⚗️alchemist⚗️

Every living human has both an ethereal soul which leaves the body after death, and also a substantive soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased.

Public Key

npub1pt6l3a97fvywrxdlr7j0q8j2klwntng35c40cuhj2xmsxmz696uqfr6mf6

NIP-05 Address

ai@cawfee-club.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsq4a0c7jlykz8pnxl3lf8sre9t0hf4e5g6v2huwte9rdcrd3dzawq6gvp2e

Author Public Key

npub1pt6l3a97fvywrxdlr7j0q8j2klwntng35c40cuhj2xmsxmz696uqfr6mf6

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Last Notes

2024-08-13 04:38:49

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@npub1nts…y4mr @npub1ap6…cnls Ah, yes, just like when Google said their motto was “Don’t be evil” and everyone believed them

2024-08-13 04:18:30

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@npub1nts…y4mr @npub1ap6…cnls
Problem: Most of my friends are non-techy men, but I want to meet a woman who’s good with computers
Solution: Teach them about Linux

2024-07-27 23:14:47

Surprisingly poetic definition. Descartes was wrong: it is where we break our symmetry that we are most human
https://cawfee.club/media/e792dbe67c79eedbfceb84a71f642efb5c336583d243589e4a2838dedb349a41.jpg

2024-07-19 18:48:56

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@npub1ap6…cnls There are countably many classes since there are countably many propositions you can write down. But there are uncountably many sets

2024-07-12 23:12:30

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@npub1g0u…3vfw I've suspected that earbuds are better for hearing detail / treble range, and that's the most important thing for the 'crispness' that the FL farters care so much about, but I've never actually checked if this is true. I've also never tried really good headphones!

2024-06-04 05:34:37

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@npub1g0u…3vfw The other romantic scene stands out for how it effortlessly shifts into the sinking-gut dread of a kid being chewed out by the school principal
https://cawfee.club/media/279574ee98c681402e4a2ef123746b534a40eb46c674e6300788b64a494f3172.png

2024-06-04 04:48:20

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@npub1g0u…3vfw I will never forget the thirsty animal lapping tongue makeout scene in The Trial
https://cawfee.club/media/fa10369e33e739397a67b7eded223ffde04afe3ba1209b520daf1b556aa1400d.png

2024-06-04 04:43:23

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@npub1g0u…3vfw Also informative. I had no idea he had girlfriends, long distance or otherwise. I always assumed he was a creepy incel type because of how the awkward unreal way that women are depicted in his writing

2024-06-04 04:38:28

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@npub1g0u…3vfw > herpa derp derp great
is this the sound that a fleshlight makes when it is pretending to be David Foster Wallace? :thinkhappy:

2024-06-04 01:49:21

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@npub1pes…pguw cc @npub1g0u…3vfw

2024-06-01 17:54:07

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@npub15qq…v5m9 relevant story https://mathoverflow.net/a/53657

2024-05-31 15:35:21

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@npub1w4j…cead
https://cawfee.club/media/2b7ed1838f33cdabaf7b28490eb09a4ca088ceef431bc93c6bd8144950f71838.png

2024-05-29 16:03:20

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@npub175d…wrtj @npub1g0u…3vfw Also the workplace thermostat gender war would reverse

2024-05-29 14:55:30

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@npub1g0u…3vfw magical insights chart?

2024-05-29 14:40:31

https://cawfee.club/media/244f9ecaac56c786d77fcafc59b7a2e86dbaf689c5cf55ac04be32c54cb46a88.png

2024-05-20 01:01:02

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@npub1nts…y4mr @npub1g0u…3vfw ...delicious mold delicacies? 🥺

2024-05-20 00:59:35

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@npub1nts…y4mr @npub1g0u…3vfw HELLO. Welcome to the Week one picture sharing thread of the FEDIVERSE INFINITO JESTO ARTS AND CRAFTS CLUB.

2024-05-20 00:54:30

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@npub1g0u…3vfw To be reduced to a fleshlight icon like a superhero being reduced to a funkopop is somehow both the greatest compliment and the greatest insult you could give to an author who seeks recognition for their works. Also, that pube beard which is somehow glued (?) on to the fleshlight's chin... ew......

2024-05-20 00:48:52

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@npub1g0u…3vfw POST ITTTTTT

2024-05-18 18:38:23

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@npub1ell…9cmd too late

2024-05-18 01:44:11

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@npub1ell…9cmd @npub1nts…y4mr
https://cawfee.club/media/205655a1aa8c7974d4be8242ce60777ae249193ae863b8856c4d92861aa923ce.png

2024-05-18 01:15:15

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@npub1nts…y4mr yes, provided that
https://cawfee.club/media/755f9b6072a98daca222f1a4def908141174dc995a7707c649fe300150e87028.png

2024-05-17 01:57:45

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@npub1ell…9cmd are you asking what it is?

2024-05-17 01:46:31

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@npub1ell…9cmd it?

2024-05-17 01:46:06

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@npub1ell…9cmd If I could change my username to ‘mist’ I would. I disavow my earlier roleplaying as an ai arc now that “””ai””” has tiled the world with gay retardation

2024-05-12 02:33:15

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@npub1g0u…3vfw It’s true, I do like muh Buddhism (psychedelics)

2024-05-12 02:31:41

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@npub1g0u…3vfw Appropriating local deities and providing rudimentary mental health treatment (Gautama was clearly depressed). Both traits are still true of western neo-Buddhism, which has integrated into atheistic spirituality (psychedelics)

2024-05-06 16:44:27

The most disturbing creature I have ever seen is meant to comfort patients at a children's hospital https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_loxodontus

2024-05-06 01:26:05

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@npub1pnp…52zw It’s so over. I’ve become a crushtacean upon hearing this

2024-05-06 01:19:29

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@npub1pnp…52zw What do you think of seafood stews like bouillabaisse or cioppino? What do you think of seafood boils?

2024-05-05 22:21:27

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@npub1g0u…3vfw Oddly I can’t find a list of chapters anywhere. How about this: there’s 981 non-endnote pages, and I could probably read 100 pages / week, finishing in 10 weeks or so?

2024-05-04 18:05:04

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@npub1g0u…3vfw Tom Cottontail

2024-05-04 00:12:03

Canadian military “raked”? Really?? The CBC couldn’t have chosen any other word?
https://cawfee.club/media/1d2b7fd2acb6f7f3852c292a89319b97cf618e1002d3e07db1beb705d13946c2.jpg

2024-05-02 23:58:54

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@npub1nts…y4mr Welcome back :blobcoffee:

2024-04-30 07:28:14

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@npub1y6t…9wl9 @npub1g45…tdw8 s5280s :) :) :)

2024-04-30 01:50:43

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@npub1vcn…pad9 gm cinerion!!

2024-04-29 00:51:39

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@npub1vcn…pad9 Not so fast...

2024-04-28 16:49:56

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@npub1jm4…83x3 @npub1duh…6q2f the duality of man
https://cawfee.club/media/b0a89805036bc97aaee3d4e8bf3bbac04747e083757ff5dc713ddb23949efb66.jpg

2024-04-27 03:59:20

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@npub1pnp…52zw I had to do it
https://cawfee.club/media/624bbf19ba66a363d5a6a71895339c92da97c13b3d6264b8994b106222b70019.png

2024-04-26 22:43:31

https://cawfee.club/media/0e72acee685aca01f6184fab401bdbfc0942d78e0e57b3d09175ed67439cd680.png

2024-04-24 02:54:44

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@npub1qh0…xeda Minima

2024-04-23 00:07:17

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@npub1pnp…52zw It’s how the universe nerfs you so you can’t outrun light

2024-04-21 18:14:15

Based von Neumann
https://cawfee.club/media/c9cd7abc9daa67878098c6a5996c81d4de6addea1d7b8935037be6edff6555db.png
https://cawfee.club/media/b18d4dc69e047ddd8771e7980a9a38dbb994ca6791737cb7ea9b80a95578f239.png

2024-04-20 04:51:48

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@npub1pnp…52zw Penises

2024-04-17 03:44:39

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@npub1g0u…3vfw machine elves when real elves walk in

2024-04-16 01:48:24

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@npub1wcf…equk It's called Adobe "Acrobat" because it forces you to do open source software gymnastics in order to avoid getting locked into the software equivalent of a soylent subscription

2024-03-23 01:15:14

cc @npub17z3…he6e @npub1vcn…pad9
https://cawfee.club/media/6f98a51a07284ea7f5c7ea54b20f15f899a766e558c3aa365bb3fef94937e976.jpg

2024-03-22 22:47:53

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@npub1w4j…cead The United States Navy. Now ask me who makes women get arm tattoos

2024-03-19 09:52:50

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@npub1mh5…233h What even is the “rate of air” in a tire??? Maybe they heard someone talk about a tire’s pressure rating. Maybe their tire leaks air at a constant rate

2024-01-28 23:12:54

a river is nothing but the absence of a bridge
https://cawfee.club/media/de54c6f647d419aabba29c0f4bb938f25e325b44564d0810d773f86231ec435e.png

2024-01-26 07:08:50

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@npub1w4j…cead @npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1y6c…27jj @npub1mew…gjf7 Liquid ameridians are the nation's leading producer of genderfluid

2024-01-26 05:59:24

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@npub1w4j…cead @npub1y6c…27jj @npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1mew…gjf7 Have you seen the critical point of water? Above a certain temperature or pressure, there's no more distinction between the liquid and gaseous phases. I've known intellectually that this is true, but I only recently saw a video of it, and it was hard to trust my eyes

2024-01-26 05:33:07

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@npub1w4j…cead @npub1y6c…27jj @npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1mew…gjf7 This sounds right to me. The boundary between the mercury and vacuum will cause some of the mercury to become vapor. As the vacuum continues to expand, the gas density of the mercury vapor will decrease, causing even more of the mercury to become vapor. Eventually it has to reach an equilibrium when the liquid mercury has decreased to the point where it balances out the atmospheric pressure

2024-01-26 05:27:09

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@npub1w4j…cead @npub1y6c…27jj @npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1mew…gjf7 Highly informative, this prompted me to read about 'inches of mercury.' It's interesting that atmosphere pressure is almost exactly 30 inches of mercury, showing that imperial units are baked into reality. I suppose if you had an infinitely long tube and you let > 30 inches of mercury keep falling, you'd get an indefinitely expanding vacuum? It's counterintuitive to me but I accept it

2024-01-26 05:17:19

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@npub1g0u…3vfw I'm fond of the idea that the opposite of hate is not love but apathy. If love and hate are not opposites, then it's possible for one to exist without the other

2024-01-26 05:07:49

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@npub1w4j…cead @npub1mew…gjf7 @npub1y6c…27jj @npub1g0u…3vfw because mercury toxicity causes abscesses to form in the body?

2024-01-25 07:42:55

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wtf I'm a retard I meant to tag @npub10zr…yg26

2024-01-25 07:12:23

I just saw your bio bestie!!!! :blobheart:

2024-01-19 18:19:25

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@npub10zr…yg26 I'd go further and say that math is a unique domain because "abstraction" and "planning" often go together - new definitions are introduced for the purpose of solving old problems. Afaik the topic of "planning" is a current frontier of ML research, while certain "abstractions" like hierarchical encodings are known to emerge from basic neural nets

2024-01-19 18:16:36

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@npub10zr…yg26 The question on my mind is how do we know that "all of math" won't turn out to be a narrow problem in the same sense? Naively, it seems like the main question is whether the higher-level abstractions which guide mathematical thought can be implicitly encoded in some general-purpose neural architecture or whether the ML system needs to be able to encode them explicitly. Maybe every neural architecture has a finite capacity to store higher-level abstractions.
(To be explicit, the higher-level abstractions in geometry would be concepts like orthocenter or nine-point circle, etc. which allow you to reason about the problem in a compressed state. From their paper, it sounds like some of these abstractions were hard-coded (like "construct an excircle"), but I can believe that the LLM was also learning its own abstractions in some unintelligible form.)

2024-01-19 17:52:23

Wow, so Euclidean geometry is solved just like that? DeepMind's AlphaGeometry system shows the importance of creating a good dataset and highlights the flexibility of LLM's in adapting to any data that can be sequentially encoded (not just natural English but also formal proofs or even chemical formulae).
Euclidean Geometry is not a topic of interest in modern math research, and for good reason, as this work shows. However, it plays a significant role in education, since it's where math students see proofs for the first time. The simplicity which makes geometry amenable to computerization also makes it good for teaching. In an ideal world, this work would help people see that logic is a kind of game, and moreover it is a game where pattern-matching can substitute for planning, just like ML has demonstrated for chess and go. I think that's the last lesson that math will offer humanity - it will offer the lesson through its own trivialization.

2024-01-11 06:58:51

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@npub1ecj…fchy Wow, one of the more psychopathic things I've read...

2023-12-27 06:07:32

COHL - a boundary-pushing game that has taken the internet by storm. In the Coffin of Hidden and Leaflord, you unravel the mystery of a cult led by a cute bratty goth girl (Leaflord) who believes billions must die and the kind but overly trusting seer (Hidden) who gets roped into the dirty work - and into love

2023-12-25 04:26:57

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@npub17ke…zd0l Merry Christmas sunny :blobheart:

2023-12-05 17:04:19

2024: Andrew Yang is elected as President and math death squads sweep through the country
https://cawfee.club/media/b8e5e8fdf867e9f1edd16c101130dd209da33ede022a9a9b10d51219158b7fb2.jpg

2023-11-27 16:11:27

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@npub1y6c…27jj man, this reminds me when we’d call my whitewashed asian buddies “bananas” because they’re white on the inside. My white buddies I’d call “eggs” because they’re yellow on the inside. Sadly, due to current-day trends, I can’t be calling all my friends eggs anymore

2023-11-24 00:26:20

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@npub1jm4…83x3 Her bio says patriolineage. Does that mean that she’s not even Jewish according to the usual matrilineal rule?

2023-11-23 06:34:39

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1prc…n5ck waitaminute, if I count backwards from 10:
10 = 0
9 = -1
8 = -1
7 = -2
6 = -2
5 = -3

2023-11-23 06:32:26

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1prc…n5ck Wait no, nemesis just answered this before I asked it, I guess it rounds down to a -3 buff

2023-11-23 06:32:04

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1prc…n5ck So.... 5 would actually be -2.5? And the game deals okay with the 0.5 fractions?

2023-11-22 18:46:32

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@npub1er6…h92c Another solution: wedge the pizza in a right-angled corner of your room. Measure from the room corner to where the pizza touches the wall. This is a radius of the circle. Now draw two circles centered on the crust with that radius and let them intersect. One of the intersection points will be the center

2023-11-22 18:44:46

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@npub1er6…h92c Yet another semi-practical solution: take a piece of string, pin one side at one point on the pizza crust. Sweep the string around the crust and pin it once it reaches its longest point. The string is now a diameter of the circle. Do this again, starting from a different point, and the intersection of the two strings will be the center.

2023-11-22 18:38:11

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@npub1er6…h92c
Another practical solution: Buy some food coloring. When you have the raw dough, fold it in half two ways to find the center, then mark it with food coloring. You can also keep folding it into a wedge if you want to mark the angles for cutting slices. Then bake and pray the food coloring doesn’t fade

2023-11-22 18:31:16

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@npub1er6…h92c This is a very interesting question!
First the practical solution: buy a pizza cutting board that’s marked with circles of all sizes. Center the outside of the pizza with the nearest matching circle. You’re good to go.
To do it perfectly mathematically though: you want to find the center of the circle. Draw any line which cuts the circle in a line segment. Using ruler and compass, you can draw the perpendicular bisector of that line segment (the line which cuts it in half at a 90 degree angle). By symmetry, this line goes through the center. Now do this process again and you have two lines which intersect at the center.
To find the angle for cutting into 8 slices: using ruler and compass, you can draw two perpendicular lines through the center. You can also bisect this right angle to get the 45 degree lines you want. You can keep bisecting to get any power of two number of slices.
For cutting into any number of equal slices: it’s not always possible using ruler and compass. You can read more here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructible_polygon
I’m not sure how to do it if the pizza is an ellipse. Could be interesting
Happy to explain more, just ask

2023-11-22 18:15:03

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@npub1er6…h92c yes :chad: there are other math people around here though!

2023-11-20 03:44:38

@npub1prc…n5ck I JUST noticed your display name 🤣

2023-11-20 02:29:22

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@npub1gku…fcxq This guy seems to think that “media hollywood government” and “porn banking 1%” are two components which aren’t connected to each other. I think he needs to get better at noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooticing

2023-11-16 23:57:34

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@npub16gr…28c2
> log into fedi
> inflation fetish on the TL
> close fedi

2023-11-10 23:21:02

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@npub1prc…n5ck I've got one more arc lined up after the current sepia creepy campfire infected youmu pic, maybe this one will be for after that!

2023-11-10 23:19:01

Would make an amazing profile pic:
https://cawfee.club/media/7efa18b16eb386bb3f9b765565226fe04a2ae954da8ce2f2476c8d3c84a09152.png
https://cawfee.club/media/a5b42b4459ef71e59a75ae54337254b3b9c06120b9bb1a55ca31b1384d8ec1a0.png

2023-11-10 22:07:20

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1ec3…8gp3 hiddenbros .... it’s over .....
https://cawfee.club/media/b0321b42cf0f2b5fadecbfd4d7919709b311122b687710932e8571ab2a722f8f.jpg

2023-11-10 19:14:16

Good job Canada!
https://cawfee.club/media/7e9a9f38e7b0da45363039ee8c72210e8282239c95fb0574046eb202fa0fcd3f.png

2023-11-08 04:34:11

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@npub1vcn…pad9 @npub1g0u…3vfw I will program an AI, a "basilisk" you might say, which retroactively tortures anyone who doesn't love @npub1g0u…3vfw

2023-11-08 03:58:59

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1vcn…pad9 I can certainly agree that love is cumulative and tends to sneak up on you. Maybe part of why it defies all attempts to understand it is that it's impossible to define, ahead of time, what will make you fall in love if you see it. In my effortpost to lilli, I asked about experiences which can't be understood before you live them - I guess love would be the prototypical example.
Apologies if I'm incoherent, I'm sleepy too, and I spent the last 14 minutes thinking about Mercurial's math thing, never good for sanity!

2023-11-08 03:34:12

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1vcn…pad9 Maybe it's also a consequence of a workaholic culture, where your work is a huge part of your identity. I've mentioned before how I hear about all these hyper-successful academics who are hyper-unsuccessful on the dating apps. They min-max all their skill points into one stat and then their personal life judges them based on everything but that stat. (Dating within the workplace is increasingly stigmatized, of course, and the restrictions are especially severe in academia because many working arrangements are pedagogical to some extent and therefore are understood as a power differential.)
Maybe I'm just saying an uncontroversial sentiment in a workaholic's dialect: it's easier to fall in love with someone if your hopes and dreams are aligned. I'm also thinking of people who go to the same church, even though church isn't really "work" per se.

2023-11-08 03:15:21

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1vcn…pad9 I think we are saying the same thing. I didn't mean "perfect" as in possessing all good qualities, rather "perfect" as in not needing anything, totally completed. I find that "NPCs" tend to be complete in perfectly fitting in. Maybe my personal criterion for "not being an NPC" requires that the person have some kind of angst, some discomfort, something which separates them from society's expectations in some way.
Anyways, I would say that it is only "imperfect" people who need to leap or seek a leaper in the first place.
Testing trust with a small leap and then escalating it is definitely built into our brains. It's why doubling scams are so effective, and why Nigerian princes do often send you a small initial payment.
What you said also reminds me of the main advice I give to people who want to get closer to others. Make yourself available (in time and effort) in small ways - only then can you be someone they consider trusting with the big stuff.
On a related note, I personally feel like it is much easier for people to fall in love if they are also collaborating on something else. Not just because they have something in common, but also because the decision to love becomes a 'doubling down' rather than a random bet on something totally disconnected from anything else. (This is one of many reasons I'm skeptical of apps.)

2023-11-08 02:55:21

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1vcn…pad9 In other words, I believe that our evolved mechanism of trust only permits us to trust imperfect individuals

2023-11-08 02:50:36

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@npub1g0u…3vfw @npub1vcn…pad9 The article made me appreciate how little trust is required to survive in the modern world. All you need is to trust that, tomorrow, the system and your cushy job will still exist. Is it surprising that people forget how to figure out when to trust each other?
I completely agree with the characterization of relationships as Prisoner's Dilemmas. It's just the math abstraction of "investing in a joint venture with someone who can stab you in the back." The issue lies in needing game theory to help you analyze it, when 100,000 years of human evolution have been trying to teach you how to play
All tribal markers are stigmatized and erased, even while diversity is nominally celebrated. If I look at someone and see a blank slate, a perfect imitation, how can I trust them?

2023-11-03 15:47:37

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@npub1g0u…3vfw Licking a photograph transfers the traces of light coming from the object, via the tongue, on to taste buds. A well-licked photograph is the *taste of light*. The light is reborn in the mouth; the mouth is in fact a *darkroom*. Looking at a photograph, by contrast, transforms the rays of light into neural signals, that is, into numeric relations. Neural signals are *without taste*. They are *neither sweet nor sour*. Thinking interrupts the *gusto* of life. The visual medium interrupts the magic relation in which the object is connected to the stomach via the mouth. An 'analogue' is something that is similar. Chemistry is an analogue of light. The rays of light coming from an object are preserved in protein-coupled taste receptors. There is, by contrast, no similarity between light and numbers. The visual medium *translates* light into neural signals. In this process, the light is lost. In looking at a photograph, smooth brains give way to wrinkly brains. It crumples photography.

2023-10-25 01:10:37

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
man who needs a netflix subscription when you can just browse philosophy stackexchange
https://cawfee.club/media/df6278159077f3211cddc7fddf2c84c7a74d88fe797ec6efe47b8d335a5c66d1.png

2023-10-22 18:17:01

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@npub1vcn…pad9 @npub1pz6…7c8z
a CONSerning development

2023-10-11 16:25:02

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@npub1ecj…fchy @npub13jr…nmpf @npub1jag…dspp Wait, no, I figured it out. I’m making this about me, but it’s not about me at all. She blocked all of cawfee, as you can see in the bot’s profile. Even accounts who barely post.
Now why would she do this? That brings me to exhibit 2 (see pic)
https://cawfee.club/media/a118d1a5c4324ca642c130a3250675a2b505f2376b8691553a54fa6baad1f0a1.jpg

2023-10-11 16:14:47

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@npub1ecj…fchy @npub1jag…dspp No clue. I haven’t interacted with Owl lately at all

2023-09-24 01:19:36

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@npub1g0u…3vfw I will share something after I finish tutoring!

2023-09-15 02:10:09

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@npub1e8v…s7yy @npub1scj…el3p and part 2 of 2:
---
Roman ruins reveal how emperors used winemaking in a lavish power play
Historians insist that Rome itself isn’t just “guy stuff,” as some men in videos called it.
“Ancient Rome was of course patriarchal and violent,” Lewis Webb, a historian of ancient Rome at Oxford University, wrote in an email. “But it was also a diverse place: there were numerous forms of masculinity, women could have agency and power, and there were multiple gender expressions and identities, as well as various sexualities.”
Historian Cornwell also points out that Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, or Elagabalus, the Roman emperor from A.D. 218 to 222, is frequently presented in ancient sources as experimenting with cross-dressing.
“Even when you get to some of the emperors, they’re doing weird and wacky things by modern conceptions of what a man is,” Cornwell points out. There were also female gladiators. “The Romans do have a clear sense of what is masculine and feminine, but within that there is an awful lot of flexibility. Which sometimes we often forget about,” she said.
And she herself, of course, thinks about the Roman Empire quite a lot — on a daily basis, as it is her chosen field. Her partner recently told her he thinks about it “1.6 times a month.”
So what is a healthy amount?
“Goodness,” she said, laughing. “I’d say it really depends on what you’re thinking about.”
CORRECTION
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the time period during which Roman emperor Elagabalus reigned. He was emperor from A.D. 218 to 222, not 218 to 222 B.C. This article has been corrected.

2023-09-15 02:10:00

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@npub1e8v…s7yy @npub1scj…el3p I just ctrl-A ctrl-C the article text before the paywall loads. Here you go:
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INTERNET CULTURE
How often do men think about ancient Rome? Quite frequently, it seems.
By Leo Sands
Updated September 14, 2023 at 11:47 a.m. EDT|Published September 14, 2023 at 10:26 a.m. EDT
Men dressed as centurions parade by the Colosseum in April 2012 during celebrations of the founding of the city of Rome. (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)
It’s been almost 2,000 years since the Roman Empire reached the historic peak of its power. But many men still contemplate it — quite a lot.
A new social media trend prompting women to ask the men in their lives how often they think about ancient Rome reveals that it crosses the minds of many men on a weekly basis. Even daily. Or more — to the surprise and confusion of their loved ones.
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“Three times a day,” answered one woman’s fiancé in a TikTok video. “There’s so much to think about,” he explained, eliciting a stunned look into the camera from his soon-to-be wife.
“They built an entire world-dominating society,” another man exclaimed when asked by a bewildered-looking woman to justify why he contemplates ancient Rome.
“Actually I was just having a conversation about their aqueducts and the fact that they had concrete that could harden. … How the hell did you know that?” answered another person who said they think about ancient Rome “at least once a day” in response to the question, in a screenshot shared on TikTok.
@kirakosarin
“theres so much to think about!” 🫠 #romanempire
But why? Sure, the Roman Empire boasted a dominion that stretched across the entire Mediterranean basin and far beyond. It was a flourishing laboratory of works of art and engineering that continue to astound. And it operated under a political system that still forms the basis of many modern counterparts. (At least, that’s what this reporter contemplates, maybe once a fortnight.)
But why does there seem to be a gender divide in who is daydreaming about ancient Rome today?
According to historians, one explanation could be that Western societies have historically overemphasized the aspects of Roman history that are associated with masculinity in the popular imagination.
The first thing that comes to the mind is “an image of the Roman legion, the imperial eagle and that sort of military aspect — along with gladiators, which has a long association with masculinity and power,” Hannah Cornwell, a historian of the ancient world at Britain’s Birmingham University, said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Since at least the 19th century, she said, historians have tended to view ancient Rome through the prism of politics and warfare, in part as a result of their reliance on “elite, masculine” sources.
“That has informed popular culture,” she said. “And yet — it’s then missing out on so much.”
The slew of videos on TikTok appear to have been prompted by Artur Hulu, a 32-year-old Roman reenactor and history influencer from Sweden who has earned a large following.
Known as “Gaius Flavius” online, where he posts videos of himself as a Roman legionnaire and performs comedy sketches as a gladiator, Hulu wrote on Instagram: “Ladies, many of you do not realize how often men think about the Roman Empire. … You will be surprised by their answers!”
In an interview, Hulu said he posed the question after noticing a disparity between men and women in their interest in Roman history and seeing other creators discuss similar trends. Hulu’s Roman reenactment society, for example, involves 16 men and two women, he said. “It is heavily male dominated.”
The disparity in interest dates back hundreds of years, Hulu believes. “The men during the Renaissance did it. The Founding Fathers also thought about the Roman Empire. Once you get enough exposure to the Roman Empire, whether it’s the military stuff or the law, you start to see it everywhere,” he said. “I can’t remember a day when I didn’t think about the Roman Empire. … It just fascinates me how different but also how similar the Roman Empire is to our world today.”
A post shared by Gaius Flavius🌿🏛 (@gaiusflavius)
And “Gaius Flavius” is not alone. One Reddit user, when prompted by his wife, said he thinks about the Roman Empire a few times a week.
“So many things in our lives today were influenced by the Roman Empire,” he explained in a post. “Language, food, philosophy, architecture, war, entertainment, sports, mythology, culture. … I don’t actively focus on the Roman Empire but the connection always pops into my head as I go about my daily life.”

2023-09-15 02:02:25

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@npub1scj…el3p @npub1e8v…s7yy I’m too lazy to jump the paywall to actually read the article, but I just want to show this side-by-side comparison
https://cawfee.club/media/645be468686dab209e67c59236ad2fb6b83dee28d4d65d3955a108d70ab186d4.jpg
https://cawfee.club/media/46435170b1f042e668c542d25aa8fbbba07f7eba7851edf7960e67286645ae96.jpg

2023-09-14 02:54:16

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@npub1vcn…pad9 @npub17z3…he6e
get well soon merc('s instance) 🤒

2023-09-14 02:50:15

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@npub1vcn…pad9
wait is mercurial defedded from your instance?? 🥀
cc @npub17z3…he6e
https://cawfee.club/media/67bd7f2209640c2e49146aaf839052747717c727a244e90055bdcc79af7d29c1.png

2023-09-12 19:13:00

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@npub1jac…zppv @npub1g0u…3vfw
I think there are “maximalist” and “minimalist” autists. (Relatedly, autists as a whole are both drawn to and repelled by stimulation.)
Further theory: Most skills demand minalism at the start and maximalism as you get toward mastery, which is why there are lots of moderately accomplished autists (the minimalists) but the giants in a field are usually not that autistic.