vcg3rd

I just subtracted 1 and added a 1/4, barely giving it any thought. The example given is too simple for comparing methods.

Regardless, it doesn't have agency and isn't clever. Personally I belive in a Designer, but since middle school I've been bewildered by the way evolution is almost always presented, outside of rigorous scientific literature, as if there is agency, intelligence and intent behind it.

I don't have a problem with that, but materialists don't have that luxury and use language in bad faith when do it.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/04/the-anti-...

The TV series poses a four body problem early on (three suns and a single planet).

That's the same as the book except the book explains eventually that there were originally 7? 9? planets. The others had been ripped apart or consumed by the 3 stars, and the last one would be eventually.

The weak link of a sound system is typically the speakers/headphones. Speaking for myself the weak link for computing was monitors until about a decade ago, about the time everything was getting smaller.

I should switch to just a phone because the lack of multitasking (not in the cpu sense but the ordinary sense), the small screen, and the onscreen keyboard with no easy way to edit would make me use a computer about 95% less.

You can have my dual 27 inch 4k monitors, and my real keyboard with tons of customized shortcuts, my virtual desktops, and my EMACS 29 with lots of modes when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

https://blot.im/ is the one that finally made it possible for me to use one without configuration of both a web server and a site generator (neither of which I can do) and keep my files "local" in a synced Dropbox folder.

Never hear of meebok in comment above yours. Even a name like that has a .org and .com [1] neither of which, as far as I can tell, have anything to do with the e-reader.

[1] Danish, I think, and kept timing out.

Anyone feel like explaining it to me like I'm 5? High School physics was over 40 years ago, and while I like reading "layman's" science this one only made me think about the discussion of diminsions in 3 Body Problem, which also confused me. Frankly I've never figured out why people write of dimensions as if Time isn't one (e.g. isn't the 2D material discussed actually 3D?) Is it just understood that Time is a given one doesn't have to name?

TIA

The ship's mayday gave them enough time to stop most, but not all, traffic, according to the MD Governor.

I couldn't believe I had yo scroll almost to the bottom to find what I thought would probably be the 1st or 2nd comment. I was just about to give up and write it myself.

Between pihole, extensions and userscripts I never see ads. Ads wouldn't bother me in the least and I wouldn't block them if they were static like in a newspaper. It's the tracking I won't tolerate.

Completely right about knowing v doing but even the knowing gets skewed. The real problem that too much sucrose and fructose (whether added to not) is insulin overproduction.

I get annoyed when some people talk about an apple is better than a cookie because an apple has "natural" sugar as if sugar cane is synthetic. I will return to this example.

Humans only metabolize carbohydrates, protein, fat, and alcohol. In general all carbs breakdown to glucose. Complex carbs take longer to do this, so the metabolizing of it actually burns more calories, but there's also other biochemical and endocrine factors that vary by age, health, activity level, etc.

It's still true that complex carbs, usually having more micro nutrients and being slower to metabolize are better for us. Nonetheless, they all become glucose at some point (except nonsoluble fiber).

To return to the apple cookie example, though. If the cookie is made with oats, butter, and nuts, it may actually be much slower than the apple in provoking an insulin response. And if one eats the equivalent calories, the cookie provides oil and protein.

The author seems to think the gylcemic index is something inherent in a food rather than a measure of a metabolic process.

Toast with butter and brown sugar and cinnamon produces is better than just toast.

Even people who "know" don't seem to know it's not the sugar. It's the insulin.

A perspective on AI from almost a decade ago.

On the advice of my Dr 15 years ago I started taking 3 grams of niacin a day. Within 6 months my hdl more than doubled from the upper 20s to low 60s and my triglycerides dropped from > 600 to < 150 and have stayed that way since.

An I.Q. above body temperature.

The problem isn't the Oxford comma. The problem is lazy--or possibly rapid, if one is generous--writing and editing (if any). If the use or absence of a comma causes ambiguity, it's probably best to rewrite the sentence.

I believe it was Orwell who wrote a friend: "I am sorry this letter is so long. I didn't have time to make it shorter."

Linux Format quit shipping CDs with the magazine, oh, about a year ago, maybe. I think some of it is also "shrinkage" (the term in retail in the U.S. for shoplifting + breakage, etc). I liked the CDs for many reasons, one of which was once you open a browser...off you go. However, there are still people in the world who may want to learn but have rate-limited, firewalled, or dodgy Internet. It's like cashless systems that cut out millions of people. [1]

I don't see why it would be a problem with items mailed, except it would add another step for the publisher or distributor. But along those lines it irks me when I subscribe to a print publication that includes digital and after I login the only benefit I get it to read more stuff on the same tracker-loaded, privacy-invading enshitified site.

[1] During COVID I protested vigorously at my church about going virtual for many reasons. One of which was elderly or impoverished members who could not (because of either access or ability) easily access whichever platform was being used. There are so many variations of "works on my system" in the world.

From the README:

htmz is a minimalist HTML microframework

So, some ambiguity.

Too long ago (~2004) I read a good article about something like deep-linking with micro-payments. That's the best I can remember. The idea was to use hypertext extensively as references within on-line writing and have some kind of system like $.001 for every time a link was used.

That doesn't feel entirely adequate as an explanation. Anyway, it was before blockchain or some other mechanism to implement it, but I thought it was an interesting direction to pursue.

Similar recent post on Irreal: https://irreal.org/blog/?p=8663

Personally I have found dark modes with color schemes like, say, Dracula are visually pleasing immediately but over time become tedious and I notice a pattern of decreased mood that doesn't happen with light modes. So, I use software that adjust screen light based on the time of day rather than dark modes.

The author posed it as a question. It's not about want as much as able. No matter how much I wanted (at 58) to understand the inner working of a LLM, it's beyond me, just like becoming a fighter pilot.

However, even though I don't program, nothing in his list prior to AI is beyond me yet, if I wanted to learn it. I am happy being a 25 years Linux power user who climbed the Emacs learning curve to use org-mode and then gradually added email,rss, irc, web, and gopher modalities to it.

Started using Twitter in 2006. [Long story] Quit around 2017. Privacy Badger extension blocks embeds. Used to allow occasionally until I noticed it was never worth it and finally stopped reading "news" sites that were sentence|tweet|s|t etc.

Used Nitter for a while for the reason many do: to see that 1 tweet or thread that sounds interesting. Realized it either wasn't or was a little FOMO.

When I was a kid if you missed a good movie in theaters you had to wait years to see it on TV. I've started returning to that mentality. If it's genuinely good enough and interesting enough it will turn up somewhere eventually or I'll just miss out.

I can't number the people who have told me I must subscribe to AppleTV to watch some Ted show no one talks about any more. I always said: "No. It will turn up on some platform I use or come out on Blu-ray or I'll just never see it." For all I know it's on Blu-ray already. I forgot about it until just now it's been so long since I must watch.

Not if you waited until marriage.

36 years here. 5 kids. Both of us chaste prior and monogamous after marriage.

~5 years ago when I was driving back and forth to an adjacent state to work on our house to get it on the market, I discover my ground wire had been stolen. It was no more than 2' long and was the only exposed wire outside. The house was on a very rural 2 mile road with only 7-8 other houses. They had to be desperate.

I try not to assume motivation as I can't read minds, let alone hearts, but as a practical matter "refactoring, optimizing, or adding new features" means someone has to maintain something he may not really understand.

I still have a deactivated FB, which I would long ago have closed except Messanger became the default family chat app, and I have over 15 years of family messages.

FB failed for me in the early years. Even though I only ever added friends I knew in the flesh,I didn't really care which coffee they picked at Starbucks or what cute thing their pets did.

When FB moved into the next phase as global forum I found that, just like with email, most of USENET, and pretty much any digital communication tool/platform, no one had the attention and/or capacity for reasoned, balanced, nuanced, irenic discussion of any length.

It's one reason why Twitter was "successful" at political/cultural/philosophical "discussion. Despite the complaints about character limit it's what people actually wanted. It's also why I couldn't use it.

For years I used to write family and friends email like I would a postal letter. I replied in-line instead of at the top (thanks MS for destroying that sane practice), but even if when printed the email would be a page, page and a half at 12 pt font, I got constant compliments about length.

I never used Instagram, quit Mastadon after it had its "Eternal September" as people fled Twitter to talk about nothing but Twitter. I never was able to find active IRC channels even in the late 90s. It felt like rooms with statues even when I asked a specific on-topic question.

Mid-90s USENET and Prodigy forums were the best social experience I ever had. Now I mostly use internal forums in the tilde/rawtext public *nix space, a little gopher and gemini.

Thank heavens I can now listen to Bach without fearing he may not be great. Now if "maths" can prove da Vinci was a great artist and Michelangelo a great sculptor and Shakespeare a great writer!

Was this in need of "proof"?

Read, for example http://www.ram.org/ramblings/books/the_eight.html

If only Neville had proof it would have been a much better novel.

I assume they've set up lots of reliable, accessible charging stations everywhere?

Befuddles me that EVs are manufactured and marketed before the infrastructure exist. It's like everyone in Butte, MT buying ICE vehicles in 1910 before any gas stations opened in the area.

People shouldn't have to work.

UBI and social services should be funded by high tax rates so people can go to school and think and produce free stuff made from free stuff that was developed, mined, harvested, produced and transported by free stuff with free energy and production costs.

Governments get taxes from...?

Edit: And for those who were alive to experience it the high tax rates under Eisenhower were sustainable by the only first world economy in the aftermath of a global conflagration when the US was rebuilding W. Europe and Japan and had abundant access to energy. They continued into the 60s, dropped to 70% for a long time and led to Stagflation at the same time OPEC formed.

Basing anything on the pretty unique anomaly of the US in the 50s is a mistake.

It's a lot of words to write "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs," which if you belive is fine--"A least it's an Ethos"--but argue for it instead of smoke and mirrors. Mega-taxing the rich is as much short-term thinking as maximize shareholder value.

Maybe it's actually liscensed educators are no more effective than unlicensed teachers.