Just one of those random "well this works too" kindof observation. The little pointy thing is most likely a plug for those types of squirters on bottles meant to store with the cap down.

The Sporkful podcast just did a reheat episode and it was about bourbon. One of the taster expert people said that you take the first sip they way you would a hot coffee and basically you’ll just taste alcohol. Then you take a second sip and you get the flavours. I don’t like any brown spirit, but this made me wonder if I just take that first sip, grimace, and give up before actually tasting the flavours???

Is 5d recess?

Both parties have included in their funding bills additional money for the security of Congress, judges and executive branch officials in response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Republicans have proposed $88m in spending, while Democrats have offered $326m. IMO, they shouldn't get a dime in additional security money until they get serious about reasonable gun laws.

@Axtremus said in Me Learning LLM Reasoning: There probably is a lesson somewhere in this experience for multilingual LLM machine learning/reasoning, but I don’t know what that is yet. Well, to me one obvious lesson is not about machine learning, but rather that, even if you’re very knowledgeable, you have relevant information, and your ideas are good, how you present it matters immensely. Being able to present complex information in an accessible way is the essence of good teaching. I notice that video #1 says High-level overview of reasoning in large language models, focusing on motivations, core ideas, and current limitations. No prior background is required. But reading your comment makes me wonder if in fact prior background is needed… Because being able to present new ideas in an accessible to someone with no background in the subject is the essence of good presenting. I’m curious about the subject matter in the video (for example, I want to hear about chain-of-thought prompting and chain-of-thought reasoning, and I want to know what they mean by in-context learning), but reading your post makes me hesitant to watch it…

Some of those I still watch daily i.e. Sweeney, Professionals, Minder, Upstairs Downstairs, Downton Abbey, Morse, Poirot, all currently being shown here on freeview. I'd like to rewatch Prime Suspect and Broadchurch. Thunderbirds is so dated for me, yet the original Star Trek from 1966 remains fresh and attractively primeval. Do you get those old crime series in the States? The Sweeney & The Professionals show London when I first moved there, and classic cars of my youth

Although the long lasting Tube strike is over per se, but if your plans depend on using it be aware there are "rolling strikes" going on now - unpredictable. Need to keep abreast of what's going on transportationwise. Link to video

Crow in our native oak tree had a lot to say Crow in our native oak tree had a lot to say

That’s fun! I have an open dish of shells on my powder room counter. They could probably use a rinse. They’re all from different trips; I can’t remember which came from where any more.

Turns out many of those gun owners like just tyranny just fine. Who knew?

Rosemary, tarragon, chives. https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d4CxeJ80byYsG9zbl_vtpXAg

@Rontuner said in As it should be: Time for police to arrest ICE contract workers? I think this should be the norm for contractors without visible ID or warrents. Speaking of contractors, I think an additional problem is the trend for subcontracting across many areas of law enforcement — ICE yes, but also prisons, other aspects of border patrol, all of it. It seems like it’s almost completely under the radar, but for-profit anything related to law enforcement is an inherent conflict of interest and recipe for abuse. Surely that’s playing a role in what we’re seeing but with all the problems happening at once, this one seems to not get much attention.

@wtg That was really hard to read. What happened to that family, that man, and countless others like him, is unfair, unkind, probably illegal, and definitely unAmerican. And I hate that this is happening across our country. I am truly sympathetic for the man in the article and his situation. But I cannot understand the continued willingness of him (and people like him) to support the person who's caused his financial problems, who does things that he thinks are wrong... I just don't understand it.

Mr SK was telling me about the Japanese team that won. Apparently there are often Japanese winners of the Ignoble Prize

Interesting. Mauser 98 ... Exact same gun my father tried to ship home from Italy in WWII ... https://bsky.app/profile/dhfeldman.bsky.social/post/3lyletu4byk24

I'm guessing they want the Tdap vaccine, which is for tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough). Tetanus is not contagious but the other two diseases are. Quest does titers for all three, but this is the description that came with the pertussis results. This assay cannot be used to assess protective immunity to pertussis because the specific antibodies and antibody levels that correlate with protection have not been well defined. The primary intent of the assay is to aid in the diagnosis of infection following natural exposure to Bordetella pertussis. The indicated PT IgG reference ranges reflect the 90th percentile of antibody levels in sera from healthy children and blood donors; thus, levels above the reference range suggest recent infection or vaccination within the last few months. The bottom line is that you get some idea if you're protected against tetanus and diphtheria from the Quest test, but not pertussis. There is also this from the American Academy of Family Physicians, which confirms what Quest says and also says that even if you get a booster every ten years, you probably lose immunity to pertussis way before then and they note that re-vaccination isn't an effective public health strategy. Unlike with other vaccines, there is not a standardized antibody titer to confirm protection against pertussis.27 Although pertussis vaccines were initially whole cell, the high reactogenicity of the vaccine caused frequent adverse effects (e.g., local reaction, seizure, pain, fever sometimes leading to febrile seizure), resulting in the adoption of acellular vaccines in the 1990s. Immunity typically wanes two to four years after administration of the acellular pertussis vaccine, although this can occur as early as one year postvaccination.28 Individuals with natural infection also experience waning immunity, including children with a history of pertussis.4,29 Because of this rapid decrease in immunity, it is not considered an effective public health strategy to continue recurrent tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) boosters.4 https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2021/0800/p186.html Confused yet? In any event, it won't hurt to ask if they'll accept the titer. Maybe they won't read the fine print about pertussis....

Democracy Forward? https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/legal-group-democracy-forward-battles-120000838.html https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-progressive-legal-group-that-keeps-taking-on-trump-in-the-courts-and-winning/ar-AA1BmWYu?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=4ceeb3a8b0bd43b1947bfce2102eea59&ei=84