Zompist Bboard Again

I am worried because one Quora answer I read said that scratching a car at all counts as an accident and not reporting it is considered a hit and run and thus a crime.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 12:05 pm I am worried because one Quora answer I read said that scratching a car at all counts as an accident and not reporting it is considered a hit and run and thus a crime.

People write all kinds of stuff on Quora. Again, I would not worry.

There is a tech startup called Andes that's gotten some investment capital recently, and as a result the marketing materials made their way across my desk.

Their website says they "empower microbes by engineering them," which is the most synergizing paradigms thing I've heard all day. It doesn't look like they've done any actual genetic engineering yet, but they're new. Instead it looks like they've fallen back on their counder's research in bacterial inoculation, and are selling seed corn that comes inoculated with various helpful microbes. This process is as old as the hills, and I can't see how Andes does it any differently. But oh, Lordy have they ever convinced their backers that they're not like other girls. They have this spiel about how their microbes make the plants draw carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the soil. Which, if you remember your third grade dioramas, is called photosynthesis. Unfotunately, whoever wrote that copy forgot about the fourth grade diorama that explains how carbon cycles through the world after being deposited in the soil by plants. Unless Andes has figured out how to make plants turn themselves into polystyrene, they haven't created a carbon sequestration technique.

Kids today. The Freedm app isn't even a joke.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:19 pm Their website says they "empower microbes by engineering them," which is the most synergizing paradigms thing I've heard all day. It doesn't look like they've done any actual genetic engineering yet, but they're new.

…you do know that there’s all kinds of synthetic biology, right?

They have this spiel about how their microbes make the plants draw carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the soil. Which, if you remember your third grade dioramas, is called photosynthesis.

Um, no it isn’t. Photosynthesis is when you use light to convert CO₂ and water to carbohydrates and O₂; there’s plenty of organisms which don’t store the carbohydrates anywhere in the soil. (Like, say, all those photosynthetic cyanobacteria.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:17 pm Um, no it isn’t. Photosynthesis is when you use light to convert CO₂ and water to carbohydrates and O₂; there’s plenty of organisms which don’t store the carbohydrates anywhere in the soil. (Like, say, all those photosynthetic cyanobacteria.)

To be fair, what Moose-tache refers to is the frequent case of photosynthesis being used to generate carbohydrates which are stored in plants' roots... or ends up in the soil when you plow the plants back into the ground at the end of the growing season.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:17 pm Um, no it isn’t. Photosynthesis is when you use light to convert CO₂ and water to carbohydrates and O₂; there’s plenty of organisms which don’t store the carbohydrates anywhere in the soil. (Like, say, all those photosynthetic cyanobacteria.)

What, in your dialect, does the word "carbohydrate" mean? Because it seems to mean something different to how I would use the term, as a biomolecule that contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (for example cellulose, the most common biomolecule on Earth's surface). Maybe in Australia the plants give off CO2 and the humans metabolise it into diatomic oxygen? This is the venting thread. If you want to be pedantic go bully malloc for thinking his dick is gonna fall off because of shoplifting or whatever. Or teach linguoboy how to use one of those hot new non-rotary phones. Don't come up to me and start mansplaining babby's first biochem to me after I've been poring over this woman's hastily translated agro-engineering papers on one cup of goddamn coffee because the machine's broken and I can't be arssed to put on pants and go to Starbucks. Not in the mood.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:17 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:17 pm Um, no it isn’t. Photosynthesis is when you use light to convert CO₂ and water to carbohydrates and O₂; there’s plenty of organisms which don’t store the carbohydrates anywhere in the soil. (Like, say, all those photosynthetic cyanobacteria.)

What, in your dialect, does the word "carbohydrate" mean? Because it seems to mean something different to how I would use the term, as a biomolecule that contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (for example cellulose, the most common biomolecule on Earth's surface).

I use it this way also. I continue to maintain that not all carbohydrates in fact end up in the soil.

Don't come up to me and start mansplaining babby's first biochem to me after I've been poring over this woman's hastily translated agro-engineering papers on one cup of goddamn coffee because the machine's broken and I can't be arssed to put on pants and go to Starbucks. Not in the mood.

And I’ve just read like 10 papers on exactly how electron transfer works in photosynthesis because I needed to do a presentation on organometalloradical chemistry. I’m not in the mood for misunderstandings of the topic either.

Ordered a drum pedal over a month ago. They don't ship to the US, so I've instead shipped to a friend in London. Except, it took over a week to get it figured out that customs and duty needed to be paid on it, and now it's been over a week since it was released from customs (in the paperwork, anyway) and it still hasn't physically been picked up by the delivery courier/physically released from customs. I paid good money for those pedals. I'm less than happy with the UK customs office right now.

Minor vent - I know perfectly well that there are bigger problems in the world: A few days ago I discovered that an English-language non-fiction book by Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies, which is about cancer, has been translated into German under the title Der König aller Krankheiten - that is, "The King of All Maladies". I'm still a little bit annoyed by that. I mean, why? Ok, I understand that translations can't always be literal, that esthetic and style considerations sometimes require some artistic license. But here, I don't see how the title is in any way improved by the inaccurate translation. It looks almost as if the translator wanted to flaunt her ability to get things wrong. Grumble mutter grumble.

At least they translated it. Some books (and films) these days don't get their titles translated into French e.g. Deep Work by Cal Newport (much as love the book itself).

Really depressed about everything going on now. The economy is about to crash, the Republicans will win congress in a landslide, and soon we will have to compete with sentient AIs for everything. The future seems bleaker than ever, with the most horrible dreams of neo-reaction about to become a reality against a backdrop of climate catastrophe.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 12:18 pm Really depressed about everything going on now. The economy is about to crash, the Republicans will win congress in a landslide, and soon we will have to compete with sentient AIs for everything.

I can't argue with the first two, but I think reports of "sentient AI" are overblown, due to a combination of the credulity of many journalists and the naïveté of Blake Lemoine. We should be less worried about "competition" from AIs and more concerned that they're chiefly being designed by techbros to share their own blinkered views of the world.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 1:06 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 12:18 pm Really depressed about everything going on now. The economy is about to crash, the Republicans will win congress in a landslide, and soon we will have to compete with sentient AIs for everything.

I can't argue with the first two, but I think reports of "sentient AI" are overblown, due to a combination of the credulity of many journalists and the naïveté of Blake Lemoine. We should be less worried about "competition" from AIs and more concerned that they're chiefly being designed by techbros to share their own blinkered views of the world.

Agreed. Also being depressed in and of itself can make everything seem much more hopeless than it really is. It's a vicious cycle so I hope you can find some things to get your mind off these mattes, Malloc, and find something that might help with your depressive condition. Even if I agree things aren't great rn I don't think things are completely hopeless just yet.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 1:06 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 12:18 pm Really depressed about everything going on now. The economy is about to crash, the Republicans will win congress in a landslide, and soon we will have to compete with sentient AIs for everything.

I can't argue with the first two, but I think reports of "sentient AI" are overblown, due to a combination of the credulity of many journalists and the naïveté of Blake Lemoine. We should be less worried about "competition" from AIs and more concerned that they're chiefly being designed by techbros to share their own blinkered views of the world.

I would not be worried about, well, self-aware AI's - apparently our most powerful AI's have about the intelligence of a frog. What I am worried about is that it is very easy to, intentionally or unintentionally, train AI's to share the worldviews of their creators (yes, racist AI's are definitely a thing), except that it is very hard to demand accountability of an AI as opposed to of a person, so all kinds of badness can happen which is simply dismissed as being due to "the algorithms".

linguistcat wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 1:23 pmAgreed. Also being depressed in and of itself can make everything seem much more hopeless than it really is. It's a vicious cycle so I hope you can find some things to get your mind off these mattes, Malloc, and find something that might help with your depressive condition. Even if I agree things aren't great rn I don't think things are completely hopeless just yet.

It seems difficult to get my mind off of all these looming catastrophes. How can I make my peace with spending the rest of my life under fascism or the whole world becoming uninhabitable from global warming? And that's assuming I manage to survive the coming recession, which seems incredibly optimistic.

I just had basically the second-worst date I’ve ever been on. I thought a matchmaking service might help me but I’m 0 for 6. Perhaps I am undateable.

I don't really know enough to say, but you probably aren't. There are billions of humans out there. Even 0.001% of humanity is 80,000 people.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:11 pm

linguistcat wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 1:23 pmAgreed. Also being depressed in and of itself can make everything seem much more hopeless than it really is. It's a vicious cycle so I hope you can find some things to get your mind off these mattes, Malloc, and find something that might help with your depressive condition. Even if I agree things aren't great rn I don't think things are completely hopeless just yet.

It seems difficult to get my mind off of all these looming catastrophes. How can I make my peace with spending the rest of my life under fascism or the whole world becoming uninhabitable from global warming? And that's assuming I manage to survive the coming recession, which seems incredibly optimistic.

If it's any consolation, this worries me too, although I have a feeling we'll come out the other end intact.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 8:05 pm I just had basically the second-worst date I’ve ever been on. I thought a matchmaking service might help me but I’m 0 for 6. Perhaps I am undateable.

Sorry about that. Bad dates are horribly depressing. But I don't think there are any undateable people.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:11 pm It seems difficult to get my mind off of all these looming catastrophes. How can I make my peace with spending the rest of my life under fascism or the whole world becoming uninhabitable from global warming? And that's assuming I manage to survive the coming recession, which seems incredibly optimistic.

Hang in there. The current situation sucks but I'm sure we'll make it somehow.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:11 pm

linguistcat wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 1:23 pmAgreed. Also being depressed in and of itself can make everything seem much more hopeless than it really is. It's a vicious cycle so I hope you can find some things to get your mind off these mattes, Malloc, and find something that might help with your depressive condition. Even if I agree things aren't great rn I don't think things are completely hopeless just yet.

It seems difficult to get my mind off of all these looming catastrophes. How can I make my peace with spending the rest of my life under fascism or the whole world becoming uninhabitable from global warming? And that's assuming I manage to survive the coming recession, which seems incredibly optimistic.

I take heart from the fact that millions of people before me have had similar thoughts through the ages and survived--thrived, even. Sure, at some point humanity will finally encountre a catastrophe which we can't overcome, but it hasn't happened yet so I have to hope I won't live to see it.