True, but if saying “please” has a measurable functional effect then this is an important characteristic of the system. I also observed that saying please and thank you produced notably different responses. For me, there’s no real danger of anthropomorphism—I recognize that it’s a machine. But I also want it to do what I ask, so in my mind it’s really no different than having to use semicolons in Java but not in Python.

I feel like I would be hard pressed to explain what I want in English more concisely than just writing a SQL query.

I absolutely do. Perhaps this is a product of my first exposure to computers, but I vividly remember the early Macintosh computers coming on the scene. The care and attention to detail on every level of the machine was special. They were so different than everything before. And it inspired many developers to produce beautiful, weird, awesome software. Does anybody remember the Talking Moose? After Dark? Spaceward Ho! HyperCard? RoboWars? Heck, even MSWord 5.1a was an amazing piece of software whose grammar checker literally taught me grammar.

Now we have “software that does X”, but that X is so bland and enshittified nearly all the joy of computing has been erased. I love writing software. I love writing good and clever software. Perhaps the world no longer cares, but I do.

I do appreciate that you said that you enjoy curating your 8GB but I got tired with that way back in 2003 when I bought my first iPod. I never want to go back to that.

My other equipment is mostly SolarEdge, which is excellent and well-behaved. SolarEdge now has batteries too-- I would probably look into them were I to buy a battery again.

A couple things to note. If you get a battery do not put it near your house. Generally, energy storage has a good safety record, but if they do experience thermal runaway, the fire effectively cannot be extinguished until all the fuel is consumed. Mine is 75' from my house because I have a solar groundmount array. Second, my solar installer initially set everything up using wifi, including a high-gain antenna because the array was so far from my house. I pointed out that I had an ethernet switch in my basement, so they ran hardwired networking through the power conduit to my house. Much more stable. Just ask for ethernet upfront if you can.

Fortunately, one of the valid reasons for opting out from a "VPP event" (which is what my battery mfgr's app calls it) is a coming storm. In fact, in my system a "storm hedge" (where the battery tops itself up before a storm) trumps a VPP event, so for all practical purposes, there is little inconvenience. So there aren't really any drawbacks. And when you are done paying your loan you can either stay enrolled in ConnectedSolutions or not.

I say go for it. A 0% loan is great, and it was the deciding factor for us to buy the battery. Honestly, I wish I had bought a bigger battery! 15kWh is good for an evening, but not quite enough if the following day is rainy.

I was lead to Rebecca after I found and read a discarded copy of Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History”. I wanted more and Googled “books like Rebecca”. Sadly, I thought Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”, which lots of people raved about, was not very good.

I only skimmed the linked article, but I do wonder whether the author ever realized that they needed to think about scope rules. I searched for the word “scope” but never found it. Closures seriously complicate language design and things get painful and counterintuitive unless you use lexical scope (or… you know… you like pain).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_table#Collision_resolutio...

What's the difference? How do you find real mistakes without a model? Either you have a trusted mathematical model (in which case you already have a complete explanation) or you have to compare it against the ultimate oracle: the world. Or are you proposing something like "let's use an LLM to convert this hand-wavy English paper into a formal proof and then check it for logical fallacies?" In which case, fine, that would be useful, but that's not exactly the same thing (and also not as important) as saying that a paper advances a bad explanation. Just that the explanation is flawed in some way.

[1] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se17/html/index.htm...

There has always been bad writing, but historically it has been easy enough to filter the garbage out. Now we get garbage that looks so much like real thoughts that it's hard to tell. This is not a positive development. Separating the wheat from the chaff is extra work, and the overhead is a burden on humanity. I suspect that this is a burden that almost nobody actually wants, but we're getting it anyway.

And to expand on this, it's not realistic because science is not armchair philosophy. You have to go out and measure the world.

Sometimes, through force of will, a person can think deeply about a problem and come up with beautiful theories that explain our measurements. Many scientists had careers like this, probably most famously, Einstein. But it's worth noting that Einstein also got a lot wrong! [1]

Even if we somehow give an LLM the ability to go out and measure things, I seriously doubt that the role of humans in science is done. There's a big difference between "an explanation" and "a good explanation." Ask any physicist. There's a surprising amount of aesthetics involved. Good theories are consistent with the evidence, but it's more than that-- there's a great deal of "taste" involved. And there's a good reason for that. For any real problem, there are effectively an infinite number of alternative hypotheses. From a "theory of science" standpoint, this should cause scientists nightmares, but it doesn't. Because by the time you are a practicing scientist, you've developed a feel for what constitutes a satisfying explanation. If you spend time with scientists, especially in the "hallway track" at a conference, "taste" is a frequent topic of conversation!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_unsuccessful_inve...

One weekend we stumbled on a local apple orchard doing a cider making demonstration. We were the only people there so the orchardist (he called himself a “pomoculturist”) personally showed us around, picking an occasional apple, telling us about it, and then encouraging us to take a bite.

At one point he picked a deeply dark purple, almost black, apple and handed it to me. “Black Oxford” The flavor was intense: acidic, sweet, floral. Then another, dark red and fragrant. “Winesap” Then “Belle de Boskoop”. And on and on.

None of these apples are sold commercially except at small scale directly from orchards. The flavors, appearances, and aromas of apples is truly astonishing. So I think that’s why Red Delicious gets all the hate. The world of apples is amazing and huge.

I prefer to see Red Delicious as yet another miracle of apple genetics, just one that I don’t personally care for. But if you have the opportunity to visit an heirloom orchard, please do.

For me, it was a life-changing event: I now have a small heirloom orchard of my own.