With respect (or disrespect) to LLMs: Nearly all AI gets its training data in unethical ways. It’s results are unreliable and require careful validation.

There are other types of specialized AI that can do other kinds of tasks well. It is good at certain kinds of medical diagnosis (in combination with human doctors). It can solve some problems that involve lots of complex iteration, like how to fold proteins, create new molecules, or assemble structures. There are a lot of potential uses.

Which, to be fair, he was.

You can call yourself anything you want, and no one will stop you. Calling yourself a Christian, while violating every tenet of Christian teachings, does not qualify you as a Christian. I finally coined the term Hypochrists for people like that.

There are plenty of Christians who do follow Christian teachings, to one extent or another, and are generally trying to be decent people. Unfortunately, there are also large numbers of “Christians” who just use the name to justify their selfish behavior, hatred, and cruelty.

All large religions have, or have had, groups like that. Any social institution that can provide credibility is going to be abused as a tool to gain power by someone. It is appalling that the Hypochrists have become large enough, and powerful enough, to have taken over the popular image of what Christianity is.

Best comment I’ve seen in a long time.

They are a perfectly matched pair.

I realize it probably won’t matter, but you can send her this link: NY Court Records: People vs Donald J. Trump

If she thinks it isn’t a real site, have her search for something like “new york court records”.

Sam Altman is a huckster, not a technologist. As such, I don’t really care what he says about technology. His purpose has always been to transfer as much money as possible from investors into his own pocket before the bubble bursts. Anything else is incidental.

I am not entirely writing off LLMs, but very little of the discussion about them has been rational. They do some things fairly well and a lot of things quite poorly. It would be nice if we could just focus on the former.

My dogs help with everything I do. And I appreciate their help.

Most of their direct duties involved notification and security, but that doesn’t just mean barking when someone’s at the door. They often spot things around the house that are not right and bring our attention to them: a cat accidentally locked in a closet, the aquarium motor making noise because there’s too little water, a slow water leak in the bathroom, etc.

My wife occasionally has vertigo and falls. We’ve had more than one dog that would dive under her head to keep it from hitting the ground. (That was not a trained behavior.) Our biggest dog also offers himself as a brace when needed.

They also provide constant morale support. Anyone who’s feeling down gets cuddled within an inch of their life. And one dog will bring his stuffed animals and tuck them in around you to make you feel better. It is genuinely sweet, as well as cute.

That’s not a tablet, that’s a laptop running Android.

One of the very few times I’ve gotten goosebumps was from the last bit of dialog in the first Terminator movie. Sarah Connor is sitting in her jeep at a gas station with her German Shepherd. Sarah: What did he just say? Gas Station Attendant: He said there’s a storm coming. Sarah (looking off into the distance): I know.

Just make sure they don’t have access to where you sleep.

The real reason for using trigger locks.

In modern America this is not a hypothetical situation.

And doing it quite beautifully, too.

She is the classic “stopped clock”. The vast majority of what she believes and says is still vile and wrong, but the media is only reporting on her rare points that diverge from her fellow extremists.

I appreciate a good work ethic. Just make sure he gets plenty of downtime and doesn’t burn out.

Both of the events here in Madison involved marching to the state capital building for a rally. They were well organized, with an appropriate public address system, and a whole roster of speakers. Bernie Sanders called in to the first rally to address us.

I think it helps to clarify that we are talking about the current US Progressive movement and not just the abstract definitions of the terms. US Progressives have non-economic goals (restoring and expanding civil rights), but they generally agree that society should take care of everyone, not just the rich. That means providing at least food, housing, and health care without regard to income. There are a lot of different ideas about how that could be done. Everything from a Basic Living Stipend within a largely capitalist economy to a adopting a fully socialist, or even communist, economic system.

You did a great job on the costume, but nothing could make that dog look anything less than majestic.

Vitamix blenders truly are in a class by themselves. As far as I know, they’re the only blenders that include cooling fans to keep the motor from overheating. And if you do somehow manage to overload it, the thing automatically shuts off until it has cooled down to the point where it’s safe to run again. They’re virtually impossible to damage, short of active vandalism.

Their motto really should be “Fuck the worst case scenario.”