S

All of them.

Hi 30, I’m dad

Sure. America has its slimy tendrils in everyone else’s business, so it’s only fair that you have a say.

USA sux

“Gradient descent” ≈ on a “hilly” (mathematical) surface, try to find the lowest point by finding the lowest point near an initial guess. “Gradient” is basically the steepness, or rate that the thing you’re trying to optimize changes as you move through “space”. The gradient tells you mathematically which direction you need to go to reach the bottom. “Descent” means “try to find the minimum”.

I’m glossing over a lot of details, particularly what a “surface” actually means in the high dimensional spaces that AI uses, but a lot of problems in mathematical optimization are solved like this. And one of the steps in training an AI agent is to do an optimization, which often does use a gradient descent algorithm. That being said, not every process that uses gradient descent is necessarily AI or even machine learning. I’m actually taking a course this semester where a bunch of my professor’s research is in optimization algorithms that don’t use a gradient descent!

They created a good product so people used it and there were no alternatives when it got shit.

They created an inherently centralizing implementation of a video sharing platform. Even if it was done with good intentions (which it wasn’t, it was some capitalist’s hustle, and its social importance is a side effect), we should basically always condemn centralizing implementations of a given technology because they reinforce existing power structures regardless of the intentions of their creators.

It’s their fault because they’re a corporation that does what corporations do. Even when corporations try to do right by the world (which is an extremely generous appraisal of YouTube’s existence), they still manage to create centralizing technologies that ultimately serve to reinforce their existing power, because that’s all they can do. Otherwise, they would have set themselves up as a non-profit or some other type of organization. I refuse to accept the notion of a good corporation.

There’s no lock in. They don’t force you off the platform if you post elsewhere (like twitch did).

That’s a good point, but while there isn’t a de jure lock-in for creators, there is a de facto lock-in that prevents them from migrating elsewhere. Namely, that YouTube is a centralized, proprietary service, which can’t be accessed from other services.

I also respect your freedom to like what you want, but also also

Upvoted because it’s unpopular.

Also: model trains. I was into model trains for a few years, but I realized that I didn’t really have the life experience to make a fulfilling model trainset. Like I did the thing, I made a (really childish) layout with some crappy blocks and streets, and I got the trains to move and stuff, but it didn’t…say much? It was “I’m a child and I like trains”, which is great! Probably wouldn’t have become interested in trains at all otherwise!

But I want more…I always want more. I need to go more hardcore into the few things I can actually tolerate doing…

And as a child, I saw some really cool trainsets built by adults that told stories, made me laugh, made my parents laugh, made me feel awe at the storytelling and creativity of the craft. Even my cousin, who built a trainset in his basement in his early twenties, had a much more inspired trainset than mine (when I was much younger, like 10 or 12). His trainset was cool. He studied how trains worked, how to make a realistic line with realistic scenery and infrastructure. His trainset reflected who he was, and ultimately forecasted what he became. He literally works for a rail company now designing the train tracks.

So I’m kinda “saving” that hobby for when I’m in my 60’s after I integrate enough life experience (and hopefully some capital) to build a trainset that really reflects the person I ultimately became.

My trainset is gonna have a sick, functioning roller coaster, some overly complicated automated control circuits, some heavy metal references, some intentionally goofy shit, serious shit, an anarcho-communist bent, a layout that at least is informed by modern infrastructure design, etc., because that’s at least partially the person I will have become.

Roller coasters. I’m too heavy to go on them, too poor to afford to ride them, too busy to simulate them.

Or you’re just not posting trash enough content.

I’m intrigued but completely out of the loop. What’s the difference between these two sets of books?

Literally every corporation does or attempts to do the same thing.

Exactly. Every single corporation is evil and should be dismantled 🔥🔥🔥. This is just one of a thousand reasons to do so.

“Absolute evil” is a bit of a stretch, but it’s YouTube/Google’s fault (by closing off and centralizing their video platform) that it is impossible to go elsewhere for videos.

“We are a free speech university. But to intentionally break the rules … now you’re in the world of civil disobedience and we’re going to think about consequences.”

“Decorum is more important than the human lives you’re protesting on behalf of.”

What a bunch of clowns openly railing against civil disobedience.

1 ÷ periodically

Okay so I honestly had trouble parsing this because of all the names. Also here’s a link to XCancel which lets you view without going on Twitter

Here’s what I learned:

• “Surprise” is the name of a small city, which is in Arizona.
• “Skip Hall” is the city’s mayor.
• Mr. Hall had Rebekah Massie physically removed from the council meeting in front of her 10-year-old daughter on the pretense that she violated the rules. More accurately, quoting the yourvalley.net link:

Violating the rules of professional conduct that should govern city council meetings, Mayor Hall interrupted Ms. Massie, told her that she must stop speaking, and threatened to have her escorted out if she wouldn’t yield the floor. He then accused her of “lodg[ing] charges or complaints against [an] employee of the city or members of the body,” displaying his incorrect understanding of that statute and inaccurate assessment of what Ms. Massie was actually doing.

Ms. Massie was not lodging charges or complaints against Mr. Wingo. She was offering her opinion that his salary should not be increased, based on facts that she cited regarding salary comparison data and outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests. She used publicly available facts to support her argument that his salary should not be increased, but she was neither offering her opinion on those facts nor lodging charges or complaints. To state such facts and to urge the council to not increase an employee’s salary is fully within her rights as a citizen.

In conclusion: fuck Skip Hall, fuck the government of Surprise.

L

Constant unprompted calculus lessons

Is like saying oh you don’t like your local librarians? you’re free to make your own library!

I’m probably being pedantic here but you kinda can, e.g. Little Free Libraries, although the reason isn’t “my local librarians suck”, it’s closer to “more libraries please”.

Okay well being free to do something doesn’t magically make it a real option.

Agreed, but I fail to see how, with enough consent from the user base, how moving to another existing server is not an option.

Are there even any exceptions to that that aren’t entire communities agreeing to move together off instances?

I’m not aware of any off the top of my head, but it absolutely does not seem implausible that we could move this community if the need arises. Entire communities moved off of Reddit during the boycott; I don’t see why we can’t do that again within the platform if the need arises. For the most part people are okay with the moderation here, as am I, but the minute that changes people will flee somewhere else.

For literally the entire time I have been on lemmy I have heard laments about the centralization of comms on lemmy.world and seen attempts to mitigate it but every pie chart just shows lemmy.world with more of the pie because growing a comm on small servers isn’t simple!

Hard agree there. I’m not sure how to fix it.