Regardless, it doesn't have agency and isn't clever. Personally I belive in a Designer, but since middle school I've been bewildered by the way evolution is almost always presented, outside of rigorous scientific literature, as if there is agency, intelligence and intent behind it.
I don't have a problem with that, but materialists don't have that luxury and use language in bad faith when do it.
> The TV series poses a four body problem early on (three suns and a single planet).
That's the same as the book except the book explains eventually that there were originally 7? 9? planets. The others had been ripped apart or consumed by the 3 stars, and the last one would be eventually.
The weak link of a sound system is typically the speakers/headphones. Speaking for myself the weak link for computing was monitors until about a decade ago, about the time everything was getting smaller.
I should switch to just a phone because the lack of multitasking (not in the cpu sense but the ordinary sense), the small screen, and the onscreen keyboard with no easy way to edit would make me use a computer about 95% less.
You can have my dual 27 inch 4k monitors, and my real keyboard with tons of customized shortcuts, my virtual desktops, and my EMACS 29 with lots of modes when you pry them from my cold dead hands.
https://blot.im/ is the one that finally made it possible for me to use one without configuration of both a web server and a site generator (neither of which I can do) and keep my files "local" in a synced Dropbox folder.
Never hear of meebok in comment above yours. Even a name like that has a .org and .com [1] neither of which, as far as I can tell, have anything to do with the e-reader.
Anyone feel like explaining it to me like I'm 5? High School physics was over 40 years ago, and while I like reading "layman's" science this one only made me think about the discussion of diminsions in 3 Body Problem, which also confused me. Frankly I've never figured out why people write of dimensions as if Time isn't one (e.g. isn't the 2D material discussed actually 3D?) Is it just understood that Time is a given one doesn't have to name?
I couldn't believe I had yo scroll almost to the bottom to find what I thought would probably be the 1st or 2nd comment. I was just about to give up and write it myself.
Between pihole, extensions and userscripts I never see ads. Ads wouldn't bother me in the least and I wouldn't block them if they were static like in a newspaper. It's the tracking I won't tolerate.
Completely right about knowing v doing but even the knowing gets skewed. The real problem that too much sucrose and fructose (whether added to not) is insulin overproduction.
I get annoyed when some people talk about an apple is better than a cookie because an apple has "natural" sugar as if sugar cane is synthetic. I will return to this example.
Humans only metabolize carbohydrates, protein, fat, and alcohol. In general all carbs breakdown to glucose. Complex carbs take longer to do this, so the metabolizing of it actually burns more calories, but there's also other biochemical and endocrine factors that vary by age, health, activity level, etc.
It's still true that complex carbs, usually having more micro nutrients and being slower to metabolize are better for us. Nonetheless, they all become glucose at some point (except nonsoluble fiber).
To return to the apple cookie example, though. If the cookie is made with oats, butter, and nuts, it may actually be much slower than the apple in provoking an insulin response. And if one eats the equivalent calories, the cookie provides oil and protein.
The author seems to think the gylcemic index is something inherent in a food rather than a measure of a metabolic process.
Toast with butter and brown sugar and cinnamon produces is better than just toast.
Even people who "know" don't seem to know it's not the sugar. It's the insulin.
On the advice of my Dr 15 years ago I started taking 3 grams of niacin a day. Within 6 months my hdl more than doubled from the upper 20s to low 60s and my triglycerides dropped from > 600 to < 150 and have stayed that way since.
The problem isn't the Oxford comma. The problem is lazy--or possibly rapid, if one is generous--writing and editing (if any). If the use or absence of a comma causes ambiguity, it's probably best to rewrite the sentence.
I believe it was Orwell who wrote a friend: "I am sorry this letter is so long. I didn't have time to make it shorter."
Linux Format quit shipping CDs with the magazine, oh, about a year ago, maybe. I think some of it is also "shrinkage" (the term in retail in the U.S. for shoplifting + breakage, etc). I liked the CDs for many reasons, one of which was once you open a browser...off you go. However, there are still people in the world who may want to learn but have rate-limited, firewalled, or dodgy Internet. It's like cashless systems that cut out millions of people. [1]
I don't see why it would be a problem with items mailed, except it would add another step for the publisher or distributor. But along those lines it irks me when I subscribe to a print publication that includes digital and after I login the only benefit I get it to read more stuff on the same tracker-loaded, privacy-invading enshitified site.
[1] During COVID I protested vigorously at my church about going virtual for many reasons. One of which was elderly or impoverished members who could not (because of either access or ability) easily access whichever platform was being used. There are so many variations of "works on my system" in the world.
Too long ago (~2004) I read a good article about something like deep-linking with micro-payments. That's the best I can remember. The idea was to use hypertext extensively as references within on-line writing and have some kind of system like $.001 for every time a link was used.
That doesn't feel entirely adequate as an explanation. Anyway, it was before blockchain or some other mechanism to implement it, but I thought it was an interesting direction to pursue.
Personally I have found dark modes with color schemes like, say, Dracula are visually pleasing immediately but over time become tedious and I notice a pattern of decreased mood that doesn't happen with light modes. So, I use software that adjust screen light based on the time of day rather than dark modes.
The author posed it as a question. It's not about want as much as able. No matter how much I wanted (at 58) to understand the inner working of a LLM, it's beyond me, just like becoming a fighter pilot.
However, even though I don't program, nothing in his list prior to AI is beyond me yet, if I wanted to learn it. I am happy being a 25 years Linux power user who climbed the Emacs learning curve to use org-mode and then gradually added email,rss, irc, web, and gopher modalities to it.