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Lvxferre [he/him]

@ lvxferre @mander.xyz

Posts
44
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3541
Joined
2 yr. ago

I have two chimps within, Laziness and Hyperactivity. They smoke cigs, drink yerba, fling shit at each other, and devour the face of anyone who gets close to either.

They also devour my dreams.

  • Searching for 'disregard' and Command Phrases, Including "ignore," "quit," "skip," and "stop," Breaks Google AI Overviews. "look" and "forget" are also Prompting Chatbot-Like Responses.

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  • You can also change it in the settings. Look for "search assist"; values are "never", "on demand", "sometimes", and "often".

    But yeah, to be frank I use mostly DDG nowadays, I focused on Google due to the OP.

  • Martin Haspelmath: Four stereotypes that have guided morphosyntactic thinking

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  • I disagree with a lot of what he says but it's an interesting take nonetheless.

    I'll focus mostly on the "word" stereotype, as it's most of the basis for the rest of his text.

    "Word" is a somewhat well-defined string of sounds that can be pronounced in isolation, and holds at least some meaning. It's specially visible in historical linguistics, since certain changes depend on word position.

    For example. Latin /p t k/ become Western Romance /b d g/ between vowels. Now compare the following cases:

    1. Latin ⟨aperire⟩ [a.pɛ.'ɾi:.ɾɛ] "to uncover" (inf.) → Spanish ⟨abrir⟩ "to open"
    2. Latin ⟨illam paleam⟩ ['ɪ.ɫã.pa.ɫe.ã] "that chaff" (acc.) → *⟨illa palea⟩ ['ɪ.la.'pa.le.a] → Spanish ⟨la paja⟩ "the straw"

    Note that accusative -m in #2 represented vowel nasalisation, and was lost rather early, probably already in Imperial times. As such, #2 does count as intervocalic, and yet that /p/ in ⟨illam paleam⟩ never became /b/ in Spanish or other W. Romance language, unlike the one in ⟨aperire⟩. Why?

    The only way to explain why one /p/ becomes /b/ and the other is left alone is to bring up the concept of "word": the change only applies word internally.

    Now. Are there sequences that sit right at the boundary between "word" and "not word"? Certainly. I just mentioned one, that ⟨la⟩. And in some languages it's probably sensible to make the concept of word take a backseat, and talk about morphemes or something else instead. But that doesn't mean words don't exist, it's just that's is a bloody mess.

    I agree a fair bit with his (3), though.

    Zero morphemes were always a hack, and while some language alternations are nice to explain as building blocks, a lot of them are not. Plural in English seems to be one of those cases, less because of "sheep" and "deer" and more because of "goose"→"geese" and "mouse"→"mice".

    For an extreme case, consider Arabic ⟨سُكَّر⟩ sukkar "sugar":

    WordTranslitGrammarrough meaning
    ⟨سُكَّر⟩sukkarnounsugar
    ⟨تَسْكِير⟩taskīrnounthe action of adding sugar, "the sugaring"
    ⟨سَكَّرَ⟩sakkaraverb; active past (M)"he sugared"
    ⟨سَكَّرَتْ⟩sakkaratverb; active past (F)"she sugared"
    ⟨سُكِّرَ⟩sukkiraverb; passive past (M)"he was-sugared"
    ⟨سُكِّرَتْ⟩sukkiratverb; passive past (F)"she was-sugared"

    (Arabic speakers: please do tell me if I got something wrong above. Also I'm not too sure on how to translate the later two, passive voice is tricky to represent in English.)

    If you try to handle this sort of alternation simply by "building blocks", you'll spam zeroes and most of those blocks won't really mean anything. For example that /u/ in "sukkira" doesn't really mean "passive voice", a lot of passive forms don't use it (like ⟨يُسَكَّرُ⟩ yusakkaru, the passive non-past masculine). It's more like fitting two highly complex pieces (the root vs. the conjugation) than just individual little blocks, you know?

  • Arxiv bans slop

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  • with a weird, corner-case scenario

    But what if the interests in conflict do not come from the person themself, but someone else forcing the person to take a side they wouldn't otherwise? Such as mind-controlling aliens? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

    Serious now. I noticed this from a forum I moderated ~10y ago. The admin always asked us mods and veteran users for feedback, before changing rules; but even for rules we were unanimously in favour of, there was always a bunch of users complaining. The contrast was so obvious it made me check the users' profiles for context. It was always like this: the user claimed to be "deeply concerned" with the impact of the rule, brought up a thousand corner cases, and then as you checked their profile they were doing exactly what the rule was made against.

    For example: the admin implemented a rule that NSFW content needs to discussed in threads tagged "(NSFW)" in the title. One of the users started complaining about the ideal way to format it, and if it actually counts as a NSFW thread if someone used square brackets instead of parentheses. That same user was temp-banned once for spamming multiple threads asking "tell me how to say 'piss in my mouth' in [insert language the thread was about]".

  • Searching for 'disregard' and Command Phrases, Including "ignore," "quit," "skip," and "stop," Breaks Google AI Overviews. "look" and "forget" are also Prompting Chatbot-Like Responses.

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  • There's an extension called Disable AI that gets rid of those intrusive Google Search AI "replies". I strongly recommend people to use it, because… seriously, they are convincing but misleading trash.

    The two phonemic transcriptions of "disregard" in the first picture are a prime example of that. I could go on a full rant about it, but to keep it short: compare them with the ones provided by Wiktionary, and play "spot the differences". (Bonus points if you also play "spot the undeclared assumptions".)

  • Experience: We found a baby on the subway – now he's our 26-year-old son

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  • Experience: I found a cat in my garage — now I'm her self-heating pillow.

    I saw the couple with the baby then I was like, "little guy got lucky". Then I saw the other picture, of him adult, and now I can't call him "little" any more, right? He's visibly taller than both his fathers. Still lucky.

    I also love how his fathers were like "noooo, we aren't ready yet", living apart and full of debt, but the kid was the final kick to build a family.

  • Thanks Google

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  • This might be fake but goddammit it's still funny.

  • Is AI Profitable Yet?

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  • Note nVidia is the only in that list not making believe they'll dig gold — it's selling the shovels instead. And once you remove it from the data, it gets even more ridiculous:

    • spent: $1.2T
    • revenue: $240B

    Revenue is 20%. It's a hilarious fiasco.

    The underlying tech is interesting, but that clearly does not justify the costs. And seriously I do hope most of that list gets bankrupt, including all GAFAM and nVidia. (They won't, I know. But hey, one can dream.)

  • You can no longer Google the word 'disregard'

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  • Problems, you say? Not in my end.

    I use mostly DuckDuckGo, but I also got a bunch of extensions that make Google search more bearable: Disable AI, Google Search Ad Remover and Customizer, uBlock Origin, uBlacklist.

    I can't recommend Disable AI enough. Seriously. Those "AI overviews" are trash, they often output incorrect information (as any large model), and there's no "official" way to block them out, unlike in DuckDuckGo.

  • Arxiv bans slop

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  • Usually I'd also feel bad dunking on a random. However, when that random does a disservice to the scientific community, I think it becomes fair game.

    Specially in the light of the ongoing replication crisis. There are multiple reasons scientists are having a hard time reproducing published results, but a lot of them boils down to "someone skipped proper procedures" (like he encourages people to). Peer review is supposed to catch this, but when a person who can enforce those proper procedures says "we'll enforce them", suddenly the same random makes up reasons against the policy.

  • Arxiv bans slop

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  • I know this is a meme post and I apologise to the OP for the incoming rant.

    When someone proposes, implements or enforces a clearly sensible rule, and someone else brings weird corner case scenarios up, always ask yourself if there's a conflict of interests. Sometimes there's none, but often there is — undeclared and disguised as concerns about something else.

    That's the case here. Check James Miller's XCancel profile and you'll see it.

    [Description] Smith College economics professor. PhD Chicago. JD Stanford. AI safety, game theory. Stroke survivor, hoping to make it to the singularity.

    [pinned tweet]Nerd score: How many have you considered? // Cryonics, multiverse, Boltzmann brain, AI utopia, quantum immortality, Roko’s basilisk, gray goo, paperclip maximizer, great filter, ethics in infinite universe, acausal trade, longevity escape velocity, simulation and zoo hypothesis.

    [tweet]Suppose AIs become superhuman at math within two years, as far beyond humans in math as they already are in chess. What practical breakthroughs might follow, perhaps room temperature superconductors?

    [retweeted from another]I would be mortified to have a typo---never mind a hallucinated citation---in a paper. But you see from twitter threads that some people think having a tidy bibliography is the definition of good research. They've got a 6th grade report-in-clear-plastic-binder view of the process

    [tweet]I tell my students that they have to use AI to help write papers. I give them guidance on how they can effectively do this. I think I'm giving them more practical help than if I forced them to write without AI. This past semester, one student even asked me if she had to use AI and I said yes.

    et cetera.

    Note how he's too invested into large "language models" to admit they're often a source of misinformation. To the point he's telling his students the equivalent of "scientific paper, toilet paper, same thing lol, just add shit lmao".

    He's clearly ignorant on why references are such a big deal in science. When you write a paper, you must be able to tell people where you got the info from, otherwise the whole thing devolves into "trust me" = "I think you're gullible filth". With "trust me" there's no knowledge being shared, just a bunch of bullshitters repeating the (often incorrect) assumptions of each other.

    And odds are he gives no flying fucks about either "concern" he raised. Specially because the solution for both issues is simple, as long as you care about science instead of "me publish paper lol lmao":

    • language barriers: your research should not rely on things you do not understand. So work with a translation of the work, translate it yourself, or don't quote it.
    • co-author adding references LLMs made up: why are you co-authoring a paper with a gullible muppet who uses LLM output as source of [mis]info???

    /rant

  • Is DARVO a correct defense when the accuser is DARVOing?

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  • The correct defence against DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) varies from case to case, but it's certainly not to DARVO back.

    You won't convince the DARVO-er that they're in the wrong. They're at the very least disingenuous, if not worse (irrational, assumptive, etc.). You're simply better avoiding them and confrontation as much as you can.

    And, for onlookers, DARVO-ing back means you and the abuser will look like two peas in a pod. Depending on the situation the onlookers might matter more or less, but it's typically not a good idea to give them reasons to not side with you.

    I think that in general documenting the abuse as well as you can should be a sound strategy. Not just to convince onlookers, but yourself; gaslighting is part of the DARVO core strategy.

    Just my two cents.

  • El Niño is coming. The last time ocean temp. looked like this, millions died

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  • You just don't get it! AGI is coming SOON, so we need to build MORE, BIGGER DATACENTERS! Then AGI will solve every problem humankind has, ye of little faith! BE GULLIBLE FILTH TRUST US!

    /s of course.

  • El Niño is coming. The last time ocean temp. looked like this, millions died

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  • At this rate might as well call it El Hombre.

    …shitty jokes aside I'm actually worried about this shit.

  • Why is almost everyone right-handed? The answer may lie in how we learned to walk

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  • To be clear, since the paper is a bit messy, here's how they calculated a few variables.

    Handedness index, HI: pick an individual. Check how many of the tasks they completed with the right hand (R) vs. the left hand (L). Then plop it into the formula (R-L) / (R+L).

    So for example, if Alice used her right hand 60% of the time for any given task, R=0.6, L=0.4, HI(Alice) = (0.6-0.4)/(0.6+0.4) = +0.2.

    Now let's say Bob used his right hand 20% of the time. HI(Bob) = (0.2-0.8)/(0.2+0.8) = -0.6. Note the sign matters.

    Mean handedness index, MHI: it's mean, just like me. *ba dum tss* Just sum this stuff up and divide by the number of individuals. e.g. the MHI for the whole population of my example above would be (+0.2 -0.6)/2 = -0.2. So righties increase the score, lefties decrease it.

    Mean absolute handedness index, MABSHI: disregard signal, then mean. The MABSHI for the population above would be (|+0.2| + |-0.6|)/2 = (0.2+0.6)/2 = 0.4. So stronger preference towards one hand (whichever it is) raises the score.

    My personal take:

    They found correlation between brain size, arm:leg ratio, and handedness… and that's it. The title implies a cause ("why"), and that it has to do with right handedness, but both things are AFAIR (as far as I read) absent.

    I think this is all a big red herring, mind you. We humans coördinate the usage of both our hands for a lot of tasks, where each hand performs a different movement:

    • swing hammer with one hand, guide the nail with the other
    • hold bow with one hand, pull the string and guide arrow with the other
    • hold the mayo jar with one hand, twist lid with the other
    • etc.

    you get the idea, right? I think handedness encourages this sort of coördination, and it's essential for more complex tasks other primates don't typically perform. As such I don't think it's necessarily correlated to every instance of tool usage, as in the TOOL variable, but to specific tasks.

  • Show HN: Number Gacha, a gacha game distilled to its essence

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  • I can't believe I'm wasting time with this, but here I am:

  • Damn, if only I could guide Rome through thousands of years of history...

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  • Rome was dead the day that Octavian caenum fungus putridus paedicator SPVRCIFER! MERDICVLA LVTEA! guy backstabbed the Republic, and called himself "emperor". *grumbles pro-Republic noises*

  • Linus Torvalds says AI-powered bug hunters have made Linux security mailing list ‘almost entirely unmanageable’

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  • It is because everyone else's computer is finding that same bug, and they're all reporting it separately, and reduplicating efforts associated with trialling the bugs. It's clearly more costly than having the dev themself fire a spare machine and have their computer alone find bugs.

  • Linus Torvalds says AI-powered bug hunters have made Linux security mailing list ‘almost entirely unmanageable’

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  • Reminder: if you can put code in a chatbot and get it to find bugs, the devs can do it too. As such, even if your "LLM bug finding trip" works, it's still useless, and a waste of everyone else's time.

  • what’s your best “nitric acid acts upon trousers” moment?

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  • At least in theory it could work, given it's similar to how people make niello since the antiquity, but I forgot to take into account oxygen — the sulphur caught fire.

  • Linguistics Humor @sh.itjust.works
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Who would have believed that the perfect Wikipedia photo caption could have been improved on?

    allthingslinguistic.com /post/154482764904/who-would-have-believed-that-the-perfect-wikipedia
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz
    about the dual in English

    Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

    www.bbc.com /future/article/20260408-the-extinct-english-words-for-just-the-two-of-us
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Ancient art could hold clues to the origins of written language

    www.scientificamerican.com /article/stone-age-art-may-reveal-40-000-year-old-precursor-to-writing/
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Surzhyk: why Ukrainians are increasingly speaking a hybrid language that used to be a marker of rural backwardness

    theconversation.com /surzhyk-why-ukrainians-are-increasingly-speaking-a-hybrid-language-that-used-to-be-a-marker-of-rural-backwardness-264280
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Archaeologists Found an Entirely New Language Among the Ruins of an Ancient Empire

    www.popularmechanics.com /science/archaeology/a69975965/new-language-discovery-in-ruins-ancient-empire/
  • Biology @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Watch 1,000 baby spiders devour their mothers and aunties alive in stomach-turning, first-of-its-kind footage

    www.livescience.com /animals/spiders/watch-1-000-baby-spiders-devour-their-mothers-and-aunties-alive-in-stomach-turning-first-of-its-kind-footage
  • Linguistics Humor @sh.itjust.works
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Bouba and Kiki

  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    You know more Finnish than you think

    dannybate.com /2025/08/03/you-know-more-finnish-than-you-think/
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Speech may have a universal transmission rate: 39 bits per second

    www.science.org /content/article/human-speech-may-have-universal-transmission-rate-39-bits-second
  • Canvas @toast.ooo
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    If you have a hard time with text in Canvas, I hope this helps.

  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    How the Rosetta Stone allowed us to translate hieroglyphics - SciShow

  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Linguistic evidence suggests that the Xiōng-Nú and the Huns spoke the same Paleo-Siberian language

    onlinelibrary.wiley.com /doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-968X.12321
  • Fediverse memes @feddit.uk
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    When you find the perfect instance for you.

  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    A mysterious 15th-century book written in an unrecognizable language continues to puzzle scholars—its origin, purpose, and meaning remain unknown.

    www.utubepublisher.in /2025/06/voynich-manuscript-code-decoded-mystery-of-ancient-book.html
  • Tio do Pavê @lemmy.eco.br
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    O que o cavalo falou, quando desligou o telefone?

  • Linguistics Humor @sh.itjust.works
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Chickens

  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Small discussions - 2025/Apr/23

  • Biology @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    You Might Think of Shrimp as Bugs of the Sea: But Bugs Are Shrimp of the Land

    www.smithsonianmag.com /science-nature/you-might-think-of-shrimp-as-bugs-of-the-sea-but-a-remarkable-discovery-shows-the-opposite-bugs-are-actually-shrimp-of-the-land-180986303/
  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz

    Small discussions thread - 2025/Apr/04

  • Linguistics @mander.xyz
    Lvxferre [he/him] @mander.xyz
    Meta

    Requesting community feedback on potential rule changes