This is actually exactly why I avoid this advice: wiping your phone, and setting it back up later, is a pain in the ass. Especially when you're meant to be on vacation, or exhausted from returning from one. And if it's a pain in the ass, it likely won't get done. The below isn't perfect, but minimizing legal things that CBP can make a case of doesn't have to be all-or-nothing
At this point recommending the minimum that normal people will actually follow feels more effective: photos, main messaging app, and password database.
Photos are backed up; normal people use Google photos, my partner and I use a NAS, but everyone should have a "Free up space" / "Delete photos that are backed-up from device" option. This makes it easy and gets you space for more vacation photos
Main messaging app can be Telegram, Whatsapp, or (in my case) Element. Deleting it from your phone won't cost you your messaging history, but gets your most sensitive chats out of any potential spotlight
I can handle a password database, but "Chrome saves my passwords" means signing out of Chrome is all normal people have to do
A password database seems like the exact thing I don't want on my phone in this case. Or at least only a vault with stuff I absolutely need and can't live without.
"I can handle" being more along the lines of "Most people use Chrome to sync passwords, I can find my own solution"
I mention it because it's something I absolutely want in day-to-day use on my phone, and that I agree with it being one of the few things I'd make a point of not having with me when crossing the US border with
Normal people can sign out of Chrome, I can set up a delayed email (with an encrypted database) before I leave, or put it on a uSD card in my checked baggage, or any number of low-effort but not-on-my-phone workarounds
Rule based Mechanics of taking derivatives and finding intervals is quite different from understanding delta epsilon proofs. I have no doubt 10 year old can do the former quite easily, the proofs on the other hand? Depends what you mean by “teaching calculus”!
Fun to see something about East Lansing here. While I am Dutch, I have been there in the neighborhood (e.g. Lansing itself) on and off for 6 months in total when I had a long distance marriage (we live in the Netherlands nowadays). I’m a fan of Blue Owl coffee there.
REO town was cheap to rent and quite walkable to the city center (or “downtown” as they call it). I liked it more than I thought I would. Many places there aren’t walkable but from REO town to the city center it was possible. One thing I noticed was that walkability wasn’t priced in the rents at all since after a 1 mile walk from the city center, studio apartments were about 800$ (2024) whereas in the city center itself it was more like 1100$ IIRC. In my view going 300$ while just having a 1 mile walk seems like a steal.
MSU is massive nowadays. It’s crazy how big it is. It feels like an actual town. I wonder how big it was then.
As for the article itself. I find it interesting to read how certain groups were just taking action and there was no discernible leadership that could talk to each other. I wonder if this would have happened if that was the case.
The car manufacturing culture in Michigan in general is a low-key tourist worthy thing to check out (e.g. in the Detroit Institute of Art). But I have my father in law for that, haha. Asking Claude what a CNC programmer does because he’s not that great at explaining it to a total noob like me :’) once I understood that he had a macro language inside what he called G-code it was fun to ask what he programmed haha.
> One thing I noticed was that walkability wasn’t priced in the rents at all since after a 1 mile walk from the city center, studio apartments were about 800$ (2024) whereas in the city center itself it was more like 1100$ IIRC. In my view going 300$ while just having a 1 mile walk seems like a steal.
A surprising number of people in the state would not consider 1 mile 'walkable'. I'm not saying I agree with that, however in general our car culture and the related urban design means it can be a PITA for a lot of people to live their lives without one.
> MSU is massive nowadays. It’s crazy how big it is. It feels like an actual town. I wonder how big it was then.
For whatever it's worth, MSU was still more of an agricultural college than anything back then. Heck, one of my ancestors actually got indoor plumbing installed by the college as part of a study into how it could benefit the life of a farmer.
My father actually went there near the end of that era, I can ask him for some stories this weekend when we do breakfast. Will be 20ish years off but while it was handled by the 'Board of Agriculture'.
> The car manufacturing culture in Michigan in general is a low-key tourist worthy thing to check out (e.g. in the Detroit Institute of Art)
The DIA has Diego Rivera's mural, worth also noting the Detroit Historical Museum has an example of part of an older style body-on-frame line alongside a lot of other interesting automotive history bits. (Also, in general other important sections for parts of our history, The basement even captures the 1800's cobblestone aesthetic.) Both the Motown and Riot exhibits are worth a good visit.
In general the state has one of the most curious meshes of industrial and rural/agricultural history, between the mining towns in the UP, the Logging towns in the norther LP, the farming history in much of the LP, and the 'Arsenal of Democracy' that was Detroit.
> A surprising number of people in the state would not consider 1 mile 'walkable'.
In a surprising number of American cities, 1 mile is not walkable, simply because no one thought to put in a sidewalk or have adequate protection for pedestrians. That goes double for places like Lansing, where the sidewalks that are there are often icy during the winter.
Well, it wasn’t where I was as I walked my miles daily. But it was a breath of fresh air compared to Haslett. Haslett reminded me that the walkability of REO town to the Michigan State Capitol seems more like a coincidence than intentional urban planning. Because Haslett often lacked any sidewalks.
I remember one time walking to the Lidl for a 6 mile roundtrip. I think it was the first time when I realized why Americans don’t walk. That walk was one bad experience while nothing bad was happening. For contrast: I live near Amsterdam my whole life.
I live about 90 minutes north of Lansing in a town at about the same latitude as Toronto. Weather-wise, the problem isn't the ice. It's the snow accumulation, the cold. For about 3 months out of the year, you're lucky if it's at -7 C or higher.
It's also just that nothing is structured for it. Homes are built relatively far away from businesses and shops due to zoning, and stroads are the common way to get between the two. And where the stroads end, rural roads begin. It's structured not to be walkable not just at the large city level, but at the small city and town level, too. Our infrastructure is dictated by what the people in the 1940s thought, and they were extremely wrong about a great many things.
g-code brings back a nostalgic pang, that was what we used before STL was common in 3d-printing. It's kind of amazing to read in this story just how tightly knit a community like this can be despite its industrial nature, what are the worthy touring spots that GM security wouldn't take issue with?
Local here. Downtown Lansing, just off Michigan Avenue has the R.E. Olds Transportation museum. My late father was involved with the museum as a volunteer. Lots of rare Oldsmobile's including one of the first cars he produced known as the "curved dash" from 1901. Note Olds invented the modern assembly line, not Henry Ford. Though to be fair Ford and his chief engineer C. Harold Wills perfected the car assembly line we know of today.
Right next door is the Impression 5 science museum. While it is aimed at children I've always found it fascinating and it is hands on. Unlike most science museums with which I am familiar they keep building new exhibits.
If you are into history the Michigan History Museum is just South of the Capital. They have an original copy of our state constitution on display. They also got a copy of every computer the state has purchased. Last time I was there they had a room full of old computers. So if you've never seen a Next cube, an Osborne portable, first Compaq portable or an Apple Lisa they are all on display in working order.
Lastly if you enjoy art visit the Broad Art Museum on the North end of the Michigan State University campus. The building is striking looking and was featured in one of the Batman movies. It is one of the few buildings in America designed by the late Pulitzer prize winning British architect Zaha Hadid.
btw, slicers turn the STL into g-code for the printer before you hit print. STL is just easier to work with for the transformations that need to happen within slicer software.
That's why I use Linux Mint, even if some Linux guys might think less of me.
Switched from Windows 11. My work system is a Mac. I just love how the Linux gets out of the way, everything just works, UI much better and consistent than Windows.
And I'll probably keep receiving security fixes and app improvements in 10 years for my old Thinkpad.
The part that does count is that we can verify that we does what we want it to do. We just don't know how.
Same with the black box part of AI. What the weights represent? Arcane dark magic if you ask me. What do they do? Well with LLMs we're all experiencing it.
This was my existential horror for most of my life as I almost never remembered dreaming or going to sleep - until I got a CPAP. Once I started using it, there was continuity to my life, I vividly dream and remember those dreams now. I never scored too badly on the apnea tests but just enough to qualify for one so I said what the hell and got it. Even though I don't use it regularly, something about my sleep has changed for the better.
You're correct that verification *reduces* risk. It does not eliminate risk. Humans are imperfect. That does not mean that we should stop seeking understanding on principle though, because the journey towards that understanding improves outcomes.
Recall also that LLMs are not actually entities. In their current form, there is no sentience, there is no agency. They are tools. Therefore, their output must benefit the user that requested it. Right now, that's humans (and, ideally, the planet at large; we don't exist in a vacuum) and so it makes sense that humans should verify that output and try to ensure that it aligns with their goals.
That's not to say that the output of an LLM is useless, far from it. But we should still *try* to understand its output. It gives us at least some chance to notice flaws, and an even greater chance to appreciate the implications and tradeoffs of the solution it picked.
I don't disagree with anything you said. But the thread is about... LLM outputs, even if it cures cancer and solves world hunger, it is useless (it does not count for anything) if we don't understand it.
Interesting, I really don’t see your point. It would definitely be a lot more useful if we also understand it.
But extra lives saved definitely counts for a whole lot and is definitely useful.
One comparison I see: there are so many religious people that simply wish they are saved from their cancer (or whatever else). They pray for it. They don’t care how it happens. They simply want to live longer, etc.
It’s a sketch of an argument, I hope you know what I am getting at.
What sometimes helps is to ask them to make something interactive and visual. Like 3B1B does
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