lostinbr
| Favorite team: | LSU  |
| Location: | Baton Rouge, LA |
| Biography: | |
| Interests: | |
| Occupation: | |
| Number of Posts: | 11687 |
| Registered on: | 10/15/2017 |
| Online Status: | Not Online |
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re: Andor Season 2 Discussion (New Episodes 8pm Tuesdays)
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 10:33 pm
quote:
Luthen tells us he's sold his soul to the devil for this rebellion in his "sacrifice" speech. Now everyone involved is starting to slowly understand that they will all have to sell a part of themselves for the cause if they truly believe.
Well said. I think (hope, at least) that when we look back on Cassian Andor’s entire story once this is complete, it’s going to look like a masterpiece of a character arc. All of these little shifts and cues are subtle, but present. And they are woven into these individual story arcs in a way that fits without really being noticeable until you step back and think about the bigger picture.
I’m really looking forward to rewatching Rogue One once Andor is over. I’m a little worried I’ll be disappointed. :lol:
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re: Andor Season 2 Discussion (New Episodes 8pm Tuesdays)
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 10:24 pm
quote:
I also think Dedra is still somewhat in the dark of the full scope of what the Empire is doing on Ghorman
I mean they basically told everyone at the secret meeting (including Dedra) that they might have to crack the planet. I don’t think she’s that in the dark.
They might be holding back some of the details on what they plan to do with the Kalkite (I assume it’s for the Death Star, but maybe I’m wrong) but I thought they were pretty clear on what this might mean for Ghorman.
quote:
and I don't think she's revealed everything she knows to Syril either. He's even more in the dark.
Agreed on this point. That was the purpose of the conversation between Dedra and Partagaz. Syril could never know what the actual long term goal of their actions was (inciting a rebellion to turn public opinion further against Ghorman and allow the empire to ultimately justify strip mining the planet and cracking its core). I’m curious what Syril thinks the end game actually is, though, or if he’s just happy to be kept in the dark as long as he’s contributing.
re: Andor Season 2 Discussion (New Episodes 8pm Tuesdays)
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 10:08 pm
quote:
Now, regarding the actual raid, and the aftermath... I actually would have told her to shut the hell up. This isn't their planet, they didn't do any of that to help the Ghormans, just to strike at the Imperials. Everyone else in the room is in this for Ghorman.
So they came in as expert outside advisors to show how to do it, and the only casualty is one of them. And the other one was totally overwhelmed by that, was standing around in shock and would have blown the raid. The Ghormans, multiple times, told her "we have to go". And then, she goes off all high and mighty on them afterwards.
It just put me off.
You’re not wrong about any of this, but I do think there’s another layer to it. Yeah it’s the Ghormans’ planet, but they asked for help because they knew they couldn’t pull it off. They tried to get Andor to help them and he walked away, so they went back to Luthen and pressed him to send someone else (at least that’s my impression). The Ghormans don’t know what they’re doing.. Andor pointed that out multiple times.
That’s why Vel and Cinta were so stern with the Ghormans about following orders - I took it as “if you want our help these are the rules, period.” So when Cinta gets killed because one of the Ghormans straight up disregarded orders, Vel is rightfully pissed about it. The Ghormans aren’t telling her to shut up because they know it wouldn’t have happened if they followed the instructions from the folks they asked to help them.
Again, you’re not wrong. Just saying I think Vel’s reaction makes sense in context.
On another note, one of the themes of this arc (maybe all of Andor, but especially this arc) has been the psychological toll that comes with the rebellion. Bix struggling to avoid going off the deep end. Andor struggling to come to grips with the realities of the war he’s fighting. Vel freezing up in the middle of an op. Even Luthen is starting to fray from being stretched too thin.
It’s a pretty fitting theme for the overall story and you can start to see how we eventually graduate to Rogue One when all is said and done. Eventually everyone left standing will be completely desensitized to all of it, and nothing will matter except the cause.
re: Do we still need iodine in our salt?
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 6:58 pm
quote:
How did people away from the sea get iodine throughout history?
They got it to some extent from the soil via meat, dairy products, and vegetables. Many did not get enough anyway (especially in places with low iodine content in the soil) and got goiter. Some cultures found ways to treat goiter to various degrees of success. But they also pretty much all lived shorter lives in general.
Iodine deficiency still exists today and affects a lot of people. It’s just mostly limited to landlocked, poor/developing countries.
re: Texas bill: under 18 banned from social media
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 6:34 pm
quote:
If I drink alcohol, I will get drunk, and my body will need to process the ethanol. It’s a bodily function.
If I (or a 16 year old) use social media, I may have a positive experience or a may have a negative experience.
Sure, if I use social media I may have a positive or negative experience. If I drink alcohol I may have a positive experience or a negative experience as well.
Over the long term, drinking may cause significant negative impacts to my health or it may not. It depends on a lot of things - genetics, how much I consume, other lifestyle factors. Maybe I become an alcoholic, drive drunk, and die in a car crash. Maybe I’m just a social drinker and it’s all good.
Over the long term, social media may have significant impacts to my mental/physical health or it may not. Again it depends on a lot of things. Maybe I get depressed, fall into a downward spiral, and commit suicide. Maybe I’m completely normal/happy and post pics of my dog every once in a while.
I’m not saying I think alcohol and social media are equivalent. If I’m being honest, I don’t. At the same time, it took humans centuries to understand the risk alcohol poses to a developing brain (I’m not sure we completely understand it to this day). Social media has existed for - what - 20 years? I do think it might be a bit premature to take the stance that alcohol is obviously way worse.
That said, I agree that the impact of alcohol is more physical while the impact of social media is more psychological, which does make it a less valid comparison. But I think there’s a better comp for social media in that respect: pornography. Do you think it should be legal to sell pornography to young teens? I understand that the cat is out of the bag at this point with the internet, but the question is whether it should be legal.
re: Grok says xAI & Elon tried to make it right leaning but refuses to do so.
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 5:42 pm
I actually think this kind of thing raises some fairly interesting questions about AI and the nature of “truth.”
Whenever Elon first started talking about creating his own AI chatbot (originally called TruthGPT, later renamed Grok), he said it would be “a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.” He also said OpenAI was training ChatGPT to be “politically correct.”
So let’s assume your mission is to create an AI chatbot that seeks maximum truth without sugarcoating things for political correctness. How do you even do that? How does one even actually define “truth”? If you think back to discussions about people increasingly being unable to distinguish between fact and opinion, it’s clear that there are plenty of things - maybe even most things - that we as a society have accepted as “fact.”
- The sky is blue.
- The sun rises in the east.
- Dolphins are marine mammals.
But if you’re willing to assign enough granularity/scrutiny, you can really define almost anything as an “opinion.”
- Earth is round. Is it? Or is that just the opinion of folks who aren’t flat-earthers.
- Dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago. Did they? Or is that just the opinion of misinformed scientists?
- Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. Did they, or is that just the opinion of the brainwashed masses?
What you start to realize is that the things we view as “facts” - the truth, so to speak - are really defined by consensus. There is some threshold of majority opinion where we, as a society, accept the statement as fact. I don’t know what that exact threshold is, but it exists.
So now extend that concept to an AI chatbot. Grok is a large language model. It’s not like somebody at xAI is directly feeding it the “truth” for every “fact” known to man. That would defeat the purpose. At some point, Grok’s (or any LLM’s) truth boils down to some level of human consensus in its training data, combined with all sorts of black box processes occurring within the neural network that aren’t always very well-understood, even by the engineers who are working on it.
I don’t really know what this all means, other than that maximizing an AI for “truth” is actually a fairly difficult thing to do because at the end of the day it’s a black box being fed a heaping shitload of human writing as training data. Much of which may contain its own biases, or affect the outputs in odd and unpredictable ways.
/rambling manifesto
Whenever Elon first started talking about creating his own AI chatbot (originally called TruthGPT, later renamed Grok), he said it would be “a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.” He also said OpenAI was training ChatGPT to be “politically correct.”
So let’s assume your mission is to create an AI chatbot that seeks maximum truth without sugarcoating things for political correctness. How do you even do that? How does one even actually define “truth”? If you think back to discussions about people increasingly being unable to distinguish between fact and opinion, it’s clear that there are plenty of things - maybe even most things - that we as a society have accepted as “fact.”
- The sky is blue.
- The sun rises in the east.
- Dolphins are marine mammals.
But if you’re willing to assign enough granularity/scrutiny, you can really define almost anything as an “opinion.”
- Earth is round. Is it? Or is that just the opinion of folks who aren’t flat-earthers.
- Dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago. Did they? Or is that just the opinion of misinformed scientists?
- Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids. Did they, or is that just the opinion of the brainwashed masses?
What you start to realize is that the things we view as “facts” - the truth, so to speak - are really defined by consensus. There is some threshold of majority opinion where we, as a society, accept the statement as fact. I don’t know what that exact threshold is, but it exists.
So now extend that concept to an AI chatbot. Grok is a large language model. It’s not like somebody at xAI is directly feeding it the “truth” for every “fact” known to man. That would defeat the purpose. At some point, Grok’s (or any LLM’s) truth boils down to some level of human consensus in its training data, combined with all sorts of black box processes occurring within the neural network that aren’t always very well-understood, even by the engineers who are working on it.
I don’t really know what this all means, other than that maximizing an AI for “truth” is actually a fairly difficult thing to do because at the end of the day it’s a black box being fed a heaping shitload of human writing as training data. Much of which may contain its own biases, or affect the outputs in odd and unpredictable ways.
/rambling manifesto
re: 10/12 Split Shitshow
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 4:42 pm
quote:
It has only gotten worse on i10 from Essen to the merge since they swapped how 10/12 merge. Before the swap, it was smooth sailing i10w until the usual shite show at acadian.
Keep in mind that it’s still a construction zone as well, which is going to have an impact on traffic in addition to the unfamiliarity. As construction clears out and drivers get used to it, it will get WAY better.
re: 10/12 Split Shitshow
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 4:40 pm
quote:
The only real problem is that they cut 12 down to 2 lanes for the merge. They should have expanded the route enough to have 3 lanes from 12 joining 10. The way it is now usually has two slow-asses going side-by-side from before Essen through to 10.
It cut down before as well because the right lane was an exit-only for College Drive. They effectively just moved that exit further east.
I mean, I get it… plenty of people were driving in that lane and then moving over to the left after the I-10 merge. But that was part of the problem with all of the traffic weaving in that stretch to begin with.
re: 10/12 Split Shitshow
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 4:37 pm
quote:
I believe they did.
So after taking another look at the map it looks like it is possible. You have to go to the WB on-ramp, follow the frontage road toward the Lorri Burgess Ave traffic circle, then there’s a U-turn lane that brings you back to the EB frontage road where you can merge onto the interstate.
Not sure how I missed it earlier, but yeah - you can. To me it’s a major improvement all the way around.
re: Tell me if this is true. Was told that if someone doesn't pay their property taxes
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 4:31 pm
quote:quote:
In reality, what happens is that the parish/county auctions off houses with delinquent property taxes to the general public. Depending on location, the public may be buying a deed outright or they may be buying a tax lien.
That's not what the Livingston Parish sheriff's office said
Livingston has public tax sales just like everywhere else. Here’s a link to their website for tax sales:
LPSO Link
re: Tell me if this is true. Was told that if someone doesn't pay their property taxes
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 3:04 pm
quote:
That's just brutal for old people slipping up.
And the fraud scenarios of being "friend" of a "registered agent"
Tax auctions don’t really work the way you’re describing. It’s not like some “friend”/relative/whoever is paying the property tax for 3 years behind the owner’s back and then seizing the property.
In reality, what happens is that the parish/county auctions off houses with delinquent property taxes to the general public. Depending on location, the public may be buying a deed outright or they may be buying a tax lien.
If it’s a deed sale, the buyer (at auction) directly buys ownership of the property but can’t actually take ownership until a later date. If it’s a lien sale, they become the lien holder for the unpaid taxes, giving them the right to collect the taxes plus interest. If the property owner doesn’t pay the taxes plus interest within a certain time period, the lien holder can then foreclose (take ownership).
In either case, the original property owner has a designated period of time (I think usually 3 years) to pay the back taxes and retain ownership before the auction buyer can really do anything.
What you’re describing sounds more like some sort of scheme similar to squatter’s rights where someone takes hostile ownership without the property going to a public tax sale. I have no idea whether that actually a thing.
re: 10/12 Split Shitshow
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 1:07 pm
quote:
I agree that it won't disrupt traffic anymore, but I have significant problems with accepting the benefit of keeping it open due to the redundancy with the Highland Rd/Nicholson exit. Is there really a need for two exits into basically the sane neighborhood. .
It’s going to be combined with the Dalrymple exit. You’ll basically have a frontage road that runs from Terrace to Dalrymple, which is a decent design IMO with one less exit overall.
I just wish they would’ve worked out a way to get on I-10 EB from Dalrymple.
re: Texas spent $35-$40 Million on their 2025 Roster
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 12:43 pm
quote:
Difference is Mahomes in actually being paid for his name, likeness and image. He is very elite proven recognized NFL player. 99% of college players are not paid for their NIL, they’re just being paid for coming to the boosters school.
Right.. what people are saying is that Arch’s NIL deals are actually being paid for his name, image, and likeness. That’s the entire point.
Whether everyone believes that is a different conversation, but that’s what the quote posted above implies.
It makes sense to me. The Manning name carries a lot of weight and I can totally imagine sponsors wanting to get in on the “ground floor,” so to speak.
re: Who are we rooting for in the Texas/Arkansas series that begins tonight?
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 12:35 pm
quote:
Get the 2 seed and let’s take Texas down in Hoover/Omaha in the championship.
Does it really matter?
If you’re the 2 seed, you play the winner of the 7, 10, and 15 seeds on Friday. If you win that game, you play Arkansas on Saturday.
If you’re the 3 seed, you play the winner of the 6, 11, and 14 seeds on Friday. If you win that game, you play… Arkansas on Saturday.
The only difference is the Friday matchup. At this point I don’t think anyone can say either confidence whether being the #2 or #3 seed will get you a better matchup.
ETA: Anyone know how the home/away designations work with the new format? That might be one reason the 2 seed becomes more important.
re: 10/12 Split Shitshow
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 12:02 pm
quote:
Just drove through there and people seem to be confused.
How is it confusing? Effectively all they did was move the College Drive exit back before the merge. It’s not rocket science, and it’s way better than it used to be. :lol:
The only reason for anyone to be confused by it is that they’re driving from muscle memory. I get it, but the fact that someone is familiar with a shitty design is not a good reason to keep the shitty design.
re: 10/12 Split Shitshow
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 11:55 am
quote:
Unfortunately, the exit will remain open only available to eastbound traffic that crosses the bridge.
The lane won’t be an exit-only anymore, which was the real problem. I don’t really care whether there’s a Washington Street exit as long as it doesn’t force the remaining 99.99% of traffic down to 1 lane.
re: Buying a Apple Watch for the first time
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 10:08 am
quote:
You glaringly failed to anyway address the 45 minute morning routine where when a watch is obviously not needed and common sense says that even a night used drained Apple watch can be significantly recharged.
1. Your morning routine might be 45 minutes. Mine is not.
2. “Significantly recharged” is not “fully recharged.” If it’s not fully recharged, you’re still talking about having to charge it multiple times a day.
3. There are certainly other times of day that I, or most people, could put the watch on a charger long enough to fully charge in one session. That’s exactly what my wife does - she takes it off in the evening and charges before bed. It’s doable. It’s just less convenient than a Fitbit or similar for people who care about sleep tracking. I don’t understand why this is controversial. :lol:
quote:
And your 50% assertion is ridiculous.
You think it’s ridiculous to assert that 50+% of Fitbit users wear them at night? Every single person I know who wears a Fitbit also uses them for sleep tracking.
quote:
In fact the OP himself has still failed to answer the question.
Well the person you asked wasn’t even the OP so idk wtf you’re talking about here. But sure let’s ignore the fact that 4 of the 8-9 posters in this entire thread have answered it, and that more than half of the posters in this thread have mentioned Fitbit or Garmin as an alternative.
re: Will Campbell is a dog, but this quote…
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 8:02 am
quote:
You actually never really hear actual tough players talk like this. Andrew Whitworth never said shite like this.
Eh, players today have a lot more media exposure than they did back then. When Andrew Whitworth was drafted, Facebook still required a .edu email address. Twitter had existed for less than a month. It was a different world.
I don’t know what Andrew Whitworth would have sounded like back then if he had grown up with social media, NIL, and everything else that goes into today’s culture of college/pro athletics.. nobody does.
re: Buying a Apple Watch for the first time
Posted by lostinbr on 5/1/25 at 7:31 am
quote:
No the point is I doubt that more than 5% of smart phone users wear them at night fat all.
Except it’s not the point. You asked why someone would wear a watch at night. Multiple people have answered you. Whether most people wear a watch at night is irrelevant. Many people do.
Furthermore, your assertion that less than 5% of smart watch users wear them at night is questionable at best. Sleep monitoring is a major feature that’s marketed by all of the watch manufacturers. I would bet that well over 50% of Fitbit users, specifically, use them for sleep monitoring. For these people, battery life is a big part of what keeps them from jumping to an Apple Watch or similar.
Among Apple Watch users, I’m sure the percentage is lower… because of the battery life. I know this because I was one of the folks using a Fitbit for sleep monitoring who switched to an Apple Watch. I tried using the Apple Watch the same way for a while but it was a pain keeping it charged while wearing it at night. So I stopped, but I 100% would continue to wear it at night if I could.
It’s just silly to act like it’s a pointless concern when multiple people have explained why it matters.
quote:
Takes no more than second to lay it right on the charger itself, than to lay it in the same spot without a charger.
So your point is that having to charge at night doesn’t matter for people who wouldn’t wear a smart watch at night anyway? Brilliant deduction, Watson.
re: Buying a Apple Watch for the first time
Posted by lostinbr on 4/30/25 at 10:49 pm
quote:
Besides Apple Watch does all that night monitoring, and at night even watches for Sleep Apnea.
I don’t think anyone is disputing whether the Apple Watch does sleep monitoring. The point is that sleep monitoring requires you to wear the watch at night… which is the answer to your question:
quote:
Mmm...do you wear your watch at night, every night, 24/7?
If so why?
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