amazon.co.uk/Na%C3%A7%C3%A3o-C… I've been reading this in Portuguese, because I enjoyed another of the author's books and because I find the level of Portuguese very easy to follow. The best thing about it has been some of the idioms I've met along the way.
“Pôr a carroça à frentes dos bois” - to put the cart in front of the oxen.
“Tremer como varas verdes” - to shake like green twigs
"tirar nabos da púcara” - to pull turnips from the clay pot. Metaphorically to tease something out or to go on a fishing expedition in the journalistic sense.
"Engolir o sapo" - to swallow the toad. Kind of "bite the bullet"
"sair pela culatra" - to exit through the breech, i.e. to backfire
Nyle: Enjoy being HELPLESS. Because that's what you, and people like yourself will get with Donald Doofus, who all of you voted for... Imagine that though, these right-wing voters voted for a man that doesn't give a sh*t about any of them. Remember when TFG shutdown the government and most had to go to shelters for food?? Well, get ready for that again.
This entry was edited (Wednesday, December 11, 2024, 8:22 PM)
@HarriettMB @rlstone4dems lol, what tragic, empty lives. You just know these people are single and hate themselves and now their lives have turned out.
Why is it that whenever there's an Israeli drama about Mossad or Shabak, the Israeli intelligence services are portrayed as completely incompetent buffoons? Even by the standards of thriller TV, agents are so absurdly unable to follow orders that you do wonder if they'd do better ordering them to do the opposite.
Or maybe this is just the Israeli dramas that are selected to be exported to the rest of the world via Netflix and Apple TV. Perhaps Israel is less threatening if you associate it with 007 in clown shoes.
You can tell I'm getting to the nitpicking and rewording stage of writing an assignment for the OU when I go on flights of sfnal legal fantasy instead.
A bunch of senior members of the judiciary have a time machine. When a miscarriage of justice is discovered, they use the time machine to wind the unverse back to before the miscarriage. Obviously this looks splendid, and nobody in the rewound universe (handwave handwave) suffers the consequences of long prison times.
Unfortunately, a convicted criminal learns of the existence of this machine and on his release uses it to rewind so he committed the perfect crime...
Rwanda’s rapid Marburg response is a lesson in global health Another win for Rwanda. In October, it reported its first Marburg virus outbreak, for which there are no vaccines or treatments. Following a COVID-19-style mass test, track, and trace operation, the case fatality rate plummeted, and the outbreak has now been declared over - it's been a month since the last death was recorded. NPR buff.ly/49f7esn #ShareGoodNewsToo
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The people who are most optimistic about AI are people who've never tried to use it for anything they're expert in. Its reputation seems to rely almost entirely on the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. I try to explain this to people; I just wish people who know something about something just ask it a question.
I keep on giving it a go our of desperation, just to get some kind of lead in something I can research manually (which I'd investigate separately).
yeah, this has also always been my experience - every time I've tested an LLM in a field I know something about, it's been wrong in a way that wouldn't be obvious to a non-expert. Which, of course, means that I can't trust them in fields where I'm *not* an expert, because I won't be able to see the mistake.
"The last time it was read in Scotland was by the deputy town clerk James Gildea in Airdrie in 1971".
As far as I can tell this is true, but I was looking for a reference. ChatGPT claimed it was due to striking miners clashing with police, which sounded very plausible for the seventies. But there weren't any in that area in that year. It looks like it was actually gangland warfare (though never quite got to the bottom of it with a good enough reference for Wikipedia).
The way it comes up with very plausible cr@p is worrying.
I tried an AI about a subject I know (the types in C). It made mistakes. I pointed them out to it. It acknowledged them. It was extremly courteaous. And the next time I asked a question, it continued to make mistakes with the same coutreaous politeness.
Unfortunately I can't remember the questions. It's a pity it was interesting to see how incompetent an AI can be.
Very quickkly it proposed me to send money to continue to use its expertise. I turned off the computer.
This entry was edited (Wednesday, December 4, 2024, 7:07 PM)
I worked on an AI based news engine 2 decades ago. It was obviously much more primitive tech, but I saw a similar effect and it was what ended up tanking the project.
We were using vector based AI to find and categorize obscure news items. Human editors were used to babysit and fix the results when it was wrong.
The AI outperformed the editors at first, but within a couple of months, the human editors started catching up and eventually became better than the AI. At some point, it was a waste of time to use the AI as anything more than a brute phrase matching engine to shovel stuff to the human editors.
When he's done travelling the Clapham Omnibus the reasonable man turns out to be handy for my mental health. I am very harsh on myself and very strict when I'm interpreting instructions and deadlines others give me in words, so it's useful to have the reasonable man point out that it isn't quite so cut and dried.
There's this thing that seems to be happening in western democracies recently where leftish liberal politicians look at their right-wing-going-on-fascist opposition and say "they're right, but don't vote for them". The result is that people shrug and think they may as well vote for the real fascist rather than the guy doing fascist cosplay.
But does this ever happen the other way around? You never get Trump saying "The socialists are right, don't vote for them". Possibly I'm asking why the Overton window only ever goes rightwards.
It occurs to me that on a small scale politicians know it’s not a good idea to agree with your opponent too much. Remember “I agree with Nick” from the first leaders’ debate in 2010? IIRC Clegg got a bounce in the polls and public estimation after that debate. “I agree with Nick” was not uttered again.
The real problem to me is the left/liberal pretending the populist far right is just another player in the democracy game, when it obviously isn’t. They’re treating equally something that is not equal. They’re debating something that can’t be debated, with people who go to debates do everything but debating. It’s like history taught them nothing and they don’t understand this is something that needs to be eliminated while we can, before we need to do it with guns and bombs again.
Somewhere in my past there is an officious bystander trying to point out that I obviously didn't intend to be doing a law module, a Portuguese course, and a work project all at the same time.
The biggest change is improved Unicode support. Usernames and passwords read from the terminal or the Windows console now support full Unicode, so that you can use characters outside the Windows system code page, or the character set configured in PuTTY. The same is true for usernames and file names provided via the PuTTY tools' command line and via the GUI (but unfortunately not yet if you save and reload a session).
@xdydx You mean X-style selection? The behaviour is configurable, but I thought it was that way by default on Linux, and the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0… seems to agree.
@xdydx But if you mean "select to copy to X's CLIPBOARD selection", then there's an "Auto-copy selected text" section on that page that describes how that can be configured.
One entertaining detail from last night's bad dream: the loo doors in the building were labelled with various chromosomal makeups. (Wasn't a "plot" point, just something people tutted and said "yeah I know" at.). Anyway, one of the doors was labelled ZW.
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Researchers from Zayed National Museum have discovered text concealed beneath a layer of gold leaf on a page of the Blue Qur’an - one of the world’s most well-known Qur’an manuscripts.
I want to talk about something I just saw on Reddit. It was regarding the US election, and it was a Democrat saying something to the effect of how he can agree with “the other side” on one thing.
No prizes for guessing: it’s trans women. Specifically, he regards the idea that we can participate in society in any meaningful way (you know, like being able to use toilets in restaurants and stuff) as “insane”.
And of course, he got to talking about “penises” straight away, which tells us a lot about how people like him see us, because I don’t know about you, but when I think about women, “penis”. Is not my go-to. Hell, when I think about ANYBODY, I don’t tend to think about sex organs. Only really comes up in a sexual context.
Not only do these people not see us as women. They don’t see us as PEOPLE. To a considerable number of cis people, we are “some sort of weird sex thing”. That’s it. That’s the bit of their brain we occupy.
People have hopes and dreams and lives
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I want to talk about something I just saw on Reddit. It was regarding the US election, and it was a Democrat saying something to the effect of how he can agree with “the other side” on one thing.
No prizes for guessing: it’s trans women. Specifically, he regards the idea that we can participate in society in any meaningful way (you know, like being able to use toilets in restaurants and stuff) as “insane”.
And of course, he got to talking about “penises” straight away, which tells us a lot about how people like him see us, because I don’t know about you, but when I think about women, “penis”. Is not my go-to. Hell, when I think about ANYBODY, I don’t tend to think about sex organs. Only really comes up in a sexual context.
Not only do these people not see us as women. They don’t see us as PEOPLE. To a considerable number of cis people, we are “some sort of weird sex thing”. That’s it. That’s the bit of their brain we occupy.
People have hopes and dreams and lives and people they love and who love them, and need to use toilets occasionally. Weird sex things don’t do any of that.
So of course the Democrats treating us as human is “weird” to them.
And he was massively up-voted, and congratulated about “finding common ground with political opponents”, and the comments saying, “what the hell? These are humans you’re talking about!” were all a long way down, and not popular.
This is how cis people see us. Not all of them, but a lot of them. An awful lot. Of the ones who don’t, a lot of them will only support us as long as it doesn’t require any personal awkwardness.
Anyway, my point here is not to wallow, but to present the context in which we fight for equality, because I think it’s clear that these people will never grant it to us voluntarily.
Not only are there no consequences for them to treat us like shit; they are CONGRATULATED for it.
And they will only stop if they are MADE to.
That’s the context in which our struggle operates.
I’m not sure I get you, unless you’re saying that some of the activism was pretty blatant & confrontational? Sometimes that is necessary, although it can also be counter-productive. There’s never just one “right” way to bring about change.
so for all its faults, the public health service here in Ireland has no problems sending me for mammograms. In fact, they strongly encouraged it and the endocrinologist said it might even be more important for trans women to get regular checks, but they don't have enough data.
Thanks @Sarah Brown. As I wrote that bit about sex organ related disease, I was thinking about who, other than the individual, would be rightly concerned about our sex organs. So my point is, I know details about my sex organs, my wife Wendy knows and has legitimate interest and during a doctor's visit, medical professionals of my choosing may concern and interest. But a co-worker? Ah, no! A fellow congregate at church? Ah, again, no. Some random poster on Reddit? Most certainly not.
"if you tried to find my prostate in the traditional manner, you’d discover that my vagina is in the way" 😀 You are so open! Us cis gender folks can learn so much by just listening to members of the trans community.
Thanks for the trust comment. That makes sense. The relationships you have with wider cis gender world would involve levels of trust you and a cis gender friend reach. However, in the wider world, discrimination
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Thanks @Sarah Brown. As I wrote that bit about sex organ related disease, I was thinking about who, other than the individual, would be rightly concerned about our sex organs. So my point is, I know details about my sex organs, my wife Wendy knows and has legitimate interest and during a doctor's visit, medical professionals of my choosing may concern and interest. But a co-worker? Ah, no! A fellow congregate at church? Ah, again, no. Some random poster on Reddit? Most certainly not.
"if you tried to find my prostate in the traditional manner, you’d discover that my vagina is in the way" 😀 You are so open! Us cis gender folks can learn so much by just listening to members of the trans community.
Thanks for the trust comment. That makes sense. The relationships you have with wider cis gender world would involve levels of trust you and a cis gender friend reach. However, in the wider world, discrimination should be unlawful wherein an anti-trans individuals or groups are prevented from bringing harm. That so many Americans have recently decided to throw trans and other minority under the bus, is awful.
I'd only ask folks outside of the USA to appreciate many of us here are deeply concerned about the road ahead and are looking for ways to help shield minorities from harm.
@Ailbhe @John_Loader first line treatment for prostate cancer is the drugs that the media insists on calling “puberty blockers” (yes, exact same ones).
And since we already take blockers, or are castrated … well.
Wow. He was a bit OTT, but a lot of early rights campaigners in various movements felt obliged to be that way to force change and get people to sit up & take notice.
You know how when you go to the house of an absolute colossal nerd and you ask them
🐇 Hey, how do I watch Netflix?
🦝 Yeah no problem, well first you've gotta turn on the amp. That's the power button on this remote here. The right-hand power button that is, the left-hand one isn't programmed to anything yet
🐇 OK
🦝 Sometimes that makes the TV come on automatically, but if it doesn't then you've gotta turn on the TV. That's this button here on this other remote.
🐇 So we're on two remotes now
🦝 Nearly finished. Oh by the way, if you want to adjust the volume, use the first remote, the volume on the second remote doesn't do anything. Well it does, but it sounds terrible because that's the TV speakers, so leave that at zero
🐇 But I'm *watching* tv
🦝 Yes but you're *listening* to the amp. Oh, sorry, forgot, set the amp input to 2.
🐇 on the amp remote?
🦝 Yeah, the video goes through the amp too.
🐇 In my house we set the TV to a different input, should -
🦝 Don't do that here. Don't. The TV stays on input 1 with its sound muted. Next you've just gotta use this third remote, for the -
🐇 for Netflix?
🦝 Well, technically for Kodi, but that's nothing to worry about yet
🐇 yet?
🦝 We'll come to that,
🐇 I'm being *so* patient right now, I'm really proud of myself
Anyway, imagine that, but your your lightbulbs. This is what Home Assistant promises
@ifixcoinops I get this from my dad. He's been a computer professional since it was punched cards and I was brought up ab ovo that every extra function on a device is just another opportunity for it to go wrong.
@ifixcoinops This may be a good time to mention my new Sony TV came with two remotes, and I wish I was kidding. There’s the traditional TV remote, and the “smart” one. Where, and I kid you not, some buttons work via Bluetooth, others via IR.
I’ve never seen such a great example of what results from stitching two products together in something barely sellable. Sony is a shadow of what it used to be. Just like every other electronics brand.
#ukpol Suppose you wanted to institute some form of right to buy for private tenants. Possibly without the ludicrous discounts you see with council RTB. You'd presumably have some sort of time period a tenant would have to have lived in a place before they'd qualify. How do you stop the landlord evicting the tenant just before the tenant becomes eligible?
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-ytDutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani discusses the violence that broke out last week between v...
This is Porterbrook's protoype hydrogen train. It's kind of nice but to me it begs the question: why not just electrify the lines in the conventional way? Producing and transporting the hydrogen for these things is surely going to consume many times more energy than conventional electric traction.
Let's go for a ride on the Hydrogen Powered Train! This is an old 'Thameslink' train now converted by Porterbrook to be the Class 799 "Hydroflex" unit. I ...
depends just how much infrastructure is needed to electrify. The TP route is taking years because they are having to raise bridges, rebuild stations and so on. Not including track straightening which they are also doing. If there’s an infrequent service on this line then it may make sense. Refuel at the depot end. Also if the depot IS electrified then that’s how you get the hydrogen there
@Cyberspice I suspect discontinuous electrification with battery backup to bridge the gaps is the way to go if the infrastructure upgrades are too expensive. On the hydrogen point I was more thinking of how electrically expensive it is to make the stuff compared to directly powering the train.
What’s East West Rail? Is that the reopened Varsity line? Because the lines from Paddington to the West Country are electrified and the next major cross country route, Trans Pennine is currently being upgraded and already has bimode Class 80x s
@Sion [main] Electrification costs between £0.5m and £1.5m per single track kilometre. Maybe you can decrease that if you use battery power to bridge expensive bits.
I have nobody to shout this at right now but it seems like a shame for it to go unrecorded. So I offer this as a free piece of clichéd rage to anyone with occasion to use it.
Day made less good by the (male) cleaner who shouted at me in the ladies’ at St Pancras. “This is… woman!” he shouted. I calmly replied “indeed, and so am I” and shut the door of the cubicle. Gave him a cheery wave in his cleaning cupboard on my way out.
Americans: if you're thinking of leaving, beware before considering an asylum claim.
"Safe" countries have treaties recognising each other as safe, and do not recognise asylum claims from each other as valid. So if you as an American try to claim asylum there, at the moment you will be automatically rejected.
Instead, travel on a tourist visa. If things get bad for US trans people, this may eventually change.
The Netherlands and the US have a bilateral treaty called the DAFT (Dutch American Friendship Treaty) that will grant any American an automatic visa if you have investments in a Dutch business.
This can be your own business, so you can start a small business and just move. Talk to an immigration lawyer, but moving to The Netherlands should be comparatively easy for all Americans.
@hp You will need to deposit 5000 EUR in a Dutch bank account, set up a Dutch company (easy) and you will only be able to work for your company. And you must demonstrate you are 'highly skilled'. But it's an excellent alternative. The company can be a consultancy. We can assist folks with it. drop a line to usa-campaign@transrescue.org with a suggested time in NL+US friendly times for help
Well, we used a lawyer, maybe they just made something up then 😀 We weren't asking for any proof of any kind. My partner had to make a business plan but that was it as far as I remember it.
Adam
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in reply to Adam • •WOMUMP
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(and not felid as I typo'd at first)
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in reply to Alexandra Lanes • • •lucid and, dare i say it, pellucid
livid, morbid, rigid
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