History of Science, Cartography, Transport, Software, Moths & Insects. Author, musician, gardener, tinkerer. I just love to learn and make things. šµš±š¬š§š»š¦
Joined February 2016
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10 Dec 2023
Riccioli's Almagestum Novum (1651) wasn't just the most comprehensive Astronomy Textbook ever.
It also linked House Grimaldi to French Royal ancestors, pushing the diplomacy that would ally Monaco with France and protect them from Italian Unification.
amazon.co.uk/Almagestum-Novuā¦
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
Johann Fabricius published the first book on the telescopic observation of sun spots on 13 June 1611 #histsci
thonyc.wordpress.com/2011/01ā¦
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
Giovanni Domenico Cassini, the real founder of telescopic astronomy, was born 8 June 1625 #histsci
thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/06ā¦
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
If you look at this image again, in particular at Henry II's hands, it looks as though he's counting off the number of ways Becket's annoyed him
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
Hereās a gem, offered in life size, that many medical collectors have overlooked. Monroās Bursae Mucosae (1788). There has never been another book like it.
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
Renaissance mathematics, Johannes Regiomontanus, who founded the worlds first scientific printing press, was born June 6 1436 #histsci
thonyc.wordpress.com/2011/06ā¦
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Hot take: Before LLMs, you could have also read all the books relevant to a university course for a tiny fraction of the price.
And your education would have been less full of hallucinations and rubbish.
Hot take: Universities charge $300,000 for a degree that teaches you skills any LLM can do for free. At some point we need to have an honest conversation about whether higher education is the greatest individuals misallocation of capital in recent history.
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It has started
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Magnifica Humanitas
Encyclical by Pope Leo XIV
Summarised by human per paragraph:
1. Every generation has an ability to shape its era, whether towards a dignified and just world, or an inhumane and unjust hellscape. Christians know following Christ leads to the former.
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100. AI can be a valuable tool. But people can become too reliant on it, and weaken their own creativity and judgment. It can also mislead, particularly by creating an illusion of a relationship. This risks causing people to lose the desire to form genuine human relationships.
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101. We must not overlook the environmental impact of AI systems due to their huge gains in efficiency. AI systems use a lot of energy and water, increase CO2 emmissions and place heavy demands on natural resources.
We must develop more sustainable technological solutions.
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
A new blog post series two thousand years of Calculus #histsci
thonyc.wordpress.com/2026/06ā¦
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
Jun 2
Yes - already in 1624 Krzysztof Arciszewski, a Polish nobleman, walked on the bottom of the North Sea
hrabiatytus.pl/2019/10/08/piā¦
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I hadn't realised, but it seems diving bells were already used in the 16th century. Amazing
How they salvaged treasures from shipwrecks in 17th century.
An example of such expedition was in 1686, when Englishman William Phips found the wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra SeƱora de la ConcepciĆ³n off the coast of Santo Domingo.
Native divers and diving bells were used.
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Michal J A Paszkiewicz retweeted
Jun 2
Book Launch | Oxford Handbook of Digital Theology ā a landmark publication with leading voices exploring theology and digitality.
š Date: Tuesday 16th June
ā±ļø 7pm (GMT 2)
š Location: Zurich & Online
š Free to attend with registration
šgonedigital.media
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I don't like working with PDFs, so this is what happened when I was sent a pdf review copy of a 1000 page book.
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In case anyoneās wondering ā yes, those books have two ribbons each. Iāve been adding ribbons to all my books lately.
Hardbacks are easy: you just glue the ribbon under the spine lining.
Paperbacks only need a tiny incision between the cover and glue on the spine.
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Having recently learned how slide rules work, I wrote up this explainer for others who may be interested.
(I posted it as an X "article," as that let me add multiple pictures to show what I was doing.)
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