SquibblesRedux

Although there are minor fluctuations in the US debt load, the mean is clearly going up without bounds. Interest creates an exponentially worsening problem with increasing competition for resources. Competition for resources breeds conflict.

Congress' lack of will to compromise leads to winner-take-all scenarios with wild swings in policy.

Language such as "deeply basic facts" and "blatantly irresponsible" is part of the problem. I am as guilty as the next person for experiencing heightened emotions and using adverbs carrying negative connotations that lack denotational substance. However, my experience has been that the storms are best weathered by calm, consistent, and persistent actions or behaviors.

I'll drink to that!

Seriously, it feels like society has drifted too far away from the idea of small, local communities. So much of modern life separates people either physically or technologically. Though I would like to blame modern marketing and consumerism, I think these problems have been brewing for centuries.

From a sociological perspective, I do see the benefits of small conservative communities that effectively serve as a guarding or protective mechanism, shielding the more vulnerable from potentially destructive influences.

I have found LLMs to be "good enough" for:

- imprecise semantic search

- simple auto-completion (1-5 tokens)

- copying patterns with substitutions

- inserting commonly-used templates

The financial position of the US is precarious, at best. I seriously doubt there is any painless way to correct course, as Congress seems to have lost the ability to compromise. Looking into the future, the US will go the way of the former Soviet Union if it does not take corrective action.

Is the current situation the only way, the best way, or even a good way to address the country's economic position? That is a matter of perspective. As is always the case, people will take sides. The unreasonable people (on any side) will refuse to compromise and spew inflammatory rhetoric, most often in defense of their own self interests and at the expense of others' interests.

I believe that the most sensible approach is for all parties to adhere to a metered diligence, always being mindful that the country is a collective of disparate interests. The whole point of a democracy is that through all the ups and downs, things work themselves out eventually. Sometimes there are setbacks and other times there is progress.

Things may seem chaotic, but this too shall pass.

Can one simply stick to vodka, skip the potatoes, and reap all the benefits?

An interesting paper on transdermal magnesium:

Myth or Reality—Transdermal Magnesium? https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5579607/

The short story -- As of 2017 the jury is still out as to whether something like an Epsom salt bath may be beneficial because of the magnesium.

For those who do not know the reference...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident

> Rent rises (and falls, but more slowly) to exactly the level required to keep some portion of people in poverty and near-poverty, no matter how productive the local area is.

That's an interesting claim. While it does seems there are some kind of structural forces that all but guarantee a certain percentage of people will live in poverty, I'm not certain that changing rent prices is necessarily a significant factor. I tried to find evidence that changes in rent prices "keep[s] some portion of people in poverty and near-poverty."

Can you point to any references that suggest this is the case?

Some day in the future we will create some very powerful mutant mice that will take up the torch after the Age of Man has passed.

> Presumably you have felt thirsty many times and had something to drink

This is not the case. It is very rare that I have ever felt thirsty. It has been an issue my entire life, often with seriously negative outcomes. Every day I have to make a conscious effort to ensure I drink enough water. I can never rely on how I feel; I always have to depend on what intake I have measured.

I have never felt thirsty when dehydrating. People's response to dehydration or over-hydration is not uniform.

I concur. In fact, I believe Twitter links should be banned outright. For me, Twitter has blocked my access because I had 2-factor authentication turned on before they started charging extra for it. Now they won't let me view any Twitter content unless I either (1) pay money, or (2) turn off 2-factor authentication. I refuse to do either.

When I saw the picture of the gauntlet, I immediately thought of the ressurection gauntlet from Torchwood. [0]

[0] https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Resurrection_gauntlet

Anecdotally, this feels true. However, I have not been able to find any credible evidence to back up the claim that raising one or more children has a net-negative effect greater than smoking or being obese.

"Complete Metal Working Shop From Scrap Series Set (7 INDIVIDUAL BOOKS)"

Here is the description of the series:

ISBN 1-878087-00-2 The Charcoal Foundry

ISBN 1-878087-01-0 The Metal Lathe

ISBN 1-878087-02-9 The Metal Shaper

ISBN 1-878087-03-7 The Milling Machine

ISBN 1-878087-04-5 The Drill Press

ISBN 1-878087-05-3 The Dividing Head & Deluxe Accessories

ISBN 1-878087-06-1 The Sheet Metal Brake

Quote from the site:

Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap is a progressive series of seven projects including, The Charcoal Foundry, The Metal Lathe, The Metal Shaper, The Milling Machine, The Drill Press, The Dividing Head and The Sheet Metal Brake. Beginning with a simple charcoal fired foundry, you produce the castings for building the machine tools to equip your shop. Initially the castings are finished by simple hand methods, but it isn’t long before the developing machines are doing much of the work to produce their own parts. It does not take long to learn the simple craft of pattern-making and sand molding. Each phase of the projects increase your knowledge and skill. There is no need to look for outside help. You can do it all in your own shop. No complicated math----No exotic equipment required----No large cash outlay. Lots of work to be sure, and some of it can be downright tedious, but the reward will be a practical small scale machine shop that you might never give yourself permission to buy, assuming you could afford it.

https://gingerybookstore.com/MetalWorkingShopFromScrapSeries...

I sometimes wonder, do pets have a lower quality of life because pet food is ultra-processed? That does not seem to be the case with pets I have had.

And is there is a difference between pet food and ultra-processed food for humans? Is it that pet food is nutritionally complete, whereas human food often is not?

While I understand manifolds, this article is the first time I have seen the term "contact manifold." Does anyone know of an original source where "contact manifold" is first formally defined?

> Unless I run out in the field and bite a cow

Oh, how I now want to invent a new fad diet...

Given that logics (of all sorts) are subsets of mathematics, I'm not sure one can convincingly hoist (any) logic above all other mathematics to make arguments.

> When mathematics does not relate to one of the three -- for e.g., in Cantor's theories of "countable" and "uncountable" infinite sets -- it is totally unreal.

I find that to be quite a bold statement. The question as to whether "mathematics is real" feels firmly rooted in philosophy. First, I would question what is meant by real and unreal. Second, I would question if the answer matters whether the existence of the real and the unreal are not yet discovered, or even imagined.

In this case, I agree something more descriptive would have been helpful. Even the comments have been mysterious, given the linked web site only returns "429 Too Many Requests".

I am curious what you do for a living, why, and what would you rather do (or not do). Ignoring social factors, is there anything you would like to change?

Alas, I have done this many times. I'm still alive, so I suppose fortune has smiled on me.

It seems like this should have implications for quantum cryptography. Does anyone have any references to work on such implications?

I have always wondered -- what makes egress expensive? Are they just trying to keep everything in-house, or is there some real cost to egress?

Paper can be tedious, but it has never let me down. Unless someone is prone to losing notebooks, or is burgled on a regular basis, I can recommend a password notebook as an effective and reliable method of password storage.

I suspect that the majority of people would begin to act like teenagers. It seems like a world where everything is automated would remove many of the consequences we have now. I see a strong likelihood that human conflict would significantly increase.

I was hoping this article was about mathematical methods. I was disappointed to see it was actually about a Javascript library.

Maybe this is a good thing. I could see a small startup completely disrupt Google search by leveraging a GPT-based search tool. I think the last important ingredient is some sort of data validation engine.

"Looks like" and "resembles" are fairly orthogonal to "understands." Of one is looking for understanding, I would say Stable Diffusion is traveling in the wrong direction.