Charlie Loyd @vruba@everything.happens.horse

Like, look, there are real problems around how we think and act about expertise In These Times. That’s real.

In addition to (not instead of) that, it’s, you know, the thing where people complain about stuff posted by people they follow. If you don’t want to see people talking about what they had for lunch, unfollow @69_lunchlover_420. If you don’t want to see topical takes from people who tend to post a lot of topical takes, there is solution to that too.

I appreciate the “Amazing that so many submarine experts are also Kremlin experts!” zingers going around, because yeah, sure. But also, logging into social media and being annoyed that people you follow have opinions on issues of the day seems a bit narrow?

Neat. https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html

Like I can totally see both the “AI now corrects itself, is unstoppable; how does this affect bitcoin?” headlines and the “Yes, I spent all of March calling people credulous fools for not knowing that self-correction is the exclusive purview of ensouled life, but nevertheless this is Just Math” takes and I wish we could just skip that part of everything.

As long as I’m in a listy mood, this language model that backspaces out of dead ends is interesting because:

1. It’s an example of something categorically less interesting than the pro-LLM camp is going to claim, and more interesting than the anti-LLM camp wants to talk about; that gap seems important.

2. It points toward the text diffusion models I keep trying to subtly warn people are probably coming without saying so explicitly, oops, backspace backspace backspace.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.05426

It’s the time of year when you can see a little dab of blue on the far edge of the arctic sea ice. https://botsin.space/@dscovr_epic/110580368514917463

1. From the abstract, I think the actual article is much less about blaming scientists for policy failures than the headlines make it sound.

2. I can’t read past the abstract of this article on interpreting science for public use because it’s paywalled.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4057045-catch-22-scientific-communication-failures-linked-to-faster-rising-seas/

Anyway, if anyone out there is thinking about developing pollen allergies, I guess my advice is to have a pretty careful think about it before you make the leap. Might not be as fun as you’ve been told.

Basically it seems like if there’s a window open I cough. This creates some difficulties because I like fresh air and dislike running the AC.

This seems to be the year I got allergies, and, wonderfully, the symptoms are somewhat like those caused by infection with SARS-CoV-2, the well-known novel coronavirus.

Cover of a high school Earth science textbook–ass picture. https://botsin.space/@dscovr_epic/110572308644962989

It’s called the Agreeing With Charlie Method and it has the potential to streamline many aspects of our society.

Reflecting once again on how much more pleasant and illuminating online discourse would be if people simply put aside their self-regard and took the time – before commenting on anything – to sit down and learn to see everything exactly as I do.

Donne’s “Batter my heart” but about the numpy broadcasting rules.

Like you know the friend who’s always complaining about a certain kind of bad social interaction? And sometimes (not always) it becomes clear that they are just bad at that kind of interaction? I feel like 15% of the internet by volume is that.

If someone keeps finding themselves in the kind of circumstance where where they have to say a certain kind of thing – different circumstances and the same thing over and over again – consider that they may possibly be the ones putting themselves in that circumstance because they like saying the thing.

When I say “consider” here I really mean just consider. Don’t assume bad faith. Very much don’t discount people who are stuck in systemic traps. But some people, on some topics, sometimes….

Collaborating on some diffusion model experiments with the cat.

Back from vacation and attending to important chores such as averaging big stacks of images from webcams to see if they look neat.