[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 hours ago

I'd like to point out that the dialect-language-family distinction is really a continuum. As dialects drift apart from each other, there is no point where God comes in and declares a dialect has graduated into its own language. Mutual intelligibility simply decreases continuously.

For instance, Portuguese and Spanish are widely considered to be different languages, although they are partially mutually intelligible, particularly in written form. Cantonese and Mandarin are less so, but still a bit. My uncle-in-law speaks Canto but can still understand my Mandarin (however, he can't respond). I won't deny that there is a political reason to want to refer to the Chinese/中文 languages as a single "language," but the classification is honestly quite arbitrary. My understanding is that linguists generally place the category of "Chinese" somewhere between "language" and "family."

Is Scots a different language than English? I don't think I could understand someone speaking Scots without incredible concentration.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

explaining the etymology doesn't really change anything. I don't know why you thought that would make me stop associating it with the bible belt.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Half-life is good -- I played it recently -- but I think it relies on having a bit of skill already, it's not a great choice for a beginner in my opinion. I would suggest Minecraft (if you're creative) or Portal (if you like puzzles) instead, to learn the ropes of how to control a game in first-person perspective.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 days ago

Y'all reminds me of the bible belt. I'm not transgender but I am queer and now and then it makes me uncomfortable.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Twitter is evil

Mastodon has bad UX

BlueSky is fresh

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Then you did not prove that there is no discontiguous mapping which maps [1, 2] to the natural numbers. You must show that no mapping exists, continugous or otherwise.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

But then a simple comeback would be, "well perhaps there is a non-continuous mapping." (There isn't one, of course.)

"It still works if you don't" -- how does red's argument work if you don't? Red is not using cantor's diagonal proof.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Crack your knuckles, solve your problems your own way, stop comparing yourself to other people, ditch the drugs, and turn your life around. You're the main character; this has been episode 1, now let's do episode 2.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

This isn't entirely correct. It's kind of like saying "SAT score" is a racist pseudoscience -- which honestly I can kind of get behind, heh. "IQ" is not a property of a human the way height or eye colour is, it's just a test score. Yes, it's used by racist people for racist ends, but racist people use everything for racist ends. The actual science behind IQ has always shown that (a) individual variation in IQ score is vastly, vastly greater than any potential racial factor in IQ, and (b) different research findings on racial averages in IQ score are varied enough that it's hard to draw much of a conclusion. It's also well known that IQ tests have a bias in favour of people from western developed nations. To me, it's most likely that racial averages are similarly biased by the test.

Dowsing is a pseudoscience -- it falls apart under scrutiny. But under scrutiny, IQ test scores still correlate with success just like SAT scores do. They are slightly heritable, just like SAT scores are. It sucks, but that's our capitalist society for you. (Let's revolt.)

But to the OP, please understand that these correlations are nothing more than correlations, and they are meaningless when you zoom into the individual level. Statistics about groups of people only make broad guesses but are meaningless about individuals. Statistics say the average person has one ovary and one testicle. Statistics say the average American has never heard of lemmy. So, don't let statistics define you -- that would be pseudoscience.

If it helps, remember this: it's not scientific to say "my IQ is just 76." You should say "My most recent IQ test score was 76."

55
submitted 2 months ago by jsomae@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world

The experience seemed roughly on par with trying to advise a mediocre, but not completely incompetent, graduate student. However, this was an improvement over previous models, whose capability was closer to an actually incompetent graduate student. It may only take one or two further iterations of improved capability (and integration with other tools, such as computer algebra packages and proof assistants) until the level of "competent graduate student" is reached, at which point I could see this tool being of significant use in research level tasks.

16
submitted 2 months ago by jsomae@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

What do y'all guys use for cloud storage, like DropBox, Google Drive, and so on? Ideally something which works even when offline.

I'd like to de-google of course.

91
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by jsomae@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

(Please don't downvote just because I need some help.)

I was once a privacy nut. But it's getting so hard nowadays, and there are so many more important problems -- global warming, AI, the inevitable collapse of the current world order... how does privacy improve the world? Please help remind me.

I do approve of privacy, of course. All this protect-the-children flak is bullshit. I just can't remember why I thought it was something worth fighting for and preaching about.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 94 points 3 months ago

Please call it Twitter in the title unless there's a good reason not to. I thought this was Xorg.

17
submitted 5 months ago by jsomae@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

In a poll on hexbear (see link), it was observed that there are very few cis women on Lemmy. I think this is the intersection of several problems:

  • engagement of women on Reddit was always low
  • fewer women in computer science
  • I'm hesitant to recommend anything fediversy to people who don't tinker with computers like I do and thus might need a more handholdy UX.

I gather that transgender people tend to be more into CS, though I don't see why that explains entirely such an astonishing presence of the transgender community on Hexbear.

Anyway, I just thought I'd open the floor to brainstorming.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 96 points 6 months ago

I laugh because this is funny but then I think, oh god what if she's serious and now there's going to be a twitter campaign to remove satanic language in tech.

138
submitted 7 months ago by jsomae@lemmy.ml to c/news@lemmy.world

Safety tips:

  • Only use special eclipse glasses; regular sunglasses aren't safe
  • Wait for 100% totality before taking off your eclipse glasses. (If you don't have eclipse glasses, wait for totality before looking at all)
  • Have a timer prepared on your phone set to the duration of the eclipse at your location, so you know when to put your glasses back on.
  • When the sun is mostly (but not fully) eclipsed, it will likely not feel painful to look at it, but it will still damage your eyes permanently.
9
submitted 7 months ago by jsomae@lemmy.ml to c/anime@lemmy.ml
[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 155 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Reminder that poor Gary Bowser was jailed for a year and owes 30% of his income to Nintendo for the rest of his life. He uses a wheelchair and has two kids.

It would be morally wrong to pirate all future Nintendo titles and pay the cover price to Gary's gofundme. Please don't do that.

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jsomae

joined 8 months ago