Paul Ganssle @pganssle@qoto.org

I have set up Mixtral 8x7B to generate Spanish example sentences for my Anki deck and I came across one that seems to randomly be in Catalan. Fun times.

Any #python folks know of a library for drawing pretty-looking, clean boxes arranged in various patterns?

I am looking to make some simple images like this to demonstrate addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.

Bonus points if it has support for some existing pedagogical framework (e.g. "ten frames").

#pedagogy #education #earlyeducation #visualization #homeschooling

Of course, a countervailing force here is that they are also stupidly good at translation, so the utility of actually learning another language is reduced.

They can explain nuances in a way that automatic sentence-to-sentence translation can't, and you can give them enough context to let them know how to select the right way to translate what you want to say into idiomatic speech.

Of course, you will sound like an obsequious PR person if you don't take steps to avoid that. 😛

As I've been learning Spanish these past months, I am almost compelled to create an LLM-powered language learning application. It is really hard to do spaced repetition without it turning into a grind, and the ability to create (and parse!) custom, idiomatic text programmatically could be an absolute game changer here.

They are also really good at answering questions about how language use and I haven't noticed much (anything?) in the way of hallucination with frontier models.

Now I just need to figure out why my #archlinux server computer freezes up whenever I turn off the monitor it's connected to and I'll be a happy man. 😅

For the past few years, my computers have failed to wake up the large 4k monitor connected to my dock, which has been a source of great annoyance to me.

Just a few days ago I came across something that suggested maybe the issue was that the monitor needs HDMI 2.0+, so I bought a newer HDMI cable and now it works perfectly, so if you are having a similar problem, might be a good idea to try a newer cable.

Anyone know if there is a gym in #pittsburgh that is reasonably close to the convention center that will sell me a short term membership while I'm at PyCon?

A cable machine, dumbbells and an elliptical is enough to do my whole workout.

#pycon #pyconus #pycon24

I logged on to twitter for the first time in ages because I wanted to contact someone whose preferred contact method was twitter DMs, and twitter suggested that I "interact with [my] timeline more" to help them learn that I'm human.

With the current state of twitter, I'm not sure that "likes to interact with this website" is a particularly common trait among humans...

On the plus side, I suppose this means I'll have a backup motherboard if the new one ever goes out. Maybe I should get a backup CPU as well to reduce downtime.