Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@social.cleverlibre.org

Honestly, anyone working in the crypto space who *isn't* scamming rubes for millions of dollars must just be incompetent at this point.

I'm usually the first to rail against the "think of the children" nonsense... but if I had kids, I probably wouldn't let them mow lawns for cash in Florida anymore. Not when lunatics who fire an entire AR mag blindly out their window are considered by the law to be using appropriate force.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2023/06/26/dunedin-man-fired-30-ar-15-rounds-pool-cleaner-he-thought-was-intruder-sheriff-says/

There's a joke in Kindergarten Cop that has really not aged well...

Actual Dialog:

Mom: (concerned) Well, it seems that he's become obsessed with playing with dolls. It's weird.

Teacher: I think I can help you with that. He uses the dolls to look up girls' skirts. I caught him doing it yesterday.

Mom: Oh, well that's a relief.

So, basically it's:

Mom: I'm worried my son is gay.

Teacher: Nope, he's straight, just a maladjusted creeper with consent issues.

Mom: Oh, what a relief.

The fuck?

It's funny how sleazy bad guys can get away with looking like sleazy bad guys in movies (and real life too!) because there are so many "legitimate" businessmen who look the exact same as the sleazy bad guys.

A particularly brilliant #sunset in #Florida last night.

One job that LLMs should be very good at that no human will ever miss is reading/writing regular expressions.

Feel a need for a brief rant about #gunculture.

I am so glad I had a traditional introduction to #firearms. Anyone who wields a #firearm should definitely know the basic safety rules, but there are other rules of decorum that some folks (especially elected Republicans and the NRA) just don't adhere to. Since these are largely unwritten rules for a culture of responsibility, I figured it might be worth taking the time to put some of them to paper, as it were. So, here goes:

1) Guns are not toys. While obvious on the surface, there are ancillaries to this rule that many #gun owners don't seem to understand. I.e. we don't buy guns for "how cool they look" and we don't post pictures of us posing with our guns on social media (you may notice that when I post about guns, it's pretty much only about discussing safety / reliability). They're deadly tools, not toys.

2) Guns should be treated as objects of respect. An operator should have a degree of familiarity with a weapon before ever considering using it in a combat situation, but that familiarity should never override the basic respect for a deadly weapon. That respect leads you to follow the safety rules more strictly and with greater attention, to keep your deadly weapons under lock and key, to keep them clean and well-maintained to avoid accidents, and to think twice before brandishing one.

3) Guns are not macho. If you're carrying a gun, it's because you don't trust your skills at unarmed combat to defend yourself. There can be many good reasons for this (medical issues, deadly threats, etc.), but nonetheless, guns are the opposite of tough, and should not be handled nor brandished like a replacement penis. Bragging about guns is, and should be seen as, deeply shameful. Which leads me into...

4) Only tremendous assholes use guns for anything other than defense. When you see someone open-carrying or brandishing a weapon, they're not thinking about defense; They're trying to intimidate you with it to impose their will on the world around them. Open-carrying a gun is like strapping truck balls to your waist. Even responsible gun owners get nervous around these people.

(Note: some of the above does not apply to those who must carry a firearm for their work, but I think most of them would agree with the vast majority of this post wholeheartedly anyway)

TLDR: Humility, discretion, and thoughtfulness are the gentleman's way. If you must handle a gun, do it like a gentleman.

I wonder if this bears a resemblance to how a #teacher might lead a struggling child to an answer.

When they say that "prompt engineering" is a skill, they're not kidding. Look at the staggering difference in results from these two prompts. The first one is how a human would ask it. The second one kowtows a bit to the machine side, hinting at the algorithm it should employ.
#ChatGPT #LLM

That's what I'm talking about! #machinelearning

I discovered the hard way last night why there's really no such thing as surf & turf soups.

Oh, come on, you're not even trying. #email #spam

Finally installed a proper flagpole on the front of my house with a pride flag.
I was concerned about doing this in the past, because my neighborhood had *a lot* of Trump flags a few years back, but I figured that I, a well-armed cis white male homeowner, have enough security that I can afford to make myself a bit of a target to show solidarity for the kids in the neighborhood.

I tried mounting the flag on the back of my house a week ago (that faces a public park; it wouldn't have been hidden), but the very same day, a storm took it down. Guess I should have used real mounting hardware, huh? (Or just pissed off God less? lol). I used proper 3" wood screws on this one, so let's see what happens when the next squall comes blowing by.