It is interesting to see the degree to which Claude voice creeps into normal speech. It also leads to some annoying catch-22’s, like rejecting an em-dash where you might have genuinely written one to avoid the appearance of LLM text.
Thankfully I’m lazy and have always used hyphens everywhere so at least I’m safe on that point.
I was just mentioning this in another comment earlier today, but Claude Opus 4.8 (that version specifically) uses the word “genuinely” on so many of its responses that I’ve started using it often when speaking when I didn’t before. Nothing wrong with the word itself, just a frustrating reminder that using these tools all day for work (and then on top of that some nights and weekends for personal projects) is literally changing how I speak and presumably think…
How about your reply here? Was that AI-generated? If not, are you conscious of how much you're starting to sound like AI? Is that something you see as a positive thing, or something you'd like to avoid?
I actually find this somewhat interesting, because it seems that a lot of people who weren't comfortable with expressing themselves verbally are feeling more empowered in that area. We're hearing new voices for the first time, albeit heavily-filtered ones, and I have to believe that's a good thing.
But part of me still finds it offputting for some reason. It's interesting to think about whether that's more of a "you" problem, or more of a "me" problem.
Interestingly I haven’t had such a challenge in the past but regularly am accused of being AI. In my case I think it’s because I have experience writing philosophy papers which trend towards a more stilted tone. For this response I’m also probably exaggerating it a tad.
A lot of it is that good argumentative/persuasive writing follows the structures that AI writing follow. Groups of three, not only x but y, etc. It’s all stuff that’s considered a best practice. It used to be comments structured like that meant you were writing overly formally now it’s so common people see it as LLM output.
Oh as for how I feel about this… couldn’t care less if people think I’m AI or not. Im not in it for the karma, I don’t care if people think I use AI even as someone who’s anti AI.
It's an interesting idea. Tools like Grammarly exist to help with business communication. I wonder if there's a space for a Social Media or online writing assistant to help people. I for one could probably benefit from a tone shift away from acerbic troll.
> I suspect that Canada isn't fond of how Americans view guns
I'm putting this into my overflowing bucket of internet comments that doesn't "get" Canadians. Sorry to be curt but, since Canada-USA relations has been more at the forefront, I've seen too many comments that just "don't get it" and it riles me up each time.
They've had the 2nd amendment since their country was founded. It has no bearing on relations between the two countries, both at a micro and macro level.
We respect that they are their own country and have their own ways of doing things, which isn't even the same across each state. We respect US sovereignty over their own laws. It's the lack of respect for ours by the current US administration that is upsetting.
That's basically all its come down to. Oh, and the tariffs don't help either.
> We're not anti-gun. Just anti the "only used explicitly for killing people" kind of gun.
That doesn't square with Canadian classifying tasers (purely defensive, non-lethal) and anti-materiel rifles as prohibited firearms. Not that those kinds of bans don't have some sort of legitimate public policy basis, but there's something else going on here.
I'm not yielding to your premise but I'll entertain it for a moment. Massive biological differences aside, the rough composition and weight of a deer isn't so much different than a human. An AR chambered in something like 6.5 is one of the most ergonomic and effective deer killing machines you could possibly use. Very light, able to make follow up shots easily, swappable magazines, insane aftermarket availability and cheap ammunition for training because nearly the entire US military uses the parts, etc etc.
That's not determined by the gun but rather the magazine. The 30 round magazine is popular largely because it's often the cheapest and most readily available as the tooling was scaled up for mass production for the military. You can buy a 5 round magazine to put in an AR style gun it's just harder to find and it's not clear you're gaining much beyond maybe a slight hair better ergonomics or mobility from certain shooting positions so most hunters don't buy them.
If you want to single-load cartridges or pin to a 3 round magazine or whatever, have at it. Most of the argument still applies and especially the cheapness and parts availability and intercompatibility with mass after market options. Plus you'll be able to use a larger mag when target shooting. Another plus even if you don't care about magazine size is you can easily swap the barrel (actually upper receiver) without having to legally buy a new gun, so you can train with very cheap .22 ammunition using all the same ergonomics / muscle memory for when you hunt deer.
You know what, I will accept that there's some decent arguments for why hunters would want access to ARs.
Do you think it makes sense that people that don't hunt would prefer for widely, easily accessible weapons to be largely less efficient at killing human beings? It feels like many gun owners and gun enthusiasts struggle to accept any compromise. And I won't say this is particular to them, I think most people have some pet regulatory peeve, but it sure makes it difficult to have conversations about it!
What you're running to in the USA is not a conversation on hunting but rather the 2A considerations, under which a fundamental quality of the weapons is availability of efficiency at killing human beings.
And this is what I'm trying to poke at. These conversations go nowhere with a certain milieux and a lot of it is driven by a values thing that emphasizes not just the 2A but a whole thing about "right to self-defense."
To which I would counterpoise -- self-defense from what? If your society is so degraded and broken that you need to be armed to the teeth you have much bigger problems than the government taking your handguns. That's a sign of a sick and broken society and individual firearms only make it worse. So "gun rights" is frankly the entirely wrong conversation.
Same with the whole thing of "well-armed militias" to defend from government. What? Do these people really think that a few sidearms and some ARs or whatever are going to deter an actual tyrannical regime by force?
That's simply not how any revolution has ever happened. They usually happen when governments lose legitimacy enough that the armed forces and police simply walk away from defending those in power. If you're in a shootout with the armed forces, you've already lost.
So, I also question the 2A people and what their actual motives are and who they intend to use the guns on.
There's actually a shit-ton of deer hunters in the US that hunt with .300 blackout under 16" barrel AR-type weapons that are legally "handguns." In part because the handgun-length barrel makes it less unwieldy when you add a suppressor on the end (if they put a stock on it, it becomes a short barreled [baddy] 'rifle' again but for retarded vestigial legal reasons they put a "brace" on it which does the same thing but magically means you don't need an NFA stamp). Though that was not directly question posed to which I answered.
It's kind of antiquated to use a "rifle"-length barrel for intermediate cartridge nowadays. The military uses a 14.5" barrel as standard issue for the AR-15 type rifle, which is "handgun" length, and most intermediate cartridges are handier and lighter in a legally handgun sized barrel for targets within the range of what you're likely to see in wooded areas. This means to use the most practical intermediate cartridge lengths you actually legally have a handgun with a "brace" on it.
It's my understanding hunters in Canada are often using the SKS for intermediate cartridge hunting, largely because it's/was cheap and wildly available, which was designed for killing people.
It doesn’t take too much effort to square the idea of being fine with firearms while not being a weapon-access absolutist. I’m able to have nuanced opinions about a lot of things that have negative externalities. Like how cigarettes kick ass but so do indoor smoking bans.
Simple. Cigarettes make you cool and hot, offering or bumming a light outside is instant chemistry to chat somebody up, and although I haven’t been a chronic smoker in probably a decade now, a drunk cig outside on a chilly night still hits like crack.
It’s not the heater itself, it’s everything else about them that is 10/10.
It's funny / overall-positive to compare how we seemingly see them to how my daughter's generation (18) sees them. In my 20s in the 90s despite being a mainly-non-smoker I felt/thought as you. That's not how my daughter or her peers think though.
It looks interesting but, like a lot of AI, looks correct but is not. Most of northwestern Canada says you can get there by road. If you look at Google Maps, there's no roads there for quite awhile. I see one highway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk but that's about it.
Reminds me of a fun story. Some 20 years ago when I moved from Fort Frances to Toronto for college, my high school best friend was also going to college in Toronto, and his dad offered to drive us together in his truck with all our stuff in the back. We were saying our goodbyes and my buddies dad said to my dad "We'll get there a lot faster, I found a shortcut!" My dad, confused says "shortcut? there is no shortcut, just highway 1..." and his dad insists he found an alternative route, much shorter by kms and we'll fly up there 6 hours faster! Get into the truck and he pulls out 5 pages of printed mapquest... I assure you, having done it, Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury via Elliot Lake on logging roads, may look interesting, but not correct, added a good 8 hours to the trip.
> Despite this promising start, the conservation experiment wasn't to last, after a rival juice manufacturer called TicoFruit sued Del Oro, alleging that its competitor had "defiled a national park".
... why does TicoFruit even care? Did they just see their competitor do something that might be good for people and sue them out of spite?
> TicoFrut, which is 98% Costa Rican-owned, charges that the environmental services contract is little more than a permit for improper disposal of its foreign-owned competitor's waste. TicoFrut President Carlos Odio says Del Oro should be compelled to build a proper waste-disposal plant just as his company was forced to do in the mid-1990s amid allegations that orange waste from its juicing plant was polluting a nearby river. So TicoFrut teamed up with a high-profile environmentalist and radio host, Alexander Bonilla, and enlisted the support of two prominent congressmen and a few citrus growers in denouncing the Del Oro project. However, none of Costa Rica's conservation groups joined in the attack on Del Oro.
[...]
> One of the ministers they cited was the acting environment minister at the time, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, who signed the contract on behalf of the government. Rodriguez, an attorney, denied having sat on Del Oro's board but acknowledged representing the company while working in a law firm contracted by the CDC, Del Oro's British owners. The other official, Agriculture Minister Esteban Brenes, acknowledged having sat on Del Oro's board but denied any involvement with the contract.
> TicoFrut also claimed foreign employees of the CDC and, by extension, Del Oro, had received diplomatic immunity as a sweetener to invest, and could thus act with impunity.
> The Costa Rican Ombudsman's Office conducted its own review and declared the contract illegal. In its non-binding ruling, the ombudsman's office said no official studies had been done on the viability of the orange-waste experiment, and that due process had not been followed before the contract's signing
> TicoFrut President Carlos Odio says Del Oro should be compelled to build a proper waste-disposal plant just as his company was forced to do in the mid-1990s amid allegations that orange waste from its juicing plant was polluting a nearby river.
This is the work of a petty man child. This is how it reads to me: "I got caught being a lazy irresponsible cheap-skate who was illegally dumping and had to pay. Meanwhile, these intelligent forward-thinking jerks find an environmentally beneficial way to dispose of their waste for free! I'll show them and take those goody two shoes down a peg!"
I'm also disappointed by the decision, but I get the argument made from the business perspective. I'm required to dispose my waste properly and its reflected in my prices, my competitor is not doing these practices and they should be compelled to follow the same regulations. I'm just disappointed that their court sided with the business since a better resolution would've been "your company can do this too if you just do the legwork".
In a way, they might have been right. Who knows whether or not a continuation of the active experiment would have pushed it over a tipping point where the positive effects were nullified. Maybe part of the "magic" is that they literally left it there to rot.
I mean it makes sense if you were just forced to implement an expensive waste management system and your competitor gets to just dump the stuff on the ground in a National Park. I would complain too.
It doesn't make sense if you were forced to implement waste management because you did it poorly to start with and your competitor found a smart way to do it for cheap.
These are two pages telling two different things, albeit with the same stats. The information is presented by OP in a way to show the results of the Microsoft acquisition.
The average (and above-average?) investor really does not understand tech.
reply