nednobbins
@nednobbins@lemm.ee
- Comment on "You can't have our trash because we don't have a way to charge you for it" 3 days ago:
We make food “from scratch” on a regular basis.
We’ve found a few different sources for fats. I’ll focus on the pork-fat ones.
The most common source is to just collect fat any time we make pork things. The advantage is that it’s cheap and easy; just let it cool and add it to a jar in the fridge. The disadvantage is that it will have a lot of other flavors (especially salt).
Sometimes we just by processed lard. That’s basically the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s very pure and has no flavor besides the fat itself.
Often we’ll wet render our own fat. Traditionally that would be the trimmings off of other cuts. Unless you’re butchering a pig (or have bought into a fractional pig through something like a CSA) those bits usually aren’t available. Typically we’ll just buy cuts that are very high in fat. For pork, that would be pork belly. We’ll just buy an uncut slab and wet-render it. Trim any meat you want to cook with (belly is the part that bacon is made of) throw the rest in a pot of water an simmer it for a few hours. The fat layer that collects on top is almost pure lard.
We’ve also found that duck fat is a great substitute for lard. It has a similar smoke point to lard (slightly higher). It tastes different from lard but it’s also good enough that the flavor itself will improve meals. Duck breasts are about 50% fat if you buy them with skins. You can also buy duck fat on its own.
- Comment on conditional probability 2 weeks ago:
Tell me you’re old without telling me you’re old :)
- Comment on Percentages 2 weeks ago:
Yes. I really think that the translation part is one of the hardest.
As a brief aside, I want to note that this conversation is happening in one of the languages we’re discussing and that could influence any conclusion we come to. I’m also going to suggest that we ignore Gödel for now
There are many people who are good at math. There are even a lot of people who are reasonably good at grinding through the mechanics of math. That doesn’t solve any of the problems you described above.
Statistics are a great example of this. Early statistics classics are mostly about the mechanics; here’s how you calculate the mean, standard deviation, confidence intervals, etc. 2 types of students generally come out of that class; math students who will forget all of that because they’re going to learn the “real” versions (eg they go through a huge number of proofs that involve calculus and linear algebra), and students who will forget all of that because the whole thing sounds like gibberish.
We teach natural languages the same way but we go much farther. Students learn vocabulary and grammar rules but they’re also expected to learn how to use them correctly. We had students current events articles and ask them to analyze them. We ask students to practice many writing methods including fiction and expository writing.
When I talk to my own kids about statistics I never write any formulas. I ask questions like, “What do you think ‘mean’ means?”, “If I have a bunch of <example item> does ‘mean’ describe it well?”, “What happens if I add an <example item> with <huge outlier>? Do you still think it’s a good description?” “How would you describe it better?”
If I ever had to design an introductory statistics course it would contain very little “math”. Classes, homework, projects, and tests would consist of questions like; “Here’s some data and an interpretation, are they lying? Why or why not?” “Here’s a (simple) data scenario. Tell me what’s going on.” “Here’s some (simple) data. Produce a correct and faithful summary. Now produce a correct but misleading summary. Describe what you did and the effect.” “Here’s a conclusion. Provide sample data that most likely fits the conclusion.” “Change one word in the sentence, ‘Increase your chances by 80% means that there is now an 80% chance.’ to make it a true statement.”
- Comment on Percentages 2 weeks ago:
Why not both?
I’ve always thought of math as a language and I talk to my kids about it that way too. Math is an other way to describe the world.
It’s very different from spoken languages and translating between the two needs to be learned and practiced.
Our math education doesn’t include enough word problems and it should be bi-directional. In addition to teaching students how to write equations based of sentences we should teach them how to describe what’s going on in an equation.
- Comment on Anon needs cooking advice 4 weeks ago:
It matters more in solids.
If you add some salt to sauces, you can just give it a few stirs to incorporate it.
- Comment on pump up the jamz 1 month ago:
Floyd baby.
- Comment on Do you actually care about your friend's new baby, vacation abroad or similar life events or are you just being nice? 2 months ago:
It happens regularly.
I’d also add that I find everyday stories from real people to be vastly more engaging that the completely unbelievable stories I see on TV.
- Comment on Do you actually care about your friend's new baby, vacation abroad or similar life events or are you just being nice? 2 months ago:
Do you consider yourself these people’s friend?
If you’re completely disinterested in their milestones, that sounds more like an acquaintance.But to your question, yes. I actually care about these things for acquaintances and random people too. There are limits to how much I care but it’s not zero.
- Comment on Horrors We've Unleashed 2 months ago:
I get the feeling of discomfort but it’s basically the same feeling we get when someone breaks a pencil
There is no evidence that a mosquito is capable of feeling the kind of despair or horror that a human would feel in a similar situation. It’s unlikely that mosquitos can form emotions at all.
At the same time, a huge portion of human-animal interactions involve the human controlling the animal in ways that they animal can’t even comprehend. A dog has no idea you’re doing operant conditioning to change their behavior. Pigs have no idea they’re being fed just so they and their children can be eaten.
The only way to avoid this kind of thing is to turn off your big human brain and go back to ape tier. We might need to go farther down the tier list than that though en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
- Comment on Artifical Intelligence 2 months ago:
- Comment on Recommendation engine: Downvote any game you've heard of before 3 months ago:
Just started playing Shapez 2. shapez2.com
Hot damn, is that addictive. - Comment on Disney wants a wrongful death lawsuit thrown out because the plaintiff had Disney+ 4 months ago:
I keep wondering if information like this will change anyone’s mind about Disney.
It seems like all Iger has to do is throw a little shade at Trump or DeSantis and everyone instantly believes that Disney is some sort of bastion of progressive thought that doesn’t have a vile history of exploitation.
- Comment on Technically Correct 4 months ago:
The Shoe Bomber and the Underwear Bomber don’t count? :)
- Comment on Technically Correct 4 months ago:
They fail gloriously at at that too.
Whenever they get tested the red teams manage to smuggle in everything needed to hijiack a plane plus a kitchen sink.
The few times that terrorists tried to board planes, they made it through security and were caught by other passengers.
- Comment on Is land inclination included in area calculation? 4 months ago:
No.
It’s actually worse than that. Very few borders are straight lines. We have to approximate the border when calculating land area.
- Comment on why isn't anyone calling for Trump to drop out. 5 months ago:
do they think anyone else realistically could, at this point, other than Biden?
The answer to that is clearly, “Yes.” The calls for him to bow out are coming from all corners; various mainstream media outlets, donor groups, alternative media, pundits, and even sitting Democratic politicians.
- Comment on why isn't anyone calling for Trump to drop out. 5 months ago:
The people calling for Biden to drop out are completely different from the people who want Trump to stay in the race.
Democrats want Biden to drop out because they don’t believe he can beat Trump.
Republicans want Trump to stay on the ticket because they’re pretty sure he’ll crush Biden .
- Comment on Stay Mad 5 months ago:
It was a typo. I meant to say that the Democratic leadership seems to have put their and their parties interests above those of the people but I wanted to avoid editing my post too much.
- Comment on Stay Mad 5 months ago:
I’ve been called many names, including “tankie”, so I’ll take a stab at responding.
I’m not mad about the debate at all. I expected something fairly similar. I’m mad that Biden and the Democratic leadership seems to have put their own interests above the interest of the party.
If Biden had gracefully stepped aside and given just about any other Democrat his full support, we’d be in a much better position now. Instead we have a candidate with a ton of baggage and who presents an easy target for Trump’s style of argument. Many mainstream Democrats, including the NYT, are finally starting to realize this. Unfortunately it’s probably a year too late. At this point it would just make it look like Demoratic kingmakers forced him out.
If I went by the modern definition of “tankie” as, an ant-american authoritarian communist. I probably wouldn’t be mad at any of this. I’d be cackling with glee because either of the current nominees will be terrible for the US. Neither of them has a serious long term plan. Neither of them can articulate a policy position. Both of them will continue to erode the power and moral authority of the United States.
Like it or not. Trump is likely to be the next president projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/. At this point it’s probably wise to start thinking about how to limit his impact and how to start cleaning up the mess afterwards.
- Comment on Is there any real physical proof that Jesus christ ever existed? 5 months ago:
The question is typically described as “the historicity of Jesus”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
There are similar debates for other famous ancient figures.
The general academic consensus on Jesus (and many similar figures) is that they did exist and many of the details have been fictionalized.
- Comment on Anon's sister is a NEET shut-in 7 months ago:
That’s the sister. Anon sounds like he has limited means. No need to make fun of them for being poor.
- Comment on Anon's sister is a NEET shut-in 7 months ago:
Lindt is pretty good as packaged chocolate goes. You can always find some fancy artisanal chocolatier if you can afford to spend a few bucks per chocolate but for a HS student Lindt is pretty high tier.
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
Covering the second half:
I hadn’t heard of Elsagate and had to look it up. How does AI factor into that? As near as I can tell Elsagate started with some random guy making disturbing videos and mislabeling them as child-friendly.
I’m a good bit older than you so my nostalgia doesn’t take me lead me to any of the title you mentioned. For the most part it’s stories that aren’t covered by anyone’s IP. My childhood had a lot of folk tales recited from memory. Those stories were fairly common but there would be regional variation and most tellers would put their own twist on the stories (for example, when my Aunt told the story of the Seven Kids she would do a particular squeaky voice when she got to the part where the wolf swallows the chalk (in her version it was always chalk). That’s actually quite close to how LLMs work. She heard various versions of that story throughout her life, then she repeats it with some other bits that she incorporated from the rest of her life. I do the same thing when I retell the story to my children. It’s basically the same story my Aunt told but I translate it into English and add some modern slang.
What would stop an AI from writing Scar into the Lion King? If you told an LLM to, “Write Hamlet but have all the royal family be Lions,” it’s likely you’d get some evil lion version of Claudius.
There were a lot of homosexual coded villains in older media. There were also a lot of films where all the black people were bad guys, all the Asian people were goofy servants and all the women were housewives or prizes. The general consensus today is that those choices were horribly discriminatory. If AI manages to avoid that sort of behavior it would be a good thing.
The flip side is also that artists can just as easily slip hateful material into otherwise reasonable art. Human history is full of unethical choices. Even if the AI itself doesn’t have ethics the people using it can be held to the same ethical standards as the users of any other tool or medium.
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
OK. With that change we get:
AI produces something not-actual-art. Some people want stuff that’s not-actual-art. Before AI they had no choice but to pay a premium to a talented artist even though they didn’t actually need it. Now they can get what they actually want but we should remove that so they have to continue paying artists because we had been paying artists for this in the past?Is that accurate?
The rest of your comment seems to be an other thread so I’ll respond separately.
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
I can live with that.
I’d support a UBI so that anyone who wants to can just make art for their own fulfillment. If someone wants AI art though they should be allowed to use that.
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
That wasn’t intentional.
Would it be more accurate for me to change “want” to “need” or the other way around?
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
It’s an awkward phrase but I was trying to stay as close to the original vocabulary as possible. I think the point still stands if you replace “not-actual-art” with illustration. People couldn’t get what they were looking for so they paid more for the next best thing. Now they can get something closer to what they’re looking for at a lower price.
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
I get that and there are a lot of jobs that people used to pay for and no longer do.
The entire horse industry has mostly collapsed. I couldn’t get a job as scribe. With any luck, all the industries around fossil fuel will go away. We’re going to pay less to most people in those industries too.
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
I’m going to try to paraphrase that position to make sure I understand it. Please correct me if I got it wrong.
AI produces something not-actual-art. Some people want stuff that’s not-actual-art. Before AI they had no choice but to pay a premium to a talented artist even though they didn’t actually need it. Now they can get what they actually need but we should remove that so they have to continue paying artists because we had been paying artists for this in the past?
Is that correct or did I miss or mangle something?
- Comment on this one goes out to the arts & humanities 8 months ago:
I’d love to see some data on the people who believe that AI fundamentally can’t do art and the people who believe that AI is an existential threat to artists.
Anecdotally, there seems to be a large overlap between the adherents of what seem to be mutually exclusive positions and I wish I understood that better.