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geraldalewis

226 karma · joined December 23, 2010

gmail : gerald.a.lewis twitter: @geraldalewis www : http://geraldalewis.com
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geraldalewis··on Kohler Can Access Pictures from "End-to-End Encrypted" Toilet Camera
Apotheosis of enshitification.
geraldalewis··on Sora Update #1
> rightsholders
geraldalewis··on Gemini 3.0 Pro – early tests
This seems like a parody, but I think it's not.
geraldalewis··on Imperial Tyranny, Korean Humiliation
> weren't just laborers

I'm trying to read that in a charitable way: you're pointing out that, to a person who is fine with being cruel to laborers, they might not be comfortable with the cruelty and humiliation if it impacts people they might find deserving of respect and decency, yeah?

geraldalewis··on Dynamicland 2024
This seems to me like the apotheosis of Jef Raskin's Humane Interface - super cool!
geraldalewis··on Blockbuster Video VHS insert template
I give this project five bags of popcorn and a little commemorative octocat keychain.
geraldalewis··on The Time I Lied to the CTO and Saved the Day
I think this glamorizes and engenders an unhealthy relationship to work. “Rock star” and “ninja coder” works the same lever Steve Jobs used in the 70s to take advantage of smart people without enough sense of self worth.

And don’t lie to people.

geraldalewis··on Magic Numbers
I thought it was interesting, but I think citations are needed.
geraldalewis··on This is a teenager
Sorry for the meta-commentary, but I don’t think it warrants its own post: wow the Overton window has shifted right on HN. I’ve noticed it with other comment threads but this one drives it home. Not good for discourse.
geraldalewis··on Why does so much government tech investment deliver so little?
This seems like barely-massaged LLM content and/or just a bad marketing page.
geraldalewis··on GPT-4 is not getting worse
> All I want for Christmas is a GPT-4 level model with less obnoxious RLHF, and if it heils Hitler occasionally while crapping out awk code, so be it.

What an ignorant thing to say.

geraldalewis··on Symmetry in Chaos
I have only seen the first two images, but Paul Bourne + something that looks like non -Abelian sand piles!
geraldalewis··on Gandalf – Game to make an LLM reveal a secret password
I think the latter -- I encountered the same thing.
geraldalewis··on Gandalf – Game to make an LLM reveal a secret password
Sometimes Gandalf adds punctuation unprompted!
geraldalewis··on American IQ scores have rapidly dropped, proving the 'Reverse Flynn effect'
> For most people, performance on one type of cognitive task (e.g. verbal reasoning) is highly correlated with performance on the other types of cognitive tasks.

It's cool that that's your understanding, but you're wading into territory that gets people sterilized and killed. I have a lot of trust in science, but not here. This video was informative for me: https://youtu.be/UBc7qBS1Ujo

For example, here's an IQ test; let's say its given to 5,000,000 Canadians, and 3,000 Texans (1):

  * What is the capital city of Canada?
  * Which Canadian province is the largest by land area?
  * Who is considered the "Father of Medicare" in Canada?
  * Name the two official languages of Canada.
  * Which Canadian team won the Stanley Cup in 2017?
  * What is the national sport of Canada?
  * What is the name of Canada's national anthem?
  * Name the famous Canadian dish made with fries, cheese curds, and gravy.
  * Who was the first Prime Minister of Canada?
  * In which Canadian city is the CN Tower located?
I would expect a normal distribution for Canadians, but for the Texans to score in the bottom quintile (regardless of "general intelligence").

(1) I asked ChatGPT to come up with this test.

(edit: formatting)

geraldalewis··on American IQ scores have rapidly dropped, proving the 'Reverse Flynn effect'
He went through the trouble of citing his sources, you should too.
geraldalewis··on American IQ scores have rapidly dropped, proving the 'Reverse Flynn effect'
I think this video by `Shaun` is informative and well-researched (articles and books are cited). It's long; the creator isn't especially succinct, but it's as entertaining as the material allows, and the subject's complex enough to warrant a video that's a couple of hours long. https://youtu.be/UBc7qBS1Ujo
geraldalewis··on Updated rules on preparedness for nuclear explosion
Being scared/stressed/panicked by a nuclear attack during a pandemic is reasonable. Trying to be conscious about taking care of your mental health during a traumatic event is hard to do, but it’s important. Some people need to be reminded of that. That’s fine.
geraldalewis··on Updated rules on preparedness for nuclear explosion
The comments here are silly.

You can absolutely prioritize your risks, which means you’re not precluded from taking sensible precautions if you’re able to. This isn’t rock/paper/scissors. If you’re far enough away from the point of impact and the winds are right, Covid might be more of a threat than a nuclear bomb.

If you’re two states away from where a bomb goes off, and insist on open-mouth kissing strangers as they cough on you, that’s up to you. But also you can just throw on a mask and step a few feet back from folks and be a little safer.

Also, really bad scenarios can often stem from a couple of things going wrong all at once. So just be safe and use as much good judgment as the situation allows. And lean on easy, automatic, strategies to help you not compound issues.

geraldalewis··on Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues (2020)
It's 90 minutes, but ContraPoints' videos are really great. Here's her perspective on J.K. Rowling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us
geraldalewis··on Eliminating gifted programs won’t make education fair
I think up-voting folks need to re-read this article with a more critical eye. It's def not up to the standards I'm used to seeing on HN.
geraldalewis··on Apple fires engineering manager for allegedly leaking information
Holy smokes, there are some tone-deaf comments in here
geraldalewis··on NYT reporter falsely accuses tech investor of using a slur
Reporters like Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins were writing about the threats extremists were making before Jan 6th. That's not "junior high hall-monitor tattling"; that's reportage that I wish more people would have taken seriously.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/violent-threats-ripple...

geraldalewis··on Paul Dirac's handwritten notes for his PhD, the first ever on quantum mechanics
That is the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen.
geraldalewis··on 42
Thanks! Interesting that mine's off by one...
geraldalewis··on 42
I'm not a math guy, but I was thinking about a number series the other day, and 42 popped up. Do the numbers 1,806; 3,263,442; and/or 10,650,056,950,806 happen to have any significance as well?
geraldalewis··on Does anyone want to play tennis? How our startup was born
That's precisely the idea behind a friend's startup! http://tennishub.com/ (TennisHub)

(Thanks @chrisabrams - fixed)

geraldalewis··on Actually, you don't understand lexical scope
Also, there's a little issue with @raganwald's counterexample CoffeeScript code. Here's a working version:

    methods = ['remove', 'show', 'hide', 'stop']
    for method in methods 
      do (method) ->    # *see notes below
        Frame::[method] = ->
          element[method]() for element in @elements

*As @jashkenas points out, under the hood, `do` creates a new function (and thus a new scope). Invoking `do` with a parameter list (here "(method)") takes a variable from the outer scope and uses it for a parameter name within the newly created scope. So within that new function, references to `method` will not refer to the `method` variable of the loop body, but to the new function's `method` parameter. `do (method) ->` basically compiles to: `(function(method){ ... })(method)`.

See https://gist.github.com/3742581.

geraldalewis··on I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons
> they're simply a way to sell more tickets.

That doesn't sound like taking advantage; that sounds like quid pro quo. Developers are buying tickets to attend a hackathon.

geraldalewis··on In Which I Tell You to Stop Whining About CoffeeScript
> My primary issue with CoffeeScript: people that use it insist that it's JavaScript.

Because, semantically, it is the same as JavaScript (for the most part). It just looks different.

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