Xhieron

Freight rail is still alive in my area–and that means commuter rail could be. But like a lot of places, the public has been duped into voting against their own interests. I don’t want to hijack the thread, but it’s an issue that–if you care about it, you should be voting for Amtrak Joe. Public transportation needs to be part of the nation’s climate agenda, and the Criminal Cheetoh wants to sacrifice us all on the altar of petrol.

The problem is that the infrastructure doesn’t exist, and introducing it is cost-prohibitive for large parts of the US. I would love to be able to take a train from my small town to the nearest metro area 30 miles away and then take a tube to a block away from my destination–but that’s just not going to happen in my lifetime, because the city can’t afford to install a subway, and the auto lobby won the war against commuter rail before I was born.

Could it be better? Sure. Might it become better? Maybe, but probably not in my lifetime.

In the meantime, people are de facto dependent on cars. Destroying infrastructure necessary to support the reality of how people must, through no fault of their own, travel punishes the traveling public without addressing the actual problem.

If we’re going to transition to better transit infrastructure, we first have to build the better infrastructure–and pay for it by eliminating unseating political opposition. Only then can we dismantle these kinds of monstrosities without disenfranchising the people who depend on them.

Really? Didn’t stop me…

Just cheat? Whatever happened to class cheating? In the old days if the game was too hard and you didn’t have a big brother to do it for you, you just put in the godmode code or turned on a trainer or something.

Some games are just hard. That’s what makes getting good at them feel rewarding. The Souls games haven’t really been for me either (due to the pking–not so much the difficulty), but it’s not like the game makers owe me anything.

That’s a game of legal Russian roulette I wouldn’t want to play. Eventually he’s going to rip off the wrong person, and in the meantime all his victims have the option of sitting on their claims (SOL notwithstanding) to find out if he ever makes any money.

Say more about this? Why is it a worse profession? Anywhere I can get a layperson-friendly deep dive on this (that doesn’t require a graduate degree in mathematics)? I’m fascinated by the nuance between niche academic disciplines and the “politics” of academia.

Windows 10 LTSC 2021 ends support in 2027 (although it doesn’t matter quite as much). And it’s likely that the Win 11 LTSC later this year will necessarily be free from much of 11’s bullshit. Linux is still the right call, but for those of us who need to run a Windows machine for whatever reason, there are alternatives, so, you know… yarr.

That was the point… Did you reply to the wrong comment?

That’s flattering, but I was actually just expecting a press release. So where is it?

She sure can’t. Sounds like all OpenAI has to do is produce the voice actor they used.

So where is she? …

Right.

AI = Absent Indians

Christmas.

As a young teenager: Do not start working until you have to. Once you start, you’ll never stop.

Thank you for this. That was a fantastic survey of some non-materialistic perspectives on consciousness. I have no idea what future research might reveal, but it’s refreshing to see that there are people who are both very interested in the questions and also committed to the scientific method.

We have not created the heavens and the earth and everything in between except for a purpose. And the Hour is certain to come, so forgive graciously.

15:85 Quran

I’m incredibly fascinated by the ghost comparison. Is the probability that ghosts are a real physical phenomenon higher or lower than the probability that aliens exist or have visited us? That’s an extremely interesting question, and I’m sure someone could do a statistical meta-analysis comparing the incidence of, say, UFO sightings with the incidence of paranormal experiences (if such an analysis doesn’t already exist). Both questions seem like the things that should be generally empirically falsifiable (and indeed, specific instances certainly are), but humanity’s curiosity about both has proven remarkably durable despite centuries of curiosity and myriad efforts to settle (negatively) both questions once and for all.

SO close. Just another five or ten seconds to finish the whole license. I would love to see someone cover this thing and tie it off.

The Democrats need to immediately trumpet this thing from the rooftops. The GOP wants to take away Social Security and Medicare. 170 of them put their names on this budget, if NBC is to be believed.

The Republicans want you to never be able to retire, and they want you to never have the healthcare that your parents and grandparents had or that they themselves enjoy. They want you to be poor and stay poor, and they want the same for your children.

Lawyer here, and generally no. At best, the judgment could be persuasive to other courts in the First Circuit–and of course that’s what Nintendo wants, hence the effort to craft language that could be easily ported to other sympathetic courts–but the legal theory is absolutely not binding on other parties until/unless the finding/rationale is adopted by a higher court.

Really? I’d be very interested in seeing a peer reviewed article in Nature in which someone reputable claims to have disproven the existence of the soul (especially without making a bunch of other ontological assumptions first). Can you point me to one?

As far as I can tell, the existence of a soul, like the existence of God, is inherently a non-scientific proposition–i.e., it is not falsifiable. But correct me if I’m wrong.