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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Flirting is a pretty nebulous term.

    My personal definition of flirting is any positive expression or behavior which:

    1. Is an exception to your typical behavior or affect.
    2. Targeted at a specific person, typically someone new.
    3. Is heightened or marked by increased volume, nervousness, etc.

    examples:

    A typically reserved guy pulling you aside and animatedly asking about your interest.

    A woman who normally doesn’t touch you is repeatedly teasing you about your shirt, pulling on the fabric.

    A good friend begins to repeatedly and unexpectedly invite you over for one on one movie nights despite obvious inconveniences.

    That’s just my opinion, though. I believe most people are looking for these heightened expressions of flirting to confirm interest.


  • Perhaps they assumed that you felt obligated to speak to them, and they felt the need to absolve you of that obligation. That would be the literal meaning of the phrase.

    A different interpretation could be that they didn’t want to continue the conversation. In this scenario, they would prefer to be silent, and by suggesting that, “You don’t have to do this,” they have given you a polite, symbolic agency in ending the conversation, implying that both of you would rather be silent. In this way, instead of directly rejecting you, the decision to be silent would be shared. It’s a way of allowing you to save face.

    Note that just because they might want to be silent, doesn’t mean that they dislike you. There are many reasons why people might know to speak at any given moment, and some people are just shy.

    It’s hard to say which interpretation is correct without hearing the tone of voice, and understanding the general situation. There could be other factors or other interpretations as well.


  • Yes, sorry, where I live it’s pretty normal for cars to be diesel powered. What I meant by my comparison was that a train, when measured uncritically, uses more energy to run than a car due to it’s size and behavior, but that when compared fairly, the train has obvious gains and tradeoffs.

    Deepseek as a 600b model is more efficient than the 400b llama model (a more fair size comparison), because it’s a mixed experts model with less active parameters, and when run in the R1 reasoning configuration, it is probably still more efficient than a dense model of comparable intelligence.



  • This article is comparing apples to oranges here. The deepseek R1 model is a mixture of experts, reasoning model with 600 billion parameters, and the meta model is a dense 70 billion parameter model without reasoning which preforms much worse.

    They should be comparing deepseek to reasoning models such as openai’s O1. They are comparable with results, but O1 cost significantly more to run. It’s impossible to know how much energy it uses because it’s a closed source model and openai doesn’t publish that information, but they charge a lot for it on their API.

    Tldr: It’s a bad faith comparison. Like comparing a train to a car and complaining about how much more diesel the train used on a 3 mile trip between stations.



  • I’m not a medical expert, but typically your skin is pretty good at keeping pathogens out, at least when you clean yourself regularly.

    Keeping your hands clean (and thus your eyes and mouth) should be a priority. A relatively cheap and easy thing to focus on would be cheap, disposable gloves. Buy them in bulk, and carry a wad in a pocket. You can turn old ones inside out and use them as little trash bags. Change them out whenever you feel like it.

    If you don’t have a clothes washer at home, consider buying a cheap portable unit that can drain into the shower or sink. I have one, and it rocks.

    You might feel a little crazy, but if you have the spare cash, buy some bleach spray and paper towels and wipe down the elevator. It should only take 5 minutes. It could be the case that it only needs to be cleaned every few weeks.

    Remember that by keeping your space and person clean, you are doing a lot to stay healthy. People work draining septic tanks for a living and are exposed to sewage, but stay healthy because of good hygiene habits in the long term. I don’t mean to minimize your situation, because I’d feel crazy too, but just keep in mind you’re already doing a good job.


  • https://openai.com/index/how-openai-is-approaching-2024-worldwide-elections/

    Here is a direct quote from openai:

    “In addition to our efforts to direct people to reliable sources of information, we also worked to ensure ChatGPT did not express political preferences or recommend candidates even when asked explicitly.”

    It’s not a conspiracy. It was explicitly thier policy not to have the ai discuss these subjects in meaningful detail leading up to the election, even when the facts were not up for debate. Everyone using gpt during that period of time was unlikely to receive meaningful information on anything Trump related, such as the legitimacy of Biden’s election. I know because I tried.

    This is ostentatiously there to protect voters from fake news. I’m sure it does in some cases, but I’m sure China would say the same thing.

    I’m not pro China, I’m suggesting that every country engages in these shenanigans.

    Edit it is obvious that a 100 billion dollar company like openai with it’s multude of partnerships with news companies could have made gpt communicate accurate and genuinely critical news regarding Trump, but that would be bad for business.






  • Many ancient practitioners of stoicism were wealthy statesmen, including emperors. And, the literate elite were certainly enamored with it. I’m not a historian, but stoicism was shaped by wealthy and powerful people, as was every popular philosophy.

    I’m not opposed to it. I like aspects of Stoicism. But, When it comes to wealth, it always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed so often to me that wealthy stoics make a virtue out of possessing, but not coveting wealth, and in doing so make a vice of dissatisfaction with one’s wealth. For a rich man, this is reasonable. However, a poor man is correct to be dissatisfied. Poor men need to be angry, and to rise up and demand wealth (in my opinion), their pain and anguish is meant to be felt and to stoke action.

    Stoicism is not often presented as compatible with this mindset of mine. I’m sure there are types of stoicism which address this, but most influencers seem to present Stoicism though a relatively uncritical lense.


  • My caveat to this is that many of the foundational individuals to stoicism, as well as present influencers, are members of the upper class, and while there are a lot of great ideas in there, stoicism can often be distilled into a philosophy of rugged individualism which is more easily achieved with wealth, power, and privilege.

    I am of the opinion that stoicism is good, but a disproportional number of those who practice it are often out of touch.