AmbitiousProcess (they/them)

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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: June 6th, 2025

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  • So it’s clear: This has a link where you can give public comment against the proposed new rules!!!

    Go here, and either paste in what the EFF has pre-made for you, or ideally, write your own!

    I oppose the USPTO’s proposed rule changes for inter partes review (IPR), Docket No. PTO-P-2025-0025. The IPR process must remain open and fair. Patent challenges should be decided on their merits, not shut out because of legal activity elsewhere. These rules would make it nearly impossible for the public to challenge bad patents, and that will harm innovation and everyday technology users.



  • There’s only a few use cases where I’ve found I prefer it to doing things the hard way.

    • As a thesaurus, since it’s great for going “what’s that one word that sort of means all encompassing, commonly used in reference to research/studies?” and it’ll end up giving me “holistic.”
    • As part of other software, such as how Linkwarden automatically tags bookmarks by category when I add them
    • Double checking the answers I’ve come up with in regard to hyper-specific questions (usually about how a given piece of software can/can’t be used, or how it’ll interact with something else) just to make sure I’m not blatantly missing anything.

    However, I try to avoid using it for anything that otherwise requires productive mental effort, because I find that I end up being a lot more informed and capable if I spend 5 minutes going through sites, learning about a topic, identifying wrong answers, and being able to put together better new queries in the first place, than I do if I ask a chatbot, even if it pulls from those same sources.

    When you have a chatbot summarize or combine/condense information, you’ll always lose nuance and additional context, and very frequently that context will actually be helpful to your overall understanding. There’s also many cases where, for example, someone on a forum explains an issue a bit, and their profile has more related information on it that an LLM simply wouldn’t go for, only summarizing from their one response on that page. This can lead me down a rabbit hole that then leads me to finding other good sources. Maybe someone mentions that a particular site is helpful for what I’m looking for, and that then becomes something I use more frequently when I do searches for things, whereas an LLM would have just ignored that comment.


  • That would depend on the way in which the individual became quadriplegic, any treatment they’re receiving, and what parts of their body are affected by it.

    It seems there’s very cursory research showing some spinal injuries can increase your likelihood of developing conditions like pneumonia, and your risk of infection from most bacteria, but it doesn’t seem to be true in all cases, nor has there been a lot of research as to if it persists forever, the exact mechanism by which it happens, or to what degree it can impair the immune system.

    That likely isn’t very relevant to the original question of asthma, though, unless the quadriplegic individual…

    • Acquired any of a very small selection of respiratory viruses as a young child
    • Received many antibiotics as a young child
    • Became quadriplegic later in life and were exposed to a large quantity of non-pathogenic bacteria/viruses
    • Exposed very little exposure early in life to non-pathogenic bacteria/viruses (e.g. from farms, pets, general non-sterile environments)

    …since those are the primary mechanisms by which any form of immune reaction could be impacting the likelihood of asthma developing and/or getting worse/better.





  • The key point here, however, is that exploiting insecurities through insults is not the only thing that Andrew Tate does.

    He simultaneously messages to young men that they are weak/poor/unhealthy/cucks/betas/etc, but also that they deserve more, that it’s not entirely their fault that they’re not getting rich/women/success/etc, and that if they do xyz, they’ll fix themselves. Solely insulting them isn’t what makes the messaging effective, it’s the putting down of their current position in life while simultaneously promising a solution through notions of them having things like sex or money “taken” from them.

    It’s certainly okay to mock or insult ideologies that are harmful, and to do a bit of that to the people that promote them, but only doing that will only radicalize them away from you. Think about these 2 scenarios:

    Scenario A: “You’re worthless, you’ll never be anything, you’re poor, a virgin, and will die alone”

    Scenario B: “You’re worthless, you’re poor, a virgin, and you’ll never be anything unless you follow these x steps to become a better man”

    Scenario B is what Andrew Tate uses on young men. Scenario A is pure harassment that doesn’t motivate anybody on its own, Scenario B motivates action.

    If you just ridicule a friend that has negative beliefs and don’t present any alternative, they will stop being your friend. If you deride them for sharing a harmful belief, then explain the alternative and how it would make them better off, you’re more likely to get them to actually change. (though this is, of course, not universal, and I’m sure a small subset of people could be motivated to change purely off insults and nothing more)

    I hope I explained that well, I’m quite prone to rambling 😅