pfdietz

23 ms·

721.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
I hadn't heard of operatives. Can you describe them or provide a link?
722.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Styrofoam has been used in model aircraft for decades. It's easily shaped with a hot wire.
723.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Kamikazes have been described as anti-ship missiles before it was possible to build anti-ship missiles.
724.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
In Common Lisp macros can also be used to implement a kind of Aspect-Oriented Programming, using the macroexpand hook. This hook enables macroexpansion to be dynamically modified at compile time without changing the source code.
725.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Think of macros as what you want when you want to perform computation at compile time rather than run time. An example: building the equivalent of a switch statement, but that compares (via string equality) with a set of strings. The macro
726.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Also, models are most interesting on the boundaries where they fail. Take for example Lord Kelvin's model of thermal conduction in a solid Earth. He used it to incorrectly predict the age of the Earth, but if he had taken that failure
727.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
It's the outcome I expect. It's probably the outcome the US politicians expect, too.
728.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
And look at the most recent World of Warcraft patch. A dismaying decline in quality.
729.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
The US is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss. These are all just foreshocks.
730.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Wow. If a correct argument is made by a morally compromised actor, we can dismiss the argument! Logic is wonderful.
731.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
That misses the point I was making.
732.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Yes, yes, let's imagine automated turbo communism where all inventions can be made outside the free market. Here in the real world, private firms are the source of things like this. Roundup Ready soybeans involved cooperation from mul
733.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
> Why not? (rolls eyes) Because if no one does the R&D to create the seeds they WON'T EXIST. I would have thought that was 100% obvious, but apparently not!
734.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
If we got the seeds from the GMO fairy, yes. If we have to get the seeds from expensive R&D that wouldn't occur without patent protection, then no.
735.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
The one I'm seeing now for crops (along with GMO crops to resist it) is Liberty, generic name glufosinate. What's interesting about it is that it's a natural product (although obtained in bulk by synthesis) produced by seve
736.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
> Glyphosate is probably the safest of the things people spray their lawns with. Glyphosate kills grass, so I would not recommend this unless you are planning to reseed from scratch (or replace the grass with something else). Are there &
737.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
I find the objection to patents on GMO plants to be completely indefensible. If there was ever an area where patents are justified and necessary, this is it. This is a product that in normal operation manufactures itself . Without patent
738.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
It's some combination of ideological opposition to GMOs and a way to get trade barriers against import of cheap grain and soybeans from the US to the EU. The latter is less important now that Trump has blown up free trade.
739.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Changing your diet disrupts the gut biome. When I started eating bran flakes it massively disrupted my gut biome. Should I be alarmed? Or are you slipping a double standard in there, perhaps from the naturalistic fallacy?
740.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Indeed. It's rare in environmental medicine to see an effect as strong as that from smoking. The straw the tobacco industry clung to for a while (it was debunked) was that people who had cancer smoked to sooth their lungs (or, that ca
741.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
I think the point that LLMs should enable effective translation between different formalisms is a good one. So I don't see the choice as being a big issue. This is especially the case here because to a large extent the translations c
742.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
That's an AI slop tell, isn't it? I wonder if AI is going to drive certain idioms into extinction (aside from being used by AI).
743.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
One thing you notice if you spend much time outdoors in the US is how many invasive species there are and how they've taken over so much space. These species are often dead spaces for native insects (which is one reason they are so i
744.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Small change compared to global fossil fuels. Energy (which is still mostly fossil fuels) is 10% of the world GDP. Climate-change denial is just like tobacco-cancer denial. It's the same banal "I win, you all lose" mechanis
745.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
> It's much like climate science today: any dissent at all, even just questioning the predictions of catastrophe, immediately brands you as a heretic. The financial motivation for fraud is all on the side of climate-change denial.
746.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Perhaps learning how to get AI to solve your problems is the most important lesson to learn now? The rest seems like the current equivalent of learning cursive.
747.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
I'm thinking once we have much of the math literature formalized it's going to be possible to mine commonalities like that. Think of it as automated refactoring, applied to math.
748.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
Ferrofluid in the water would be ironic.
749.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
> Where does the confidence that it is due to sweeteners come from? Probably from your inability to read what I actually wrote. The word "suspicion" does not connote confidence.
750.
by pfdietz 6mo ago
The increase is cancers in younger age groups was noticed earlier than that, and the cancers can't be expected to occur instantly upon exposure to a carcinogen.

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