https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady2532
#antarctica #topography #gis

RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/115897333079832091

Sunlight-as-a-Service

@axx @rysiek I really can recommend Windows 10/11 Ghost Spectre! https://tech-latest.com/ghost-spectre-windows-11/ #ghostspectre #windows #fuckmicrosoft

As Markdown has become the standard for LLM outputs, we are now forced to witness a common and unsightly mess where Markdown emphasis markers (**) remain unrendered and exposed, as seen in the image. This is a chronic issue with the CommonMark specification---one that I once reported about ten years ago---but it has been left neglected without any solution to this day.

The technical details of the problem are as follows: In an effort to limit parsing complexity during the standardization process, CommonMark introduced the concept of "delimiter runs." These runs are assigned properties of being "left-flanking" or "right-flanking" (or both, or neither) depending on their position. According to these rules, a bolded segment must start with a left-flanking delimiter run and end with a right-flanking one. The crucial point is that whether a run is left- or right-flanking is determined solely by the immediate surrounding characters, without any consideration of the broader context. For instance, a left-flanking delimiter must be in the form of **<ordinary character>, <whitespace>**<punctuation>, or <punctuation>**<punctuation>. (Here, "ordinary character" refers to any character that is not whitespace or punctuation.) The first case is presumably intended to allow markers embedded within a word, like **마크다운**은, while the latter cases are meant to provide limited support for markers placed before punctuation, such as in 이 **"마크다운"** 형식은. The rules for right-flanking are identical, just in the opposite direction.

However, when you try to parse a string like **마크다운(Markdown)**은 using these rules, it fails because the closing ** is preceded by punctuation (a parenthesis) and it must be followed by whitespace or another punctuation mark to be considered right-flanking. Since it is followed by an ordinary letter (은), it is not recognized as right-flanking and thus fails to close the emphasis.

As explained in the CommonMark spec, the original intent of this rule was to support nested emphasis, like **this **way** of nesting**. Since users typically don't insert spaces inside emphasis markers (e.g., **word **), the spec attempts to resolve ambiguity by declaring that markers adjacent to whitespace can only function in a specific direction. However, in CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) environments, either spaces are completly absent or (as in Korean) punctuations are commonly used within a word. Consequently, there are clear limits to inferring whether a delimiter is left or right-flanking based on these rules. Even if we were to allow <ordinary character>**<punctuation> to be interpreted as left-flanking to accommodate cases like **마크다운(Markdown)**은, how would we handle something like このような**[状況](...)は**?

In my view, the utility of nested emphasis is marginal at best, while the frustration it causes in CJK environments is significant. Furthermore, because LLMs generate Markdown based on how people would actually use it---rather than strictly following the design intent of CommonMark---this latent inconvenience that users have long felt is now being brought directly to the surface.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@CuratedHackerNews/115863489296628146

!!!!!!

One Hundred Years of Gossip

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/community/one-hundred-years-of-gossip

@mandelbroetchen Ich glaube es ist normal, das Gefühl haben zu wollen dass "Dinge von selber arbeiten", und man dementsprechend mehr schafft. Die Vorlesung und die Berechnung gehen ja von selber. 😅

Firefox extension to redirect x.com to xcancel.com

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toxcancel/

#firefox

Mapping Protests in Iran

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/06/25/mapping-the-protests-in-iran-2/

#iran

LLMs Are Currently Not Helpful at All for Math Research: Hamkins

https://officechai.com/ai/llms-are-currently-not-helpful-at-all-for-math-research-give-garbage-answers-mathematician-joel-david-hamkins/

#ai #llm #llms

RE: https://mastodon.social/@CuratedHackerNews/115805328783303703

This can go a few ways from here.

side quest: a scrap of wire
the floor of the hardware exchange has provided. and it turns out mate bottle lids work as wire strippers in a pinch.

After 15 months of hard work, my dad has finished this impressive model of Minas Tirith! It is 1.4 m high and entirely hand-made out of wood. One of the most time-consuming parts was manually engraving the bricks on all walls and buildings, but this was key to properly convey the huge size of the city. Everything was painted by hand, adding some wear and tear. For a behind-the-scenes look at how he built this check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Ywlc8ojjE

#lotr #MastoArt #art #craft

RE: https://digitalcourage.social/@Blickwinkel/115759168061870029

I simply do not have to.

Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

https://larr.net/p/namings.html

Firewood Banks Aren't Inspiring. They're a Sign of Collapse

https://newrepublic.com/article/204051/firewood-banks-heating-bill-winter

The Web Runs On Tolerance

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/the-web-runs-on-tolerance/

If you've ever tried to write a computer program, you'll know the dread of a syntax error. An errant space and your code won't compile. Miss a semi-colon and the world collapses. Don't close your brackets and watch how the computer recoils in distress.

The modern web isn't like that.

You can make your HTML as malformed as you like and the web-browser will do its best to display the page for you. I love the todepond website, but the source-code makes me break out in a cold sweat. Yet it renders just fine.

Sure, occasionally there are weird artefacts. But the web works because browsers are tolerant.

You can be crap at coding and the web still works. Yes, it takes an awful lot of effort from browser manufacturers to make "do what I mean, not what I say" a reality. But the world is better for it.

That's the crucial mistake that XHTML made. It was an attempt to bring pure syntactic rigour to the web. It had an intolerant ideology. Every document had to precisely conform to the specification. If it didn't, the page was irrevocably broken. I don't mean broken like a weird layout glitch, I mean broken like this:

https://example.com/test.xhtml Line Number 9, Column 5:" width="1800" height="600" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63925">

The user experience of XHTML was rubbish. The disrespect shown to anyone for deviating from the One True Path made it an unwelcoming and unfriendly place. Understandably, XHTML is now a mere footnote on the web. Sure, people are free to use it if they want, but its unforgiving nature makes it nobody's first choice.

The beauty of the web as a platform is that it isn't a monoculture.

That's why it baffles me that some prominent technologists embrace hateful ideologies. I'm not going to give them any SEO-juice by linking to them, but I cannot fathom how someone can look at the beautiful diversity of the web and then declare that only pure-blooded people should live in a particular city.

How do you acknowledge that the father of the computer was a homosexual, brutally bullied by the state into suicide, and then fund groups that want to deny gay people fundamental human rights?

The ARM processor which powers the modern world was co-designed by a trans woman. When you throw slurs and denigrate people's pronouns, your ignorance and hatred does a disservice to history and drives away the next generation of talent.

History shows us that all progress comes from the meeting of diverse people, with different ideas, and different backgrounds. The notion that only a pure ethnostate can prosper is simply historically illiterate.

This isn't an academic argument over big-endian or little-endian. It isn't an ideological battle about the superiority of your favourite text editor. There's no good-natured ribbing about which desktop environment has the better design philosophy.

Denying rights to others is poison. Wishing violence on people because of their heritage is harmful to all of us.

Do we want all computing to go through the snow-white purity of Apple Computer? Have them as the one and only arbiters of what is and isn't allowed? No. That's obviously terrible for our ecosystem.

Do we want to segregate computer users so that an Android user can never connect their phone to a Windows machine, or make it impossible for Linux laptops to talk to Kodak cameras? That sort of isolation should be an anathema to us.

Why then align with people who espouse isolationism? Why gleefully cheer the violent racists who terrorise our communities? Why demean people who merely wish to exist?

The web runs on tolerance. Anyone who preaches the ideology of hate has no business here.

#politics #web

RE: https://chaos.social/@netzpolitik_feed/115660921891547350

Aufpassen in Berlin.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@CuratedHackerNews/115633375511814053

Zum Teufel, England?

Zum Wochenende: Das Hufeisen

Das Hufeisenschema suggeriert, dass es Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen Linksextremen und Rechtsextremen gibt. Das ist falsch und schadet der Demokratie. Aber ...

#Hufeisen #Mitte #Politik #Linux

https://gnulinux.ch/zum-wochenende-das-hufeisen