psi's recent activity
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Comment on What are some of your "life hacks" you use regularly? in ~talk
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Comment on What are some of your "life hacks" you use regularly? in ~talk
psi (edited )Link ParentKind of a pedantic point, but it's worth keeping in mind that this trick only works if the function is linear. (And not merely affine; that is, the function should be like y = a x with the origin...Kind of a pedantic point, but it's worth keeping in mind that this trick only works if the function is linear. (And not merely affine; that is, the function should be like
y = a xwith the originb = 0preserved.) So you can't use this trick to convert degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Celsius (f = c *1.8 + 32), for example. -
Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: Holiday 2025 in ~games
psi (edited )Link ParentThanks! And no, please don't add me to the raffle. As much as I love the Persona series, I've already played P5R, and I'd much rather somebody else get to enjoy it. I was just adding my own...Thanks! And no, please don't add me to the raffle. As much as I love the Persona series, I've already played P5R, and I'd much rather somebody else get to enjoy it. I was just adding my own anecdote and it definitely wasn't only because I misread your request.
Unfortunately, the blades on the Christmas pyramid-buildings don't seem to actually move. (Likewise, the giant candles also aren't real -- double bummer). However, I would agree that this presents a very exciting opportunity for the enterprising carnie.
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Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: Holiday 2025 in ~games
psi (edited )Link ParentI'd like to put in a request for this one. As for gaudy decorations: I live in a city, so I don't really see lawns anymore, but I do encounter plenty of Christmas markets. Probably the most...Iconoclasts
I'd like to put in a request for this one.
As for gaudy decorations: I live in a city, so I don't really see lawns anymore, but I do encounter plenty of Christmas markets. Probably the most ridiculous decorations are the Weihnachtspyramide (Christmas pyramids), elaborate candle holders that almost look like a windmill except with the blades fastened horizontally instead of vertically. As warm air rises from the candles, it hits the rotor, causing it to rotate (supposedly -- I tried blowing on one once to see what would happen, and an annoyed merchant told me off: Bitte mach das nicht). They are neat if somewhat silly, but the ridiculousness is magnified a 100-fold when the city scales them up by a factor of 20 and attach these things to the top of Glühwein stands (like so).
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Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news
psi (edited )Link ParentJust in case someone's wondering what a kākāpō looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vfsHYiKYJust in case someone's wondering what a kākāpō looks like:
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Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: Holiday 2025 in ~games
psi Link ParentIt's not obvious to me what any of these are, but I can't resist a good mystery! I'd like to roll for 4 (Mouse, Ostrich, Kangaroo).It's not obvious to me what any of these are, but I can't resist a good mystery!
I'd like to roll for 4 (Mouse, Ostrich, Kangaroo).
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Comment on Rob Reiner and wife Michele Singer found dead at LA home; homicide suspected in ~movies
psi (edited )Link Parent"Trump Blames Rob Reiner for His Own Murder." The Atlantic.Looking for a considered meaning in Trump’s words might be a wild-goose chase, though. The simplest reason Trump posted this is the same reason he posts anything: The man cannot resist making everything about himself, even if it’s the heartbreaking murder of a beloved artist in an alleged domestic dispute. If “TDS” ["Trump Derangement Syndrome"] is the tendency to become irrationally obsessed with Donald Trump and project that obsession onto everyone else, then somebody is indeed deranged, and it wasn’t Rob Reiner.
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Comment on Twenty years of digital life, gone in an instant, thanks to Apple in ~tech
psi LinkHere are two common pieces of tech wisdom: You should have backups of your data. You should use a password manager. Consider the password manager advice. When I tell someone that they should use a...Here are two common pieces of tech wisdom:
- You should have backups of your data.
- You should use a password manager.
Consider the password manager advice. When I tell someone that they should use a password manager, I don't mean that they should use keepass with a self-hosted gitlab instance. I mean they should use any reputable password manager they can find -- even if it's the one built-in to their phone or browser. Yes, that means my mom could lose access to her passwords if she becomes locked-out of her Apple account. But that risk is so much smaller than all of her accounts being compromised by reusing a password that was pwned a decade ago.
Similarly, when I advise someone to backup their data, I mean they should use anything that works for them. Yes, there is still a risk of being locked-out of their account, but the more likely threat is a hard drive failure or a stolen device.
So sure, the OP is more technically inclined than most and probably could have written some automated backups (my mom, in contrast, definitely could not have). But they were adhering to good advice; they just got screwed by an improbable edge case.
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Comment on Whatever happened to _____? in ~talk
psi Link ParentWhatever happened to Panama being controlled by China? Or Trump's bid for Greenland? "The Conservative Movement’s Intellectual Collapse." The Atlantic. [archive] These people are epistemological...Whatever happened to Panama being controlled by China? Or Trump's bid for Greenland?
Do you remember, back in January, when Trump announced that he simply must possess Greenland and the Panama Canal? A series of conservative thinkers dutifully explained the strategic imperatives undergirding this demand. Trump was aware of the need to control Greenland’s mineral assets, they insisted, and to keep China from seizing control of the Panama Canal.
Trump appears to have completely abandoned both goals. It would be edifying to know how the conservatives who had deemed possession of these previously ignored territories to be a vital U.S. interest now judge Trump’s dereliction of these missions. But those defenders give no indication that they have undergone any reconsideration of Trump’s clumsy imperialist gestures. That silence leaves the impression that the president was correct to grow suddenly obsessed with territorial expansion, and he is correct to have apparently forgotten all about it.
These people are epistemological nihilists.
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Comment on Meet Pebble Index 01 - External memory for your brain in ~tech
psi LinkE-waste or not, I see a much larger problem: who really believes this product will still be available to purchase a couple years from now (when they need to be replaced)? Given how niche this...E-waste or not, I see a much larger problem: who really believes this product will still be available to purchase a couple years from now (when they need to be replaced)? Given how niche this product is, I'm skeptical it will be successful. So what will people do when they've become dependent on a device that they can't really replace?
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
psi (edited )Link ParentLooks like the game's currently on sale for about $2 almost everywhere except Steam and GOG. Fanatical linkLooks like the game's currently on sale for about $2 almost everywhere except Steam and GOG.
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Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end all monkey research in ~science
psi (edited )Link ParentIt's a long piece, so thanks for pulling out some more quotes. (I considered drawing some more excerpts, but given the length of the article and the number of subjects, I didn't think I'd be able...It's a long piece, so thanks for pulling out some more quotes. (I considered drawing some more excerpts, but given the length of the article and the number of subjects, I didn't think I'd be able to faithfully summarize it; instead I focused on the group mentioned in the OP's article.)
At any rate, you're right to point out the failings at Alpha Genesis. People shouldn't reflexively assume that the status quo is hunky-dory -- the treatment of the macaques is unacceptable and, in some cases, possibly not of much scientific merit regardless (e.g. the P.T.S.D. experiments conducted by Murray, as mentioned in the article).
The danger the Trump administration presents is not, by itself, the reduction in animal testing. (I'm a vegetarian -- I would generally support this move!) Rather, the danger is the black-and-white thinking; it's the temptation of a simple, universal, exemption-free solution; it's this mode of thought that is just so exhaustingly omnipresent in everything this administration does, from the constant scapegoating of immigrants to the misguided allure of tariffs. For all the flak PETA gets, I think they have the most relatable quote of anybody in the article (emphasis added).
The collaboration between certain MAGA influencers and animal-rights activists has drawn out the most confrontational tendencies within each camp. This summer, Loomer and White Coat Waste took aim at an unusual target: Nicole Kleinstreuer, a toxicologist who is spearheading the N.I.H.’s effort to expedite, of all things, the replacement of animals in regulatory testing and research. Under Kleinstreuer’s leadership, the agency has launched a new office to develop and validate alternatives to animal studies, such as computer simulations and “organ on a chip” technologies. Kleinstreuer has said that she wants to “create lasting change for animal-free science.” But because she has echoed the scientific consensus—namely that, in the meantime, some animals remain necessary—White Coat Waste has branded her an enemy of progress and a “Fauci-loving ‘animal testing czar.’ ” Kleinstreuer, who subsequently received harassing messages and death threats online, has required security protection.
White Coat Waste’s criticism of Kleinstreuer has set it apart from the broader animal-rights movement. (“Have they lost their fucking minds?” Lisa Jones-Engel, the PETA scientist, said.)
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Comment on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end all monkey research in ~science
psi LinkThe New Yorker recently published a long-form piece on this topic. It's worth a read if you're interested in why MAGA/MAHA Republicans have suddenly become so interested in animal testing. "The...The New Yorker recently published a long-form piece on this topic. It's worth a read if you're interested in why MAGA/MAHA Republicans have suddenly become so interested in animal testing.
Some context on the White Coat Waste Project (the advocacy group mentioned in the article)
White Coat Waste was founded in 2011 by Anthony Bellotti, a Republican consultant who, while campaigning to defund the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood, discovered that he could reframe the issue of animal experimentation as yet another example of federal misspending. His group eschews associations with “animal rights,” describing itself instead as a government-watchdog organization “uniting liberty-lovers and animal-lovers.” When the pandemic arrived, Bellotti and Goodman recognized that the growing constituency of people who’d come to hate scientists could also, with the right messaging, be made to hate the fact that scientists experimented on animals. Unlike other groups that oppose animal research, White Coat Waste does not concern itself with what people eat, wear, or hunt. “We’re a fanatically single-issue coalition,” Goodman said, “and that’s how we’ve been able to broaden the tent.”
Before joining White Coat Waste, in 2016, Goodman worked for nearly a decade at PETA, where he gradually came to feel that its “establishment approach”— a phrase that might raise eyebrows, given that the group is best known for its anti-fur advertisements featuring nude celebrities—was futile. “We would claim victory when one lab finally got shut down, but another five would just pop up in its place, because the money was still available,” Goodman told me. “That’s why wiping out taxpayer funding for animal testing is the most efficient way to save the most animals.” (When I asked Chandna, from PETA, about these remarks, she said, “We’ve pointed out the federal boondoggle from the start. White Coat Waste has young-male-testosterone energy, and it seems like they attack all the other groups for fund-raising purposes.”)
From Goodman’s perspective, Trump’s second term has been a roaring success. Along with ending grants for thousands of N.I.H.-funded studies on topics that the Administration has deemed unworthy—H.I.V. prevention, maternal-health disparities, vaccine hesitancy—DOGE terminated millions of dollars in grants for animal experiments, including specific line items that White Coat Waste said it had flagged: a $299,240 grant to create “transgender mice,” $1.1 million to use rats to study the party drug GHB. This spring, the N.I.H., the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration each announced significant plans to deprioritize the use of lab animals. The N.I.H. will require grant-review staff to undergo training to address “possible bias towards animal studies”; the E.P.A. has urged employees to adopt zebra fish and rats that it is retiring from research; and the F.D.A., in a bid to lower drug pricing, intends for testing on animals to be the exception rather than the norm within five years. “God did not make animals on planet Earth for us to abuse and torture,” Marty Makary, the commissioner of the F.D.A., told regulators and scientists in July.
That month, Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist and preternaturally gifted Trump whisperer with no official role in the Administration, posted on X that the Department of Defense “just exclusively told me this morning that they have made the decision to end all of the cruel dog and cat testing contracts exposed by White Coat Waste.” Goodman had brought these contracts, worth fifty-seven million dollars, to Loomer’s attention, after he appeared on her show in April. The two have been working together ever since, Loomer told me. “We’re the party who is actually cracking down on animal abusers,” she said. “We’re the party that stood up for the dogs and cats of Ohio that were being eaten by Haitian illegals.”
Whenever I asked Goodman if he worried that his cause was being used as a fig leaf for the Trump Administration’s campaign against science and academic research more broadly, he shrugged off the question. “I will work with anyone who has the power or political will to get animals out of labs,” he said. Recently, I brought up an executive order that Trump issued in May which grants political appointees the power to “correct scientific information,” control the way it is communicated to the public, and initiate “discipline” against anyone who fails to parrot the MAHA line—a move that may effectively end scientific independence. “My goal is to save animals, not science,” Goodman replied. “I could care less about scientific institutions and whether they burn.”
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
psi Link ParentWe're closer to this than perhaps even you realize! Brain-IT: Image Reconstruction from fMRI via Brain-Interaction TransformerWe're a lot closer to this than most people realize.
We're closer to this than perhaps even you realize!
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Comment on AGI and Fermi's Paradox in ~science
psi (edited )LinkIs this solution likely correct? Well, probably not, but we could say that almost irrespective of whatever you had proposed. There's a reason the Fermi paradox is a longstanding puzzle! The issue...Is this solution likely correct? Well, probably not, but we could say that almost irrespective of whatever you had proposed. There's a reason the Fermi paradox is a longstanding puzzle!
The issue with a 19 point solution is that, even if there's a 95% chance that each individual proposition is correct, when you stack all these probabilities together the total probability reduces to (95%)^19 ≈ 38%. And I would estimate that some of these propositions have less than a 95% chance of being true (e.g., "3. An artificial general intelligence (AGI) will have an indefinite lifespan" -- we don't even know if AGI is possible, let alone likely to happen, let alone immortal).
It's similar to the issue of compounding errors in Fermi estimates. The more assumptions you make, the larger your uncertainty will grow.
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Comment on Request for info: Is "Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro" respectful of it's child characters? in ~anime
psi Link ParentI think the issues with Nagatoro have been covered, so let me suggest something else. I'm not sure how familiar you are with manga in general, but I suspect you might find either Josei manga...I think the issues with Nagatoro have been covered, so let me suggest something else. I'm not sure how familiar you are with manga in general, but I suspect you might find either Josei manga (marketed for adult women) or Shoujo manga (marketed for younger women) more to your liking. In addition, I'd suggest subscribing to either Manga Plus or Viz Manga for a month. Both are basically Netflix-style manga libraries, so between myanimelist/anidb recommendations and one of those apps, you should be able to find something that you like.
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Comment on The shutdown of USAID has already killed hundreds of thousands in ~society
psi LinkRelated: "Trump Aid Cuts Kill More Christians Than Jihadists Do." The New York Times. (Despite the framing, the article is more generally about religious persecution, not just that against...Related:
(Despite the framing, the article is more generally about religious persecution, not just that against Christians.)
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Comment on People with a very good memory: does that make it harder to forgive? in ~talk
psi LinkSomewhat tangetial, but a recent article in The New Yorker describes that one consequence of aphantasia -- the inability to form mental images -- is that those afflicted with the condition tend to...Somewhat tangetial, but a recent article in The New Yorker describes that one consequence of aphantasia -- the inability to form mental images -- is that those afflicted with the condition tend to form hazier memories and also "suffer less from regret, or shame, or resentment". From an interview with an aphantasic:
L.: I can easily move on, forget, not hold grudges, no living in the past, and no dreaming of the future. This is it! I can live in the NOW.
S.C.: I work for the emergency services, and I’ve spoken with my workmates about what they think the hardest part of the job is. They all said it is definitely reliving traumatic things they have seen. . . . It is for this reason that I am glad I can’t visualize. When I go home, after having someone die in front of me, I go to bed, close my eyes, and see nothing but black for a minute. Then, I’m off in my dream world.
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Comment on What's a quantum computer? in ~tech
psi (edited )Link ParentI like your explanation about computation and qubits, but there is one part that's a bit misleading. This is technically true, but it's also not how quantum computers work. (The misconception is...I like your explanation about computation and qubits, but there is one part that's a bit misleading.
Because of how quantum mechanics works, hypothetically, you could encode the input as a superposition of every possible input, run the calculation, and then you have every possible output.
This is technically true, but it's also not how quantum computers work. (The misconception is common enough that Scott Aaronson has a permanent banner on his blog imploring, "If you take nothing else from this blog: quantum computers won't solve hard problems instantly by just trying all solutions in parallel.") The issue is that, although a quantum computer can simultaneously simulate all possible solutions, you only get one of those results when you actually make the measurement ("collapse the wave function", so to speak). On average, this approach will do no better than a classical algorithm.
Rather, quantum algorithms exploit another property of quantum mechanics: entanglement. For some particular problems, it is possible to design a circuit such that the wrong solutions destructively interfere with each other (like two waves annihilating each other), which consequently makes it more likely that you measure the correct solution. However, quantum algorithms do not generally (ever?) guarantee that a solution is correct, only that it is correct with some probability. This probability can be increased by tuning the circuit or rerunning it multiple times.
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Comment on How can I combine several ranked lists into one mega list? in ~comp
psi (edited )LinkThis is a more subtle question than you might expect. It's equivalent to asking the "best" way to rank candidates in an election, but Arrow's impossibility theorem shows that there really is no...- Exemplary
This is a more subtle question than you might expect. It's equivalent to asking the "best" way to rank candidates in an election, but Arrow's impossibility theorem shows that there really is no "best" way to do this (more precisely, it is impossible to prevent irrelevant candidates from spoiling the results).
So the best we can do is acknowledge the drawbacks of whatever algorithm we decide to use.
The most straightforward approach would be to use the Borda method. In this approach, we first tabulate the N unique candidates from all the ballots (lists). Then for each ballot, we compute a Borda score for each candidate in that ballot, where the Borda score is given by
Borda score = N - rankIf a candidate is unranked in a given ballot, then its rank is assumed to be N.
For example, given two ballots, we would have the following Borda scores
list 1 BS 1 list 2 BS 2 A 4 B 4 B 3 A 3 D 2 C 2 D 1 E 0 which would produce the following ranked list (by summing the Borda scores for each candidate)
rank BS total A 7 B 7 D 3 C 2 E 0 Unfortunately, the Borda method gives poorer predictions when some ballots don't rank every candidate, as a ballot can spoil the final result by ranking their favorite candidate first and leaving the other candidates unranked. For example, imagine you want to combine two video game lists. One list was compiled by an IGN critic who meticulously tabulated their hundred favorite games on the Nintendo DS. The other ballot was written by a 7-year-old and contains only My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party. Then the Borda method would rank My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party above every game in the critic's list except the critic's top game, which would be rated equal.
Since lists of favorite media are unlikely to have complete overlap, you find yourself vulnerable to this shortcoming. However, we can attempt to correct for this failure mode! In this paper, the authors consider some other formulations of the Borda method. The simplest alternative to implement would be the average Borda count method.
The average Borda count method is equivalent to the Borda method except when a ballot contains unranked candidates. In this case, the unranked candidates on the Ballot receive a score equal to the average of the unused points that the ballot could have allotted. With a little bit of algebra, you can show that the average Borda count is given by
ABC = (N - K - 1) / 2where K is the number of items on a given ballot. For the example from before, all but one point was allotted, so the average Borda count for the first list would be
(5-3-1)/2=0.5whereas the second list would not have an average Borda count since all the candidates are ranked. Now we havelist 1 BS 1 list 2 BS 2 A 4 B 4 B 3 A 3 D 2 C 2 C 0.5 D 1 E 0.5 E 0 which becomes
rank BS total A 7 B 7 D 3 C 2.5 E 0.5 In this case, there is no change in the final ordering. But in the critic vs 7-year-old example, MLP would be ranked in the middle of the list instead of at the front (for better or worse).
There are a few tools available online to compute the Borda scores for you. Here is one such calculator, though it only allows for five candidates (almost certainly too few for your use case). A few people have also written python scripts, for example here. Unfortunately, neither of these implementations correct for the average Borda count, so you would have to do that yourself.
Alternatively, you can use some of that new age math. Given that 1 mile = 1.609 km, you get a fairly good estimate by calculating
So, for example, 13 miles = 13 km + 6.5 km + 1.3 km = 20.8 km (real value is 20.917 km).
Similarly, 1 km = 0.6214 miles, so the following is a pretty good estimate (but not quite as good as converting the other way)