TheVat

RMs are a type of LLM which gets special training. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasoning_language_model They focus on multi-step problem-solving, where the model generates intermediate reasoning steps (also called a "chain of thought") before arriving at a final answer.

The cat sleeping fact is interesting to the same degree that "water is wet" is. I am currently watching six kittens (2 1/2 weeks old) sleeping, btw. This age is roughly the start of the "everyone who passes by completely loses their mind and has to be dragged away to recover " phase. All are, like LLMs, showing critical vulnerabilities in their reasoning models. These vulnerabilities are what we're counting on, since five of the kittens have to go. BTT: This paper certainly points to a vulnerability to deliberate malign hacker attacks on these AI reasoning models. This suggests to me an area where the alternate neurosymbolic approach might help with system security against such adversarial inputs, i.e. an extensive set of relevance rules to help the AI discard the "cat crap." Might also save server power, preventing the system allocating processing to nonsense.

In keeping with forum rules, OP should provide a definition of what constitutes a "high quality donor" and not just point towards a link to be clicked on. And the general gut biome discussion IS germane to this topic insofar as present knowledge informs the definition of what high quality is, and how quality would be determined for a specific transplant recipient. This site, while it may be an impressively large citation dump, has a lot of references that are not to peer-reviewed primary research, and seems very slanted to a pro FMT perspective. Causal connections along the GB axis are not as well-established as you claim. You are hopeful, but you shouldn't get ahead of yourself. I would keep in mind Charon's observation...

YH TO MIT, TIMOTHY

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/19/killing-of-young-siblings-at-gaza-water-point-shows-seeking-lifes-essentials-now-a-deadly-peril If I were a pitbull, I would find a way to clamp down on Netanyahu's groin and then hang there as long as possible. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/19/gaza-israel-palestinians-killed-idf-fires-on-crowds

Though giving up palindromes for neurological safety reasons, I was recently reminded of mirrordromes, a word I invented to describe words which appear just the same in a mirror (or seen on a window decal from the inside). A nonsense example would be: donob (though the serif on the n spoils it slightly). Emily, alas, has little regard for mirrordromes. Her friend AVA, however, is more kindly disposed. If anyone has knowledge of AVA's preferences, feel free to share that.

Research into gut microbiome and also the gut-brain axis is quite important. I've had some experience with the issue as it impacts C-section infants in later life (they don't receive as much gut microbiota from the mother, and have higher rates of enteric health problems). Can you provide a brief summary of what you see as the funding problems for such research? (Aside from the obvious problems with the current "small gubment" and anti-science ethos in DC).

I, for one, love a good yarn about wolves and sea snakes!

While I mostly agree on this, I would note that a mild exception often needs to be made with musical instruments. It does sometimes take a nudge from a parent to get across the concept that regular practice is vital in mastering an instrument and playing in an ensemble. Usually if the child has some affinity for the instrument, not much "force" is needed, but there is a small element of coercion - if you want to keep having lessons, then we need to have a regular practice time each day. My wife, a professional musician and music teacher, tries to have this learning be more carrots and less stick - e.g. mastering a piece of music they like, and having recitals. The child wants to do well in the recital, then they are motivated to practice. If that does not motivate them, then it is likely they wouldn't have the personality for longterm study of an instrument or ensemble playing. The only students she has recommended ending lessons to the parents were those who just didn't want to bother with practice. My point is that I've met people who told me, "I took piano for a few months, and I didn't practice much. Now I wish my parents had made me stick with it and enforced a regular practice." There are masses of studies showing that the disciplined approach music requires results in children who do better generally in school and later careers and overall life satisfaction.

Those kinds of facultative mutualism are fascinating - they often seem to have an improvised quality. I think some famous ecologist (Odum?) dubbed it "protocooperation," as in they're trying out various arrangements that are far from being obligatory. I've seen hunting cats try this sort of thing around here with mule deer - they try following them around to see if the deer activity will stir up potential small prey. Not mutualistic of course - the deer get nothing out of it.

Many of the WaPo refugees are landing on their feet and enriching the pages of other outlets. Marcus quit when her column critical of Bezos got spiked, then turned around and published it in The New Yorker. Sargent went to The New Republic. Petri joined The Atlantic where she continues to skewer all things MAGA. Marc Fisher (who helped WaPo win two Pulitzer Prizes) is doing magazine projects. It's heartening to see the good journalists finding work, though today's step in the Senate towards reducing funding of NPR/PBS is going to be scary for some of the buyout folk who landed over there. I plan to bolster my donations to both, with the money I'm saving cancelling my Post sub (plus a little extra and not just because Laura Barron-Lopez is cute).

More sad news about the Washington Post, once a great news organization which diligently exposed the truth without bias or fear of the powerful. After several of its finest writers have jumped ship in the past few months - Greg Sargent, Ruth Marcus, Alexandra Petri, et al - I see that its premier national columnist and political analyst has just announced he is leaving the Post. This is the last straw for me, and I will be cancelling my subscription shortly. And, NTS, I can no longer include The Post in any listing here of low bias outlets.

Yes it's hard to imagine an issue of avionics more critical than unwanted fuel cutoff. Boeing is not having a great decade. I wonder if jet design might have to go back to a mechanical linkage for control of fuel lines. That would take some doing! (I am relieved to learn that investigators are looking elsewhere than pilots turning off the fuel to both engines, flipping two separate switches, due to a misfire of "muscle memory." )

Question. Answered. Thoroughly. Ok, the difference between a RLR and GLR is that the latter is conditional, and this is a challenge to AI. And that does challenge the adequacy of the neurosymbolic system where If/Then rules are provided or extracted. The light is green, but the AI must be able to determine all relevant criteria for the "way being clear.". If there are no animals or people in crosswalks, then you may obey green and go. If the vehicle in front of you moves forward, then you may also do so. If the green light is solely for pedestrians, you cannot go. If a vehicle on the cross street is drifting into the intersection, you cannot obey the green until it corrects itself or is otherwise removed. If a sinkhole or large gap has appeared in the street, you cannot obey the green, and must await redirection by a traffic control officer. Etc. So it's a good point to make, that while humans can intuitively grasp a wide range of novel situations (I hear an approaching siren, I'd better wait) which all fall under "If the way is clear," the AI will struggle with novelty if it doesn't have that more general understanding of a compromised path.

Sorry, I wasn't quite clear what you meant by... ...and I don't know if this is an American not understanding what is meant by the green light rule as you use Brits use it, or what. It was my understanding that green simply means you can go, either as car or pedestrian, so I'm not sure in what sense the permission is disobeyed. I must sound quite obtuse but I am surely missing something about this example. In my experience, pretty much everyone resumes their forward progress when the light turns green. I mean, how does one "disobey" a green light? Just stand there for a bit, or just sit in your vehicle while everyone honks at you? OK, this must all be some subtle metaphor or something.

Yes, I have doubts that combining deep neural nets with symbolic IF-THEN rules is going to solve continuous learning and on-the-fly generalization in the RW. It still won't be able to spontaneously "see" RW relationships and extract rules by building an understanding. We conscious folk develop an understanding of why we should stop at a red light by means of seeing a larger order to things, e.g. what happens to the traffic situation, and us, when even one driver ignores the rule. (Or what happens when certain other minds observe us violate such a rule) We even learn the rule can be ignored when, say, the cross street is empty and our passenger has a dire medical emergency, or when it's three a.m. in rural Nebraska. AGI needs the heuristic path to what rules MEAN. While neurosymbolic AI could learn to deduce certain rules, it will not have a path to why the rules are out there AFAICT. But perhaps I'm underestimating its potential.

That's my impression, too. They understand the vectors of the paste better than what it does in the gut. It sounds a bit analogous to the impairment of intestinal villi in humans in conditions like Coeliac, Crohn's or Giardia, but far more rapidly devastating of course.

I saw a good article on neurosymbolic AI recently in The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/neurosymbolic-ai-is-the-answer-to-large-language-models-inability-to-stop-hallucinating-257752 (Excerpt) Neurosymbolic AI combines the predictive learning of neural networks with teaching the AI a series of formal rules that humans learn to be able to deliberate more reliably. These include logic rules, like “if a then b”, such as “if it’s raining then everything outside is normally wet”; mathematical rules, like “if a = b and b = c then a = c”; and the agreed upon meanings of things like words, diagrams and symbols. Some of these will be inputted directly into the AI system, while it will deduce others itself by analysing its training data and doing “knowledge extraction”. This should create an AI that will never hallucinate and will learn faster and smarter by organising its knowledge into clear, reusable parts. For example if the AI has a rule about things being wet outside when it rains, there’s no need for it to retain every example of the things that might be wet outside – the rule can be applied to any new object, even one it has never seen before. During model development, neurosymbolic AI also integrates learning and formal reasoning using a process known as the “neurosymbolic cycle”. This involves a partially trained AI extracting rules from its training data then instilling this consolidated knowledge back into the network before further training with data...

Borax probably blocks nutrient absorption. We had ants for a while in Oregon and we mixed borax with corn syrup, making a paste. It is solid enough that workers will take bits back to the colony. Larvae can eat solid or semisolid pastes and they turn some of it into a liquid which is then what the Queen eats. That's where the effectiveness really lies.

Mr President, I just saw this in the Atlantic... https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/07/usaid-emergency-food-incinerate-trump/683532/?gift=43H6YzEv1tnFbOn4MRsWYjThj3QsobGGgnD0vt4bXdk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share Drop dead, you worthless scumbag. The way this sort of travesty keeps happening on your watch is evidence that my defecations are better qualified for public office than you. Sincerely, The Vat

Based on some prior work experience, I tried to point him towards some answers, because they are possibly in a country where police assistance may be of variable availability and quality. There are parts of the States, where I live, where one may find corruption and incompetence in some law enforcement districts, and matters of fraud may not be pursued by the police with the required diligence. You, John, are quite fortunate to live in the UK.

I got "Saskatoon taskbar with shreds immersive, native as a minstrel lozenge," but not sure my translator is accurate.

Still mystifying. If muscle memory kicks in, it usually (from my experience and others I've talked with) repeats an action done at the start of a routine. A common example is a motorist with the hand operated parking brake. Before driving, you release the PB. If muscle memory kicks in, you tend to repeat the releasing motion (as if you hadn't remembered already doing that). You don't reengage the brake. I would think turning on fuel lines would be similar - you would absently repeat the "run" motion and realize from kinesthetic feedback you'd already done so and administer a forehead slap. Not saying the muscle memory theory is wrong, just that it is a truly bizarre anomaly if that's what happened. Toggling up and down are distinct moves. Plus, these are two separate switches so one would have to make this bizarre error twice, wouldn't one? To use my earlier example, it's a bit like driving down the street in a car with two parking brakes and reëngaging them both.

Or how to tell a balloonist from a baseball pitcher - ask them to read the phrase "wind up."

IIRC, she went off the Craigslist relay system (which anonymizes addresses) and I then checked her email address at a website that monitored and located scams. Been a while, so I don't recall the details. Just that she wasn't too bright, and didn't use some sort of cloaked server like Proton Mail.