Greg's recent activity
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Comment on Private school - worthwhile/good idea for not rich people? in ~life
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Comment on What does the word "cancelled" mean to you? in ~talk
Greg Link ParentYeah I’m definitely thinking more social media than face to face conversation, which maybe skews things. I guess what I was trying to say is it’s culturally embedded enough that you’ll get people...Yeah I’m definitely thinking more social media than face to face conversation, which maybe skews things. I guess what I was trying to say is it’s culturally embedded enough that you’ll get people using it casually as a shorthand without deeper meaning, or potentially as bit of a self referential joke (similar to “millennials killed the … industry”), whereas “cancel culture” far more often seems to be invoked as something to be angry about.
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Comment on What does the word "cancelled" mean to you? in ~talk
Greg (edited )Link ParentThe question is personal and subjective, so of course your interpretation is as valid as anyone else's, but this does seem closer to a dictionary definition than to the common usage I tend to see....The question is personal and subjective, so of course your interpretation is as valid as anyone else's, but this does seem closer to a dictionary definition than to the common usage I tend to see. I think that tying the meaning too firmly to specific outcomes is likely to cause misunderstanding of what the average social media post is trying to say when using the term in the wild.
[Edit] Typo
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Comment on What does the word "cancelled" mean to you? in ~talk
Greg Link ParentTo add even more nuance, I'd say that's true of the term "cancel culture", but not "cancelled". The former is often (but not solely) used in the same kind of angry headlines/social media posts...To add even more nuance, I'd say that's true of the term "cancel culture", but not "cancelled". The former is often (but not solely) used in the same kind of angry headlines/social media posts that would be using "woke" as a pejorative, but the latter I see often enough as general slang that it wouldn't put me on alert without further context cues - if I were forced to assume anything based only on someone using the word "cancelled" it'd be that they were gen z and discussing celebrity culture.
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Comment on What does the word "cancelled" mean to you? in ~talk
Greg Link ParentI think "backlash" is the perfect choice of word here. I've seen some very frustrating exchanges elsewhere on the internet where someone uses the word "cancelled" as part of a wider point and...I think "backlash" is the perfect choice of word here. I've seen some very frustrating exchanges elsewhere on the internet where someone uses the word "cancelled" as part of a wider point and someone else flatly cuts them off because whoever they're discussing still has some kind of platform - it's always felt like a denial of the nuance (and yes, inconsistency) in how the term is actually used.
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Comment on US President-Elect Donald Trump ignores transition rules in ~society
Greg Link ParentYeah, that makes sense and I hope it’s the case; I can see that avoiding things coming up on the mid-afternoon TV news is probably strategically important in keeping them out of Trump’s personal...Yeah, that makes sense and I hope it’s the case; I can see that avoiding things coming up on the mid-afternoon TV news is probably strategically important in keeping them out of Trump’s personal line of sight in this absurd timeline we’re living in.
This is largely either me worrying unduly without sufficient information, or steeling myself for yet another lukewarm response after one too many disappointments, depending how you look at it!
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Comment on US President-Elect Donald Trump ignores transition rules in ~society
Greg Link ParentI can see that being the case, and of course I understand this isn’t you making that argument personally, but even at the most extreme interpretation that’d just mean the vetting isn’t triggered...I can see that being the case, and of course I understand this isn’t you making that argument personally, but even at the most extreme interpretation that’d just mean the vetting isn’t triggered automatically.
All that’d be required as a workaround would be for Biden to say “in the absence of the normal paperwork from Mr Trump’s team, please proceed with the normal vetting procedures based on his publicly announced candidate selections, and make Congress aware of any issues pertinent to national security”. It’s such a minor procedural point that I’d see it as a genuine non-issue for Biden to do.
There are so many more aggressive measures I’d like to see the outgoing administration taking to protect institutions from authoritarianism that this feels like a slam dunk by comparison: it can be achieved just by saying “please do the usual thing even if you don’t get the normal rubber stamp”. And sure, the republicans would wail and cry about it, but they’ve proven time and again that they’ll do that anyway - it’s really not worth accounting for anymore in my opinion.
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Comment on US President-Elect Donald Trump ignores transition rules in ~society
Greg Link ParentPresumably that’s not his call to make, at least for another two months. If American democracy goes down and the last gasp of the current administration was sticking to conventions and norms when...he’s so far declined to let the Federal Bureau of Investigation check for potential red flags and security threats to guard against espionage
Presumably that’s not his call to make, at least for another two months. If American democracy goes down and the last gasp of the current administration was sticking to conventions and norms when the other side doesn’t even stick to the law, I’m going to be even more pissed off than I already am.
[Edit] Come to think of it, allowing the candidates to go unvetted wouldn’t even be the Democrats sticking to convention. It would be them upholding Trump’s right to break convention because… it would be impolite to contradict him? I literally can’t see even a hypothetical reason not to just instruct the FBI to do their job as they have for every previous administration whether Trump likes it or not.
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Comment on What's the biggest YouTube channel still run by just one person? in ~creative
Greg LinkNot a direct answer, but I always really appreciated that Tom Scott would scrupulously credit everyone who'd contributed to a video, and often explicitly say things in the script like "...so I...Not a direct answer, but I always really appreciated that Tom Scott would scrupulously credit everyone who'd contributed to a video, and often explicitly say things in the script like "...so I hired a researcher to dig into X" to really highlight other people's input. It showed the different scale that different videos were operating at, from full international production team, to interviewee and hired editor, to literally just him speaking to camera and posting it himself - and even at a decade in and ~1.8 billion views he'd still post a mix of all three.
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Comment on ‘Monstrous’ North Korean artillery spotted in Russia, likely for use in Ukraine in ~news
Greg Link ParentDon’t think this is a direct mirror, but it looks to have all the details: https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-korean-long-range-self-180600222.htmlDon’t think this is a direct mirror, but it looks to have all the details: https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-korean-long-range-self-180600222.html
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Comment on Job offer in a new city -- making friends? in ~life
Greg Link ParentStrongly seconding this - I’d say that doing it because it’s a significant and somewhat intimidating change is almost reason enough on its own. There’s huge value in experiences like that, and the...Strongly seconding this - I’d say that doing it because it’s a significant and somewhat intimidating change is almost reason enough on its own. There’s huge value in experiences like that, and the fact it’s a meaningfully better job as well is the icing on the cake.
One thing that might help is intentionally reframing it (to yourself at least, perhaps to your friends as well) as a two year project. You’re not (necessarily) leaving forever to build a new life elsewhere, you’re going off on an adventure in search of learning and new experiences. You’d be eyeing up new jobs in 2 - 3 years anyway; maybe you love Vancouver at that point and you absolutely do want to stay, maybe you feel like heading back to Toronto, maybe you even decide that you want to hit the road and explore what else is out there - as long as you go in with the mindset that the first couple of years are an experiment, none of those options will feel like failure.
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Comment on Thoughts on Donald Trump, America and what this all means in ~society
Greg Link ParentDo you believe that the people perpetrating all these horrors, historically and in the present, were really only doing so because of the systems around them? That if you gave the same people a...Do you believe that the people perpetrating all these horrors, historically and in the present, were really only doing so because of the systems around them? That if you gave the same people a clean slate, they wouldn’t gravitate to the exact same tribalism under some other banner?
That’s where I’m flailing here: “the system” might be broken, but there are too many examples to count throughout history of large numbers of people willingly and enthusiastically choosing to uphold it. This election, and COVID before it, have put a severe hole in whatever ability I was clinging onto to believe we’ve become any more enlightened now.
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Comment on Thoughts on Donald Trump, America and what this all means in ~society
Greg Link ParentOne of my biggest fears is what this says for the internal politics of a lot of previously safe-seeming options. The people know exactly who Trump is at this point, and they asked for this,...One of my biggest fears is what this says for the internal politics of a lot of previously safe-seeming options. The people know exactly who Trump is at this point, and they asked for this, resoundingly. When the inevitable shockwaves come from his policies and actions, the barest minimum we can ask for is being surrounded by people who'll take a stand rather than cheering him on.
I think @611828750722 makes very good points about America's particular susceptibility, but far right's power has been simmering globally for a decade or more at this point. I have zero faith that the people of the UK - my current home - will do better. Italy, Austria, Belgium, even France and The Netherlands are looking at various levels of meaningful popular support for extremists.
This is who we are, at least a plurality of us - not just Americans but humanity. Weathering the storm will be tough, but the part that's moved me to tears as I sit at my laptop on a random fucking Friday morning is that I don't know where to find a critical mass of people who I trust not to embrace that storm and then savagely mock those who lose everything to it.
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Comment on My Leopold FC900R broke - Recommendation request in ~tech
Greg Link ParentOut of interest, what is it you've found to feel flimsy about Keychron? I haven't tried Leopold specifically, but I've used a few higher-end options from other manufacturers and the Q6 still feels...Out of interest, what is it you've found to feel flimsy about Keychron? I haven't tried Leopold specifically, but I've used a few higher-end options from other manufacturers and the Q6 still feels like an absolute tank to me (although I do agree that there are fine details that are sometimes a bit more refined on others).
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Comment on Despite its impressive output, generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the world in ~tech
Greg Link ParentI'm not going to blame anyone for being sick to death of the marketing hype and reacting negatively based on the saturation of unrealistic bullshit that's being pumped out, but I think it's...- Exemplary
I'm not going to blame anyone for being sick to death of the marketing hype and reacting negatively based on the saturation of unrealistic bullshit that's being pumped out, but I think it's important not to overcorrect because of that.
These models demonstrably do show the ability to follow deductive reasoning steps. It's imperfect, it's brittle, it's often inconsistent - all helpfully quantified by this paper - but it's also the comparatively early days of the field. The fact that language modelling does expand into logical problem solving strikes me as a fundamentally important factor in what this tech will and won't change once the VC dust settles, and them being not-great at it right now is quite different to not being capable at all.
My experience is that dismissals like "empty words" or "glorified autocorrect" are almost as far from the truth as the breathless commercial fluff about <insert important human position> now being totally redundant thanks to ChatGPT. Underestimating the genuine technical capabilities and what they might imply feels a bit like the skepticism around this newfangled internet thing at the time of the pets.com collapse - entirely justified based on some of the ridiculous claims and ridiculous behaviours we're seeing from companies in the space, but at risk of missing the very real fundamentals as a result.
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Comment on My Leopold FC900R broke - Recommendation request in ~tech
Greg Link ParentMy mistake, I must've read "full size / Keychron / UK ISO" and missed the K-series vs Q-series distinction! Good reminder that they do have a bunch of models with sometimes fairly subtle...My mistake, I must've read "full size / Keychron / UK ISO" and missed the K-series vs Q-series distinction! Good reminder that they do have a bunch of models with sometimes fairly subtle differences, in that case.
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Comment on Despite its impressive output, generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the world in ~tech
Greg LinkInteresting paper - the core focus seems to be an automated, mathematically provable approach to measuring models’ performance on logic tasks. That’s got some real potential value in that it’s a...Interesting paper - the core focus seems to be an automated, mathematically provable approach to measuring models’ performance on logic tasks. That’s got some real potential value in that it’s a small step from measuring the objective to training for the objective. A nice feature of ML models is that if you can quantify how bad they are at something, you can often just turn that around and use let them target that metric for improvement.
I don’t love how the conflate LLMs with transformers in general: it originally made me think they were being a bit misleading and had done the taxi experiments on a model more trained for mapping than language, but I think it’s more just the way they’re using the term. The actual results do seem like they’ll have some worthwhile general application.
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Comment on My Leopold FC900R broke - Recommendation request in ~tech
Greg Link ParentAnother Q6 user chiming in here - went for it as one of the few options for full size with ISO layout, same as @trim, and I’ve been very happy with the choice. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at...Another Q6 user chiming in here - went for it as one of the few options for full size with ISO layout, same as @trim, and I’ve been very happy with the choice. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how valuable having QMK (for macros) and the rotary dial (for calls and media) have been: both comparatively small things that I wouldn’t have originally gone out of my way for, but once you use them 15 times a day it’d be a noticeable loss to go without.
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Comment on ‘Mild’ tofu, ‘mild’ carrots, ‘mild’ pine nuts: my five-year quest to understand German taste in ~food
Greg Link ParentI just want to say that the phrase "regular non-recursive restaurants" has put a big smile on my face, so thank you for that!I just want to say that the phrase "regular non-recursive restaurants" has put a big smile on my face, so thank you for that!
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Comment on A freeze dryer is not a reasonable purchase in ~tech
Greg Link ParentSomething about the dust left behind made me feel oddly uneasy. Like, I know water has a bunch of minerals in it, I'm perfectly used to seeing the marks left on the shower screen or on a pot left...Something about the dust left behind made me feel oddly uneasy. Like, I know water has a bunch of minerals in it, I'm perfectly used to seeing the marks left on the shower screen or on a pot left to boil for too long, but the residue being left in a dry powdery form rather than a (still dry!) liquid pattern apparently sets off my brain complaining to me about water not feeling like powder.
Which, in fairness, was probably a small echo of the much greater "wrongness" he was experiencing when trying a lot of the foods!
I'd be a bit cautious with that line of thinking. One of the more painful parts of school for me was the boredom: anyone who was ahead of the material was pretty much just expected to sit quietly in the background doing nothing, because the teachers (largely through no fault of their own) only had the capacity and incentive to focus on the middle ~30% who might actually move between the grade boundaries that the school as a whole was assessed on. Anyone who'd already hit the ceiling (or floor) was out of the picture.
Admittedly this was quite a few years ago, and the school I went to probably wasn't "good mid-tier" by any reasonable definition, but it was a fucking rough time - for that reason and for others. Private school fees weren't remotely on the cards for my family back then, so it doesn't really feel like an opportunity missed, but threads like this do still leave me wondering how my life and mental health might have differed if I'd found something closer to the opportunities and peer group I had at university back when I was starting to form my identity as a teenager.