This feels like spyware.

I got COVID after taking all precautions because my father didn’t wear a mask and took it home. I was sick for a month. I only left my bed to use the bathroom or eat. I literally slept the rest of the time. I probably should have gone to the hospital because I could hardly stay awake even just to eat. I remember waking up one day, and just knowing that I was recovering.

Recovery was hell. I couldn’t taste, or smell anything. I had awful flu like symptoms. I was lethargic and I could hardly walk. It took two weeks to feel functional, and for three months my sense of taste was completely fucked.

I think I used a mental shortcut and assumed their reason was due to frustration because a fairly common context for sentences like the one in the comment I replied to is due to reasons of disagreement or dislike due to opinion, quality, lack of information, or some other reason.

The game gets kinda meta on itself. This is mild spoilers: There’s a greater overall plot that gets progressed by a looping simpler plot. The idea is that, you are instructed by a narrator to go to a cabin in the woods and slay the princess inside. The choices you make cause this plot to repeat with a twist. When the simple plot loops its influenced by what you did on the prior iteration of the simple plot. Each of these loops is actually you advancing down a branching story path, and you need enough of these branches completed to complete the greater overall plot.

Its sort of like the Stanley Parable, where you can defy the narrator, or go along with his demands. The fun is getting a reaction out of the narrator or any of the other characters by your actions or dialogue choices, and seeing the story change based on what you choose. However its still a visual novel, so its a lot of listening to dialogue.

Cartel torture and execution video. I tried typing up what I remembered of it, but even omitting half the details left me with a very gruesome and disturbing story. I’ll just say that the casual nature of the men doing the torture was the most disturbing part. They laughed and took turns as they drank beer. They made other victims watch while having demented smiles across their faces. They delighted in the screams. I suppose not understanding Spanish was a blessing for a curious child.

I liked watching these as a kid. They played in the early morning before school. Sometimes the bubbles were just jokes or humorous observations. Othertimes, they were interesting bits of trivia in an age where the internet was still in its early days.

Steam itself works fine on Linux. I don’t think I have a single game in my library that doesn’t work. I’m using Arch (btw) and I’ve found that for my use case (internet browsing and video games) that I haven’t had any major issues.

The two issues I do have are:

• If I go too long without updating then package dependencies get screwed and its a headache to fix. -Downloaded applications need the console to allow them to be run. (This is just a single command I have sticky noted to my monitor.)

I still have my Windows install (dual boot) as a just in case backup, but its been months since I’ve used it.

Well, my example of the word ‘elephant’ has the same property as ‘herb’ where the use of ‘a’ or ‘an’ can depend on who you ask. I chose my example trying to anticipate this exact question, and I believe I gave you an answer.

Let me put it this way: it depends… It depends on the data the LLM (Chat GPT for example) has been given to train its output. If we have an LLM dataset which uses only text by people in the United Kingdom, then the data will favor “a herb” as the ‘h’ is pronounced, where data from the United States will favor the other way as the ‘h’ is usually silent when spoken out loud.

As a fairly general rule, people use the article “an” before a vowel sound (like a silent “h”) and “a” before a consonant sound (like a pronounced, or aspirated, “h”). Usually the data gathered is from multiple English speaking countries, so both “an herb” and “a herb” will exist in the training data, and from there the LLM will favor picking the one that is shown more often (as the data will biased.)

Just for fun, I asked the LLM running on my local machine. Prompt: "Fill in the blank: “It is _ herb” Response: “It is an herb.”

To be overly simple about it, the LLM uses statistics and a bit of controlled RNG to pick its words. Words in the LLM have links to each other with statistical probabilities attached. If you take the sentence “I fed a peanut to an elephant” and “I fed a peanut to a elephant” and then asked 100 people which is more correct, there will be a percentage which favors one over the other. Now with LLMs its not choosing using weighted coin flips, but rather picking the most likely next word (most of the time). So if the 100 people choose “an elephant” over “a elephant” 65% of the time in its training data, then the LLM will be inclined to use “an elephant.” However, Its important to know that the words around “an elephant” will also bias its choice to use the word ‘an’ for the word ‘elephant’.

Really, its largely based on the training data and the contexts to which ‘a’ and ‘an’ are used. Or in other words, the LLM knows because people figured it out for the LLM. People did all the thinking, LLM’s just use statistics on our bottled phrases to know when to use which. Of course, because it got its data from people - it will sometimes get it wrong which is based on how often people got it wrong.

Its a bit different for me. I start to shake a bit. Feels like I’m vibrating uncomfortably.

Asthma. People expect you to have dramatic TV style throat closing episodes where you turn blue grabing your throat as you gasp and gag. For me, an episode is just sudden onset hypoxia. I’ll feel my lungs get tight, but because I’m still getting some air it can be hard to tell I’m suffocating, especially if I’m distracted. When it happens, I have about 3 - 5 minutes to catch it. If I fail to catch it, I’ll quickly lose balance, struggle to speak, I’ll be unable to think, and finally my vision darkens to a dot, and then I black out. I can appear fine, and then out faster than anyone expects.

Once I get a puff, I’m fine in 10 seconds (minus some shaking from the medication.)

Its a short article, but here’s a summary: Snow crabs caloric needs are tied to temperature. If its too warm, it increases the amount of calories they need to survive. The most recent heat wave doubled this food demand.

Imagine if everyone in China needed double the food due to a sudden weather change.

I learned from my own past that those who’ve suffered from hurt learn the best ways to cause the most of it. It is a skill that is taught to the unwilling.

The truth is that you will have to forgive them, and if you blame yourself, you must forgive yourself too. Forgiveness isn’t anything but a tool to move on. You wrote the redflags to look out for in your post. You’ll have to bail when you see them the next time you go to trust again. You’re going to have to face the fears created by your trauma head on. You’re going to have to be brave. It will not be easy. It will be hard as shit. But you cannot let this person control you anymore. Do not give this person the power to keep you from enjoying life. You will stumble and struggle putting yourself back out there. You will think recovery is impossible.

I had a long road recovering from my trauma, and I believe in your own power to heal from this. Just please do your best to not allow your own traumas to continue the cycle of pain.

Perhaps the AI is reading the cookie banner that appears on nearly every page, and then reading the article?

I read the article and I can only think “Holy shit!” I can only hope that such severe events further increases the pressure for change. The climate is no longer holding its punches.

What do you think of an acetone vapor bath?

Great comment! I think you covered the negatives very well.

It was really good for artists and entertainers (streamers included) to gain a following

Technology is moving so fast not even the common person can be aware of the threat. Plus, we have the response to it is to not believe because its uncomfortable. By the time people understand they will deem it too late to do anything about it.

I don’t talk about products unless they’re really good. I only say anything about the stuff that’s impressively good because I think good products should be rewarded. The steam deck is okay ergonomically, I’ve had hours long sessions and no issues. The screen is big enough to avoid eye strain while keeping it portable. The screen does a great job, and I haven’t seen any flickers or tearing. The screen also responds to touch. The thumbsticks are great quality, with good snap back, and no deadzone. The shoulder buttons aren’t mushy, and respond well. The dpad is unremarkable, but works well. The ABXY buttons are maybe slightly soft, but I haven’t lost any inputs. There’s a trackpad like square that is like a high DPI mouse, and has haptic response to touch.

The software is the real star. Its set it and forget it. Everything is easy to setup. Most games work, and all games in the store show their compatibility. Some games that aren’t supported still work fine regardless. As a bonus, the desktop mode also works well for acting as a normal PC with a good software “store” (most things are free).

But the best part is that you can be in the middle of a cutscene, and hit the power button. The deck can usually pick right up from where it left off. Add also the fact that the steam UI can be opened from anywhere so you can rebind controls on the fly. Extra buttons are available on the back for those games that need it, you just need to bind them once.