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ArbitraryValue @sh.itjust.works
Posts 4
Comments 1.2K
Just don't do it
  • I had to do a lot for my dog that could be considered gross in an abstract sense but it never bothered me much. I suppose that was because he was my cute dog and not just because he was a cute dog, but being a cute dog certainly helped. It's notable that I did not feel that same way about my little sister when I was 11 and she was born. She's a great person now but I didn't like helping take care of her even though I didn't have to do it much; I think that's a big reason why I don't have my own children.

  • Just don't do it
  • A friend of mine has a baby and he's certainly in that joy category. I guess it shouldn't surprise me because it was essential for the survival of the species, but I'm still surprised that people like babies. Kids can be cute when they're old enough to talk and use the toilet, and even then they're only cute if they're the charming kids-say-the-darnest-things sort and not the tantrum-throwing sort. Meanwhile puppies and kittens are cute from the moment they're born.

    (Why do humans babies make such horrible sounds when they need something? A puppy whimpering makes me want to give it whatever it's asking for. A baby crying makes me angry. I suppose the crying is harder to simply ignore.)

  • AI is learning from what you said on Reddit, Stack Overflow or Facebook. Are you OK with that?
  • I don't think that's an impossible problem. Existing models can reliability distinguish between, for example, different languages. Most of their training data is presumably in English but while this may make them better at generating English text, it doesn't make them randomly switch from other languages to English. A sufficiently advanced model would likewise distinguish between descriptions of reality and shit-posts because the content of shit-posts would not be useful for predicting descriptions of reality. Some fine tuning would teach it to produce just the descriptions of reality.

    Or look at it this way: the folks developing these LLMs aren't ignorant of the fact that Reddit content is often false and meant to be funny. They're not going to make the sort of silly mistake that someone who isn't an expert can still easily predict and they're not going to train their LLMs on that content if it makes the LLMs worse, although we're still going to see some glue on pizza while the technology continues to develop.

  • Don't give them ideas.
  • In a market with expensive housing, that would have effects similar to simply making renting illegal: a dramatic drop in property values, conversion of multi-unit rental properties into condos, and no apartments available for rent anywhere that isn't a slum. I suppose it would be good for home-buyers, since people owning (former) rental properties would be desperate to sell, but it wouldn't be good for renters.

  • Prosecutor won't oppose Trump sentencing delay in hush money case after high court immunity ruling
  • defense attorneys argued that Manhattan prosecutors had placed “highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence,” including Trump’s social media posts and witness testimony about Oval Office meetings

    It's unclear to me why an official act cannot be used as evidence that a different unofficial act occurred. Let's say candidate Trump shoots Bob on Fifth Avenue and then, after being elected, threatens to "kill Joe the way [he] killed Bob" during his State of the Union address. He can't be held accountable for threatening to kill Joe, but he did just confess that he killed Bob while he wasn't president. Why couldn't this confession be used as evidence in his trial for killing Bob? Or, for that matter, in his trial for killing Joe if he went on to kill Joe after he was out of office?

  • Farage says posting far-right song was ‘mistake’
  • Note that the song is banned by at least one festival. It isn't illegal.

    The use of the song by the far right is thought to have begun in late 2023

    Is that really so long ago that it even counts as a song associated with them? This reminds me of Pepe the hate symbol...

  • Meta accused of breaking EU digital law by charging for ad-free social networks
  • Is the EU asking for a version of Facebook that is free, has non-personalized ads, and doesn't collect user data? That seems like it would be a major blow not only to Facebook's business model but to the whole concept of high-budget ad-supported internet services.

  • Fuck up a book for me please
  • When I was in elementary school, my parents would get me abridged versions of great books from Walmart. They were little paperbacks with lots of illustrations. I loved many of them and read them over and over. Then when I got older, I read many of the originals.

    I think that some good stories can be retold in many different ways. One telling will be better than another but even an abridged telling can preserve they key pieces and convey them to a different audience.

    Edit: consider folk-tales. They don't have a canonical version and so for example we can have Robin Hood in both Water Scott's Ivanhoe and in the Disney movie with the foxes. Or Greek mythology, which can be enjoyed even if you're not reading Hesiod.

  • Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters: Teachers who won't teach Bible could lose license
  • lots of ads and mailers before the election that when they show their ID to vote they’ll be arrested and taken away

    I've seen a mailer providing false information that a certain very liberal group (out-of-state college students) wasn't allowed to vote, but I've never seen something like this. Do you have a link to an example of it?

  • Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters: Teachers who won't teach Bible could lose license
  • The funny thing is that a basic understanding of the Bible is actually important for making sense of American history - the people making that history were strongly influenced by the Bible and so unless you know at least the major "plot points", their actions (and a lot of literature) won't make much sense.

    With that said, I don't trust Oklahoma to teach about the Bible in a manner appropriate for historical analysis rather than religious dominance.

  • Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters: Teachers who won't teach Bible could lose license
  • the Catholic Church is their competition when it comes to running private schools and otherwise lucrative community support institutions

    I generally agree with what you've written, but I think you're assuming more pragmatism here than is actually present. Bitter hostility between Protestants and Catholics is as old as Protestantism (and much older than the institutions you mention).

    Also, as a side note, there are plenty of Catholic Republicans. (37% vs 44% that identify as Democrats, according to Pew.)

  • CNN's debate was no fair fight
  • Then it becomes “okay, call this prick the c-word. Now I need to also cite this fact that is part of my border security answer. And then I need to talk about… jesus christ are we actually talking about global warming right now?”

    That would be an understandable reaction from the average person but the president should be a lot more capable than the average person. Even if this specific sort of thing isn't something he needs to be able to handle, he still needs to handle things a lot harder than this and his performance here isn't reassuring me that he can. Trump is so predictably rude that Biden should have been totally ready for it.

  • Is there a guide out there to renovating pre-war apartments?

    I live in a 20-story building built in 1929 and I want to do some minor renovations on my apartment. I've worked on a basic modern house made of 2x4s and drywall, but I'm out of my league here. I don't even know how to hang a mirror up on the wall...

    If it's made of gypsum brick, can I treat it like masonry? What if it's hollow? Can lathe-and-plaster support any significant weight? Is drilling into the wall going to release some ancient evil they used as a normal construction material back then?

    I'd love to find a guide for how to do even the basic things in these buildings. Does anyone have recommendations?

    3

    Running a modern GPU with an old CPU/motherboard?

    I have an Intel i7-4770 CPU (from 2013) and I don't think I have ever been CPU-bound so I would rather not spend money on upgrading it. However, I want to upgrade my graphics card to a Radeon RX 7600. My motherboard supports PCIE 3.0 which the RX 7600 is fine with.

    Is there anything I should look out for? I'm worried that I'm missing something that will prevent me from running a 2023 video card on hardware ten years older than that.

    (In case anyone is curious, my current video card is a GeForce GTX 960. It has been good enough for Diablo 2 Resurrected but I don't think it will be able to handle Baldur's Gate 3.)

    13

    Should I risk breaking my LG V20?

    I bought a new-in-box LG V20 about 18 months ago because I was tired of phones without removable batteries and headphone jacks. However, it gets absolutely terrible reception for some reason (as in, no signal in the middle of Manhattan). Some guy had the same problem and he soldered a big antenna to his phone to fix it. I might try to do that but given how great I am at soldering, there's a good chance I'll break the phone. Should I do it? I don't want to have to buy a modern phone with a built-in battery but I can't just have a phone which doesn't work when I'm away from wi-fi...

    4

    Cars are awesome.

    Driving is the most comfortable, convenient, and fun mode of transportation. Walking and biking can be OK but only for traveling relatively short distances in good weather. Mass transit is inherently unpleasant. No matter how nice you try to make it (and most mass transit systems aren't nice) the fact of the matter is that passengers are still stuck in a crowded box with a bunch of strangers and limited to traveling to the mass transit system's destinations on the mass transit system's schedule. Compare this to getting into your own car and driving wherever you want, whenever you want...

    I currently live in a place too crowded for driving to be practical - I get that places like this need mass transit. But needing mass transit sucks!

    14