MirthfulAlembic

I worry that people who rely on AI will become skilled in making it seem like they aren't. Fortunately a lot of them don't seem very good at that yet.

I've done a few job interviews where it was very clear the interviewee was using Chat GPT or something to answer almost every question. But there may soon come a day when it's not obvious, and then we waste time hiring someone incapable of critical thinking who types proprietary company information into an LLM prompt.

The Nauru article linked also points out that the large amount of mining has done away with most of what little arable land there was, making traditional garden culture impractical at scale. So, they sort of have to be dependent on foreign food imports, largely the kind you mention.

An acquaintance of mine has basically been doing this for years in the form of slop code written by the cheapest outsourcing firms on earth who cannot comprehend rudimentary requirements and have no concept of coding standards. But management insists this is the most cost effective way of doing things, rather than just having a competent group of qualified people do it right from the start.

It seems as depressing as you'd think.

Ohio has lost its relative population and economic significance in recent years, but historically it was a pretty significant state. To give an idea in terms of # of representatives in the House:

Ohio had more/equal reps compared to California until the 50s, Texas until the 60s, and Florida until the 90s. Its numbers have been very close to Illinois for the past century also.

The collective cultural awareness of cities in such a state holds inertia for a while, and Ohio still has a decent population despite some decline.

I don't have a Boston accent (RI) and say Wusstah, as does everyone from the area (including surrounding MA) I've known.

It's more Wusstah than Wooster in my experience.

It starts when the popcorn begins to cool enough that both it's safe to ram mouthfuls and it's a race against the clock to finish before it becomes cold.

McDonald's stopped using beef tallow for fries in 1990. I suppose that might be relatively recent if you are an elf.

I dunno about that. I bought a house well within what I could afford. The bank actually thought we made a mistake and reminded us they would approve a loan double the size of what we asked.

All it takes is two or three really expensive things needing work at the same time to blow your budget out of the water. And often there's no clear answer on what's truly urgent.

Water is entropy manifest to constantly remind you that anything you do is temporary and laughably futile on geologic timescales.

Gotta love having an old house. It's simultaneously reassuring and deeply stressful when a professional looks at something that seems really bad and just says, "Well, I can tell from the layers of paint that's been there a long time. So if it hasn't become a problem in all that time, it's probably fine. But give me a call if your house starts falling apart."

It doesn't surprise me. With how much focus there is on issues like trans athletes in the media and politics, people incorrectly assume the actual number of people "at issue" is in proportion. This is how we get state legislatures spending huge amounts of time creating legislation that will impact like three people.