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Problem with that logic is, humans don't just evolve genetically, we evolve culturally, and that cultural evolution ends up affecting our biology as well. So it doesn't really matter how slow genetic evolution is. Cultural evolution is what defines the human species. It's much more rapid because it includes planning and foresight, unlike the blind watchmaker of biological evolution. It is also lamarckian in that it incorporates the experiences of the previous generation into the cultural phenotype of the next one.

That's precisely how we've changed so drastically is an evolutionary blink of an eye.

And now, our cultural evolution has reached the point where we're even able to change our own genetics with planning and foresight in a single generation. So it seems to me that the blind watchmaker is essentially irrelevant now.

How so? If great filters exist at all, which is not a given, there could be multiple ones, first of all. They could be somewhere between our level of biological complexity and the kind hypothesised to be responsible for this signal. Endosymbiosis is a very plausible such filter. The evolution of language and the bootstrapping of cultural evolution is another one. Both n=1 on our planet. Probably there are others I can't think of right now.

This is very exciting. It's certainly approaching the best evidence we could possibly hope for from an exoplanet given current technology.

Of course, the weak link here is the assumption that these bio-markers can't be produced abiotically, which is a pretty big assumption. Our understanding of planetary science is still in its infancy. This is (thought to be) a hycean planet, a type of planet unknown to us until very recently(post-JWST, I believe?). And given that the solar system has no hycean planets, it's a class of planets which is fundamentally poorly studied, with pretty limited access to data. We can make models, and we can get some spectral data on the contents of their gaseous atmospheres. But we have no way of looking at their surface oceans. Thinking about what kind of chemistry might be going on there is mostly just an act of speculative modelling.

So the interesting question is, without new sources of data, can we determine whether these bio-markers are biological in origin? Not really. Not without a much better understanding of planetary science in general and hycean worlds in particular(of course, that's what this research is trying to do, and making progress at). As well as a deeper understanding of abiogenesis. I could imagine a working understanding of abiogenesis at least being able to eliminate some candidate planets, but even that assumes only one type of abiogenesis is possible, which is more or less unfounded. That is, unless the understanding includes some deep information theoretic/evolutionary perspective on abiogenesis which would probably have to include a completely unambiguous information theoretic and physical definition of what life even is. It is conceivable that such an understanding might provide very strong restrictions on what kinds of chemical systems are capable of abiogenesis, and that those restrictions could then be used to eliminate certain planets or even entire star systems from contention. And if these hycean worlds were eliminated that way, we'd know there must be some abiotic source of these "biomarkers", and knowing that, we would likely be able to figure out what it is. But ok, that's a lot of assumptions.

Maybe we get lucky, and some chemists stumble on a non-biotic chemical system that can produce these chmicals in concentrations that can be detected by JWST at a distance of hundreds of light years. Or, conversely, maybe chemists somehow manage to prove conclusively that biotic origin is the only possible source. I'm not a chemist or a microbiologist, so I have no idea what that would look like. It's probably well beyond our current understanding.

I guess what I'm rantingly saying is, while this result changes my credence that there's life on this planet about as much as is possible with current science and technology, it still barely changes it at all. Before it was maybe 0.5 + ε(habitable zone, liquid water), and it is now 0.5 + 2ε.

I guess something which could move the needle much more significantly, is if we found a large number(say 10) of chemically unrelated potential bio-markers in the atmosphere of a planet very similar to earth, in a very similar star system. Then, the assumption of the impossibility of abiotic sources would be much more plausible. I believe doing this type of research for earth-sized exoplanets with JWST is still quite borderline(please correct me if I'm wrong).

Having said all that, this result is still extremely exciting. For the first time, the field of exobiology has any contact with observational data from outside our solar system at all(besides mere astronomical data), and things will only improve from here. Future telescopes will be better at this type of observation, and our understanding of planetary science is evolving at an accelerating pace. I'm very excited to see where this research goes in the future.

I've been saying this for years; LLMs will never be able to replace a good support staff. The only support LLMs can be relied on for is the kind of support you get from companies like google and netflix. Off-shored, glorified clickfarm workers in India, who only have access to some restrictive API and a very rigid playbook. They can do stuff like grandma forgot her password again -> help her reset her password.

For a support agent to actually be useful beyond that, they need some leeway to make decisions unilaterally, sometimes in breach of "protocol", when it makes sense. No company with a significant level of complexity in its interactions with customers can have an actually complete set of protocols that can describe every possible scenario that can arise. That's why you need someone with actual access inside the company, the ability to talk to the right people in the company should the need arise, a general ability(and latitude) to make decisions based on common sense, and an overall understanding of the state of the company and what compromises can be made somewhat regularly without bankrupting it. Good support is effectively defined by flexibility, and diametrically opposed to following a strict set of rules. It's about solving issues that hadn't been thought of until they happened. This is the kind of support that gets you customer loyalty.

No company wants to give an LLM the power given to a real support agent, because they can't really be trusted. If the LLM can make unilateral decisions, what if it hallucinated and gives the customer free service for life? Now they have to either eat the cost of that, or try to withdraw the offer, which is likely to lose them that customer. And at the end of all that, there's no one to hold liable for the fuckup(except I guess the programmers that made the chatbot). And no one wants the LLM support agent to be sending them emails all day the same way a human support agent might. So what you end up with is just a slightly nicer natural language interface to a set of predefined account actions and FAQ items. In other words, exactly what you get from clickfarms in Southern Asia or even a phone tree, except cheaper. And sure, that can be useful, just to filter out the usual noise, and buy your real support staff more time to work on the cases where they're really needed, but that's it.

Some companies, like Netflix and Google(Google probably has better support for business customers, never used it, so I can't speak to it. I've only Bangalored(zing) my head against a wall with google support as a lowly consumer who bought a product), seem to have no support staff beyond the clickfarms, and as a result their support is atrocious. And when they replace those clickfarms with LLMs, support will continue to be atrocious, maybe with somewhat better English. And it'll save them money, and because of that they'll report it as a rousing success. But for customers, nothing will have changed.

This is pretty much what I predicted would happen a few years ago, before every company and its brother got its own LLM based support chatbot. And anecdotally, that's pretty much what has happened. For every support request I've made in the last year, I can remember 0 that were sorted out by the LLM, and a handful that were sorted out by humans after the LLM told me it was impossible to solve.

If someone prescribed you stimulants based solely on ASRS-5, that's malpractice(at least in most the west, I obviously can't speak for every country), and I'm sorry that happened to you. You could have a strong malpractice case if "almost ruined my life" can be well documented. In that case I suggest talking to a lawyer. If what you mean is you did the self-screening and picked ip some adderall on the black market then, then I guess you're outta luck.

And I'm not sure why this is downvoted. Your advice is good. Get properly diagnosed by a professional. Amphetamine or any other adhd medication is not something you wanna take every day unless you have adhd. And even then, only if it's severe enough to seriously worsen your quality of life.

My ADHD is extremely severe. Without meds I tend to end up smoking large amounts of hash and turning my apartment into a garbage dump as I gain weight and my muscles atrophy from inactivity. I've been back on meds for about 6 months now; my place is spotless, I smoke one spliff every 4 weeks(mostly to learn moderation), I'm losing weight, doing cardio every morning, quit smoking cigarettes, and just recently started coding a bit again. For me it's a total lifesaver.

The ASRS-5, while it only has six questions, is actually a very respectable test for ADHD, often used even in clinical research. It's thoroughly tested against more comprehensive tests and the data checks out so far. It's even seeing clinical use as an early screening before going through the full diagnosis, which in adults is very involved, since diagnosis requires a determination that ADHD was present in childhood.

Source: my dad is a clinical psychologist specialising in diagnosis and treatment of ADHD . I kept seeing this pop up in papers so I asked him about it.

It might not exist in the spectrum, does that mean it doesn't exist? You're arguing and conflating two different things here. On the one hand, you're implicitly arguing that a colour can't exist unless it corresponds to a singular frequency of light, which I've already argued against. This is no more meaningful than arguing that tables and chairs are mental constructs because it's all quarks and electrons at the end of the day. Emergent properties exist and can have causal effects, most philosophers and scientists are in agreement about this.

The other is that a qualia or the mental experience of seeing purple is the same thing as perceiving purple as distinct from other colours in a physical object. I'm not talking about the qualia. In fact, I hate the concept of qualia, because whenever it's introduced into philosophical discussions, the discussion devolves into epicycles of meaningsless discussion of definitions and nomenclature and ends up going nowhere.

No, the purple was there. You say all that was there was some chemicals that only reflects certain wavelengths. I say this is what defines the emergent physical property we call the colour purple. You say electrons and quarks, I say tables and chairs. Both are accurate, and certainly not in conflict.

You might say, so how is this distinct from qualia? Well, for the qualia of seeing purple, there is no way even in principle to decide whether my qualia is the same as your qualia. But I can still look at a red onion and tell you it's purple, and you likely would agree unless you're colour blind. So this property of purple is, unlike a qualia, objective, not subjective.

Even better, I can tell you one I experienced literally today.

I was at a barbeque, and the people hosting put out one bowl of diced red onion, which despite the name was purple, as it tends to be, and a bowl of crispy fried onion, which was brown. I reached for the fried onion, and avoided the red(purple) onion, because I always hated red onion.

Now, if you want to be annoying, you could make all sorts of red(heh) herring arguments about the cause of me avoiding the red onions being their flavour and aroma in the past having caused me not to like onions, and that's all true. But effects can have multiple causes, and it's also true that the distribution of pigments in the onion leading to an emergent property we dub "purple" did in fact convey information to me that caused me to decide not to eat them. I didn't smell them or taste them. Information was transmitted from onion to mind, via the electromagnetic field. Clearly the emergent property of purple colour has a causal effect here.

As for other examples in the natural world of non-human plants an animals, I don't know, but feel free to use a search engine. But since the colour purple is found in all sorts of life forms(including humans, and all sorts of life forms(including) are able to perceive and discriminate it from other colours, it's fair to assume that the colour purple is out there having all sorts of causal effects.

You're confusing the qualia of colour("what it's like" to perceive colour) with the property of colour. Both can be referred to by the word "colour".

You're essentially just arguing that one definition of a noun is "more valid" than another, which is completely arbitrary.

And of course the qualia of colour is entirely subjective and only in the mind. That's literally the definition of qualia. That doesn't mean the property of colour is also subjective, just because it's referred to by the same noun. And besides, qualia is a philosophically controversial term in the first place.

If you were trying to cross a river and someone told you walk over that bridge over there, you wouldn't respond that it's impossible because a bridge is a device that links two computer networks together at the link layer, and couldn't possibly be used a cross a river, would you?

Agreed. It's simply philosophically sloppy to suggest that purple, brown, and really any other colour don't exist without qualifying what one means by existing in this context, and why that definition of the word is used.

In this case, it seems the "what" is that for a colour to "exist", it has to be a distinct, isolated frequency of light, and (for some reason) it needs to appear in a logical place in the frequency space in relation to other colours. They don't answer the "why" question, and I think if they tried, they would find it difficult, because it's completely arbitrary and in conflict with reality.

Just because some colours do in fact correspond to frequencies of light, that doesn't mean all colours have to. There's a reason we have the terms primary and secondary colour. Some colours are emergent from mixing other colours together. Does that mean they can't appear in the natural world, being discriminated by sensory systems? No. Does purple cause things to happen? I'm sure you could find myriad examples of this in the natural world. Ironically, the only thing here that only exists in our brains, is the notion that purple doesn't exist.

Not quite. Alexander Fleming was growing cultures of staph bacteria, went away for some time, and when he came back, found one petri dish had been contaminated with fungus, and that the fungus inhibited the growth of the bacteria. It seems to be unclear where the contamination came from, but the fungus itself was already known to science at the time.

Nasdaq composite is down 5.6% at the time of writing this comment.

I honestly think Trump is doing this just to enrich himself and his friends. Stock market crashes always end up transfering wealth from the poor to the rich.

It certainly could. Depends a lot on the specifics of how the UBI is implemented, and how UBI affects salary levels. If everything remained the same and everyone just got x more income each year, then yes, inflation is very likely. On the other hand, something more like no questions asked/no demands made social security, where the only requirement is being unemployed, could improve conditions for people who are unable to work while paying for itself in eliminating heaps of red tape, and also freeing up a lots of manpower towards helping people sort out their lives instead of pouring over disability pension applications, without paying out a bunch of money to people who don't need it because they earn plenty from work already.

One could also pay out ubi universally, but have a one time down-adjustment of salaries the first year.

That's why the better policy is not to subsidize the purchase price of the car, but the various taxes associated with owning one, as well as offering certain perks like being able to drive in the bus lane. This was a huge success in Norway. Though now the percentage of new car purchases that are electric is so large that the subsidies are being rolled back because they've gotten too expensive(and the bus lane thing no longer makes sense because if the majority of cars can drive in it, it's not really a bus lane anymore). But I think that's fine. You can make an argument that when subsidies were introduced, electric cars were still struggling to compete with combustion cars in numerous ways, like range, capacity, access to chargers and repair services, etc. Subsidies/perks acted as compensation for those downsides for early adopters. The playing field is obviously a lot more even now. Chargers(including home chargers) are generally widely available, range is improved via better battery tech, there's a lot more players in the market, meaning more choice, etc. Not really a car guy, but I assume the repair situation is also improved, though it may not be on par yet.

It's not a classic thinkpad, but my thinkpad from 7 years ago is still going strong.

Recently I decided to do a service on it for the first time, and I was absolutely stunned by how little dust had built up in the CPU fan and the interior in general, after 7 years of usage, often sitting on top of a couch or bed, near my long-haired Norwegian forest cat Rufus. All it needed was a litle puff of computer duster and it was good as new. That's very good design of the air intakes and is a huge factor in the machine's longevity.

I did computer repair professionally for a while, and one of the most common causes of irreparable death I saw in laptops was massive dust buildup in cpu fans and consequent heat damage to surrounding components. I'd sometimes see this in 2-3 year old laptops even.

Funny to think that something as simple as the shape of an air intake opening can have such a profound impact on the lifetime of a device.

The other thing that Thinkpads are unrivaled at is protection for the display. People like to say macbooks are sturdy, but they are quite prone to cracked displays because of Apple's obsession with smaller bezels. The thinkpad ofc has t34 style angled armor for its display. Can't remember ever seeing a Thinkpad with a cracked display. And I carry my Thinkpad around in just a backpack with no sleeve, often the Thinkpad is the only thing in there, and it regularly impacts the floor when the(thin-bottomed) backpack is put down while sitting down on the bus or getting home.

That's assuming you don't eat or drink anything else containing calcium, which is silly.

I've been playing tournament chess for 20 years. Not every game is created equal. Some losses are more upsetting than others. Carlsen has some narcissistic traits, which is unsurprising given that he's been showered in adulation from the chess world and general public since he was a small child(and this is common in these chess virtuosos. See Kasparov, Fischer, Kramnik, Nakamura). He might be able to handle losing to someone he considers his peer, but there are plenty of things about Niemann's personality rumours circulating about his online cheating during the game, and his rating at the time that made this loss particularly hard to handle.

And GMs have had plenty of bad reactions to losses throughout the history of chess. It definitely happens. Chess is an emotionally taxing game. You spend many hours of exhausting effort at the board only to lose due to a momentary brainfart. It's infuriating. GMs are humans too. Hell, fairly recently there was an incident when GM Christopher Yoo punched a photographer after losing a game at a tournament in St Louis.

Developers developers developers developers

Hans Niemann almost certainly did not cheat against Carlsen. Carlsen just played that game rather poorly and ragequit the tournament because he's a baby who can't handle losing.

I do think Niemann may have cheated in OTB chess before. But not at the Sinquefield Cup, I just don't see it. And the only evidence is insinuations from a sore loser who's well known for throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way.

The buttplug stuff was really just a joke from reddit, no one's seriously suggested anyone is actually cheating using a buttplug. Doesn't even make sense as a way of cheating, really. It would be extremely obvious.

It's by far the most sold one. I just checked, and it's not palm oil(which I would be opposed to for environmental reasons), but sunflower oil(probably high-stearic, though it doesn't say), diglycerides and monoglycerides, salt and glucose. probably most of the additive is the sunflower oil.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter, that's my point. the 89% peanuts gives me lots of protein, fibre and healthy fats, which is making it easier for me to diet and lose weight, thereby improving my health. That almost certainly outweighs any potential risks from the 11%. The 11% honestly helps in that it makes the whole thing palatable. I can't overstate how much I hate pure peanut butter; just thinking about it makes me gag.

I mean, adding stuff to food to make it more appealing or longer-lasting is what humans do. It's what we've always done. Just concluding that it's bad and shouldn't be done is silly. I'm much more interested in specifics.

You can even make a health-positive argument for preservatives. Preservatives prolong shelf life -> means I can keep more diverse food around with less time expenditure(not going to the store every day) and with less waste because there's only so much food I can eat in a given time -> means I can follow a more varied diet in practice -> better health outcomes.

Now, if there's a specific problem with one preservative or other additive, fine. replace it with something else.

Would it, though? What matters is glycemic index, and that depends on the overall composition of the food, not just on levels of simple carbohydrates. Focusing purely on one nutrient or on total caloric content is hopelessly reductionist.

For instance white bread has a high glycemic index not because of added sugar, but because all of the fibre and most of the protein have been removed. Proper whole grain, brown bread has a low glycemic index and tons of protein. And that's true even if there's some syrup added for flavour, which is not uncommon.

Couldn't agree more. I see this a lot here in Norway too. So much talk of "ultra-processed" food and its dangers, and recommendations to avoid it but the category is so wide as to include even things like baked beans, because they may have some salt, sugar and modified starch added; or peanut butter because it may have some sugar added to help it stay emulsified and some saturated fat added to make it less runny.

Does that processing suddenly turn the beans from one of the healthiest foods we know of to an unhealthy one? Probably not. Does it make them easier to use in cooking vs dried beans, leading more people to eat beans? Probably yes.

Same thing for the peanut butter. As part of my breakfast, I often have a slice or two of brown, whole grain bread with peanutbutter(the non-disgusting kind with additives mentioned above, about 89% peanuts) and banana. That's a meal rich in protein, various kinds of fiber, polyunsaturated fats, slow carbs, various vitamins and minerals. The fact that the PB has a little sugar and sat fat in it doesn't really matter very much. I've tried PB That's 99% peanuts and frankly it's disgusting. It separates, it's runny and it has an off taste too. If that was the only PB on the market I wouldn't even use it.

The problem is 1. That government recommendations and public discourse place far, far too much emphasis on population studies based on overly vague categories like this and 2. That there's an almost singular focus on things people should avoid rather than things people need more of, especially fibre and protein. Fibre is crucially important, and maybe this is a hot take, but I think lack of fibre is maybe the most important factor when it comes to public health and food.

Fibre increases satiety and bulk, leading you to eat less calories, lowers glycemic index avoiding insulin resistance and diabetes, improves intestinal function(via interaction with gut biome) and therefore micronutrient uptake, and it(specifically beta-glucans found in oats and other grains) even lowers LDL cholesterol. Not to mention it prevents hemorrhoids, which might not affect longevity, but it's certainly nice. And indeed, no surprise, a lot of "ultra-processed" food happens to be devoid of fibre.

I think "fibre-depleted" and "protein-depleted" would be more useful categories to use than the much more vague "ultra-processed".

Not to mention that "speculation", better known as theory, is a fundamental and crucial part of science. Some of the most celebrated scientists in history are celebrated for their theoretical work. Newton, Einstein, Charles Darwin(sure, Darwin did a lot of observation as did most biologists of that era, but his theory of natural selection, though inspired by his observational work, is clearly a theoretical idea, not an empirical result).

And of course, skimming over the actual paper in question, it's not even theory/speculation really. It's more like a review of the existing literature and empirical data on soda lakes, the different types of them, and their plausibility for abiogenesis based on their ability to maintain P concentrations despite significant biological activity.

This is actually someone testing a previously theorised idea against the best available data and affirming it as plausible.

How do you suggest we enforce anti-littering laws?

I mean, bath salts are certainly illegal in most countries now, but when they were new, they really weren't. Since most laws back then were(and still are, in many places) largely just giant lists of chemicals, plants and fungi.

The not for human consumption stuff was just a facile attempt to avoid liability for any consequences.

>"hey, maybe if you'd invest more in hobbies, social relationships and a healthy lifestyle you would feel better"

"Just saying" the above is not what CBT is, though. I've had a lot of CBT and other kinds of therapy, and I've never had a therapist just tell me "so don't do that", or "do more x".

It's about analysing your own thinking(cognitive) and actions/habits(behavioral) in cases where those are keeping you stuck in a miserable situation, and identifying what you can do to change them.

Sure, if you put the most inanely over-abstracted construction on it like "just live healthier and you'll feel better", it sounds meaningless, but the implicit assumption there is that's something you can just decide to do, and succeed in. That's not the case for many people, and those people can benefit from CBT.

Interesting. Do you have a source on this? I can't seem to find any detailed data on this. Only some suggestions that since they're lipophilic, and are found in higher concentrations in brain tissue, they might accumulate there. I can't find any research analyzing whether they do accumulate in brain tissue and how long they stay there.

Where do you get multiple weeks? From what I can find, harman and norharman both have elimination half-lives shorter than half an hour.

If it was weeks, they would accumulate to very toxic levels in anyone who smokes or has a few cups of coffee a day.

How do you define "a LOT"? the only estimate I can find says there's 210mcg/L of beta-carbolines. Mainly harman and norharman, which have a binding affinity for MAO-A of 220nM and 2200nM respectively(lower is more potent). Not earth-shatteringly potent. These compounds have a fairly short half-life and they're reversible.

Doesn't seem to be anywhere close to the potency of MAO inhibition used in psychiatric or entheogenic contexts. I'd be reluctant to attribute too many noticable effects to them.

It seems unlikely to me that TSMC is both going to spend 100B on their own US operations and however many billions it would cost to acquire Intel's foundry division and set it up for TSMCs process. Though those rumours never made sense to me in the first place.

Seems more likely that the Trump admin was pressuring them to possibly invest in Intel, acquisition was briefly considered and instead this compromise of expanding their own US operations was chosen.

I expect INTC to retract back towards $18-19 from this news. Recent rally was largely based on hopium surrounding either TSMC investment/partnership or Broadcom/TSMC breakup and acquisition. Probably this kills the Broadcom deal as well. If I were Intel, I wouldn't wanna sell off the more successful chip design division if I couldn't also sell off the floundering foundry.