One thing that goes unremarked about Wikipedia: the vast majority of the content was written over 12 years ago—which means (given turnover) that the editors dominant today were not directly involved in that creation.

Put another way, the editors who built the dominant nodes in this network...

...have little overlap with the ones who made this much more recent managerial flowchart.

Internet time runs at hundred-fold speed—the difference between the people who painted what's in the Uffizi, and the people in charge of keeping those paintings from deteriorating. Very different tasks, and (one presumes) very personalities as well. @PaulSkallas?

'What if I choke during my 1st speech?'

Then you choke.

Some of the best speakers from my time during Toastmasters choked their 1st speech.

When you mess up, you realize the world doesn't end.

After making this realization, you feel a sense of relief for your next speech.

This is not a green light to not practice beforehand

But if you gave it your best effort to prepare & the nerves got the best of you, do not beat yourself up.

I guarantee that choking is not a big deal like you think it is.

'How do you know?'

Bc I am speaking from experience.

'So what was it like?'

Well, this was my 1st ever Toastmasters meeting.

I went to just sit on my ass & observe.

Tbh, I went because I was hungry & thought they were going to have toast.

But nah.

There were atleast 75 people there.

Many people that I knew from my school

After seeing all those familiar faces, I sat all the way in the back.

I was praying that I did not get called on stage.

I had massive speech anxiety then.

*the meeting began*

The table topics started (random people get called up & give an impromptu speech about a topic)

Not kidding.

I was the first person called.

The toastmaster from the event thought he was being slick by calling the people in the back.

I was straight up mortified.

Walking to the front of the stage felt like the longest walk of my life.

Felt like a nightmare tbh.

Donna Strickland, one of this year's Nobel Laureates, was not considered "notable enough" for Wikipedia as late as this May—reported by a number of sites, including the Independent. I dug into this a little. Here's the data—

This is the first deletion, back in 2014. A bit hard to read between the lines, but the basic story that an admin had Stickland's page "speedy deleted"—i.e., deleted without debate. The method was something called Copyright Jujitsu.

In particular, the admin had the page deleted not because of notability, but because it included a photograph of Strickland that had ambiguous copyright status. This is a method that people developed to get rid of content they didn't want, but also didn't want to debate.

"Copyright Jujitsu" because it is usually used against spam from companies; a PR officer uploads promotional material to Wikipedia. Instead of debating whether it's neutral, the admin can say "we'd love to have it, but the material appears to violate your company's copyright".

Usually the PR office and the IP office are separate in a company, and the idea of releasing promotional material under public domain is such a legal nightmare that the PR person goes away.

"Noah" is at the point where it's a common enough name where there are lots of Noahs around, but still uncommon enough that people get us confused a lot.

I keep feeling guilty about being mistaken for Noah Feldman and angry about being mistaken for Noah Berlatsky...

Then there's that guy Noah Smith who does computer science at the University of Washington, who is way handsomer and more successful than I am...but nobody mistakes me for him because I'm much louder and more online... :D

"I want a guy named Noah to slice my mango. I want that Noah mango. That’s the income bracket I want to be in."
- Ali Wong

Today, I had lunch with a friend who owns a small construction company (like 5 employees).

He told me he's spent much of the last five years writing code, building this complex line-of-business app in Visual Basic and MS Access. And that it's essentially saved his business.

It's interesting, because here's this construction worker, used to working on physical things, talking about how Stackoverflow made such a difference in his life.

He has discovered on his own some of the same things we talk about here. He started rewriting his VB into C#, got one form done, and realized what a huge job it would be. And then decided it wasn't worth it to refactor everything just to have the latest language.

He talked about worrying he would build something that would become too much of a house of cards and that it would become unmaintainable.

We talked about automated testing, which he'd "heard of before". He was very curious why you'd want to do that, and what benefit it would bring.

Here’s a short thread on the history and significance of the pith helmet (as worn by Melania Trump in Kenya today). Media correctly describes the pith helmet as a symbol of colonial rule. But why did colonizers start wearing them in the first place? 1/

White Europeans have long obsessed over the supposed relationship between race, culture & climate. 19th century colonists (supported by scientific & medical opinion) believed “tropical” solar radiation attacked white people’s nervous systems & rendered them infertile. 2/

Pith helmets were often worn by colonizers alongside other protective paraphernalia such as red vests & “spine pads” worn under the shirt to protect the nervous system from the feared “actinic ray.” Spine pads were standard issue in British Army kit in early 20th century. 3/

Other convenient medical recommendations included no manual labour outdoors for whites, holidays to cooler climates & no white children in the colonies beyond age 5. The pith helmet was part of a pseudo-scientific discourse that enforced class as well as racial domination. 4/

The pith helmet is sometimes used to denote a “frontier” spirit of adventure & exploration. This is wrong. Their historical social role was to emblematize white fragility and anxieties, as well as blurring the distinction between white civilians & colonial police/army. 5/

Je garde bien en tête que je dois vous parler prochainement de #déchetsnucléaires, mais je me suis dit qu'un petit préliminaire de vocabulaire s'imposait.

C'est partie pour un petit #thread sur les bases de la #radioactivité et de la radioprotection dans le #nucléaire 🤓

À l'origine de ce thread, quelque chose que j'avais lu il y a quelques temps : quelqu'un qui avait peur que les rayonnements qui sortiraient de Cigéo irradient tout le monde aux alentours.
Et là, j'ai bien du admettre que la radioactivité est un concept pour certains fort obscur.

La radioactivité, c'est le phénomène de transformation d'un atome en un autre atome, qu'on appelle décroissance, qui s'accompagne, pour des raisons de conservation de la masse et de l'énergie (rien ne se perd, rien ne se créé, tout ça tout ça ) d'une émission d'une particule.

Une particule de matière, et, parfois aussi, d'un photon (une onde électromagnétique, de la lumière, donc) très haut en énergie : on parle là de rayons X (parfois) ou Gamma (souvent).

Il y a aussi des cas où des atomes « excités » (chargés en énergie) se désexcitent en émettant juste un photon gamma. On parle aussi de radioactivité, même s'il n'y a pas de changement de l'atome en un autre.

“By any objective measure, Judge Kavanaugh is clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court,” Collins said.

1/ I am seeing more and more founder secondary in venture rounds (Secondary = founders selling some of their shares before some other shareholders are able). Series B-D. I see both as an investor and through entrepreneur circles.

2/ I like secondary for entrepreneurs. Moderation is key but in a lot of situations I think it helps accelerate the co. Lots of very smart investors disagree. Here are my thoughts.

3/ Magnitude: My basic rule of thumb from what I see is market is 4+ yrs and up to 10% of founder’s equity stake with some $ cap that makes sense given stage etc. (typically <$10m)

4/ The entrepreneurial journey is brutally hard. Giving some financial relief helps remove one piece of pressure. I don’t think that secondary in the magnitude mentioned impacts the drive/persistence of great entrepreneurs.

5/ That secondary means they will be able to just sleep knowing they can pay their kids’ tuition. Secondary will make most founders better at their jobs, thus accelerating the co.

Here’s how you weigh a baby giraffe.

(📸: @VirginiaZoo)

Here’s how you weigh a baby penguin.

(📸: @TNAquarium)

Here’s how you weigh a baby red panda.

(📸: @BinghamtonZoo)

Here’s how you weigh a baby aardvark.

(📽: @CincinnatiZoo)

Here’s how you weigh a baby cheetah.

(📸: @ZooSalzburg)

"Link building isn't natural." Yeah, nature hasn't built any search engines. The whole fucking thing is unnatural. Links don't just magically appear because we breathe deeply and trust in the cosmos. Someone always makes them.

Yes, that was ranty. I'm going to eat lunch now.

Seriously, I get the intent but I hate the line in the sand, as if it's nearly that simple. If you write a book, you don't just lay it in a field and hope people read it -- you tell them you wrote a book. Same with content.

It's not unnatural for me to say "Hey, I've got a great piece of content that's relevant to your audience." That's not in the same bucket as buying a link on Fiverr.

Okay politically correct culture can be hard to navigate but have you tried not being a bigot?

Is there a word for a subtweet about someone not on Twitter, but IRL?

You know, besides passive aggression.

Za Robertem i jego kampanią 2019 stoją duże pieniądze? Takie głosy z padoku przekazał AMuS. Mam nadzieję, że jest w tym ziarno prawdy, bo takie wsparcie z pewnością nie zaszkodzi. #F1pl

Z drugiej strony taka plotka, na tym etapie sezonu idealnie gra z zamiarami Williamsa, żeby czekać z potwierdzeniem kierowców jak najdłużej. Taka mała powtórka z zeszłego roku... #F1pl