Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I know a seaside chippy tea in a tourist town can be on the pricy side, but £5.50 a chip?! 010
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026So it would infer its way to the right string of symbols without ever doing anything but copy patterns derived from small(ish) training sets. Something like the way animals can tell where a thrown ball will land? Is their brain doing unconscious maths, is it pattern recognition & application? 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I don't think there's any novel compression in the training data, i think there has to be something going on with pattern detection that's mathslike. I was thinking of something like looking at the (trained-in) outputs from digit additions and registering patterns in how those fit in correct answers 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Yes, sort of - but I think "carry the ones" needs some numerological understanding a model lacks, so to get to that it needs to be doing something else just on a symbols and patterns basis. I think that's the bit Colin's gesturing at, something semantic is replacing the maths (use of place values) 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Like the aged artisan out in the countryside archetype who knows what they're doing and how to get results but doesn't hold with all that book-learning 110
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026So recognising the plus sign is what directs it to its plussy related training data and mapping of relationships, and then that stuff meshed with the chunks of numbers to get to a very frequently correct answer, but there's no Excel formula type working. 110
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Which may be how some 6yo are taught, just learn some tables and apply a maths method? But I don't think that alone would necessarily make them into a properly numerate person, feels like it's not tied enough to real life to let them see how to do percentages, or markups v margins, etc 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026As I understand it the models can't do that because they aren't calculators, so they're doing something more aligned to the mechanics of how the output should relate to the inputs but there's nothing county involved. 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I think when most people say "doing math", they're assuming a level of numerical basis to the operation - like 4+3 moves you up a number line from 4 to 7, 4x3 is a set of 4 things that you replicate 3 times & then you could just count 12. You understand the numbers as numbers, doing county things. 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Thanks, I think I've got that. So there's an inference path that the models are finding that turns an addition question into a sufficiently atomised set of vectors that it can find the right building blocks to get to the answer. Which treats numbers as symbols/ciphers, not as countable series. 110
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I don't know how easily it could deduce that just from pattern analysis but maybe if it had enough addition examples and iterated often enough? 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Can it recognise that "addition" needs a specific prediction routine, recognise that the 2 things it gets given to add are a list of symbols and not one unit, then do its prediction based on those lists as having a special pattern type? Then you just need single digit addition tables & rules. 220
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026It's the lens of Empire that makes it easy for a certain sort of person to make this distinction. If you're not brought up or educated as a scion of the Empire then the distinction looks nonsensical, but if your uncle was a High Commissioner or some such then "British" is much bigger than English. 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Very specifically in this case, if your forebears came over to England as people who'd enthusiastically assimilated into the British Empire, then you could easily see yourself as British, your heritage as that of the old country, and the English as the people you now live among. 101
Reposted by AdricPrasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 29/09/20265 potatoes cubed is still 5 potatoes because potatoes are root vegetables 833652922
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I say "jibberish" too, but thinking about it I use a hard-g if I call someone a "gibbering buffoon". Although also, as a verb i'd say "what is he jibbering about?". In conclusion, 🤷♂️ 131
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Yes well if you think about it too hard for just a moment, you'll notice that she's called Ella LANGLEY, and who's famously based in Langley? The CIA, right, so this one is CLEARLY an op 070
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Just last year some algorithmic playlist gave me "Year Of The Cat" 2 or 3 times, and also "On The Border" - then I registered those are by the same chap, and I am now a stalwart Al Stewart fan. Decades of back catalogue make that a fantastic result for me. Maybe deeply uncool, but still fantastic! 130
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Yes! I only got into Heavenly because I was browsing idly in Oxford HMV in '95 when the store happened to play them and the 'Ben Sherman' lyrics made me laugh! St Etienne was because someone played Mario's Café and I caught the line "and did you see the KLF last night", an on-my-wavelength moment. 250
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026One of the patterns you see when people postquote text from 'agent swarms' or chain of thought stuff: to the extent an AI has a persistent "identity", it maintains that by writing notes telling a future instance what it was up to? So this seems like the same thing. You're a demon possessing the AI. 030
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The narrower/smaller/less complicated the object to understand is, the lower I set the bar, I suppose 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I think "understanding" might have different applications that make this unanswerable? Understanding a tool is one sort of activity that I'd be happy to ascribe pretty widely (people, animals) Understanding a concept is a different sort of activity with a much higher bar (not always all people!) 100
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Yes, maybe I could also do various tasks in Python despite not understanding it, if the task isn't too complicated & I have access to say stackoverflow, reddit, basic help files, a textbook. But if I basically back-engineer code from other people's similar work then I won't say I understand Python. 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026So I suppose I see "understanding" a tool or mechanism as meaning that I am able to use it without having to go and look up what I need to do at each step, while I can use that tool or mechanism to obtain a reasonably significant proportion of its functions or capabilities. 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I understand what Python is (a programming language, a tool to enable someone to set the behaviour of a relevant machine), But I don't understand Python as I cannot use that tool (I don't have enough information about it such that I can reliably manipulate it towards its full range of outcomes). 200
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 24/09/20266 pints tea so far (i use a pint mug!), 1 large cup of coffee. I do not generally drink water - it all comes in the form of tea! 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026They also run this sort of rubric over repeats of old series on the retro TV channels (thinking Talking Pictures, Rewind TV), at the start and after the ad breaks. That's stuff like It Ain't Half Hot Mum! 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Japan's employment laws that make casual layoff rounds illegal / very difficult is probably another important influence 0767
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026White stripes energy feels to me like overcaffeinated jitters, where Wilco are easygoing and relaxed, so that feels like Wilco should do it. But I'd rather be listening to Fists Of Fury and Goldmine JamJar 011
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Ah, that Björk, she doesn't do much by halves! But when she does, it's in the Best Album ballots. 021
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I assume that the Strokes' backside, having just taken a caning, is not prepared to display those white stripes to the world 181
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Veered eventually to Björk vs Wilco, coudn't summon an opinion on Stripe vs Stroke, now i'm tending to Strokes over Björk. Not convinced I can articulate a coherent underlying logic to that, other than, on a random day, of those specific pairs, it's the one I think I'd be likelier to press play on. 011
Reposted by AdricHildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 15/09/2026This post is making the rounds again for some reason and therefore I feel I must inform you that they’ve hired another one so there are now TWO forensic pathologists working in Iceland. 542430586
Reposted by AdricHildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 03/07/2023My favourite fact about Iceland is that we have many, many crime writers but only one forensic pathologist, and he was so busy answering all of their questions that he decided to have a small seminar for writers to get some peace. It immediately sold out so he had another one that also sold out. 6051101420
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I flipped in the unhelpful direction, so that last minute Wilco microsurge was a tad stronger than it looks! 131
Reposted by AdricThe Best Album of 2001 @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social · 15/09/2026There are 90 minutes left to vote. Best Album electorate, you have one directive: deliver a winning album without the use of a tie. Also: we are at a point where the abstaining voters could throw it one way or the other, if they chose. 243
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I was just thinking that my early abstention vote is the closest i've ever been to my tastes matching the community at large 111
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026"Bjork" scores more in scrabble than "Wilco"? not that you're allowed proper names. Also that just brings up whether you prefer to back the underdog... So no, I got nothing. 031
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Alongside this I think they've realised you can't reap all the benefits of regulatory capture, which they've positioned themselves for, without getting regulated! 130
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Relics 'n' Rust in Hyde is a fun visit. There's the Bottle Stop in Bramhall, and Wineboy in Stockport market has some decent stuff if you're near there. Don't know the north side so well, the 2 places I used to go have gone! 010
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026static.klipy.comJim Carrey as The Mask: Somebody Stop Me!Alt: Jim Carrey as The Mask: Somebody Stop Me! 010
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Though it's more fundamental than that: these are emotionally motivated beliefs and people absorb 'facts' to bolster them, but discrediting the 'facts' doesn't challenge the original belief. I think it's how to persuade people it's right, good, and *not weak* to change your heart more than mind. 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026As a horror film fan/student/writer there's a good chance you know about this, but that gimmick just sounds like the Percepto! silliness Castle staged for 'The Tingler'. Just without the narrative impetus that made that clever en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin...en.wikipedia.orgThe Tingler - Wikipedia 000
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 07/09/2026i remember one of the Kingmaker guys (Myles I think) saying when early Radiohead were supporting them Thom Yorke used to stage dive while they were on. ...which isn't prog but it's something else they'd probably not admit to 021
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Might vote here on the basis that enunciation is an important skill and should be rewarded 171
Adric @adricmn.bsky.social · 06/09/2026The Tori album is great! Another unexpected appearance - she's a backing vocalist on some of Al Stewart's 1988 album Last Days Of The Century. ...of which I'll say I enjoy a lot of the songs a great deal, but I don't think it would stand a chance of even getting into the competition :) 041
