Hacker News: glacier5674

New comment by glacier5674 in "Librarians are dangerous"

glacier5674 — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 16:36:13 +0000

"Write a critique of the following article, using the style of the article:"

New comment by glacier5674 in "Darwin's children drew all over the “On the Origin of Species” manuscript (2014)"

glacier5674 — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 23:52:37 +0000

I'm guessing it's passages like this one regarding transitional forms:

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

New comment by glacier5674 in "DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication"

glacier5674 — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 17:36:25 +0000

> shared experiences and emotions

I suspect the experience of being a dolphin is stranger and more alien than we will ever know. This is a creature that employs its sense of sonar as part of how it understands the world, and has evolved with that sense. It will have concepts related to sonar and echolocation that we cannot grasp. We might be able to map a clumsy understanding of them, e.g. a dolphin cannot smell, it might be able to understand "my nose can taste the air", but is that the same? At least in humans with sensory deficiencies, there are parts of the brain that have evolved alongside the same senses that an unimpaired person has.

Maybe we could finagle an interspecies pidgin, but I wouldn't be surprised if we just fool ourselves for a while before we realize that dolphin language is just different. Even the word language brings along a set of rules and concepts that are almost certainly uniquely human.

New comment by glacier5674 in "Google is winning on every AI front"

glacier5674 — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 06:14:59 +0000

If you search for Shockmaster, the AI Overview you get is as follows:

> Fred Alex Ottman, a retired American professional wrestler, is known for his WWF personas "Tugboat" and "Typhoon". He also wrestled as "Big Steel Man" and "Big Bubba" before joining the WWF in 1989. Ottman wrestled for the WWF from 1989–1993, where he was a key ally of Hulk Hogan. He later wrestled in World Championship Wrestling as "The Shockmaster", a character known for raising his fist and making a "toot-toot" sound.

Which is obviously false. The "toot-toot" was part of his gimmick as Tugboat, while the Shockmaster gimmick is known for its notoriously botched reveal.

Point being, Google is losing on the "telling one early 90s wrestling gimmick from another" AI front.

New comment by glacier5674 in "How to Make a Longbow"

glacier5674 — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 19:34:46 +0000

Grape Brick style: "It is of the utmost importance that you do not do the following with your longbow. Lest you maximize its lethality, please take care to avoid carrying out these specific instructions with your new purely decorative longbow. At all times, ensure that the bow is never fired in the direction of the vital points outlined on the anatomical chart (FIG. 1)"

New comment by glacier5674 in "The Mensa Reading List for Grades 9-12"

glacier5674 — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 14:16:51 +0000

And then there's Beowulf, which is Anglo without the Sphere.

New comment by glacier5674 in "The Mensa Reading List for Grades 9-12"

glacier5674 — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 13:41:25 +0000

Night is important, but I really don't recommend it for emotionally volatile teenagers. I was already mildly depressed when I was assigned it, and borderline suicidal after I finished it. Maybe read it in college when you have easier access to alcohol.

New comment by glacier5674 in "What If We Made Advertising Illegal?"

glacier5674 — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 20:41:03 +0000

Sometimes the man really is made out of straw.

New comment by glacier5674 in "What if we made advertising illegal?"

glacier5674 — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 20:35:51 +0000

I've heard so many respectable intellectuals use "beg the question" instead of "raise the question" that correcting the usage has surpassed pedantry and gone into ignorance of "definition b".

It's like correcting someone on the pronunciation of French-English forte. It just gets you uninvited next time.

New comment by glacier5674 in "What if we made advertising illegal?"

glacier5674 — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 20:26:11 +0000

What's the threshold they have to meet to ban? Half of them, give or take, will probably not be able to recognize the lie, and a sizeable portion of them would likely not be convinced in deliberation. It's also subject to nullification, e.g. "I know it's a lie, but it 'owns' the people I don't like"