Clément Chastagnol

I keep on learning. Bad case of tsundoku.

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

So here is the concept: a playlist with a cool name, 5 songs every week, from different artists / genres.

First one is here: https://t.co/f8lGdESJCZ or here: https://t.co/IWjg1sLjdh

Please hit me with your best songs! :D

#TheFluke

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

@_Vassim @threadreaderapp unroll please

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

@steren

[Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar]

Years ago when my wife and I we were planning to buy a home, my dad stunned me with a quick mental calculation of loan payments.

I asked him how - he said he'd learned the strange formula for compound interest from his father, who was a merchant in 19th century Iran.

1/4

[Jeremy Howard @jeremyphoward]

I'll get straight to the point.

We trained 2 new models. Like BERT, but modern. ModernBERT.

Not some hypey GenAI thing, but a proper workhorse model, for retrieval, classification, etc. Real practical stuff.

It's much faster, more accurate, longer context, and more useful. 🧵

[PyData Paris @PyDataParis]

📊 Unpacking business metrics to explain their evolution is a common challenge for data analysts. Max Halford's talk introduces a robust framework for decomposing metrics, offering a clear methodology and an open-source Python tool.🔍
https://t.co/ZHGD3t6HrK

[Onur Tasar @onurxtasar]

We (@heyjasperai / @clipdropapp research team) are excited to announce the release of our latest research project on fast and controllable shadow generation. Our 1-step diffusion model can create realistic shadows for object images in under a second ⚡️, while giving you precise control over shadow direction, softness, and intensity 🔨.

- Project page: https://t.co/A1MWTXk0Or
- Research paper: https://t.co/65d74C7SYs
- Demo : https://t.co/NNPGvRFRXG
- Public test set on @huggingface : https://t.co/Y6P0eLYgpQ
@CChadebec @benjamin_aubin_ @dh7net

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

How Americans responded in 1955 when the invention of the polio vaccine was announced.

[Cory Doctorow NO LONGER ON TWIT TER @doctorow]

Back in 2018, around the time I emailed my immigration lawyer about applying for US citizenship, I started work on a short story called "Radicalized," which eventually became the title story of a collection that came out in 2019:

https://t.co/79nVRc52bL

1/

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

@whateverblues naah, that’s just Grook the Tile Monkey beaming with pride
'YES, OFFSPRING. EAT. POOP. DOMINATE PLANET.' we’re living his dream, one flush at a time!

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

@crocutamatata Source here: https://t.co/Y3ggRL7OaN

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

@crocutamatata Section of an hominid jawbone found in a travertine floor tile in a random Turkish bathroom

[Asya @femmecamp]

terrifying turkification process happening here. welcome Timuçin Cemalat

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

Xerxes Canal was a navigable canal through the base of Mount Athos peninsula in Chalkidiki, northern Greece. It was commanded to be built by king Xerxes I of Persia in 5th Century BC, and was overseen by his engineer Artachaees. It was part of Xerxes' preparations for his second invasion of Greece, a part of the Greco-Persian Wars. It is one of the few monuments left by the Persian Empire in Europe.

According to the Histories of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, which recounts the events of Greco-Persian Wars, the Persian commander Mardonios, in 492 BC, lost a great part of his fleet, 300 ships and 20,000 men, in a storm going around the cliffs of the Athos peninsula, during the First Persian invasion of Greece. Herodotus offers a description of a canal that was dug by the Persian king Xerxes. There is archaeological evidence. The story is translated by translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt...

[7.22] On the previous occasion, it will be remembered, the Persian fleet came to grief in the attempt to round Mount Athos. In view of this, work had been going on here for the past three years or so [483-480] to prevent a repetition of the disaster. A fleet of triremes lay at Elaeus in the Chersonese, and from this base men of the various nations of which the army was composed were sent over in shifts to Athos, where they were put to the work of cutting a canal under the lash. The natives of Athos were also forced to help dig. Bubares the son of Megabazus and Artachaees the son of Artaeus were the Persian officers in charge.

Everyone knows Mount Athos - that lofty promontory running far out into the sea. People live on it, and where the high land ends on the landward side it forms a sort of isthmus with a neck of about a mile and a half wide, all of which is level, except for a few low hills, right across from the coast by Acanthus to the other side near Torone. On this isthmus to the north of the high ground stands the Greek town of Sane, and south of it, on Athos itself, are Dium, Olophyxus, Acrothoon, Thyssus and Cleonae - the inhabitants of which Xerxes now proposed to make islanders.

[7.23] I will now describe how the canal was cut. A line was drawn across the isthmus from Sane and the ground divided into sections for the men of the various nationalities to work on. When the trench reached a certain depth, the laborers at the bottom carried on with the digging and passed the soil up to others above them, who stood on ladders and passed in on to another lot, still higher up, until it reached the men at the top, who carried it away and dumped it. Most of the men engaged in the work made the cutting the same width at the top as it was intended to be at the bottom, with the inevitable result that the sides kept falling in, and so doubled their labor. Indeed they all made this mistake except the Phoenicians, who in this - as in all practical matters - gave a signal example of their skill. They, in the section allotted to them, took out a trench double the width prescribed for the actual finished canal, and by digging at a slope gradually contracted it as they got further down, until at the bottom their section was the same width as the rest. In a meadow near by the workmen had their meeting place and market, and grain ready ground was brought over in great quantity from Asia.

[7.24] Thinking it over I cannot but conclude that it was mere ostentation that made Xerxes have the canal dug - he wanted to show his power and to leave something to be remembered by. There would have been no difficulty at all in getting the ships hauled across the isthmus on land; yet he ordered the construction of a channel for the sea broad enough for two ships to be rowed abreast. [....]

#archaeohistories

[M2 @Amer1can_Barbie]

Piped this absolute banger into my son’s room to wake him up this morning ☕️ he didn’t appreciate it as much as I did 🤣

[George from 🕹prodmgmt.world @nurijanian]

The uncomfortable truth about understanding customer problems in large organizations:

It's not just about "talking to users" or "running surveys."

The real challenges run much deeper. Here's what nobody tells you 🧵

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Sargasso Sea Floor, a kinetic sculpture by Tim Lewis

[📹timlewis. info]

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

Remains of a house from Bronze Age settlement of Akrotiri in Santorini, Greece. It was destroyed and buried by eruption of Santorini volcano in 1628 BC.

It came to light again in 1967 thanks to excavations commissioned by archaeologist Spyridōn Marinatos. Precisely because of deposit of volcanic ash on city, buildings, frescoes and ceramics have been preserved, which is why it is also called "Pompeii of the Aegean".

#archaeohistories

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

@dh7net FYI I've started recommending it to friends, so you might wanna start watching those API costs closely :p

[Dr. M.F. Khan @Dr_TheHistories]

A brilliantly preserved bronze Phrygian winged helmet, dated to the 4th Century BC.

Christie's Auction

#drthehistories

[Clément Chastagnol @HerrDoktorFunk]

@ODPomery @NewYorker 😯 Beautiful!