RoyalHenOil's recent activity
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Comment on UN says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed in ~enviro
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Comment on UN says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed in ~enviro
RoyalHenOil Link ParentMy first job after getting my B.S. in ecology was lab and field work on some forestry-related climate change studies (similar to/associated with the Duke Forest FACE experiment) recording tree...My first job after getting my B.S. in ecology was
lab and field work on some forestry-related climate change studies (similar to/associated with the Duke Forest FACE experiment) recording tree growth and calculating biomass.What's especially frustrating about the wasted space we could be devoting to trees is that a maximally carbon-sequestering forest can still be highly economically valuable to humans. This can be a win-win.
On a per-hectare basis, a young forest captures carbon faster than an old forest — which favors tree farms, where you harvest the trees relatively young and immediately replant. And you can arrest all that carbon in the timber by making permanent products out of it, such as houses and furniture/cabinetry (specifically higher-quality products that don't just end up in a dump).
Locking up tree-farm-grown wood by building houses is so effective that, on average, building a timber-framed house removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it adds, despite the heavily polluting techniques widely used across the construction industry (heavy fossil fuel vehicles, cement foundations, long distance transport of materials, etc.). This ratio could be improved even further with minimal disruption — but more importantly, we should simply be building more wood houses even if we don't improve our construction techniques.
In every region of the world where a forestry industry is viable, governments should be subsidizing them heavily, particularly tree farms destined for the construction and carpentry industries. Let's make wood cheap again!
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Comment on Farmers turn to perennial grains as one solution to extreme weather in ~enviro
RoyalHenOil Link ParentBefore any soil prep takes place, above-ground portions of the crop may be harvested (e.g., for straw) or utilized in some other way. Where I live, farmers commonly put sheep on a field for a week...Before any soil prep takes place, above-ground portions of the crop may be harvested (e.g., for straw) or utilized in some other way. Where I live, farmers commonly put sheep on a field for a week or two. The sheep eat the grass down to stubble and redeposit most of it as manure all over the field.
Any underground portion of the crops will stay in place. For cereal crops, the roots are likely the bulk of the plant's biomass.
The soil is usually prepared via plowing, discing, or tilling (or some combination depending on the state of the soil). Whatever's left in or on the field — roots, stubble, manure, whatever the farmer has spread on the field, etc. — gets incorporated. Some of this carbon will be lost through natural processes, like microbial activity. Bare, soft soil is also suspectable to erosion, so until the new crop grows in, some carbon will be lost that way. But on the whole, you're going to be adding more carbon than you remove, even if you do annual cereal cropping.
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Comment on What made that wedding that you attended particularly memorable? in ~life
RoyalHenOil LinkMy sister's wedding. She and her husband got married in a former church (a cute little primitive Baptist church built in the early 1800s), and they rented the building out overnight and set it up...My sister's wedding. She and her husband got married in a former church (a cute little primitive Baptist church built in the early 1800s), and they rented the building out overnight and set it up for an all-night video game party for all their guests. We were sitting on pews and lying in sleeping bags playing midnight Super Smash Brothers on a big projector screen with amazing church acoustics.
Not only was it a lot of fun, but it basically served to bond our two families. It was the first time I met my brother-in-law's family, but they really became my family, too, by the end of the night.
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Comment on Summer US box office hits all-time $4.76B record: how audiences surrendered to moviegoing in ~movies
RoyalHenOil Link ParentMy partner and I used to go to small indie theaters that showed a mixture of recent hits, obscure films, and older movies. We'd pick out a movie poster that looked cool and was scheduled to play...My partner and I used to go to small indie theaters that showed a mixture of recent hits, obscure films, and older movies. We'd pick out a movie poster that looked cool and was scheduled to play in the next hour or two, and then go in blind. We wouldn't even look up the genre first.
But then those theaters closed and our only options were big chain theaters, which are much more expensive, too far away to visit on a whim (45+ minutes because we live in the boonies), and have a far more limited selection. After covid, every time we got the itch to go see a movie, we'd looked at what was playing and nothing grabbed us (we're not into superhero movies or little kids' movies).
It's only very recently that we've started seeing movies again because the selection is more interesting now. It's still nowhere as good as it used to be with the indie theaters, though. Those are covid casualties we'll probably never get back (especially our local in-town theater, since it's already been divided and repurposed into shops).
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Comment on Dragon Con 2026 in ~hobbies
RoyalHenOil (edited )LinkI used to go every year in my teens and early 20s, back when it was just in two hotels (the Hyatt and the Marriott, though the Marriott was kind of dead back then). I remember when they added the...I used to go every year in my teens and early 20s, back when it was just in two hotels (the Hyatt and the Marriott, though the Marriott was kind of dead back then). I remember when they added the third hotel as well, but I never spent much time there.
I was active in Atlanta's Rocky Horror Picture Show scene, and we'd all volunteer to work DragonCon security together, so most of my memories are security-related. The ones I remember most: the time someone set up an illegal tattoo parlor in their hotel room and were tattooing drunk guests, the time someone dressed as Spider Man was climbing between balconies on the outside of the Hyatt, the time some cosplayers were carrying around a bunch of illegal guns and got super pissed when we told them to get rid of them quick before the cops saw them, and the time James Marsters cut his hand on a sword belonging to one of my friends and the chaos that caused over the radio (we didn't have a code word for that type of incident, but we used the term "package" to refer to VIPs — as in, "I delivered a package to X" meaning a VIP has been successfully escorted somewhere — and my friend improvised with, "Uh, I have a damaged package" and we were all freaking out in the security room trying to figure out what that meant and how serious it was).
I don't live in Atlanta (or even the US) anymore, but I've been sporadically a few times since then, as a regular guest. My favorite event is the robot battles. (I never got to go to any events when I worked security, unless you count guarding the door.)
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
RoyalHenOil Link ParentWhat I mean is that it's not enough to recognize that Trump is fascist. It's important to recognize the precise psychopathic (or at least psychopath-like) tactics he uses so that you can resist...What I mean is that it's not enough to recognize that Trump is fascist. It's important to recognize the precise psychopathic (or at least psychopath-like) tactics he uses so that you can resist them. When he starts telling a "big lie", for example, the issue isn't (just) that he has bad politics, but that he's warping your understanding of reality — whether you agree with his politics or not.
Even if Trump had good politics, it would still important to recognize the ways he manipulates public discourse. There's nothing stopping a psychopath from getting into leftwing politics, after all. Someone as manipulative as Trump isn't married to the platform they espouse; their political alignment is just another tool they use to influence people.
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Comment on Post-tooth extraction diets! in ~food
RoyalHenOil (edited )LinkAbout a year and a half ago, I developed an esophagus problem that makes solid food very tricky to eat (my esophagus can't push it down very well, so it tends to get stuck inside my stomach and...About a year and a half ago, I developed an esophagus problem that makes solid food very tricky to eat (my esophagus can't push it down very well, so it tends to get stuck inside my stomach and never entersmy intestines). If I eat something gummy like rice, pasta, or bread, I have to go on a liquid diet for about two days after, because everything else I try to eat gets stuck behind the solid mass inside my stomach and can't pass through (causing nausea, acid reflux, pain on the left side of my ribcage, and constant burping because everything just ferments directly inside my stomach instead of my intestines). So I've been living on a mostly liquid diet ever since.
To make things even more challenging, I'm lactose intolerant, so eating yogurt, ice cream, milkshakes, etc., just complicates my symptoms.
Fortunately, there's a humongous world of soup and soup-related meals out there! At first, I was following recipes (egg drop soup, red lentil curry, etc., etc.), but I've made enough soups now that I'm pretty comfortable winging my own recipes and getting different texture and flavor profiles depending on what I'm in the mood for. Soup is basically the perfect food: the variety is endless, it's generally very quick and easy to make, and you can adjust it to the ingredients you have on hand.
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Comment on How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’ in ~science
RoyalHenOil Link ParentThe article addresses this: The point isn't to diagnose public figures like Trump, but to teach everyday people how to recognize the tactics and behaviors that psychopaths commonly exhibit. Trump...The article addresses this:
It’s unfashionable to the point of being taboo in psychiatry and psychology now to ascribe personality disorders to public figures. “One of the perils of bringing psychology into politics is that it’s very easy for anyone with any given political perspective to look at their political enemies or rivals and say: ‘OK, well, they’re all psychopaths,’” says Koehli. There’s also the Goldwater Rule, which established as a psychiatric principle that professionals are not allowed to diagnose public figures they haven’t had clinical contact with or met (this was after 1,189 psychiatrists declared Barry Goldwater unfit to be president in the 1964 election). Viding, however, finds the fixation with diagnosis perhaps irrelevant in this context. “I always find the obsession with diagnosing these people interesting. You don’t need to diagnose them, there are a set of personality traits, and you can recognise individuals with those traits. If someone’s in political power, you can see those exemplified in behaviour, and most people are perfectly capable of making an assessment of what that signifies.”
Brazen lying in public life is a tactic Lobaczewski recognised – he called it the “reversive blockade”. Koehli describes it as: “When you tell a lie convincingly and it’s such an absurd lie, most people’s automatic reaction is that they can’t comprehend a lie told on that scale, so they try to find the ‘golden mean’ between the statement and the reality. But that, Lobaczewski says, is the intention of the big lie. They know it will sow confusion.” The impact on the population over which a dark personality presides is huge: some will try and find that golden mean; others will remain steadfast in calling it a lie and fall out with the first lot; others will try to adjust their own reality to make the lie true; while others will become inured to the new normal – that we just all lie now.
The point isn't to diagnose public figures like Trump, but to teach everyday people how to recognize the tactics and behaviors that psychopaths commonly exhibit. Trump doesn't have to be a clinical psychopath for you to pattern match his manipulation techniques and guard yourself against them — just like you don't need to diagnose the person you're dating to pick up on red flags like love-bombing or excessive jealousy.
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Comment on Ahead of an all-digital future for PlayStation, Sony needs to prove in courts that players know they don't own digitally purchased games in ~games
RoyalHenOil Link ParentSo was Sony. The result: Everyone in the world gets Australia's refund policy when they buy from Steam, but only Australian customers get Australia's refund policy when they buy from Sony (and...The result: Everyone in the world gets Australia's refund policy when they buy from Steam, but only Australian customers get Australia's refund policy when they buy from Sony (and they have to jump through hoops to prove it, like providing an ACCC ticket number).
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Comment on Ahead of an all-digital future for PlayStation, Sony needs to prove in courts that players know they don't own digitally purchased games in ~games
RoyalHenOil (edited )Link ParentIs Steam a monopoly (from a consumer's perspective)? I've never had any issues buying games on GOG or itch.io. From a developer's perspective, though, I agree it's a lot closer to a monopoly.Is Steam a monopoly (from a consumer's perspective)? I've never had any issues buying games on GOG or itch.io.
From a developer's perspective, though, I agree it's a lot closer to a monopoly.
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Comment on How rigid/fluid is your LGBT identity? in ~lgbt
RoyalHenOil LinkI don't identify as LGBT because my birth designation (female) doesn't bother me, I'm exclusively attracted to men and male-bodied people, and I'm not asexual or aromantic. However, I'm not super...I don't identify as LGBT because my birth designation (female) doesn't bother me, I'm exclusively attracted to men and male-bodied people, and I'm not asexual or aromantic.
However, I'm not super confident in my non-LGBT status. The demographic that I tend to click with stronger than any other is trans men, and I pretty consistently slot into male social groups more readily than female social groups, kind of regardless of culture or subculture (e.g., even in rural, conservative blue-collar environments). However, my very closest platonic friends have usually been women (albeit women who, themselves, mostly have male friends).
I'm not sure why or if this is related at all, but I'm also very commonly misidentified as a lesbian, by both men and women, LGBT and non-LGBT. (To be fair, most of the men I've dated are frequently misidentified as gay. Maybe people just aren't very good at guessing other people's sexualities?)
My parents tell me that when I was a toddler, I would insist I was a boy, and as I got a little older, I regularly expressed a wish to have been born a boy (up until around first grade or so). I also mimicked my dad and my grandpa, not my mom or my grandma, even though I spent way more time with my mom and my grandma (my primary caretakers).
But as I got older (especially in my late teens), this softened and I stopped having any particular opinions about my gender. As an adult, I have no trouble finding women relatable, and I have plenty of female role models. I'm fine with my body and my social position — thus I identify as non-LGBT (although if the circumstances of my life were different, I suspect I would be equally happy as a gay man).
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Comment on Dolly Parton, country music legend, dies at 80 in ~music
RoyalHenOil Link ParentHa, when I first moved to Australia, I didn't have a good sense for what aspects of American culture would be well-known and what aspects would be obscure. I got a job working on a farm (as per my...Ha, when I first moved to Australia, I didn't have a good sense for what aspects of American culture would be well-known and what aspects would be obscure. I got a job working on a farm (as per my backpacker's visa), and when I was talking to my supervisor one time, I mentioned something about the American Civil War. I assumed he wouldn't know much about American history, since Americans broadly don't know much about Australian history, so I started to explain what the Civil War was, and he cut me off saying, "I know. My dad's a Civil War reenactor in Perth." Blew my mind.
Alas, for the most part, I think Australia mostly imports the bad stuff (the worst junk food, the worst corporate chains, the worst politics, etc.) and misses out on a lot of the good stuff. Dolly is a wonderful exception to that pattern.
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Comment on Dolly Parton, country music legend, dies at 80 in ~music
RoyalHenOil Link ParentAs someone who spent a big part of my childhood in East Tennessee (I practically lived at Dollywood), and now lives in Australia, it's really touching and honestly a little bit magical that her...As someone who spent a big part of my childhood in East Tennessee (I practically lived at Dollywood), and now lives in Australia, it's really touching and honestly a little bit magical that her reach extends all the way over here.
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Comment on What is the oldest file you still have? in ~tech
RoyalHenOil Link ParentOoo, thank you! After some mucking around, I ended up using deark to identify the files and get them converted to PNGs. So, here it is: the oldest file on my computer. I guess I'm not sure what I...Ooo, thank you! After some mucking around, I ended up using deark to identify the files and get them converted to PNGs.
So, here it is: the oldest file on my computer. I guess I'm not sure what I was expecting, lol.
A few of the others I converted: 1, 2, 3 (I think my mom must have helped me with the hands on this last one, since it turns out she was shockingly good at drawing with a mouse in 1988.)
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Comment on What is the oldest file you still have? in ~tech
RoyalHenOil (edited )LinkThe very oldest file I still have on my computer is also the first file I personally created (albeit with my dad's help!). It's a drawing I made on May 7th, 1988, when I was two years old. My...The very oldest file I still have on my computer is also the first file I personally created (albeit with my dad's help!).
It's a drawing I made on May 7th, 1988, when I was two years old. My parents bought their first computer, a Mac Plus, that year and this is probably one of the first files any of us ever created on it.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what program it was made in and no idea how to open it.
I have 11 other drawings I made in 1988, plus two I made in 1994, and I have no idea how to view any of them (except as plaintext, which is gibberish). It's a bummer, but I keep hanging on to them just in case I ever figure out what file format they are.
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Comment on AI text watermarking is free and good in ~comp
RoyalHenOil Link ParentAccording to Anthropic, there will be less watermarking in code, but you're right that it will show up more strongly in places where there's more leeway in which tokens the LLM can choose, like...According to Anthropic, there will be less watermarking in code, but you're right that it will show up more strongly in places where there's more leeway in which tokens the LLM can choose, like comments:
As we noted above, AI watermarking takes advantage of decisions where either choice of a word would be equally good. Where an exact output is required—where there isn’t a choice, and something would be factually wrong or a piece of code would break if a different term was chosen—the watermark isn’t applied.
For example, once the model has written “2 + 2 =”, there is a very clear best choice for the next token (if the model is completing the sum, there isn’t an answer that’s equally as good as “4”; if it’s talking about George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, there isn’t an answer that’s equally as good as “5”). The “nudge” of the watermark wouldn’t be applied here. For the same reason, code—which in very many cases has to be exact—has generally less watermarking than some other forms of text.
Having said that, in areas where there is an arbitrary choice between particular words or terms within the code, the watermark can be used, such as comments within code. But by definition, it will have a negligible effect on the actual code produced.
I imagine that the more strict the syntax has to be (e.g., if a company requires a very uniform code style), that harder it will be to differentiate Claude-generated code from human-written code. Which makes sense, because these constraints also make it harder to tell one human writer from another.
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Comment on AI text watermarking is free and good in ~comp
RoyalHenOil (edited )Link ParentIt's a weird article, and it suggests to me that the author fundamentally misunderstood how LLM technology actually works up until the watermark thing forced him to look into it. Strangely, he...It's a weird article, and it suggests to me that the author fundamentally misunderstood how LLM technology actually works up until the watermark thing forced him to look into it.
Strangely, he still seems to think that Claude and other LLMs use some completely different, non-LLM method to generate code. It's true that an LLM's code output is going to be more constrained than, say, its poetry output, but that's because LLMs are trained on code examples that are written in a highly constrained way and poetry examples that are written in a far less constrained way — because the level of constraint is a pretty inherent difference between code and poetry.
This means the watermark would be easier to detect for LLM-written poetry than for more highly regimented text, like a legal document where there just isn't much room for randomness. It has little to do with how much AI companies care about generating legalese versus poetry.
If you crank up the randomness on an LLM, you start getting some really weird gibberish that's a mixture of code, creative writing, technical documentation, slang, etc., etc. because the LLM doesn't actually "know" that these are all different kinds of text. They all go into the same training pot.
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Comment on What's something that's more challenging for you than it is for others? in ~talk
RoyalHenOil Link ParentI found going to sleep at regular times much, much easier when I was working a physically demanding job (farm work). Now that I have an office job, my bedtimes are all over the place. I just don't...I found going to sleep at regular times much, much easier when I was working a physically demanding job (farm work). Now that I have an office job, my bedtimes are all over the place. I just don't feel that tired at night, and then I pay for it in the morning.
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Comment on What's something that's more challenging for you than it is for others? in ~talk
RoyalHenOil (edited )Link ParentThis is it for me — except I think I do actually remember things, because I'll randomly recall the most obscure things at oddest times. I just don't have any way to reliably retrieve memories. I...This is it for me — except I think I do actually remember things, because I'll randomly recall the most obscure things at oddest times. I just don't have any way to reliably retrieve memories. I feel perpetually like everything's on the tip of my tongue, even things that are extremely familiar to me, and I have to do a lot of extra work logicking through problems I already know the answer to because I just can't get the right neurons to fire.
When I was in school, for example, I was always the very last one to turn in math tests because I'd inevitably forget some of the formulas and had to derive them from first principles. And when I wrote timed essays in German class, I always took longer and wrote much longer essays because I'd forget basic vocabulary (like the word for "airport") and have to use complex grammatical structures to work around it (like "the big place where airplanes fly to", which is grammatically trickier in German than most languages). My teachers were always simultaneously impressed and flustered with me.
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Planting trees over roads and parking lots, instead of over houses, is also safer from a wildfire standpoint, which is a pretty major concern in a lot of places (particularly those with dry, hot summers), and it's only going to get worse as droughts become more frequent and more intense.
Where I live (rural Australia), large trees have to be planted at a pretty significant setback from buildings, which means lots and lots of roofs exposed to lots and lots of sun — perfect conditions for solar panels.
People here make up for the lack of trees next to homes by planting shady avenues all over the place. These trees can still catch fire, but the road accessibility ensures firefighters can reach them quickly, making it dramatically easier to get fires under control before they reach buildings.
Edit:
I'd also like to mention that planting trees (specifically native trees) along roads has other environmental benefits. One of the biggest is that tree-lined roads function as wildlife corridors and go a long way toward mitigating the effects of habitat fragmentation. Tree-lined roads mean you can have lots of smaller parks instead of just a few really big parks. Small parks are more affordable/achievable for local governments, more human-friendly (who doesn't like having a park nearby?), and allow a greater variety of habitats to be preserved.
Another big one is that trees along roads are generally left in a more natural state than trees around people's homes. For example, if a tree dies next to a house, it needs to be removed before it damages the house. But along roads, dead trees can often be left standing (depending on how close they are to the road and how busy the road is). Dead trees are important for a lot of wildlife, especially birds and mammals that nest in hollows. In my region, the loss of dead trees is by far the biggest factor in bird decline, and they are protected more carefully than living trees (e.g., if the council needs to choose between cutting down a live tree and a dead tree to build an access road, they will preserve the dead tree if it has hollows).