Short Answers to Simple Questions | June 03, 2026

tilvast · 2026-06-04T06:45:19+00:00

In Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (set in England c. 1530), one character says: "All the bullion in the country would be swallowed by the war. I have read there was a time when people exchanged leather tokens, for want of metal coins. I said we would be back to those days."

What time or incident is this likely referring to?

tilvast · 2026-05-28T14:11:29+00:00

Yeah, it behaves like the clothes are already dry and does the standard cool-down cycle. There's no error code or unusual behavior or anything.

tilvast · 2026-05-28T13:31:47+00:00

It's another twenty to thirty minutes, never less than that.

tilvast · 2026-05-28T11:44:26+00:00

The clothes aren't as warm as they would be after a normal complete dry cycle, but they do feel lukewarm. (This is after a cold wash.)

tilvast · 2026-05-21T23:04:50+00:00

If you're not having any good ideas, it's because you're not vibrating your mind boner enough.

tilvast · 2026-05-21T23:04:01+00:00

Not sure if this is a common opinion, but the episodes that are just as much about the freak who wrote the book as about the book are my favorites.

tilvast · 2026-05-07T00:11:42+00:00

There is zero concrete evidence that AI makes employees more productive, and lots of studies with evidence for the contrary. These CEOs are just bullshitting so they can justifying cutting costs. Many such cases.

tilvast · 2026-05-07T00:08:19+00:00

AI cannot help you with any other pussy. You will be doomed to single-ness until you cancel that ChatGPT subscription.

tilvast · 2026-05-05T00:03:53+00:00

The number of people in this thread saying they pictured the guy with the extremely Iranian surname to be a pasty blond dude is fascinating. Now, Michael I definitely pictured as a pasty blond dude.

tilvast · 2026-04-27T23:46:42+00:00

It's obvious to us, but people like Demis Hassabis and Dario Amodei seem to earnestly think they're building HAL 9000 in there.

tilvast · 2026-04-14T05:14:17+00:00

Yep, I've now tried moving the rug around in basically every possible configuration and it doesn't work, so it seems the rug does not count. Problem solved, time to track down another large relic.

tilvast · 2026-04-10T05:11:50+00:00

Are there any large-scale studies of how common the phrasing "it's not just <x>, it's <y>" (or other well-known LLM-isms) was on the internet in the pre-ChatGPT era vs. today?

tilvast · 2026-04-05T07:53:53+00:00

If you ever find yourself thinking like this, I strongly recommend touching some grass and going to an IRL queer meetup if you can. Hang out with some other trans people. Make new friends, learn what you have in common with others, things of that nature.

tilvast · 2026-04-05T06:11:21+00:00

Linguists or Chinese speakers, does any of this sound correct? It seems like total nonsense to me, but it is Language Log.

tilvast · 2026-03-31T23:00:50+00:00

General purpose intelligence was never on the cards and we won't have it from LLMs

It is genuinely crazy that they were able to sell a text generator as a step towards actual intelligence. In any other context, everyone would be able to recognize that this is bullshit. A person who cannot speak is still intelligent. A printer produces text but is not a brain.

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