Comment So am I a cave man ? (Score 4, Insightful) 28
I have never used an AI to write code. The code that I write I understand and am able to document.
Comment i just took the exams (Score 2, Informative) 215
Let's start with math.
I sampled all the questions marked hard.
I felt the questions were often obscurities for no valuable reason. It was as though they wanted to test reading comprehension rather than mathematics. As a dyslexic, I disapprove of this.
That said, there were no questions on the exam at any level that were more difficult than "sorta trivial". I think Khan Academy (I've watched every math video on the site as of 2021) covers every topic on the exam by 9th or 10th grade math.
Reading
Oh holy hell. I started by reading an essay... Nay... A diatribe on the importance of communicating clearly through simple wording. The author mastered the art of the 10 word run on sentence (feels as though it will never end) and perfected wording their sentences in the most technically proper but naturally uncomfortable forms. The author conveyed all their points in the first page or so and then used substantially more text to annoy the reader with absolutely unnecessary and uninteresting examples. The author should read Plato and Cicero on rhetoric as they have absolutely no knowledge of it themselves.
I can honestly say that I grew so bored of the writing that eventually started skipping a bit.
The questions were ugly. I'd like to believe I am skilled at these types of exams. But in the case of multiple choice questions, there were often intentionally ambiguous choices.... and I felt this was true for even the basic questions.
I've taken similar national exams in 5 different languages. (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Italian). I faired poorly on Swedish and Italian because I understand them only due to their similarities to other languages.
The other countries had much harder math exams but that's not unusual because at least Scandinavian countries don't teach math. They teach math exam tricks to a very advanced level.
Reading exams in other countries are much better. The texts are much less pretentious and favor vocabulary common people would actually employ. Not like the author I mentioned earlier who I guess hero worshipped Chaucer.
The one notable exception I've encountered is the Norwegian B2 language exam. As someone comfortable reading university research papers written in varying degrees of Norwegian complexity the wording employed on the Norwegian B2 reading exam, a test of whether you can communicate without you peers having to change how they communicate in order to facilitate you, I encountered entire essays where I couldn't even guess what they meant. I believe this was because rather the author of those essays didn't respect the spirit or intent of the exam, a test of a person's ability to communicate and function in real world environments, they made it an academic test which tested syntax and semantics.
In summary, I wouldn't be concerned by the reading scores. I feel strongly this is a reflection upon the authors of that topic of the exam. I would be concerned by the mathematics. The exam was trivial. I've felt strongly for some time that math should be entirely self paced. Classrooms destroy mathematics. If you miss one topic you may as well just stop or retake the entire year. Teachers should focus on grading whether students learned the topic in math or if they memorized the patterns.
P.S. As a point of interest, I have evaluated many adults who scored with top grades all through school but never learned math. When a person learns math, there is no memorization involved. If you understand it, you can figure it out. "Top achievers" memorize and regurgitate. When they feel as though the information no longer holds value, they forget it.
I sampled all the questions marked hard.
I felt the questions were often obscurities for no valuable reason. It was as though they wanted to test reading comprehension rather than mathematics. As a dyslexic, I disapprove of this.
That said, there were no questions on the exam at any level that were more difficult than "sorta trivial". I think Khan Academy (I've watched every math video on the site as of 2021) covers every topic on the exam by 9th or 10th grade math.
Reading
Oh holy hell. I started by reading an essay... Nay... A diatribe on the importance of communicating clearly through simple wording. The author mastered the art of the 10 word run on sentence (feels as though it will never end) and perfected wording their sentences in the most technically proper but naturally uncomfortable forms. The author conveyed all their points in the first page or so and then used substantially more text to annoy the reader with absolutely unnecessary and uninteresting examples. The author should read Plato and Cicero on rhetoric as they have absolutely no knowledge of it themselves.
I can honestly say that I grew so bored of the writing that eventually started skipping a bit.
The questions were ugly. I'd like to believe I am skilled at these types of exams. But in the case of multiple choice questions, there were often intentionally ambiguous choices.... and I felt this was true for even the basic questions.
I've taken similar national exams in 5 different languages. (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Italian). I faired poorly on Swedish and Italian because I understand them only due to their similarities to other languages.
The other countries had much harder math exams but that's not unusual because at least Scandinavian countries don't teach math. They teach math exam tricks to a very advanced level.
Reading exams in other countries are much better. The texts are much less pretentious and favor vocabulary common people would actually employ. Not like the author I mentioned earlier who I guess hero worshipped Chaucer.
The one notable exception I've encountered is the Norwegian B2 language exam. As someone comfortable reading university research papers written in varying degrees of Norwegian complexity the wording employed on the Norwegian B2 reading exam, a test of whether you can communicate without you peers having to change how they communicate in order to facilitate you, I encountered entire essays where I couldn't even guess what they meant. I believe this was because rather the author of those essays didn't respect the spirit or intent of the exam, a test of a person's ability to communicate and function in real world environments, they made it an academic test which tested syntax and semantics.
In summary, I wouldn't be concerned by the reading scores. I feel strongly this is a reflection upon the authors of that topic of the exam. I would be concerned by the mathematics. The exam was trivial. I've felt strongly for some time that math should be entirely self paced. Classrooms destroy mathematics. If you miss one topic you may as well just stop or retake the entire year. Teachers should focus on grading whether students learned the topic in math or if they memorized the patterns.
P.S. As a point of interest, I have evaluated many adults who scored with top grades all through school but never learned math. When a person learns math, there is no memorization involved. If you understand it, you can figure it out. "Top achievers" memorize and regurgitate. When they feel as though the information no longer holds value, they forget it.
Comment Re:Glassholes (Score 1) 68
Back to naive (probably American too), every time people are asked to face realities that make them uncomfortable, they accuse people of ludicrous nonsense like siding with maga or some other nonsense like believing in Bill Gates conspiracies.
I'm working myself to build an app and/or standardize API to link health monitoring data acquired from phones and wearables into federal medical databases for civilized countries where people are lucky enough to have governments who actually care about the welfare of their people. It's an opt-in service allowing people to choose to provide invasive data to their doctors including even GPS tracking data. So, if you get poisoned it could be useful to know where you've been to identify the poison and prevent others.
I also work with nanotech. We are experimenting with electronics that can gather data when passing through you.
Do you feel it's difficult to believe that these technologies may eventually converge? Or that it may even reach the point where these sensors a use in water management for troubleshooting the network but are seen to have health benefits? Imagine if we could produce nanotech indicators and phone sensors that would allow tracking all public water through the network, people's bodies and waste management. Each indicator would transmit nothing but a serial number. This would be so insanely useful. Airbags for water. I'll chat with my boss about it. I'd bet he could get funding for that.
And for the toilet robots. No we don't. For the sake of brevity and avoiding macroeconomics, the toilet robot is an incredible ROI. Need proof? Look at Japanese toilet seats. Toilet paper is surely cheaper.
The robot flushing would also clean. This is long overdue. Transgenderism alone has forced the need for effective methods of maintaining unisex toilet stalls. Robots will facilitate this. You finish and exit the stall and a robot rolls in to flush and clean. Same for the sinks. Men in general require great assistance sticking things in holes. Paper towels land next to the bin, toilet paper on the floor, tinkles everywhere. The smell issue too.
There are human assisted AI droids coming to the bathrooms. I'd bet your soul on it.
I'm working myself to build an app and/or standardize API to link health monitoring data acquired from phones and wearables into federal medical databases for civilized countries where people are lucky enough to have governments who actually care about the welfare of their people. It's an opt-in service allowing people to choose to provide invasive data to their doctors including even GPS tracking data. So, if you get poisoned it could be useful to know where you've been to identify the poison and prevent others.
I also work with nanotech. We are experimenting with electronics that can gather data when passing through you.
Do you feel it's difficult to believe that these technologies may eventually converge? Or that it may even reach the point where these sensors a use in water management for troubleshooting the network but are seen to have health benefits? Imagine if we could produce nanotech indicators and phone sensors that would allow tracking all public water through the network, people's bodies and waste management. Each indicator would transmit nothing but a serial number. This would be so insanely useful. Airbags for water. I'll chat with my boss about it. I'd bet he could get funding for that.
And for the toilet robots. No we don't. For the sake of brevity and avoiding macroeconomics, the toilet robot is an incredible ROI. Need proof? Look at Japanese toilet seats. Toilet paper is surely cheaper.
The robot flushing would also clean. This is long overdue. Transgenderism alone has forced the need for effective methods of maintaining unisex toilet stalls. Robots will facilitate this. You finish and exit the stall and a robot rolls in to flush and clean. Same for the sinks. Men in general require great assistance sticking things in holes. Paper towels land next to the bin, toilet paper on the floor, tinkles everywhere. The smell issue too.
There are human assisted AI droids coming to the bathrooms. I'd bet your soul on it.
Comment New tools take time to learn (Score 1) 57
The number of developers capable of clearly expressing their requirements is small.
I posit that the greatest gains are achieved by the most coherent communicators.
I have seen massive gains from using AI. I turn on the microphone and dictate what I want. I break tasks into small achievable tasks with clearly defined goals and strict testing requirements. I make the AI commit changes to git and monitor the CI/CD pipeline. I constantly review code and train the models (I generally use three in parallel and choose the best result) to produce the code and comments I prefer.
But it takes time and effort to learn the tools
I posit that the greatest gains are achieved by the most coherent communicators.
I have seen massive gains from using AI. I turn on the microphone and dictate what I want. I break tasks into small achievable tasks with clearly defined goals and strict testing requirements. I make the AI commit changes to git and monitor the CI/CD pipeline. I constantly review code and train the models (I generally use three in parallel and choose the best result) to produce the code and comments I prefer.
But it takes time and effort to learn the tools
Comment Education or degree? (Score 1) 63
Kids like my daughter are obsessed with learning. They avoid AI because they'd rather get a lower grade but learn the topics. Other kids want top grades but figure they can learn it later if they choose.
I never look at grades when evaluating CVs. I look at github
I never look at grades when evaluating CVs. I look at github
Comment Re:Well done Germany (Score 1) 105
shut down their nuclear power plants before the end of their originally planned decommission date.
The shut down their plants as a result of the scare of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, this is now seen as a mistake but at the time the big worry was escaping radiation.
Comment Well done Germany (Score 1) 105
please continue to reduce use of coal in spite of some other countries trying to burn more. Future generations will thank you.
Submission + - Google's $45 Million Contract With Netanyahu's Office to Spread Israeli Propagan (dropsitenews.com) 1
Alain Williams writes: Publicly available government contracts show that Israel’s advertising bureau, which reports to the prime minister’s office, has since embarked on a mass advertising and public messaging effort to conceal the hunger crisis. The push includes the use of American influencers widely reported on last month. It also includes a high-dollar spending spree on paid advertising, yielding tens of millions for Google, YouTube, X, Meta, and other tech platforms.
“There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie,” asserted a propaganda video published by Israel’s foreign ministry to Google’s YouTube video sharing platform in late August and viewed more than 6 million times. Much of the video’s reach results from an ad placed during an ongoing and previously unreported $45 million (NIS 150 million) advertising campaign initiated between Google and Netanyahu’s office in late June. The contract—which is with both YouTube and Google's advertising campaign management platform, Display & Video 360—explicitly characterizes the ad campaign as hasbara, a Hebrew word whose meaning is somewhere between public relations and propaganda.
Records show that the Israeli government similarly spent $3 million (NIS 10 million) for an advertising campaign with X. The French and Israeli advertising platform Outbrain/Teads is also set to receive roughly $2.1 million (NIS 7 million).
The existence of an Israeli Google ads campaign to discredit the UN’s primary aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, was similarly reported by WIRED last year. Hadas Maimon, head of public awareness for Israel’s diaspora ministry, stated during the March 2 Knesset hearing that, “For almost a year now, we have been leading a major campaign on the issue of UNRWA.”
“There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie,” asserted a propaganda video published by Israel’s foreign ministry to Google’s YouTube video sharing platform in late August and viewed more than 6 million times. Much of the video’s reach results from an ad placed during an ongoing and previously unreported $45 million (NIS 150 million) advertising campaign initiated between Google and Netanyahu’s office in late June. The contract—which is with both YouTube and Google's advertising campaign management platform, Display & Video 360—explicitly characterizes the ad campaign as hasbara, a Hebrew word whose meaning is somewhere between public relations and propaganda.
Records show that the Israeli government similarly spent $3 million (NIS 10 million) for an advertising campaign with X. The French and Israeli advertising platform Outbrain/Teads is also set to receive roughly $2.1 million (NIS 7 million).
The existence of an Israeli Google ads campaign to discredit the UN’s primary aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, was similarly reported by WIRED last year. Hadas Maimon, head of public awareness for Israel’s diaspora ministry, stated during the March 2 Knesset hearing that, “For almost a year now, we have been leading a major campaign on the issue of UNRWA.”
Submission + - Florida plans to become first state to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates (apnews.com)
skam240 writes: Florida plans to become the first state to eliminate vaccine mandates, a longtime cornerstone of public health policy for keeping schoolchildren and adults safe from infectious diseases.
State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who announced the decision Wednesday, cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as “immoral” intrusions on people’s rights that hamper parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.
Florida’s move, a significant departure from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among schoolchildren, is a notable embrace of the Trump administration’s public health agenda led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist.
State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who announced the decision Wednesday, cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as “immoral” intrusions on people’s rights that hamper parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.
Florida’s move, a significant departure from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among schoolchildren, is a notable embrace of the Trump administration’s public health agenda led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist.
Submission + - Florida will work to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates in the state (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida will work to phase out all childhood vaccine mandates in the state, building on the effort by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to curb vaccine requirements and other health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DeSantis also announced on Wednesday the creation of a state-level “Make America Healthy Again” commission modeled after similar initiatives pushed at the federal level by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On the vaccines, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as an “immoral” intrusion on people’s rights bordering on “slavery,” and hampers parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.
“People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” said Ladapo, who has frequently clashed with the medical establishment, at a news conference in Valrico, Florida, in the Tampa area. “They don’t have the right to tell you what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”
The state Health Department, Ladapo said, can scrap its own rules for some vaccine mandates, but others would require action by the Florida Legislature. He did not specify any particular vaccines but repeated several times the effort would end “all of them. Every last one of them.”
Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is running for Orlando mayor, said in a social media post that scrapping vaccines “is reckless and dangerous” and could cause outbreaks of preventable disease.
“This is a public health disaster in the making for the Sunshine State,” she said on the social platform X.
Meanwhile, the Democratic governors of Washington, Oregon and California announced Wednesday that they created an alliance to safeguard health policies, contending that the administration of President Donald Trump is politicizing public health decisions.
The partnership plans to coordinate health guidelines by aligning immunization plans based on recommendations from respected national medical organizations, according to a joint statement from Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington, Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.
In Florida, vaccine mandates for child day care facilities and public schools include shots for measles, chickenpox, hepatitis B, Diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP), polio and other diseases, according to the state Health Department’s website.
Under DeSantis, Florida resisted imposing COVID vaccines on schoolchildren, requiring “passports” for places that draw crowds, school closures and mandates that workers get the shots to keep their jobs.
“I don’t think there’s another state that’s done as much as Florida. We want to stay ahead of the curve,” the governor said.
The state “MAHA” commission would look into such things as allowing informed consent in medical matters, promoting safe and nutritious food, boosting parental rights regarding medical decisions about their children, and eliminating “medical orthodoxy that is not supported by the data,” DeSantis said. The commission will be chaired by Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Florida first lady Casey DeSantis.
“We’re getting government out of the way, getting government out of your lives,” Collins said.
The commission’s work will help inform a large “medical freedom package” to be introduced in the Legislature next session, which would address the vaccine mandates required by state law and make permanent the recent state COVID decisions relaxing restrictions, DeSantis said.
“There will be a broad package,” the governor said.
DeSantis also announced on Wednesday the creation of a state-level “Make America Healthy Again” commission modeled after similar initiatives pushed at the federal level by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On the vaccines, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as an “immoral” intrusion on people’s rights bordering on “slavery,” and hampers parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.
“People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” said Ladapo, who has frequently clashed with the medical establishment, at a news conference in Valrico, Florida, in the Tampa area. “They don’t have the right to tell you what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”
The state Health Department, Ladapo said, can scrap its own rules for some vaccine mandates, but others would require action by the Florida Legislature. He did not specify any particular vaccines but repeated several times the effort would end “all of them. Every last one of them.”
Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is running for Orlando mayor, said in a social media post that scrapping vaccines “is reckless and dangerous” and could cause outbreaks of preventable disease.
“This is a public health disaster in the making for the Sunshine State,” she said on the social platform X.
Meanwhile, the Democratic governors of Washington, Oregon and California announced Wednesday that they created an alliance to safeguard health policies, contending that the administration of President Donald Trump is politicizing public health decisions.
The partnership plans to coordinate health guidelines by aligning immunization plans based on recommendations from respected national medical organizations, according to a joint statement from Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington, Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.
In Florida, vaccine mandates for child day care facilities and public schools include shots for measles, chickenpox, hepatitis B, Diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP), polio and other diseases, according to the state Health Department’s website.
Under DeSantis, Florida resisted imposing COVID vaccines on schoolchildren, requiring “passports” for places that draw crowds, school closures and mandates that workers get the shots to keep their jobs.
“I don’t think there’s another state that’s done as much as Florida. We want to stay ahead of the curve,” the governor said.
The state “MAHA” commission would look into such things as allowing informed consent in medical matters, promoting safe and nutritious food, boosting parental rights regarding medical decisions about their children, and eliminating “medical orthodoxy that is not supported by the data,” DeSantis said. The commission will be chaired by Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Florida first lady Casey DeSantis.
“We’re getting government out of the way, getting government out of your lives,” Collins said.
The commission’s work will help inform a large “medical freedom package” to be introduced in the Legislature next session, which would address the vaccine mandates required by state law and make permanent the recent state COVID decisions relaxing restrictions, DeSantis said.
“There will be a broad package,” the governor said.
Comment When was it that we were told ... (Score 2) 91
that AI would never be used in war or to kill humans ? It was not very long ago.
Comment Still cheap (Score 1) 258
Nothing will change. Since everything will be taxed and there simply aren't enough people in the US to make alternatives... especially with low wage immigrants being kicked out... the people will still pay less than otherwise. This is just a very big federal sales tax. This is the biggest tax levied on American lower and middle classes ever. The good news is that tax reductions have made it much easier for the upper classes.
Comment perfect price (Score 1) 66
Expensive enough that I'd rather spend my money on other stuff.
Comment Re:How about not getting any? (Score 1) 116
My belief that China will lead the world is founded on the fact that the people view the government as servants of the people. They don't waste any more time thinking about who is running the system so long as the system runs.
America is failing because no one seems to accomplish anything anymore because they're wasting their time attacking each other thanks to a constant bombardment of negativity where even the president of the country wants half the people to hate the other half.
America is failing because no one seems to accomplish anything anymore because they're wasting their time attacking each other thanks to a constant bombardment of negativity where even the president of the country wants half the people to hate the other half.
Comment Why I buy Huawei (Score 1) 29
Around 2017, I started looking at Huawei as an alternative to Cisco. I have been abandoning Cisco in favor of Huawei ever since.
It all started when the US government started advertising that Huawei was so good that without government intervention, American companies would not be able to compete against them.
I researched them quite extensively and even visited their headquarters. And the US is right. Huawei products are really good and their customer support was way better than Cisco's. And with the inflation of the dollar and much further inflation of Cisco prices, I really needed an alternative.
The "Huawei Ascend rhetoric" flooding the press these days has me investigating Ascend as a NVidia replacement. After all, one news article went public a few months ago about how a customer has problems with Ascend. I work with a $20 million NVidia DGX HPC which sits mostly idle because it overheats and crashes a lot, so most people move to the Cray or Bull Sequoia. HPCs are generally difficult and a Chinese HPC they can deliver today compared to an American HPC with a two year wait... Let's just say it's worth buying a few nodes and trying.
It all started when the US government started advertising that Huawei was so good that without government intervention, American companies would not be able to compete against them.
I researched them quite extensively and even visited their headquarters. And the US is right. Huawei products are really good and their customer support was way better than Cisco's. And with the inflation of the dollar and much further inflation of Cisco prices, I really needed an alternative.
The "Huawei Ascend rhetoric" flooding the press these days has me investigating Ascend as a NVidia replacement. After all, one news article went public a few months ago about how a customer has problems with Ascend. I work with a $20 million NVidia DGX HPC which sits mostly idle because it overheats and crashes a lot, so most people move to the Cray or Bull Sequoia. HPCs are generally difficult and a Chinese HPC they can deliver today compared to an American HPC with a two year wait... Let's just say it's worth buying a few nodes and trying.
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