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Cake day: November 6th, 2026

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  • I know it is but I do not want to call it an algorithm? I’m asking as someone who doesn t work in it but pretty close. As I see it, AI is a set of functions turned into tensor operations in a dimensional space (basically my university matrices class) and the parameters weights are adjusted based on collected data (human data as i understand in this case it could be reddit comment libraries or books or Meta data ).

    That last bit is why I don’t confuse it with an algorithm since then it would be a heuristic. Algos are predictible, like running a graphic simulation that uses a physical and logic model, yeah id agree that s all a system of algorithms. Heuristic in terms of structure and method may look like algorithms but they are “rule of thumb” approximations for specific problems where we cannot build a math system (like an algo). At this point it is the human element and adaptation of the AI to you that would make it a heuristic.

    Makes sense?




  • I feel ya, my family is african from western sahara personally so I ve never put on sunscreen nor gotten sunburnt, In my opinion the best you can do is expose yourself for durations under 3 to 4 hours, wear a hat with a round lid (cowboy for example) and wear long sleeve light clothing. Depends on where you live, but you should really have problems only when you get close to the equator during the summer. In my opinion, as much as it sucksm the alternative would be to use a cosmetic that might make you sterile through time, give you gynecomastia, lower your sperm count, raise diabetes and high blood pressure risks or worst case, cause neurodevelopmental disorders in future children you may procreate (adhd and autism spectrum disorders are known to have a link to it).

    Small brochure on the subject that may interest you: https://www.endocrine.org/-/media/endocrine/files/advocacy/edc-report2024finalcompressed.pdf


  • You re welcome bro, I m sure it ll help a few folks in terms of stuff no one shows you at school, I just became careful with time due to working in factories and learning about surface additives and polymers over time.

    And yeah, sunscreen is up there with disposable paper cups for coffee for instance or disposable utensils (the bamboo/wood ones are just as bad as the plastic ones here).

    Food wise, I say eat what you can afford but if you can shop somewhere, head to costco (their business model works well in this case to provide you with high quality goods and high production standards, and buy whole foods, nothing that you could not cook yourself at home. It can be tiring if you treat these microplastics like the plague since you ll become obsessive (I definitely get like that at times) but as long as you make proper choices, a trip to a fast food or a frozen pizza every once in a while won’t kill you.


  • Teflon (t-fal and all other non stick pans, a good replacement is simply a seasoned carbon steel pan)

    Use glass tuperwares instead of plastic.

    Silicone cooking utensils only preferably, metal is of course okay, stay away from any other plastic other than silicone in the kitchen). Silicone is non-porous, cannot foster bacteria and burns at 400C rather than melt. I advise good quality silicone since curing is the predictor of durability and is what impacts price in silicone manifacturing.

    Try to not smoke cigarettes specifically, cigars and pipes are fine even vaping. The reason is cigarette paper is sprayed with BFR (a flame retardant) so as to reduce the risks of cigarettes causing house fires if someone falls asleep with a lit one in their hands. PhilipMorris will kill you quicker with additives than tar from tobacco.

    Avoid fast foods, as well as grease or water repelling clothing (even Gore-tex and others). They re PFAS coated, mcdonald’s food for example is wrapped in packaging that does not stain despite the food being very greasy because PFAS coatings are heavily used in the ready-made food industry.

    Try to avoid frozen meals or already prepared food you did not cook yourself (that sadly includes trader joe, I consulted for them once and they are not better than everyone else when it comes to forever chemical uses, Costco on the other hand is very careful manifacturing-wise and that is where i shop) since the packaging uses a lot of polyethylene and styrene which as an engineer myself I wonder how on earth we allow them in the food industry.

    Canned food since the steel of cans is coated with a thin layer of epoxy on the inside ( this includes canned drinks and canned alcohols ), cosmetics, parabens for fabrics (dry cleaned clothes, enterprise carpet cleaning services, and artificial textiles such as polyesther in clothing, try to stick to natural cotton).

    Finally the most important; all fragrances, cosmetics and UV blocking chemicals (sunscreen is horrible for your hormones). Fragrances in particular are terrible for the environment and for you as well. Non perfumed soap and detergents have a big impact on the environment. Finally, if you have kids, do not let them put non-silicon toys in their mouth, and avoid recycled paper products (toilet paper made of recycled paper for example).


  • Algorithms are discrete operations done in a sequence, they are typically blind to ideas or personal opinions and are used for data processing, filtering, or calculations. Facial recognition algorithms are typically what you would call a complex algorithm as it uses conditions based on what the camera captures to make decisions as to where the face of said person is, if it is a person, are they smiling? What are their physical traits? Do they have white, brown, or dark skin, to adjust the contrast level for a good photo.

    Artificial intelligence models are not math driven. They are language models, trained through machine learning and operating on a transformer architecture. Not only do they not replicate the reasoning a human (they predict the probability of action based on statistics of choices of others) and are most definitely going to be used to influence choices and opinions, not in an educational manner but in coercive and controlling manner. And it will become very hard to understand what AI produced propaganda will become. Even scarier though to me, is that it will be even harder to understand the effects of AI use, since all political actions have a direct effects which are often easy to predict, but they also cause these “ripple effects” which are the more dangerous side of politics and these ripple effects caused by AI use in politics will be impossible to predict for me, you and the AIs due to their early stage.



  • Garfunkel@lemmy.catoComic Strips@lemmy.world•Problematic
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    7 hours ago

    You’re confusing transgenderism with transsexuality. This man can have a vagina and be he/him, it s really his business if he wants to take testosterone and grow a beard whilst having a vajayjay. Meanwhile, a MtF woman can have a dick if she did not go through sex reassignement surgery. In this instance, both are not transsexual. The trans man is female (vagina=female) whilst socially being a man. The woman has a penis (male sex organ). This confuses some people and is why it is still a debate.

    The real reason this all makes social practical sense is because a lot of males in society are not very manly and a lot of women are not very feminine. In the past the words to describe these people would be faggot, queer, dyke, or other slurs. Simply because they did not fit what society defined as “a real man” or “a real woman”.

    It’s also important to highlight that a lot of transsexual men and women do not believe in transgenderism because it leads to non-binary genders, genders which are unclear or vague (like the "they/them which means the person feels equally masculine and feminine). To these trans men and women, sex reassignment is acceptable but since they do not understand the nuance between gender and sex (or they do not accept it) like a lot of cisgender people who lean right politically, the debate keeps occurring because of willful ignorance whilst this debate has been closed for over 20 years within academia.




  • There are plenty of other events like flight 655 which was a passenger flight from Tehran in the 90s which got shot down by a US navy warship for no reason. 300 innocent people died because of a miscommunicated order by the navy personel.

    To add something; I like to think of Hegel in those moment and the master/servant dialectic,simply; two consciousness find themselves in a shared space. Since they exist for themselves in that first moment and are encountering a plurality for the first time, they enter a conflict. One wins, the other loses and both establish different states of self-consciousness due to this.

    The loser becomes the servant, has to think of himself and his duty to the master, and finds meaning and recognition in the master’s eyes. The master does not think of the servant’s thoughts, only his own. The servant in the eyes of the master gains meaning, he can revolt, improve, love or hate, whilst the master is not seen, he only is, and this means his self-conception is not anchored, thus the master cannot reach self-consciousness but his servant can as he experiences a higher authority.

    In practical scenarios, this is what explains in my eyes the hubris of the powerful and the optimism of the miserable. The tyrant punishes through anger, because he cannot gain any satisfaction from his state, whilst the one in servitude learns through his opression what resilience is, finds internal freedom and liberation by experiencing the worst. This really resonates with the psychotic crisis/mania the US states are going through right now and the strange self-aware calm the Iranians show whilst being in the most vulnerable position.



  • Heh, trump does not care about unifying or saving Ukraine, he just cared about not wasting american military ressources going after a war that was just a failed attempt at expanding nato closer to Russian borders. If that happened, they would be able to sneak in covert military members far more easily.

    I meant this as in, Trump has shown preferentialism for white nations as far as accords he has signed. Whilst Obama was trying in his time to negotiate the trans pacific partnership in his time, Trump has been avoiding people who do not have the same skin color as him. It speaks a lot on his intelligence imo.


  • Political battles and wars do not start this abruptly, thinking that anyone on the world stage would tolerate Putin waking up and taking over Crimea on a whim is either a misconception on your end or misplaced sarcasm. Crimea was invaded by russia due to the impeachement of the Viktor Yanukovych, which was illegal and overwhelmingly proven to be linked to US action. Furthermore, Russia had a naval base on the black sea that would have been reclaimed by the united states if the support of ukraine shifted to Nato following the impeachment of Yanukovych. It was a strategic necessity and a means of incentivizing ukraine to reconnect with Russia as an ally rather than attempt to side with NATO.

    Russia had retreated back into it’s borders in 2014 and just like with Finland and Austria, it respected surrounding nations borders as long as they did not engage in Nato expansionism.But to add one last point, Europeans are insane to the rest of the world when they think it rational to prefer the united states to Russia… Who between Russia and the US participated in 70+ assassination attempts of foreign politicians, undermined global peace and countries’ senses of agency and ruined Serbia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Venezuela? The last thing Russia needs is a regime change…

    As far as ukrainian journalists spoke of it, was politically motivated since Yanukovych was on good terms with Putin and part of the senate wanted to westernize if they had US backing to engage martially with Russia. Instead the US gave a solid year of military support and cut it s costs when came the time.




  • Oui monsieur, my bad edited it. As someone who graduated in stem, I have a very easy time understanding natural or technical or economical causes and effects but loathe it when another person in my field speaks on politics or social groups since they almost always come off as bigoted or ignorant (often both).

    I ve therefore been interested in the social sciences and humanities for a while as they are a pleasure to discover. I find philosophy and critical theory to be the best guides to understanding realities that fall outside of the bounds of one s rationality and Foucault’s concepts explain politics better than anyone else (aside maybe from Deleuze and Guittari in A Thousant Plateaus).