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00:02
Mimivirus-dependent virus Sputnik (from Russian спутник "satellite") is a subviral agent that reproduces in amoeba cells that are already infected by a certain helper virus; Sputnik uses the helper virus's machinery for reproduction and inhibits replication of the helper virus. It is known as a virophage, in analogy to the term bacteriophage.Viruses like Sputnik that depend on co-infection of the host cell by helper viruses are known as satellite viruses. At its discovery in a Paris water-cooling tower in 2008, Sputnik was the first known satellite virus that inhibited replication of its helper...
00:36
@jlliagre Not to me. It should be in the future, this settlement would be be called. The narration is in the past, so you need to put is going to be / will be into a backshifted reference frame. For me.
I would probably say "Later on it would come to be called" or something.
01:35
@tchrist Your town is the 23rd most expensive place to live in the US according to US News & World Report.
@Robusto At least its Quality-of-Life metric is reasonably high, especially compared with the towns higher up the expensive rankings.
01:55
Yes. LA and other California locations especially.
 
2 hours later…
03:51
As he so often does, McWhorter's column this week about overprotective parents struck home with a sting of lost times and pointless modernity.
> Lenore Skenazy mentions a reporter who interviewed four generations of a family (in Britain, where this has happened as well) and found that:

the 88-year-old great-grandpa, George, used to walk six miles to his favorite fishing hole, alone, at age 8. His son, now 63, played in the woods a mile from his home when he was 8. His daughter, at that same age, walked half a mile to school. Now her son, age 8, is driven to school. He is not allowed to leave his block, and neither are any of his friends. Most of them don’t even leave their yards.
04:14
My mom would kill me for walking six miles away from home alone at age 8. It's what, about 10 km? Wow.
 
2 hours later…
06:15
Mother of three who killed her two sons, 15 and 10, and her 5 month-old daughter, in order to 'save them from Hell', escapes prison, after court decides to submit her to psychiatric treatment e1.ru/text/criminal/2023/11/02/72874430
To spend 15 years caring for children, and then to lose them all.
06:50
Probably my most detailed photo of a squirrel
My glasses were all foggy, so I just clicked many times, and this one was lucky
Super cute.
@tchrist We have a little bit of that craze here, but luckily much less.
It hits England before it hits us.
Like a ripple.
07:17
@Cerberus I was holding a half-walnut on the palm of my hand (black) and it was unsure whether to take it. In the end, I had to drop it on the snow, and the squirrel gathered it
*picked it up
07:59
Wow, if it was even considering doing that, it was very tame!
 
2 hours later…
10:04
@Cerberus They are very different in their personalities. Once there was a squirrel that just sat on my palm, took a piece of a nut, and started munching it right there, sitting on the palm.
Another one tried to frisk my breast pockets for nuts. Climbed on me and poked her nose in every pocket.
 
3 hours later…
13:05
Barbarity vs Civilisation, by René Georges Hermann-Paul, 1899
René Georges Hermann-Paul (27 December 1864 – 23 June 1940) was a French artist. He was born in Paris and died in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. He was a well-known illustrator whose work appeared in numerous newspapers and periodicals. His fine art was displayed in gallery exhibitions alongside Vuillard, Matisse and Toulouse-Lautrec. Early works were noted for their satiric characterizations of the foibles of French society. His points were made with simple caricature. His illustrations relied on blotches of pure black with minimum outline to define his animated marionettes. His exhibition pieces were...
13:55
@tchrist That's how it was when I grew up. We'd leave on our bikes in the morning (in boots and parkas in the winter) and be gone until school was out or, on weekends, when supper was ready.
@CowperKettle Birds of a feather. ^
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. Originally titled Métamorphose de Narcisse, this painting is from Dalí's paranoiac-critical period and depicts his interpretation of the Greek myth of Narcissus. Dalí began his painting in the spring of 1937 while in Zürs, in the Austrian Alps. == Myth of Narcissus == According to Greek mythology, Narcissus's beauty made him attractive to nearly everyone who saw him and both men and women pursued him, but he rejected all advances. One of his admirers, a nymph named Echo, fell so madly in love...
Wordle 867 3/6

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14:18
@Robusto same
14:29
Daily Octordle #648
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Score: 57
Rootl game #155

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15:08
-3
Q: Is LaMDA, Google's AI, sentient?

Agent SmithIn 2022, a Scientific American article quoted Google engineer, Blake Lemoine, who argued that LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) might be sentient, while other technical experts criticized the statements. In [a Washington Post] article, Lemoine recounts many dialogues he had with L...

This one's just for @Mitch
15:41
@M.A.R. Thanks!
checks it out
Hm... no thanks.
Why -3 though? Is the question not appropriate for Skeptics? Or is it obviously horseshit?
I mean sure his statements to SciAm were controversial (and he was fired from Google, not because of the claim of sentience but for exposing proprietary information outside of google (about the chatbot that he was claiming was sentient).
@Mitch a common reason for downvotes on Skeptics is because the OP says "I'm skeptical, so I checked Wikipedia, WHO, Trump tweets and Putin's Spotify Playlist. I'm still skeptical". In this case, downvotes could also be because it shows "a clear lack of research effort".
I've followed him on twitter since and he's mostly a well-reasoned and insightful guy not trolling or tendentious, willing to engage in intellectual debate and not the flame/shit throwing stuff.
Of course that sentience stuff is total horseshit.
Clever Hans (the horse that could do mathematics, but haha no it can't) has more sentience in its little finger than a googleplex of ChatGPTs or LLaMAs.
@M.A.R. I rarely see Skeptics posts but when I do they all seem pretty much warmed over memes that would similarly have well researched wiki pages.
So you see... I'm skeptical of what you say.
The burden of proof is on you now.
Is there a thumbs up like emoji that means 'yes' but doesn't make you look like a boomer?
Don't answer that. It's a no.
searches for an emoji for that
Now I can tell you're looking for an emoji that encompasses all of that into one single emoji if only you can zoom in enough.
16:03
@CowperKettle It's a two-hour walk from home given six miles = two leagues and a league away is an hour away on foot. My own boundaries were always not to cross a big street, which meant one block away to the west, six blocks away to the south, ten blocks away to the north, and maybe seven miles away to the east because we lived on the edge of the east side of town and everything else was roadless forest and field. So of course that's where we would always go.
Once we were old enough to go junior high we were allowed to cross the arterial one block to the west so we could walk or bike to school. That opened up the whole town to us. But we were still forbidden from going up on to or crossing highways out of town.
We lives on bikes as kids.
16:21
You grew up as a biker.
Have you rode a motorcycle?
16:42
@Mitch I remember trying to read a King novel over 30 years ago. The world was going to end, or not; who knows, I couldn't finish it. Then 15 years ago, I tried another of his novels (nice pic on the cover), and I was lulled into a ghoulish sinkhole at the end. You're like 'These khakis are uncomfortable' for several weeks and then 'OMG, Nooo, HELP!' all of a sudden. You have to wait for it.
@Mitch It feels a bit opinionated for Skeptics. The question of what counts as sentient is hardly unanimous for non-human animals, much less computer programs
17:30
Which is better:
I would rather just not say.
I would just rather not say.
Rather not say, I just would
 
2 hours later…
19:21
@tchrist same. all this walking for miles in the snow uphill both ways is some Little House on the Prairie hoohah.
I ain't gonna walk no mile.
With a bike though... I'm going to the next county and not back until its almost dark.
I may not have all my eyebrows or toenails the same as the morning, and somebody in the gang has ticks in an embarrassing spot...
...but we ran across a train trestle when a train was about to come (OK there was never going to be a train coming bet we were afraid it might anyway)
... and we found a fully rigged sailboat in the woods far from any river or lake
... and we ransacked a half built construction site, walking up flights of stairs with no walls and playing with the pulley to bring up lumber to the top floor. (by ransack I mean we looked on with covetous eyes at all the nail guns and wallboard and preformed roof units)
(I do think we were the reason contractors started fencing off and locking the construction site)
And then, also in the woods, the house that look abandoned - no car, weeds either up to your knees or climbing all the way up to the roof, an open abandoned refrigerator out back, paint chips sprinkled around the entire place. But you could see one little light on inside just on the top floor.
All I'm saying is I'm lazy - I wouldn't walk to any of that.
@HippoSawrUs I think I did read Pet Sematary a thousand years ago. Gross, and that guy should use a dictionary if he can't spell.
@Laurel I just don't have a good feel for what goes at Skeptics. I would figure lack of stable description would be their (piano-)forté.
@user726941 I'd rather not say
I mean... I would not prefer to tell you which is the one that I normally say
just
Which is to say, both sound fine? depends on which cosmic ray hits first?
19:41
thnx
@user726941 np
but probably 'just rather'
Did you ngram it?
hm... weird...
only hits for 'just rather'
none for 'rather just'
that's why i gave up on ngram
19:49
too many new questions
a much clearer graph
'just rather not' much more popular not than 'rather just not'
coolio
@user726941 It's a tool that you have to play with because language is weird, not the tool
@user726941 This is what I'm here for
 
1 hour later…
20:57
@user726941 Door #3: I just would rather not say.
@Mitch Judge Mental needs to be less judjmental and more jugglemental.
Wordle 867 5/6

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21:14
Hodgeson, Dodgeson, Hodgson Dodgson, Hogsson Doggson, Hodjson dogJSON.
will he nil he?
Nov 7, 2012 at 23:25, by tchrist
Higgledy piggledy               Wolvering wolverenes
Lord Wyman Manderly             Incontrovertibly
Sups with his foes, leaving     Tell all who hearken that
Nary a crumb.                   Winter is come.
Dodggedly dodggerel.
@MetaEd I thought you only posted two-bangers.
@Robusto oh, no. any time I play, I post. It only seems fair to post the bad with the good
Wordle 867 3/6

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21:21
Agreed.
7 hours ago, by Robusto
Wordle 867 3/6

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@tchrist I wish I'd been able to have that kind of childhood, one with some degree of freedom. A different time indeed. My parents didn't even let us play in the yard unsupervised, as I recall.
7 hours ago, by Robusto
Rootl game #155

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Almost got a perfect score today.
I got one yesterday, though!
I feel like many people in my generation missed out on a lot because of this.
I was a Free Range Child, but when my own children came along I'm afraid I gave in to fear and kept them in semi-purdah.
I saw the Arkangel episode of Black Mirror and, honestly, it seems like something a lot of parents where I grew up would have instantly purchased: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(Black_Mirror)
21:30
The chances of catastrophe may be so small, but the consequences are so dire that parents nowadays (and earlier) aren't willing to take even the slightest risks.
Imagine being 8 and just walking around your neighborhood. I'm pretty sure I'd've gotten a lot of concerned passers-by asking where my parents were.
21:41
Rootl game #155

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@Robusto So, it's your generation I can blame for this.
@alphabet Go ahead. We get blamed for everything else.
15 mins ago, by Robusto
The chances of catastrophe may be so small, but the consequences are so dire that parents nowadays (and earlier) aren't willing to take even the slightest risks.
I make no apologies.
@Robusto I don't think the risks have actually gotten higher. Parenting just became more performative and self-centered.
Daily Octordle #648
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Being overprotective is just a lot easier, psychologically, for the parents.
(No offense, @Robusto, the cultural shift wasn't your fault.)
21:54
@alphabet "He jests at scares who never felt a wound."
22:11
@Robusto Oh, I got plenty wounded, just not by things that that parenting style could prevent. Which gives me a rather pessimistic view of it.
 
1 hour later…
23:16
I'm gonna make an English adaptation of another Korean song, and I'm unsure what I should do about the South Korean flag mentioned in the lyrics.
The Union Jack or the Star-Spangled Banner?
@DannyuNDos Why not just call it Taegeukgi? That's it's name. After all, the song is about South Korea, right, not England or the U.S.
23:48
@CowperKettle Wow, that sounds extreme for a wild animal!
23:59
Rootl game #154 (yesterday's)

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