Stefan Baack on 'Common Crawl’s Impact on Generative AI'
‘Often it is claimed that Common Crawl contains the entire web, but that’s absolutely not true. Based on what I know about how many URLs exist, it’s very, very small.’
Quanta Magazine on ‘What Your Brain Is Doing When You’re Not Doing Anything’: When your mind is wandering, your brain’s “default mode” network is active. Its discovery 20 years ago inspired a raft of research into networks of brain regions and how they interact with each other.
How Spiro has put 10,000 e-bikes on African roads with mixed results
So much venture capital interest in eco-friendly causes is a red flag for me.
Happy birthday to Beth A. Brown who was born on this day in 1969. She was the first Black woman to earn a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Michigan in 1998, with her research focusing on X-ray emissions of faint elliptical galaxies, and black holes. She sadly passed away on 8th October 2008.
I found this on Bluesky today: exa – a modern replacement for ls. You list files hundreds of times a day. Why spend your time squinting at black and white text?
Shout out to James West, the inventor of the electret microphone
Mic check, 1-2!
soap.systems on the crappiness of smart TVs
Smart ARSE, more like!
Knowable on the ‘growing link between microbes, mood and mental health’: New research suggests that to maintain a healthy brain, we should tend our gut microbiome. The best way to do that right now is not through pills and supplements, but better food.
All 13 full moons of 2023, courtesy of @moonwise8 on Instagram (h/t my partner)
Cedrick Fogwan: the Cameroonian conservationist aiming to save the goliath frog
A ribbeting read, heh heh.
Some arbitrary facts about the number 2024
New year, new number facts
The top 11 posts of 2023
Let’s see how we did!
Did you know that nuclear fission was discovered during Christmas?
Who swapped this coal for uranium in my Christmas sack?
IEEE Spectrum on An After-School Program Teaches Teens Java and Python: The students also learn how to design board games and video games
Shout out to two Cameroonian women—Sabine Adeline Fanta Yadang and Hadidjatou Daïrou—for winning the L’Oréal-Unesco Young Talent Award for Women in Science for their work on the potential of traditional medicinal plants in Cameroon for treating cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s
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Seirdy on search engines with their own indexes
Seek and you shall find.
Automate the watering of your Christmas tree with this tutorial
Zanussi is back with another Christmas tech project!
The “age” old question: How old is your dog in human years? The common answer is “multiply by 7” but there’s a better answer: 16 ln(dog’s age) + 31
Hackaday's Mining and Refining series looks at titanium
Have you got Sia stuck in your head too?
A blog post about tomato and tobacco plants
Yeah, tomacco science!