Today I Learned

[kyphysics]

Some pretty amazing things Chat GPT can do for coders.

One scary part is how this might be potentially used for nefarious purposes. . .that aspect of A.I. is troubling, b/c of how powerful it can be.

 

[Borg]

Some pretty amazing things Chat GPT can do for coders.

One scary part is how this might be potentially used for nefarious purposes. . .that aspect of A.I. is troubling, b/c of how powerful it can be.

I've been following the ChatGPT thread and the answers that everyone has been getting but this finally convinced me to sign up for an account. His list of time saving examples were good examples of how it's far superior to a simple StackOverflow search.

I laughed when someone wrote in his twitter feed that they wouldn't hire him for using ChatGPT answers and he replied that he wouldn't work for them.

 

[BWV]

 

[berkeman]

TIL that Red Bull really is red!

 

[levadny]

Hi there!

Structured binding in C++17

structured binding in C++
// before 17
std::map<int, double> tmp;
for(const auto& i : tmp){
  i.first;
  i.second:
}
// structured binding in C++ 17
for(const auto& [key, value] : tmp) {
  key;
  value;
}

 

[Hornbein]

TIL what happens when you pass half of a portal through the other half.

 

[DaveC426913]

TIL what happens when you pass half of a portal through the other half.

Dang it! I really gotta publish my works before others do! I've got a sketch of this in my sketchbook - right down to the elliptical shape.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

TIL that Red Bull really is red!

View attachment 320436

What color were you expecting?

 

[berkeman]

What color were you expecting?

Yeah, in retrospect I guess I should have anticipated it. But I just had in mind the high caffeine content, so in my mind it was going to be black like coffee or cola. Duh!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yeah, in retrospect I guess I should have anticipated it. But I just had in mind the high caffeine content, so in my mind it was going to be black like coffee or cola. Duh!

Truth is, I had exactly the same reaction. I expected it to look like a cola. "Oh, it's red! Duh!"

 

[pinball1970]

TIL that Red Bull really is red!

View attachment 320436

Pretty certain it's not that colour in the UK. More Whiskey coloured?

 

[Ibix]

Pretty certain it's not that colour in the UK. More Whiskey coloured?

That's what I thought too. The stuff is revolting, so I don't have any at hand to check, though.

Wikipedia notes that there are different variants with different colours, and I found a reference on Quora to a "European formulation", so (modulo your trust in random Quora posters) that might be it.

 

[jack action]

I never wondered about that Red Bull color thing and now it's driving me nuts. Here it is, directly out of the can:

I also found this picture:

But obviously, this is a special flavor of Red Bull.

 

[pinball1970]

Red Bull is not universally red. My memory serves me well on this plus I checked with a very reliable source, a Mancunian bar maid.
I cannot paste images on this device but if you Google you will find it Is not red. It is lager coloured.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Red Bull is not universally red. My memory serves me well on this plus I checked with a very reliable source, a Mancunian bar maid.
I cannot paste images on this device but if you Google you will find it Is not red. It is lager coloured.

I had to look up Mancunian because I had no idea what a Mancunian bar maid is.

Well, that was disappointing!

TIL the meaning of Mancunian.

 

[Hornbein]

A previously unseen quasicrystal has been found in a sand dune in Nebraska https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/7 Later reports claim that is moving to devastate Omaha.​

 

[Borg]

TIL that once your package is on an Amazon truck for delivery, you can actually see where the truck is and how many stops before it gets to your house.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

TIL that once your package is on an Amazon truck for delivery, you can actually see where the truck is and how many stops before it gets to your house.

Amazon is amazing. I often have what I ordered at my door within a few hours of ordering it. It probably helps that I live near a major distribution center, but it is still impressive.

 

[Ibix]

Amazon is amazing. I often have what I ordered at my door within a few hours of ordering it. It probably helps that I live near a major distribution center, but it is still impressive.

They do public tours of their distribution centers (or at least some of them). A colleague went on one - apparently the warehouse is automated with little robots that lift and carry and reshuffle the shelving units, so the staff pretty much just stand there and always have the shelf they need right in front of them. They just pick the thing off, drop it in a box and post it.

 

[kyphysics]

Transgender men can get pregnant. Here's what they wish more people understood.

When Danny Wakefield gave birth to their first child in 2020, it brought to light a string of issues faced by transgender parents in the health care system.

“I had a really hard pregnancy,” Wakefield, 36, who is transgender but also uses they/them pronouns, tells Yahoo Life. During emergency room visits, Wakefield says they were met with “snickers” from nurses, as well as “doubt, disbelief and a lack of knowledge” from physicians ill-equipped to handle their needs.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/transgender-men-can-get-pregnant-174513259.html

 

[Ibix]

What, so insisting that you are in no way a woman but definitely pregnant causes medical staff to wonder if your answers to their questions might be worthless because you are deliberately obfuscating the biology that they actually need to know about in order to care for you?

Who knew.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

They do public tours of their distribution centers (or at least some of them). A colleague went on one - apparently the warehouse is automated with little robots that lift and carry and reshuffle the shelving units, so the staff pretty much just stand there and always have the shelf they need right in front of them. They just pick the thing off, drop it in a box and post it.

Indeed! I've been to one as well. The company I work for now has played a major role in all of that. It was the business that just kept giving and giving. Just now for the first time in years we didn't renew the robot contract. Amazon overbuilt.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that there is a live webcam from the International Space Station.



The live camera moves too slowly to be exciting but the past 12 hours are available. All sorts of cool things may be in there.

I try to identify the locations on Earth but fail. The area shown appears large but is too small for that.

 

[Borg]

I try to identify the locations on Earth but fail. The area shown appears large but is too small for that.

You can use this link from the HeavensAbove web site to see where the ISS is currently located. It's a static image but you can refresh the page to get a current location.
http://www.heavens-above.com/orbitdisplay.aspx?icon=iss&width=300&height=300&satid=25544

It will look something like this:

HeavensAbove is a great site for tracking visible satellites. You can put in your location and get predictions of when satellites are passing over you. The Iridium flares are especially interesting since they get quite bright from being completely dark.

 

[256bits]

What, so insisting that you are in no way a woman but definitely pregnant causes medical staff to wonder if your answers to their questions might be worthless because you are deliberately obfuscating the biology that they actually need to know about in order to care for you?

Who knew.

Probably a non-issue, like so many of the news stories about this side of the human gender fiasco.
The person would have to have a uterus, and so getting pregnant is what - a news story.

some non transgender women suffer at times the same disbelief of a pregnancy - not a news story.

 

[256bits]

today I learned about donkeys.
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/interesting-article-on-donkeys.1049182/#post-6844746

 

[scottdave]

They do public tours of their distribution centers (or at least some of them)....

There is a center not far from me. I wonder how to schedule a tour. I'm going to do some research.

 

[BillTre]

Buzz Aldrin is 93 today. He just married his "longtime love" Dr. Anca Faur.

 

[sbrothy]

TIL that the language "AI" ChatGPT, perhaps not surprising, is pretty good at spewing technobabble:

"[...] We find that it is effective at paraphrasing and explaining concepts in a variety of styles, but not at genuinely connecting concepts. It will provide false information with full confidence and make up statements when necessary. [...]" -- https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.08155

Admittedly I didn't read the paper and the above quote is taken out of context (For comedic value. YMMV.) There may well be something of value here but at first glance it sure sounds like they made a crank-bot.

Some of the humor is lost when you read some of the more serious discussions here about whether it can pass exams though. Still, GPT-3 is impressive but maybe they need a math-bot to go with it. :)

EDIT:

In fact, if you read the text under the heading “jailbreaks” in the first link I’m not sure it’s funny at all. So it goes.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL the largest known landslide was when Oahu exploded a 1.25 million years ago. "Blocks the size of Manhattan Island."