FriendOfDeSoto

What’s the point of doing something by executive order that will probably be reversed on day 1 of the next administration? A better way is to go through Congress whose legislation is harder to be overturned. So your hypothetical president should lead an effort to find compromise across the aisle. Currently, a fucking budget would be nice.

Given the limited power of the president, I fail to see anything more useful this particular president could do.

Fire the VP and then resign.

Preferably perpetual sleep to drown out all the news.

6 and 24 preferably.

I disagree. I find teenage super hero stories the only enjoyable ones. I don’t want my heroes to have to deal with quotidian grownup issues like paying the mortgage, having to work overtime, or worrying about their octogenarian parents. I want the biggest issue in their universe - apart from saving Earth from total destruction by a comical villain - to be the history paper that is due next Monday or how mom reduced their pocket money. I prefer the simplicity of interpretational relationships in a school setting. There is the bully jock and the nerdy girl who when she takes her glasses off becomes instantly attractive. Give me all the tropes. And I don’t need or want an R rated version of all of that.

In closing I just want to take a moment and applaud your personal growth. In showerthought after showerthought you’ve struggled with people dating much older people. And in this one you’re quite open to and positive about a twenty-something dating somebody twice their age! Well done you.

Seek professional help before somebody dies.

Thanks for the correction

This. You shouldn’t get one if you asked for it.

I would argue no one could choose one. A lingua franca is silently agreed upon over long periods of time. No committee sat down to make old Frankish the language of trade, modern French the language of diplomacy, and nowadays English the language of internet arguments.

If I had a magic wand though my vote is Klingon as well. Qa’plah.

Lingua franca is technically two words. Lingua franca refers to an old Germanic language lost to language evolution and time, not modern-day French. And using the term to denote a language that is widely understood by different people who don’t all speak it natively is perfectly understood, 20 years ago and today. The admittedly very eurocentric expression fills a useful niche because any explanation in vernacular English inevitably becomes much longer than these two established Latin words. But because it’s Latin the expression is also widely understood on the European continent as well.

It’s not perfect training data. Being encouraged to add alt text and actually doing it are two different things. Writing good alt text is another matter all together. And anything that’s on the internet is training data whether people want it to be or not. The only difference is ethical whether the scraper accepts and respects a version of robots dot txt, i.e. “do not scrape,” that communicates the training data’s holders’ intentions. And if they torrent books you can guess how respectful they are.

A mistake implies there was a choice involved at some point. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re on the evolution or intelligent design side of the argument, us monkeys were never given a choice.

I mean technically this exists to an extent in English. “You can’t touch this!” - “I can too.” (Every word is stressed). Or endless sandbox arguments along the lines of “Not!” - “Too!” - “Not!” - “Too!” - “Not!” - you get the idea. It’s more pronounced as a concept in Germanic languages that haven’t strayed as far away as English has but they still have it.

Naturally.

In this scenario and considering old people are at a higher statistical risk of passing away: it is possible. However, the same message will play if you end your subscription because you moved to a different place and couldn’t transfer the number to your new place. Disused phone numbers don’t get redistributed right away, the phone companies use their own system of how long it has to remain fallow.

Backpfeiffengesicht, a face you want to slap or is for various reasons in need of a slap

You couldn’t “trust” video before sora et al. We had all these sightings of aliens and flying saucers - which stopped conveniently having an impact when everybody started carrying cameras around.

There will be a need to verify authenticity and my prediction is that need will be met.

Maybe the NYT’s headline writers’ eyes weren’t that great to begin with?

The tech could represent the end of visual fact — the idea that video could serve as an objective record of reality — as we know it.

We already declared that with the advent of photoshop. I don’t want to downplay the possibility of serious harm being a result of misinformation carried through this medium. People can be dumb. I do want to say the sky isn’t falling. As the slop tsunami hits us we are not required to stand still, throw our hands in the air, and take it. We will develop tools and sensibilities that will help us not to get duped by model mud. We will find ways and institutions to sieve for the nuggets of human content. Not all at once but we will get there.

This is fear mongering masquerading as balanced reporting. And it doesn’t even touch on the precarious financial situations the whole so-called AI bubble economy is in.

The problem is, I think, abundance of quality - or the lack thereof. For all the research based prizes, there is enough stuff floating around the ether that you can pick something interesting and worth the prize to be awarded. Old Phil Physicist, not by accident a man, will get the prize for fundamental research into clockwise spinning protons and that helps us today with welding or something. Nobody but the experts understands this and we’re okay with that.

And then Literature and Peace. They seem more subjective. Us non-labcoats have opinions on these ones. And thus the controversy likelihood is much higher.

Since they get awarded every year, it’s become a fixture in media coverage. Like the New Year’s ball drop, Carnival in Rio, the Pope urbi’ing et orbi’ing, Black Friday, etc. It’s predictable news coverage.

I don’t think they should stop it. Even the institutionalized reminder once a year that it’s worth it working towards peace is not a bad thing. I think the prize has the most gravitas when it’s awarded for long time services to peace on the books. Like giving it to the chemical weapons disposers, the red crescent/cross or even the EU, which has probably prevented more deaths from wars within than it has tolerated refugees drowning in the Med. They have done more good stuff for peace. It’s tricky when they give it to people for more current achievements. Kissinger wasn’t the peacemaker it looked like he was. Aung San Su Kyi was a great figurehead while under house arrest 1.0 - and arguably not great enough for the Rohingya when she was let out. Obama got it because they thought he wasn’t Bush, and then he sent the drones. We want our laureates to be saints and it hurts when we find out they are just flawed humans.