purrtrandrussell

LLM capabilities have been growing rapidly and so if you're even a little out of date you'll underestimate models.
Getting the best use out of an LLM requires putting in some effort, so if you haven't learned how to do that, you'll underestimate models.

adorable

Every day I find a new way of trying to get across just how ridiculously fake the problem of AI water use is

It doesn't make sense to separate religious zionism from "mainstream" zionism when Mafdal-RZ and Otzma Yehudit are both in the governing coalition in the Knesset. Unfortunately, the fanatics have a lot of power in the Israeli government right now.

Thank you for posting these cute kitties

It is really important that environmentalists be numerate.

We are not going to turn off civilization, we are trying to sculpt it into a more benevolent shape, so it is essential that we accurately perceive that shape.

This is genuinely a good idea, with the caveat that I think that it would be important to tailor rhetoric to avoid attacking liberal Christians. A major mistake of New Atheism was that it aimed at religion as a whole and failed to see liberal Christians as allies against Christian nationalism.

I am now starting to suspect that people doom posting themselves into saying it doesn't matter that Trump is wildly unpopular because he is going to do a dictatorship are themselves an op. Dictatorships aren't stable by magic, they need people to buy in and go along with them. This matters.

The effects of social media on society have been distorted by the presence of Russian state actors actively promoting reactionary propaganda and deliberately trying to break down solidarity without a counter-acting group of paid workers on the progressive side.

It's fascinating how many counter-intuitive ways transness can manifest. Ex. Enbies with binary trans body dysphoria. It's completely wild that not only can someone have a gender ID different from their asab, but they can have a different gender ID than their strongly preferred sex phenotype.

it gives serious medieval-rulers-hiring-Jews-as-tax-collectors vibes except we don't even get paid this time

I often hear it claimed that Democrats are losing votes because of silly leftists going viral. Is there any evidence for this? Have there been opinion surveys, etc.? This isn't a rhetorical question.

Zuck sucks but these types of glasses could make an enormous difference in my life as someone with auditory processing disorder & various other disabilities. Livecaption is better than my natural ability, but looking down at a phone in daily conversations hurts my neck.

7: Recently, someone whose AI art I really like told me she liked mine. AI art in general has been a huge source of happiness for me because I have fine motor impairment, which puts a ceiling on how well I can ever draw. Now I can make pretty things and not be limited by my motor skills.

6: for most of her life, my mom was afraid to come out as bi because she was worried how her family would react. When I came out as a teen, she saw how accepting they were of me, and came out herself not long after. They accepted her as well

memory #5: Once on a walk, I had an outdoor cat mew at me. She led me to her door, and then meowed at the door. It seemed like she wanted to go in, so I rang the doorbell. Her human opened the door and she stepped inside, looked around, and stepped back outside. Her human said she does that a lot.

Before she had grown old and a bit stiff, she mostly groomed Tuxie. He was not her biological kitten (she was fixed), but she had decided that he was her baby when he came to us as a kitten. They were very close and snuggled often. I wish I had photos; I used to be bad at backing things up (2/2)

More cat memories: As she aged, Sally seemed happy and free of pain, but struggle to groom herself, especially reaching all the way to her butt. Tuxie, our other cat who she raised from kittenhood, became extra attentive to when grooming her and licked her butt for her. (1/2)

Powerful essay from Marcus Davis, CEO of Rethink Priorities, on his personal experience with lead exposure and his work today fighting lead poisoning around the world
amarcusdavis.substack.com/p/how-my-ch...

Sally was a wonderful cat. We were together for 15 years: from when I was 4 and she was 1 to when I was 19 and she was 16. She was reliably there for me whenever I was having a rough day or sick. She seemed to be able to sense when people were distressed and provided extra cuddles.

My childhood cat Sally got caled beautiful so many times during cuddles that she developed a Pavlovian response to the word "beautiful." This got very funny when my mom's boyfriend called my mom beautiful, and Sally came running like, "you called?" We joked that we had a narcissistic cat

When I was a child, my mom would take me to work when childcare wasn't available. She'd tell me she needed my help, and she'd ask me questions. I took my role as a tiny consultant very seriously and did my very best to give thoughtful answers.

My chart on the history of three infectious diseases — smallpox, polio, and measles — before and after a vaccine was available.

There's a lot going on in the world, so I want to post positive things. 1 like = 1 happy memory

beautiful

What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT? Very small compared to most of the other stuff you do.

“It saves less than even the ‘small stuff’ that we can do, like recycling, reusing plastic bags and replacing our lightbulbs. These are worth doing, by the way, but not at the expense of the big stuff like diet, cars, home heating, and flights, which can often save tonnes of CO2 a year.”

YouTube video by Farya Faraji The Seleucids - Epic Music

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUED...
Modern Iranian + Ancient Greek fusion music by Farya Faraji
@timfduffy.com

Vegan Health Advice Eat your B12s

thingofthings.substack.com/p/vegan-heal... this is a pretty good guide to vegan health
thingofthings.substack.com/p/on-ameliat... <- and here is a proposed diet intending to get most of the animal welfare benefits of veganism with less of the personal cost

I am curious as to where you're finding people saying that the stock market going down is fine.

super cute