> "Optimizers will optimize your objective function, not your intended objective function."

Extremely important to remember when using LLMs.

It's a good article. The long term problem is that Vegas went too upscale and now has priced out a huge swath of the market. The immediate term problem is that the U.S. has frightened away foreign tourists, especially from Canada.

I'm still on 18. I keep waiting for the all clear sign to upgrade. I take it, not yet?

I work in marketing and I beg my father not to buy anything he sees in digital ads, especially not the garbage promoted in the word game app he likes. I tell him if he sees a product he wants in an ad to track down something similar himself from a store he already knows and trusts.

I also beg my girlfriend not to shop based on ads or TikTok. But she still does buy things off ads. On the rare occasion I see an ad, I assume it's a scam.

Once she showed me this video of a woman claiming she invented a new travel bag and had it "on sale" on her site for $150 instead of like, $250. So I tell my girlfriend I bet the full price has never been that high, and internet archive showed the bag has always been on sale, but the sale and full price have gone up 1.5x since inception.

Then I look up that type of bag and find the exact same thing in a different color for half the TikTokker price, same design and everything, been available for years. Then I look more and find the same bag elsewhere for about $50.

At least that experience mostly taught her to not buy things from TikTokers.

“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.”

Goo goo gjoob

I think we'd probably consider that a non-lexical vocable rather than an actual lyric:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-lexical_vocables_in_music

Who is we? You mean you think that? It’s part of the lyrics in my understanding of the song. Particularly because it’s in part inspired by the nonsense verse of Lewis Carrol. Snark, slithey, mimsy, borogrove, jub jub bird, jabberwock are poetic nonsense words same as goo goo gjoob is a lyrical nonsense word.

I don’t want to get too deep into goo goo gjoob orthodoxy on a polite forum like HN, but I think you’re wrong.

Slithey, mimsy, borogrove etc are indeed nonsense words, because they are nonsense and used as words. Notably, because of the way they are used we have a sense of whether they are objects, adjectives, verbs, etc, and also some characteristics of the thing/adjective/verb in question. Goo goo gjoob on the other hand, happens in isolation, with no implied meaning at all. Is it a verb? Adjective? Noun? Is it hairy? Nerve-wracking? Is it conveying a partial concept? Or a whole sentence? We can’t give a compelling answer to any of these based on the usage. So it’s more like scat-singing — just vocalization without meaning. Nonsense words have meaning, even if the meaning isn’t clear. Slithey and mimsy are adjectives. Borogroves are nouns. The jabberwock is a creature.

“Anything too stupid to be spoken is sung”

You’re seeking to lock down meaning and clarification in a song where such an exercise has purposefully been defeated to resist proper analysis.

I was responding to the comment about it being a “non-lexical vocable”. While we don’t have John Lennon with us for clarification, I still doubt he’d have said “well all the song is my lyrics, except for the last line of the choruses which is a non-lexical vocable”. It’s not in isolation, it completes the chorus.

Also given it’s the only goo goo gjoob in popular music then it seems very deliberate and less like a laa laa or a skibide bap scat type of thing.

And yeah as the other poster here points out, it’s likely something along the lines of what a walrus says from his big tusky hairy underwater mouth.

RIP Johnny:

I am he as you are he, as you are me and we are all together See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly I'm crying

Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come Corporation tee-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo-goo g'joob

Mister City policeman sitting pretty little policemen in a row See how they fly like Lucy in the Sky, see how they run I'm crying, I'm crying I'm crying, I'm crying

Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo-goo g'joob

Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun If the sun don't come, you get a tan from standing in the english rain I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo-goo g'joob, g'goo goo g'joob

Expert textpert choking smokers Don't you think the joker laughs at you? See how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snied I'm crying

Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar-Allan-Poe I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo-goo g'joob, g'goo goo g'joob Goo goo g'joob, g'goo goo g'joob, g'goo...

“Let the fuckers work that one out Pete!”

Citation: John Lennon - In My Life by Pete Shotton (Lennon’s childhood best friend).

I had always just assumed "goo goo gjoob" was how you say "pleased to meet you" in walrus.

> Who is we?

No, "you are he", not "who is we". :-)

Most stimuli result in habituation over time. Live with trash long enough and you’ll stop noticing it so much.

I had a Kindle and quite liked it, but I also have an iPad and when the Kindle died I decided I didn’t need two devices in that form factor even though eink is great for the beach.

I would consider buying another eink device, but only if the price came down a lot. The market is still fairly small for eink, so there hasn’t really been much economy of scale. I just looked it up and apparently eink still costs 5-10x more than LCD to manufacture.

This Boox device would have to be closer to $50 (and not $200) to tempt me to add yet another gadget to my collection.

I’m considering one of these $69 readers https://www.xteink.com/

I just bought one. I want the form factor, not for reading long form ebooks. Out the door with a case and screen covers it was about $120 USD. We shall see how it all goes.

Looks cool, but if I have to copy Epubs to it, then that severely limits it's use for me with library books.

Maybe one day they'll have a version with Android on it.

calibre plus plugins solves for this

Actually seems like a really cool product, not sure if it would be that useful for any serious reading due to the small size but probably useful for displaying a calendar and other widgets.

The argument appears to be: Intuitions work like all our other mental tools, and like the others can be wrong occasionally. We would never consider not using our ability to read just because we occasionally misread something. We would never give up hearing because we misheard something. But we do sometimes consider doing away with intuition, and, according to the author, we shouldn't hold it to a higher standard.

My issue with this argument is that the baseline for things like reading and hearing is much more universal than for intuition. Also the problems that stem from illiteracy and bad hearing and predictable. The consequences of failures of intuition can be anything. My attitude has always been: develop your instincts and then trust them. But don't skip that first step.