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The GP writes "me and many others think ...". I find that many of the complaints about the way LLMs write come from people who are illiterate and haven't been exposed to much literate writing before.

> Types are properties of values, not variables.

In statically typed languages, variables and expressions have a compile-time type and values have a run-time type.

> Mutability is a property of variable, not of a value.

In which languages?

In D, mutability is a property of a type. And variables and expressions have a compile-time type and values have a run-time type, so mutability is also a property of variables, expressions, and values.

(Immutability is also transitive in D, so an immutable value cannot have mutable parts, including mutable references, and a variable with an immutable type cannot contain a value or reference with any mutable parts.)


The letter from Ken Thompson is spot on:

"your first 2 extensions (5 and 6 bytes) were clearly envisioned. the standard (up to 4 bytes) was created to cover the size of unicode. i thought any more description would be a waste of paper. i think your extension from 7 to 8 bytes is a little hoaky. i requires reading the whole string rather than "knowing" the number of follow on bytes. so, i think the only thing new is the 7 byte version.

i appreciate the mail, but i really dont think it is useful. it is like replacing ipv6 with ipv50."


"People ache to believe that we human beings are vastly different from all other species – and they are right! We are different. We are the only species that has an extra medium of design preservation and design communication: culture."

— Daniel Dennett

https://now.tufts.edu/2020/09/02/our-brains-our-selves

"One of the problems with defining consciousness is that it’s several different things—and it means different things to different people. There is a sense of consciousness in which starfish are conscious. Worms are conscious. Even trees, even bacteria are conscious. But there’s one dividing line between the amoeba and the professor in the consciousness department, which really marks off a huge difference: language.

It’s language that enables us to ask ourselves questions and reflect on our own experience. Frogs notice all kinds of things in their world, but I don’t think they can notice their noticings. I don’t think they can dwell on them. That whole sort of stairway of curiosity that we have built-in doesn’t exist for any species but us, and that makes a huge difference. Human consciousness is to animal consciousness roughly as language is to bird song. Birdsong communicates, but not much."

"Consciousness is not a part of the brain. It’s what brains can do. Particularly it’s what human brains can do when they are mature and well-designed, and a lot of that design is not innate. It’s not in your genes—in the same way German or English isn’t in your genes. Many of the features of consciousness are things that basically get installed culturally and at mother’s knee. It’s part of your rearing, your upbringing, your learning languages. It’s what you learn language in, and you learn a lot of consciousness, too."

"A lot of species have elements of culture. Chimpanzees have some grooming rituals and the like. But only one species has explosively cumulative culture, and that’s us. Of course, that depends on our having language. All of technology and civilization, art, science, religion, all these are the fruits of human culture."

“I think that one of the hardest tasks a human mind can face is reserving judgment about a conviction that has always seemed to you obvious and thinking about how maybe that might not be right"



That obviously doesn't mean that we're not different--we obviously are, and it's not intellectually honest to deny it. There are SO many examples of things that have some common trait but are obviously different--skyscrapers and huts are both buildings, but they are different. Cheetahs and Usain Bolt both run fast, but they are different. Bacteria and oak trees are both alive, but they are different. "alike" and "different" are both words, but they are different. And so on ad infinitum.

If you had read the link above, you would have seen

"A lot of species have elements of culture. Chimpanzees have some grooming rituals and the like. But only one species has explosively cumulative culture, and that’s us. Of course, that depends on our having language. All of technology and civilization, art, science, religion, all these are the fruits of human culture."

which I have added to my comment.

I won't pursue further discussion when it's at such a shallow level of thinking as "we are not different" despite numerous clear differences.

P.S. nor with flaggable vituperation that only reflects extremely badly on the person who responded to me


Won’t engage because you can’t.

Lots of evidence that whales, dolphins (plenty of other animals), are collectively doing a better job at collective satisfaction within their society and culture.

Your “explosive” culture argument is…uncompelling.


> Birdsong communicates, but not much.

Whales and dolphins have nuanced language that conveys more meaning than we can capture, though we’ve begun.

Thank you for perfectly capturing human arrogance.


> They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations

No, they really don't. The article says

> indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf

Yeah, that's not grieving.


What if I told you that marine biology is a large and rigorous field that is not fully encapsulated by TFA?

> indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf

Yeah, that's not grieving.


Lying is always a bad choice. The paper in Nature says

"Hence, we postulate the brain is a composite organ emanating from two lineage-restricted progenitors; these dual progenitors may be evolutionarily conserved across 550 million years from hemichordates to mammals."


If they had written instead:

"Human brain was two separate organs"

Then, both attention grabbig and true?


Probably not, because by the time hominids were a thing, it was one.

(if I'm reading parent poster correctly)


Human Brain Evolved From Two Separate Organs.

Are there other composite organs?

Does the adrenal gland count?


That isn't even remotely related to the parent question. Organisms =/= Organs.

Do you think siphonophores don't have organs?

Yes, but this is left for the next years because they give only one Nobel preis per year.

The title is factually incorrect and is not what the research actually found:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02433-7

Title: "Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain".

"Hence, we postulate the brain is a composite organ emanating from two lineage-restricted progenitors; these dual progenitors may be evolutionarily conserved across 550 million years from hemichordates to mammals."


"too hot" and "way too overzealous" is ad hominem, and talking about comment section policing is remarkably hypocritical -- you're actually telling someone not to make certain sorts of comments, which pointing out that something is not relevant to the article doesn't do. Your "not even mentionable" is a complete fabrication -- the comment from dinobones said nothing of the sort. Your whole shtick about "getting way too overzealous with comment section policing" is a complete fabrication -- a projection of what you are doing onto a simple factual statement. And your "Uh, yes" comment below is more obnoxious trolling and attacking strawmen.

My immediate reaction to the comment about Jaynes's book and the split brain was that it's not relevant to the article, and it conflates three very different things. The comment omits the crucial fact that the split brain research was on people whose corpus collosum had been cut -- no surprise that "these two parts of the brain function independently" since they were no longer attached to each other (which is the complete opposite of what TFA is about). Jaynes's hypothesis was not related in any way to that research, and neither are related in any way to TFA. As someone else noted: "Okay but this article is about evolution hundreds of millions of years ago." -- the clear implication being that Jaynes and split brains aren't relevant. But if anyone actually dares say so, here comes the too hot overzealous comment section policeman to project his own attributes onto them.

And this is completely aside from whether Jaynes's argument is valid ... you saying multiple times that you disagree with it is also utterly irrelevant and reflects one of several fundamental errors in logic in your comments. But criticisms of your comments is not "comment section policing" -- how absurd ... and dinobones didn't even do that in simply saying that a comment wasn't relevant to the article ... only in your head was "and therefore you are not allowed to post it here". Presumably the comment was made in good faith. I can even grant the same about yours, with a bit of straining and extraordinary charity.

I won't respond further.


You omitted 300, 1200, and 2400, youngster. And the joys of xmodem, ymodem, and zmodem.

I always was testing the different transfer protocols, always appreciating sysops who installed rather obscure protocols like jmodem, MPT110, zmodem-mobyturbo and god now I can't remember some of the weirder ones. ymodem-G had a soft spot because well it was gangstah lol.

Aaah, that's why it was called zmodem!


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