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Off Key - General Discussion

A place to talk about whatever you want

2.5k Topics 18.2k Posts
  • Hey Steve - heard of this stuff?

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    Re bar is usually encased in concrete. If you keep it out of the sun I’dexpect the expox to last a very long time. Certainly longer than steel rebar once it gets wet, and much longer yet than rebar that gets wet with seawater.
  • Cryptocurrencies and Private Market Assets in 401(k)

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    Nothing good will come of this.
  • He couldn’t vacation elsewhere?

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    Does anyone know his true identity? He's a disciple of a tech lord whose name I won't mention. Hint: Don't go to the Yale's library. Go to Google.
  • Drones in Lithuania

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    It won't end well.
  • College Admission Getting Easier

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    I've noticed.
  • AI Jazz

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  • On a whim

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    I use Teeccino as a coffee substitute. I use it in my expresso maching. I like the flavor though it does not mimic coffee well. There is zero caffeine in it. I get it from Amazon.
  • Brain drain?

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    wtgW
    College applications rise outside US as Trump cracks down on international students The U.S. remains the first choice for many international students, but institutions elsewhere are recognizing opportunity in the upheaval, and applicants are considering destinations they might have otherwise overlooked. The impact on U.S. universities — and the nation’s economy — may be significant. Data showing the extent of any impact will not be available until fall, said Mike Henniger, CEO of Illume Student Advisory Services, a consultancy that works with colleges in the U.S., Canada and Europe. “But the American brand has taken a massive hit, and the U.K. is the one that is benefiting,” he said. https://apnews.com/article/international-students-visas-trump-uk-dubai-6fd432398ce4c87f49a89c9c39421dec
  • Fried fish

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    I forgot the worst part. I was leaving and apparently crushed a garden lizard between the top of the door and the door frame. This was when I noticed the wasps. I was hoping its tail was just cut off but it was dead. It didn't look like a good omen so I found a stick and knocked it to the ground.
  • Meanwhile, in Teesside

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    @Bernard said @Steve-Miller Many the time I saw rats on the subway tracks waiting for the train in the NYC subway system! Same on the London Underground. When a train approaches they vanish. Jack Russel dogs are our ratters though any small terrier like Border or Patterdale or Fox will have the natural instinct.
  • BFFs (gorilla edition)

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  • Visa deposit

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    But not very many.
  • Students' ChatGPT logs

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    wtgW
    Another AI experiment. What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom Piers Gelly on a Semester-Long Dive into the AI Discourse https://lithub.com/what-happened-when-i-tried-to-replace-myself-with-chatgpt-in-my-english-classroom/?user_id=66c4c06e5d78644b3aab4472
  • Easiest/best way to cook chicken breast

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    MikM
    I did not find it as good as brining and gentle sautéing. They were a bit dry, but then I did not follow the directions precisely and they were fairly small pieces.
  • This made me lol this morning.

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    LOLOL and Texas related, of course.
  • AI boom expected to make half of US GDP growth

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    "AI" as it's known may not go away, and it may be helpful to some people, but it will continue to be little more than an expensive, fancy-pants data retrieval system that steals copyrighted material for profitable ends. Hopefully, our lawmakers will do their job and make sure it is appropriately and strongly regulated and that they put a stop to the wholesale theft. The last copilot-generated search result I looked at (I always prefix my searches these days with "-ai -copilot" but I forgot this time) said something coherent followed by a parenthetical, "According to Wikipedia". Had me LOLing. I recommend the following opinion as a counter to the constant hype... https://unherd.com/2025/08/how-to-stopper-the-ai-genie/?lang=us But as recent tests and studies of LLMs have shown, this technology is not the pathway to AGI that we were promised. The hopes that “scaling”, “emergent properties” and “reasoning” would lead to AGI have all failed. The path to AGI lies elsewhere, if anywhere. As Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta, has said: “There’s absolutely no way that autoregressive LLMs… will reach human intelligence. It’s just not going to happen.”
  • Racist cops always sound the same

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    Link to video
  • Meanwhile, in Texas

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    I think they did that last time too.
  • In Search of Forgotten Colors

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    Some interesting reading here, which I will read in its entirety later ... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273606710_The_rate_of_fading_of_natural_dyes
  • Channel 4

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    @wtg said in programs to watch via Channel 4. Trying to remember channel 4 stuff... 8 out of 10 cats Timeteam Drop the Dead Donkey Father Ted (you'll either love or hate this) Nothing currently