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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 12h

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

Cool stuff!

Carlos Scheidegger @cscheid.net · 1d

This may just be the best CS paper I’ve read this year. Just read the abstract and first para of the intro! The rest of the intro is really wild too, but very very good:

dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

A screenshot of an academic paper. It reads:

Abstract
A "
'quine" is a deterministic program that prints itself. In this essay, I will show you a "gauguine": a probabilistic program that infers itself. A gauguine is repeatedly asked to guess its own source code. Initially, its chances of guessing correctly are of course minuscule. But as the gauguine observes more and more of its own previous guesses, it detects patterns of behavior and gains information about its inner workings.
This information allows it to bootstrap self-knowledge, and ultimately discover its own source code. We will discuss how-and why-we might write a gauguine, and what we stand to learn by constructing one.
CCS Concepts: • Computing methodologies → Philo-sophical/theoretical foundations of artificial intelli-gence; Theory of mind.
Keywords: reflection, probabilistic programming
ACM Reference Format:
Kartik Chandra, Amanda Liu, Jonathan Ragan-Kelley, and Joshua B.
Tenenbaum. 2025. Gauguin, Descartes, Bayes: A Diurnal Golem's Brain. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software (Onward! '25), October 12-18, 2025, Singapore, Singa-pore. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/
3759429.3762631

1 A Way of Knowing

From time to time, we all have crises of identity-moments of radical and overwhelming uncertainty about our selves.
I' don't know whether the doubts that seize us can really be externalized in language, but if I were to try, I would express them as questions, questions like: Who am I? What am I?
What kind of person? What kind of mind?

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Reposted

Carlos Scheidegger @cscheid.net · 1d

This may just be the best CS paper I’ve read this year. Just read the abstract and first para of the intro! The rest of the intro is really wild too, but very very good:

dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

10 73 260

Reposted

paris martineau @paris.nyc · 1d

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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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

This one has some warnings for a fair number of Vegan protein shakes!

paris martineau @paris.nyc · 1d

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

livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

Dang. None of the protein-supplemented food I eat on the daily were tested here.

livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

According to an e-meter reading I recently had - I have have too many screaming ghosts inside of me.

livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

When's the next time I'm going to be faced with a hoard of narcissists that are supported by the very people who are supposed to condemn them?

GamerGate was a hell of an event with such an awful outcome for everyone.

....

That's enough trauma dumping. Time to pivot to a happier Blue Sky feed!

livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

I'm left with a litany of horrible, anxiety-and-fear-inducing memories without any resolution. Without any reason to believe they won't come back. Without any reason to believe I'm safe from encountering such collective insanity and hatred.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

So much happened and so many people got involved that I can't think of a coherent narrative. I'm missing key pieces of information that would contextualize everything.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

To go from a community that treated freedom of speech as a value of near-religious importance to being afraid to communicate and not being sure what anyone could say that wouldn't risk being targeted... it was a deeply confusing and scary time.

And a handful of journalists made it so much worse.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

We were terrified to communicate on various platforms - these narcissists had people who'd used their positions in big tech companies to erroneously flag accounts as spam and erase their visibility on Github. Who knew when one of them would use their access to dump chat logs and dox?

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

I was publicly humiliated at a convention and threatened with assault when one such narcissist was giving a talk on people that should be hunted down and removed from having a functioning life and support network.

livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

To have commanding officers receive deceptive complaints to get their targets punished.

Anything and everything short of murder and (with some exceptions) assault was on the table to intimidate and silence. For years and years and years.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

How efforts to raise awareness about this were met with greater efforts to get then fired from their jobs. To threaten their family members. To SWAT them. To threaten convention leads who dare let them talk about what's happening. To have their products removed from various distributors.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

I still don't know how to come to terms with my loss of trust in institutions and my fear of placing too much trust in any person or community anymore.

How to go from trusting someone with my life to them openly mocking me and supporting narcissists who tormented people in my social circles....

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

And being afraid to talk directly about such topics for so long has done a number on my mental health. I can't heal from the past and be a healthier and happier person if I can't even discuss what I've gone through by omitting significant details.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

I've also met wonderful, kind-hearted people who believe in Progressive values! People whom I treasure.

My above post was just mentioning a subset of people who acted like sociopaths. They are their own persons and no one else is responsible for their actions but themselves.

livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

I don't understand so many forms of bigotry. And the people whom I find are the most exasperating to deal with are those who operate based off them. Who negatively categorize others based on the physical traits they're born with or where they were born.

I don't understand such people.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

Given just how many I meet in my life who don't act in-line with stereotypes and are their own persons with their own values and beliefs....I just...don't understand believing in stereotypes. I don't understand racism and sexism.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

I've also met my fair share of people who've acted in-line with stereotypes.

But...

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

A Hispanic white nationalist. Authoritarian, racist, misogynist, hate-filled progressive activists. Kind, open-minded Christian activists. Tough burly military men openly embracing...non-traditional notions of masculinity (military bronies at Brony-con)

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

So many of the people I meet are living contradictions to stereotypes. A black woman that's a dance instructor who opposes affirmative action. A FBI employee who keeps the hacker ethos and values alive.

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livebeef.bsky.social @livebeef.bsky.social · 1d

Round 2 interview? 👀

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