notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

> If you live somewhere that mostly burns coal to make electricity,

Which is almost everywhere in the world. Fossil fuels make up around 80% of energy production.

> But if they start building wind turbines and solar farms, because those are just cheaper and easier -

If they were "just cheaper and easier" they wouldn't need huge clean energy investments and subsidies.

I love solar, but don't let anyone sell you on the fiction that your EV is avoiding fossil fuels at any time in the near future unless you have installed enough solar on your personal residence to charge your car every day.

And if you ask the people who have done that "hey, was it cheap and easy to move your car's energy consumption to renewables?" and they reply "Yes!", please bring their story back here and share with the class.

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023/execut...

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

Just a note on your gun death comment. The chance of dying by a gun in the US is very small. Of those killed by guns in the US, less than 3% are killed by anything resembling an "assault rifle". Over half of all gun deaths are suicides, so even those numbers are inflated if what you want to know is "how worried do I need to be about dying because the 2nd amendment allows assault rifle ownership?"

The quick answer is "very little".

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

They did not have internet. From the article:

> You were in a country that really was sealed off from the rest of the world. No internet or social media. All press and TV (one channel) dedicated not for news but solely for the glorification of the Leader. That is the Kim dynasty and the regime.

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

I couldn't be talking from a more realistic standpoint. I've lived in places where incumbent ISPs don't invest in infrastructure, places where a private organization built out a cable network without any subsidies, places where a municipal provider was subsidized by federal grant money, and places where there was no public or private build outs and so I built my own ISP servicing my rural neighbors.

I'm not saying that municipal broadband is a net loss, but there are no silver bullets. Subsidies are one way that a municipality can "pick a winner", and in so doing, it can assure all of the competition loses. Sometimes that's a net win, sometimes it isn't, your claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

> But that is rarely true for any privatized infrastructure alternative. There is often direct financial relations through taxation anyways, either tax breaks for the company or outright having the municipality foot the bill(see most stadiums)

How would you consider those to be "privatized infrastructure alternatives" then? To me this sounds like further evidence of citizens having fewer alternatives available because their money is being spent on things they may not (or may!) care about.

> Then there is the potential resource usage itself - e.g how much of the land in that city is now dedicate to toll roads that could be free, or in the internet infra case it's often exclusive rights to the poles all of the lines are ran on.

IDK, public rights-of-way don't seem to be the place where big disagreements are found? Passing a local law to allow common access to utility infrastructure seems qualitatively different than establishing a municipal competitor.

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

> Everybody benefits from infrastructure even if they don't use it directly.

...therefore, by definition, any infrastructure project is to be considered "worth it" and should be welcomed by everyone in the community. To be against government rollout of infrastructure is to be against everybody's best interest, right?

I'm not against government-provided services across-the-board. But apologists for infrastructure spending often seem to make this argument as if it's the last point to be made. The great thing about a private company "overcharging" or "underserving" a community is that citizens aren't forced to be in a relationship with that company for their services. That's not the case for infrastructure spending by the local government. It's much harder to vote with your feet than to vote with your wallet.

The fine line to walk with government spending is to find a way to incentivize competition in the local marketplace, without destroying it in the process. It's not an easy problem to solve.

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

I've not personally read "Misquoting Jesus", but I've listened to Ehrman on YT a bit. Based on that, and having spoken with a few biblical scholars who have read Ehrman, the general impression I get is that he has a "select is broken"[0] attitude toward the reliability of the Bible.

Much like GCC, and the Linux kernel, and the PostgreSQL query planner, the Bible is a battle-tested historical artifact. There may be a slew of yet-to-be-discovered "edge cases" in its interpretation (and perhaps Ehrman is the man to discover them). But in the main, it's an incredibly reliable witness to history.

So, while I wouldn't want to discourage people from starting their study of Biblical textual criticism with Bart Ehrman, I would definitely discourage them from concluding it with him.

    The one who states his case first seems right,
      until the other comes and examines him.
    Prov. 18:17

[0]: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-first-rule-of-programming-...

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

I don't tend to reread many books in general. C.S. Lewis and Tolkien's fictional series are probably the only exceptions. However, I do frequently reread books from the Bible, typically the English Standard Version. And yes, I would make the claim that all of these are non-fictional books/letters.

- Jonah: for its description of God's desire to have compassion on a group of people who don't know him, by leaving Jonah with no other option than telling those people about Him.

- Ecclesiastes: For "The Teacher's" many vignettes about how life is a quickly-dissipating vapor, and his pointing to ways to find satisfaction in it.

- Mark: Mark tells the story of Jesus' life and ministry in a no-nonsense, get-to-the-point kind of way.

- Romans: Paul gives a treatise on: the main problem of mankind, the inability of men to live up to any standard of behavior, the source of any confidence that anyone can have that God might be pleased with them, the way the Christian church relates to the people of Israel, and how to live in unity with people with whom you have disagreements.

- 1 John: John never got over the fact that he was loved by Jesus, and this letter is his recapitulation of that same love toward others.

[Jonah]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah%201&versi...

[Ecclesiastes]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&...

[Mark]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+1&version=...

[Romans]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1&versio...

[1 John]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+1&versio...

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

It is and it is. My dad died of a GBM in 2022, 17 months after his diagnosis. If he had had another 19 months, I'd have made him breakfast this morning.

I find it much easier to sympathize with people's desire for additional time with terminally-ill loved ones now.

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

GBM median survival for humans (according to the article) is 15 months.

If the effect is linear, the boost to survival time in humans would be an additional 19 months. With the death sentence of GBM hanging over your future, an additional year-and-a-half is huge.

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

I see this claimed all the time, but I don't understand why this is assumed to be the case.

GDP rises and falls with economic progress and innovation. If new LLM startups make a bunch of money, GDP goes up accordingly.

But government spending is primarily geared towards defense, infrastructure, and benefits/entitlements. What makes those costs go up proportionally to GDP? A fighter jet doesn't directly cost more because Amazon rolls out a new Alexa device, does it? America doesn't suddenly grow thousands of miles of new coastline because Google opens a data center in Iowa, right? If Rivian builds 10,000 new EV trucks, how much more interstate highway must be built?

I would expect government spending to ebb and flow as market prices fluctuate, and I get that they might be loosely correlated, but why is spending assumed to be so closely linked that we should expect it to be a function of GDP?

What's the intuition I'm missing?

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

Arrive home from where?

I've got my AI Assistant writing my code, checking in at the gym, running my poker night, and filing my taxes.

(Robot, experience this tragic irony for me!)

</sarcasm>

On a serious note, I agree with you. LLMs, in practice, seem to be both raising the ceiling of what's possible on the high end as well as lowering the floor making it easier for new entrants on the low end. See, for example, Justine Tunney's recent work on making llama run better on CPUs.

http://justine.lol/matmul/

notdonspaulding

2년 전discuss

Doesn't it strike you as odd that devs get "lost" often enough to need this "feature"?

I've used CVS, SVN, hg, bzr, and git. Why does git stand alone as the only VCS where devs need so many foot bandages?

notdonspaulding

3년 전discuss

I came here to mention Dave Beazley's courses and talks.

In particular, I recently prepped/ran a week-long, in-house training session of Dave's Python-Mastery[1] course at my day job. We had a group of 8 with a mix of junior and senior Software Engineers and while the juniors were generally able to follow along, it really benefited the senior SEs most. It covers the whole language in such depth and detail that you really feel like you've explored every nook and cranny by the time you're done.

[1] https://github.com/dabeaz-course/python-mastery/

(I enjoyed teaching the class so much that I've considered offering my services teaching it on a consulting basis to other orgs. If that interests anyone, feel free to reach out to the email in my profile.)

notdonspaulding

3년 전discuss

> From start of game to 50 squares left is enumerable.

A nitpick, but I don't think you meant to say "enumerable" here

"enumerable" means "able to be enumerated, or counted"

https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Enumerate

"innumerable" means "unable to be numbered, or counted"

https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/innumerable

notdonspaulding

3년 전discuss

> Its the same failure mode regardless if played via everyone paying taxes or everyone paying FDIC...

But if everyone is paying FDIC via fees levied against private banks, then the POTUS and Yellen and everyone else can release a statement saying "no taxpayer funds will be used to bail out SVB". That way everyone can breathe an ironic sigh of relief: "Oh good, I was worried I was going to have to foot the tax bill for that. It's bad enough I have to pay all these greedy capitalists at my local bank a new fee every other week, at least the government is looking out for the little guy!"

notdonspaulding

3년 전discuss

Your first thought is completely right.

Your second thought sounds like a good idea. Let's have another competitor (government) funded by private entities via debt equity (bonds) which is paid back by customer receipts (profits) where failure equals unemployment. Actually, this is starting to sound like a business, but with more steps and the power to pass laws affecting its own operating environment. What's the advantage to having the government be the competitor?

notdonspaulding

3년 전discuss

Fatal flaw for outdoor games: what keeps this from picking up pieces of gravel or debris from the court?

Anything sharp or rough it picks up is then immediately headed for somebody's hands on the next pass.

And even if it wasn't sharp, it would shift the CG away from the center of the ball, which isn't a problem that traditional balls typically have as they deteriorate with age.

And even if it wasn't heavy enough to impact the CG, it would rattle around on the inside.

Still, I guess it could be nice on an indoor court.

notdonspaulding

3년 전discuss

> My threshold for "serious news organization" is that CNN gets there, Fox News doesn't.

I don't put those 2 channels in different categories at all. And certainly they don't divide from each other along lines of objectivity. They are both in the News Entertainment industry. Neither cares in the least about objectivity.

The only split I see between them is their mutually exclusive audiences.

Fox News is actually in a better place because they don't seem to be hiding the fact that they are there for entertainment and audience-building. They both care about their ratings first and foremost, but CNN is still trying to keep some veneer of serious journalism.

As a test: I haven't watched it recently, but how has CNN mea culpa'd over the news that the Hunter Biden laptop was real? A "serious news organization" should have had a real period of soul-searching over that. I bet it was barely a blip on their radar.

notdonspaulding

3년 전discuss

> > Pattern recognition is not intelligence.

> Until we know how exactly our own intelligence work, this is a statement of belief.

I would agree, with the addendum that it logically follows from the axiomatic priors of my worldview. My worldview holds that humans are qualitatively different from every animal, and that the gap may narrow slightly but will never be closed in the future. And one of the more visible demonstrations of qualitative difference is our "intelligent" approach to the world around us.

That is, this thread is 2 humans discussing whether the AI some other humans have made has the same intelligence as us, this thread is not 2 AIs discussing whether the humans some other AIs have made has the same intelligence as them.

> How do you know that the function of your own brain isn't always reducible to pattern recognition?

I am a whole person, inclusive of my brain, body, spirit, past experiences, future hopes and dreams. I interact with other whole people who seem extremely similar to me in that way. Everywhere I look I see people with brains, bodies, spirits, past experiences, future hopes and dreams.

I don't believe this to be the case, but even if (as you say) all of those brains are "merely" pattern recognizers, the behavior I observe in them is qualitatively different than what I observe in ChatGPT. Maybe you don't see it that way, but I bet that's because you're not seeing everything that's going into the behavior of the people you see when you look around.

As one more attempt to show the difference... are you aware of the Lyrebird?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRpo7NDCaJ8

The lyrebird can mimic the sounds of its environment in an uncanny way. There are certain birds in the New England National Park in Australia which have been found to be carrying on the tune of a flute that was taught to a pet lyrebird by its owner in the 1930s[0]. I think we could both agree that that represents pure, unadulterated, pattern recognition.

Now if everyone went around the internet today saying "Lyrebirds can play the flute!" can you agree that there would be a qualitative difference between what they mean by that, and what they mean when they say "My sister can play the flute!"? Sure, there are some humans who play the flute better (and worse!) than my sister. And sure, there are many different kinds of flutes, so maybe we need to get more specific with what we mean when we say "flute". And sure, if you're just sitting in the park with your eyes closed, maybe you can't immediately tell the difference between my sister's flute playing and the lyrebird's. But IMO they are fundamentally different in nature. My sister has hands which can pick up a flute, a mouth which can blow air over it, fingers which can operate the keys, a mind which can read sheet music, a will which can decide which music to play, a mood which can influence the tone of the song being played, memories which can come to mind to help her remember her posture or timing or breathing technique or muscle memory.

Maybe you would still call what my sister is doing pattern recognition, but do you mean that it's the same kind of pattern recognition as the lyrebirds?

And to your other point, do you need to perfectly understand exactly how human intelligence works in order to answer the question?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird#Vocalizations_and_mim...

notdonspaulding

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