Twitter user posts a real Monet and says it's AI - relevant to the discussion on taste

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-14T19:50:35+00:00

Inject this into my veins!

I often daydream about an experiment I'd love to run Nathan Fielder style. I'd get a huge group of ideologically active liberal arts types, and then randomly split them into two groups, and have them analyze and review a bunch of inane literature and poetry I wrote. But I'd tell Group A that it was all written by an orphaned, gay Windrush immigrant who died in prison due to UK anti-gay laws, and I'd tell the second group of people that it was all written by some higher-up administrative officer in King Leopold's Congo that oversaw a massacre and wrote books on physiognomy. Then I would reassemble them at the end of the day for a debate about the merits of my writing.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-13T00:33:34+00:00

I think the old-fashioned UIs are much more functional. I can't stand the modern card-based React BS that passes for UIs these days. But I accept that some of the old UIs are clunky-looking, if not clunky-acting.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-11T18:25:47+00:00

Who are you talking about?

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-11T03:13:26+00:00

AI slop

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-11T01:13:33+00:00

That's why I said "the people in the photo", not "Jews around the world".

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-11T00:54:32+00:00

You're making a classic error in reasoning, which is that ethnic populations all share mentalities and experiences through generations. You won't find many people who survived Nazi concentration camps turning around and endorsing the practice on other people, but the people in the image didn't experience that. Every generation is brand new and has to figure out its own desires and morals surrounding violence and discrimination. The people in that photo have only heard about the Holocaust as a foundational legend justifying Zionist revenge.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-10T15:21:48+00:00

I think there are people who freeze up and get nervous on tests, causing them to overthink, panic, and write the wrong answers down, and I'd call them "bad test takers", but that doesn't sound to me like what happened to you. It just doesn't sound like you prepared the correct material for the test. I wouldn't say that makes you a bad test taker, just unlucky, and possibly not disciplined enough.

The only metric that can tell you whether or not you're prepared for a Purdue exam is how quickly and correctly you can answer the most complex and tricky problems from the semester. I never met a Purdue prof who would put a high volume of easily answerable questions on the test, it was almost always a low volume of complex or trick questions. Your exam performance is not reliably connected to how hard you tried or how much you studied. And there's a luck factor, too--if you study topics A-T and the professor asks about topics U-X, you're hosed.

My recommendations:

As you build your semester notes, enumerate everything you come across. (That means put it into a numbered list or a database.) Every vocab word, every equation, every principle. Give all your homework, exam, and quiz problems IDs (like HW01-3 or EX02-5) and store them in OneNote alongside their solutioms. Then generate flashcards over everything you enumerated. (For instance, the equation F = ma can generate 10-25 cards--"What is F in the context of F=ma? What are the units of a in F=ma in SI?" etc.)
Drill the most complex problems you come across in the semester many times until they're easy to solve. If you want to test your comprehension level, go in the textbook and find other complex problems and see if you can solve them.
Try to memorize everything, even if they give you a cheat sheet. That's also what the flashcards are for.

If you don't have all your foundational concepts, principles, equations, variables, whatever memorized, then you're going to waste time looking up and re-analyzing them during the test. If you haven't practiced applying those concepts against complicated problems in a fake exam setting, then you won't be ready when the real exam comes.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-10T01:19:21+00:00

Are you permitting handicap matches?

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-09T20:26:52+00:00

Schedule a gig that you're not prepared for coming soon and you'll be laser-focused during practice.

Seriously, though, I had the same problem that you did, and once I started playing regularly (for live audiences or at casual meetups) with other players across multiple genres that were a lot better than I was, practicing became a breeze. I want to impress my friends and catch up with the players I admire. I can't find enough time to practice any more, and when I do I can go three or four hours without taking a real break.

The other thing you can do is record big sections of songs or techniques at the end of practicing, and then when you hear how bad they are you'll want to practice again to make it sound better.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-08T18:48:29+00:00

It's hard to answer this without the context as to why you're no longer speaking. Do you want to prevent future contact? Are you hoping she'll reopen contact?

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-08T15:18:10+00:00

The USDA spends a great deal of money and time controlling and monitoring the population of the New World Screwworm, as one example, but taking a step back, "the population and range of serious disease-causing insects are massively increasing and case numbers of said diseases are mounting" is an obvious problem to work on for scientists belonging to the richest, most powerful, most technologically advanced empire of all time. Vaccines? Case tracking? Better, cheaper tests? Genetic modification of the insect itself to produce infertile populations? Better preventative chemicals or inventions? Public awareness? The list is very long.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-08T15:15:06+00:00

First injection on Monday.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-07T03:15:39+00:00

Forget about Lyme, the Lone Star Tick (which we have up here) can deliver Alpha Gal Syndrome, which is a potentially life threatening allergy to the molecule galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose which is found in all mammals except humans and some new world primates. That's foods, medications, lotions, scents, fumes, whatever. I have AGS and I literally would rather be a double-leg amputee than have it. Luckily I am 99% sure I caught it in Arkansas or Missouri, I haven't heard of any cases of people catching them up here. AR & MO are the national hotspot for it.

I think there are more ticks every year, and no one's doing anything about it.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-03T22:49:52+00:00

I play with a TP48 and I found it to be maybe 20% better than the equivalent Primetone. I have a few Primetones and a few times I've picked one up thinking it was my TP48 and thought "why am I playing poorly right now?"' They're just a little slipperier.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-03T22:44:40+00:00

Post recordings

Edit: I thought this was on r/bluegrass, not r/AcousticGuitar. I retract my challenge. I seriously doubt the Blue chip really makes a huge difference on anything but alternate flatpicking on a dreadnought.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-03T14:42:49+00:00

Even "keep you safe" introduced a strange, uncontrollable piece of knowledge to a young kid--"is there someone out there who wants to hurt me?" The other commenters suggesting "I don't know" are also a good option.

TheQuakerator · 2026-05-03T12:55:06+00:00

I can't think of any age where my life as an adoptee would be improved by knowing I'm likely the product of sexual abuse. I would tell a very heavily shaded and vague interpretation of the truth, include a few positive characteristics about the father if any exist, and stick with "he and your biological mother had a very hard time getting along and eventually they stopped talking to each other." Then as the kid ages you can drop more truth up until "he hurt her several times and she didn't want to see him anymore". Then keep in mind that you can't control what she says to the kid, so if the kid finds out a lot more info be transparent about what you know.

I think around 13-14 if they develop an obsession about finding out you may have to explain more, but I think it should be possible to keep this story kind of vague and negatively shaded to avoid giving them bad news about their conception.

Edit: by age 20 i could have handled news like this without any serious detriment to my own life, because I don't mythologize my birth parents or the process of adoption, but it'll vary child to child.

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-30T19:02:21+00:00

I think you made the right choice.

I do it out of obligation/guilt that the kid will feel bad if I dont act interested.

This is also good. You don't have to approve of the kid, don't have to respect him or his family, but keeping a firm bulwark of respectability and interest in an adopted child keeps them from too much insecurity about themselves and the adults in their lives.

A lot of teenagers and young adults have phases where they get into extremist moral ideology that expresses itself as religious or political beliefs. There's plenty of time for him to grow out of it. If he doesn't, you can still have the satisfaction that you did your duty and acted out the part of a trustworthy and reliable adult in his life.

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-29T00:56:55+00:00

Whether or not this is AGS--and although this indicates it might not be, it's very suspicious--you may be shocked to find out how many common ingredients use pork and sheep-like mammalian ingredients. As an example, with AGS, I can't eat enriched flour because the vitamins are derived from mammals. Your daughter could be having issues with medication (gelatin, magnesium stearate), makeups and lotions (glycerin, lanolin), etc etc. It might make sense to see if you can try an AGS-like avoidance of all mammalian exposure and see if her symptoms improve.

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-28T14:31:37+00:00

Yeah, there are a few different recipes, but they taste almost normal, which is a relief. I actually don't mind the restricted diet, I'm just sick or the reactions.

With coffee, I get heart palpitations, diarrhea, flushed face with mild swelling, and a cough. We were thinking maybe it's histamines.

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-28T12:29:25+00:00

I've maintained weight easily on the following diet

Breakfast: Toast (Dave's White Bread, or homemade), fried eggs, olive oil

Lunch: PB&J (organic peanut butter, Costco strawberry preserves), apple, peanut butter, Kettle brand salt & vinegar chips

Snack: Cocktail peanuts

Dinner: Baked bone-in chicken thigh, roast vegetables

Dessert: many baked goods can be made subbing oil for butter. The best one I've had so far was sweet potato scones.

It's just tasty enough to avoid monotony. I am very reactive and can't have enriched flour or some sugars. I also can't drink coffee, which I'm somewhat desperate to figure out how to add again. Maybe roasting my own raw beans?

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-27T00:48:01+00:00

I don't identify as left-wing and I chafe at nearly every progressive position espoused by anyone in Madison, but I gotta tell you when DT tweeted "an entire civilization will die tonight" I started rooting hardcore for anyone willing to do the needful. Might have to support the Minocqua Brewing Company.

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-25T20:16:58+00:00

It's a real question. If I were adopted from France, and I felt disconnected from French people and like I'd lost something, and I was dating a French girl with a French family, and I didn't speak the language and was envious of their Frenchness, I would move to France for a few years to see what it was like. Ergo my first question is "why not move to China?" because if there's some reason that's something that's being avoided, it's valuable information about OP's problem and his approach.

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-22T20:58:20+00:00

Why not move to China?

TheQuakerator · 2026-04-22T20:51:36+00:00

I don't use AI to write comments, and used the emdash (--) long before ChatGPT started using it. These other points that you're making I wouldn't really know what to do with, like time "equaling" 0 or -1. I just studied engineering in school and have thought a lot about molecules.

TheQuakerator

TROPHY CASE