Literal slaves clearing the debts of starving children. I don’t even know what to say about that.

Personally, I am very pleased with my Max Lumi (which has been superseded by other models). It was quite expensive, though, but I can say I have used it very often for five years and expect many more of it, still. However, because of its size, I don’t often bring it out with me. I primarily use it for studying at home.

But if you don’t need the largest size (13"), the smaller ones are less expensive. If I were to replace mine, I’d probably go for a 10" one. I think that seems the right balance of size for writing notes and portability.

I don’t know exactly what you mean by “comparable”. They’re both e-ink tablets. If you’d like actual comparison, may I suggest checking out MyDeepGuide: https://www.mydeepguide.com/articles/categories/e-ink-devices (also search for him on youtube).

This dude started reviewing a few e-ink tablets, and then he became THE guy for reviewing e-ink tablets.

You may be pleased to learn about he 13. 3" Boox Tab X. I got it’s predecessor (Max Lumi) specifically for PDFs. https://shop.boox.com/en-ca/products/tabxc

You can install other reading applications, like Kindle, Kobo, Libby, Hoopla, etc to greatly expand your reading selection.

I didn’t know who Jenny McCarthy was when I started watching The Masked Singer. I don’t keep up with a lot of pop culture, so I thought she was probably an actress who’d just been on shows hadn’t seen before. (I didn’t know Robin Thicke or Nicole Scherzinger were either, at first. And I often don’t know who the celebrity contestants are, too.) Then one time a contestant thanked her for her work… and so I wondered and searched online.

Ken Jeong is a comedian, but he was a medical doctor first and he continues to work enough as an MD to keep his credentials. How can stand to sit at the same table as her? Especially when it was COVID and people were literally dying by the millions. (That’s when I first saw the show.) I suppose the money is good enough for him to put aside his medical credentials and Hippocratic oath aside when he’s not actually practising.

Speech-to-text (a type of AI) has been around for a fair good years, but now they’re being paired with generative AI. This is the kind of thing that shouldn’t be paired with a generative LLM. A language model to identify words? Yes. Generative? No.

Where I am, there’s a requirement for 15% (I believe) of new condo developments to meet accessibility standards. You wouldn’t believe how people—potential buyers, not developers—are against that, saying it’s too many. That’s just new developments. All the existing old stock is not accessible, so that percentage of total accessible living spaces is, actually, still tiny. But it’s still too much to accommodate accessibility.

Literally everyone is one accident, illness, or old age away from being disabled in some way. I can’t believe how stupid and short-sighted people are. (Maybe that’s their disability.)

The thing that surprises me is he was arrested instead of promoted.

The other day I went out for lunch with a friend and some acquaintances. One guy ordered a burger, and then he went on for a little time about how is it possible there are enough cows for everyone to have a burger? How many burgers can you get from a cow? Where are all these cows coming from??

So I said it’s factory farming, these cows are produced for the sake of their meat. A cow is huge, a quarter cow is enough meat to feed a family for a whole year. I don’t think this guy was being purposefully obtuse, because I don’t know him to have that kind of personality, so the only remaining explanation is he really is that ignorant/stupid. In this age, we have lots of people who don’t care, or wilfully turn their eye from it. But to not know?

It seems a probable case is she misunderstood or misheard what was being said to her as “she needs to finish the drink” and complied with the request she thought was being given to her.

Heck, even as a hearing person, if someone told me I can’t have an open beverage in a space (alcoholic or not), finishing it seems like a reasonable way to be rid of it.

Good God, of all the ways one could gamble, this sounds like playing Russian roulette with five bullets loaded in the revolver.

Thanks for articulating it this way for me. It’s the hypocrisy that gets me, at least in my situation. I reported my boss to the directors. He was (still is) planning to cut a guy from our team, claiming he costs too much. But when I did the math, I found that my boss’ personal expenses on food, gas, phone, vehicle, etc. (with increasingly unaccounted-for amounts) are more than that guy’s pay.

My boss isn’t worried about the financial health of the organization, he’s worried he won’t be able to keep spending it on himself if he has to pay the workers.

I know you didn’t say they are (can be) racist, I am. I’m disagreeing that they are uninformed; a lot of Asians actively side with Trump and Musk. I know this because I am Asian myself and hear it from my parents and their friends who are Pro-Trump, anti-immigration, and racist against Black people, Hispanic people, Brown people, Muslims, LGBT people…

My dad defends every accusation against Trump. He thinks every bad thing said about him is a lie made up by his enemies. My mom’s best friend loves him and says he’s so smart, and everyone who disagrees with him is too stupid to understand.

A lot of Asians people are racist against non-white people and Asians of other countries. There are Pro-Trump Asians just as there are Pro-Trump Latinos who think they’re “one of the good ones” and all about pulling up the ladder behind them. The people buying cybertrucks at best don’t care and at worst are positively for it.

Truly, I don’t understand why, but there are fully grown adults who believe that anything an LLM says is true. Maybe they think computers are unbiased (which is only as true as programmers and data are unbiased); maybe its the confidence with which LLMs deliver information; maybe they believe the program actually searches and verified information; maybe it’s all of the above and more.

I know a guy who routinely says, “I asked ChatGPT…”, and even after having explained how LLMs are complex word predictors and are not programmed for factual truth, he still goes to ChatGPT for everything. It’s a total refusal to believe otherwise, but I can’t fathom why.

Historically, the mongers of violence and war have only been ended by stronger violence and better war strategies and resources. The whole take the higher road and tolerance thing is what got America into this current mess in the first place. These assholes are cowards and only come out when there are no consequences, but go back into hiding when there are.

People should not be punched in the nose for their race, religion, sexuality, gender, etc., basically who they are. People should be punched in the noise for being assholes, their bad behaviour.

All assignments are submitted electronically now, and if he’s in philosophy, he will also have to follow formatting requirements like font, font size, margins, and spacing. Practically, he’s doing as much as he is allowed off-computer.

If they had, they’d know there was a 13th disciple named Matthias. I’m not even kidding, it’s in the Book of Acts. He was selected to replace Judas, and is described as having been with them since the beginning.

I tried out a bunch, including Babbel, Busuu, Language Transfer, Mango, and Memrise. I didn’t like them for one reason or another. I finally landed on Lingodeer. It’s similar to Duolingo, but it is a paid app. (You can try level 1 of any language for free.)

The regular subscription price is definitely not worth it. It’s okay (not great, but not awful) when they do their sales. But I felt okay about paying human workers.

This kind of learning is a great start, but will only get you so far. If your local library has access to Kanopy, look for the Great Courses series on Spanish. I thought that was an excellent series after a little bit of Duolingo.