One Random Thing After Another

Because we are predators, and Geese are prey animals with hollow bones, no teeth, and no claws. What they do have are wings to make them look bigger and a fuck off attitude. That attitude works on most people apparently.

But it's still funny that people are scared of them, because like... They're just not that big.

And "serrated" break is a bit of an exaggeration. It's ridged, there are bumps along the sides but they're made for grinding water plant stems, not chewing meat or anything. They have a pretty good pinch pressure, but of all the birds I've been bitten by, geese aren't high on the list of a threat.

But humans, as predators, want to avoid being hurt *at all.* Because an injury means not being able to hunt and not being able to hunt means potentially starving to death.

The best way to not get hurt by geese is to leave them alone and respect that they're living things that don't want to be messed with.

You are 100% right, I have never been chased by a goose, not once in 41 years, because I wouldn't run from a fucking goose, and it cannot chase you if you don't run.

Geese are literally just animals. Here is me with one of my friend's geese many years ago.

They are not evil, they are not mean, they are not out to get you. They are animals. They are prey animals. They are defensive of their territory, their nests (because how would you like it if a giant invaded your nursery to look at your sleeping baby?? would you be super nice about it?? Would you gracefully and peacefully handle just Some Guy you don't know coming into your nursery against your will to look at and pick up your screaming kid?? like it's not even unreasonable behavior, people are just mad because it's an animal and they have weird beliefs about animals all having to allow human interaction), and their mates.

but they are literally just animals.

I would never be chased by a goose, because I don't run, but also because I leave them alone. And the few times I have had to interact, I was polite and they responded in kind.

A mated pair with 8 goslings in the narrow road I needed get down? PRIME candidates for being the "mean goose" everyone claims exists.

Yet, they moved politely out of the road when I got out and shooed them to the side, and they brought their muppet kids over to say hello when I greeted them properly. I gave them a few goose-safe treats and went on my way. No chasing, no attacking, no biting. One of the parents hissed a few times, but still bowed back when I bowed first.

I saw a lone goose in an Aldi parking lot earlier this year, and I brought over a cup of water and set it down, then backed away. It kept its distance while I was setting the cup down, but waddled right over to drink once I backed off. Didn't hiss once. Didn't chase me. Didn't try to get me.

Like, it's literally so easy to not be hurt by geese. I'm not talking out my ass; I've interacted with or been near so many geese and I've NEVER seen an actually aggressive one- only geese being harassed by humans into a provoked reaction.

I'm sorry to the people who got chased by one as a four year old or whatever and never recovered, but that's a you and/or your parents problem for bothering or allowing you to bother wild animals. Calling geese evil and nasty and mean because your parents allowed you to act inappropriately around animals as a toddler is an anthropomorphization that continues a cycle of wildlife harassment, because people feel justified in harassing "bad" animals.

And acting like I (or others) only think geese are not mean because I've never been chased by one is an excellent example of having fallen for their defensive mechanisms, as well as an excellent example of the attitude people have about geese that leads to people harassing and consequently getting attacked by geese.

“It’s tempting to assume”: someone’s assumption is about to be criticized

In all cases, these statements serve as the prologue to some correction for a mistaken assumption, as explained above.

In the first case, the word "easy" is used to emphasize that the mistake is common, natural, and understandable, and that there is no shame for being mistaken on the given matter of topic. This is a very common turn of phrase.

In the second case, the word "tempting" is used to emphasize that the mistake is born out of some desirable motive. The biases that caused one to form the mistaken assumption as potentially sympathetic to the corrector. This is an less common, but known, turn of phrase, implying a harsher critique.

The only way to completely eliminate risk (of cyclospora specifically) is by eating only canned or frozen veggies. Cooking kills cyclospora, but there's always a risk of cross-contamination during food prep if the veggie starts out raw.

People love to throw out lists of things to avoid, always implying that if you get sick it's because you're stupid. So here's some actually useful info for if you get sick

1) The food that made you sick was something you ate in the last week. Throw out any leftovers & do some cleaning of cooking surfaces just in case

2) Normal symptoms: watery diarrhea, "loose" stool, abdominal/stomach cramps, maybe a little vomiting, nausea

3) NOT normal symptoms: bloody diarrhea, dark & tarry stool, fever, lots of vomiting. If you have any of these (or start to get these later), it could mean complications due to cyclospora or it could be something else. Go see a doctor asap

4) Most infections are self-limiting (they'll get better with a few days rest). Sometimes symptoms go away and then come back a few days later. That's normal & fine. If you're sick for longer than 2-3 days without any sign of getting better, that's NOT normal & you should see a doctor. The infection can persist for a month if not treated & you happen to be one of the cases that isn't self-limiting

5) if you need to see a doctor, do your very best NOT to poop beforehand. they will want to do a stool culture and it sucks so bad to do that at home

6) there are rapid tests for shiga-toxin that they'll do on your stool sample which will be done in about a day. The other tests for non-cyclospora diseases take ~2 days to complete. The centers that do cyclospora tests are completely overwhelmed right now, so that result might not come back for weeks so...

7) DEMAND A TREATMENT PLAN FROM YOUR DOCTOR. this is critical. At your first visit, get them to make a plan where after the negative tests come back, they will prescribe an antibiotic & do not wait for the cyclospora test

8) The antibiotic for cyclospora should be Bactrim (TMP/SMX), which has a 96% efficacy by 3 days. It might be something different if you have allergies tho. There are lots of options, it isn't hard to kill. You'll probably start to feel better in less than 24 hrs.

9) Take ALL of the pills they give you (2/day for 7 days). Do not stop just because you feel better and the pills make you feel nauseous and it's probably fine right? Wrong. That's how you get antibiotic resistance & that can kill you stone dead

LLMs learn one thing (and one thing only!) and can repeat the learned data in any way you require. Such as summaries and graphs. They can predict in the sense that after looking at 1000 items in a sequence they can guess what comes next. But the only accurate thing about them is them repeating data back at you in a condensed format.

Then ChatGPT comes out and I'm of course highly dubious of the term "AI". Lo and behold, any further reading on it reveals its just an LLM, same as any other supposed "AI" out there.

Again, LLMs do not produce something new. They repeat back what was given in the way you want. So "AI" scrapes the internet and just spews the main Google page at you but with a twist. The twist is the bad part because every extra instruction you give an LLM on how to repeat back to you, every bit more complicated it gets, the more likely it is to make mistakes. Programmers working with LLMs often have the program spit out the results of every individual step when this happens so they can fix it and move on. "AI" does not do this and people don't think to ask. People don't know to ask. They've been sold the idea that this machine thinks for itself.

It doesn't. It just echoes information from others in any way you like.

The more complicated the order (such as condensing a summary into a few paragraphs, or using a sassy tone, or explaining via pop culture analogies, etc), the more likely for things to go wrong. Because then it's trying to combine multiple learning models in one. An LLM trained on history can probably give good answers. An LLM trained on vocal tone might approach accurate sounds. An LLM trained on analogies will always make mistakes (because it would need a lot of data on each item its trying to compare). But a single LLM trying to do all three at once is going to encounter redundancies and contradictions, each request guiding it to a different outcome.

LLMs, "AI", are an echo. Echoes are just our own words bounced back. Echoes can be fun to play with. Echoes can be somewhat helpful in navigating the world when we analyze the way they bounce back.

Echoes are not another intelligent being. Echoes are not thinking. Echoes are not providing anything else that hasn't already been said before.

Great dialogue can come from radical emotional honesty. But in most real conversations, people

dodge questions

answer indirectly

lie (badly)

change the subject

crack jokes to avoid serious answers

lie (convincingly)

say half of what they mean

tell the truth but get so anxious/angry/defensive others now think they're lying

If your dialogue feels unnatural, it might be because everyone is saying exactly what they think, or articulating their thoughts too well. Try letting characters hide things instead.

people don’t always speak in full sentences,

slang can change depending on age range, demographic, etc. &

Meanwhile this was what various medical professionals in that reddit thread had to say about it.