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whymeogod

63 karma · joined February 20, 2025

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whymeogod··on Deciphering language processing in the human brain through LLM representations
meditation, if you want to try a drug free approach.

Make it simple. Stare at a clock with a big second hand. Take one breath every 15 seconds. Then, after a minute or so, push it out to 20 seconds, then one every 30 seconds.

For the 30, my pattern tends to stabilize on inhale for 5-7, hold for 5-7, and then a slow exhale. I find that after the first exhale, if I give a little push I can get more air out of my lungs.

Do this once a day, 7-10 minutes session, for a week, and see if things aren't a little different.

whymeogod··on Deciphering language processing in the human brain through LLM representations
natural consequence when results are the sum of random processes.

if you add random rolls, you get a gaussian, thanks central limit theorem.

if you sum them, you get a lognormal distribution, which approximates a power law up to a cutoff

whymeogod··on U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat
> A lot of it may be for the auto disappearing messages,

except that the conversation in question, and similar such conversations, are required by federal law to be archived.

So explicitly choosing a communication channel that violates federal law for conducting federal business is, umm, sketchy?

whymeogod··on Rickover's Lessons
"governments" may not, but the political parties running them certainly do. And changes in political parties can change what services government delivers. Heck, you don't even need a change in parties for that to happen.
whymeogod··on New Zealand's $16B health dept managed finances with single Excel spreadsheet
Sounds like a certain LLM I've read about
whymeogod··on Tesla Sales Fall Off a Cliff Globally, Including Germany, Australia, and China
Important to remember that his maternal grandfather and mother were ardent nazi supporters, which is why they moved from Canada to South Africa.
whymeogod··on Tesla Sales Fall Off a Cliff Globally, Including Germany, Australia, and China
Sell their tesla shares, and the sooner the better
whymeogod··on US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s
with kindness and respect.

Ideally, "hacker news" is for people who have a hacker/engineer mindset. Look at the actual facts of the situation, not the flashy sales brochure.

Odds are that your second hypothesis is the correct one. You may wish to start by comparing what you think the current administration is doing with what it is actually doing.

You cannot count on Fox News to be accurate, they have never claimed to present "accurate" news.

You may be interested in the results of this study, where Fox viewers were paid to watch CNN for a month.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fox-news-study-compari...

whymeogod··on US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s
Yes, this point should be emphasized more. The aid the US gave Ukraine was the US government buying expensive things from US companies. The money stayed in the US, created US jobs and US economic growth.
whymeogod··on US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s
I thought the US lost in Afghanistan and Vietnam. Am I misunderstanding something in your post?
whymeogod··on US Ends Support For Ukrainian F-16s
Yes, but if the government were to spend say 10% of their GPD on defense and infrastructure (Hi, German!), some of this spending might be in grants/tax breaks to help companies make this transition.

I think you underestimate what a capitalist system can accomplish, and how quickly.

whymeogod··on Amazon’s delivery drones are grounded in College Station, Texas
Drone delivery is a bad idea especially in exceptional cases like a medical emergency because it is much less robust to inclement weather.

emergency systems need to _just work_.

Your "take a bike" solution is far superior. Thanks for your post.

whymeogod··on Amazon’s delivery drones are grounded in College Station, Texas
Road-based delivery requires less energy than air-based delivery, under the assumption that the roads exist (which they do, because of other reasons). This is simple physics.

I see no advantage to drones in areas with a road network. Vanity, yes, and cool sci-fi memes, but physics isn't just a good idea, it is the law.

whymeogod··on A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter
Makes me wonder what it would be like to be a bat

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf

whymeogod··on A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter
> We do attribute great value to organisms that have this image of self.

My impression is we attribute great value to organisms that can effectively push back against us.

respect based on force.

Not saying I want things to be that way.

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
No, it is not a government agency.

No, it is not tasked with audits. It is not performing any audit before its actions, nor is it producing anything resembling an audit.

No, audits do not require root access. And in fact root access (the ability to change data) contradicts audit best practices.

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
You forgot to add "without proper security controls/clearances and data governance".
whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
> official statements say he's (Musk) not the DOGE administrator, but no one knows who is

That's because they believe in maximum transparency.

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
And here I thought it was an educated population who cared and held their representatives accountable to some kind of moral/ethical standard, and concepts like "rule of law".

I supposed guns could be used to do that, but they really seem an inferior tool.

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
Well, yes, because 1 is pretty close to zero, on a scale of 0 to infinity. However, if you look at their actual technical skilz:

The incompetence at DOGE is staggering. Absolutely no security on their .gov webiste: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43045835

can't even get mail merges to work, see some of their emails terminating people. Telling people to sign the doc and then not attaching the doc.

The search for 'probationary' employees failing 3 times because they didn't check the definition of the term.

No, technical competence really isn't DOGE's strong point.

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
> The pushback seems to mostly be “I don’t like Musk in particular, and thus I don’t like that Musk in particular has this access”

You are either delusional or purposely misrepresenting facts

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
To add to hrow0101c's list

USAID was investigating Starlink

Consumer Protection Bureau has numerous investigations open vs Musky companies

Treasury is involved in regulating Muskys X for Finance thing

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
> Bureaucracies are just organizations of humans, who have the same motivations, biases, and incentives ans everyone else, everywhere else in society

No, the biases and incentives are different in government than in business. Yes, there are biases and incentives, but they are different.

The main attraction of government work is the ability to serve your country, and to be rewarded by taking actions which produce (what you believe is) long-term social good.

Your belief that an adversarial relation between forces of government leads to a favorable equilibrium is indeed the basis of the US constitution, and the very thing which DOGE/Trump are attacking with such force.

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
> I don't consider this to be a lie, per se, is because they make promises around goals with incomplete understanding

They didn't even try to formulate an understanding. All of their actions show willful and deliberate disregard for how the system works. That's not "incomplete understanding" or a good faith effort.

whymeogod··on DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
> I don't think they have ill intent

Perhaps you could read their statements? DOGE communications are filled with ill intent, and their publicly stated goal, and the goal for which their supports seem to support them, is the destruction of the bureaucracy. That's ill intent.

That's before we look at their actions.