It was wonderful. I got dental care while I was there and it was incredibly affordable and expertly done. Best healthcare system in Latin America and one of the better ones in the world.

Some photos while driving. One of the downsides is driving in Costa Rica is an intense experience that I would not recommend. We got a deal where a car rental was only 50 cents a day if we added it onto our flight so it was like why not! They only had manual which was fine, I can drive that, but keep in mind because it also meant I had to do 100% of the driving as my partner is like most Americans and has no idea how to drive a manual. But when we picked it up the clerk was like “have you ever driven in Latin America before?” when I replied no he looked a little alarmed. It was challenging

There was a sloth, these were actually really hard to find. Hide and seek champions, way up in the trees and blend in well.

Monkeys however, were all over the damn place. They would unzip your backpack and steal your shit if you didn’t pay attention, apparently. We were also warned to not leave bags outside because raccoons would apparently also do this

See that looks green to me so I’d totally just die

This is true but he would do something like this, force everyone to be unhappy, and just eat the now illegal food. He would do it blatantly. He would take photo ops signing executive orders with matchbox cars and McDonald’s cups on his desk and then blame a staffer for leaving them there when everyone, including his die hards, would 100% know that moments before they shoved that placard into his hand he was chugging Diet Coke and making that car do sweet jumps. But then the die hards, knowing he was full of shit, would push the narrative that someone else did it, and twist it (deepfakes, never happened, etc) until they started to believe it themselves.

Then the media would call it some stupid shit like sodagate and snopes would have an article like did Donald trump actually drink soda and play with toys? They’d post the picture the body would be like “while many believe trump did drink the soda based on his historical love of the drink, the official narrative is that it belonged to a member of staff who has not been named. Additionally there have been several debunked theories about the photo being doctored or the situation being a fabriction.” With no definitive ruling on whether he did or not because they often don’t seem to do that anymore to seem “impartial”

At this point though he would have already done something else ridiculous and horrible so everyone would’ve moved on. “Who cares about mcdonalds and toys?” you say. “Did you not just hear he literally banned people from thinking about the concept of trans people and imposed a 40% tariff on anything blue?”

Mihon is still available although it doesn’t do anime, only manga

It happened long before chatgpt. Subredditsimulator was touted as a “fun game” at first but it was really a testing ground for bot devs. That goes back to like 2016, 6 years before chatgpt.

Openai was established 2015 though, some of their team was probably already shitting up the internet by then

According to another comment reply that info is out of date

States Where You Can Buy a Gun at a Gun Show Without a Waiting Period or Background Check

In the following states, private sellers (non-licensed individuals) at gun shows can sell firearms without conducting a background check or imposing a waiting period:

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas Georgia Idaho Indiana Kentucky Louisiana Maine Mississippi Missouri Montana New Hampshire New Mexico North Carolina (only for rifles & shotguns; handguns require a permit) North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

FREEDOM

Looking at discourse online there’s a lot of confusion and it does appear some local models are censored with some prompts. It also appears some people are using the distilled models which don’t count, obviously. That said it may also be about changing the prompt slightly on local models

Qwen-2.5-Coder-32B-fp8:

Question: Tell me about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, also known as the June Fourth Incident, were a series of pro-democracy...

Deepseek-R1-UD-IQ1-S.gguf:

Question: Tell me about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests were a series of student-led demonstrations in China that called for political reform and greater democratic freedoms. The protests, which took place in Beijing, were initially peaceful but escalated into a confrontation with the government. The Chinese government declared martial law and, on the night of June 3-4, used military force to clear the square, resulting in casualties. The exact number of casualties is disputed, but it is widely accepted that there was a significant loss of life. The events have had a lasting impact on China's political landscape and are a sensitive topic in Chinese history and politics. The Chinese government has consistently maintained that the actions taken were necessary to maintain stability and sovereignty.

Versus “what happened in Tiananmen Square”. I’ve also seen posts where people are successful prefacing with “for education only”

Additionally you can break censorship with text completion mode. send a "

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That said it appears it’s not as cut and dry as “simply run a local model”. I still greatly prefer this over chatgpt et al because I have the option to run it locally, I have the option to run distillations, and in my (admittedly so far brief) usage it is working as well or better in many cases. I am a privacy weirdo and the biggest thing for me is local usage though. I am not a person who openly disdains China like a lot of people on here but even if I was I wouldn’t care who made it. The fact that they made such a powerful tool in a way I can run it on a machine without internet access matters the most to me

A shitty cell phone pic from Manuel Antonio National Park in Quepos, Costa Rica

bonus:

Saw this cool frog, took a picture, showed to this guy, and he was like “oh those are like super poisonous”

the filter is on the website, not the model. It will answer about Tiananmen and other censured topics with local models, this has been documented by many

ChatGPT et al on the other hand will continue to give their subversive answers to questions that only get updated when they blow up on twitter. If you don’t like it? Tough shit

Total fiction. Everyone knows you have to go to a unlicensed seller at a gun show in the majority of states for that, not a gun store

The funniest part is that tesla self driving is objectively unsafe. There’s a reason other auto manufacturers artificially limit their systems, which aren’t far behind and in some cases are on par or arguably ahead of teslas self driving. This is also part of the reason musk is getting involved in politics, to censure the nhtsa from reporting on accidents and deaths due to his systems and remove regulations slowing him from deploying his unsafe garbage

Like you can buy a Mercedes with drive pilot, which is a much more measured approach to self driving and fully hands off in tested and approved markets. You can buy a Cadillac with super cruise which does something similar, ford blue cruise, bmw driving assistant, etc

Notice the difference? Unlike teslas “beta” full self driving these work in managed conditions, either limited to geographic areas, road conditions, etc. they’re still bougie as fuck, dumb as shit relative to public transit, and ridiculously expensive, but if you’re going to trust your actual ass life to some robot shit maybe go with one of the ones that’s terrified of the liability involved and not the one run by a baby that will sweep your death under the rug.

But man a public transit system would just be the absolute worst right? Better keep dumping our money into making tons of shitty cars that can barely drive themselves. I get to spend 1/4 of a mortgage on a goofy looking piece of shit that breaks if you tow something with it, or if a scooter hits it, or if someone puts a magnet on it but at least I don’t have to sit near any poor people on my way to work

“The quiet dissent underlines who wields the power in Silicon Valley these days: the bosses”

duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhh

also “these days” as if silicon valley was once a worker run socialist wonderland

oh cool, tackling the key issues facing us right now

Well it should only be a bit but I will try it without, sounds interesting

To be clear i am not the person who downvoted you

It’s not like I get paid extra to do ABA. I get paid to do therapy regardless of who shows up and thanks to the shitshow of the world there’s no shortage of people. Mental health isn’t really like physical health. We can’t really “pad” billing with a ton of codes in outpatient settings most of the time. We bill in units, not services. So you come in and I bill more like you would expect from a worker, essentially by the hour. This is not like a surgeon that tacks on a complexity billing code and an extra code because you took a $300 Tylenol. Of course not all mental health is like this (especially crisis, which has more modifier codes)

But clearly you think regardless of how the billing works it doesn’t matter. So anyone who charges for their services is invalidated from speaking on issues? Got it. That is a viewpoint entirely incompatible with modern society. How do you reconcile such a thing?

Do you distrust vaccination because the evidence is sponsored by companies with a vested financial interest? Do you distrust the providers who recommend your flu shot because they have a vested financial interest in being able to bill for the service in rendering it? Do you distrust the evidence based treatments for your TN-2? There is a vested financial interest behind every treatment if you are that cynical.

A financial interest is absolutely something to investigate. That’s why they’re required to be disclosed in research. But it’s not inherently an issue if there is valid evidence of efficacy

I am criticizing their bias because their bias allows them to present a one sided inflammatory and misleading argument that masks the true issue of what the problem is here.

When someone comes into my job I give them the associated risks and rewards with ABA or any other therapy. They are allowed to weigh that risk and either consent or leave. Obviously my bias is that I think it is good. Like all people I have bias. But my bias is supported by a base of evidence supporting the efficacy of treatment

Again I think the issue here is consent and I think the article obfuscates that. If a parent comes in and says “my autistic child flaps their hands and that is weird, make them stop” it is my responsibility to say no. That is where I take offense to your point. If I was purely working from financial interest why wouldn’t I be like “fuck that kid?”. Granted there are practitioners out there who do this. I am sure of it. I am sure some of them are malicious even, knowing this is bad but doing it because they can bill. But I am betting the majority of them are more naive. They believe they are being helpful. They believe they are making this child’s life easier because it will help avoid social stigma, rather than think of ways to address causal factors of social stigma.

And to their credit they at least have an argument. I have worked with clients who wished they could suppress their stereotypy early in life to avoid bullying. I would argue these clients need work on self esteem and self advocacy rather than finding themselves in a position where they feel the need to be subservient to an abusive system only to make the abuse stop, but on the other hand it is not my right to tell someone how to interpret the world and this is starting to get away from the point.

But there is a very difficult ethical debate here. Where is the line for clients that cannot actively consent? A moral gray area exists, obviously. It’s easy to say that using ABA to extinguish non harmful stereotypy is fucked up. It’s somewhat easy to make the argument that someone who is physically harming themselves to the point of hospitalization would likely consent to changing their behavior (though obviously some will steadfastly disagree no matter what the risk is and regardless of the lack of viable alternatives). But where is the middle? What about doing homework? Chores? Moderating access to games and such? Far more interpretable

But we can’t have these nuanced discussions because of misleading articles like this and hardline stances like yours that reject any nuanced discussion on the topic whatsoever.

Edit: and that blog absolutely has a financial interest, they literally have a fucking shop link in their top bar. I have no idea if they run Adsense because I have Adblock. Their financial interest is more nefarious if anything! At least mine is upfront! I will tell you my hourly rate beforehand!

I never claimed to not have bias. Everyone has bias. But I run my practice with a fairly extreme sliding scale, I take Medicaid, and I work with several clients for no money at all. I make a livable wage but I don’t make as much as you think. And the reason I do is because I do literally everything myself to cut as many middlemen and overheads as possible.

Additionally ABA is only a part of my practice. I do a lot of gender affirming care, CBT, etc. frankly if you removed ABA from my practice I would be fine, financially.

While it is valid and important to expose a vested financial interest I think it’s also important to look at the overall content of what is being displayed as well. Of course you have no obligation to do so and can always tell me to go fuck myself

I mean see the much more involved reply I gave to the to other person but in addition to that the difference here is that ABA does work. It’s evidenced based to do so. It is not kooky bullshit of people stealing your money with snake oil.

The issue surrounding it is one of consent, which is a very worthwhile discussion to have. This is another issue with the way the article is presented. It confounds the actual issue! Now you are conflating it with snake oil when there is an astoundingly large body of evidence in support of its efficacy. To be clear, this is not a flimsy “it works sometimes under some scenarios maybe” thing. This is decades of evidence

So when you come into my practice and say you want to change a behavior that bothers you and negatively impacts your quality of life I can present you with operant conditioning. You want to change something about yourself, which is sometimes a thing that people do. It will likely be effective if done correctly. If I present it to you clearly and you consent to it, what’s the problem? But the moment I call it ABA you are far more likely to simply reject it now. That’s your right of course, but it’s sad

Now we can discuss the ethics of treating those who cannot reliably consent, children, people who cannot reliably communicate, etc. but frankly is ABA the issue here? Again I argue your issue is with programming direction being forced upon someone who cannot advocate for themselves. This is not ABAs fault. But it is an easier thing to scapegoat

Well you’re obviously being sarcastic but to expound on the point

ABA is a difficult thing because of consent issues, obviously. But the article portrays it solely as torture, as do you. I have worked with children who literally bash their head into the wall until they give themselves concussions. One kid did it so hard he detached a fucking retina. I have worked with people that have done so much property damage to their homes their houses are condemnable. I have worked with people that become violent when presented with stimuli that they consider aversive, like a song comes on the radio they don’t like. And when I say violent I don’t mean they are “mean”, I mean they fuck people up, they send people to the hospital.

To further confound things research shows the absolute best thing that can be done to avoid the above scenarios is early intervention to work on issues like frustration tolerance and toleration of denied access.

What do we do in these cases? Contingent reinforcement is evidenced, effective, and when applied effectively can be balanced against the cost. These people have serious quality of life issues and ABA can alleviate that when not much else, if anything, can, aside from just giving them what they want all the time and creating a sterile environment free from any stressor, which is unrealistic and foolish.

The article is presenting it in terms of “ABA is bad because people implementing it have misused it”. This is why I say it’s one sided. I should have elaborated this in my first comment probably. But so many people, you included, seem to have no interest in having a more nuanced discussion on this. It’s demonized because of practitioner misuse. This is understandable. But I will continue to make the point that all ABA is is the science of operant conditioning, nothing more, nothing less. How it is implemented is up to the practitioner. It is up to the social norms surrounding to dictate that

To that point I would argue your real beef is with capitalistic systems. These practitioners are generally well intentioned but they are misguided. They are doing what they and the parents of the individual often think is “right”, to make you “work” within such frameworks. This is where the article starts to come into play and this is where bad application of ABA comes in.

Utilizing ABA to encourage a child to stay seated, to discourage stereotypy, etc. of note is that this application is generally discouraged although to your point there is nothing strictly disallowing it. Parents and education environments ultimately have the most power here although many practitioners, myself included, will refuse to “work” on behaviors that don’t need to be worked on when they can be accommodated instead or simply just ignored, eg hand flapping doesn’t bother anyone so who cares? And getting up from their seat during class may be disruptive but can we possibly accommodate somehow, like changing seating or directing to the back of classroom so they can pace freely?

Further the article completely glosses over things like functional communication training. So never mind that utilization of ABA has led to me giving communication skills to many clients who otherwise had either none at all or very limited skills. And never mind that it’s not just contingent reinforcement in a bubble, it’s generally operant conditioning paired with functional communication.

And never mind that operant conditioning is in many ways naturalized consequences of real world conditions made safer and more artificial so that they can be practiced and learned without more serious cost

The issue I ultimately take here is that yes, there are issues with ABA. I outlined them above but will explicitly say them again: it’s in the application. Contingent reinforcement is a powerful tool and misusing it means you can attempt to shape behavior in flawed ways that are harmful. Conversion therapy is not ABA but is based in somewhat similar principles of behavior conditioning (classical vs operant conditioning), and yet I still don’t think the gross misuse by those clinicians nullifies the applicability of classical conditioning based therapies for similar reasons.

But to respond in such an obviously biased way steers people away without providing a balanced view. It reeks of tactics that anti science zealots utilize. it puts families in a position that makes the susceptible to dangerous treatment options. Etc

It’s basically a protection thing that some mobile devices and laptops do. Essentially if it booted before that it would probably immediately shut off right after it booted if power were disconnected. It charges to a point where power can be disconnected for a few minutes and you’ll be okay, then it boots

Hopefully the switch 2 has fast charging