stoneparchment

@stoneparchment@possumpat.io

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do leftist blame the Democratic for sabotaging Bernie Sanders?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Disclaimer: I am not an expert in this and this is just my understanding of how to answer this question

  You may or may not realize that most voters don’t usually go out well in advance and research all potential candidates, selecting the one they feel represents their values the best. Many of them don’t even check in to the conversation until the primaries are over and they can make a simple red vs. blue choice. Among voters that do participate in primaries, they mostly rely on information they learn about those potential candidates by watching advertisements, endorsements from other well known politicians, clips from debates, news and social media coverage, etc.

  Creating that information (ads, debates, news coverage, social media, etc.) requires two things: money and momentum. Money comes first, and is disbursed according to the process the other commenter described-- the party talks with its donors and collectively they decide who to fund.

  In Bernie’s case, he was systematically deprived of money by the DNC as described above, in addition to his moral philosophy of not taking money from big donors. Instead, he funded his campaign through small donations-- which he earned a LOT of-- but he still had fewer funds to generate advertisements, to host events, to “get the word out”.

  Without this funding and support, Bernie couldn’t generate momentum as effectively. The fact that he is as popular as he is despite the lack of support from the party illustrates how popular his platform is, but that isn’t enough to get disengaged voters interested. Further, in his case, other party members actively wanted him to NOT be the nominee, so there were fewer endorsements, more intentional maneuvering by the party to convince voters to vote for other candidates, etc.

  In essence, the idea that having the purest moral and policy philosophy is the most important element to winning the nomination is naive: it takes money and support from institutions, or else no one will ever even know what that pure philosophy is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If the obscenely wealthy benefit most from having Republicans in power; and collectively they have disproportionate control over the economy; wouldn't they use that power to sabotage Democrats?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  we’re in agreement :-) what I said is a Orwell’s 1984 quote. My overly simplified explanation of the quote is that the governmental entities in the novel were able to maintain absolute authority because of a manufactured conflict. In essence, two sides intentionally maintained a stalemate at war so that each of them could keep absolute control over their populace using fear of the other. In reality, both groups were controlled by the same people-- an autocratic ruling class.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If the obscenely wealthy benefit most from having Republicans in power; and collectively they have disproportionate control over the economy; wouldn't they use that power to sabotage Democrats?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

  and all that

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As an education professional: what the hell, dude? It’s not unfortunate that we aren’t just dropping struggling students without first carefully examining why they’re not succeeding.

  You might be right that you can’t let some students detract from the class for other students, but the solution there is advocating for better funding and more staff to be able to give every student what they need, whether they’re above or below the expectation for their age.

  Saying it’s “unfortunate” that students don’t fail (read: ruin their whole god damn lives) as often anymore is blaming our most vulnerable YOUTH for the systemic problems of our society. It’s not their job to be what the school environment wants them to be, they don’t even have a choice about whether or not they are there. It’s our (as educators, and as tax paying and voting community members) responsibility to make sure they get the education they need to be functional members of our society.

  We even have huge bodies of research to reinforce this. It’s not a secret that the school environment excels at making nice workers, not critical-thinking and well-adjusted adult humans.

  Take it up with the school board! Take it up with the local, state, and federal government! Take it up with the voters!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This is not a stereogram. If you look at it a certain way it will not resolve into anything.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  shoulda said “yarrr, ye dumb bastard!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Total superiority⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  awesome!! I’m psyched you caught it and enjoyed it :-)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Definitely deserves a place in the food pyramid⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  how reliable do you think herbs-info.com is?

  (the answer is probably: not very)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Total superiority⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  that is pretty metal and sick, you’re right

  the tradeoff is that the ring of fire means you can’t look directly at it even at peak totality…

  but either is so friggin hype

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Total superiority⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  pictures cannot capture the ephemeral, indescribable beauty of the moments of totality

  total eclipse wins every time

  get effin HYPE

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI or DEI?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s valid! I agree. I think in this case it would be reasonable for the model to give multiple (or like, at least one, jeez) images with white queens. I don’t disagree with anyone in that sense. I just also don’t think it’s worth pitching a fit when the dumbass model that has been trained to show more racial diversity produces (frankly comical) hallucinations.

  The ethos of the trainers is a good one. Attempting to counter the (demonstrated, measurable) bias of many models toward whiteness is a good choice. I prefer that the trainers choose to address the bias even if it makes the model make silly mistakes like this. That’s all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI or DEI?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  • it’s true that this would mislead children, but the model could hallucinate about literally anything. Especially at this stage, no one-- children or adults-- should be uncritically accepting what the model states as fact. That said, I agree LLMs need to improve their factual accuracy

  • Although it is highly debated, some scholars suggest Queen Charlotte might have had African ancestry, or that she would be considered a POC by today’s standards. Of course, she reigned in the 17-1800s, but it isn’t entirely outlandish to have a “Queen of Color”, if we aren’t requesting a specific queen or a specific race

  • People of color did live in England in the middle ages? Like not diverse in the way we conceive now, but here are a few papers discussing the racial diversity at the time. It was surely less intermingled than today, but it’s not like these images are impossible

  *Other things are anachronistic or fantastical about these images, such as clothing. Are we worried about children getting the wrong impression of history in that sense?

  • Of course increasing visibility and representation of all kinds marginalized people is important. I, myself, am disabled, so I care about that representation too-- thanks for pointing it out. I do kinda feel like people would be groaning if the model had produced a Queen with a visible disability, though… I would be delighted to be wrong on this front :)
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI or DEI?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s also like, I guess I would prefer it to make mistakes like this if it means it is less biased towards whiteness in other, less specific areas?

  Like, we know these models are dumb as rocks. We know that they are imperfect and that they mirror the biases of their trainers and training data, and that in American society that means bias towards whiteness. If the trainers are doing what they can to prevent that from happening, whatever, that’s cool… even if the result is some dumb stuff like this sometimes.

  I also don’t think it’s a problem for the user to specify race if it matters? Like “a white queen of England” is a fine thing to ask for, and if it isn’t specified, the model will include diverse options even if they aren’t historically accurate. No one gets bent out of shape if the outfits aren’t quite historical accurate, for example

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I put a gallon of 10% cider vinegar in a shallow pan and let 1/2 gallon evaporate, will that make it double its strength?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oooh it’s even cooler than that!! You’re spot on, acid is the problem. And acid from food, candy, coffee, etc. is harmful for enamel for sure.

  But sugary stuff that isn’t acidic also rots teeth. Why? Because the bacteria in your mouth do what’s called lactic acid fermentation. Basically, when they take a sugar molecule and want to make “usable” energy out of it (in the form of something called ATP, or adenosine triphosphate), they end up creating lactic acid as a byproduct. In essence, the stuff living in your mouth makes acid out of sugar.

  We also need to break sugar down into ATP, but we do something called cellular respiration instead. It uses oxygen and creates CO2 as a byproduct! That’s why we need oxygen to breathe, and why we breathe out oxygen. But, when you work your muscles hard (lifting weights, sprinting), you might use the ATP in your muscles faster than your body can make it with cellular respiration. In that case, your cells will also do lactic acid fermentation! That’s what we’re feeling when we “feel the burn” (well, that and micro-tears in the muscle, in some cases).

  Source: I’m a biologist! And I love sharing weird facts like this! Thank you for the excuse to write this out :-)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If I put a gallon of 10% cider vinegar in a shallow pan and let 1/2 gallon evaporate, will that make it double its strength?⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Other commenters have good suggestions also, but one option I haven’t seen mentioned would be to buy a powdered acid and make your own dilutions

  It’s easy to get citric acid in a dry form (like the crystal coating on sour candy), you can get 10 lbs of it for like $30-50 online. I put a small scoop in my dishwasher to keep my cups from getting foggy from our hard water, and I use it to descale our kettle and in our laundry, too.

  Just be careful, acid dilutions are no joke. Whether you get the cleaning vinegar or make a citric acid solution for yourself:

  • use nitrile or latex gloves when working with the acid solutions

  • wear something to protect your eyes, glasses are probably good enough but goggles are better

  • if you have an acid solution and want to dilute it, pour the acid into the water, not the water into the acid!!!

  • flush your skin or eyes with water immediately if the acid gets on you or your clothes

  These rules might seem like overkill but better safe than sorry!

  Citric acid is slightly stronger than acetic acid so if I were you I’d make like a 20% solution to have a similar effect to the cleaning vinegar (so like 100 g powdered acid to 400 mL water). You might have to mix it on the stove so that the water is simmering to get the acid to dissolve.

  Again, be careful! But as long as you’re smart about it, take your time, and prioritize safety, you can definitely use this for descaling and cleaning (and cooking!)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why We Might Be Alone⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  First, I want to fully admit I didn’t watch the video. Apologies ahead of time if that causes me to be redundant or reductive.

  Second, I’m also a biologist, although a molecular one.

  Third, I agree with almost all of your premise and train of thought. We’re certainly more likely to get the likes of “bacterial mats” than intelligent life anywhere, and especially within a distance that we will ever realistically encounter.

  I do wonder, though, how you (or maybe the video guy, but obviously not enough to watch the source material before making an ass of myself…) conceptually reconcile the small sample number of known planets with life (n=1) with the mindblowingly impossible number of worlds.

  You say that intelligent life involving only once indicates that it is difficult for evolution to “discover”, which is surely possible to be true. But given that we haven’t seen the evolutionary conditions on other hypothetical worlds, from what we know, the evolution of intelligent life has a perfect 100% success rate of occurring on planets with life.

  In fact, you mention the independent convergent evolution of eyes as an indication that eyes are a “good idea”, and that they must be relatively easy for evolution to discover if they evolve independently, repeatedly. But evolution is subject to the whims of selective forces, so a different world would surely select for different traits. Eyes (or other extremely common evolutionary pathways… looking at you, crab body) might be less frequently selected for or be entirely useless, but intellegent decision making and tool use might evolve in ways we can’t even conceptualize in our context.

  This also extends to the claim of how our world is evolutionarily dynamic (which you point out is hard to quantify in context). We don’t know the dynamics of evolution on other worlds, if it happens at all. Recombination could be a unique characteristic of DNA-based life on Earth or it could be extremely common. Other worlds might have longer or shorter evolutionary time lines, also, since our sun’s “working life” is shorter than average due to its size and density. Without another example for reference, we don’t know whether we’re evolving quickly and with diversity or slowly and conservatively.

  I guess, I don’t think you are wrong, exactly. I just think you are necessarily making assumptions based on how things work here in order to extrapolate how things might work there– one has to! But the whole discussion (which continues, like this, to this day) revolves around just too many unknowns. We just don’t know, and can’t know.

  Climbing down from my high-horse, though, I have to admit I’m biased, since I have a pet-belief that life is basically guaranteed to exist elsewhere (how freakish would it be for it to only happen once out of so, so many chances?). I honestly feel like there’s a good shot that it’s incredibly common, at least in a basic form. In essence, I suspect that if we find bacterial mats (or soup) on Enceladus or Europa then it’s basically certain that life is everywhere. But we won’t even likely know that in my lifetime, so…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should this be in unethical life pro tips⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think that’s true? They have a dysfunctional guilt/shame system but they still have other feelings, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are pipes used in plumbing more than hoses?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Huge disclaimer that I’m not a plumber or even close to a plumber, but I did have a house and think about houses:

  Isn’t the current “standard” plumbing PEX plumbing, which is basically just a bunch of hoses?

  Like I think you’re on to something but the industry beat you to the punch 😉

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I enjoyed LingoDeer for Japanese!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you go about preserving fruits & vegetables?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  dude the downvotes are because the entire vegetable section is about lactic acid fermentation, so your comment is just factually wrong

  It’s okay to be wrong… just maybe think about whether it’s your own mistake before calling people alcoholic dipshits