely not

TIL pandas are one of the few animals with opposable thumbs - but the "thumb" develops from a wrist bone, so when looking at pandas, it looks as though they have six fingers

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/examples-of-analogies/when-is-a-thumb-a-thumb/#:~:text=Studying%20the%20anatomy,finger%20in%20pandas!
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1hmyscd/til_pandas_are_one_of_the_few_animals_with/

A reader found her father in a photo on the back cover of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste. The photo was of a crowd of people at the 1963 March on Washington. https://www.instagram.com/p/DD-f5CWyeyc/

This hotel in Monterey Bay, CA has a stick library available for dogs. “Every morning my dog would carefully pick one out to take to the beach.” https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDcQuBVJVlO/

#Presidents_Musk_and_Trump

Hi, friends!

The incredible @dannotdaniel made a PartyAlice emoji!

@theropologist added it to beige.party, so everyone on beige.party can use it.

If you're not on beige.party, you can ask your admin to add it to your instance.

Also, if you're willing, will you please boost this post because nothing would make me more happy than seeing a bunch of PartyAlices floating around the Fediverse.

I wasn't allowed to watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" as a kid because of my Peanut allergy.

Al Green’s cover of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” is as great as you’d expect it to be. https://kottke.org/24/12/al-greens-cover-of-rems-everybody-hurts