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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • I’m not an etymology expert, but I did see a few sources that all claimed scot came from a Scandinavian word “skat,” which was a redistributive tax (Source)

    I do like your explanation, too, though. The other explanation I’ve heard a few times was that it was related to the Dred Scott case regarding an escaped slave who petitioned the Supreme Court in an attempt to gain his freedom (it didn’t work, though, so I’m not sure why people would claim that to be the origin of the phrase “Scott free” anyway)



  • Like, I’ve been saying it since he was accused, he could very well get off Scott scot-free

    FTFY. I agree with everything you’re saying; I just have this weird compulsion to correct misused homophones. A “scot” is an archaic word for a tax (unrelated to being of Scottish descent, AFAIK), so the term isn’t anything to do with a person named Scott. Pedantic, I know, but I really can’t help myself, so… Sorry? You’re welcome?

    Either way, have a nice day.


  • As a college instructor, it’s difficult sometimes. The dumbest goddamn students I’ve ever had still manage to pass sometimes due to being friends with the right people or getting lucky when cheating in a way that I can’t necessarily prove. I can be 100% certain that someone cheated, but if I can’t objectively prove it, it’s really, really dangerous (to my career) to fail that student, especially when they are as connected and narcissistic as Trump.

    Plus, lots of people take advantage of more inclusive accommodations and more forgiving grading or attendance policies to the point that sometimes they do pass despite knowing a tiny fraction of the material. I could eliminate a lot of that by making the tests harder and removing a lot of academic support services I offer to make the class more “sink or swim,” but then I’m mostly punishing the people that need my help the most. I just have to remind myself that it’s better to pass a student that doesn’t deserve it than it is to misjudge the situation and fail a student who legitimately just needed some additional understanding or academic support.





  • I’m an AI/comp-sci novice, so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but does running the program locally allow you to better control the information that it trains on? I’m a college chemistry instructor that has to write lots of curriculum, assingments and lab protocols; if I ran deepseeks locally and fed it all my chemistry textbooks and previous syllabi and assignments, would I get better results when asking it to write a lab procedure? And could I then train it to cite specific sources when it does so?


  • I’m not saying that just because someone says you’re gay, you can’t correct them without being homophobic. I’m saying that the people that people that go out of their way to make sure everyone knows they’re not gay, who get offended at the idea of being mistaken for gay are acting homophobic.

    I grew up in approximately the same era as you in a very conservative area, and yeah, there was a lot of homophobic behavior and slurs. But if someone asked if I was gay in this day and age, I think anything more than a quick correction is over-reacting.

    But hey, that’s just my opinion; you’re welcome to yours. Have a good day friend!







  • Yes, they are entitled to and have a right to any beliefs they want. However, my whole point is that “Separation of church and state” and the lack of an official state religion are antithetical to fundamentalist Christianity, or any Christianity on some level. Christians believe that “the laws of God” supersede the “laws of man,” so they won’t let a pesky little thing like the Constitution get between them and legislating their beliefs.

    And their right, if you start from the assumption that Christianity is true. Why wouldn’t you want to spread the word of God and minimize sin? After all, that’s what they are called to do in the New Testament! Why wouldn’t they protect others from themselves by outlawing everything with which their religion disagrees?

    To me, that is one of the central problems with tolerating discussion of Christianity and Christian values in a political space (or any religion that claims to have a monopoly on objective truth)


  • The way I explained it as a science major who went to undergrad at a very conservative Christian college is “If you start from a flawed premise, you can use valid logic to get to very flawed conclusions without making any mistakes.”

    Religious conservatives are starting from a flawed premise (edit: that premise being the existence of a just, omnipotent, omniscient deity) and either imposing biblical law or libertarianism is the logical outcome of that flawed premise.

    As an aside, this is my biggest problem with religion in general. I’m all for “live and let live,” but the logical outcome of believing that your sect has a monopoly on capital-T “Truth” is to spread that “truth” to others by any means necessary for their own good. Most religions, especially Abrahamic monotheism, do not logically allow for pluralism, and the paradox of tolerance means that if we tolerate intolerant religion, eventually that religion will control everything.