Yeah, this is the thing that always bothers me. Due to the very nature of them being large language models, they can generate convincing language. Also image “ai” can generate convincing images. Calling it AI is both a PR move for branding, and an attempt to conceal the fact that it’s all just regurgitating bits of stolen copywritten content.

Everyone talks about AI “getting smarter”, but by the very nature of how these types of algorithms work, they can’t “get smarter”. Yes, you can make them work better, but they will still only be either interpolating or extrapolating from the training set.

In my opinion, the best option is ordering online from whatever business makes the thing. If it takes a few days longer than Amazon, that’s fine by me. Often, support for good products is easier to get if you’ve ordered right from the source, too. My second choice is ordering online from a non-amazon store. E.g., for electronics, new egg or best buy, for tools, home depot, for groceries, whatever your local chain is, etc. Not that any of those businesses are going to be completely better than Amazon, but that way you are at least avoiding the monopoly. Lots of those businesses have free shipping, too, anyway.

Only if you actually need something right away, would I advocate going to the brick and mortar location. I almost never need anything right away, though. Only real exception is groceries; I’ve never been a huge fan of grocery delivery (for me).

It used to be that if you searched for a particular brand or product on Amazon, that’s what would come up. Now you get sponsored links followed by pages of brands with names like “QERNTOO”. Amazon essentially transferred the responsibility for vetting brands to the US patent and trade office. The resellers, drop shippers, and scammers create dumb unique brand names to get the paperwork through the USPTO quickly whenever they have a brand fall apart or get caught scamming.

You can get stuff quickly through Amazon, but it really isn’t worth it anymore. Often you can get products right from the website of actual brands for the same price. You might not get 2 day shipping, but that’s almost never necessary. If you live somewhere where the 2 day shipping actually gets to you in 2 days, you live close enough to a brick and mortar store where you can get whatever you need even faster.

I wish it had the ability to filter feeds. There’s a lot of rss feeds that have good stuff interspersed with articles that are basically ads. Like just being able to filter out “prime day” or “the top X widgets to do Y” would get rid of a lot of fluff

It’s more devious than that. If company A lays off 1000 people due to “legitimate” reasons (e.g. twitter generally doing poorly), that’s 1000 people looking for new jobs. Company B, C, and D can then take that as an opportunity to lay off 1000 people each that aren’t immediately vital to the success of the company. Company A might not have the funds or desire to rehire right away, but the other three will slowly start building back up. You end up with 4000 people competing for 100 open positions. Many may not be willing to accept a pay cut, but some percentage will, and gradually the rest will be slowly starved down to accepting less pay.

Software engineering is notoriously a high paid career path, and executives at these companies hate that, so any opportunity they get to suppress wages, they’ll jump on. Especially if you know every other big company is doing it to, so they won’t be able to turn that into an advantage against you

I use Feeder for rss feeds, and I’ll save articles in there for later

This is how the Dr. Death guy was able to keep getting jobs. He would basically mess up and kill/maim someone, then he’d get pushed out of one hospital, and go right into another. The same phenomenon occurs in many fields

Yup. I agree 100%. For everyone person getting a hard degree (define that how you will) to actually learn skills, there’s someone who has family connections who just needs the degree to check a box, or someone who has been privileged enough that they think they can “fake it till they make it” (and they end up being able to).

My job would be so much easier if everyone I work with had the skills their degrees would lead you to believe they have.

I once met a guy who was like 28, but he had a super impressive sounding resume with like 6 different jobs. I don’t remember where, but think prestigious universities, big tech companies, federal agencies, etc. Everyone acted like he was a genius, but if you think about it, that’s like 1 year per job. If he was that good, one of those places would have tried to keep him around longer. Depending on the field, 1 year isn’t really enough time to have much impact, anyway. He basically just chained together buzzwords.

I think a lot of people in grad school go through something similar. Sometimes you get the imposter syndrome, and sometimes you get the sense that a lot of other people are imposters.

I cringe every time I hear someone in a professional setting say something like “we all have no clue what we are doing”. Speak for yourself, lol, some of us know exactly what we are doing, and can tell you don’t.

I guess the biggest piece of advice I can give is to just try your best to have a level confidence that matches your actual knowledge on a topic. Don’t rely on your own expertise too much at this stage; if you think AI self-diagnosis is bad, find some research on it, and let that do any talking. Your biggest asset at this stage is scientific literacy, so use that.

MD’s have all gone through the same experience, so they know what it’s like. The thing that makes it a little harder in your field is that the very nature of being a medical doctor requires you to show confidence to your patients, and whether or not you are sure about something, you still have to make a decision to act (or not act). If a microbiologist doesn’t have data to support their hypothesis, they can just say they dont have an answer and leave it at that.

My understanding is that the predicted low is for the upcoming night, not the lowest temperature in that 24 hour block

I don’t know if 2024 was ever a feasible date. I have a suspicion that the Trump administration wanted a lunar landing while in office, and aiming for the end of a second term was the soonest they thought it might be possible.

For some things I mostly just want to get rid of, and that don’t have an easily defined value, I’ve still used Craigslist. It seems like a vestige of the old internet that I’d like to keep around. If it takes a while longer than it would to sell stuff vs Facebook, that’s okay. For things that are small enough that shipping isn’t horrible, I go for ebay. For clothes, there’s a few different sites that I think are popular and good, but I basically wear clothes till they don’t have any resale value, so I’ve never needed to use them.

And density. There’s more salt in a spoonful of table salt than a spoonful of kosher salt

It really depends on the style of shoe. Something like a standard running shoe is going to have to be replaced fairly soon no matter how much money you spend on it. The uppers might hold together, but the foam itself is a consumable item. It can only bounce back for so long before it won’t anymore. It doesn’t really look obvious, but you might start to feel weird soreness or something that lets you know it’s time to replace them.

“Barefoot” running shoes with no foam, or traditional boots/shoes with leather midsoles don’t have that problem, so spending more can actually let them last longer.

Skate shoes, from what I know, are basically just standard sneakers for the most part, so they will have the same problem with the foam. If you are actually using them to skate, though, you might be wearing through the sole, or the upper, and in that case, a higher quality shoe might last longer.

TL;DR, it depends how you wear through them.

They are mostly ground source over there, which shouldn’t be affected by cold snaps.

Have any kind of source? Every source I’ve seen says that running oversize is worse. In my own experience, it led to humidity problems, too. In fact, every source in seen says its better to undershoot than overshoot.

Lol, that’s exactly who I was thinking of. I have had several cheap kettle grills, and they only last a couple years, even taken care of decently. I got a weber, and it still looks new after a few years, plus the metal is way thicker so it holds steady temperature way better.

I wear a similarly old pair of Chippewa’s that have also been poorly treated, and they are still good (though I don’t have a job that would beat them up anymore)

I could rant about vacuums forever. So many people complain about vacuums not working well, but also never pull out and clean or replace the filter.

I mean, it’s not going to break on me. I think there’s enough debate on the “stamped vs forged” issue to show that it’s not a huge difference that would be noticeable to most non-professionals. Maybe if I used my knives all day every day, I’d notice a difference in edge retention or ease of sharpening, but just making dinner ever night, I don’t notice a difference.