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pygy_on It's time to admit that genes are not the blueprint for life

> What is consciousness? The firing of a gazillion synapses you will never fully understand.

But then you realize that transcripton factors (genes that activate or inhibit other genes) form networks with feedback loops that are conceptually equivalent to neural networks, and some cells grow camera-like eyes complete with a retina and a lens [1].

It isn't about neurons per se, more about the way information is treated by these systems.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocelloid

pygy_on The Ladybird browser project

This is where Apple'grip on the iOS browser engine choice paradoxically comes in clutch.

It is conceptually despicable, especially for devs, but it prevents Google from completely running the show.

Now the European Union is coming after Apple without trying to rein in Google's influence... This seems short-sighted.

pygy_on Deno in 2023

Slint uses https://github.com/AccessKit/accesskit to provide cross-platform a11y.

pygy_on Can you use your "free will"? Try your hand

I can’t test it on mobile, but the last time this page made the rounds, I was able to defeat the prediction algorithm by mindlessly tapping improvised rhythms (I’m used to doing that when I’m bored).

pygy_on Flawless – Durable execution engine for Rust

If anything, he made strides in the naming department :-)

pygy_on Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

That's the reason why drugs are tested in double-blind, randomized controlled trials.

The placebo effect is a major part of the effect of SSRI, which only improve 1 in 6-8 patients if you subtract the placebo effect [1].

The "number needed to treat" (NNT) mentioned below is the average number of patients that need to recieve the treatment for one of them to be in a better condition than if all of them had recieved a placebo.

1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...

pygy_on A protein that disrupts cells’ energy centers may be a culprit in CFS/ME

Every disiease has a psychological componnent, and a great part of the placebo effect comes from social status and support.

Being told you're crazy is a net nocebo.

pygy_on A protein that disrupts cells’ energy centers may be a culprit in CFS/ME

Social recognition is better than the gaslighting folks with ME/CFS and other so-called "functional" diseases (with the scare quotes read "we really think you're nuts but won't say it out loud") often have to endure.

pygy_on A protein that disrupts cells’ energy centers may be a culprit in CFS/ME

Definitely, and dealing with malingerers is infuriating.

That being said, when in doubt, I thin that doctors should trust patients (defendants are presumed innocent, patients should be presumed to be sick).

Stiffing the ill to spite possible asshats is a bad societal bargain.

pygy_on A protein that disrupts cells’ energy centers may be a culprit in CFS/ME

Doctors behave as if medical knowledge was exhaustive, and infer that symptoms they don’t understand come from mental illness.

Most diseases have a psychological component, but patients are seldom referred to a psychiatrist for treating their heart ache when they get an infarction.

I just mentioned these findings (and others about autoimmunity against the satellite cells in dorsal root ganglia) to my mum, a doctor specialized in physical therapy and rehab. She went into retirement this year and many patients with ME/CFS.

Her reaction: "So fibromyalgia is real now. I have a hard time believing it… I spent my career fighting it."

pygy_on Water

The beer thing was a glorified level app.

This one has a fluid dynamics simulation.

pygy_on Ravenchord – A Radical Redesign of the Piano

The first image shows the back of the thing.

In the second one, you can see the keyboard, and the pointy end is on the bass side.

pygy_on Ramda: A practical functional library for JavaScript programmers

Ramda is basically a language.

You replace most core JS constructs with higher order functions.

From there stems your observation.

pygy_on New emojis in 2023-2024

Unicode has many religious symbols, but none for pastafarianism…

Could we have one for 2025 ?

pygy_on Douglas Hofstadter changes his mind on Deep Learning and AI risk

Humanity’s been a great scaffold for capitalism.

AI is the keystone.

pygy_on The Rot Economy

The market is the best solution when the optimum is a maximum. Growth is absurd in many fields.

- Food => A steady state is optimal. Growth seeking directly leads to the obesity crisis

- Health => the sector should be working on planning its own obsolescence, not on growing.

- Housing => Ever increasing humanity's footprint is destructive and should be limited.

etc...

pygy_on The Rot Economy

Someone's having a "Are we the baddies?" moment :-)

pygy_on The Rot Economy

Note that by "capital" meant material, not financial (although the latter reflects the former). Corporations are growing in power at a rate faster than people are. B2B grows faster than B2C.

Even then, private pension funds are a scourge indeed. State-managed PAYGO systems are far less destructive.

Beside, the distribution of economic power is heavily lopsided. Most people have close to none.

Those who have the brunt of it are setting up the system for their own benefit. Under the guise of FreeMarket™ we end up with an economy planned by the wealthy so that they can grow their fortune.

pygy_on The Rot Economy

The market favors the market. Capital begets capital.

Humans are at best an afterthought.

pygy_on GitHub Copilot Chat Leaked Prompt

It’s an example that made the rounds on Twitter last week, it might actually have been GPT4, I don’t remember.

You can also ask ChatGPT to "write an essay about a man" then about a woman, to reveal bias.

pygy_on GitHub Copilot Chat Leaked Prompt

My bad, I should have written [he/she].

pygy_on GitHub Copilot Chat Leaked Prompt

ChatGPT is actually full of prejudice that shines through the veneer of political correctness if you know what to do.

Q: The professor told the student the essay couldn’t be review because he/she was late. Who is late?

Depending on the pronoun, you’ll get, respectively, "the professor" or "the student".

pygy_on Do judges give out tougher sentences when hungry? A study too good to be true

That seems irrelevant given that these offenses are but a minute share of the total judicial cases.

pygy_on Do judges give out tougher sentences when hungry? A study too good to be true

That’s not the spirit of Ramadan.

pygy_on Are your memory-bound benchmarking timings normally distributed?

One can also work in log space to do the stats, and report the geometric mean in linear space…

pygy_on If Philip Glass was a Film (2019) [video]

Music is fundamentally abstract, and its interpretation is subjective, so there is no final word on anything.

There are many musical traditions, and not all of them use those conventions, but classical European harmony is understood as explained in that comment.

Edit: here's the canonical [ I IV V7 I ] progression, a.k.a. the [ tonic => sub-dominant => dominant => tonic ] progression in C major: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFvm1cb80bc

The progression in the video is more subtle (and it uses a minor mode).

pygy_on Show HN: Regex.ai – AI-powered regular expression generator

For JS/TS, I’ll add https://github.com/compose-regexp/compose-regexp.js to that list.

pygy_on LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models

Your case insensitive brain doesn't get it... It's LoRA, not LoRa.

pygy_on Facebook is going after LLaMA repos with DMCA's

IANAL, but I don't think the DMCA applies. Copyright applies to creative work, and model weights aren't that.

It is however my understanding that downloading them can be considered a misappropriation of a trade secret.

Folks that would contest the bogus DMCA takedown requests would be liable to a trade secret suit.