Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 5h

This stuff is so sad. It should not be up to a private organization to make sure we don't have lead in our food.

paris martineau @paris.nyc · 15h

my latest investigation for @consumerreports.org is based on months of reporting and 60+ lab tests of leading protein supplements

we found that most protein powders and shakes have more lead in one serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day (🧵)

www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein...

Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports

CR tests of 23 popular protein powders and shakes found that most contain high levels of lead.

www.consumerreports.org

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 13h

"Retrieval Augmented Generation" so what you're telling me is that your god failed and went to the internet for help.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 13h

Believe it or not there are still domains where deep learning is not competitive.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 13h

You see emergent behavior from a giant stack of linear algebra? I've seen emergent behavior from a giant lookup table.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 14h

Neoliberalism ironically gives failing government systems an out, because government failure is just assumed as the natural state. Government needs stronger internal critique than neoliberalism can provide through cynicism about government only.

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 14h

(Arguably the biggest problem with neoliberalism is that it refuses to centrally plan things that should be centrally planned, like railroads and internet connections and a healthcare system, because it has such an aversion to spreadsheet centralization)

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Reposted by Ryan Moulton

Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 14h

There we go. Now that is the failure of neoliberalism I recognize (and write about).

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 14h

(Arguably the biggest problem with neoliberalism is that it refuses to centrally plan things that should be centrally planned, like railroads and internet connections and a healthcare system, because it has such an aversion to spreadsheet centralization)

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 14h

For examples of "what's the dumbest thing that could absorb every piece of data that exists?" see "Large Language Models in Machine Translation" from 2007.
aclanthology.org/D07-1090.pdf

aclanthology.org

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 14h

Every system at Google was completely bitter-lesson-pilled long before the bitter lesson essay was written. Early deep learning results had trouble breaking in because they *couldn't* absorb that much data, not because they could.

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Reposted by Ryan Moulton

brennan @brennan.computer · 14h

this photo was taken in 1979, back when we could cliff dive off waterfalls and fall in love under the summer sun

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 14h

That's basically what we do. We have like a whole crate full of scented candles and feel guilty about never using them, and I think we just have the wrong idea about what using them means.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 14h

"We gave this up for a higher GDP"
No, you gave it up to scroll your phone in bed. GFTO

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 14h

Someone should start a nostalgia-bait account that's just pictures of the present day, college kids playing volley ball on the beach in Santa Cruz, leafy New England villages, cub scouts roasting marshmallows around a campfire. It's all still happening, you just aren't doing it.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 16h

Most conifer forests smell "evergreeny" from the terpenes in pine sap. Redwood forests smell "everygreeny" due to an entirely different plant that grows in the understory, the California bay laurel. It gives the whole forest its smell even though it's a tiny part of it.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 16h

California bay laurels really punch above their weight there. They make a whole patch of forest smell intensely evergreeny even though they aren't conifers at all.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 16h

We have TVs to entertain our eyes, stereos to entertain our ears, perhaps we need a space in our homes devoted to entertaining our noses.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 18h

This is in practice what I want to do with a scented candle. I want to pick it up from time to time and say, "Ooh that's a nice smell." Do I want my entire living space to smell that way? No I do not.

Feels like a different product might serve me better.

Mr. Joshua @pantspants.bsky.social · 1d

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

Is a rollercoaster light rail? The greatest thread in the history of forums...

M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 1d

SB 79 does not apply to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland. Please stop wasting my time with such foolish inquiries.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

This is the rare post that is equally as popular on twitter and bluesky. Perhaps we have unanimity.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

What is the biggest cost barrier to building solar panels over parking lots? It's a big enough scale, and a consistent enough form, that it should benefit from scale, and absolutely everybody would love to have a solar panel over their parking spot.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

The point is that mochas are good and Doritos are.. a Dorito.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

A iced mocha is the "Extreme nacho flavor" meme but for real.

We take it for granted today but a single Dorito has more extreme nacho flavor than a peasant in the 1400s would get in his whole lifetime.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

I'm sympathetic to the desire not to celebrate the man, who treated people terribly even by the standards of his time, but we should still celebrate the event.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

What are the best books that have content appropriate for elementary school kids, but an adult reading level?

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

Colin McCarthy declared it to be likely fire season ending on twitter. I don't know if anyone makes an official determination, but we have to call it the day of to celebrate, so that I took as dispositive for our purposes.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 1d

Happy End of the Fire Season to those who celebrate. We celebrate with hot chocolate.

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