I usually install Ubuntu server edition, with a minimal set of packages. Then, I add things if and when I need them (using 'apt install <package>').
I use the XMonad tiling WM, most of the time, I only need a "desktop environment" to switch between applications. I could add panels and whatnot, but it just doesn't seem worth the screen real estate.
@xianmin Thanks! I found it among leftbehind stuff when I got a new office some time ago, no doubt a forgotten gift from some Japanese vistor a previous occupant of the office had long ago.
Anybody know what this is? Sake? It's some kind of bottle wrapped in a cover and tied up with strings/ropes.
@freemo https://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/skin-cancer-facts
Looks like it's more like 10000 times more dangerous.
@freemo
Safe distance? The sun causes a hundred if not thousand times more cancer than our own nuclear power.
#Emojis are such a great way to communicate, but sadly limited by the very small space of Unicode code points and a bureaucratic expansion process. The limitation similarly hampers the use of many obscure languages, many of us would like to write love letters in Klingon or tax returns in Tengwar, for instance.
It is time to expand the Unicode standard! I propose that code points be expanded from the pathetic 32 bits to a full 24576 bits. To simplify matters, each code points will be directly mapped to a glyph corresponding to a 32x32 8-bit RGB array. Thus the code point representation encodes the visual presentation. If this idea sounds familiar, it is nothing more than content-addressable storage, similar to what git uses.
This unprecedented flexibility is surely going to revolutionize communication. And the bigger size of each characters is offset by the possibilities - for instance, short xml tags can fit directly in a single glyph, and for fine print, several lines can be written in parallel as a single row of code points. What's not to like? Call your ISO representative TODAY!
Answer: use a certified bona fide university account. All the endorsement you need, automatically.
RIght. So, I finally decided to Do The Right Thing, and put my papers - published and recently submitted - into #ArXiv, for y'all to swoon over. Great.
But ArXiv will have none of it, not until somebody have endorsed me and my humble contributions. It's close to midnight here, and I could of course start calling my colleagues - after all, granting the masses access to the heart of scientific knowledge is surely a purpose that trumps any other - be it getting a good night's sleep or having one last shot of tequila, or what have you.
But perhaps somebody here are sufficiently qualified, and willing to help the progress of science? You'd need to have at least two papers in ArXiv q-bio/gn - or some other category where I can peddle my inkblots. Help?
The #haskell tarpit. Funnily reminiscent of recursion and lazy evaluation of infinite data structures...
Adversarial collaborations sounds like an interesting way to execute an argument. Looking forward to see what has come out of this experiment.
Oh, hashtag: #ssc #slatestarcodex
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/09/03/this-week-adversarial-collaboration-entries/
ketil
boosted
Fidget spinners, knitting needles, and butterfly knives all serve the same purpose, but using them during meetings sends very different messages.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wDP4ZWYLNj7MGXWiW/in-praise-of-fake-frameworks
TL;DR: all models are wrong, some models are useful. But do read the whole thing.
I think the point is that many people don't want a rational argument to clarify how the world is, or what peoples beliefs are. People want an irrational argument to reinforce their social group.
I think the only thing you can do is to ignore them. I have never learned anything from anybody wh argued by calling people they disagree with for fascists (or any other -ism, for that matter). There are greener pastures elsewhere.
Well, I'm self-policing quite a bit. I have my beliefs about various controversial issues, but some topics act as red flags to some, and ensuing discussion generates a lot of heat but no light. And it can be difficult to know which topics that are acceptable today somebody with a grudge will dig up in ten years to get you fired.
Godwin's law says that in a debate, eventually one participant will compare the other to Hitler, after which meaningful discussion is impossible. The point about calling someone a nazi being a way to shut down the argument is correct. The difference is that this happens quite early in the discussion, maybe even initially. It serves to paint the argument as a group struggle: my group vs your group - who are nazis, and therefore reprehensible, and therefore not worth listening to. Discourse today is less about what you say, and more about who you are.
(Parts of the article strikes me as very conspiracy-theoretical. War on drugs as a racist policy? Seems like an odd argument to me, and not at all relevant for a debate on drugs policy.)
"Eventually, this error was fixed. But how many other such errors are hidden in Google? We have no idea."
Huh. This is like somebody demanding their mirror be altered when they don't like what they see in it.
Relevant both to AI and culture war., fairness, and ethics. The author's choice of examples is interesting, another well-known example of surprising results is the images that pop up if you search for "American scientist". Just like the author's examples are taken as evidence of right wing (using the term loosely) bias, that example was taken as the opposite.
It is easy to see where this is coming from - mentions of an "american scientist" is commonly a mention of an "african-american scientist". For cultural and historical reasons, ethnicity of scientists is important, nationality not so much.
For that matter, google just "scientist" and see if you think the image results are anything remotely representative for scientists. I had to scroll down to find an image of Einstein, and it is of course the one where he sticks his tongue out.
But it is a dilemma. Also accurate and technically unbiased algorithms may - and often will - give results that are suprising, deemed undesirable, and thus interpreted and condemned as bias. And our unwilingness to accept reality is perhaps the first hurdle we need to overcome.
@rnitsch
"I can actually understand why most ordinary people don't invest a lot of time in investigating stuff like this more closely."
This is fine and understandable. What is paradoxical is that this in no way precludes holding very strong and vocal beliefs about the issues.
In fact, you get the impression that the less information, the stronger beliefs - if you ask scientists, they will typically tell you on the one hand this and on the other that.
A lot of the argumentation is group signaling. By arguing for windmills, I signal that I am green and progressive, i.e. belong to the "right" group. The point isn't - was never - to actually evaluate the merits of windmills.
I also think the theory of conflict and mistake explains much of this. When people think you argue from bad faith (because you are a greedy capitalist, or whatever), they don't care about your arguments. Conversely, if they are convinced of their own righteousness, they don't care much about their own arguments. The latter point isn't discussed in the text, but I think it is important - look at all the people who post memes poking fun of Trump's hair, and appear to think it is political discourse.
About not being an a*hole. RIP McCain, and well written.
https://quillette.com/2018/08/31/i-sold-my-soul-on-twitter-now-im-trying-to-win-it-back/
My curiousity was piqued by the reference to somebody being chastised, allegedly for tweeting:
“I don’t agree with [Ben Shapiro] on much, but he’s a genuine person who once helped me for no other reason than to be nice.”
Curious, I followed the link to Vox. Interestingly, the quote isn't complete, it went on:
"He doesn’t bend the truth. His intentions are good"
You can see why that is somewhat more provocative? Then Vox follows this with a list of links to Shapiro's works, presumably to demonstrate the curvature of veracity.
One allegation is that he called Obama a "philosophical fascist". That seemed curious, so I looked. What the linked article acutally says is this: "Obama's Philosophically Fascist State of the Union Address"
So his speech is (according to Shapiro) "philosophically fascist", but Obama the person is not, and Shapiro even states in so many words that of course, he's not calling Obama a nazi.
In any case, this is not Shapiro's proudest moment, and perhaps Vox is right in pointing it out. But what is notable, is that everybody slightly misrepresents the person they're criticising.
"Somehow we have an unconscious 'victim hierarchy' in our heads that make us prone to believe anything [...]"
Perhaps this is true for certain idealists and progressives. But I think we (standard issue males) have a particular weak spot for women, more so than for other marginalized groups.
Which would make sense in a evolutionary psychology perspective - protecting your tribe's most limited reproductive resource (i.e. female fertility) is important to survival, protecting people who are totally foreign to you is not.
What I find interesting is that in some cases, what is generally believed by people is just...wrong.
Gender issues are controversial, but it sure looks from the data as if the gender pay gap is (at least) highly exaggerated, and also like perceptions of gender differences in medical expenditure - both research and treatment gets the sign seriously wrong.
Less controversially, the perception that the world is becoming worse, that the human condition is declining - when almost all data points in the opposite direction.
Or the perception that nuclear power is dangerous and expensive.
Or the idea that renewables (or even worse: organic and/or locally grown foods) are somehow going to help us mitigate climate change.
I try to aim for having as correct an understanding of the world as possible. But as far as I can tell, these are issues where the public just chooses to be misinformed. I wonder how that comes about, and what drives this?
(Or alternatively, if I'm the one having erroneous beliefs, where is the evidence proving me wrong)
Joined Aug 2018
