miltonlost (u/miltonlost)

miltonlost commented on Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us... · Posted by u/signa11

robcohen · 18 hours ago

It just seems to me that the entire purpose of school is not clear. What precisely is the purpose of "English" class? What? To read and speak English? Ok, then why can't kids test out of it most of the time? Is the purpose to be knowledgeable about a canon of literature? Why can't people test against that?

The truth is that pedagogy and instruction is just a lazy way of providing childcare. So who cares what they do with their time.

miltonlost · 17 hours ago

> To read and speak English?

And how are you, right now, communicating? You're writing in English. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, all written down, is its own subject that people aren't born knowing or can acquire like they can speak.

In addition, it's English Literature and Language in the same, so yes, about knowing partly a canon, but how how to interpret texts, both nonfictional and fictional and poetic.

> It just seems to me that the entire purpose of school is not clear.

I don't know how to explain to you why it's important to educate humanity.

miltonlost commented on Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri reuters.com/world/us/rubi... · Posted by u/italophil

hbogert · 4 days ago

The left and right signalling is such a waste of everyone's time and effort. Reactive pettiness

miltonlost · 4 days ago

Is it "signalling" when the left's change was for an accessibility reason, to enable more people to be able to easily read? Signaling means there's no tangible benefit to the change, so the Blinken's switch to a sans-serif font would not be signaling.

Rubio, however, specifically pointed out the symbolic (and malicious) gesture of his whole switch back to Times New Roman.

The left didn't react pettily. Please stop thinking the left are the right are the same when the facts show they are not. The left's change was for a demonstrative benefit. The right is doing it so fuck over people. You think these are the same.

miltonlost commented on Delivery robots take over Chicago sidewalks blockclubchicago.org/2025... · Posted by u/mikhael

yieldcrv · 6 days ago

These are solved problems in other cities

All anyone has to do is look across the land

miltonlost · 6 days ago

How are these solved problems when robot deliveries on sidewalks are a new phenomenon? Also, what other cities?

miltonlost commented on Delivery robots take over Chicago sidewalks blockclubchicago.org/2025... · Posted by u/mikhael

miltonlost · 6 days ago

These are a disability nightmare for folks in wheelchairs and scooters and even canes. They take up 75% of the sidewalk in normal sidewalk widths, let along narrower ones. In the snow, if sidewalks aren't shoveled well, this is even worse, as the traversable area is even narrower. Even being able-bodied it's more annoying than its worth to have to dodge these things.

miltonlost commented on Everyone in Seattle hates AI jonready.com/blog/posts/e... · Posted by u/mips_avatar

mips_avatar · 11 days ago

The thing that changed my view on LLMs was solo traveling for 6 months after leaving Microsoft. There were a lot of points on the trip where I was in a lot of trouble (severe food sickness, stolen items, missed flights) where I don't know how I would have solved those problems without chatGPT helping.

miltonlost · 11 days ago

Severe food sickness? I know WebMD rightly gets a lot of hate, but this is one thing where it would be good for. Stolen items? Depending on the items and the place, possibly police. Missed flights? Customer service agent at the airport for your airline or call the airline help line.

miltonlost commented on OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race theverge.com/news/836212/... · Posted by u/goplayoutside

twothreeone · 12 days ago

The way I've experienced "Code Red" is mostly as a euphemism for "on-going company-wide lack of focus" and a band-aid for mid-level management having absolutely no clue how to meaningfully make progress, upper management panicking, and ultimately putting engineers and ICs on the spot to bear the brunt of that organizational mess.

Interestingly enough, apart from Google, I've never seen an organization take the actual proper steps (fire mid-management and PMs) to prevent the same thing from happening again. Will be interesting to see how OAI handles this.

miltonlost · 12 days ago

Your proper steps are also missing out on firing the higher level executives. But then new ones would be hired, a re-org will occur, and another Code Red will occur in a few months

miltonlost commented on After my dad died, we found the love letters jenn.site/after-my-dad-di... · Posted by u/eatitraw

miltonlost · 21 days ago

Please go to therapy.

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miltonlost commented on After my dad died, we found the love letters jenn.site/after-my-dad-di... · Posted by u/eatitraw

miltonlost · 21 days ago

A kid can handle a gay parent. A kid can handle a divorce. It's not some apocaplypse.

miltonlost commented on Mr. Difficult: William Gaddis and the Problem of Hard-to-Read Books (2002) adilegian.com/FranzenGadd... · Posted by u/ofalkaed

rurban · a month ago

Looks like Franzen didn't understand JR at all. JR is a novel without an author. There is no subjectivity given by any author. No descriptions, no voice over explanations, no thoughts. Only objective observations, only dialog ie what people say, not what they didnt say, just think. It's like a modern film without a Scorsese like voice over a narrative, which explains everything, instead of letting the observer come to his own conclusions. For literature it was a revolution.

And if you are in it it's very easy to read. You just to keep going on, because when you forgot who said what you get lost. There is no he said, she said. There's only subjects speaking, no author explaining. No double quotes.

My favorite book

miltonlost · 22 days ago

There's portions where the voices overlapping is intentional, like calling into a party line on accident, and others where you can tell immediately from the Voice who is speaking. Few other authors have characters you can (or must) identify from idiolects alone.