English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Incidentally: when they first invented the microwave, they built these giant oven-sized devices, since they thought that In The Future we would cook everything via microwave

Didn't work out, but for every food someone has made a microwaveable version

Robusto

@alphabet Yes, the Amana Radar Range. Late '40s, I think.

alphabet

Also: a while back I saw an article about "American food" sections at UK supermarkets. They appear to contain mostly peanut butter, candy, and Pop-Tarts.

Also maple syrup. Do you...not have your own maple syrup in the UK?

Robusto

12:54 AM

When we lived in driving distance from Vermont we used to get gallons of maple syrup, Grade A Light Fancy—the Grail of maple syrup. The stuff you get elsewhere is usually just Grade C Dark Amber. It will do in a pinch, but if you've had the good stuff you can't help but compare the two.

alphabet

@Robusto Maple syrup grades don't mean what you think they mean. They're about darkness, not quality. In fact Grade B is often better than Grade A; most syrup sold outside NE is Grade A, and it's only in places like VT that you can get the other kinds.

Robusto

@alphabet Whatever, but the good stuff was what I got in Vermont. Also cheap. Last time I went it was about $15 per half gallon.

alphabet

@Robusto Yeah the quality is way better. Also you don't get that fake corn syrup stuff.

Robusto

Most of what people think is maple syrup is not even.

Jinx.

Cerberus

@alphabet Hmm why do you feel a microwave is easier?

alphabet

12:58 AM

@Robusto Indeed. Google says that they...do not produce maple syrup at all in the UK, since sugar maples aren't indigenous there.

Cerberus

I use it to reheat tea, but it requires more actions than simply turning on the kettle?

Robusto

@alphabet It is my favorite thing to put on oatmeal.

alphabet

@Cerberus Maybe it just feels simpler because I know how to use it more. It does have the advantage that you always get the exact right quantity of water.

Cerberus

@alphabet We do not have maple syrup in Holland except exceptionally. We just use regular syrup, the dark kind with molasses.

Robusto

@alphabet Funny, but I've always thought the exact right amount of water when you fill your cup to the desired amount.

Cerberus

1:01 AM

@alphabet I do think heating 1 cup of water will be faster in a microwave.

But how long does it take to boil, say, a pot of 1.5 litres?

And what vessel do you boil it in?

Robusto

A teakettle doesn't use that much water, usually just a couple of cups' worth.

You can put that much in, but why do it if you only need a cup or two?

Cerberus

Officially, mine says 0.5 litres is the minimum.

In practice, however, I often use it with less.

Of course I will fill it to 1.7 litres when making a pot of tea that volume.

Robusto

0.5 litres makes about two cups/mugs of tea.

Cerberus

Yes.

Robusto

Perfect for most uses.

> Since moving to the Bay Area in 2018, I have tried to spend time regularly with the people working on A.I. I don’t know that I can convey just how weird that culture is. And I don’t mean that dismissively; I mean it descriptively. It is a community that is living with an altered sense of time and consequence. They are creating a power that they do not understand at a pace they often cannot believe.

This Changes Everything

alphabet

1:09 AM

People who actually make full pots of tea do own kettles (sometimes electric, sometimes the stovetop kind)

Robusto

> In a 2022 survey, A.I. experts were asked, “What probability do you put on human inability to control future advanced A.I. systems causing human extinction or similarly permanent and severe disempowerment of the human species?” The median reply was 10 percent.
I find that hard to fathom, even though I have spoken to many who put that probability even higher. Would you work on a technology you thought had a 10 percent chance of wiping out humanity?

Well, there are those who build nuclear weapons.

> I often ask them the same question: If you think calamity so possible, why do this at all? Different people have different things to say, but after a few pushes, I find they often answer from something that sounds like the A.I.’s perspective. Many — not all, but enough that I feel comfortable in this characterization — feel that they have a responsibility to usher this new form of intelligence into the world.

Cerberus

1:35 AM

@alphabet You're presenting a pot of tea as someone unusual...

@Robusto Yes, A. I. is a problem.

I don't see how we could solve it.

Robusto

@Cerberus He says that too. And so do the people in it.

Apparently man's reach does exceed his grasp.

> If we had eons to adjust, perhaps we could do so cleanly. But we do not. The major tech companies are in a race for A.I. dominance. The U.S. and China are in a race for A.I. dominance. Money is gushing toward companies with A.I. expertise. To suggest we go slower, or even stop entirely, has come to seem childish.
If one company slows down, another will speed up. If one country hits pause, the others will push harder. Fatalism becomes the handmaiden of inevitability, and inevitability becomes the justification for acceleration.

> Katja Grace, an A.I. safety researcher, summed up this illogic pithily. Slowing down “would involve coordinating numerous people — we may be arrogant enough to think that we might build a god-machine that can take over the world and remake it as a paradise, but we aren’t delusional.”

wry laughter

Cerberus

1:58 AM

Yeah, I've read the article.

One can only hope that China, too, has some organisation that at least tries to check the 'alignment' of what happens there.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…