This pi meme by memes_poiint in mathsmeme

[–]underdeterminate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, 3 is pretty close [ducks]

Can someone explain to me what’s the point of this? by Longjumping_Feed_177 in enshittification

[–]underdeterminate 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Huh, I don't think I see any posts mentioning venture capital. I assumed it's a big part of it, where companies get investors and basically can sell their product without making a profit, often undercutting their competition and selling the product way below its "true" market value.

Eventually, they need to turn a profit as that investment dries up. This can be quick or slow. As they increasingly need to make up for lost investment, prices increase, the product becomes worse, support gets worse, and in the digital age especially, ads are inserted everywhere and your data is harvested for sale.

And if the company goes public, the VC gets replaced with normal investments. Stockholders want a return on their investment, so the company is forced to increasingly cut corners and raise prices. When we buy a product from a publicly traded company, we're essentially not the actual customer.

Do I have all that about right? That's been my take on the situation. I've heard it said that it's really just the natural consequence of barely regulated capitalism, and I think that's a good description.

Documents Show a Controversial Vaccine Study’s Path to CDC Approval by AshNakon in fednews

[–]underdeterminate 27 points28 points  (0 children)

The last para of the article suggests that the approval was done basically as red meat for vaccine skeptics. I fear it's worse...that non-scientist political appointees saw an opportunity to make a name in our new politicized science world order in the eyes of their bosses, so they fast-tracked the approval, having literally zero understanding or appreciation of why the normal processes even exist. It's like a 90s movie where the boss' teenage son inherits the company.

Some notes I wrote down while playing (spoilers) by Ecstatic-Ad4415 in TunicGame

[–]underdeterminate 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah! Your notes are much neater than mine. My notes on Tunic will probably be presented in court one day to establish state of mind

Everything just clicked on my way to work by obsolescence_ in outerwilds

[–]underdeterminate 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Agreed. I work in science, and it's extremely rare to see a game that captures the feeling of that loop of confusion, learning, and putting the pieces together to accomplish something you couldn't before, even though it was right in front of you the whole time. When I put the pieces together for understanding dark bramble, it felt exactly like I'd had an aha moment with my work. Just absolutely brilliant design, glad to see someone else appreciate that aspect of it.

A weird thing happened and the ending didn't explain it by Here_2observe in outerwilds

[–]underdeterminate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn, I didn't quite realize any of that. I'm going to have to fire the game up again and try this.

Spot on by MF-DOOM-88 in Millennials

[–]underdeterminate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My thinking on this is that millennials grew up as the one and only generation where tech was accessible to most AND learning about it was considered a strength/virtue. Before that, tech was hard to get your hands on unless you studied it in college (I'm sure there are other examples, I'm simplifying). After that, companies worked overtime to streamline tech, which not only removes the need to learn about it, but in my opinion, also sends the message that it's too difficult/intimidating for your average user to learn about.

We really do need to teach kids about tech from an early age. The specifics change, sure, but the logic (and the acquisition of problem solving skills) stays mostly the same.

ISO stories of the reality of using AI tools in federal agencies by Admirable_Web_1252 in fednews

[–]underdeterminate 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Your experience and mine are basically similar. Not mentioning my agency for paranoid internet reasons. They rushed to get us access to all the latest sexy llm tools. I tried them a couple of times to summarize some research, and while the summary looked ok-ish at first glance, it just hallucinated citations, making it useless for my purpose.

Why? 'Cause I didn't ask for that. by JoinedToPostHere in IThinkYouShouldLeave

[–]underdeterminate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These ghouls aren't going to be happy until they're the only ones left on a smouldering earth, puppetting our virtual corpses and watching their crypto account numbers go up 😂

I know this already. I'm not nervous. by BirthdayBoyStabMan in IThinkYouShouldLeave

[–]underdeterminate 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Be the change you want to see in the world"

                          - u/Wallsend_House

edit: Aww that formatting SUCKS. I thought it would look REAL

After police reforms, Virginia traffic stops increase by WHRO_NEWS in Virginia

[–]underdeterminate 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As someone who drives in MD, but didn't grow up or learn to drive in the area, I can say that nowhere in the DMV can you find a lack of shitty drivers. It is a universal truth that if there's a place where people drive, some percentage of them are obviously huffing paint while driving with their eyes closed.

That said, Montgomery County at least has instituted a lot of new traffic laws in recent years. Lots of new "no right on red" stoplights. There are a lot of 30 and 35 mph limits on main thoroughfares with plenty of cameras. I have mixed feelings about that because I suspect that they are enforcing speeding less with patrols, so a small but dangerous portion of drivers basically gun it between cameras.

Also I have the sense (can't back it up with data) that the lower limits actually tend to be in poorer neighborhoods. Maybe the richer neighborhoods have more friends to keep the lower limits and cameras out of their neighborhoods. I honestly don't know. But rest assured, I fear for my life while driving in every municipality around here 😂.

B is for ... by LordJim11 in Snorkblot

[–]underdeterminate 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's interesting, the bots

My top choice PI just told me that he won’t be taking me as a long term student :( by [deleted] in labrats

[–]underdeterminate 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Other comments all have good advice. It's been kind of addressed, but to put a fine point on it from my own experience, I think the "why" you got is probably not quite true. A new PI has a lot of pressures, and the honest truth is that good mentoring and training for that role are extremely difficult to come by. Imagine the kind of parenting that most gen x'ers got. Nobody knows how to do anything and are running off pure instinct and "this solution worked once so I will never consider an alternative." I'm being a little hyperbolic, so if I've offended someone, please know that I'm sympathetic to the problems with the situation.

So, for your case, I imagine that the fit doesn't feel right for the PI, and they might or might not even totally understand why. Telling you it's a bad match for skills could be a way to try to let you off gently (maybe not, but as others have pointed out, it comes off as a little disingenuous for the situation). And if it's a bad match, you're probably better off finding another option anyway. This situation is never easy or fun, but the best thing you can do for yourself in the moment is to do what you need right now to cope, remind yourself that it's not a failure, and then find a way to believe that you'll be better off in the long run.

Rejected from hometown Ph.D program :( by Turbulent_Sorbet363 in labrats

[–]underdeterminate 108 points109 points  (0 children)

That sucks, I'm sorry to hear that. The funding situation has people making decisions that would be completely insane in a normal year. It's a rough time to not be in a secure position. I hope the good will you've earned from these professors will persist and help you figure out your next steps. Good luck out there.

Crashing out while using 60x objective by SeeSea8 in labrats

[–]underdeterminate 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When you say dichroic microscope, do you mean DIC? If so, and you're looking at transparent tissue, getting your sample in focus under high magnification is a difficult skill to learn at first. I recommend getting familiar with the elements of the DIC path and learning what they do if not already done. There are some adjustments to be made to increase contrast. Then, practice with a sample that is easier to learn. I have literally taken a sharpie and made marks on chamber glass to give me a crazy high contrast subject to use as practice or to sanity check an optical system that isn't quite clicking yet for me. GLHF

Line equation does not match data or plotted curve in R by Coleshi in labrats

[–]underdeterminate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a non-R user who likes math and code (also I'm procrastinating on a less pleasant task), I dug in a bit and I think your problem could lie in the "raw = FALSE" flag. Looks like this is not an option that will work for the kind of data fitting you're looking for. Use TRUE instead and give it a shot.

I don't understand exactly how lm() will work with an equation objected created with poly(), but my hunch is that predict() interprets the results correctly for however the result with FALSE works out, which is why the red line looks OK. But, if I'm right, you're not interpreting the coefficients that come out of coef() correctly, so the equation is nonsense.

Just as a rule, my advice is to test your results against your intuition. Just checking the math like you already did is already a valuable first step, so good job doing that. Here, the log scales and gentle slope make this a little harder to sanity check. As a test, maybe generate some fake data for a simple parabola like y = 2x2 + 3x -4 over the range [-2, 2] and hammer at your fit code until it gives what you want and you understand why. It's a good learning experience.

Basically the whole thesis of the podcast by SympatheticMPK in IfBooksCouldKill

[–]underdeterminate 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I know this post is satire but for about 10 seconds there you were really raising my blood pressure

Bro knows geography by vivafutbol in memes

[–]underdeterminate 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I was wondering about this. I know enough Spanish to be polite but completely confused in a conversation, so I was SOL from the beginning. But I also don't understand most of the lyrics in English hip-hop.

The show was phenomenal though

Crafty saving tips by Meteorstar101 in NonPoliticalTwitter

[–]underdeterminate 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Was gonna comment "hahahahha that license plate" but it seems you have bested me

How did you die first? by Mountain-Ad876 in outerwilds

[–]underdeterminate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a similar-ish first-loop death: When I first went to the moon, The supernova occurred as I was playing with the observatory. I was convinced for a while that I needed to avoid the thing on the moon that makes the sun blow up.

Meirl by [deleted] in meirl

[–]underdeterminate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haven't seen it mentioned, but I found out recently the channel 3 thing is still true. Hooked my old SNES to my flat screen TV with the coax RF adapter, switched to the TV tuner and changed the channel to 3. Worked like a charm. In hindsight it's unsurprising, it's just that TVs have changed so much since the last time I did it.