Just realized that all the icons in the macOS System Settings app change sizes when the window is frontmost vs not. Why in the world would this be helpful?
Can't believe I got rug pulled by the UN. What a joke. I forecasted that the UN wouldn't declare a famine in Gaza because a real famine requires 2 deaths per 10k, which works out to ~420 deaths per day. The chances of this happening are insanely low and you've been brain rotted by your news feed if you think it is. What I failed to factor in was the possibility that the UN would just change its definition of what a famine is by removing the 2 deaths 10k requirement completely.
The situation in Gaza is definitely bad, but focusing this much on what words we use to describe it (genocide, famine) is not helpful and distracts from the actual situation on the ground. Semantics are stupid, just focus on the facts.
Note to self: never ask an LLM for flirting suggestions. It'll take a while for capabilities to improve enough to become useful.
Just wrote a Python script to extract messages from a conversation in iMessages, then fed it into an LLM to get feedback and suggestions as a test. After reading LLM flirting suggestions I think I might die of cringe. I have never felt such a strong urge to gag while reading non-NSFW text.
For all the other people who may have, like me, seen this meme graph all over the internet with everyone attributing it to their favorite pet theory for the decline of society, it turns out the data had to be tortured pretty hard to get this.
I finally made a decision and took the Giving What We Can pledge. Instead of feeling helpless about the evil going on in the world, do something about it and improve the world as much as you can with what you have.
Don't settle for giving to the charity that has the best marketing materials or the most emotional appeal, look at the numbers and give to the charities who are doing the most good for the least amount of money.
Every dollar matters. Every person can easily save many lives every year. Make a difference and take the pledge.
"Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love." - Gandalf
If you want to leave Substack because you don’t want to be beholden to a centralized platform, then great! That’s a decent reason to leave.
But everyone whining about Substack not having tight censorship is silly. The only reason there’s censorship online is because of advertisers. Companies don’t want their names next to Nazi propaganda, which is fair. Substack is subscription based so there’s no point in all the pomp and show of censorship.
Censorship is stupid, leaving Substack because you want Substack to decide what people can and cannot write is stupid.
I when walking the fine line between safety and privacy, I tend to come down on the side of privacy, but it does seem strange that breathalyzers aren’t required on cars.
They’re not very privacy invasive and it seems like it would do a lot of good.
Great reminder of how much goal posts change. The author of this article is showing a survey of different text generation methods in 2021 before ChatGPT and is impressed that GPT-2 can not only write mostly grammatically correct and logical sentences, but the model can use correct pronouns to refer to people ("her" when referring to "sister"). We've come a long way.
One of the best things you can do when you read something is to simply click links.
That’s it.
When an article makes a statement and has a link, just go ahead and click it and then start reading. Forcing myself to engage and research what I’m reading rather than passively consuming has had a lot of benefits.
First, it lets you prune out people or sources you read that may seem trustworthy on the surface but are citing absolute crap to support claims.
Second, reading more primary sources inoculates against a lot of lazy writing about “scientists say X”. You’ll quickly realize there’s a broad range of research credibility and rigor. Just because there’s a study that says something that doesn’t mean it’s true.
Third, it’s just a good brain exercise. Force yourself to do hard things. Push back against the TikTok and social media induced stupor of consumption. Reading dense primary sources forces you to put some effort into comprehending what you’re reading. Too much content online is written to require as little effort as possible. Put some mental reps in and get effortful reading back into your daily routine.
