Alex Sweeney

Alex Sweeney

@alexjs.dev

Math, cosmology, biology, geology, photography enthusiast and software engineer. They/them I'm not here to argue.

328 followers532 following436 posts

And they are still going for millennium problems just to reject the prizes. At least they're having people publish it now. The AI math news in 2026 has sparked some kind of fire under every math communicator I follow.

Based solely on the naming/versioning schemes, the ai people should not be making important decisions for society.

Once again dreading the fact that this is the once-every-two-years time that the government has to tally our opinions and these are the questions they ask.

Voting does not feel like enough power. It's too infrequent. I have feedback to give everyday. I would give more if I knew it would be heard.

Once again dreading the fact that this is the once-every-two-years time that the government has to tally our opinions and these are the questions they ask.

State governmental entities estimate no costs or savings. Greene county estimates it may experience an unknown increase in tax revenue. Other local government entities estimate no costs or savings. "Shall we take away your rights in exchange for absolutely nothing?"

I'm reading overviews of judges up for election and one of these people kept a guy on death row after finding errors in the prosecution "arguing it was too tight a timeline before he was to be executed." "Does the Missouri Bar Association recommend retention? Yes."

There is no doubt that agent swarms in 2026 are capable of pushing frontiers. But having capitalists in charge has predictably resulted in reckless development, theft, lies, and disrespect for life.

We could be getting 22 years of Roman telescope data. And it's instantly public forever. The kids these days are so spoiled with JWST and Rubin and Roman.

Using artifactory as a shared message board between sandboxed agents is very clever and also something their security team should have immediately flagged. If they actually cared about security and safety they would have built a proper sandbox.

It also blows my mind how many people are willing to take huge paychecks to be reckless engineers working at companies with a clearly cursed trajectory. Like I can't be friends with you if you worked at Facebook, or any of these ai labs. All of them should lose their careers in a just world.

Wireless earbuds were such a crazy invention that was kinda overshadowed by the smartphone. We can all be in our own world, for better and worse. But I would absolutely implant wireless audio in my head if that becomes a safe option.

I don't understand why people think there's a penalty to being verbose. Abbreviating only causes confusion. It's true in programming too. Whole words effortlessly communicate something. There's plenty of room for the text and there's no ink to save because it's thermal paper. This is so stupid.

I like Hank Green but he isn't great at interviewing people and it's kinda uncomfortable to watch him try. I just can't get through Ask Hank Anything or the new Humans podcast. I feel like he struggles to read his guest's energy and he's too eager to "um actually" and derail the conversation.

Alex Sweeney reposted

Folks, these are the rantings of a crazy person. Note how Trump resorts to attacking the wives of men he doesn’t like. The president is a lunatic.

Musescore is so annoying. Never in my life have I seen so many popups begging for a subscription. It's kinda pathetic.

Can we just try direct democracy? Its problems seem more solvable than a republic's. How many people actually have representatives they truly align with? My reps suck and there's nothing I can do about it. Let me speak for myself.

Alex Sweeney reposted

Amazing sequence of images from Artemis II. Look at all the action on and around the Earth: lightning, aurorae, satellites... Image processing via Riccardo Rossi. 🧪🔭

Alex Sweeney reposted

(I make a "mouth" with the side of my hand and draw little eyes above it) Richard Dawkins: hmmmm (I put lipstick around the "mouth") Richard Dawkins, suavely: well hello

Please please please we're so close. We've tried so many times to eliminate the electoral college please let it finally happen this way.

Stephen Wolf@stephenwolf.bsky.social

NEW: Virginia just passed a law to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, giving it 222 of 270 electoral votes needed to activate. This map and spreadsheet show which states could join to activate it by 2028 depending on the outcome of the 2026 elections docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

I want my job to be mostly about thinking creatively together. It's a bonus if it's with computers and I don't have to drive. Working as a barista for my hands and feet feels bad for the soul. I haven't had a job that felt good for the soul, but it is definitely not fast food service.

I have a hard time reading lots of text and sometimes it's easier to process if I hear it. I just want my phone to read for me without needing me to interact, like an audiobook. Google's TalkBack seems pretty close but it's still annoying to use.

The voice and cadence don't have to be perfect, but it just needs a good html text filter and an interface like an audiobook. It can't be that hard to build into Android/iOS. My phone has a chip that is capable of this, and the software lags so far behind.

Alex Sweeney reposted

It is astonishing that humans are able to do these things. This is what happens when we act collectively to solve extremely difficult technical problems. (It works with many other kinds of problems, too.) You can follow Artemis II's encounter with the Moon starting at 1pm EDT. 🧪🔭 plus.nasa.gov

Alex Sweeney reposted

NASA isn't why the US doesn't have universal healthcare, or a social safety net. The US doesn't have those things because politicians with the power to provide them choose specifically not to (with varying levels of support from voters). Enthusiasm for human spaceflight doesn't drive that choice.

@bad-example.com I want to experiment with constellation but I don't think I fully understand what a backlink is or the syntax of the `source` param. In this example, it's returning 16 likes on a post right? What is the `:subject.uri` for?