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Everything posted by TheVat
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SPOILERS - The hide button isn't showing on my device, so this is your warning! Well, your circle sector (from which you would subtract the triangle to get the segment shown) would be 60 degrees, since you have an equilateral triangle in there (sides all equal one unit). So plug in the sector formula, then subtract the triangle from that area.
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BP is 96.5 C here, so hard-boiled eggs take a little longer. The water here is fairly soft. I would guess that BP comes up a bit as the eggs sit in there for a while and some of the shell calcium dissolves. Not a lot but it could make a difference.
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2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
Made worse by how random partisans, usually of the extreme variety, have become large-scale disseminators of news on FB and other social media and tend to prune down their clips of news into misleading tidbits stripped of context. So you sometimes have an accurate report pass through two distorting filters, one an editor crafting clickbait the other Uncle Dwayne who has spent the last two decades monitoring the network of underground concentration camps Democrats are building inside of old mines and caverns. -
How does a person lose expert status?
TheVat replied to md65536's topic in Suggestions, Comments and Support
As an onlooker, I am baffled as to how the OP can be answered without specific examples. And also, somewhat less useful perhaps, rubbing my hands together and cackling gleefully at the prospect of an expert being wrong. -
I believe one challenge of AI is developing neural networks that can actually develop an internal worldview i.e. an authentic knowledge of reality and what things mean, such that it can evaluate the probability of a quote attribution being correct. An AI that can sense it is more likely Voltaire said that famous line than a fictional image on a box of rice. I assume you've read Chomsky on contextual knowledge and the problems of true AGI. Real cognition, with understanding of the world, is not at its core statistical.
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This is not a criticism, I am just curious why the quotation marks. A couple of my ancestors were refugees, so I'm fairly aware of that condition as being a real thing.
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2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
At least if Trump wins we don't ever have to vote again! That's the assurance he gave a crowd of conservative Christians yesterday. I just think you're astronutty. Or astronaughty. Whichever term applies. -
How many different worlds exists in nature?
TheVat replied to GioeleAntonello's topic in Other Sciences
Possibly "world" is not the term, but rather scale. In science it is common to speak of three scales: macro, micro, and nano. While there are finer levels of analysis in each of those categories, and one could certainly add "cosmic" at the top of macro, those three are the main ones as far as I can tell. Though I imagine some astronomers and astrophysicists would view cosmic as fully its own scale, given the phenomena that manifest only at that level (or can only be understood at that level). -
Illustrates the way accidents are more common on home turf or comfortable situations. When you hike, you expect a certain hazard and the caution reflexes are activated and you choose where you place your feet. Those reflexes are dampened (so to speak) at home. Nastiest tumble I had was off a stepstool in the garage. Here comes the topic relevance officer, slapping his baton in his hand....
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2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
Am starting to wonder if Roy Cooper might migrate to top of the list. All other criteria aside, it's good to have a friend at your side - Cooper and Harris are friends going back to when they were both AGs of their states (NC and CA). And Cooper is a master of bipartisanship and reaching moderates. And he worked on his parent's farm in the summers when he was growing up which can be helpful in relating to rural America generally. Any foothold in rural culture is going to be helpful. -
Yes I've done that on very steep pitches, too. The delicate art of not not tripping up on a root or rock as you try to maintain a clear backwards view of the path. Walking sticks (or trekking poles, as they call them here, these days) also help to get some of the load off the knee joint, but I don't much like them. Not for the looking like a fool aspect, but just having to carry one more thing.
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Indeed. Something about your title line just said opening line of a limerick. (though I guess the proper meter of a limerick, anapest, would call for an extra syllable, e.g. the indolent apes of old Punt...) I had not heard about using mitochondrial DNA this way, or the precision it might bring. Fascinating stuff.
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Probably not Mt Athabasca, which is off limits to tourists. Maybe Pyramid Peak. DKF is nearly universal in those with trick knees, AFAICT. The biomechanics of descent are hard on even fairly healthy knees, I've heard (and experienced myself). As a hiker, I've found the best way to mitigate DKF is taking short steps and stopping to "bicycle" your legs every few hundred feet.
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The indolent apes of Punt Were much too lazy to hunt Their penchant for sloth Was protected by Thoth So their life skills tended to stunt.
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Jasper is located in Alberta, not BC. My sympathies as well. We live on the edge of wildfire country. (an area where nights are cool enough that many don't have AC - more smoke drifting in the past few years has led some to rethink the cooling system of just opening windows 9pm-9am.) Climatologists have some models that show the North American West getting drier in the coming decades. Could mean that some woodlands will give way to scrubland or savannah or even just grasslands. It won't be fun getting through such a transition.
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I don't care what an unsentient LLM generates about ethics. What do YOU, in your own words please, see as the guiding ethical principles in developing AI? You, as a human, had feelings about the current state of things that motivated you to start this project. Have you studied ethics and formed a core philosophy that informs your ideas? And what are your credentials, as they would relate to this highly challenging and sophisticated field? Are you an autodidact? When you assert: What do you think constitutes the greater good? That's a vague phrase that covers a lot of territory.
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Truth (or falsity) isn't a thing. It's an attribute of a statement about some aspect of the world. If a statement is true, then it corresponds accurately to some state of affairs in the world. So it does not contradict itself. The statement simply remains true so long as it corresponds to reality. If I say Dubai has a hot climate, it will be true so long as that is the reality of Dubai. If the Earth changes in some drastic way and becomes coated with ice, then the statement will become false. So truth value of a statement can change when a statement no longer accurately describes reality, but that is not an inherent contradiction in the statement: it has simply shifted from true to false. (due to fuzzy word meanings, sometimes with gray areas between T and F)
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2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
I think Lon Chaney would be great for capturing the werewolf vote! Or, wait, perhaps you meant Liz Cheney. I don't think progressives who are essential to a Harris win will warm up to Liz Cheney, however much she is a woman of character and courage. I think Harris needs someone who can talk with conservatives without being themselves a conservative, e.g. Beshear or Kelly or Cooper. -
2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
I think I lean this way, too. It's less the melanin shortage or dangly bits, more the bubble of wealth that obscures seeing the big picture and how ordinary folk occupy most of the pixels. -
2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
Ok, glad we're not oafs with tunnel vision (unless we're JD Vance), but this hunter gatherer dichotomy still seems wobbly and stereotypey to me. I realize you are making a proper disclaimer of having no evidence, and that this is your speculative take. Guess I've just known too many women, my spouse included, who are notably single task focused people and make me look a scattered flibbertigibbet by comparison. Have I mentioned how much I like radishes? -
While I agree that consciousness may not be a thing, perhaps rather it is a collective term for dynamic processes, I don't see how it can be a phenomenological illusion, a phrase that contains a fatal contradiction. We can certainly be conscious of something that is not real and an illusion, but the mere fact that we are conscious of the illusion points to a subjective experience that is undeniable. The semantic content of "illusion" is that it is something that is presented to a conscious mind. Without consciousness, without that particular experience that we have of our thoughts being about something, there would also be no illusion. Zombies, e.g., would not have illusions. (philosophical zombies, btw, are an extremely useful philosophic concept in exporing this topic - I recommend the writings of David Chalmers on the concept) If a zombie said, I am seeing an illusion, it would be just as false as the zombie saying, I am a conscious being. I know what it is like to see the color red! Free will is not a necessary condition for awareness. A thermostat has no choice on what it does, and is also a simple circuit that is generally presumed not to be conscious and lacks the features of a mind. (I won't drag panpsychism into this) A prisoner might have no choice on where he is going to spend his evening, but that does not mean that he is not conscious of his lack of choice. A tiger might not have a choice on attacking a slow-moving zebra, but that doesn't mean it will not experience a subjective state of enjoying having it for dinner, and may be highly aware of how tasty and satisfying the zebra is.
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2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
That, too, is fair. I just bristled a little at the male stereotype, "most men have a better grasp of the big picture than most men do." Calling us men relatively oafish is not really better than calling women ditzy or moody. It's a trendy thing to do, I hear it a lot, but it is not contributing to the mental health of young people to hear these kinds of stereotypes. If we simply go by the criterion of fresh perspective, then inevitably more women and POC will pour into our political chambers. Why does the software now take away the text window I'm writing in when I open another folder? This has been going on for a few months and it's annoying AF. I open a new window and recover my text, but why should that be necessary when it wasn't before? -
2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?
TheVat replied to Alex_Krycek's topic in Politics
While I agree a woman's perspective offers a lot to running this country, I have to say that all perspectives are limited in some way, so there are no guarantees of anyone pulling in the best big picture. Black voters, as a bloc, were very supportive of Biden as someone who understood the big picture, so maybe lack of melanin doesn't have to be an impediment to perspective. Justice Jackson, for example, was an excellent choice for SCOTUS not because she was Black or a woman, but because she had a different educational track and upbringing and life experience than anyone else on the Court. That, plus a lively and sharp intellect, made her a good pick. I don't see Kelly as POTUS because he is still light on experience. Even the fairly green Obama had seven more years political experience than Kelly. Maybe in four years (er, eight years) we can ask if looking at Earth from orbit helps with a big picture. If he were then the most qualified person for the job, then I don't think his ethnicity or gender should be a factor at all. Just as Kamala would make a great Reproductive Rights/Women's Rights president, so would Mark Kelly make a great Gun Control President. -
OTTO Apes don't read philosophy. WANDA Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.
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It does not help the story that the thymus is located in the chest, not the throat. Given the cold places I have lived, I would have died about a thousand times if -2 F caused such an effect. One time I was out in -25 F for about an hour and did get a patch of gray skin on my face, a touch of frostbite, but that was unusual. Usually you can handle that temp with wicking layers and a good winter coat and boots. I had just gotten tired of my glasses fogging when the scarf was over my face and so had yanked it down. The main danger, as anyone who's spent time in Arctic or subarctic conditions will tell you, is with the feet freezing. A lot more lost toes out there than lost noses. A relative of mine served as a geologist and ornithologist on the Crocker Land Expedition, and joined a couple of other Arctic expeditions as well. Our extended family has always had a touch of stoicism about cold weather, with males especially tending to experiment with various levels of underdressing in winter. A fair amount of this insanity seemed to derive from the polar explorer in the family tree. Often framed as "Cousin Elmer went to the North Pole." In my entire life I never saw my father wear a coat with a hood, or much of any headcovering. He never seemed too uncomfortable.