Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

@Bullix Yes. I hate that this is the country we've allowed ourselves to become. But yes.

@cdstuck Where are their fathers?!?!?

@toxtethogrady Yep. Not even the pretext of anything else AFAICT.

So, let's review:

The #murderer drove his car into a crowd. The #victim, who was carrying a #rifle openly, in accordance with #Texas law, raised the rifle in self-defense toward the car coming at him. The murderer, who in addition to using his #car as a #weapon, was also carrying a #pistol, shot the victim. "#Gun #rights advocates" are supporting the murderer.

Sometimes I wish I still belonged to the #NRA so I could resign again.

And that's not even the main issue here. No, the main issue is that the #Republican Governor of Texas, along with his hand-picked toadies on the state parole board, wants to legalize #murder. Which, by the way, he will almost surely succeed in doing, in this particular case. Republicans all over the country will back him.

Every day I have a harder time believing any of us are going to live through this.

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2023/04/08/texas-governor-greg-abbott-will-pardon-daniel-perry-convicted-of-murder-garrett-foster/70095504007/

Huh, most people just call this #decaf.

Oh, Quora.

@blazeward7 —and having said that, I just realized the youngest veterans of the war may not be a decade older than me! Wow, that's an uncomfortable thought.

@blazeward7 Anyone still living who fought in the Bush War must be pretty old by now, and probably not capable of much harm. Their modern sycophants, OTOH ... yeah.

It would be kind of amazing how many #racist #asshats are still celebrating this pathetic attempt at a country that only existed for fourteen years and ceased to exist before many of them were born, until you consider that many of them are also still celebrating a pathetic attempt at a country that only existed for four years and ceased to exist before many of their *great-grandparents* were born.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the "#Rhodesians" did, in fact, fucking die.

@blazeward7 I think they're still pretty good overall, but they really do try to do the "both sides" thing to an absurd degree. Like practically all of the "liberal media," of course. They really need to figure out that there's *nothing* they can do to keep the right-wingers from hating them.

Some answers just write themselves.

https://www.quora.com/Is-NPR-annoying-and-needs-to-be-taken-off-the-air/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

This one has been flying around my #Facebook friends list. In and of itself, it's true. I have no argument with what it *says*. But there's a lot it's not saying, and I can't help but feel like it's designed to disparage the #15minuteCity concept by that omission.

First, the concept itself. The idea of the 15-minute city ("#15mC") is pretty simple: everything you need for your daily life should be within 15 minutes' #walk. Some definitions have "walk or #bicycle ride," but I think that drastically weakens the concept.

In other words, a healthy, able-bodied adult should be able to get to all the usual destinations in no more than a quarter of an hour, on foot. I would add to this that #children, the #elderly, and people of all ages with #disabilities should also be able to get where they're going via accessible #public #transit, in the same amount of time.

*All* the usual destinations. Which yes, means #grocery #stores, #restaurants, #movie #theaters, etc.—for people who #work there as well as the patrons. And every other kind of #workplace too. Of course you don't *have* to work or eat or shop close to home. But the option needs to be there, and the work has to be able to pay for all the rest.

That's *always* been part of the concept. If the work criterion is not met, you don't have a 15mC; you have a theme park, like the post says. Fair enough.

Yes, and? If you have a #house without a roof, you don't have a house, you have a collection of walls. If you have a plate without #food on it, you don't have a meal, you have #hunger. If you have a #legislature that can arbitrarily kick out its members for voicing their opinions, you don't have #liberty, you have #tyranny. Everyone understands this.

So if we agree that the 15mC is a good idea—I certainly think it is—then let's try to make it happen. This kind of sniping strikes me as less a valid critique and more an attempt to make the whole idea sound impossible.

Maybe that's not the intent, but it's sure how it comes across. Yeah ... don't do that.

@lulu_powerful Yeah. I usually *don't* pick apart the functions unless (a) something doesn't look right and I want to check, (b) I want to implement a faster and/or more stable version, which doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to, or (c) I'm just curious. But knowing that I *can* is reassuring. Not to mention implementing new tests, where I *always* do the math on paper first!

There's already way too much #ML code out there that basically says "this seems to work." My background is about equal parts #biostatistics and software engineering, so I find this just as frustrating as I do the very large amount of statistically sound but *horribly* inefficient and poorly documented code that makes it into the wild.

Interesting tidbit from FiveThirtyEight:

"Sad news for us data nerds: According to respondents of a recently released December YouGov poll, #statistics was ranked the least interesting college major, with 42 percent of adults calling it 'not interesting.' Criminal justice had the lowest percentage of respondents who called it 'not interesting,' at just 18 percent. When respondents were asked which majors they would pick if they were pursuing a college degree today, a plurality (20 percent) chose #computerscience."

The full poll results are here: https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/8nv9pr6ke6/results_College%20Majors.pdf

Almost surely, a lot of those students who think computer science is interesting, but statistics isn't, are planning on careers in "#datascience," #ML / #AI, etc. So here comes yet another generation of computer scientists who will badly reinvent statistics instead of learning the field from the ground up. Great.

@jhertzli Ha! Like you, I'm reluctant to accept that conclusion, but, well ... [ianmalcolm]there it is[/ianmalcolm].

I guess the #awesomebros will find it ...

...

...

...

... hard to swallow!

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Try the #pachycephalosaurus.

https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2023/03/new-paper-fresh-evidence-and-novel.html

@b3n I'd be a lot more willing to accept that framing if he didn't present himself as an AI researcher, and pull stunts like challenging actual researchers to debates. He bears much the same relationship to computer science as Kent Hovind does to evolutionary biology. Unlike Hovind and other prominent creationists, though, Yudkowski very often manages to fool people with a genuine interest in the field into taking him seriously.

Every #tool is dangerous, and the more powerful the tool the more dangerous it is. Of course. Is #AI as dangerous as #nuclear #weapons? Probably not. It might be in the same league as, oh, say #internal #combustion #engines—and those have done a hell of a lot of damage. But they haven't done it by ushering in the #apocalypse. Instead the damage is from slow, creeping, cumulative change where the effect of any one individual event is too small to measure.

So I really think the focus on world-ending scenarios takes away from the conversations we need to be having. This reminds me a lot of the simmering "how far is too far" #genetics debate, especially the kibitzing from "#ethicists" with no understanding of the #biology and an #ethical sense that isn't nearly as developed as they think it is. There are conversations on that topic I'd like to have without the constant Greek chorus of "#Frankenstein! #Gattaca! #JurassicPark!"

This is your regularly scheduled reminder that Eliezer #Yudkowsky is a complete fraud. He has no qualifications of any kind, in any field. Nor has he contributed any substantial research, in any field. His only credentials are membership in a "research institute" he founded himself, and starting a #cult. None of his opinions are worth a moment of your time.

If you know, you know. If you don't, you're probably better off. Carry on.