Notices by Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 10:29:47 JST 
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@fu Thanks for that. I was assuming "bonus kid" was some strange reference to a stepchild. But what you said makes more sense. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 10:25:25 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
So I now have a Bluesky account. I've never posted, just looked at the "Discover" stream and reported a few spammers. So it doesn't make any sense that I have a few followers.
There's no assurance that I'll continue using it. But if I decide I'm done, I'll probably just stop logging in. Same thing I did at X/Twitter. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 20-Nov-2024 14:52:30 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
Grandson_3's class learned about turkeys today. He wasn't descriptive enough to make it clear, but he did mention the sounds that they make. As we walked at the park after school, he heard an animal and said its sounds were similar to turkey sounds.
I'll be at Son_1's home the next couple of weeks, so I won't hear about next week's school experiences. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 20-Nov-2024 11:36:11 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
I keep seeing people looking forward to Trump cutting or ending US involvement in NATO & US support for Ukraine.
Hasn't anyone read a history book around here? Didn't the schools require them to study US history and government?
During the build up to WWI ("The Great War") and its early stages about a century ago, the US had its head in the sand. But as a late entrant that didn't have already its people and infrastructure being overrun or assaulted, the nation was able to come out of it in a good spot.
In the late 1930s through the mid 1940s, the same thing happened with WWII. The US's isolationism (and being separated from the combatants by oceans) helped keep things good until the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the war to the US.
In WWIII (in preparation since at least 2008--don't pretend it is avoidable, either), ignoring or failing to prepare will not prevent severe damage to infrastructure and population. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 14:26:24 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/james-webb-bright-galaxies-early-universe/ [www zmescience com]
#JWST finds unexpectedly bright galaxies in a time when dark matter theory expected them to be smaller and dimmer. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 13:25:06 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
"Putin has failed. ... the West must prepare for the Kremlin's collapse." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0H9bRPeUck [www youtube com]
I think this is wishful thinking. I think Mr Putin's position is relatively secure. Short of a complete battlefield rout that puts Russia under the control of an occupier (fat chance of that!), Russian institutions, the Russian people, and even the Russian oligarchs will stand with Putin.
A few months from now, when the total Russian war deaths reach 1 000 000, people will still be saying the same. They often compare this to what happened when the Soviets had something like 50 000 casualties during their invasion of Afghanistan, but the invasion of Ukraine is already around fifteen times that many without any significant threat to his continued rule. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 05:13:33 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@sun
> ... their pathological social culture ...
Ah, yes. The initial and subsequent Mastodon growth waves were full of that. The Fediverse has never fully recovered. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 03:06:11 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@sun@shitposter That doesn't matter anyway. At any time, $COMPANY can alter its TOS, and users' only choice is accept or delete their accounts--which may not delete their data for some time ... during which time, the company will apply the NEW TOS to the data.
The laws need to be changed, so that data collected under one set of terms is ALWAYS subject to those terms. TOS changes should apply to data collected going forward, not to prior data. But good luck finding enough congressionals who can understand what you're trying to tell them AND haven't been bought and paid for by big data collection corporations. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 02:38:09 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@sun Must have happened after 1986. Before that, I read at least two newspapers front to back (except the entertainment section and parts of the classified ads) each day.
I'm sure it would have been as attention-getting as those "the Christ is now here" ads. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 02:30:22 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@VD15 @sun No, it generally isn't. Too much saturated fat can cause cardiovascular issues (which is why medical doctors still generally recommend vegetable oil over animal fats), but in moderation, even high sat-fat substances like coconut oil are okay.
There are some vegetable oils that are artificially (fully or partially) saturated to change their consistency. I think those are worse.
I also try to avoid something called "trans fat". -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 02:02:11 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@sun You shouldn't have regular Coke anyway, because of the sugar content, but Home Depot in SoCal sells "Mexican Coke" bottled in Mexico with real sugar instead of corn syrup. It tastes **much** better. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 01:59:12 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@sun I don't remember early 1980s McDonald's fries as being anything spectacular, though they were pretty good if you could get them made fresh. In-N-Out fries of the time were really awesome IF you ordered them well-done, no-salt and then ate them immediately.
Some time in the 1990s, McDonald's fries were really great. I don't recall whether they were using beef fat or hydrogenated vegetable oil by that time.
The best fries I ever had were cooked by my siblings and I using Crisco vegetable shortening in the 1970s.
(French fries have been a top-5 favorite food since the 1960s, but most food places serve really terrible fries.) -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 11:34:41 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
Stack Overflow / Stack Exchange moving to Azure and GCP. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/404231/we-re-finally-going-to-the-cloud [meta stackexchange com]
I'm glad they're honest that operating in the cloud will be more expensive. I think the usual reasoning I see is "the cloud will save us money" and that's often not the case. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 03:12:13 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@clacke That's awesome! GD2 recently turned 13. Son_1 usually does something special for her. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 03:08:34 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@clacke That's awesome! GD2 recently turned 13. Son_1 usually does something special for her. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Friday, 15-Nov-2024 09:39:08 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
@hj Birthday greetings from USA. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Nov-2024 12:22:02 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
Also, I appreciate having their built in interpreter, because it frees me from having to install everything the courses cover. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Nov-2024 12:13:36 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
Less than a month left of the #DataCamp subscription. I need to look at the "professional" tracks and pick something that I can accomplish in that time.
Lots not to like ... in many ways, their courses and especially their practice exercises look like they hired a couple of college kids to build them over a weekend, then posted them without having an editor look them over.
In multiple courses under the subjects of Python, SQL, Julia, and R-Lang, the exercises will mis-spell a language keyword or some library function / method that is widely used in Data Science. In a couple, the answer is already entered into the question ... just select the choice that matches what they've just showed.
In the "real world" projects, they tend to go beyond what the courses have covered. Yet, they're opinionated about which functions / methods are used (and sometimes even the order they're used in). So you do some research, find some functions that produce the exact desired results, and the project is rejected because your research didn't uncover the desired functions to use.
Now, there's lots to like, too. For example, despite having both R-lang and Julia (and Scala) on my to-learn list for years, this was my first hands-on experience with all three. -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Nov-2024 09:41:15 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
I did see an article fairly recently in which retail stores that replaced human cashiers with automated checkout lines found that human customers needed a significant amount of help using the terminals, so that the companies couldn't reduce staff as much as expected. The automated checkout lines were also not significantly faster, on average, than human-staffed checkout lines.
And customers were getting very frustrated over it.
This doesn't even count the claims about massive increases in theft.
(My personal thing has always been that if I'm going to do work myself that you otherwise would have paid someone else to do, you need to split the savings with me. Well, that and you need to pay for employee retraining.) -
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Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37j1@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Nov-2024 09:35:17 JST
Linux Walt (@lnxw37j1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
Here's my (partial) take on "AI" regulations.
Now that the genie is out of the bottle, we already know some organization in some country is going to proceed with developing AI. Thus, regulations meant to kill it are wasted effort. Instead, we'll all be better off if we figure out ways to focus where AI development efforts are heading.
And that includes finding ways to spread the benefits more evenly throughout society, while preventing those who develop and deploy AI-based tools from pushing the costs / harms on others.
"But that sounds like socialism!," I hear you saying. Not at all. Think about the places where AI-based tools are likely to be deployed first: "anywhere that paid humans interact with human customers" is going to be high up on the list. So we have to ensure that the costs aren't borne only by the customers and (former) employees and that the benefits don't acrue only to the companies that formerly employeed the customer service staffers.
That includes requiring that there be a way for a human customer to escape the robot and interact with another human instead.
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