fearout

fearout, hace 11 meses

It’s too big to actually die. Like, even Digg is still somewhat around.

But my guess is I’ll continue to enshittify itself as time passes and will probably exist for quite some time as a husk of its former self. It’ll still have a lot of users, but it will lack a lot of content and the sense of community it once had.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Which makes me wonder why Meta chose this name. Especially since Threads isn’t really focused on actual threads.

fearout, hace 11 meses

That’s an oddly poetic way to shit on Threads :)

fearout, hace 11 meses

No mention of kbin either

fearout, hace 11 meses

I’m still waiting for some major news outlet to write a piece about Fediverse in general. It’s odd that it’s either glossed over in one sentence or not even mentioned at all.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Yeah, not mentioning even a single instance when writing about Fediverse is pretty shit journalism. I was expecting something much worse after reading your preparation steps though :) At least factually it’s not really incorrect.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Looks like it’s defederated from kbin. Its communities don’t show up in search.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Yeah, makes sense. I wonder if there's going to be a mute/shadow federation function so that the instance doesn't show up in /all, but you can still subscribe to a community to see its posts on your subscribed page.

Not for this instance specifically, but as in some general functionality.

fearout, hace 11 meses

There’s been a lot of discussion, but I’m not sure if anything’s truly active yet.

For example, check out this latest post from this community, or this one that is more copy-to-Lemmy-focused.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Does anyone have access to the original article? It’s paywalled and scihub doesn’t seem to have it yet.

Apparently the difference in age comes from a hypothesis that fundamental cosmological constants aren’t really constant, but more akin to parameters that change over time. But I can’t seem to find any recent experiments or observations that even slightly back this up. And I’d be really interested to read more about this.

Although I remember the Hubble constant having slightly different non-overlapping values when calculated using two different methods with a high enough certainty. So constants being parameters is kinda a plausible hypothesis.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Here’s the abstract btw:

Deep space observations of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed that the structure and masses of very early Universe galaxies at high redshifts (⁠z∼15⁠), existing at ∼0.3 Gyr after the BigBang, may be as evolved as the galaxies in existence for ∼10 Gyr. The JWST findings are thus in strong tension with the ΛCDM cosmological model. While tired light (TL) models have been shown to comply with the JWST angular galaxy size data, they cannot satisfactorily explain isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations or fit the supernovae distance modulus vs. redshift data well. We have developed hybrid models that include the tired light concept in the expanding universe. The hybrid ΛCDM model fits the supernovae type 1a data well but not the JWST observations. We present a model with covarying coupling constants (CCC), starting from the modified FLRW metric and resulting Einstein and Friedmann equations, and a CCC + TL hybrid model. They fit the Pantheon + data admirably, and the CCC + TL model is compliant with the JWST observations. It stretches the age of the universe to 26.7 Gyr with 5.8 Gyr at z=10 and 3.5 Gyr at z=20⁠, giving enough time to form massive galaxies. It thus resolves the ‘impossible early galaxy’ problem without requiring the existence of primordial black hole seeds or modified power spectrum, rapid formation of massive population III stars, and super Eddington accretion rates. One could infer the CCC model as an extension of the ΛCDM model with a dynamic cosmological constant.

To clarify, tired light model proposes a hypothesis that the discrepancies in redshift are caused by light losing energy en route. Personally, I don’t really like this idea because it doesn’t really explain half the stuff, and introduces unnecessary unproven complexity. It’s not widely accepted as far as I know.

Also, they’re calling the cosmological constants “covarying coupling constants”, which I think is kind of funny. Why not use “parameters” for your paper since your hypothesis implies they can change over time? Missed a chance to coin some cool new term :)

fearout, hace 11 meses

That’s the news article, it wasn’t paywalled for me as well. I was talking about the original paper published here, the one I pasted the abstract from.

The paper itself costs €15. I’ve emailed the author asking for the paper btw, let’s see if he answers.

fearout, hace 11 meses

What are you interested in specifically? Dark energy is a huge topic :)

fearout, hace 11 meses

Nope.

Dark energy is basically what we call a force that drives the ever-accelerating expansion of the universe. Something is pushing spacetime itself to expand in all directions simultaneously, and that something isn’t accounted for by any other fields or forces.

There is a cosmological constant associated with dark energy, Λ (lambda). It represents energy density of dark energy across our universe. This is why the article (and the paper itself) mentions ΛCDM model — that’s the simplest dark energy model, where vacuum has constant energy throughout the universe and that’s what drives the expansion. There’s a special parameter w, which is a ratio of pressure to energy density of dark matter. It currently seems to be exactly -1, but different values of w yield different predictions for future fate of the universe.

What you need to know about w, is that if it’s exactly -1, it means that dark energy is indeed constant and the universe is going to continue to expand ever faster, ultimately headed towards Heat Death.

If it’s less than -1 (what’s called phantom dark energy), then the amount of energy somehow increases over time and we’re looking at the Big Rip scenario — the universe will eventually expand so fast that I’ll rip everything apart, even atoms. There’s some fun stuff that might happen if that’s the case, like boiling into a new big bang when trying to rip apart quarks (only works if there’s a lower matter energy state, I think), but that’s another topic and it’s highly speculative anyway.

And if it’s between -1 and 0, it means that dark energy decreases over time, and the expansion is going to slow down and eventually reverse, leading to a Big Crunch, and possibly Big Bounce, implying that the universe “beats” like a heart.

You can google Heat Death, Big Rip and Big Crunch to learn more.

Now, what the paper is suggesting (I think, I haven’t found/received the original paper yet to read it in full) is that recent JWST observations might turn out to be a piece of further evidence that the cosmological constant might not actually be constant, but more like some parameter that can change over time and space. That would kinda lower the importance of w, since the constant becomes parametrized and the “fate” can change in the future regardless. But it doesn’t remove dark energy in any way (it’s a phenomenon that demonstrably exists), just alters our understanding about how the universe operates.

Jeez that turned out to be a long comment. Hopefully my explanation wasn’t too convoluted :)

fearout, hace 11 meses

Well, not really.

First of all, neither were suggested by Einstein. The concept of Dark matter comes from a Swiss physicist Fritz Zwicky from the early 1930s. He noticed that stars on galaxies’ periphery are rotating much faster than they should, so he guessed that there should be extra mass that’s somehow undetectable.

Dark energy concept is much younger, from 1990s. It was proposed by two astronomers trying to measure the rate at which expansion is slowing down, but discovered that it’s actually speeding up. Before that, it was believed that the universe got its initial speed kick from the Big Bang and is gradually slowing down. They won a Nobel prize for that too.

And Dark energy and Dark matter are wildly different and likely totally unrelated concepts. I think it’s unfortunate that they share the same adjective, it’s somewhat confusing. One is the expansion phenomenon, and the other is just another form of matter (most probably formed by a yet undiscovered field, quite similar to ordinary matter in a sense), but one that just doesn’t interact with ordinary matter or via electromagnetic forces. We “see” it through gravitational effects though. But there are currently no links between it and the expansion of the universe, and for now it doesn’t look like there’s going to be one.

fearout, hace 11 meses

@ourlifeintoronto, I’d be interested to hear your reasoning for downvoting. Something you disagree with?

fearout, hace 11 meses

Also, here are some other fun implications (besides the different age) that actually can come from this paper (that I can think of, there are definitely more):

1. If the cosmological constant/rate of expansion acceleration may change over time, can it also change across space? Some parts of the universe might expand at different rates in this case.
2. The fate of the universe is no longer defined by the value of w. It can behave in one way in current time, but change again and alter what awaits the universe in the future.
3. New physics! Time-varying cosmological constant might force us to revise general relativity (since it’s specifically a constant there), or can somehow tie into quantum gravity, for example. Or suggest an existence of a yet undiscovered field.

fearout, hace 11 meses

It makes it different and gets us closer to understanding it. Right now, we have no idea what dark energy actually is, it’s just the name of the phenomenon of ever-accelerating expansion. Like, something is driving that expansion, and we call that something dark energy.

The simplest model — ΛCDM, assumes that there’s vacuum energy that’s constant throughout the universe, and that it’s what’s causing the expansion. Check my comments below for more info. There are other models too, like a modified gravity theory where it behaves as a repulsive force instead of an attractive one when applied on massive scales.

What this paper seems to be closer to is Quintessence. It assumes that dark energy is something like a field that can change over time and across space. I’ll make us revise general relativity (since cosmological constant is, well, constant in GR), but hopefully will get us closer to understanding the inner workings as a whole.

ELI5-ish: our current best guess is the universe is expanding because it kinda just fundamentally does that. It’s a property of space itself. If the paper turns out to be right in some way, then there’s some actual thing, not a property, that fills the universe, and that thing is what’s pushing everything apart. And there can be more or less of that thing making the universe expand differently at different times or within different regions. Or something else even, we’ll have to run a lot of experiments to figure it out.

Edit: so I read the original paper, and my initial assessment was wrong. It uses a hybrid model instead of plain quintessence or CCC-type model to demonstrate a better-fitting explanation, but the model itself is most likely not viable as an actual representation of reality.

Also, to clarify the difference between Quintessence and CCC. These are somewhat similar, but focus on different things. In quintessence, dark energy is believed to be a field-type thing, so it can naturally have different concentrations across time and space. In CCC, cosmological constant is assumed to be time-varying, but the theory doesn’t really describe what dark energy is, only how it behaves. Could be a field, but also could be something else. It doesn’t specify.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Ok, so I got the paper from its original author after emailing him about it (who even thanked me for the interest in his work, I freaking love scientists). And while there’s a lot of math, half of which I’m not even remotely qualified to understand, here’s what I got from it:

First, the paper is quite broad and compares 6 different models, plain LCDM (vacuum has energy that’s constant throughout the universe, it drives the expansion, cosmological constant is constant), CCC (“covarying coupling constants”: cosmological constant isn’t constant and may change over time and space, and dark energy might be more of a field than a property of space), their hybrids with Tired Light, and Tired Light alone. There’s some more discussion about these models below, in case you’re interested.

Btw, Tired Light hypothesis suggests that there’s no expansion, light just loses energy as it travels though space and that’s what gets interpreted as red shift. It’s not widely accepted and is not really considered viable, as far as I know.

Here’s an important to this whole discussion part: proposed age increase comes only from hybrid models (since there wouldn’t be any change in LCDM, and in TL age of the universe kinda makes no sense — no expansion and all that).

So what the author has found is that the best model to explain those weird redshift observations from JWST is the hybrid CCC+TL model, which assumes both “cosmological constant isn’t constant” and “tired light is a thing”. And that combination seems highly unlikely.

So the universe probably isn’t 26+ bn years. It’s a stepping stone towards finding a better model.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Hey, so I got the paper from its original author, and I shared my thoughts in a recent comment. TLDR: the universe probably isn’t that old, and the models that predict it are somewhat weird and have little chance of actually being a true representation of reality. It’s more of an observation than a workable hypothesis.

fearout, hace 11 meses

It’s about this — JWST found unusually bright early galaxies that already existed at around 350 mln years after the Big Bang, which is extremely early for such structures to exist. It implies that they should have started forming at around ~100 mln years, which is wa-ay earlier than previously thought. So CCC+TL is a model that tries to fit observed data, but it’s not the only proposed solution (and it’s quite convoluted due to including Tired Light).

You can google more about that using terms like JWST + early galaxies, high redshift galaxies, population III stars (refers to metallicity and goes “backwards”, Sun is a population I star).

fearout, hace 11 meses

Covarying coupling constants is an established name, so it’s used as is. But the paper only mentions lambda, as far as I remember. There might be something else used in the equations, I haven’t delved deep into those, but nothing else should really be required for this particular discussion.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Sure! I’m not too well-versed in this topic, but here’s a gist of it:

First, it’s a very old idea, somewhere from 1920s I think. Proposed as a possible solution way before we found out about the expansion.

One of the main issues is it violates conservation of energy, since in this hypothesis the photons lose energy en route, but there’s still no viable mechanism to absorb or account for that energy. It also doesn’t explain cosmic background radiation, while other theories explain it quite well.

Then there’s blur. If the light loses energy on interactions and all that, the photons should scatter and blur the image. That doesn’t happen.

And then there’s this time-dilation effect. When you look at supernovae at different distances, their explosions “run” at different paces, with further ones exploding slower. In LCDM model that’s easily explained by the light being stretched because of the expansion, and that’s what causes slower “runtime”. With TL’s predictions that shouldn’t happen at all, yet it’s an observable effect.

And there are probably more discrepancies that I can’t remember off the top of my head.

fearout, hace 11 meses

If you sort by newest almost every comment has been 1 star for a couple of months already. It’s just hard to break through millions of reviews throughout the years. Time-weighed rating system would be more accurate.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Is it possible/reasonable to have some sort of a fediverse-encompassing api for search engines that would help index only the original threads? A separate instance maybe? Or is it going to stay as is?

fearout, hace 11 meses

Yeah, just got an email from them stating that (I still have premium from being guilded). Great company management as always.

“Users are leaving? I have an idea! Let’s nuke their coins, that’ll bring them back!”

fearout, hace 11 meses

Threads aren't even federated yet. There's nothing to defederate or ban.

fearout, hace 11 meses

It’s nice here, and a substantial amount of people came here to actually stay here. Maybe you should give it a try. Like, use fediverse for real for a bit.

Reddit is currently speeding downhill anyway, and I don’t see them changing their anti-use stance anytime soon.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Thanks for your work, subscribed!

fearout, hace 11 meses

Reddit is already antagonistic af

fearout, hace 11 meses

Hi)

fearout, hace 11 meses

18/20 as well. I wonder what those two are.

But taking a test to see how gullible I am felt really weird, like that’s exactly what gullible people do. What sceptical level-minded person trusts a freaking online quiz?

fearout, hace 11 meses

Artemis App

fearout, hace 11 meses

Wow, the man himself :) Thanks.
I plan to share the files with all the base shapes and keyshot lighting setups in a few days, just need to clean up all the current chaos.

Btw, do you want a similar icon for some community?

fearout, hace 11 meses

This is a great write up, but what I don’t get is why do these companies stick to these idiotic measures instead of turning to their users for help in an open dialogue.

Like, I get that Reddit needs to make profit, and I actually wouldn’t have minded paying for Reddit premium to use my api key with Apollo. Instead Reddit made me and I’d guess a lot of people like me leave and never want to return. Just left with a lingering bitter aftertaste.

Did they think that they wouldn’t get enough funding that way? Well then how about giving it a test run to see if it works? Didn’t work? Well how about asking your users what they might be missing and what they might want to be more happy to subscribe, and adding features/addressing those issues? Working with developers to establish a revenue sharing agreement? There were so many alternative paths.

No, apparently nfts and shitting on your users is where it’s at.

Have a conversation, run polls, A/B test, etc. And be transparent while you’re doing it. These tools are nothing new when developing a service. Why ignore everything?

I mean, is it really just a competence/arrogance thing alone?

fearout, hace 11 meses

What’s so bad about giving AI models something to learn on? Add LLM-tier accounts to your social media company and have at it. And fix data/traffic issues by giving users the ability use their own tokens/api keys/whatever to limit bandwidth without affecting end users as significantly as they did with current decisions.

That way you could detect and address rogue scrubbers while still working with LLM creators who are open to an honest training integration. And if your company can’t really detect the difference between users and LLM crawlers after implementing something like this, well, then those crawlers don’t really affect the company as much as the CEOs would like to pretend.

fearout, hace 11 meses

Yeah, I missed out on that outrage. What are people disliking so much about that?

I remember seeing that pop up, realizing that all this time I just had some generic username with my name and numbers, and changing it to my usual username. Were there some negative consequences to the service in general?

fearout, hace 11 meses

I created a couple of communities that I used to post to on Reddit:

Industrial Design and Jewelry Design

I’ve been working in both fields for years and I’d like to help build up these communities within the Fediverse.

Whether you’re a designer working in one of those areas, or are simply interested in them, feel free to join :)

fearout, hace 11 meses

Thanks.

Also, just noticed that I’ve replied to you instead of replying to the post itself, not sure how it happened lol, sorry. I guess I misclicked.