I think it's a pretty deep point -- your memory and consciousness are shaped by the media environment (media being the thing that Klosterman thinks about obsessively)
And the media environment drastically changed after the 90's -- because of the Internet
I think his main point was about access to media in different eras, but it's worth reading directly if you feel like that
I have to admit I feel similarly conflicted after a few recent REAL WORLD experiences. The first is that Gemini and Claude taught me a whole bunch of things about beer that I feel like I should have known, or a friend should have told me in the last few decades :-) (I'm in my mid 40's)
As background, I am a simple man, and I like one type of beer (pale ale), and drink 1 beer a day. But it has to be fresh, crisp, bitter, and not make me want to fall asleep (lower alcohol)
So here is some color on what I learned:
- I worked in SF / the bay area for nearly 2 decades, and I'm now in Philly. I have been wondering for like FOUR YEARS why when I buy pale ale, it is somehow OFF. Well Claude told me that east coast pale ale is actually more like "English Ale" (e.g. Yards brewing), and west coast pale ale is its own thing (e.g. Lagunitas)
Apparently west coast is what I developed a taste for -- it is more bitter. And this totally tracks for me. So the same term is used for 2 slightly different things, and AI cleared that up for me
- I walked into a beer store today in Philly, and there are 5 IPAs for every Pale Ale, which annoys me because I prefer the latter. (That happened in San Francisco too, and I'm sure many people here have had that experience)
And Gemini taught me that "session IPA" is actually a marketing term for Pale Ale. I always choose things labeled "pale ale", but many people want something labeled "IPA". So they came up with the term "session IPA" -- an IPA with lower alcohol, aka Pale Ale.
I use Gemini anonymously, so it doesn't remember things about me. And after I described my beer preferences and the fact that I'm in Philly, it specifically brought up Tonewood Brewing in NJ, which is in fact the beer I've drank the most in the last 3 years!
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So yeah I find it eerie that the LLMs are helping me with words versus reality.
- the same term "pale ale" referring to slightly different things on the east coast and west coast -- this was tripping me up for years
- the term "session IPA" being a marketing term for Pale Ale -- also something I didn't know for years
- based on simple verbal descriptions, they are able to recommend the beers that I actually drank and liked (even though I use Gemini anonymously, and that was my first time asking Claude about beer)
I've been drinking something slightly "wrong" quite often, because of a confusion over words on the label. I guess I simply don't know anyone who I can ask dumb questions about beer to.
The folks who pour those very beers you order usually know a fair amount about how they’re made and what differences exist, especially if you’re at a brewery (not e.g., a dive bar). Chat ‘em up!
Yup totally, how you breathe during the day is a habit that basically persists at night
So breathing better during the day can be trained, even at an old age, and it improves sleep
Not everyone breathes suboptimally of course, but I think more do than realize it. There’s a reason that breath work is in the traditions of many different cultures, and why it survived
But things like this aren’t necessarily profitable or worth a doctor’s time, so you have to do them yourself, or see therapists, etc
I had a good experience with a myofunctional therapist and posture therapist
Oh you don't say? I'm genuinely curious to know what you reduced your AHI to with these exercises. Or are you just making things up?
Yeah we'll go with fabrications based solely on this sentence "But things like this aren’t necessarily profitable or worth a doctor’s time, so you have to do them yourself, or see therapists, etc"
I thought one of the main issues is that during sleep you lose muscle tone and control, so no matter how much you do myofacial therapy while awake it doesn't really matter much in preventing your tongue from falling back when asleep.
It has list of more than 20 optimizations for interpreters, with measured speedups. I'm pretty sure I was looking for something like this 3-5 years ago, but it didn't exist
Ha, that’s the thing that gets me too. Also people watching mashed up YouTube clip compilations - these seem obviously designed for addiction.
The other thing is watching the videos in public with the tinny speakers blaring. Judging by reactions on the trains, this is socially acceptable to most people now ???
I find it really hard to relate to people who do that. I never want people to see/hear what I am doing on my phone or computer, especially if it's something dumb or time-wasting. And to broadcast that into the world in a public space?? its crazy how different people are
You can just embed the C library into the binary of the Go app call it directly in Go. Most of the time I have found calling C from Go faster or on par with calling C from Python.
They tell me I don't have a real job because I just tell the computer what to do, and I don't do the thing myself (to which I can't help but respond that they're absolutely right)
Hm interesting
So they are making the distinction between regular "human brain" coding and AI-assisted coding?
Regular coding could be described as "not doing the thing yourself, but telling the computer what to do"
(FWIW I do think there is a huge difference; however I am not sure the general public has a very good idea of what "programming" is. I remember having some code up on my screen and my educated family was confused, even at the concept)
A common problem I noticed is that if you took certain courses in computer science, you may have a pre-conceived notion of how to parse programming languages, and the shell language doesn't quite fit that model
I have seen this misconception many times
In Oils, we have some pretty minor elaborations of the standard model, and it makes things a lot easier
To summarize that, I'd say that doing as much work as possible in the lexer, with regular languages and "lexer modes", drastically reduces the complexity of writing a shell parser
And it's not just one parser -- shell actually has 5 to 15 different parsers, depending on how you count
I think it's a pretty deep point -- your memory and consciousness are shaped by the media environment (media being the thing that Klosterman thinks about obsessively)
And the media environment drastically changed after the 90's -- because of the Internet
I think his main point was about access to media in different eras, but it's worth reading directly if you feel like that
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