kacey's recent activity
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Comment on Winter storm across the US in photos in ~enviro
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Comment on pat's soundhouse - Car Alarm (extended reprise) (2025) in ~music
kacey LinkIf I had a nickle for each time I'd heard of a musician being inspired by a car alarm, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's very cool that I live in an era where it could happen twice...If I had a nickle for each time I'd heard of a musician being inspired by a car alarm, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's very cool that I live in an era where it could happen twice :3
(thank you for sharing! That's a very interesting instrument they're playing ...)
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Comment on Scott A. on Scott A. on Scott A. in ~comics
kacey Link ParentI like that section too! It's a great reminder that the entire field of psychiatry is plagued with assholes that toy with other peoples' lives, for profit :) What a brave take; a doctor dismissing...I like that section too! It's a great reminder that the entire field of psychiatry is plagued with assholes that toy with other peoples' lives, for profit :)
There are the nerds who deflect by becoming really into neurodiversity - “the interesting thing about my brain isn’t that I’m ‘smart’ or ‘rational’, it’s that I’m ADHDtistic, which is actually a weakness . . . but also secretly a strength!”
What a brave take; a doctor dismissing people with literal mental illnesses. Bravo. I can't wait to never read any of his other material.
Btw here's a piece by the NYT on the man, doxing him, to provide more context into the enviously large, genetically superior brain behind these works.
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Comment on Let's talk orchestrated objective reduction! in ~science
kacey (edited )LinkComing at this from a cognitive science perspective, I'd argue that we lack a robust and widely agreed upon definition of "consciousness" to begin with, which makes it difficult to implicate in...Coming at this from a cognitive science perspective, I'd argue that we lack a robust and widely agreed upon definition of "consciousness" to begin with, which makes it difficult to implicate in any sorts of theories involving it.
Further -- absent a citation -- I'd assume that the folks who're asserting the impossibility of quantum computation being done at a wide scale in the human brain are doing so because quantum entanglement (the natural phenomenon which we exploit with quantum logic gates to perform calculations) decoheres at higher energy levels (e.g. room temperature) or when exposed to other particles smashing around (e.g. in a cell, bombarded by all sorts of intracellular goo).
Finally, since I'm not a biologist, I can't handwave away your observation that the macro-scale impact of quantum effects are all over the animal kingdom if only we were to look hard enough. Fair! I'd note, however, that they're everywhere in the manmade world, too, as indicated by the double slit experiment (example from Wikipedia). Or even the fact that electrons quantum tunnel through the nanoscale transistors in your CPU, complicating their design! The trick is that quantum effects != quantum computation.
Now for some sidebars:
- When you're quoting famous mathematicians/physicists who leap outside of their field and start explaining others, please keep this comic in mind. It's a well observed phenomenon that high skilled, talented, and celebrated individuals from one discipline will spontaneously generate commentary about other disciplines they have zero clue about. It's kinda part and parcel with the discipline; we all have to just smile and nod so that they feel appeased, and eventually grow bored before returning to their actual fields of proficiency.
- We're going to get quantum computers at some point, so even if I'm super duper wrong and that's what we need for cracking consciousness, it's not really a blocker.
- Even if the thought re. consciousness and biology is necessary for consciousness, we can also grow neurons in a petri dish for doing computation (cool project btw, though it's still terribly ongoing), so that too will not halt progress. I'd also note that the world where data centres are warehouse sized biological entities is somehow more concerning than what we have right now, so I'm not sure I'm banking on that scenario being a positive one either.
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Comment on So this is 2nd grade subtraction in ~science
kacey (edited )Link(I'm not an educator, nor do I have any applicable background which would help me understand the field, that said) Does anyone know off hand if the method proposed in "Knowing and Teaching...(I'm not an educator, nor do I have any applicable background which would help me understand the field, that said)
Does anyone know off hand if the method proposed in "Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics" -- or even the "borrowing" method portrayed in-video -- have been studied for their impact on math education compared to other social factors? My understanding of the Chinese education system + culture surrounding primary/secondary/post-sec education is poor, but I'm distantly aware of make-or-break exams (e.g. the zhongkao) which -- rightfully or otherwise -- are understood as setting the entire course of a child's life, at age 15, with a single pass/fail exam. That (apparently) leads to an incredible amount of pressure (and support) for children to learn everything, ASAP, as effectively as possible ... perhaps it's possible that that has more of an impact on education outcomes than different ways of subtracting numbers?
(edit) Similarly, primary and secondary education in North America is often -- again, rightfully or otherwise -- portrayed as daycare, so that parents can work their regular job to make rent. Or, in the case of lunch programs, to feed both themselves and their children, during the school year.
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Comment on Seaweed farms boost long-term carbon storage by altering ocean chemistry in ~enviro
kacey Link ParentSorry for taking so long to reply -- got a bit distracted. The answer appears to be a little complicated 😅 looking around, there seems to be mixed support on whether bivalve farming is a net...The article talks about bicarbonate being a better long term solution than just captured in algae, and oyster/mussel shells are bicarbonate right?
Sorry for taking so long to reply -- got a bit distracted. The answer appears to be a little complicated 😅
looking around, there seems to be mixed support on whether bivalve farming is a net source or sink of CO2 (e.g. 1, 2), largely it seems for same reason that we have a tough time doing carbon accounting on forests: these are very complex ecosystems, and measuring net CO2 sequestration is pretty difficult in this situation.That said, we can see other ecosystem impacts (e.g. shelter for marine animals, increased water column clarity leading to increased plant growth, reversal of eutrophic conditions, etc.) pretty rapidly, and it seems like these sorts of farms are positive from that perspective!
What if we have for human food profit patches, and also ocean animals buffet patches where they come eat the shellfish and let the shells drop to the ocean floor? The algae will provide homes for small young fish as well.
Maaaaaybe! I have admittedly odd views on this, but I feel that agricultural efforts should focus on decreasing land use -- period -- then remediate remaining land in order to return it to a healthier state. So, in this case, that'd mean intensively farming seaweed + bivalve farms, and then using the spare space (and capital) to repair nearby ecosystems that've been damaged by boat wake erosion, sediment deposition, illegal waste disposal, oil spills, etc.
It'd be nice to have something that we do for ourselves (i.e. growing food) be beneficial enough for the environment around us that we could directly contribute it back, but I have a feeling that the law of unintended consequences has a good intentions-seeking guidance system 😅
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Comment on What's the benefit of avoiding the debugger? in ~comp
kacey (edited )LinkAs a meta comment on step through debuggers: they're are a tool, and if you're a professional software developer, a key aspect of your job is to accomplish it as efficiently as possible. 90% of...As a meta comment on step through debuggers: they're are a tool, and if you're a professional software developer, a key aspect of your job is to accomplish it as efficiently as possible. 90% of the time that means using whatever you're most comfortable with, but 10% of the time it can be more effective to take a different approach.
(if you're a hobbyist, just have fun, and do whatever piques your interest)
Also bear in mind that this conflates very different parts of one's day to day, such as:
- Initially authoring work,
- Modifying existing works,
- Operating/fixing works in production,
all of which combine with your skillset, domain, and existing integrated toolsets to indicate which specific tool is best suited for the job. For example: a new coworker once complained that we relied on logging in our servers, instead of simply allowing developers to place breakpoints into live systems.
That's absurd, of course, but they'd been doing it at their old gig for long enough that alternatives to that process had never occurred to them. The rest of the world uses logs or fancy tracing suites, but for them, that was the path of least resistance. Similarly, when working on embedded devices, you might not even have access to the source code you're debugging, let alone a step through debugger, so it might be faster to whip out an oscilloscope than to prod w/GDB in your vendor's proprietary library.
As a final note: there are some sibling threads talking about how, in their preferred language, programs either run or fail to compile. That discounts logical errors, which (ime) are the majority of bugs in the modern era, and which can't always be lifted into the type system -- and even then, your encoding of the problem into types could have a logical error as well! Even the most advanced type system isn't a silver bullet -- you could write your entire spec in Rcoq, extract it out, and still have "bugs" because you didn't understand your customer's requirements correctly (or you forgot to put in a liveness constraint, etc.). Imo, but the goal should be to find the right tool, for the right job, and the right people.
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Comment on Ian's Shoelace Site is still the best site for tying your shoes in ~tech
kacey Link ParentMmhm, that indeed looks pretty quick ... I think the main concern I'd have is that they don't seem like they'd be tight enough for work boots. Still, it seems cheap enough to give it a try :) thanks!Mmhm, that indeed looks pretty quick ... I think the main concern I'd have is that they don't seem like they'd be tight enough for work boots. Still, it seems cheap enough to give it a try :) thanks!
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Comment on Ian's Shoelace Site is still the best site for tying your shoes in ~tech
kacey Link ParentOut of curiousity, may I ask if they're comparable to using speed hooks w/o untying your laces? This is roughly what I mean, since it's a little difficult to describe in text.Out of curiousity, may I ask if they're comparable to using speed hooks w/o untying your laces? This is roughly what I mean, since it's a little difficult to describe in text.
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Comment on Scott Adams dead: Dilbert creator was 68 in ~comics
kacey Link ParentThat makes a lot of sense! OK, that sense of dread I was totally not feeling has largely dissipated now. Thank you!That makes a lot of sense! OK, that sense of dread I was totally not feeling has largely dissipated now. Thank you!
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Comment on US households using Ozempic spend less on groceries in ~health
kacey Link ParentOkeydoke. I think it's rather sus to expend effort trying to re-addict people to food, after they've successfully received medical intervention to alleviate their addiction. Also, my original...Nothing in there sounds particularly nefarious?
Okeydoke. I think it's rather sus to expend effort trying to re-addict people to food, after they've successfully received medical intervention to alleviate their addiction.
Also, my original comment was this:
but I don't think selling the moustache twirling villain angle is really the sort of level headed analysis we need in this contemporary, post-truth era.
I was not saying that this is moustache twirling evil. I was saying that the framing of the article -- in my opinion, so apologies if this is not aligned with your opinion -- makes it seem like the food industry is a bunch of moustache twirling villains, even though they aren't. They are, in fact, corporate cogs inside of machines designed to shake the entire world upside-down for its lunch money. Understanding that this is a systemic problem is important; just removing a couple food scientists or corporations does nothing to fix the incentive structure which rewards food manufacturing companies for developing and selling addictive products.
Not really sure what we're debating, so I'ma just bail now.
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Comment on US households using Ozempic spend less on groceries in ~health
kacey Link Parent^ I cut out as much fluff as I could. Certainly seems like the explicit goal is to make food that can reignite the harmful food behaviours which GLP-1 users have successfully fought back.Right now, the industry’s adaptation to Ozempic is in its infancy. A few companies have tested the waters: Nestlé, for example, has started a line of frozen meals targeted at people taking GLP-1s called Vital Pursuit [...]
While Ozempic is threatening to turn off the industrial palate, Mattson believes that industrial foods may just need to be tweaked. Though many ultraprocessed foods and drinks turn off a lot of GLP-1 users, some are breaking through: On GLP-1 forums, people celebrate Fairlife, a line of sweet protein shakes owned by Coca-Cola. And Mattson has already dreamed up an arsenal of other potential winners.
[...] Mattson scientists prepared for me some of its foods tailored to GLP-1 users [...] She explained that she had enriched each NourishFit brownie bite with two grams of whey protein, for maintaining lean muscle mass during rapid weight loss. A peanut-butter swirl would push that protein level even higher. Whey protein can have a grainy texture and chalky off notes, but the NourishFits were defectless, smooth and sweet with remote echoes of cocoa. Approximately one-third sugar and about 15 percent fat, the bite-size portions were “self-limiting,” Sinrod said. Servings could be packaged individually.
Then there was a chicken stick, wrapped in see-through plastic, that looked like a riff on string cheese. “A supercharged mozzarella stick,” Sinrod said. It had 13 grams of protein, and its grill lines were real — for now. (To scale up, the quadrillage, or char marks, might be faked using caramel coloring.) It was a grown-up rendition of a classic kid’s snack, Sinrod said, that an adult could throw in a purse. It tasted felicitously of citrus. (GLP-1 users report craving fresh, acidic flavors.)^ I cut out as much fluff as I could. Certainly seems like the explicit goal is to make food that can reignite the harmful food behaviours which GLP-1 users have successfully fought back.
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Comment on US households using Ozempic spend less on groceries in ~health
kacey Link ParentAh, gotcha! I was thinking of this quote in particular when I responded to you: I suppose there could've been some development afterwards (or it was simply missed by the journalist).Ah, gotcha! I was thinking of this quote in particular when I responded to you:
Given Big Food’s track record, it’s likely that the companies will succeed at finding products Ozempic users crave. But what if they’re too successful? I asked Nicole Avena, a professor of neuroscience at Mount Sinai who studies sugar addiction, if she believed it could be possible for food companies to engineer, intentionally or not, compounds that would make GLP-1 drugs less effective. Avena told me it was plausible. The food industry, she pointed out, has cabinets of formidable reward-triggering compounds with which to experiment. Companies could end up counteracting the drugs to some degree in their efforts to make foods more rewarding, she said.
I suppose there could've been some development afterwards (or it was simply missed by the journalist).
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Comment on Scott Adams dead: Dilbert creator was 68 in ~comics
kacey Link ParentOh no ... uh, for no reason, could you list out some of the dumb stuff you're thinking of? 😅 I kinda burned out of corporate work, in large part because what we were doing didn't make sense (e.g....They usually have opinions that basically boil down to "all of my bosses are idiots with no common sense, and if they let me run this company we wouldn't have to do any of this dumb stuff".
Oh no ... uh, for no reason, could you list out some of the dumb stuff you're thinking of? 😅 I kinda burned out of corporate work, in large part because what we were doing didn't make sense (e.g. didn't listen to customers and built things they didn't ask for, pursued ground-up rewrites/flashy features instead of fixing bugs, management layers refused to pass bad news up the chain-of-command, etc.), and it'd be useful to understand what your take is, if you're OK to share it.
(I understand that "playing the game" is a huge part of corporate jobs, btw, so if the reasons you're thinking of boil down to appeasement of superiors, then I suppose I've already learned my lesson)
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Comment on US households using Ozempic spend less on groceries in ~health
kacey Link ParentI believe this is the article you're referring to: Ozempic Could Crush the Junk Food Industry. But It Is Fighting Back. Note that it's an opinion piece from the New York Times, so the author plays...I believe this is the article you're referring to: Ozempic Could Crush the Junk Food Industry. But It Is Fighting Back.
Note that it's an opinion piece from the New York Times, so the author plays fast and loose with the facts in order to spin a compelling narrative. The multinational food conglomerates cited are almost certainly concerned about their profit margins, but I don't think selling the moustache twirling villain angle is really the sort of level headed analysis we need in this contemporary, post-truth era.
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Comment on Amazon Pharmacy starts offering Novo Nordisk's Wegovy weight-loss pill in ~health
kacey Link ParentI'm not a pharmacist/doctor, but it seems like sublingual semaglutide could be an effective way to bring costs down even further (not to mention the generics that'll be out shortly in a few...It seems that the pill is about as effective as the injectable (seems mainly by just increasing the dosage considerably). Much of the cost of the injectable was the needle itself, and all that's required to safely process and sterilize those.
I'm not a pharmacist/doctor, but it seems like sublingual semaglutide could be an effective way to bring costs down even further (not to mention the generics that'll be out shortly in a few countries), since that requires only a small bump in dosage! Really exciting stuff overall, imo.
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Comment on Revisiting Instagram, and promptly leaving it again in ~tech
kacey Link ParentAh, fair enough! Sorry, I think I was moreso responding to the general vibe of this thread rather than you personally. Mmhm, that definitely doesn't help: if I accidentally even click on some...Ah, fair enough! Sorry, I think I was moreso responding to the general vibe of this thread rather than you personally.
I was looking at various things people posted so the algorithm was showing me too much of a variety of stuff.
Mmhm, that definitely doesn't help: if I accidentally even click on some content by accident (e.g. a reel with a dog on it winds up being ragebait), the algorithm starts recommending more of that very rapidly. Repeatedly slapping the "Do not recommend" and "Not interested" buttons seems to help a lot, in those cases! But they're very well hidden, so it's understandable that they're often missed.
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Comment on Revisiting Instagram, and promptly leaving it again in ~tech
kacey LinkI don't post on Instagram, but I use it a tonne, and it's ... pretty good? You can downvote content that you don't want to see, and select which ads you're interested in, so I only ever get:...I don't post on Instagram, but I use it a tonne, and it's ... pretty good? You can downvote content that you don't want to see, and select which ads you're interested in, so I only ever get:
- Pictures and videos of dogs/wolves/birds/wildlife/etc.
- Environmental activists
- Museums & science orgs doing outreach
Then my ads are all alt-fashion (or rustic things), and local events (often promoted by my local municipality).
I get the impression that most people who go to Instagram are looking for humans living aspirational lives, though, which is what winds up driving all the resentment ...
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Comment on What’s a point that you think many people missed? in ~talk
kacey Link ParentHere's a wikipedia article in case you're interested in learning more. Relevant quote:Here's a wikipedia article in case you're interested in learning more. Relevant quote:
Despite the "observer effect" in the double-slit experiment being caused by the presence of an electronic detector, the experiment's results have been interpreted by some to suggest that a conscious mind can directly affect reality.[3] However, the need for the "observer" to be conscious is not supported by scientific research, and has been pointed out as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function ψ and the quantum measurement process.[4][5][6]
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Comment on What’s a point that you think many people missed? in ~talk
kacey Link ParentSure! I'm just relaying what my interpretation of the statement is. To some people, the definition of "clean" is that all areas must be absent of "dirty", so being able to locate all the places...Sure! I'm just relaying what my interpretation of the statement is. To some people, the definition of "clean" is that all areas must be absent of "dirty", so being able to locate all the places the dirtiness is hiding is critical for their definition. If your definition doesn't include that (i.e. out of sight, out of mind), then we've successfully identified that you, me, and my interpretation of OP's position are all different. Which is OK!
This is a bit off topic for the ~enviro topic, so I'll keep it brief, but my solution has been to run Firefox and Chrome. Then switch browsers if something doesn't work. I think the only problematic page so far has been Zoom, once or twice, but I twiddled with something and it started working well.
(admittedly this doesn't work for everyone, as the UX friction to swap applications is too much to bear for some)