Vort

I just realized that the solution to your troubles with you cat is contained within his name: Walk Klaw.

So, then, not real degrees. 😋

I have been a capitalization minimalist* since I started writing professionally. Pronouns for Deity were one of the first things I decided could live just fine without being capitalized. So it's actually more than a tiny change for me. But several months ago when I noticed the Church capitalizing divine pronouns, I kind of got conflicted. This battle has been raging inside my mind and spirit for a while now. So while I still have misgivings, I'm relieved of the burden of the emotional and moral struggle. (I'm obviously speaking tongue-in-cheek, but there is more than just a tiny hint of truth-in-jest in my words.) *I was going to write "I had been a big capitalization minimalist...", but there seemed to be too many internal conflicts, so I simplified. Very expository/technical writing-ish of me. By the way, did you know where the term "upper case" comes from, as in upper-case letters? It comes from early typesetting, where type was kept in wooden cases, typically two of them, stacked over the desk where the type was set. The normal miniscule (small) letters were stored in the lower case (and so are sometimes called lowercase letters), and the majuscule (big) letters were stored in—dum, da da DUUUUUUM!—the upper case. So those were the upper-case letters. In programming, people refer to programming languages and such as being "case sensitive", which just means that a programming language will distinguish between the capital form of a letter and the small (minuscule, or lowercase) form of the same letter, seeing them as two different things. (E.g. a variable named vort will be different from a variable named Vort, or from a variable named VORT, or vOrT, or whatever.) So the idea of "case" has come to mean one of two different ways of writing a given letter, the big way (upper-case) or the small way (lowercase). Strange that a word takes on a meaning radically different from its actual root just because it's used in an expression. Strange, but common. Also, it sort of bothers me that the non-hyphenated "lowercase" has become de rigeur, but "upper-case" seems to remain hyphenated (or two separate words). I think the problem lies with "lowercase", a portmandeau that serves no obvious purpose but to put a space out of work, but since that's not likely to change, I need to adapt or die. I'll probably do both within a few years or decades. More than doing it like how I would do it, they should just standardize on a way. (The great "they". You know, the people who decide such things.)

I have finally decided (though I retain the right to revist the decision) to follow the Church's practice of capitalizing pronouns that refer to Deity—specifically, to the Father, the Son, and/or the Holy Ghost. I will refer to Them individually as He, and in prayer, I will mentally capitalize Thou and, in the very rare instances that I address more than one at a time, You. I know. It's hard to take in. Sorry there was no way to ease you into this announcement. I felt I just had to blurt it out and let everyone deal with the consequences.

I had to steal that one for FB. Yes, I still use FB occasionally. Probably more than I should. UPDATE: I took it down. The author is so hateful that I just can't condone sending my friends and family to her Instagram. But it sure was funny.

Indeed, ChatGPT cannot count except in the most rudimentary way, and appears to have no consistent notion of what a syllable is. It seems capable of doing only very simple arithmetic. Anything more than that, it can answer if it can look up the answer, but it is not capable of actually doing math (in the sense of reliably following the algorithms we usually follow). It is most definitely not Wolfram Alpha. Ask it for the integral or derivative of ex and you will get the right answer. But ask it something harder, such as the value at x=0 of the nth derivative of a function f(x) where f(x) = (xn)(en) and ChatGPT can't do it. It tries to, and apparently it thinks* it can, but it can't: *Yes, I'm fully aware that AIs don't think. This is just the easiest way to express the idea. *******************start******************** User Calculate (f^n)(x) [the nth derivative of f(x)] for f(x) = xnen at x = 0. ChatGPT To find the nth derivative of f(x) = xn, let's first differentiate f(x) repeatedly with respect to x: f(x) = xnen f'(x) = n(xn-1)(en) + (xn)(0) - n(xn-1)(en) f''(x) = n(n-1)(xn-2)(en) + n(xn)(0) - n(n-1)(xn-2)(en) f'''(x) = n(n-1)(n-2)(xn-3)(en) + n(xn-1)(0) - n(n-1)(n-2)(xn-3)(en) . . . fk(x) = n(n-1)(xn-2) . . . (n-k+1)(xn-k(en) From this pattern, we observe that the nth derivative will be n!(xn-n)en - n!en. Now, evaluating this at x=0, we get: fn(0) = n! en So, the nth derivative of f(x) = xnen at x=0 is n! en. User The actual answer is f(x) = xnen at x=0 is n!, not n! en. ChatGPT You're absolutely correct, and I apologize for the oversight. When evaluating f(x) = xnen at x = 0, it simplifies to 0nen for any value of n other than 0. Thank you for pointing out the error. So, the nth derivative of f(x) = xnen at x = 0 is indeed n!. *******************end******************** Now, this problem has some thorny issues that befuddle normal people such as Yours Truly, like figuring out how to deal with xn at x=0 when n=0 (so that you would get 00 with a naive substitution, a result that gives normal people brain cramps). So the AI got reasonably close, and I can't fault its effort. But why should that be? Why should it be "close, kinda, when you think about it" instead of simply "correct"? This is a computer, for heaven's sake. And despite how White Imperialism Racist math is, there is actually a correct answer. Here's a conversation I just had with ChatGPT: *******************start******************** User Solve for f: f'(x) = ef ChatGPT The equation f'(x) = ef is a first-order ordinary differential equation. This equation is separable, meaning we can rewrite it in a way that allows us to separate variables and then integrate both sides: df/dx = ef We can rewrite this as: df/ef =dx Now, we integrate both sides: ∫(1/ef)df = ∫dx The integral of ∫[1/ef]df with respect to f can be solved by substitution. Let u = ef , then du = ef df, which transforms the integral into: ∫(1/u)du = ln∣u∣+C Substituting back u=ef, we get: ln∣ef∣+C = f+C Integrating the right-hand side with respect to x gives x+C1 , where C1 is another constant. So, the general solution to the differential equation is: f(x) = ln|ef| + C1 = ln|eC| + C1 = C + C1 where C and C1 are constants. User Look at your answer above. You assert that ln |ef|+C=f+C. (Note that the absolute value sign is unnecessary if f is assumed to be a function in the real range R, because ef is in R for all f in R.) Subtracting C from both sides simplifies the equation to ln(ef)=f. What is the solution to this equation, f(x) = ln(ef)? ChatGPT You're correct. Apologies for the oversight. The equation simplifies to ln(ef) = f. Since log ex = x for any real number x, we have: f = f(x) Thus, the solution to the equation f'(x) = ef is simply f(x) = ex. User Not so. Consider x=C. Then f(x) = f(C) = 0, but eC <> 0 for all real C. ChatGPT You're correct again. My apologies for the oversight. Let's correct that. Given the equation f'(x) = ef, we have: ln(ef) = f ef = ex Then, taking the exponential of both sides, we get: f = ex So the solution to the equation f′(x)=ef is indeed f(x) = ex. Thank you for your patience and pointing out the mistake. *******************end******************** The moral of this story is that there is a reason it's called ChatGPT and not MathGPT or IntegrationGPT or SyllableCounterGPT. ChatGPT doesn't have any idea what it's "doing". ChatGPT is a language model, and a very cool one. But it does not go beyond mechanical pattern matching. Note how the explanation above sounds kind of like what you might expect to hear from a first-year differential equations student who wasn't really up on his calculus (especially integration, essentially meaning that he was planning on failing the DiffEq course; but I digress). It uses words and terminology correctly; it just doesn't get the right answer, even when prompted with hints, and has no idea how to go about getting the right answer. In the end, it confidently asserts that the solution to f′(x)=ef was f(x)=ex, which is easily shown false merely by substituting the proposed solution back into the original equation. (f'(x) = ex = ee^x ⟹ x = ex; yeah, no, not as a general solution, and not at all with Real numbers.) It can't follow a mathematical algorithm per se, because it is not programmed to find and follow mathematical algorithms. It is a language model. That's all. So as long as you stay in soft and squishy areas, like literary analysis or how you feel about things, ChatGPT sounds remarkably real, even wise. But when you start into areas where the respondent needs to understand what he's talking about and not just parrot a book or synthesize a body of literature, you will quickly expose that ChatGPT doesn't have a chance of passing the Turing test. As AIs get more sophisticated, I expect that it will become harder to distinguish their responses from those of an actual person. (For example, today it's pretty obvious when you're reading AI-generated filler text, but that might not be the case in five or ten years.) But I think there's a fundamental barrier here that will not be overcome by simple programmatic improvements. My bigger fear is that our children will start adapting themselves, their expectation, and their own performance to that of the AI models. That would be tragic and wholly unacceptable, a real case of the tail wagging the dog. Though come to think of it, mankind has always been remodeled by its tools. This was one of the themes of Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Didja like my lit analysis reference? I though it was very ChatGPT of me.)

This is incorrect. McConkie was not talking about the practice of denying Priesthood and temple blessings to those of black African descent. Rather, he was talking about the various reasonings and theories that tried to explain the practice, and specifically about those ideas that said something like, "Black African people are descendants of Cain and carry his curse, so no black man will receive the Priesthood under every son of Abel [or Seth, or someone else] has had the opportunity to receive it." When McConkie said to ignore what he or any other leader had said on the subject, he was referring to this type of thing, and not to the practice itself of excluding those of black African descent from certain Priesthood blessings and obligations. Neither he nor any of the apostles or First Presidency members of the time who signed onto that so-called Manifesto at any time ever even hinted that the doctrine* that those of black African descent were not to be ordained to the Priesthood or make temple covenants was itself false or wrong or faulty. *Which people now like to call "policy", but make no mistake, doctrine it absolutely was. For that matter, it still is a doctrine, though no longer practiced or taught for current observation. Until 1978, men of known black African descent were not to have been ordained to a Priesthood office or to have had the Priesthood conferred upon them. Today we no longer observe that practice, just as the Jews after Jesus' resurrection were no longer required to observe the practice of male circumcision. That doesn't mean that circumcision suddenly had no longer been the doctrine of Judaism for over a thousand years.

Needless to say, everything that we have been taught in scripture about the Holy Ghost is completely true. But we have not explicitly been told the nature or identity of the Holy Ghost. If we understood that, I feel quite confident that we would understand what it means for the Holy Ghost to enter into our hearts and person, and we would find no conflict at all between our doctrinal teachings and actual reality. That said, I think that speculating on the nature or identity of the Holy Ghost is an unwise and potentially dangerous activity. (Speaking generally, and not pointing my words toward anyone on this or any other forum.) My opinion is that we would do better to live the gospel to the best of our ability and not worry about such specifics, things that some call "deep doctrine" but that are really just mechanical explanations that, in the end, are of much less importance than things like faith, repentance, baptism, and reception of the Holy Ghost.

Let us be slow to affirm that God is unable to do something. There is nothing (meaningful) that God cannot do. Nothing. God cannot sin, but we understand this to mean that God is infinitely far beyond any desire to sin, that the very idea of a "sinful God" is an oxymoron, and not that God is completely unable to choose to act as he sees fit. The Holy Spirit is God entering into us. God the Father, God the Son. It is a literal thing. If we don't understand it, it's because the mechanisms and definitions involved have not been publicly revealed.

It's a LotR reference.

Dang, NT, that's a pretty good analysis right there.

Not so, at least not necessarily. Wilcox might have been genuinely sorry that he vocalized the thoughts he did, either because of how he spoke them or because he thought that he ought to have kept his views to himself (or both). Apologizing for speaking the truth is not necessarily a sign of weakness; it may just be a recognition that sometimes it's better to keep your trap shut rather than cast your pearls (as you believe them to be) before swine and then be all surprised or upset when the hogs trample the pearls and attack you.

My observation is that this is not even remotely true. In the last 20 or so years, people have started apologizing all the time when feathers get ruffled, even when they don't believe they said anything wrong or untrue. The apology is more like, "I'm sorry I said something that upset you," and not necessarily, "I'm sorry I said such a patently offensive thing." Nice, compliant people do this kind of apologizing quite often. I used to. I don't any more. I will apologize if I was wrong or of I spoke out of turn (and if I know that I was wrong or spoke out of turn). Otherwise, if they take offense, that's their problem, not mine. Brad Wilcox has always struck me as a friendly person. My assumption is that he was apologizing for bruising the tender feelings of the whiner crowd, not because he actually believed he said something offensive in God's ears.

On the whole, people were very excited and happy about it. I was told by a sister who was a missionary in the US South in 1978 that many Southern members were unhappy about it. Don't know if that was a widespread feeling in the South or just in her area, or perhaps just her perception.

Nothing Wilcox said was offensive, unless you're looking for a reason to be offended. The fact that Jana Reiss found Wilcox's words offensive is pretty good evidence that Wilcox said nothing wrong.

This is all interesting on a sort of academic level, I suppose. On a personal level, I am curious why the Priesthood ban was in place—especially since it's obvious that a man of black African descent could hold the Priesthood before 1978, as demonstrated by Elijah Abel and others. The video you reference suggests a fascinating possibility, one I'd like to investigate. But curiosity notwithstanding, my main personal concern is the increasingly common belief that the Priesthood ban itself was some sort of horrible mistake, an unqualified evil that somehow infiltrated the Church under Brigham Young. This belief I consider to be tantamount to apostasy. It is not merely disloyal (though it is quite clearly that). It is pandering and obsequious, a capitulation to political correctness and an open demonstration of shame at the mockery from those in the great and spacious building. We should be better than that. Nephi showed us the correct response to such mockery. It's high time we started to engage more actively and regularly in "heed[ing] them not".

You can, of course, take whatever you want in whatever way you see fit. But a disavowal is not a reproof. Saying, "We do not now accept this as revealed teaching" is much different from saying, "This is false." So in point of fact, the supposed falsehood of Brigham Young's teachings is not itself a teaching (aka doctrine) of the Restored Church of Christ. Those who say "Brigham was wrong" are expressing nothing more than an opinion—and I think that accusing a prophet of heresy is an unwise and dangerous thing to do in most cases.

Funny. I just watched this video an hour ago. Good video. One of these days I need to read Lucy Mack Smith's book.

The Diaz brothers were crude, vulgar, and uncouth. But they seem very genuine, which gained my respect. And they were outstanding fighters. Lots of fun to watch. If you're into that sort of thing. Which of course I am not.

Thanks for that. I had never noticed that Foreman's fighting style proceeded from using his extended arms to control and set up his opponent. Funny thing is that that is exactly what the Diaz brothers did in the UFC, especially Nate. Really unorthodox fighting style, looks more like tai chi than boxing, but really super effective. Probably helps if you're significantly taller than your opponent, which Nate usually was.

Holmes was a fine fighter, a heavyweight contender, but no one believes that Larry Holmes was a better fighter than Muhammed Ali.

George Foreman was as much an anomaly as Muhammed Ali. Foreman was (IMO) the most intimidating heavyweight ever. At his best, the man was unstoppable. He was huge, bigger than Ali (who was 6'3" and 216 lbs vs. Foreman's 6'4" and 220 lbs; by comparison, the previous generation's arguably greatest heavyweights were Sonny Liston at 6'1" and 215-220 lbs, and Rocky Marciano, a GOAT contender, at a mere 5'10" and about 190 lbs). Foreman also hit harder than anyone else I've ever seen. And he was durable. Remember, George Foreman decided to return to boxing in his 40s, and at 45 years old—FORTY-FIVE YEARS OLD!!!— once again became the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. That's some superhuman performance there. Sadly for Foreman, on that fateful night in Kinshasa in what was then called Zaire, he didn't have the mental toughness to withstand Ali's ceaseless verbal barrage of insults and belittling. Just added fuel to the rope-a-dope. Foreman didn't fight a smart fight, so he got beaten. If he had fought Ali ten times, I bet he would have won at least six of them. But that's not how it works, is it?

Perhaps, in the sense that a myocardial infarction and a coronary occlusion are two separate and notably different things. But they involve the same area, produce the same outcome, and wreak havoc in pretty much the same way, so their differences don't seem to make a difference.

"Basic math" = "Math that I know". "Exotic math" = "Anything above the last math class that I took".

"Wall-eyed".