AFK BRB Chocolate

The point is that if the rules aren’t grounded in science, it’s not science fiction. You can have the trappings of science, like space travel or whatever, but if people are moving objects and doing impossible acrobatics by using a magical force, it’s fantasy.

Though not mine, I personally think that definition works better than most. Still, if you pin me down, I’d say that there’s a spectrum, with hard SF (where everything is rigorously anchored to scientific principles) at one end, and pure fantasy (with magic and such) at the other. There are lots of things between those endpoints, with some being closer to one or the other, and some being very much in the middle.

Oh, it’s fantasy

I always liked the distinction (I forget who originated it) that science fiction is a story set in a world where the rules are defined by physics and fantasy is a story set in a world where the rules are defined by the author.

I’m not at all bothered by “swear words,” and I’ll use them occasionally (mostly when I think it’s funny), but it’s somewhat rare. I just don’t find it very necessary most of the time. I can usually make my point just find without, but sometimes the emphasis seems right out, again, it seems funnier.

The zero C is freezing and 100 C is boiling, so not really arbitrary.

But it’s pretty hard to define a scale that has intuitive, round numbers for everything we might care about.

Yeah, I’m far from anti-AI, but we’re just not anywhere close to where people think we are with it. And I’m pretty sick of corporate leadership saying “We need to make more use of AI” without knowing the difference between an LLM and a machine learning application, or having any idea *how" their company could make use of one of the technologies.

It really feels like one of those hammer in search of a nail things.

What people mean by AI has been changing for as long as the term has been used. When I was studying CS in the 80s, people said the holy grail was giving a computer printed English text and having it read it aloud. It wasn’t much later that OCR and text to speech software was commonplace.

Generally, when people say AI, they mean a computer doing something that normally takes a human, and that bar goes up all the time.

LLMs don’t “understand” anything, and it’s unfortunate that we’ve taken to using language related to human thinking to talk about software. It’s all data processing and models.

Agreed, and it’s sad. I mean, I work at a highly technical engineering company. Everyone has at least a BS, and this guy was probably in his 60s with 30+ years of experience. Yet here he was repeatedly farting by a woman because they had a disagreement. It shows you that age and education don’t guarantee maturity.

She wasn’t interested in suing, she just wanted him to stop farting in her doorway. I didn’t know the guy, so I started by talking to his manager, who talked to the guy. Sounds like he initially tried to deny it, but in a way that made it clear he was doing it on purpose. His boss was pretty clear that it wouldn’t be tolerated and it never happened again.

Some people are so weird and petty.

I had a female employee come to me to complain years ago. She had had a disagreement with an older male employee (thankfully not mine) some weeks prior, and since then, every time he walked by her cube, he’d pause at her doorway, fart, and then keep walking without saying anything.

She at least was aware of how absolutely ridiculous it was, but legitimately didn’t think it was something she should have to deal with. One of the stranger management issues.

I block the really prolific meme ones, anything with content mostly posted by bots, and the gay male stuff. I also block the prolific bots themselves.

But if you live in a state that is overwhelmingly one party, your states votes are going to go to that candidate. I live in California, and there not much chance that any California delegates are going to go to Trump. True, the districts didn’t matter for the EC votes, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s vote counts the same.

Also worth mentioning that the number of votes each state gets is based on very outdated logic.

It would be different if there were no EC and it was decided based on the national popular vote.

I had an assembly class in college. I didn’t love of at all. Got my first job after graduating and it was writing space shuttle engine control software, which was in assembly. I was kind of surprised at how fast it became natural after dealing with it full time. Still, it felt luxurious when we upgraded the controller and could do the software in C.

At the risk of making a serious reply in a shitpost thread…

Who you’re attracted to and what you’re looking for is subjective. No one else gets a say in what that is.

However, there are repercussions. The more rare what you’re looking for is, the harder it is to find. The more broadly desired what you’re looking for is, the more you’re competing with other people.

So sure, go looking for what you want, but be aware that you might be looking a long time, and they might not be interested in you.

The article makes a mention of the early part of the movie Her, where he’s writing a heartfelt, personal card that turns out to be his job, writing from one stranger to another. That reference was exactly on target: I think most of us thought outsourcing such a thing was a completely bizarre idea, and it is. It’s maybe even worse if you’re not even outsourcing to someone with emotions but to an AI.

Yeah, true, there’s an increased risk, and I’m not as good about it as I should be.

Older guy here, went bald in my 20s. Let me say this: while going bald or becoming bald sucks ass, being bald is fine. I had lots of thick hair, and when it started going away and I didn’t look like me in the mirror anymore. I figured women would find me less attractive.

What I learned is that it takes a while for your self image to catch up to your reflection in the mirror. One of the shitty things for most people about going bald is that it happens over a long time, and when you’re used to one level of baldness, it gets worse. But eventually it levels out.

There are women who aren’t attracted to bald guys (and that’s fine, attraction is subjective), but it turns out there are women who are especially attracted to bald guys, and that the vast majority of women don’t care. Doing things like having a comb-over or wearing a toupee are often a turnoff, but I think it’s as much because of the associated lack of confidence than the look itself.

I can sincerely say that I wouldn’t want my hair back today. The look suits me and it’s easier to deal with.

Chocolate