Last week's heat dome had me all worked up to start planting tomatoes and peppers, but the frost last night validated my hesitation.
The actual last frost may have just passed... or did it?
#Zone6b #Zone7a #Gardening
And to be clear that's the order in which I think we should be thinking about LLMs, from most to least important right here and right now.
LLMS are:
- Causing energy demands that commit us to a worse future
- Eroding brainpower of children through adult humans
- Making software and hardware less usable
- Creating a massive economic risk
But sure try to convince me they are worth infusing into every component of our lives.
Hello world, yesterday at dinner my son (15mo) pointed to a swirl on my tie dye shirt and then raised his little arm and made an elephant noise.
I had to tilt my head to see that yes the swirl looks like an elephant trunk. How cool is that?
#toddler #pareidolia
Why go through the tunnel blindfolded? The whole point is that the rocks there are awesome. Look at the damn rocks! :)
Harrisonburg entering the chat
In years past, November has terrible for grandmothers. They seem to drop like flies within a 2-day window of my second Gen Ed exam.
Oddly, it's the grandfathers who are all apparently dead or dying on the occasion of Exam 2 this spring. Maybe ChatGPT is bent against the patriarchy...
#AcademicSky
Incredible.
Dang, I'm literally firing up my cheap ass rice cooker now. As previously demonstrated, everyone on bluesky is a clone and we're all exactly 39 (and apparently all have instant pots and cheap rice cookers)
Instant pots are nuts. Use saute setting to cook up a big onion and lots of garlic. Add chili powder and oregano, etc. Throw in a ton (6-8 lb) of chicken thighs (frozen even!) + mix well. Add ~2 cups of stock or jar of salsa. Seal & cook for 70 min, then shred the chicken, enjoy, & freeze the rest.
Building stones at the base of the Great Wall of China.
Close-up of building stones, with pink rectangular orthoclase, gray blobs of quartz, and a greenish groundmass that includes chlorite.
Foundation of the Great Wall, showing building stones overtopped by bricks. Trees dot the landscape along the southern side of the wall.
Orthoclase phenocrysts in the granite that makes up the foundation of the Great Wall of China. Lots of chlorite present, too, with the occasional gneiss or amphibolite xenolith.
⚒️🧪 #GreatWall #China #geology #stone
A white man wearing an orange shirt and dark green-brown pants, standing on the Great Wall of China. The wall is a brick and stone structure with intermittent towers, trailing up the hill into the distance.
A view out a lookout from a tower in the Great Wall of China. Bricks are seen in the foreground along the left margin of the frame. Another lookout tower is in the center of the frame. Crystalline basement rocks rise in the distance, to the north of the wall.
A view out a window of a lookout tower, framed by bricks, and with the Great Wall trailing into the distance along a ridgeline. Snow is present on the north side in the shadows of the wall (left side).
View of steps up the great wall (lower right of frame) and tilted brick wall angled from lower left and rising to upper right corner. Lookout holes for guards and archers are present in the brick wall.
The Great Wall at Mutianyu, north of Beijing.
Limestones and marine sed rocks fill the basin to the south, with crystalline basement rocks dramatically faulted and rising above to the north. The Great Wall straddles the first ridge.
🧪⚒️ #China #GreatWall #geology
Or, as is bizarrely common in education, they were told 100 different ways over the last 3 years and still it somehow did not stick. 🤷
A white man with short hair wearing a brown blazer, blue jeans, and a scarf standing in front of a granite sign that reads "Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences"
A white man in a black shirt and blue jeans standing in front of a building with a sign that reads "Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences"
Recently returned from a 10-day trip to Beijing, China to visit two institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Once I'm fully readjusted to the 12-hr time difference, I'll post some observations and takeaways. In short, the people, places, and things were all wonderful.
#geology #AcademicSky 🧪
I found a pack of apple cider donuts in my car. They were about 5 days old. But it's been pretty cold out.
I ate one with a cup of coffee. It was a tad firm but fine.
Now my belly hurts. Being an adult means it's my fault, I guess.
Hey totally random but remember in the final season of Sopranos when Tony is all like "Hey Phil let's have a truce and just get rich" and Phil Leotardo's all like "Nah let's go to war" and it ends with Phil getting run over by his own SUV?
#climate #war #sopranos #currentevents
tinyurl.com/yeddrss2
This here data center, planned for NM, would build a local "microgrid" for power. In reality, it'd use natural gas and emit 2x the CO2 as ABQ + Cruces combined, and it doubles the power production of NM.
Is 14 Mt CO2/yr worth it?
[no]
#AI #datacenter 🧪
projectjupitertogether.com
At least for academics, the right tail of falling productivity is probably due to service commitments after tenure. 🥴
We're all still in agreement that every bluesky user is exactly 39 y/o, right?
#AcademicSky
The 'individual LLM query scale' is distraction. Think at the systems scale. Climate scientists have been ringing alarm bells to decarbonize our economy for decades, and the tech industry is not only putting on the brakes, but forcing a buildout of gas-powered electricity.
The same question can be applied to many components of our modern systems.
Wasting vast sums of water and energy to run servers for crypto mining, which is mostly to support money laundering... is not worth the climate and environmental impacts.
I cannot take serious any conversation about LLMs that does not immediately weigh [insert benefit] with the massive climate and water use drawbacks.
Every time ask: "Is this worth it?"
I have yet to see cases where the answer is yes.
#climate #AI #water #environment #AcademicSky 🧪⚒️
My toddler (13 mo) has been fascinated with our refrigerator magnets. He recently discovered that the following objects are non-magnetic by holding them up to the fridge and letting go:
- Spatula
- Water bottle
- Green bean
- Another green bean
- Yet another green bean ok kid it's replicated jeez
🧪
After weeks and weeks of trying to hone a method that is new to us, thinking we're maybe the problem... only to discover that the data are great, but it's an utterly new and surprising result that we're looking at. That's a good day.
Should out to the random guy who made a YouTube short explaining how to fix the exact problem with my faucet in like 10 seconds. Didn't even say anything, just showed the fix, and the title was accurate as heck.
Legend.
#DIY #plumbinghell
An added bonus: turning old veggies into stock cuts down on the methane that is produced in landfills when food rots in an anoxic environment.
A large stainless steel pot filled with vegetables in boiling water
Closeup picture of onions, celery, carrots, and steam
#Lifehack: Homemade stock. It's delicious, cheap, and smells lovely on a winter day.
Two ziplock bags live in our freezer. We throw in any nearly-bad or off-cut veggies (and bones). Once the bags are full, boil it all up, strain and store in yogurt containers in the freezer.
#cooking #foodprep
And lest we forget, Online Supplemental Materials Man
(aka @jcsalterego.bsky.social)
I do prefer to use wooden stirrers, but the plastic doesn't even soften. I assume it's HDPE but who knows. Try it out, mileage may vary.
Lol, it's in a microwave for about 1 minute and has no water content; it really doesn't heat up. But when I can, I do use wooden stirrers as the tent poles, just to be safe!
