Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | DemocracyFTW2's commentslogin

Next thing you know they put up an image on example.com. An image. On example dot com!

no, and it's called the antigravitational theorem, taken to be proof that actually there is such a thing as "negative mass". To put it in vernacular terms, you do get more massive but not without a shrinkage in social currency. "Something's gotta give" is the textbook formulation of the principle.

In German an airship doesn't "fly", it "fährt". One could have reasonably invented new words for 'flying' depending on whether their motion is caused by flapping wings, buoyancy of light gases, rotating propellers, jet engines, or being fired out of a canon's barrel.

Colloquial German seems to largely use fliegt.

This is the thing about language, you can have strong opinions about it but language evolves through use. Historical attempts to stop this sort of natural drift has just resulted in dead languages nobody speaks like Sanskrit and Latin.


> dead languages nobody speaks like Sanskrit and Latin

There sure are dead languages but these two examples good they are not.


1) I'm with you in that I'm critical of people who mindlessly say things like "Claude lied to me", and maybe even "ChatGPT hallucinated".

2) On the other hand I'm also critical of people who assert that "Ackshelly you didn't do any 'work' by putting the crate from this table to that table" or "sweet potatoes are not 'potatoes' at all, so don't call them potatoes".

In physics, words like 'work', 'power', 'heat' have very specific meanings. The 'heat death of the universe' is thought to be near absolute zero Kelvin a.k.a. frigging cold, no heat anywhere. The meaning of 'work' in physics has a certain overlap with what is called 'work' outside of physics (to wit, a number of different things). A typical biologist or taxonomist's view on species is much more nuanced than the ordinary guy-with-some-general-educational-background's view on the subject: the latter will tend to see species as an absolute given which science just has to uncover. Sure scientists can err but ultimately the truth of biological species is often conceived as incontrovertible by the informed layman instead of what it is: a tool for thought, a human measure brought in to help make sense of chaotic data. Darwin already said as much.

Maybe physics should never have chosen terms like 'force', 'work', 'power'. As a German speaker let me remark that especially 'power' is a bit puzzling; German has 'Leistung' instead which I think is a bit clearer. But even when scientists go and create their own terms like 'energy' or 'quantum leap', neither of which existed before being introduced with a specific scientific definition attached to them, the public often goes and appropriates them anyway. So "he's got such a cold energy" ("cold" being associated with lack of thermal energy) and "a massive quantum leap" (i.e. "a sizeable advancement" instead of "the smallest possible change") are colloquially possible.

Look at more squishy terms from squishier sciences like 'language' as used by linguists and things become even more difficult. Sure, "the language of Islamic architecture in early medieval Spain" is a nice and valid book title and no linguists will take exception. But talk about the new research on the "language of birds" in the newspaper and you will ruffle some feathers.

One has to acknowledge that people are challenged with finding words to describe a new phenomenon. Sure, we could stop at 'calculate' or 'compute', as in "ChatGPT computed some falsehoods" instead of saying it 'lied'. But even when I say that "ChatGPT's answer was wrong" doesn't 'answer', alone and by itself, already imply a degree of intentionality that is (or should be, as far we can tell) absent from a process that purely relies on solving one big formula with a pinch of randomness thrown in? Then again, "what is the calculator's answer?" was already used in the 1970s when pocket calculators were all the rage.


Poor choices are still poor choices. Words are very curious things with very infinite meanings, shifting between context. There’s probably something to be said about how we shape our languages and how ambiguity of meaning can prevent those who just don’t know from knowing. You know what I mean?

Sure maybe the English language is choosing to adopt the word “thinking” for what is going on here. Some people are choosing “reasoning”. It’s all the same to me though. The thought outputs aren’t any different that the final message for me, regardless of its shape.

I don’t have a better alternative, but I’m pretty sure this just makes people who aren’t in the industry dumber when they see it.

It doesn’t really matter. There’s no way the training loop necessary is sustainable and these things are a fad. How long? Idk. But language will change and there will be a day where using an LLM requires as much training as reading old religious texts. Got to learn more language.



1) what everyone else replied; but also 2) where do you think Europe is? You're probably wrong, cf. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa#/media/Datei:Mitglieder...


> I don't think stealing $20 makes the local news these days

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_Emmely

Got fired because she redeemed two orphaned bottle deposit slips worth 1,30€ (in 2009, so more like 1,50€ in today's money /s). Caused a nation-wide discussion.


I don't think anything will beat

https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/15148829

School principal fired and loses $130k pension for overfilling coffee (about 50 cents).


It was the being fired that made the news; not the stealing.


> The only difference with Trump is that he says things out loud.

The only problem with Flat Earthers is that they say things out loud. Also, grabbing other people by their **ies.


> Europe can have a Starlink similar network

Please don't, this is madness.


Reading the Wikipedia article on the Equal Earth projection it would seem the map used in the resolution indicates national boundaries.


And Wikipedia outlines in considerable detail why those boundaries are quite objectionable to a good number of nations in Europe. Quoting multiple UN Ambassadors on this resolution.

Vs. NPR found an angle that'd push their reader's buttons, and figured their job was done.

Glad I stopped donating to NPR in the early aughties.


Media organizations famously are able to do more in-depth reporting when you stop funding them...


To be fair you either produce a globe that faithfully reproduces the geoid (a sphere should do for most cases) or you'll always distort something on the map: angles, areas, distances. And then there's the question of the overall map shape: you can get away with less overall distortion at the price of partitioning the map into more pieces (as done e.g. by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map). The Mercator projection has the advantage, if indeed it is one, of being rectangular. To me, a shortcoming of the Equal Earth projection is that it makes places like Australia and Alaska look like they're somehow 'on the fringe'.


Consider applying for YC's Winter 2027 batch! Applications are open till November 2.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: