Aprotim @aprotim.com · 16hThis isn't even the worst of it. They go as far as demisemihemidemisemiquaver (1/256th). And I guess in theory they can just keep looping through those three prefixes for "half" forever... 010
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 16hI only just discovered that there's a unicode character for it! and a semihemidemisemiquaver (1/128th note) 𝅘𝅥𝅲, but not a demisemihemidemisemiquaver (1/256th). 012
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 16hBTW, for those wondering, to the extent that the Civil War was about "states rights", this is what they meant: not the South bravely standing up for their rights, but the South incensed that Northern states were allowed to make laws at odds with their immoral ones. 020
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 16h??? "I never said I hate cake, but I prefer ice cream." "I never said he committed a crime, but I think his actions are immoral." If all you do is pattern matching to understand what people "mean" instead of examining the content and context, you're often likely to misunderstand, as you did here. 000
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 17hSure, he committed criminal fraud, but for most of us, his two biggest crimes were: gouging sick people, and disrespecting Wu-Tang. 010
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 17hLike, from where I'm sitting, it's almost the exact opposite kind of bad. Unless you know something about how this is like Shkreli's actual financial crimes? I don't really know what those were, and I don't think that's what most people think of when they hear "what a Martin Shkreli did". 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 17hAI companies suck, but I don't see how "burn down the world making newer and newer models, force a largely unwanted product on the public, and desperately trying to price it so people will pay w/o losing $$$" is anything like "buy rights to a 1950s drug people need to live and jack its price 5000%". 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 17hI'm not sure that analogy is apt? I mean, most notably, Shkreli made money and these companies are hemorrhaging it. Shkreli took an product whose development was already paid off and massively increased the price. We're talking about these companies inability to recoup their costs for each model. 100
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 18hBTW, exacerbates the energy/climate impact. Training's *massively* energy intensive relative to querying, which AI proponents always bring up (phrased as the converse) in discussions about environmental impact. But if you're always training as fast as you can, you also can't amortize resource usage. 020
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 18hLike how the second wonder drug pill costs $2 to make, the first cost $100 million. But instead of having the chance to sell 50 million pills at $4/each, someone else was comes out with a better pill every week. Theoretically the product can pay for itself, but not if people stop using it too early. 0201
Reposted by AprotimSteven (with a PH) @sjksalisbury.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Christening a baby is nothing like christening a ship. I know that now. Once again I can only apologise. 159190993845
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 15/09/2026The majority of white people still supporting this shitshow is, as they say, shocking, but not surprising. 000
Reposted by AprotimGillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 14/09/2026Glad folks are appalled by photos of the "phone booth" cage under an awning, but pls understand: This IG report is likely part of a cover-up. Amnesty Int'l interviewed detainees EIGHT MONTHS AGO who said the cage was half this size (couldn't stand up), had no awning, w feet chained to the bottom. 2546812221
Reposted by AprotimMollz (ballz) @dopestatistics.bsky.social · 12/09/2026NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOO 6244399607
Reposted by Aprotimonionspeedos.bsky.social @onionspeedos.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Since becoming president again, Trump has promised: -$5000 stimulus checks via "DOGE dividend" -$2000 stimulus checks via "tariff dividend" -$1000+ checks via "savings" from expiring ACA subsidies -$5000 "dividend" if Rs win midterms No checks have been issued www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-magi...thebulwark.comTrump’s Magically Disappearing Stimulus ChecksI was promised cheaper groceries and tariff rebates and all I got was this lousy pogrom. 1022367
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 10/09/2026I know there's no law and there's nobody who will have the fortitude to hold him to account, but this is plainly illegal. It's buying votes and misappropriation of government funds and whatever else. Republicans don't care. They have decided to ride this meteor straight to the end of the Republic. 010
Reposted by AprotimJRho @jrho.bsky.social · 06/09/2026The most absolutely massive flex from the state fair exhibit. This quilt is made of 40 years of prize ribbons from various categories at the New Mexico State Fair won by Carol St. Clair Johnson. She also won a prize for this quilt. 6861112007
Reposted by AprotimLilith @nicepersonality.social · 05/09/2026dunno why Patton Oswald is encouraging people to commit a federal offense, and I'm not sharing his post, but for the record: nobody in Minneapolis did the thing he claimed, and it would have been a fucking stupid idea that wouldn't have worked, and wouldn't have helped if it did. Don't fedpost, kids 26016
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 01/09/2026It turns out that public pressure can actually do good things! Who knew? 030
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 01/09/2026Somebody was really pleased with themselves about this headline. 031
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 01/09/2026To be clear, they're still gutless quislings who are trying to rewrite history. I just don't think the problem with the hed is the editing. 030
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 01/09/2026"Whatever" and "what ever" are different. "Whatever happened to..." can mean "the unspecified things that happened to", whereas "What ever happened to..." unambiguously means "What was it that happened over time to..." Also, I'm fairly sure they're trying to evoke, presumably to thereby invoke JFK. 210
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 01/09/2026Calling out powerful men without using homophobic rhetoric. Challenge level: impossible, apparently 020
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 29/08/2026You're not annoying just because you're serious about how you're feeling. That is a fucking lot, and you don't need to apologize for feeling a way about it. I know I'm just a random stranger, but you didn't deserve any of that, and I hope you know you're worth so much more than they made you feel. 010
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 27/08/2026But this assumes thermodynamics hold in A:tLA, which it probably doesn't. We don't see the air freeze around firebenders, nor do they seem to spend every non-firebending moment eating. Who knows—maybe firebenders drink hydrocarbon-rich oil which their metabolism combusts when needed. 010
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 27/08/2026Get an earthbender/metalbender to make a subterranean heat exchanger by driving the outside pipe in a serpentine shape deep underground and you don't even need the second waterbender. 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 27/08/2026Have two water benders move water through a pipe looping through the wall. One continuously condenses the steam entering the outside pipe into liquid. The other continuously evaporates the liquid water into steam in the inside half of the loop. No state/pressure cycling for either of them. 110
Reposted by AprotimJaya Saxena @jayasaxena.com · 26/08/2026The best way to honor the two who have left us recently, imo, is to keep being as gay as possible 184602294
Reposted by AprotimToss @stevenspoints.bsky.social · 26/08/2026I really cannot think of a greater honor than to have the Muppets say this about you upon your passing 2295269512865
Reposted by AprotimTimmy Jackpots, The $13,250 Diamond Dazzler @tbone.malware-virus.biz · 26/08/2026my wife has a friend who sent Dolly Parton a painting she made & a letter explaining how much Dolly's music meant to her while she was transitioning. Dolly responded to it personally & paid for her top surgery. Sounds like an urban legend but it's real. I think we're going to more stories like this. 109265724393
Reposted by AprotimHollywood Steve Huey @hollywoodsteve.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Dolly Parton decided to cover "Stairway to Heaven" as a gospel song, and asked Robert Plant for permission to write a new verse for it, and Robert Plant basically said "of course you can, you're Dolly Parton" youtu.be/YhTvxVxXJLQyoutu.beDolly Parton - Stairway to Heaven (Audio)YouTube video by Dolly Parton 11831267
Reposted by AprotimGillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 25/08/2026This girl I used to waitress with in Austin, we moved to New York together in 2003 on a literal Greyhound bus. Shared a fifth floor walk-up studio that, when it rained, had more leaks in the ceiling than we had pots and pans. We used to get drunk and smoke off the fire escape and do “sad-offs.” 244360995
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 25/08/2026Dolly wrote and performed so many iconic songs, and I'll be listening to them on repeat, but if you haven't heard it before, give a listen to Dolly's Grammy-winning cover of "Shine" by Collective Soul. youtu.be/plUD6vN80dgyoutu.beDolly Parton - Shine (Official)YouTube video by DollyPartonVEVO 020
Reposted by AprotimSunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 25/08/2026We gotta outlast him for her Out of love, out of spite 118944
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 25/08/2026Disney trying this shit is the thin edge of the wedge. Employer-tied insurance is already a trap to keep us chained to our jobs. If the oligarchs are thinking they can start whittling away at it, universal healthcare is even more urgent. www.avclub.com/disney-emplo...avclub.comDisney celebrates blockbuster 2026 by kicking employees' spouses off healthcare plansDisney celebrates blockbuster 2026 by kicking employees' spouses off healthcare plans 000
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 25/08/2026I'm also aware that data that seems to say one thing can mean another. e.g., there's a positive correlation between playing tennis and golf and longer lifespans. Does this mean that 🎾&⛳ are particularly life-extending, or does it just show a correlation between playing those sports and affluence? 000
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 25/08/2026I believe in the following evidence and basing decisions on data when possible. But I also am keenly aware that "rationality" of the "right idea" does not necessarily win the day, because we are not rational beings by nature. My example was a scientific inquiry into the nature of rationalization. 210
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 25/08/2026Wait. Who's "we", and who's "you"? I literally said *all humans* are this way, at no point did I say one group is rational and the other isn't. I made no assumptions about your ideology and no statements about *my* ideology, so I have no idea what ideals you believe in that I supposedly don't. 210
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026We are at the mercy of untold numbers of pattern recognizers, that come to us as feelings about the correctness of an idea. These pattern recognizers are often overtrained, as well, building correlations based on recency, confirmation bias, etc, not based on objective statistics about co-occurance. 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026The part of the brain that was talking had *nothing to do* with deciding to draw a shovel. But when presented with the fact that "they" had, our wiring for rationalization went to work immediately. That's how un-lesioned brains make decisions, too: the decision often precedes the rationale. 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026Now, for most people, speech is primarily a left-brain function. So the left brain would look at the picture that the right brain drew and the image the left brain saw, and with barely any hesitation would start explaining why a shovel was a better tool for leaves than a rake. 111
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026For example, show the left eye a yard full of dead autumn leaves and the right side a scene full of snow. Then they'd ask the patient to draw a tool they could use in the scene. So the left hand (right brain) would draw a snow shovel. Then they'd ask the patient why they drew that tool. 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026You may know that your right brain controls motor functions of the left side of your body and vice-versa but eyes go directly to same-side hemisphere, so your right eye and arm connect to different hemispheres. So the experiment involved showing the left eye one image and the right eye another. 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026Here's an example: psychologists/neurologists did an experiment with patients who had their corpus callosum severed for whatever reason (accident, surgery, etc.) This meant that the two hemispheres of their brain could not communicate with each other at all. 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026If the best ideas always won, Tesla would've died rich and Edison would've been a pauper. BetaMax would've beat VHS. We aren't rational beings. We are rationalizing beings. Comfort, salesmanship, prejudice all drive our judgment more than we realize, then we work backwards for "logical" rationales. 120
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026Call it what you like, it's based on research by experts in de-radicalization and cult deprogramming. Also, two centuries of bad ideas about the humanity of Black people, and (some) only ended with a war. 161 years more and large swaths of the country still believe the exact same white supremacy. 110
Aprotim @aprotim.com · 24/08/2026It's totally unclear whether he actually had conflicts, he saw the blowback and is making a calculated PR decision, or he's actually taking a principled stand against JKR's transphobia. I'm just saying that even if it is the latter, saying so out loud might get him sued for breach of contract. 010
