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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 3h

I know that's the case for some crops grown in certain places (gotta be careful about rice e.g.). But how widespread this seems appears to be more common than that. Idk!

Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 3h

I'm so curious how lead even gets into these powders in the first place. What process in making protein powder is using lead that's getting shed into the powder itself?

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Reposted by Ayden Bridges

paris martineau @paris.nyc · 7h

my latest investigation for @consumerreports.org is based on months of reporting and 60+ lab tests of leading protein supplements

we found that most protein powders and shakes have more lead in one serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day (🧵)

www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein...

Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports

CR tests of 23 popular protein powders and shakes found that most contain high levels of lead.

www.consumerreports.org

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 7h

oh okay, yeah true. I thought you were meaning group chats in general.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 7h

I think reporting on tech bros being in group chats says more about tech bros associating with sucky people (each other) than normal people talking to multiple of their friends at the same time??

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Reposted by Ayden Bridges

tef @tef.bsky.social · 1d

it's kinda weird that all the software i am expected to use for work are all written by distributed teams, go, python, postgres, linux, chrome, k8s etc

and despite being told "the best teams work in an office together" i don't know of any software i use that's actually written that way

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Reposted by Ayden Bridges

Angela Collier @acollierastro.bsky.social · 1d

I saw someone shit talking 'flipped classrooms' on here the other day and boy do I hope the tide is turning on that idea. It is so stupid. Double the work for the teacher AND it has obvious worse outcomes for students without stable home lives.....how did that even catch on?

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 1d

I think this applies to like everything, not just sci communication. Keeping an eye on this bc I'm also curious what this difference is called.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 2d

Now, that is not a vry big use case. I think LLMs, how they're being used unsustainably by technocrats, should be very regulated and directly paid-for by users (to be sustainable). But I wanted to highlight one of the better uses that I've not heard about if they actually were implemented ethically.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 2d

I've tried llms variously to see if they could be useful, and the most useful case I've found is comparing different definitions or ideas and seeing what the difference is. Like understanding differences in technical definitions or how to translate a word/phrase to another language naturally.

Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 2d

I'm against LLMs in their place in society (nbdy asked for them, they use a bjln resources, they're mstly used for bad things like disinformation & cheating in school). I wanted to highlight one of the few use cases that I've found kinda useful: explaining the difference between two different ideas.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 2d

Imagine: a social media platform with a variety of media on multiple levels of abstraction. Direct messaging, group chats, forum posts, wiki-level content. Ran and hosted by users. Strong transparency as to who is a person and who is a bot. Open source.

Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 3d

I also read one of the papers it cited, and it's also pretty interesting. Explains how this works in Basque: www.culturanavarra.es/uploads/file...
"The Ergative, Absolutive, and Dative in Basque" (Terence H. Wilbur)

www.culturanavarra.es

Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 3d

This article explains Ergative-Absolutive alignment in languages really well (as far as I can tell while not being a linguist, at least) thelanguagecloset.com/2025/03/22/n... #linguistics

Nominative-accusative? Ergative-absolutive? What do these mean?

In language introduction essays done on this website, you might see these kinds of terminology thrown about without further elaboration given to them. For example, in some languages of Australia, y…

thelanguagecloset.com

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Reposted by Ayden Bridges

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

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Reposted by Ayden Bridges

Peter Butler @peter-butler.bsky.social · 6d

Bloomberg research found wholesale electricity up ~270% in areas near data centers

It doesn't seem like nearly enough people are taking it seriously

One A.I. image isn't too much energy, but 5 million videos? Per day/hour/minute whatever. It's not sustainable

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

www.bloomberg.com

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

In conclusion: I'm excited for the future bc I think this is absolutely doable, would make the world such a better place, and I want to be a part of that!!!

I should brainstorm this more later on.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

I might be being kind of fast and loose here, but I'm using self-accountability to refer to two basic things. The first, being able to pinpoint who/what is responsible for an issue occurring. The other aspect, having strong feedback mechanisms to self-correct (e.g. unions negotiating w employers).

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

On the other hand, Centralization is easier and is better for most people most of the time. Most of the time people do not, nor should they need to, think about this that hard. e.g. banks vs decentralized crypto ledgers. Only downside is that centralization implicitly has less self-accountability.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

Comparing these: Decentralization helps with accountability ("just switch servers", e.g. bsky) but can spread things too thin. Kind of like how open source has (BROADLY BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY) weaker incentives than software devs working for a company getting paid to make the thing they're making.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

Except it kinda does, as in who owns the spaces you walk around in, but plenty of places don't feel suffocated by that. But yet still also actually a lot do. It's complicated!

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

re: cent/decent. 'n, I don't think it has actually been experimented with enough as it should be. These imo don't map onto real life very coherently (!!: another thing that makes social media unlike irl).

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

BUT! I am optimistic. I suspect this will be some sort of forum-esque platform that is set up in a way for people to chat at varying timescales that uses some worthwhile human verification. I think it would also have to thread the needle on being centralized and decentralized.

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

There's hurdles. Figuring out a way to host this in a way that isn't exploitative. Figuring out how to prevent stereotypical issues (trolling/antisocial behavior, verifying ID of people in a way that isn't abusing privacy, preventing bot propaganda, actually making it secure in a cybersec sense).

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Ayden Bridges @aydbridges.bsky.social · 8d

Essentially, a social media that genuinely grants people more tools to connect, and does not have features that cause people to be neurotic (imagine trying to explain what a "like" is to a victorian child. cruel!), and incentivizes people act in a way to generate trust with each other.

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