owyn_merrilin's recent activity
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Comment on The beautiful dissociation of the Japanese language in ~humanities.languages
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Comment on The beautiful dissociation of the Japanese language in ~humanities.languages
owyn_merrilin Link ParentA high school education is kind of a baseline for literacy, though. Of course someone who's barely literate won't be able to do it. And the point wasn't even about the difficulty, it was that our...A high school education is kind of a baseline for literacy, though. Of course someone who's barely literate won't be able to do it.
And the point wasn't even about the difficulty, it was that our cutoff for a modern speaker to struggle through an old text is the later end of Middle English, while Chinese is similarly difficult going another half millennium or so back, instead of completely unintelligible.
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Comment on The beautiful dissociation of the Japanese language in ~humanities.languages
owyn_merrilin Link ParentYou're exaggerating. Both Shakespeare and Chaucer are taught in high school literature classes. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is Middle English that's effectively unintelligible to modern...You're exaggerating. Both Shakespeare and Chaucer are taught in high school literature classes. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is Middle English that's effectively unintelligible to modern speakers, but Chaucer was later and spoke a dialect that was more directly ancestral to modern English. Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur is also relatively intelligible despite being Middle English, although that one is such a door stopper it's not taught in high school.
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Comment on The beautiful dissociation of the Japanese language in ~humanities.languages
owyn_merrilin Link ParentWhich is entirely doable by a modern English speaker without much assistance. They'll struggle, but they can do it, and most of the barrier is just needing to read things phonetically (and in ways...it's more similar to a modern English speaker reading Chaucer.
Which is entirely doable by a modern English speaker without much assistance. They'll struggle, but they can do it, and most of the barrier is just needing to read things phonetically (and in ways that modern speakers probably wouldn't choose to use even though those letters still do make those sounds -- there's a lot of Y as a vowel where we'd use I today, for example) because spelling wasn't standardized yet. Whereas actual Old English, like Beowulf, is completely unintelligible, especially in written form. You'd have an easier time getting the gist as a native German speaker than a native English speaker.
And it's Beowulf that's comparably old to the Classical Chinese texts we're discussing, not Chaucer.
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Comment on What we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. US Department of Justice in ~books
owyn_merrilin Link ParentI've checked out a book from the 1930s. And I'm probably not 40 years older than you. Books just last a damned long time. I've also held and paged through books from the 1790s that were just...I've checked out a book from the 1930s. And I'm probably not 40 years older than you. Books just last a damned long time.
I've also held and paged through books from the 1790s that were just sitting on the shelf of a university library, not even in a special collection. In a university that wasn't even founded until the 20th century. Considering the condition, that may have been the most handling they ever had. Again, books last a damned long time.
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Comment on Meta starts licensing headset OS in battle with Apple in ~tech
owyn_merrilin Link ParentNo, just a meta account. The easiest way to make one is linking an existing facebook account, but you can also make a standalone meta account with an email address and a password, and you can even...No, just a meta account. The easiest way to make one is linking an existing facebook account, but you can also make a standalone meta account with an email address and a password, and you can even un-link a facebook account from a meta account that was created with one. Mostly I think because they were in danger of getting in trouble with regulatory agencies over people losing their Quest/Oculus libraries after getting banned from Facebook, but I'll take it.
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Comment on Jon Stewart returns to ‘The Daily Show’ as host in ~tv
owyn_merrilin Link ParentDude, you were saying there was no evidence whatsoever earlier. You even claimed there wasn't even any circumstantial evidence at one point. If this is really about science for you, you need to...Dude, you were saying there was no evidence whatsoever earlier. You even claimed there wasn't even any circumstantial evidence at one point. If this is really about science for you, you need to study up on how science works, because what you're doing here is an appeal to authority, not an understanding of what the science actually is on this or what the consensus means.
The scientists have never doubted that the lab leak was possible, and it's really not settled which is more likely. Which was the actual cause will likely never be settled because one way or another, the evidence has almost certainly been destroyed -- actually especially if the wet market was the cause, because we know for a fact that the Chinese government cleaned the place out and sterilized the surfaces as soon as they traced the virus back to that general area. Which is why the overall consensus is pretty weak, as is the evidence in either direction. The heavy backlash against voicing the possibility of the lab leak was coming from politicians, not scientists, who were trying to head off racial tensions that Trump stoked by doing things like calling it the "China virus" and went way overboard with it. An admirable goal, but with an execution that actually did more damage to trust in and understanding of science than good to much of anything.
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Comment on Jon Stewart returns to ‘The Daily Show’ as host in ~tv
owyn_merrilin Link ParentYou're not following the majority of scientific opinion when you say there's no evidence for the lab leak theory. Or even reading your own articles. They currently believe the wet market theory is...You're not following the majority of scientific opinion when you say there's no evidence for the lab leak theory. Or even reading your own articles. They currently believe the wet market theory is more likely. That doesn't mean they believe the alternative is unlikely, let alone that there's no reason to suspect it.
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Comment on Jon Stewart returns to ‘The Daily Show’ as host in ~tv
owyn_merrilin Link ParentHuh? There's a ton of circumstantial evidence. The only thing we're really missing is a record of a virus they were studying escaping containment at the right time. And I say at the right time...Huh? There's a ton of circumstantial evidence. The only thing we're really missing is a record of a virus they were studying escaping containment at the right time. And I say at the right time because there were previous documented cases where failure to properly use PPE directly exposed workers to bat coronaviruses. They were studying this exact family of viruses, and were known to have lacking safety measures due to a lack of adequately trained personnel. The natural reservoir of the virus is also hundreds of miles away, which makes it unlikely that bushmeat from that area would have ended up in a market in Wuhan. But bats from that area were present and being studied at the WIV.
And that's just the surface level stuff that doesn't take any real research to find out. There's some details about the US NIH having funded that lab, and about virology techniques that are banned for safety reasons in the US not being bannned in china, that are also suggestive and would give a motive for officials from both the US and China to downplay the lab leak possibility, but which I've never had the time or inclination to really dig into because I'm just not that invested in it. We know it came from Wuhan, we know there's two broadly plausible theories, and there's no reason to be as dismissive of the lab leak theory as you're being.
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Comment on Researchers were able to isolate the brain from the rest of the body of a pig, and kept it alive and functioning for five hours in ~science
owyn_merrilin Link ParentI wonder about that. Given that phantom limb syndrome is a thing, the brain might hallucinate that they're still there.I wonder about that. Given that phantom limb syndrome is a thing, the brain might hallucinate that they're still there.
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Comment on Jon Stewart returns to ‘The Daily Show’ as host in ~tv
owyn_merrilin Link ParentNo, we don't. And I don't think you really do either, otherwise you'd have to say there's no evidence of any origin for the virus. The wet market theory doesn't exactly have hard evidence, either....No, we don't. And I don't think you really do either, otherwise you'd have to say there's no evidence of any origin for the virus. The wet market theory doesn't exactly have hard evidence, either. It's all circumstantial.
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Comment on Jon Stewart returns to ‘The Daily Show’ as host in ~tv
owyn_merrilin Link ParentLike /u/FluffyKittens said, that's not entirely true. There's no direct evidence that it leaked from the lab, but there's evidence corona viruses were being studied there, and evidence that this...Like /u/FluffyKittens said, that's not entirely true. There's no direct evidence that it leaked from the lab, but there's evidence corona viruses were being studied there, and evidence that this kind of research was being done on them.
If anything it makes more sense than the wet market explanation, which has a similar lack of proof.
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Comment on Jon Stewart returns to ‘The Daily Show’ as host in ~tv
owyn_merrilin Link ParentFor what it's worth, an engineered virus doesn't mean it was developed as a weapon. It's more likely that they had tweaked it to make it more useful for developing vaccines in case a wild virus...For what it's worth, an engineered virus doesn't mean it was developed as a weapon. It's more likely that they had tweaked it to make it more useful for developing vaccines in case a wild virus jumped on its own again (this isn't the first coronavirus pandemic -- the full name is SARS-COV2 because it's closely related to the virus that caused SARS). That kind of research is dangerous if safety protocols aren't followed, but has a legitimate purpose behind it.
Which means there's really three theories, and two of them tend to get conflated.
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Comment on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children in North American theatres in ~games
owyn_merrilin Link ParentI'd argue the last real FF game was X, honestly, but that's a tangent. And I hated X, so don't give me that crap about me excluding later games because I didn't like them. The first Seiken...I'd argue the last real FF game was X, honestly, but that's a tangent. And I hated X, so don't give me that crap about me excluding later games because I didn't like them. The first Seiken Densetsu game and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within were not meaningfully connected to the series. There are things that tie the games together. A movie can't have the gameplay aspects, but it can have things like Nobuo Uematsu's music, chocobos, moogles, and the iconic spells and summons.
But it didn't.
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Comment on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children in North American theatres in ~games
owyn_merrilin Link ParentThe movie has literally none of the things that tie the series together. It's just a movie Sakaguchi got the company to pay for. The first Seiken Densetsu game had a couple of sprites lifted from...The movie has literally none of the things that tie the series together. It's just a movie Sakaguchi got the company to pay for. The first Seiken Densetsu game had a couple of sprites lifted from the NES FF games, but was entirely unrelated aside from that. The original plan for the game, when it was supposed to be a Famicom Disk System game, was even less connected than that, being planned as its own thing with no ties to the series. And the SaGa games, which you conveniently ignored, didn't have any connection at all, despite the first three being called "Final Fantasy Legend" in the US.
It's not about like or dislike. It's about slapping a name on something for marketing reasons.
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Comment on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children in North American theatres in ~games
owyn_merrilin Link ParentSo were Saga and Seiken Densetsu, but they weren't really Final Fantasy when they had the name slapped on, either.it was made by Square.
So were Saga and Seiken Densetsu, but they weren't really Final Fantasy when they had the name slapped on, either.
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Comment on ‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says in ~tech
owyn_merrilin Link ParentI was with you until the last paragraph, where I think you're falling into a common pitfall of indirectly underestimating AI by overestimating humans. Humans, like AI, are the sum total of their...I was with you until the last paragraph, where I think you're falling into a common pitfall of indirectly underestimating AI by overestimating humans.
Humans, like AI, are the sum total of their experiences. The way these models work are fundamentally much more similar to how our brains work than even most people who have a better than average understanding of how the AI works tend to think, because they don't understand as much as they think they do about the way the human brain works. The similarities are, frankly, concerning. We're dealing with forces that are more powerful than the people working the most closely with them tend to realize.
Now, do we have a fully working general purpose AI brain yet? No, but we have a pretty good visual and language cortex for it.
A much better one than people who have a good understanding of AI but a weaker understanding of the brain, or vice versa, tend to think. We're making the building blocks of a true general AI and the people who should be most conscious of that are the most likely to dismiss it, because they know how simple the building blocks -- if not the connections they make -- are in the AI, but don't realize the same is true of the human brain. The simple fact that we don't really understand what these models do with the training data should be concerning enough, but there's this attitude that brushes aside that uncertainty about the emergent complexity of these systems just because the starting point is simple.
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Comment on Recommend me a digital clock? in ~tech
owyn_merrilin LinkWhatever you get, if you want it automatically set by the atomic clock radio signal, be careful that it actually claims to do that. I bought an Emerson SmartSet clock a while back in part because...Whatever you get, if you want it automatically set by the atomic clock radio signal, be careful that it actually claims to do that. I bought an Emerson SmartSet clock a while back in part because it advertises that it automatically sets itself and I thought that was what it meant, but it doesn't. In reality it just has a battery backup and they set it at the factory, with the battery already installed.
Which makes the "self setting" thing flat out false advertising, but somehow they've been getting away with it for years. And Emerson is an actual brand, too, not some fly by night Chinese thing.
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Comment on ‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says in ~tech
owyn_merrilin Link ParentThe issue is copyright is far too all encompassing and is fundamentally at odds with the way human culture reproduces itself. Nothing that goes into training these models is different from how...The issue is copyright is far too all encompassing and is fundamentally at odds with the way human culture reproduces itself. Nothing that goes into training these models is different from how human beings learn about the same things. We just don't pretend that a copy of something in a human brain is infringing.
At the moment. I'm sure some lawyer at Disney just got a boner and doesn't know why.
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Comment on Microsoft is adding a new key to PC keyboards for the first time since 1994. The Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards, though not yet. in ~tech
owyn_merrilin Link ParentI'm more interested in the emoji key on the keyboard in the picture. That would actually be kind of useful.I'm more interested in the emoji key on the keyboard in the picture. That would actually be kind of useful.
That is an absolutely insane take. The average 6th grader cannot read on the level expected of an adult. Stopping an education at the 6th grade is an easy way to a life of poverty and crime in large part because of how stunted your literacy is. It cuts off so many avenues of employment it's not even funny, and makes it easier for the unscrupulous to exploit you.
Majoring in Chinese as a non-native speaker is not the same as going through school as a native speaker. You didn't spend your entire life immersed in the language, and you didn't have twelve years of school taught in it before even starting on that college major. Native speakers do. And it's well known that early written English becomes unintelligible to native speakers unusually early because invasions by and contact with vikings and, later, the Normans changed the language quite a bit over the course of the medieval period, while Chinese intelligibility goes unusually far back. Not as far as, for example, Icelandic, but still unusually far. It's more than just muddling through by recognizing the ideographs. The fact that you even had a class on Classical Chinese should tell you as much. English majors do not get similar classes on Old English. That's more of a thing for history majors in a very narrow part of the field.