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Possibly. Even if this incarnation is a fad and goes away, it clearly touched a nerve and peaked many people's curiosity in ways other AI agents haven't so far. (I'm talking about broad-use agents, not coding agents)
I don't think gymnastics, shower ads, or medical examinations show naked breasts bouncing, among other things. The models could learn how things might behave from observing clothed bodies, but I'm not sure that's realistic to expect from the models.

Ask HN: AI video models are good at nude body movement => porn in training data?

Are AI image and video generators trained with lots of porn images and video? They seem very capable of generating porn (even though they are filtered/moderated not to do so) with realistic physics and movement of nude body parts.I assume this would not be something the models could have learned without porn being in the training data, is this correct?

( Read More... | 2 comments | on HN )

Ask HN: If AI makes no progress, are its abilities enough to justify valuations?

I know that AI is improving, but for the sake of argument, if AI makes no progress in the next few years, are current capabilities enough to justify current valuations and investment?That is, is the economic value that can be unlocked by today’s AI enough to justify the valuations, or are the valuations all predicated on AI becoming much much better than it is today? (AGI, ASI, etc)I assume...

( Read More... | 3 comments | on HN )

Poll: Interested in joining a "Founders over Fifty" group?

I've been thinking that founders over the age of 50 (I'm one of them) have some unique challenges, experience, insights, etc and so would be good to have a forum to exchange tips, strategies, information.We could meet in person or online video calls. If in-person, most likely the SF Bay Area would be the first area to test this idea.If you're a Maybe, please mention in a comment what might push...

( Read More... | no comments | 3 points | on HN )
Honest question: if you and your kids use YouTube to the degree you describe, why not pay for the ad free experience? Why go through so many hoops? Is it the amount of money, is it the principle, or something else?
Re:Twitter set to accept Musk's $43B offer – sources on Monday April 25, 2022 @04:04PM (#31159833)
Does this need any regulatory approval, or will it go through as is?

Ask HN: Does the Twitter algorithm purposefully put a contrarian response first?

Not sure if people have studied this in detail, but my anecdotal evidence is that when I read a tweet related to politics, the top response is a contrarian one (i.e. disagrees with the tweet)This is even the case when the comment has fewer responses/likes/retweets than other comments lower down the list.I can see that the algorithm might be trying to increase engagement, and so it might put the...

( Read More... | 1 comment | 2 points | on HN )
Re:Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier? on Saturday March 21, 2020 @02:02PM (#22648389)
People are mentioning this is due to lack of testing, but if that were the case wouldn’t hospitals be overwhelmed like they have been in Italy and elsewhere?

Testing or no testing if hospitals run out of ventilators for people in need, or out of masks, that would still happen if the disease was spreading like it does elsewhere

Re:The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train on Thursday October 24, 2019 @12:50AM (#21341720)
I agree that if the attitudes of people in Japan bother him so much, not clear why he’s staying

Having said that, the phenomenon he describes is pure racism. Not easy to shrug off

Not a dupe. It’s focusing on the leak instead of the sunsetting
Re:How to Make a Big Decision on Wednesday September 05, 2018 @10:35AM (#17918315)
Relevant: http://andrewoneverything.com/post/43840346900/we-will-alway...

I don’t think there will ever be a way to make a “big decision” with thorough analysis that will make you certain you made the right choice. There are too many variables to ever know for sure the “right” choice

Re:Can You Think Yourself into a Different Person? (2015) on Sunday December 24, 2017 @11:39PM (#16002678)
A very poignant if cynical poem by the Greek poet Kavafis on this topic:

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one.

Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, will turn gray in these same houses.

You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there is no ship for you, there is no road.

As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.

Ask HN: What would you be doing if you didn't have to work for a living?

Assuming you're a programmer, researcher, or an entrepreneur (which I assume is a good chunk of HN readers), what would you be doing if you had enough money that you didn't have to work for a living?Would you still be doing what you are currently doing (programming, research, entrepreneurship, other) or would you retreat to some other hobby, such as traveling, painting, etc?One of the reasons...

( Read More... | 2 comments | 4 points | on HN )
This is a library that provides access to Matlab-like plotting functions for easily creating javascript plots from within Python.

No need to deal with HTML, Javascript, or CSS to get some plots with multiple linestyles, colors, markers, and labels. Just plain Python code and a simple plotting syntax. The currently supported Javascript plotting libraries are Flot and NVD3 (which is a wrapper around D3).

One use case for this library is to have Python scripts running automatically and updating websites that serve Javascript plots to visitors.

For example, we used this library to create and update the plots on prespredict.com. During US presidential election seasons, a cron job calls the plotting script daily, which automatically updates the plots on the website with data from the latest polls.

The resulting scripts may not be "Pythonic" enough, but I was aiming for the simplicity of creating plots that Matlab has.

I did look at some empirical data to derive the shape of the curve, though the derivation is not as thorough as it can be. If I get time to make the derivation more formal, I'll post in in the methodology section.

One difference I have with 538 is that, I believe, they have some model of the state results, maybe with some correlation, and then simulate the election many times to come up with the PDF of results.

On the other hand, I assume the state results are independent (conditioned on the latest polling) and so I am able to derive a closed form calculation of the PDF, with no simulations. So the independence assumption makes my calculation easier, though may not be as accurate as a model with correlation between states. However, the model has done quite well for the past three elections, so maybe the independence assumption is not that bad.

Show HN: Predicting the winner of the 2016 US presidential election

I have set up a website for presidential election predictions (http://prespredict.com), and it is now up and running for the 2016 election. It uses daily state poll data and calculates the probability that each candidate will win. It also estimates the most likely number of electoral votes each candidate will get.I originally did this back in 2008, and then applied this to the 2012 election....

( Read More... | 2 comments | 4 points | on HN )

Show HN: Greasemonkey script to put the comment-collapse switch at the beginning

The new feature that was recently added to HN, which is to be able to toggle the collapse of the comment threads, has the toggle switch at the end of the comment header.The script below puts it at the beginning of the comment header, just after the up/down vote arrows.This has been tested in Firefox. // ==UserScript== // @name HN: Change location of comment-collapse toggle switch //...

( Read More... | no comments | 3 points | on HN )
Re:Chart Shows Who Marries CEOs, Doctors, Chefs and Janitors on Thursday February 11, 2016 @06:34PM (#11084201)
FYI, the ranking has changed. The results depend on how the lines of the form "1, 10, BLANK, BLANK, 2.04E+07" are interpreted.

Physicians are still up there, but some other occupations have also entered, such as "Farmers, Ranchers"

Re:Chart Shows Who Marries CEOs, Doctors, Chefs and Janitors on Thursday February 11, 2016 @06:05PM (#11084043)
I sorted the data by which occupation marries within the same occupation the most:

     13.9%    Physicians and Surgeons
     10.7%    Textile Winding, Twisting, and Drawing Out Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
     10.1%    none
      9.7%    Farmers, Ranchers, and Other Agricultural Managers
      9.7%    Lawyers, and judges, magistrates, and other judicial workers
      9.5%    Miscellaneous Personal Appearance Workers
      9.3%    Veterinarians
      8.8%    Dentists
      8.5%    Miscellaneous agricultural workers including animal breeders
      8.4%    Postsecondary Teachers
      7.6%    Software Developers, Applications and Systems Software
      7.6%    Health Diagnosing and Treating Practitioners, All Other
      7.5%    Optometrists
      7.3%    Chiropractors
      7.2%    Pharmacists
      6.7%    Elementary and Middle School Teachers
      6.4%    Food Service Managers
      6.2%    Agricultural and Food Scientists
      6.1%    Physical Therapists
      6.1%    Gaming Services Workers
      6.0%    Upholsterers
      5.9%    Communications Equipment Operators, All Other
      5.8%    Air Traffic Controllers and Airfield Operations Specialists
      5.8%    Physical Scientists, All Other
      5.8%    Nurse Anesthetists
      5.5%    Chief executives and legislators
      5.5%    Real Estate Brokers and Sales Agents
      5.4%    Clergy
      5.2%    Marine Engineers and Naval Architects
      5.0%    Psychologists
      4.9%    Lodging Managers
      4.8%    First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
      4.7%    Miscellaneous Managers, Including Funeral Service Managers and Postmasters and Mail Superintendents
      4.7%    Medical Scientists, and Life Scientists, All Other
      4.6%    Secondary School Teachers
      4.0%    Textile Knitting and Weaving Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
      4.0%    Podiatrists
      4.0%    News Analysts, Reporters and Correspondents
      4.0%    Sewing Machine Operators
      3.9%    Bailiffs, Correctional Officers, and Jailers
      3.9%    First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers
      3.8%    Tailors, Dressmakers, and Sewers
      3.8%    Economists
      3.8%    Musicians, Singers, and Related Workers
      3.8%    Environmental Scientists and Geoscientists
      3.8%    Property, Real Estate, and Community Association Managers
      3.7%    Insurance Sales Agents
      3.5%    Agricultural Inspectors
      3.3%    Butchers and Other Meat, Poultry, and Fish Processing Workers
      3.2%    Morticians, Undertakers, and Funeral Directors
I noticed them also, but they are not the one I had in mind. (what3words does have an interesting approach, I wonder if they are getting any traction)

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