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Prof Heino Falcke
@hfalcke@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Prof. Astrophysics, columnist D/NL, bestseller author “Licht im Dunkeln/Light in the Darkness/Licht in de duisternis” about the first ever image of a black hole shadow with the Event Horizon Telescope, that I was deeply involved in. Work at Radboud University, Nijmegen (NL), live near Cologne (D). Am a happy European, Christian, dad, and granddad. #fedi22 #astronomy #science
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Joined October 30, 2022
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I see a lot of anti-AI-rhetoric here, but very little pragmatic ideas on how to change things. The answer here is „don’t touch it“, but that will not change the world, except that it makes you feel good and in a few years you can say „told you so“.
It is not that AI does not work, as often said here, it does work for many applications. LLMs will stay and people will use it.
So, are there any ideas that make an actual difference? Nationalize it? Regulate it? Build your own better one?
Ist doch echt was los hier …
These are the things I love in #astronomy: you look at a dwarf planet in our solar system that’s smaller than Pluto and it passes right in front of a star, so you can see how the starlight is blocked as it moves across the star. And the unexpected happens: the light disappears more slowly than you would’ve thought, which could indicate that this little rock has some form of an atmosphere.
„A tiny world beyond Neptune has an atmosphere that shouldn't exist“: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-world-neptune-atmosphere-shouldnt.html#google_vignette
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@mho@social.heise.de ich war, während meinem Zivildienst in einer Statistikgruppe der Uniklinik (die machten das Krebsregister). Dort wurden auch die Zusammenhänge zwischen Sterbefälle und Umweltfaktoren untersucht. Ich erinnere mich noch, dass die Temperatur einer der größten Killer war. Dabei waren es meistens kalte Temperaturen, allerdings gab es danach „Nachholeffekte“ (kein schönes Wort dafür, dass Menschen früher sterben). Danach starben dann etwas weniger. Hier wohl
unwahrscheinlich 🤔
Here is a hobby experiment that escalated wildly. For our long #Camino tracks I wanted a slide show that understands stages, animates GPS tracks, synchronises photos to it, and shows where they were taken. I also wanted to inspect and edit GPX tracks and polish a slide show control file, if needed. Commercial apps didn't do what I wanted, so I developed it myself. It became quite powerful and works for me. Now I wonder if anyone else wants to try. Mac only for now! #Backpacker #GPS #Jakobsweg
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@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange you can still make a difference by reviewing bad code from junior developers. The problem is bad AI-generated code from un-experienced junior developers. You first need to learn to walk before you can run. However, I know a lot of experienced developers who actually love to use AI for coding and they can generate good stuff. Excluding them from OSS is a waste of experience and resources.
So, there are fake accounts on Google scholar. I got an email from an alleged colleague at TU Delft who offers help in publishing papers. This raised my suspicion. I didn't find him on the TU Delft websites, but he gives a Google Scholar page with a verified TU Delft email. Turns out it is from TUDeift and not TU Delft (i instead of I, which is really hard to spot). So, that is very intentionally misleading to fool you!
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UzGqWEgAAAAJ&hl=en
#predatoryJournals #criminal #science #spam
Observed a bizarre physics effect in our hotel: My wife noticed an annoying humming noise. Turned out to be 50 Hz AC hum, which was very localised. It wasn’t audible any more half-way along the bed. So we slept with our heads towards the foot end. I did use my spectrum analyser app and confirmed that the amplitude dropped by 18 dB over 1.5m! (see figures). How can the loudness drop so much within less than a quarter of a wavelength?? Standing waves? Interference? Near-field effects?
Wie schön. Der zweite Band unserer Kekskrümel-Reihe ist zum Kinder- und Jugendhörbuch des Monats gekürt worden 😊 (und nimmt damit Teil an der Wahl zum Kinderhörbuch des Jahres).
#bucher #kinderbuch #wisskomm #KinderbuchdesMonats
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@troed@swecyb.com @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange Or should it read more precisely:
- LLMs allow good developers to produce more good code
- LLMs allow bad developers to produce more bad code
😉
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@Tutanota@mastodon.social Kaufland has a pretty good marketplace that you can search before you go to Amazon …
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@letterus@kirche.social The energy usage is a relevant, but insufficient argument in a broader political debate. Cars and planes have a huge environmental impact, yet they are allowed and people use them (but we try to transit to more efficient and renewables). So, the argument has to be a bit smarter and more general. For example, if you have a carbon tax, then you would need to pay the real prize for LLM usage. That could perhaps work.
Schweizer aufgepasst: Am Mittwoch (29.4.) bin ich in Solothurn in der Zentralbibliothek und halte einen Vortrag über die Entstehung der Welt - erst für Kinder (es wird wild 😉) und dann am Abend für Erwachsene: https://www.zbsolothurn.ch/aktuell/veranstaltungen/space-exchange-falcke-20260429-1
Advertisement for the Dutch translation of my book "Between Big Bang and Apocalypse" is just out. Apparently it will appear in September.
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@Asterix_Archiv@troet.cafe Die habe ich schon früher nie verstanden - räumen die Pferdekutschen sie dann jedesmal weg 😆
Ein Gespräch über Sinn und Unsinn, Diesseits und Jenseits, Wissenschafts- und Theologiekommunikation im Sontagsblatt
https://www.sonntagsblatt.de/artikel/glaube/astrophysiker-heino-falcke-schwarze-loecher-glaube-und-die-sinnkrise-unserer-zeit
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@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange Thanks. I hadn’t appreciated the need for retraining enough. I wonder if there is away to do a differential update, or multi layers, or whether it’s fundamentally impossible.
The true prize is major uncertainty, but, I would be surprised if not eventually there will be some form of a market equilibrium. People will pay serious money if they’re just 10% more efficient. In some areas, it may well be much more. (In others not).
Am 1. Juli bin ich auf der Lit Potsdam im Gespräch mit Michael Köhlmeier und Dennis Scheck, am 17. Juli beim Faustmuseum in der Nähe von Karlsruhe. Falls ihr Zeit habt und in der Gegend seid …
#litpotsdam
Am Mittwochabend den 24.9.2025 bin ich im
Planetarium Hamburg zu einer Lesung meines neuen Buches „Zwischen Urknall und Apokalypse - die große Geschichte unseres Planeten“ und im Gespräch mit meiner geschätzten Kollegin Dr. Sibylle Anderl - Resortleitern „Wissen“ bei der Zeit. Ich freue mich auf jeden, der kommt oder boostet. #astrononomie #klimawandel #planetarium #hamburg
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@Pineywoozle@masto.ai i’m sure there’s a trick to do it but in the simple way, I tried to do it I got nowhere. And then you don’t want to spend too much time on this.
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@AliceStollmeyer@eupolicy.social That’s cool, but when I click to follow on my mobile, I am passed on to their account on their server to follow, but then I need to log in to my account, which is in a different server and that is not possible (or well hidden).
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@LIGO@scicomm.xyz @cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz People read ArXiv not journals… it is the Meta-Journal 😉
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@vicgrinberg@mastodon.social @LIGO@scicomm.xyz @cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz I am a tap water fundamentalist - just pure water not from a bottle 😬
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@vicgrinberg@mastodon.social @LIGO@scicomm.xyz @cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz And I just don’t drink enough coffee to keep up to be honest 😉
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@vicgrinberg@mastodon.social @LIGO@scicomm.xyz @cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz press releases are another line of communication actually…
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@LudoWaltman @stephenpinfield @cwts @RoRInstitute @ASAPbio I am surprised it is only 50 % in physics. Astrophysics is probably higher than that. Maybe the other 50% are very low impact papers?
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@Pineywoozle@masto.ai Apparently it worked for someone else. It may not be entirely obvious how to do it properly 🤔
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@aetios@sns.minovsky.space @AliceStollmeyer@eupolicy.social I was pointed to their profile on their server and then I clicked follow and then I had to login and it was the wrong server. Maybe I was too dumb, but I guess I may not be a sole exception
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@LudoWaltman @Luke_Drury @stephenpinfield @cwts @RoRInstitute @ASAPbio Interesting. That is indeed much closer to what I would have expected. Thanks.
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@mikalai@privacysafe.social @troed@swecyb.com @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange Right, and they are pretty good at guessing by now …
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@shaedrich@mastodon.online @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange Which brings one to the question what is actually bad code in the era of LLMs. 🤔 It will be different from human written code for sure
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@grammargirl@zirk.us @albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz @neuralreckoning@neuromatch.social That’s a useful clarification - the world is always a bit more complex than simple social media posts suggest…