September 5th, 2022
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September 4th, 2022
What qualities will make an AI a person?
-General intelligence, not just a special ability to solve a particular class of problems.
-General ability to learn from interacting with the environment.
-Can communicate with people.
-The AI needs a sense of self, needs to see itself as a person.
-General ability to reason abstractly, reason about problems in general.
The various types of machine learning that exist today can and likely will be a part of a human-level AI, but as a module or subcomponent that gets applied to learning tasks. Another level of AI will need to exist on top of that, applying general knowledge storage, modeling / conceptualizing problems, dealing with overarching direction and goals.
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August 2nd, 2022
How far a train will take you in 5 hrs in Europe
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. Documentary
Impact of Lifting School Masking Requirements on Incidence of COVID-19 among Staff and Students in Greater-Boston Area School Districts: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis. “We estimate that lifting of school masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 (95% CI: 32.6, 57.1) COVID-19 cases per 1,000 students and staff over the 15 weeks since the lifting of the statewide school masking requirement, representing nearly 30% of all cases observed in schools during that time. “
You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack, cartoons by Tom Gauld
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July 26th, 2022
Kiln camera
Endless rake
Kiln design
EDM controller test
Piezo motor design / tests
Spot welder controller
Kiln ESP32 v2 (current sensing, direct ramp control, 2nd temp probe, bug fix)
ESP32 security camera, wall powered
CNC glass cutting w/ heat gun
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July 1st, 2022
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June 8th, 2022
Tirzepatide gives 20% weight loss! Once Weekly for the Treatment of Obesity
Laser spot size tradeoffs, link
Amateur ruling engine for making diffraction gratings made by Brian Manning TJIIRRS: Number 13,
Diffraction gratings, buy
Handy Techniques and Devices for making stuff by Jon Singer
More Guns, More Unintended Consequences: The Effects of Right-to-Carry on Criminal Behavior and Policing in US Cities. John J. Donohue, Samuel V. Cai, Matthew V. Bondy & Philip J. Cook.
Solar Panel Tilt Angle Calculator
Your optimal year-round tilt angle:
32.4° from horizontal
Your optimal tilt angles by season:
Spring: 32.4°, Summer: 17.4°, Fall: 32.4°, Winter: 47.4°
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May 31st, 2022
Order:
15? of 4’x8′ SmartSide 38 Series Cedar Texture 8″ OC Panel Engineered Treated Wood Siding
1 of 9’x 100′ Housewrap, $129
staples, have
3 of 2″x4″x8′
JELD-WEN 36 in. x 80 in. 6-Panel Primed Steel Prehung Left-Hand Inswing Front Door w/Brickmould, $270
shims, $2
liquid nails, caulk
DEWALT 2-3/8″ x 0.113″ Ring Shank Galvanized Metal Framing Nails 2000 per Box, $60
Nail gun, rental, DEWALT 20V Framing Nailer, 21-degree, battery
Pavers for water barrel
garden hose nozzle
Finish boards
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May 31st, 2022
Currently, gun regulation is politically impossible. The Republican party has worked with the gun manufacturer’s lobby (the NRA) to make gun ownership a totem, an obsession among conservatives. Republicans won’t vote for even minor gun regulation of the sort large majorities of Americans favor.
To pass federal gun regulation, the Democrats need to control the Presidency, the House, and have 54+ votes in the Senate, enough to overcome the members of the party who vote with Republicans on close bills. And even that would not be enough. The Supreme Court has been packed with Republican extremists. In 2008, the Court invented a personal write to own military weapons, and the Court now has more Republican extremists–any significant law passed by Democrats faces a likely veto by the Court. With the Court vetoing all the state gun control measures, they certainly would throw out a Democratic federal gun regulation bill.
So what *can* be done? I would look to the last time Republican favored gun regulation. In 1967, when Reagan was governor of California, he signed a ban on carrying loaded guns without a permit. Why? Because the Black Panthers were encouraging blacks to carry guns.
Is the US still racist enough for this to work? Certainly. So if group, say Arm African Americans (AAA), were to very publicly encourage blacks and other minorities to walk around strapped, that would quickly change the politics of gun regulation. Encourage 18-year old gang members to carry guns at all times–a lot of these kids don’t have criminal records, so they can. This will get cops behind gun regulation.
Start minority gun clubs. Hold gun parades and gun events in public spaces. Encourage people at marches to publicly carry guns, and minorities to carry guns in public. The Republican press may applaud this at first, but they will soon start fear-mongering like they do. Urban areas will be even more ‘dangerous’ to conservatives, and they will encounter armed minorities in public all over. I can’t see the Democratic party pushing for this, but other democratic-minded groups could start this. Is this a little crazy? Yes, but there is no sensible path to gun regulation in the US.
Within a few years, Republicans will start voting for gun control and the Supreme Court will *discover* new legal theories making the laws enforceable.
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April 2nd, 2022
Donna and Walt audio: A Series of Unlikely Events
Americans are split on buying a house where the prior owners were murdered
Nearly two in five Americans say they believe that ghosts (36%), demons (37%), and psychics (37%) exist. Less than half of Americans say each one doesn’t exist. Far fewer believe in the existence of vampires (7%) and werewolves (7%); more than 80% of Americans say vampires and werewolves do not exist.
Panic! On the Editorial Page: Breaking down a “cancel culture” scare story by Michael Hobbes
I’m a Longtime Professor. The Real Campus “Free Speech Crisis” Is Not What You Think. I’ve never seen classrooms like mine in the pages of the Times. by Lucas Mann
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