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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: November 6th, 2023

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  • As an expat who’s recently visited back, I’m astounded at how UK smokers behave. Not even on a night out either; the chef on break flicking the finished end into the street puddle, folks lighting up right outside shop entrances, or the general lack of awareness towards smoking around children. Socially learned behavior that never gets the same tutting you might a speeding car or queue jumper.

    I took a trip abroad years ago and was bewildered to see a guy light up and then pull out a foil-type pouch too. Not only did the butt go into that pouch for later disposal, but all his ash did too. I’ve heard Japan is much the same way, even Americans are far better culturally about sequestering themselves before smoking.





  • You are not part of the community of Israel… You are not part of the national democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law… We say to this horrible man and those like him: you are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.

    Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, after the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.

    I’ve haven’t seen such a strong condemnation of Jewish extremism or terrorism since from any MK or PM. The current lot are instead fanning the flames actively, and I’m glad to see someone in the government call Itmar out publicly.



  • Per the Tesla patent, they took the approach of laminating dissimilarly toughened layers with a special adhesive. Unlike actual ballistic glass using a polycarbonate/polymer layer in the stack, Tesla’s 100% glass and glue is just better than tempered:

    …at most a 10% chance of failure with an impact of 2 J.

    However this glass type is rejected on the side and rear windows by everyone else, because it slows emergency rescue efforts - laminated windshield glass is difficult enough when no other rescue path is available.



  • Correct. Dress it up however you like, but LLM and ML programs are probability gamblers all the way down. We’re building a conversation tool, that doesn’t truly comprehend the language because it’s a calculator at its core - it’s like asking your eyeballs to see in UHF frequencies.

    They’re called “computers” for a reason, and we are deep in the myopic tech tree of further and further complexity. The current wave of AI has solid potential, but not globally for all applications. It is a great at ‘digital assistant’ roles and is already killing it in CCTV monitoring software. Mindjourney can make incredible images, but it can’t make art. ChatGPT can write, but it’s a terrible author or speechwriter.


  • No, I want him to call their bluff and rise to the challenge of meeting this constitutional crisis. The top court in the land has gone off the rails, and seemingly in collusion with a concerted effort to destroy the rule of law.

    Blithely waiting until the election to “let the people defeat Trump” is dereliction. This ruling may be curated in deference for Trump, but unless it is challenged forcefully it will not just go away on January 7th 2024 if Trump loses again. Because when the question of “What are ‘official acts’ v ‘private acts’ then?” comes up, it’ll go right back to the SCotUS the Heritage Foundation and their interpretations.



  • Lobbying groups. One of which advocates for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which is essentially opposed to Likud policy.

    lobbying, any attempt by individuals or private interest groups to influence the decisions of government; in its original meaning it referred to efforts to influence the votes of legislators, generally in the lobby outside the legislative chamber.

    Again, that hardly meets the “controls British politics” argument. An unwarranted and potentially scandalous level of quid-pro-quo/ influence sure - but the Russian money and rot is more important to root out of British politics imo




  • I had a former workplace like that, it was beautiful 🥹

    We had a hot seat meeting where each department representative wasn’t even in the room until their individual staggered start time kicked in. One out, one in, cycling through each department until the meeting was over. They get to go back to their work and not be ‘meat’ in the room for fifteen minutes or more, we got focused reports from each as they filed in and out.

    Sometimes I miss working for Germans, but “alles in Ordnung” cuts both ways - good luck breaking through the bureaucracy reporting chain and getting quick results