adespoton

@adespoton@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Suspecting AI cheating, Ivy League prof ordered an in-person final; scores fell 50%⁩ ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m looking forward to my next round of technical interviews. The people who depend on AI usually end up looking very foolish. Especially on the questions designed to make various LLMs hallucinate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How would you evaluate having more pay vs an easier job?⁩ ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Those are only two variables of many.

  At one point, I had job offers from four places at the same time, offering me different salaries, benefits packages, work culture, work effort and work mobility.

  I ended up taking the job that was the most intellectually stimulating, had the best benefits package, and had a good cultural fit. Sometimes I had to work weekends, but got paid double for doing that; usually that was one weekend shift a month. Overall pay was on the low side of competitive.

  I never regretted the choice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A lot of people who try to start a religion are seen as mentally ill. Like Jim Jones, David Koresh, the UFO guy, and L Ron Hubbard. Then could it be a safe bet that Jesus was mentally ill?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Really? Looking at it from one angle, he was a Jewish Rabbi, teaching a continuance of the existing religious teachings, but rejecting tradition for tradition’s sake.

  Looking at it from another angle, he claimed to have always been the God people were already worshipping.

  At no point did he call people to new religious practices. Everything he taught came straight out of the Tanakh, with bits from the Talmud (but mostly repudiating the Gemara portion of the Talmud in favour of stricter interpretations of the Tanakh).

  The only point at which you could argue he was starting a new religion would be after his death and resurrection — at which point the main order to his disciples was still, according to the bible, to share the core truths of the Jewish teachings and religion with the rest of the world.

  Christianity becoming a distinct religion happened over time between a time 50 years later and Constantine decreeing it the official religion of the Roman Empire.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A lot of people who try to start a religion are seen as mentally ill. Like Jim Jones, David Koresh, the UFO guy, and L Ron Hubbard. Then could it be a safe bet that Jesus was mentally ill?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably not; he didn’t start a religion.

  A better question would be around Moses.

  Paul of Tarsus had a lot to say about appearing to be mentally ill because of what he believed, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are Edward Snowden and Jeffrey Epstein assets?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Interesting concept; ask a question where one part is demonstrably true and the other demonstrably false, with a quick look on Wikipedia.

  I’m not sure what the goal is though?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come no one has taken 'A Hero's Journey' and applied it to the bible? Would this not give more evidence to work of fiction or non fiction?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Remember that the bible is a collection of works from different places and times.

  You get some literary works in the bible that are intentional fiction written to prove a real point, like the book of Job. This book was written specifically as a foil against hero’s journey narrative, to point out that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and it’s not something they can overcome under their own strength — and that this entirely misses the point of life in the first place.

  There’s not really any reason to compare biblical narrative (or any other parts) to hero’s journey narrative, because the bible is already one of the most studied canons in the world; a lot of literary analysis techniques were developed with biblical works as their main referant.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am someone who works out daily and sweats a lot. Just doing laundry doesn't seem to adequately clean the underarms of my shirts. What are some ways to clean these areas of my clothing better?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah; the skin is a bit drier, but as you say, that’s generally not an issue for armpits.

  Soap binds to oil and water, so it’s great for stripping oil any anything on/in the oil from your skin. But there’s lots of bacteria and fungi on your skin/in your pores that soap won’t get rid of. A lot of them are beneficial, so we don’t want to disturb them, but armpits generally get over-colonized by smelly varieties.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there any other meats that are a good comparison for the taste of venison?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Just remember that with any wild game, you have the disease risk. And wild venison of any type is going to taste much stronger than farmed venison.

  For wild venison, cook it well and understand that there’s still the risk of worms etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am someone who works out daily and sweats a lot. Just doing laundry doesn't seem to adequately clean the underarms of my shirts. What are some ways to clean these areas of my clothing better?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I presume you’re talking about the isopropyl? Doesn’t seem to damage the clothes at all; dries out the skin a bit, which isn’t generally an issue for armpits. I’ve been doing it for around 20 years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Huntress CEO says threat hunter used 'poor judgment' in alerting ransomware crim about law enforcement probe⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Annoying that we’ll probably never hear the part of the story that makes this make sense.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes… as long as you live somewhere that those things are possible. Indonesia, maybe?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am someone who works out daily and sweats a lot. Just doing laundry doesn't seem to adequately clean the underarms of my shirts. What are some ways to clean these areas of my clothing better?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I use a spray bottle, but have also applied with a cloth with a tablespoon or so poured onto it. Spray works better as it gets past armpit hair.

  First few times, you’ll need to reapply a few times per day; eventually the bacteria that smells will be gone, at which point once a day will likely be enough.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come Dems never hit back at the Maga movement by calling them maggots?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Because maggots provide equal and free healthcare?

  (Look up debriding)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Go with how you think it will be recognized that feels right to you; it belongs to you after all :)

  My surname has a different pronunciation just based on region within the same language; I go with the one my parents used, but I’ll answer to any of them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I am someone who works out daily and sweats a lot. Just doing laundry doesn't seem to adequately clean the underarms of my shirts. What are some ways to clean these areas of my clothing better?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My top tips:

  Wash or at least rinse the garments as soon after getting them sweaty as you can.

  Wash them with actually dirty clothes if possible. The dirt particles will absorb smell and act as an abrasive on the stains. If your clothes are generally too clean for this, use an oxy powder additive which will achieve the same effect.

  Also: consider going without deodorant and antiperspirant and just use some isopropyl alcohol or similar to kill the bacteria in your armpits as needed; this results in less smell and less junk in your sweat to clean out of your shirts.

  Lastly: wearing a technical shirt when working out will mean less sweat actually adhering to the fabric, making cleaning easier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why it is that in the USA for most people the default color for a casual sock is white but in most other places the default is black?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m currently wearing my athletic socks and they’re black. They came in a multi pack with blue and grey. My casual socks are grey and blue as well. My formal dress socks are black. I’ve got a few pairs of brown work socks.

  Thinking back, I can only remember one time when I had white sports socks (tube socks with the red and blue bands at the top) and that was in the early 1980s.

  My guess about the US and white socks is that they were mass produced for football and baseball (and basketball) and they made the migration to casual wear alongside running shoes, because people could pick up both item ms affordably in the same store (K-Mart and the like).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If a virtual particle dips or blips out of existence then where do they go? Do they come back at a different point showing movement when the blip occurs? Are they some how different when returning?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you mean their quanta? That’s what’s being preserved.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Define what you mean by “blackout.”

  It’s a network of networks. If every connected device suddenly went offline, yeah, there’d be turmoil and a lot of deaths before things stabilized.

  But if you really mean “all the backbone cables went offline” or “all the ISPs shut down” or “all the CDNs crashed” or “the top 20 services vanished” then the answers would be different.

  The internet can technically run over carrier pigeon, after all. And some countries have already had “no Internet” days without collapsing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are some Linux community so toxic?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  In the Linux community, it’s mostly the people who are developing the software who are also supporting the forums. To them, the forums are a way of communicating with others who are also working on improving the software. So at the end of the day, to them the forums are doing their job when people are contributing new content and ideas and making their lives easier.

  Unfortunately, people new to the forums are going to be there to get assistance, asking questions about the stuff these people documented specifically so nobody would have to take them away from creating neat new things to hand hold them through using the older things. And most of these people aren’t technical writers or even communicators.

  If you were somehow in a forum with a bunch of Windows, Android or macOS developers, you’d probably find the same level of toxic before long.

  Because it’s not about you. It’s that you’re following the same learning curve of hundreds of others before you, and it causes these people to have to repeatedly stop what brings them joy to explain the same thing to yet another person. Or, you’ve got a new question. THAT means that nobody likely has the answer, and somebody needs to figure it out and then document it and then point you at the documentation, instead of doing what they want to be doing in their limited free time.

  The Linux communities that aren’t like this tend to be small, or have a large education contingent, or are privately funded and so have professional communicators managing the forums.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is most music today follow a math cadence? Then add rhyming? Are artist today really that bad they have to resort to that instead of it natural stuff?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think what you’ll find is that a) you’re selecting a very limited sample of music from the 40s - 80s (hint: most music of each generation is rubbish and formulaic), and b) you’re selecting a very limited sample of modern music, likely from a single source.

  Aside from what others are saying, you’re also suffering from selection bias.

  Of course, on top of that, each generation has a new musical technology that revolutionizes the sound, with the downside that everyone using that technology sounds pretty similar.

  These days we’ve got digital studios that can not only auto tune the instruments and vocals, but also ensure the audio sticks precisely to tempo and time signature.

  You’ll see a similar thing shortly after the advent of the organ and harpsichord, where musicians suddenly had precise control over when a tone started and stopped, and a musical notation to represent that timing; suddenly a lot of music featured formulaic 16th staccato runs, because it was now possible for an entire group of musicians to do so relatively easily.

  So… look for recent music that starts with a poem and then sets it to music; there’s lots out there; you’re just unlikely to have it recommended to you on Spotify unless you’re already listening to similar music.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it true that airport customs can legally demand access to your unlocked phone?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Depends on the country you’re in and your country of origin.

  Also, in many countries the authorities are allowed to demand you do anything not illegal; it doesn’t mean you’re always required to comply.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's gunna to happen when the American Federal Government starts prosecuting people for owning powerful computer hardware and software?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  <pedant>The S in GigaFLOPS is for seconds.</pedant>

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's gunna to happen when the American Federal Government starts prosecuting people for owning powerful computer hardware and software?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You make it sound like this is the first time it’s happened.

  Look up Phil Zimmerman and PGP back in the 1990s.

  Such computing power used to be classified under the same category as weapons -grade nuclear materials, and likely will be again.

  And most people won’t even notice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Panic sweeps across California over proposed billionaire tax - Tech moguls and moderate Democrats are mobilizing their wealth and networks to try to block it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So… 250 people and their immediate beneficiaries panicking. In a sane world, that wouldn’t make anything but local headlines. And instead we see that it could impact whether people get food and medicine half way around the world.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Panic sweeps across California over proposed billionaire tax - Tech moguls and moderate Democrats are mobilizing their wealth and networks to try to block it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Sweeps across? How many billionaires are there in CA? Surely not more than a thousand?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can the defendant still be summoned even if they reside overseas beyond the jurisdiction of the crime?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure; you can do all sorts of things. What happens as a result depends on the agreements in place between the countries involved.

  The US, for example, has all sorts of Russians who have already had their day in court that they failed to show up for on international watch lists. They’ve been indicted for crimes at trial, had representation, but have never physically been in the country. But if they step foot in a country with an extradition agreement with the US, they’ll be arrested and sent to the US for sentencing.

  On the other hand, Sweden requires you to be physically present and able to acknowledge the charges against you before any proceedings can occur.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do people get mad at you for using Wikipedia, but treat Google and AI chatbots like they're gospel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  LLMs are also stuck in the past. Always ask an LLM what the date is before starting a session that has any expectation of current results. Usually you’ll find the information it prioritizes is from a few years ago.

  LLMs also often incorrectly weight information.

  If you have a popular website that has outdated information with a note at the top that the information is outdated, the LLM will see it’s a well respected site, ignore the disclaimer at the top that falls out of it’s context window, and happily tell you the annotatedly incorrect information is the baseline truth.

  It’s possible to get good results out of an LLM, but it’s a skill, just like engineering a good Google search string or using Wikipedia to find the primary source information you need.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do people get mad at you for using Wikipedia, but treat Google and AI chatbots like they're gospel?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wikipedia: it’s an encyclopedia. Fine for a general overview of a topic, but you need to follow it to primary sources if you want to make an authoritative argument.

  Google: it’s got an AI summary at the top and a bunch of SEO’d results on the first pages.

  LLMs: really good at translating a lot of content down into something that’s easy to read. Not necessarily easy to understand, not necessarily accurate, not citing it’s sources accurately, but easy to read.

  So: where do people’s attitudes come from towards them?

  We now have 25 years of Wikipedia. That means that for 25 years, anyone in school from K through university has had it drilled i to them “you can’t use Wikipedia as a primary source!” Which is often interpreted by kids (now adults) as “don’t trust Wikipedia!”

  Google has been around for 28 years. When it started, the other search engines always missed things, had a bunch of ads, and were slow. Google was this fast clean interface that could instantly find whatever you were looking for on the world wide web, and the exact human created content you wanted would almost always be featured on the first page of results. People who grew up with that might be slow to catch on to the fact that Google today doesn’t do that. So they trust the results and assume the information they’re looking for must be there somewhere on the first page.

  LLMs are new. They hold the promise of early Google in that they crawled all the source material for you and present a summary so you don’t even have to decide which link has the right answer. They haven’t been around long enough for a generation to be trained to distrust the messages they provide.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I get the damn cat to understand I can feed myself?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Did the cat choose of it’s own free will to come live with your friend?

  If not, your friend is already responsible for a domestic animal they chose to acquire. That comes with responsibility. Domestic cats aren’t compatible with the outside environment and cause ecological damage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bill that would mandate AI chip location tracking gains industry support⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Study, copy and then circumvent.