I had to cut my sister out of my life for her constant abuse and toxicity. It sadly cost me the relationship with my father who is now 80 and likely we won’t get the chance to reconnect before he is gone. It has been almost 4 years and I have no regrets about cutting her off. She has since shown up at my door multiple times unannounced (we live 350 miles away) and has tried to circumvent me and communicate directly with my kids by giving them toys.
One thing to add, the original sample was theorized to be superconductive due to the magnetic levitation, not a measurement of it’s resistance. In truth, “diamagnetic semiconductors” exhibit a similar levitation but without the lack of resistance; it’s now theorized that’s what the original authors experienced. The initial paper was also released with slim details, a lack of peer review, and a lot of unknowns. It’s possible that “doped with copper” is nuanced, and if you made 100 samples of this with different doping at an atomic level, you would get different results. That would mean “LK99” is easy to make, but “LK99 doped with copper to exactly achieve superconductivity at room temperature and pressure” is NOT easy to make, and we may not even have the tech to dope it precisely enough to be useful.
The more likely outcome is research into a new doping technique which leads to material meta-science that could, one day, get a superconductor with practical properties. But this was sort of hyped as “a room temp/pressure superconductor that any mid-tier lab could make” which is just false…there are youtube science channels out there synthesizing the stuff and it’s just not what was “advertised.”
I think this is exactly what I want to see, news orgs (not just “mainstream” news, but let’s say, professional orgs in an industry) hosting their own instances with closed signups for accounts with JUST relevant topics. I tried to find some journalists on journa.host to fill in tech and local news, and while I found the people, it was way too much personal/personality content and not as much news.
It feels manipulative to paint this whole thing as if there is a violence risk to reddit employees. Spez is seeing hate because of his direct actions and he is, IMHO, deserving of a lot of the vitriol. Also, this is clearly a management move, not a decision by employees. Lastly, reddit gear exists for non reddit employees, I’ve seen meetups with users in reddit shirts. I think that comment was a dog whistle to playing the victim under the guise of being a nice guy to his employees, when his direct action is causing the problem.
Universities have huge endowments and investment portfolios. These are generally broad and in support of keeping the financial backing of the school stable; this is extremely prevalent in the large older universities like Harvard or Columbia (but almost all universities have one in some form or another). They support both students and ongoing academic research.
While many of these portfolios consist of wider funds, many have specific investments in specific companies and industries. That means that the university is invested in, and taking benefit from, areas of industry. The main request is to divest the investment portfolios from companies owned by or supporting entities connected with Israel’s war on Gaza. In some cases this may be possible (move a ton of stock from a defense contractor making weapons sold to Israel to an energy company) and in some cases it may not (they’re invested in a wide market fund that itself invests in specific funds, but you can’t easily cherry-pick which stocks are actually in it). It’s also possible that there are research grants funded through companies who the students want to apply negative pressure to; cancelling a grant sends a message to the company, but also leaves entire teams and time-dependent science without funding, potentially ending it outright unless alternate funding can be found. There also may be contracts involved for specific research and engagements, and breaking a contract is more complicated than just ripping it up (especially if there are early termination policies outlined).
Realistically, the best students can hope for is a commitment to investigate and divest where possible, which is frustrating but also makes sense. I’ve worked in higher education for 20 years and have seen this on a smaller scale around defense contractors during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The endowment is a slow moving leviathan, but I think it’s a good place for the students to apply pressure.