Benjamin Titze

Nanometrology | Science & society | Freedom of expression and information | Multilingualism

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

I asked Grok about its take on the 39% US tariff threat on Swiss exports:
"[..] unfair and poorly justified given Switzerland’s low-tariff, open-market policies and significant economic contributions to the U.S." The approach feels "heavy-handed and inconsistent". #Trump #tariffs

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

@easyJet Your flight tracker incorrectly states that our flight Basel -> Budapest has departed: https://t.co/nh0LvqQlmG But we're still waiting at EuroAirport.

[Nanosurf @NanosurfAFM]

Meet Nanosurf’s team at SEMICON Europa - discuss your wafer metrology challenges with Jens Böttcher, Marcus Weth and Máté Lesták at the Lab14 stand, number C1.229 in the center of Hall C1.

https://t.co/Sf7t1JikqW

[Patrick Flynn @patrickjfl]

Hard to overstate just how rapid the changes in US party coalitions have been.

The Democrats are now the party of high education *and* high income voters. Just 12 years ago, the inverse was true.

On these terms, the Trump coalition was closer to Obama 2008 than the Harris one!

[John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch]

We’re going to hear lots of stories about which people, policies and rhetoric are to blame for the Democrats’ defeat.

Some of those stories may even be true!

But an underrated factor is that 2024 was an absolutely horrendous year for incumbents around the world 👇

[Matt Bateman @mbateman]

The French Polymarket whale commissioned polls with a specific alternate methodology, the “neighbor method”

1. What a baller

2. What a killer example of how betting markets can surface contrarian, high quality signals

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

If you'd like to be depressed, look at how dignified and intelligent and *adult* presidential candidates/debates/campaigns used to be.
https://t.co/vV1c6QdkO5

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

@Sunrise_de Was ist mit der Sunrise-Hotline los? Bereits zum dritten Mal diese Woche bleibe ich eine Weile in der Leitung (während die Musik spielt), dann klingelt es ein paar Mal und die Verbindung bricht ab. Sie verschwenden so die Zeit Ihrer Kunden.

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

@levelsio @timkly Consider Switzerland: 1'234'567.89
This avoids the comma vs dot confusion.

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

Great thread!

[Sebastian Seung @SebastianSeung]

Wow. Hopfield model and Boltzmann machine.

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

@MichaelAArouet From a data visualization perspective: This chart is pretty bad. Thick light blue line of constant width on top: is its thickness part of the magnitude shown? Hard to read this chart.

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

@MichaelAArouet I agree Europe is badly lagging behind the US, but this chart (which is being shared a lot) seems misleading: Are European heavyweights such as ASML, Siemens, SAP and Arm included? Should be >1 trillion USD in market cap, but the chart looks like a small fraction of that.

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

@sdorkenw Nice! 🤩 Congratulations!

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

I love calculator
https://t.co/mDVX1AiBiI

A short post on philosophy of product and technology. What is beauty in technology and how can we get more aesthetically pleasing products that spark joy?

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

@AdrianAWanner Congratulations! 👏

[Benjamin Titze @btitze]

"... the one thing Europe doesn’t have, unless it wants to risk falling further behind, is time." https://t.co/TQs2JANm9P

[The Culturist @the_culturist_]

Why did past societies build so much "useless" beauty everywhere — and why did we stop?

It might be a measure of a culture's health... (thread) 🧵

[Jordan Taylor @Jordan_W_Taylor]

Is Europe even relevant anymore? -Or is it only good for Harry Potter, the Louvre and fancy cheese? 

Let's take a whimsical jaunt through things that Europe still does quite well…

And where it might stand to improve.

[Ken Shirriff @kenshirriff]

To use the Montreal subway, you tap a paper ticket against the turnstile and it opens. But how does it work? And how can the ticket be so cheap that it's disposable? I opened up the tiny NFC chip inside to find out more... 1/15

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

Damning how the EU is trying to quietly pass a bill TOMORROW that would mandate all private communications can be monitored under the pretext of child safety.

This would mean forcing backdoors into eg WhatsApp, Signal: or banning those services.

Nuts that it is even considered.