some people dont like it when boys are just boys.
my boys are the best boys.
my boys boy better than any other boys who would otherwise be boys.
Relax: Calm down, chill bro.
you'll be pleased to know yours is a very reasonable opinion to have and you're right for having it, too.
I am doing well. I am carrying a 4.0 in school right now. It's only 2 classes this semester at entry level stuff (english 1 and algebra) but still, it feels like quite an accomplishment going from weed-smoking bed-depression to this. I'm struggling sometimes remembering to take my morning dose which doesn't help me very much on those days as you could imagine. I've developed something of a takeout addiction- I'm literally eating 90%+ of my meals out and almost not cooking for myself at all. It's very, very financially painful, but I don't have to cook or clean so my brain is just like, "eh, fuck it." Those times when I do go out and get some groceries for myself my brain continues to throw the fuckits around and the produce just goes to rot. Still, 4.0 is pretty good.
I mean i dont have much to say but it was nice knowing it was there. when I started responding to these initially i was in kind of a rough spot, and now that I'm doing a lot better I guess I haven't felt the need to seek it out when it wasnt showing up. And the reason it wasnt showing up, now im thinking about it, is that i never sort by subscribed anymore, which is really my fault.
Are we still doing these?! How come they're not showing up in my feed!?
Spoiler worked perfectly 🤮
spoiler
as a fr*nch 🤢
"Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement," Bezos wrote. "I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false."
"Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, 'I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.' None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one," Bezos wrote
The fact that you only equate sex/nudity to porn reveals the problem.
I took the trouble to delineate tasteful nudity, or sex that actually serves a purpose in the plot (your fine examples of drama or fear are great suggestions, though I worry about the encroachment of porn with a "fun sex scene") from common smut.
As for public life: the theater is a public place, my thought goes no further than that.
Thinking back now, I can even empathize with some of your feelings here. In the abu dhabi branch of the louvre, there is an ancient marble statue of a man that stands twice my height if my memory serves. Its genitals have been roughly gouged out with chisels in stark contrast to the smooth curve of skin and cloth for the entire rest of the statue. It's nauseating and disrespectful not just to the creator's work and vision but to human dignity. I think me seeing that statue and feeling what I felt is something comparable to how you now feel. I'm not afraid of or ashamed of the human form or human sexuality, but these things have a time and a place and a respect due that is often not granted or even considered.
So maybe im just watching the wrong movies. what not-porn movie are you watching that treats sex with the dignity and respect it deserves?
Side note. I do not want to engage on the discussion of capitalism/socialism/communism here, as it falls outside the scope of this community. However:
- im gonna
- you cant stop me i already did it
That seems... Well, its your life bub.
one thing I'm seeing here is probably more rocks than I would ever want for geomancer, making moving hard. How many times in your fight did rocks block your path forcing you to take a hit? I spend at least half of my turns in geomancer just clearing rocks to make evading rock hits safe. Same with trap disarming- I see three traps there, is there any chance you were forced to choose between eating the trap and taking a hit?
Since you insist on fighting the geomancer with his minions, there's a way perhaps you could use this to your advantage. With careful positioning, and perhaps the use of, say, a wand of blasting for either you or minion or both, or a pre-planted yellow seed, or tele rune, you could cause the minion to eat a flying rock, getting two birds stoned at once. Could also knock the minion into one of the traps with careful positioning and the blast wand. Probably not, but maybe geomancer eats minion hits too?
Weird question that will seem like a non-sequitur unless you've played it- have you ever played into the breach? It's exactly the kind of resource-limited chess-like strategizing I think you'd need to successfully navigate the landscape of the puzzle you've set up for yourself.
You might also try just killing all but one or two minions, leaving the rest alive, and see if other strategies don't generate organically as you gradually increase your difficulty by decreasing minions killed before starting.
In summary, practice, planning, and patience.
The point of John Wick is the gratuitous violence. The plot of John Wick is in service to delivering gratuitous violence. The name for a movie whose plot is in service to delivering gratuitous sex is "pornography." Tasteful, artistic nudity is one thing. Even sex, in service to the plot or purpose of the movie, is another thing. But sex just to sell the movie or check a box is not a thing: we're now talking smut. Cheap, common, vulgar smut.
"Everyone is ugly and everyone is fucking" is just real life. If you want "Everyone is beautiful and everyone is fucking," good news- that's called porn already, and there's so much of it. I like smut, and porn. Which is why I can recognize softcore in movies when I see it. Stop me if you've heard this one before, but if I wanted to watch porn I'd go home and masturbate.
I congratulate you on your personal sexual liberation. Please keep your jollies to yourself- in private- while we pitiful repressed twilight zone voyeurs awkwardly exclude sex from our public lives.
I don't understand the question. You want to fight the boss while his minions are up, and you want advice on how to do that better? For like, the challenge of it?
do you actually think the potential misapplication of the word carpet is the thing that makes it a genocide or not? let me help you with that
‘carpet’ is very obviously used in a figurative sense to describe “a lot, like in world war two” above, not the technical sense your strictly literal pedantic argument would require to have any pretense of validity.
the person obviously does not know that "carpet" bombing means anything other than "a lot, like in world war 2". this pedantic bullshit you're trying to pull does not fly, nor does it argue against the fact of genocide if true. i have already answered literally all of this before. it is a red herring, you are not arguing in good faith, and i am now blocking you, you disingenuous troll.
The Shipwreck, William Falconer
>INTRODUCTION. > >While jarring interests wake the world to arms, And fright the peaceful vale with dire alarms, While Albion bids th’ avenging thunder roll Along her vassal deep from pole to pole; Sick of the scene, where war with ruthless hand Spreads desolation o’er the bleeding land; Sick of the tumult, where the trumpet’s breath Bids ruin smile, and drowns the groan of death; ’Tis mine, retired beneath this cavern hoar, That stands all lonely on the sea-beat shore, Far other themes of deep distress to sing Than ever trembled from the vocal string; A scene from dumb Oblivion to restore, To Fame unknown, and new to epic lore: > >Where hostile elements conflicting rise, And lawless surges swell against the skies, Till Hope expires, and Peril and Dismay Wave their black ensigns on the watery way. Immortal train! who guide the maze of song, To whom all science, arts, and arms belong, Who bid the trumpet of eternal Fame Exalt the warrior’s and the poet’s name, Or in lamenting elegies express The varied pang of exquisite distress; If e’er with trembling hope I fondly strayed In life’s fair morn beneath your hallowed shade, To hear the sweetly mournful lute complain, And melt the heart with ecstasy of pain, Or listen to the enchanting voice of love, While all Elysium warbled through the grove; Oh! by the hollow blast that moans around, That sweeps the wild harp with a plaintive sound; By the long surge that foams through yonder cave, Whose vaults remurmur to the roaring wave; With living colours give my verse to glow, The sad memorial of a Tale of Woe! The fate, in lively sorrow, to deplore Of wanderers shipwrecked on a leeward shore. > >Alas! neglected by the sacred Nine, Their suppliant feels no genial ray divine Ah! will they leave Pieria’s happy shore, To plough the tide where wintery tempests roar? Or shall a youth approach their hallowed fane, Stranger to Phœbus, and the tuneful train? Far from the Muses’ academic grove, ’Twas his the vast and trackless deep to rove; Alternate change of climates has he known, And felt the fierce extremes of either zone; Where polar skies congeal th’ eternal snow, Or equinoctial suns for ever glow, Smote by the freezing, or the scorching blast, ‘A ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,’ From regions where Peruvian billows roar, To the bleak coasts of savage Labrador; From where Damascus, pride of Asian plains, Stoops her proud neck beneath tyrannic chains, To where the Isthmus, laved by adverse tides, Atlantic and Pacific seas divides: But while he measured o’er the painful race In fortune’s wild illimitable chace, Adversity, companion of his way, Still o’er the victim hung with iron sway, > >Bade new distresses every instant grow, Marking each change of place with change of woe; In regions where th’ Almighty’s chastening hand With livid pestilence afflicts the land, Or where pale famine blasts the hopeful year, Parent of want and misery severe; Or where, all-dreadful in th’ embattled line, The hostile ships in flaming combat join, Where the torn vessel, wind and waves assail, Till o’er her crew distress and death prevail.— Such joyless toils, in early youth endured, Th’ expanding dawn of mental day obscured, Each genial passion of the soul oppressed, And quenched the ardour kindling in his breast: Then censure not severe the native song, Though jarring sounds the measured verse prolong, Though terms uncouth offend the softer ear, Yet truth, and human anguish deign to hear: No laurel wreaths these lays attempt to claim, Nor sculptur’d brass to tell the poet’s name. And lo! the power that wakes th’ eventful song, Hastes hither from Lethean banks along; She sweeps the gloom, and, rushing on the sight, Spreads o’er the kindling scene propitious light; > >In her right hand an ample roll appears, Fraught with long annals of preceding years, With every wise and noble art of man Since first the circling hours their course began; Her left a silver wand on high displayed Whose magic touch dispels oblivion’s shade: Pensive her look; on radiant wings that glow Like Juno’s birds, or Iris’ flaming bow, She sails; and swifter than the course of light Directs her rapid intellectual flight: The fugitive ideas she restores, And calls the wandering thought from Lethe’s shores; To things long past a second date she gives, And hoary Time from her fresh youth receives; Congenial sister of immortal Fame, She shares her power, and Memory is her name. O first-born daughter of primeval Time! By whom transmitted down in every clime The deeds of ages long elapsed are known, And blazoned glories spread from zone to zone; Whose magic breath dispels the mental night, And o’er th’ obscured idea pours the light; Say, on what seas, for thou alone canst tell, What dire mishap a fated ship befel, > >Assailed by tempests, girt with hostile shores Arise! approach! unlock thy treasured stores! Full on my soul the dreadful scene display, And give its latent horrors to the day.
Sadakichi Hartmann, "Drifting Flowers of the Sea"
Across the dunes, in the waning light, The rising moon pours her amber rays, Through the slumbrous air of the dim, brown night The pungent smell of the seaweed strays— From vast and trackless spaces Where wind and water meet, White flowers, that rise from the sleepless deep, Come drifting to my feet. They flutter the shore in a drowsy tune, Unfurl their bloom to the lightlorn sky, Allow a caress to the rising moon, Then fall to slumber, and fade, and die.
White flowers, a-bloom on the vagrant deep, Like dreams of love, rising out of sleep, You are the songs, I dreamt but never sung, Pale hopes my thoughts alone have known, Vain words ne’er uttered, though on the tongue, That winds to the sibilant seas have blown. In you, I see the everlasting drift of years That will endure all sorrows, smiles and tears; For when the bell of time will ring the doom To all the follies of the human race, You still will rise in fugitive bloom And garland the shores of ruined space.
Timber
The prompt was "Trees." If you know how to format line breaks instead of paragraph breaks, please let me know.
Timber
I have heard that wood will warm you many times,
When you chop it,
Split it,
Burn it and cook-
I find a standing dead.
It's no good taking the fallen,
The wet gets in so quick around here.
Leave those for the beetles.
Abraham Lincoln said
If he had six hours to fell a tree,
He would spend four
Sharpening his axe.
My father once asked me
"Why not use a chainsaw?"
I could let another man
fuck my wife.
Sweat slick and
Sore muscles
Never felt so good.
Life shorn of its artifice.
Pro-Choice
I wrote a comment recently in response to a senator describing himself as "pro-choice" in defense of his refusing to repeal child marriage statutes. I recognized a poetic rhythm and have adapted it to hopefully fit as a submission here.
Pro-Choice
Yeah, he's pro choice-
Pro choice like a gunman asking, "which kneecap?"
Pro choice like a lioness stalking a herd of gazelle.
Pro choice like a homeless man can choose a bridge.
Pro choice like deciding between financial and medical ruin.
Pro choice like a rapist asking, "ass or cunt?"
Pro choice like choosing which bill to put off this month.
Pro choice like a backalley crackhead choosing another hit.
Pro choice like forcing a mother to choose between an impossible baby and an illegal abortion.
Yeah. He's pro choice.
Entropic Gravity
>Maybe gravity is no more fundamental than the force of a stretched elastic band. Maybe gravity is just an entropic byproduct—an emergent effect of the universe’s tendency to disorder.
Bourbakis' Elements of Mathematics, Algebra 1
In trying to figure out the answer to my homework problem, I came across this volume, which I thought the community might find interesting and/or helpful.
The use of Mathematical Programming with Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems (McBride, O'Leary; 1993)
>Abstract: > >Researchers have developed artificially intelligent (AI) and expert systems (ES) to assist in the formulation, solution and interpretation of generic mathematical programs (MP). In addition, researchers also have built domain-specific systems either modeled around a mathematical program or which include a mathematical program module. In these systems, the specificity of the domain allows researchers to extend the interpretation or formulation beyond that available from the generic set of assumptions about mathematical programming. Further, researchers have begun to investigate the use of mathematical program formulations of expert systems. The purpose of their research has been to, e.g., understand the complexity of the expert systems and also to examine the feasibility of mathematical programming as an alternative solution methodology for those expert systems. This paper surveys and extends some of that literature that integrates AIlES and MP, and elicits some of the current research issues of concern.
Algebraic Solutions to Graphical Trig Problems?
I've been knocking out the trig problems in this section with minimal difficulty so far, but I've run straight into a brick wall on this "Algebraic" part. I'm asked to find sin(x)=0 between [0,2π). If I graphed the unit circle this would be a trivial exercise to show sin(θ)=0 when θ=0 or π.
Where I have trouble is- I'm very explicitly being told here that the solution is ALGEBRAIC, and I'm struggling to figure out a way to rearrange sin(x)=0 to come up with the known answer. Further, unit circles are not in this chapter, they wouldn't likely ask me to exercise a skill taught in another chapter. What am I missing?
It's not just 31, either. Looking ahead at eg 37, I can easily show sin(-x) = -sin(x) on a unit circle. I could maybe fuck around with inverse trig ratios but those are in section 3- this is only section 1.
Help me out here, drop a hint, share a link: how do I solve sin(x)=0 on [0,2π), but algebraically? I suspect it's something glaringly obvious and/or very very simple I've overlooked.
Concrete Problems in AI Safety Part 2: Empowerment
>Maybe AI systems would be safer if they avoid gaining too much control over their environment? How might that work?
AI/ML+Physics Part 2: Curating Training Data
>This video discusses the second stage of the machine learning process: (2) collecting and curating training data to inform the model. There are opportunities to incorporate physics into this stage of the process, such as data augmentation to incorporate known symmetries.
Going back multiple pages?
I believe I've found a bug. I intermittently go back multiple pages when pressing back button. It frequently happens on youtube, and occasionally happens elsewhere.
In the picture, find my history where I started with the google search for "the chain" (please forgive me for having history from multiple tabs all mixed up). From here I went back and forth with the expected behavior a couple of times looking for the version I remembered. When I found the correct version, I settled in to listen to it in the background for a few songs minutes until it switched to gypsy which wasn't what I wanted to hear. Naturally enough, I went back once- straight from gypsy to the google search, skipping rhiannon and dreams and the chain. This is reflected on the rightclick drop down from the forward button- observe the three intervening pages which are in the history are not in the forward/back list.
In general, I frequently notice this unexpected and unwanted behavior when I go to youtube. I often go to the homepage, select a video, and then try to back to the homepage only to find it take me back to the blank tab, and when I try to forward it takes me to the video without the intervening homepage.
I seem to recall times when I experienced similar behavior, but cannot put a pin in when or where and cannot at this time, despite trying, reproduce it anywhere but youtube. I haven't tried downloading chrome or shudder using edge, mostly because fuck that, but also slightly because I am very lazy.
I also didn't notice this behavior on my laptop which had win10 and firefox (that is, before I switched to linux as a trial over there, but I digress). I tried to search for this error, but google search is terribly corrupt and difficult to get useful results beyond eg song names. I also searched this forum for "back pages" and "back page" and didn't find anything relevant going back a year.
Do I set my computer on fire for its disobedience, or...?
Inverse Trig Functions Not Giving Consistent Outputs With Each Other?
It's homework help, but I'm not asking for the solution. The problem only asks for cos, sin, tan, cot, csc given sec. I found those pretty quickly on my own, and confirmed solutions with the back of the book.
Where I run into confusion is when I try to find angle theta on my own. Arccos of found cos gives 2.06, arcsin of found sin gives 1.08, and arctan of found tan gives -1.08. Problem givens exclude possibility of the negative angle found by arctan(-15/8), but the other two are possible and conflicting. And why wouldn't they all be the same? I reattempted because there were so many erase marks from trying to figure this out that it was almost illegible.
Am I wrong? Did the book give me a point not on the unit circle or something, assuming I wouldn't try to find theta on my own? Have I used arcfuncs wrong- I checked the domains against the function definitions? Have I found a hole in math?
Treatments for Bipolar Disorder?
The VA has approved me for community care! Instead of a revolving door of unprofessional incompetent clowns who specialize in PTSD, I can select one of the incompetent unprofessional clowns from my community who specialize in BPD!
How should I look for a psychologist? There's like, a lot to choose from here. Most everyone mentions "specialties" like bipolar on their site, in among a bunch of stuff like ptsd and depression and lgbtq issues- Which makes me think they aren't actually specialists, which gives me the impression they'll say just about anything to get me in the door. It's all a bit overwhelming and I basically only have one shot. Once I engage with someone, if they aren't a good fit (my history suggests it will take several sessions before I know if they'll be a good fit, so...) I have to go through the several months approval process for community care again before I can make another selection, assuming I'm approved. How do you weed out assholes, idiots, and the incompetent before you see them?
What treatments have you found to be effective in your therapy?
Also, I'm much better on Lithium than I ever have been, but I'm already coming close to the maximum safe dose- if there is such a thing. The psychiatrist mentioned depakote, but I've tried that before and had severe gastrointestinal problems. Are there any other medications I should be looking out for or asking about here?
Concrete Problems in AI Safety (Dario Amodei, Chris Olah, Jacob Steinhardt, Paul Christiano, John Schulman, Dan Mané 2016)
Abstract:
>Rapid progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) has brought increasing attention to the potential impacts of AI technologies on society. In this paper we discuss one such potential impact: the problem of accidents in machine learning systems, defined as unintended and harmful behavior that may emerge from poor design of real-world AI systems. We present a list of five practical research problems related to accident risk, categorized according to whether the problem originates from having the wrong objective function ("avoiding side effects" and "avoiding reward hacking"), an objective function that is too expensive to evaluate frequently ("scalable supervision"), or undesirable behavior during the learning process ("safe exploration" and "distributional shift"). We review previous work in these areas as well as suggesting research directions with a focus on relevance to cutting-edge AI systems. Finally, we consider the high-level question of how to think most productively about the safety of forward-looking applications of AI.
Concrete Problems in AI Safety Part 1: Avoiding Negative Side-Effects
>We can expect AI systems to accidentally create serious negative side effects - how can we avoid that? >The first of several videos about the paper "Concrete Problems in AI Safety".
Computerphile: Discussion with Robert Miles about Generality in Artificial Intelligence
A brief overview of the concept of generality in AI systems.
Avoiding Fusion Plasma Tearing Instability with Deep Reinforcement Learning
Artificial intelligence control is used to avoid the emergence of disruptive tearing instabilities in the magnetically confined fusion plasma in the DIII-D tokamak reactor.
Abstract
For stable and efficient fusion energy production using a tokamak reactor, it is essential to maintain a high-pressure hydrogenic plasma without plasma disruption. Therefore, it is necessary to actively control the tokamak based on the observed plasma state, to manoeuvre high-pressure plasma while avoiding tearing instability, the leading cause of disruptions. This presents an obstacle-avoidance problem for which artificial intelligence based on reinforcement learning has recently shown remarkable performance. However, the obstacle here, the tearing instability, is difficult to forecast and is highly prone to terminating plasma operations, especially in the ITER baseline scenario. Previously, we developed a multimodal dynamic model that estimates the likelihood of future tearing instability based on signals from multiple diagnostics and actuators. Here we harness this dynamic model as a training environment for reinforcement-learning artificial intelligence, facilitating automated instability prevention. We demonstrate artificial intelligence control to lower the possibility of disruptive tearing instabilities in DIII-D, the largest magnetic fusion facility in the United States. The controller maintained the tearing likelihood under a given threshold, even under relatively unfavourable conditions of low safety factor and low torque. In particular, it allowed the plasma to actively track the stable path within the time-varying operational space while maintaining H-mode performance, which was challenging with traditional preprogrammed control. This controller paves the path to developing stable high-performance operational scenarios for future use in ITER.
I'm doing... well this week?
It's been a long time since I've had a good week, but this one was alright. Not amazing or anything, but just... good?
I had only one major episode, it was entirely private, I went into my car to scream for a bit then went in and felt better. The entire rest of the week went... pretty smoothly? I didn't sit inside all day. I got out and did things. When things didn't go exactly how I wanted to, I didn't immediately seethe or mope. Get this: I worked with people, found solutions, and got shit done. I had fun without overdoing it. I was still pretty impulsive with my food spending, and still struggled with cleaning up and cooking for myself. The two are very much correlated, it's a vicious cycle and the target of my next goal for self-improvement.
I started a "mood journal." It's helping. I should have done this years ago. I should have been given Lithium years ago.