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Yeah, it's gonna be remarkable how amazingly those guys will play on another team in 3 years time

This, by the way, is inaccurate. It's true if you only look at one specific program (to a point) but if you model systems as competing and cooperating sets of algorithms you end up being just fine. Basically both are true if you are assuming computers must provide a solution that is 100% true and accurate. Programs don't have to do this.

I wanted to add a couple of thoughts to the Blackwood discussion: In the above post I looked at the name Tytos. We do not know what relationship Tytos Blackwood had to Alyssa Blackwood, who was Lord Walder Frey's 4th wife. She was probably his great-aunt, going by the fact that she died around the time Tytos was born having first borne 5 children. She would have married Walder around 265 AC (early in King Aerys II's reign). The fact that her branch of the Frey family makes use of names with the Ty_ prefix as well (Tyta, Tysane), and furthermore has marriage alliances with the Brax family (who also use the name Tytos), and Lefford family (also of the Westerlands) further strengthens the evidence that the Blackwoods have some Lannister in their lineage. The evidence is therefore mounting that the current Blackwoods descend from the unnamed Lannister male who married a Baratheon woman in 178 AC (30 years before Tya+Gowen, who were 76 years before Cersei+Robert), during Aegon IV's reign (while Jeyne Lothston served as his mistress, House Lothston ascendant). This nameless couple had 3 daughters and 1 son.

Why should we believe them?

Have to disagree with that take. Shattered Sea felt noticably different and much less interesting to me than his other works, I definitely noticed a different style and characterization. Its not on the level of the books that came before it. Is it super young adult? No. But the characterization is definitely a lot more young adult than his other books, that is clear.

Well, it's an RPG made in Japan, so in the literal sense, sure. But in terms of JRPG being used as a genre marker (which I know is contentious in some areas anyway, but I feel like generally people know what is meant by it- especially in older games), it probably isn't a lot closer to Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest than it is to Baldur's Gate or whatever, no. It's really its own thing, and is a subgenre-defining game in its own right. To be fair though like, Fire Emblem is also not a JRPG in that sense and I'm not sure Persona (which I've not played) is either (though I've heard it said that the series is getting closer to it as it moves along). Heck, might be the right move for someone not into them to approach JRPGs via the gentle road.

LeBron is going to have Russell on the chopping block after that shit show.

A discussion what NATO/the west could or should have done will probably fill an entire book by now… Nato has struggled to even ramp up production of their own weapon systems (105, 120, 155 mm etc). IMHO it doesn’t make much sense to build extra new facilities that produce eastern systems since all western nations (including Ukraine) are/ have phasing them out or didn’t have them in the first place. (respectively in case of Ukraine they are also being destroyed by Russia). And from a long term logistical standpoint it makes no sense to have both nato standard weaponry and Soviet standard weaponry alongside each other. So building new or upgraded facilities only works if you have a long term commitment to this, money much better spent on producing and delivering western weapons to Ukraine ( or buying old eastern stocks around the world as a stopgap solution) I am not. There’s no end in sight in this war. Little hope of winning or return home as a winner. Little hope of surviving if you’re a frontline soldier. And even if you survive to the end of the war, what will be left of Ukraine? Ruins, mines, unexploded ammo, destruction everywhere and a very uncertain future with Russia probably hell bent on its revanchist policy and a very reluctant NATO & EU. Add to the fact that Ukrainian birthrates have dwindled since 1990, while male mortality has increased leaving lots of families with just one male member ( and thus unwilling to sacrifice him). The salary is also comparably bad and training and equipment, while miles better than in Russia isn’t top notch either. The euphoria early in the war when both the prospect of victory as well as the threat of total defeat were much greater is gone after a relentless grind of more than two years. The divisions within Ukrainian society are also starting to show up again…

Ukraine needs more soldiers. They have the hardware and tech they just need fresh bodies. I'm surprised there are not more volunteers.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-25-2024?

Try reading Godel Escher and Bach An Eternal Golden Braid. By Douglas Hofstadter. I found this the most easily understood explanation. If you take it slowly, you can follow the math.

I just read an article about an apparently recent survey amongst 1000 Australians done by the NGO whiteribbon. I couldn’t find the survey online but it comes from a reliable media source. It showed certain astonishing facts at least among the people participating in the survey, such as 44% of 18-34 year old males don’t believe that sexual acts without consent should be considered rape. Women and older men have significantly different options apparently. The article goes on to say that certain things such as male only schools and societies with more males than females make violence against women more abundant. Is this discussed in Australia?

Berserk Manga Ch 376 dropped after 7 months since last chapter, entitled... Sea's quivering surface and calamitous war's shadow

Well, yes and no. Those theorems prove that often problems cannot be solved perfectly, you can't always be sure that your answer is correct, and sometimes problems can't be solved at all. Human minds can work with these limitations, but more recently techniques to help computers work round them are being used as well. Though this of course means that we can't be sure that the answers the computers give us are correct, we can only hope that they are reasonably good answers most of the time.

Why can't NATO make ammo for Soviet-era weapons? NATO countries should have built up manufacturing for 152 mm artillery and 125 mm tank Ammo starting in 2022.

Agree. I don't have a problem with Pearsall. But I just watched my team lose a Super Bowl because of a lack of secondary depth and an inability to protect the QB... like... at all. Its probably a philosophical thing. I'd like to see them address the obvious weaknesses and go all in on running it back this year... while the front office is looking at contracts for three wide receivers and one of the best tight ends in the league and a QB nearing the end of his rookie contract. So while the numbers can work for this year, they are obviously drafting with an eye to next year and beyond.

And that’s an amusing bit of scorn given I was speaking of intelligence hardly at all >.< edit: I have no idea why I ever post from my phone, I simply couldn’t wait

Indeed.

Apparently Ukraine is running out of ammo for their mainly eastern bloc MBT fleet, especially the 125mm caliber. I doubt that the US can do all that much about that (unless they replace their MBTs with abrams). The Czechs/Estonians might be able to find some countries that are willing to sell though… Timur Ivanov one of the 12 (sic!!!) Deputy ministers of defense has been arrested by the FSB and is charged with corruption. Ivanov was mainly responsible for military properties, buildings, infrastructure and medical facilities. He lived a lavish lifestyle way above his salary as deputy minister and was accused of corruption by Navalny as well. He was appointed to his post by Shoigu. there are different rumors why he’s been arrested, some say because of the decade old FSB-military feud (especially after the recent FSB debacle against Isis-k), others point out that Ivanov and the military have overreached in replacing and absorbing all of Prighozins assets (he was super rich after all) others think it has to do that Putin and a new government will be sworn in in 2 weeks so there might be some reshuffling and someone has to take a fall/blame.

Nice! I spotted something I hadn't noticed the other day as well: “The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.” (ASOS, Jon X) And here we see Arya using "a sword without a hilt" while practicing her swordplay in the trees in the godswood at Harrenhal before Jaqen arrives to offer her 3 deaths: Her blade was much too light and had no proper grip, but she liked the sharp jagged splintery end. (ACOK, Arya IX).

Excellent point, I imagine someone has suggested using this as some kind of barometer of true intelligence, whether an AI can ever reason its way around Gödel like we can. I really need to read Nagel and Newman’s ‘Gödel’s Proof’ again, it needs refreshing every few years as I gradually forget how mental it is.

White guys named Cooper never work out in the NFL. I mean, when was the last time one of them won Super Bowl MVP? None in the past two years.

With the numbers of these threads and how ceaseless the legions of Stark haters are, I feel like Gingy being chased by all the zombified clones of his girlfriend in Scared Shrekless.

It’s not so much Pearsall I wasn’t a fan of but the value. Seems like they coulda traded down 10 picks and still be assured he was there.

They don't? This is news to me. Its pretty damn clear there's huge differences. For one, human's extract symbolic understanding and concepts from data that there's no proof AIs do. They may, someday, but they don't now. For another, humans are capable of grounding what they learn from data in reality. LLMs, so far, are spectacularly shitty at doing this, and only manage to overcome this and become useful because actual humans give feedback to reinforce the stuff they come up with which is compatible with reality, and downgrade the hallucinated crap. These are some major fundamental differences, and not even an exhaustive list.