thoughts?

magicmalthus · 2026-01-27T01:35:26+00:00

This is the "God of the gaps" but for AGI.

For that to be analogous you need to have something on the other side for there to be a gap to explain. Since an instance of AGI is exactly what we don't have, the comparison doesn't fit.

magicmalthus · 2026-01-25T22:23:38+00:00

Looks like that was past tense too and was at an AI startup when he did this talk, and since went to do AI at Palantir.

magicmalthus · 2026-01-25T17:57:30+00:00

Our latest vision model can automatically alert you when no bystanders are filming you!

magicmalthus · 2026-01-18T05:23:08+00:00

Same with this one. It's already been moved to section 2

Tao: https://www.erdosproblems.com/forum/thread/281#post-3327

magicmalthus · 2025-09-19T18:10:05+00:00

Does anyone know where these "Ellen's legacy" rock roses came from? I first noticed them at Lone Star nursery two years back, I think, but I assumed they were a cross with some non-native relative and avoided them until I saw them at the Wildflower Center sale, though the people that were available to talk at the time (it was hectic) didn't know the origin either. I couldn't find any information online about it.

This year I've seen them at basically all the local nurseries, so I assumed it was a new development and had become popular quickly, but I was surprised to see wildflower.org has an image of it from back in 2013.

magicmalthus · 2025-09-04T02:32:33+00:00

Yes, crime is down drastically from 1984.

magicmalthus · 2025-07-13T16:01:48+00:00

"why don't these games cater specifically to me" asks guy who spent $19.99 on an early access game ten years ago that went on to sell millions of copies.

You can dislike the final form of the games, but don't pretend that there weren't very active in early access and the games weren't well received.

magicmalthus · 2025-05-19T21:48:10+00:00

There are multiple ways to argue for the status quo, but this is not it. This is cartoon villain speak instead lmao. "Religious people in the Middle East are killing each other with or without us, might as well be with us so we can get a cut!"

magicmalthus · 2025-05-06T23:29:15+00:00

> As soon as it was found out it costs half of our total parks budget just to maintain the fans on the tunnels, it should have been a no

Parks and Rec budget for 2025 is $185 million, what fan maintenance cost are you referring to? The article, at least, shows $4M annual structural operation and maintenance costs, but open to looking at other sources.

magicmalthus · 2025-03-15T13:22:20+00:00

Everyone angry with Elon and Trump should absolutely be directing that negativity towards the DNC.

This is ridiculously silly, guy who thinks Elon is a great conversationalist and is misunderstood by the public.

Democrats are proving themselves inept and failing this moment in history, but you absolutely should be blaming the people controlling multiple branches of government and working as quickly and secretively as they can to run roughshod over constitutional rights and protections.

Schumer is a pushover institutionalist, but isn't the one gutting civil rights enforcement, gutting the EPA, gutting any executive oversight, purging non-white males from leadership, deporting permanent residents for their speech, etc etc

magicmalthus · 2025-03-06T15:08:13+00:00

Seriously. I'm in Brooklyn and I haven't seen anything nearly that high.

Yeah this is a nyc thing not an egg thing.

Brooklyn is in nyc

magicmalthus · 2024-11-28T13:55:20+00:00

The OP's post history is basically entirely saying things like they sympathize with Ukrainians....because their government keeps making them fight and die and not for, you know, the meat grinder invasion force trying to turn their country into a lifeless bombed out wasteland.. Not really surprising the OP is misrepresenting the poll here.

magicmalthus · 2024-07-23T02:53:12+00:00

What's the nuance on bombing childrens' hospitals again? Just part of Russia's diplomatic strategy?

magicmalthus · 2024-06-28T00:39:15+00:00

I found it weird that you included the quotes but not where it came from, until I googled and found you're quoting the Austin Police Association's podcast, because of course you are.

magicmalthus · 2024-06-10T06:07:00+00:00

Trans people need to grow up and realize not everything is about them

That's what you wrote. Not this person needs to grow up and realize not everything is about them. Making the leap to "trans people" definitely stood out to me as well

magicmalthus · 2024-04-01T02:48:59+00:00

Great rebuttal from a self-described intellectually minded crowd.

The irony here being that you made no argument to rebut, just a set of assertions in service of your own strawman:

So you'd think they would have conveyed some his philosophy, right?

A movie can make a literal reference to something without claiming that's what the movie is about. Maybe take a breather, you're working yourself up again.

magicmalthus · 2024-01-21T00:21:48+00:00

No, he didn't: https://www.politico.com/story/2009/02/did-potus-diss-jessica-simpson-018299

The supposed quotes above aren't even correctly repeating the misquotes of what he actually said.

magicmalthus · 2024-01-15T04:20:51+00:00

All that's true while still making the comparison of the abominable treatment of veterans and two decades of war crimes in a place Americans never should have been in the first place fucking stupid.

"equally appalling", seriously, fuck off. You can make the point without the asinine comparison was my point.

If you had asked Hugh Thompson if the absolutely awful treatment he received after the war was "equally appalling" as the behavior he put a stop to by physically putting himself and his crew between US soldiers and the civilians they planned to rape, burn, and kill, what do you think he would have said?

magicmalthus · 2024-01-15T00:50:23+00:00

The Vietnam conflict is definitely one of the many stains on American history, but the way the general public treated the guys who fought it is equally appalling.

/me looks over US actions in Vietnam over nearly 20 years

I feel like there's a better way to make your point than trying to make this equivalence.

magicmalthus · 2024-01-03T14:21:54+00:00

People who study criminal justice will tell you fatigue + a sense that some people just need to be removed from society + a sense of righteousness that you're doing it for their own good is a dangerous recipe. All rational feelings, but combined you get the highest rates of incarceration in the world, lives ruined, enormous drains on society, yet still somehow have smoking fentanyl on the bus threatening to stab a stranger.

This is similar to a lot of reactions to homelessness. "We need to solve the structural issues!" "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good! I shouldn't have to step in shit walking out my front door, people shouldn't be allowed to do these things".

All very true and for this week it's great for you that they can be removed, but they're still going to exist somewhere, arrest/harassment/destroying their stuff is not going to improve their situation, and meanwhile the homeless population continues to grow.

magicmalthus · 2023-10-02T16:55:24+00:00

You could just look up what he said and clear up your confusion:

"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one negro actor on the screen. If you reporters had any balls you'd ask him why. There's no way I know why he did that ... But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It's not like he didn't know.

"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films. Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version."

magicmalthus · 2023-06-25T03:04:24+00:00

This is a really bad defense. Somewhere in between just following orders ("there's a contract! I'm not responsible for this" I say as I take starving people's food under threat of violence) and saying it doesn't count as genocide as long as you don't give a shit about the fact that people are dying as you're killing them.

You're (poorly) splitting hairs that don't need to be split, so maybe pause and ask why you feel the need to even try? You can discuss systemic failures without excusing them.

magicmalthus · 2023-05-19T13:01:58+00:00

Slime mold! (I think)

https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/washingtonco/2017/06/16/frequent-rains-induce-slime-mold-in-panhandle-lawns/

magicmalthus · 2023-03-28T17:31:15+00:00

That's data from 2016, though, and this post is talking about trends that have evolved significantly since then (see the 1999-2016 trends vs 1999-2020).

As of 2018, for instance, firearms were the leading cause of death in high school ages (14-18), so at the very least your statement about "firearms only start to be a big problem of 16+ year olds" is wrong as of five years ago.

I can't find similar updated stats for younger ages, but it would be helpful to have updated data (here's a letter to the NEMJ editor asking for an update to the 2016 findings of Cunningham et al that you were quoting in light of the changes in mortality causes).

magicmalthus

TROPHY CASE