As of 2 May 2024, GÉANT will cease activities on its main profiles on X (including this one).

Read more about our decision here: connect.geant.org/2024/04/29/gea…

If you aren't already doing it, follow us on
🐘Mastodon mstdn.social/@geant
💼LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/GEANTn…

Le Président de la République avait souligné il y a quelque temps sa conviction que l’open source était l’une des forces de la France et l’Europe en matière de numérique. C’est en effet l’une des « briques » de nos écosystèmes technologiques qui nous permettra de tirer notre…

« it is clear that even for coding tasks, generative AI is a powerful productivity booster for knowledgeable programmers rather than their replacement »

I've issued more than 10,000 generative AI prompts to help me with programming and system administration. The IEEE Software column based on this experience describes how programmers can effectively use generative AI.
“Pair Programming With Generative AI”
computer.org/csdl/api/v1/pe…

Se siete a Parigi o da quelle parti, oggi alle 15.00 a Maison d’Italie (7, Bd Jourdan) si parla del noir italiano e di molto altro con Cristina Cassar Scalia @cricassar e Maria Chiara Prodi Maria Chiara Prodi

Version 3.2.0 of Alexandria3k, now available on Python Package Index, supports running performant and replicable relational queries on all PubMed citations. These can be used for systematic literature reviews, scientometric and bibliometric studies, and meta-analyses. pypi.org/project/alexan…

AI-generated sad girl with piano performs the text of the MIT License

« siamo noi professori a doverci battere il petto, per aver supinamente accettato un modello universitario [dedito] a formare un disciplinato ‘capitale umano’, che non ad alimentare un solido e attrezzato pensiero critico » ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/art…

The xz attack was not because it was open source. The attack failed because it was open source. The way this attack works for non-open source is the attacker spends 2 years getting an agent hired by contract software development vendor, they sneak it in, nobody finds out.

Can AI ace law exams?

Last year, OpenAI announced GPT-4 got 90th percentile on the bar.

Here we (a) refute 90th percentile claim; (b) replicate/extend recent work on GPT capabilities; (c) discuss implications for law profession.

Now open, AI&Law: link.springer.com/article/10.100…
1/

Lots of analysis of the xz/liblzma vulnerability. Most skip over the first step of the attack:

0. The original maintainer burns out, and only the attacker offers to help (so the attacker inherits the trust of the project built by the maintainer).

Read their words👇🏻 1/

Casilli : 'Le but de ces plateformes n’est pas la destruction délibérée de l’intelligence, mais la maximisation du temps que nous passons à travailler pour eux de façon tacite. Tant qu’on ne comprend pas cela, on passe à côté du problème.'
nouvelobs.com/idees/20240328…

“We’re very concerned about the ‘economic upside capture’ licensing terms we’ve seen in popular models like Llama2, for example. These terms of use are designed to create a network that favors only one economic actor (like the original distributor).”
Same.
opensource.org/blog/ntia-enga…

MIT Tech Review piece on ongoing Open Source Initiative @[email protected] work to define what ' #opensource ' means in the context of AI/ML, avoiding open washing: technologyreview.com/2024/03/25/109…

Good to see that my impression that X is becoming a bit of a ghost town wasn't just me going crazy.

Also, good to see social media use in general drifting downward. Humankind is slowly adapting and learning how to handle this new technology.

Stefano Zacchiroli You know, killing bugs is your main expertise!

We got an email from the Serbian Registry of Internet Domain Names (RNIDS), the organisation that is responsible for the `.rs` top-level domain.

Looks like they are a big fan of Rust. 😊

Peer review is doing great.
Subject: 'Invitation to review for Journal of Natural Pesticide Research'

Check out what's been happening during February in the world of Reproducible Builds and software supply-chain security → reproducible-builds.org/reports/2024-0… feat FOSDEM @[email protected] The Debian Project Fedora Project (@[email protected]) openSUSE Linux Arch Linux - EN 𝓵𝓪𝓶𝓫𝔂 #diffoscope