Valentin @apexys - Tumblr Blog

In the spirit of my high school German textbook Wie geht's?, which tried to offer a fun, down-to-Earth, contemporary course in German teaching phrases useful even at the beginner level, I have decided I am going to write a German textbook that will get you started with everything you need to know to function in modern German society. It's going to be called Sie Brauchen Ein Anderes Formular.

Chapter 1: Unterlagen und Anträge will introduce you to that most essential element of German society: filling out paperwork. You'll learn to recognize basic vocabulary like Anschrift, Name und Vorname, Addresse, and Postleitzahl. You'll be introduced to rich German cultural practices, like filling out paperwork. You'll learn to tell delightful jokes, like Haben die diese Informationen nicht schon? and Liest denn niemand mehr seine E-Mails? You'll experience medieval customs which are alive and well in Germany, like mailing paper letters to deal with large organizations, and receiving them in return. And, of course, you will learn to socialize with other Germans while bonding over shared activities, like filling out paperwork.

Chapter 2: Alltägliche Belastigungen will cover going out, getting around, and getting things done. You'll learn how to say außer Betrieb, defekt, and nicht einsatzbereit. You'll learn how to make everyday conversation with phrases like Tut mir leid, mein Zug hatte Verspätung, and Ich habe versucht anzurufen, aber es war ständig besetzt. You'll learn about treasured German folkways like the Schuldenbremse and Investitionsschau. And you'll even learn about German mythology, and the tale of the invisible Digitalisierungsinitiative.

Chapter 3: Das Ist Nicht Richtig will teach you how to flourish in German society. You will learn, of course, that Sie brauchen ein anderes Formular. You'll learn how to say Das steht nicht auf Ihrer Webseite; Nein, wirklich, ich habe nachgeschaut; and Woher hätte ich das bitte wissen sollen?, and to recognize common phrases like Das ist nicht mein Problem and Und was soll ich Ihrer Meinung nach dagegen tun? And you'll learn how to ingratiate yourself with others with phrases like Sie haben Recht, das ist mein Fehler; Sie haben Recht, es ist nicht Ihre Aufgabe, so etwas zu wissen; and Mir ist bewusst, dass es unzumutbar ist, von Ihnen zu verlangen, Ihre Arbeit zu machen.

Chapter 4: Systemversagen will delve deeper into the rich texture of German life. You'll learn about everyday heroes, like Apotheker and Apothekerin who keep dangerous drugs like Paracetamol off the streets. You'll learn to blend in with phrases like Natürlich müssen wir die heimische Autoindustrie schützen, and Atomkraft ist eine Umweltkatastrophe, deshalb müssen wir weiter Kohle abbauen. And you'll learn about important ceremonial practices like Datenschutz, around which all of German society is oriented, though nobody seems to remember why.

Chapter 5: Im Rahmen Bleiben will help you embrace the diversity of German society by mastering the untranslatable art of Angepasstheit. You'll learn how to say Warum willst du das denn?, Das ist doch nicht normal, and Die macht das doch nur, um Aufmerksamkeit zu bekommen. You'll learn how to pass this gift onto others through ungebetene Kritik an Fremden, and why everything has its ordnende gesellschaftliche Funktion and everybody has their part to play. And after that, I'll start working on my next language textbook: L'Italia Non È Mica Meglio, Ma Almeno Il Tempo È Bello.

tli-burn

First off, I pop on my hazards. Of course, I am very much a hazard; warding off other drivers is part of the point. The main reason, though, is that it’s my metronome. With external audio sources disallowed, the blinkers are the heartbeat of the run. At this point in my career I’m deeply attuned to my click, and feel a strange disgust at the different cadences in other cars.

Time check - 3:30 am. Whole thing should be done by 4:10, comfortably before the early commuters. Drunk drivers or cops are always a possibility but you have to put it out of your mind, you can’t afford the mental space to be concerned. Everyone else on the road will keep their distance.

All windows down, sound is everything for following the early lines up onto 280. On the bridge sprint I’d roll them up to keep the wind from drowning out my click.

An hour ago, I timed a couple 45 mph brake cycles. I check before every run. If the brake pads have worn down it’ll throw off your whole timing, and then you’re left deciding whether to give up or try to account for the error in your head. Timing loss was the leading cause of runner deaths.

cats_the_movie set a 35:32 a week ago and now I’m #2. I haven’t been #2 since the run gained popularity a couple years back. I’m not gonna be the old defeated master in a fucking summoning salt video.

I pop on my dashcam and fire up the stream. “Hey guys, if you’re up this late you’re a real one. This is San Francisco-Oakland blindfold percent.”

targetedknowledge

drtanner

You may or may not regret unmuting this one. :')

literallymechanical

It was the size of my hand 😭

apexys

Like this, or bigger?

I think the one in the image is a “Sägebock” (Prionus Coriarius), they can get about twice as big as shown here.

mortalityplays

much less alarmed by the 'cognitive impact' of LLM use than I am by the fact that so many people apparently believe your brain can atrophy or permanently lose function in the space of four months because you used fancy sparknotes to write a couple of essays

mortalityplays

EVIL STUDY METHOD that will KILL YOUR BRAINCELLS is barely conceptually distinct from "roko's basilisk is a cognitohazard". scary thought pattern shuts down your brain on contact!!! ahhh!!!

apexys

How many dead fish did they put into the MRI this time?

visenyaism

j'adore le franglish content le code switching c'est tellement fun je sautille from a language to another like a gazelle et toi aussi tant que tu voudras :)

OUAIS baby we are so fucking back. franglais est parfait parce que americans get mad AND it sends evil psychic vibes à l’académie française. The phrase “qu’est-ce qu’y’all doing aujourd’hui” came out of my mouth this evening and i think that might be the pinnacle of human language. i love being annoying

turnabout

“qu’est-ce qu’y’all doing aujourd’hui” is gonna stay with me for a minute.

animate-mush

The issue of Americans vs Soft-Boiled eggs has come up so: if you are (US) American, tell me how familiar you are with soft-boiled eggs

Poll: how much do Americans eat soft-boiled eggs?

I regularly eat soft-boiled eggs

I occasionally eat soft-boiled eggs

I have eaten a soft-boiled egg

I do not eat soft-boiled eggs but other people do and it's unremarkable

I do not eat soft-boiled eggs but I know someone who does, and it's remarkable

I do not eat soft-boiler eggs but my parents or grandparents used to

Nobody I know eats soft-boiled eggs but I am familiar with the concept

I have only read about soft-boiled eggs in books

I have never heard of soft-boiled eggs

I am not American and I eat soft-boiled eggs

I am not American and I do not eat soft-boiled eggs (but I do eat other eggs)

I am not American and I do not eat eggs

Voting ended onMay 11, 2025

animate-mush

Americans who do NOT eat soft-boiled eggs regularly, why not?

Poll: I don't eat soft-boiled eggs because

I don't know what they are

It has simply never occurred to me

I actively dislike them

They are prohibitive to prepare or serve

There is a food-safety issue

I eat eggs but I don't cook them

I don't eat eggs

Voting ended onMay 11, 2025

animate-mush

Americans who DO eat soft-boiled eggs, is there a regional component?

Poll: I eat soft-boiled eggs and I am from

the Pacific Northwest

the Southwest

Mountain Time

the Great Plains

the Midwest

Appalachia

New England

the rest of the Eastern Seaboard

the South

Islands

I learned to eat soft-boiled eggs abroad

I only eat soft-boiled eggs on Ramen

Voting ended onMay 11, 2025

businesstiramisu

I learned about them either from European hotel breakfast or from my grandfather (born in Germany). Either way i definitely associate soft-boiled eggs with Germans. (although tbh the hotel might not have been in germany, I don't remember.)

alexanderwales

My dad speaks German, and when he was in college he did a tour of Germany, staying in a lot of different places. Soft-boiled eggs were part of the breakfast in most places, served in an egg cup, and he said the further south he went, the softer they were, until eventually they were close to being raw, and difficult for him to eat because of how unused to it he was.

I've always wondered whether this observation was true, and have never had a German who'd know about regional variations in egg preparation to ask, but this also would have been about fifty years ago, so maybe eating soft-boiled eggs out of egg cups is less of a thing.

apexys

Soft boiled eggs are also the reason this thing exists: The Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher

(from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eierk%C3%B6pfer?wprov=sfti1#)

Because, you know, the egg is already in a shell, so if you cleanly divide it into two halves, your Eierbecher doesn’t become dirty.

You put the device on the egg, raise the metal ball and let it drop. The cup has a sharp, folded-in-corner around its inner rim which, with the impulse from the drop, flexes over the shell, cuts it, and holds on to the upper half so you can lift it off.

To the regional thing: I’m from Schleswig-Holstein and both me as well as many people I know eat soft-boiled eggs. I also haven’t noticed the eggs being softer-boiled the further south I went. But that’s just anecdotal.

loving-n0t-heyting

recently printed out a paperback copy of a very lengthy pdf i generated, comparing that to the cost of recent academic book i ordered thru the mail, and it really does hammer home the all but totally parasitic nature of academic publishing. a full order of magnitude difference in price, for the (roughly) same amount of text printed and shipped by some print-on-demand vanity press vs printed and sold in bulk by a respectable university publishing house. passing on, ofc, zero of the profits to the author (who can generally be expected to typeset shit on their own given that latex exists). not that id rather those profits be passed on either, thats a terrible system. the point is that we could be getting the SAME FUCKING PRODUCT for LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS LESS PER ITEM if it were not for these rent seeking thieves plundering academia for profit. pure societal drain

apexys

I’m literally planning to get into bookbinding because of this.

A lot of foundational texts in comp sci are creative commons or MIT licensed and yet the books cost upwards of 80€.

Plus, a leather bound copy with gold lettering just looks nicer on my shelf, you know?

tis-i-german-potato

What is a bonbon?

I was listening to an american podcast and they were talking about bonbons being chocolates which - as a german - confused me, so I decided to look it up.

Apparently the word bonbon in english means what we call Praline??? Huh????

So now I am asking once more: Tumblr what is a bonbon to you?

A: a type of hard candy

B: a type of chocolate

What do you think of as a bonbon?

A are bonbons! (german speaking)

A are bonbons! (not german speaking)

B are bonbons! (german speaking)

B are bonbons! (not german speaking)

Both (please elaborate)

Neither (please elaborate)

Voting ended onJan 5, 2025

sharoscylla

usamerican here who does not receive treats from other people: i've been waiting 38 years to be given a bonbon in order to form a mental image of what a bonbon is and i've never been given one. my imagination of a bonbon was more along the lines of those little cream puff thingies that are fancy little round guys, but dipped in chocolate

in unrelated news if anybody wants to lavish me with bonbons let me know. but not if they're yucky.

sleepymccoy

Well I feel like I'm coming out of left field with a chair, but in Australia this is also a bonbon

But of the choices id say chocolate. Doesn't change that my first thought when you say bonbon is the Christmas cracker ya know

apexys

Kinder Schokobons – Wikipedia

For your consideration

alexanderwales

Reached a point in Nate Silver's new book, On the Edge where he talks about what ChatGPT told him:

"More than forty years I've been doing innovation. I can't think of a single example of a large innovation that came from an expected player or a large player," Vinod Khosla told me. Taken literally, this is an exaggeration - a ChatGPT query turned up counterexamples of products like the Sony Walkman, the IBM PC, and the iPhone that were developed by well-established brands.

Nate. Come on man. Why are you asking ChatGPT this? Why is this a ChatGPT question? Why are you telling me that you're getting answers from ChatGPT? Why are you writing in a book that this is where you're getting your information from?

I don't think there's a problem with asking ChatGPT stuff per se. It's like a worse, more expensive Wikipedia that lies to you sometimes. But you then have to go actually think about the answers and whether they fit the question, and do research to see whether those answers actually comport with reality, and be ready to say "well, the machine was full of shit again", which is often the case.

I guess I'm just baffled by referencing ChatGPT as a method of investigation, like its an admission that Nate Silver would rather go to the machine than sit and think to himself about the issue for five minutes, or go to a contrary source to get their quote. I don't necessarily think that he should have lied about where he got that list from, but ... I don't know. It felt really lazy. I think if you're writing a pop science book, I want more from it than "I asked ChatGPT and here's what it told me".

(The book is full of interview snippets and anecdotes and halfway through, this is the first time that ChatGPT has shown up, but it does raise my skepticism levels of everything that's come before.)

the-dao-of-the-zerg

its an admission that Nate Silver would rather go to the machine than sit and think to himself about the issue for five minutes

I mean, ChatGPT takes 15 seconds. Why wouldn't you want to save yourself 5 minutes?

It felt really lazy.

Why is that a bad thing? Shouldn't you want to accomplish as much as you can with your energy, rather than wasting it where you don't have to? Where is this intuition coming from, that Hard Work is a moral good even when it accomplishes less?

I think if you're writing a pop science book, I want more from it than "I asked ChatGPT and here's what it told me".

One of the most useful things a science book can teach you are techniques for answering questions. He is teaching you that ChatGPT is a more useful tool than you're giving it credit for. It can, for example, take a complex query like "provide 3 counterexamples to this assertion" much, much faster than you can find the relevant information yourself.

Why are you asking ChatGPT this?

But you then have to go actually think about the answers and whether they fit the question

But that's the whole point: with this particular question, you don't need to spend any effort to investigate it's answer. (Or, at least, Nate Silver doesn't - maybe those answers aren't common knowledge any more?)

It's like a worse, more expensive Wikipedia that lies to you sometimes.

Wikipedia is just a worse, more expensive version of the primary sources, and it lies to you sometimes. Despite this, a lot of people find Wikipedia quite useful.

Sometimes all you need is a high level summary, and you're willing to accept some error margin. And sometimes you know enough about a topic to spot errors easily, but it's still helpful having a Rubber Duck to talk to ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging )

fnord888

There's nothing wrong with using ChatGPT by asking it for ideas and then verifying what it tells you. But that second step is important, so summarizing that process as "a ChatGPT query turned up..." is a problem. Even if Silver actually did verify it, omitting the verification from the summary means it's not actually presenting good "techniques for answering questions".

(If explaining the whole technique would take up too much time and ruin the flow, just don't mention ChatGPT rather than cite it as an apparent authority)

centrally-unplanned

I find the real issue here is the "fake insight" - thinking of "examples of big innovations that come from established players" does not take 5 minutes of research, it takes 0.1 seconds of thought. It is most recent innovations! The initial quote is just really stupid, or at minimum hopelessly vague ("big" innovations has no standard definition). Nate Silver did not ask Chat-GPT to help him think of an answer to a question he did not know, he already knew that Apple made IPhones and went to Chat-GPT to brand the answer that he wanted it to give him.

I will at least grant in this case that he is being tech-y in his answer and so wants to jazz it up because that is on-topic, but that is still a minimal defense for something I see all the time of people essentially "pretending" that they needed new AI tools to do simple tasks to make them seem more useful. Which is really dumb, because those tools are incredibly useful! You do not need to invent use cases, they have problems but they do a damn fine job of generating some text; just have it code an app for you and the strengths are obvious. But people are just so into the hype train right now that they feel the need to kneejerk promote it. (Tyler Cowen is the champion of this sin, but there are many others)

apexys

The example also made me think of this quote, from Douglas Adams’ “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”:

‘Well, Gordon’s great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program’s task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion.

gayarograce

FMK: Product Rule, Quotient Rule, Chain Rule

Fuck Product Rule, Marry Quotient Rule, Kill Chain Rule

Fuck Product Rule, Marry Chain Rule, Kill Quotient Rule

Fuck Quotient Rule, Marry Product Rule, Kill Chain Rule

Fuck Quotient Rule, Marry Chain Rule, Kill Product Rule

Fuck Chain Rule, Marry Product Rule, Kill Quotient Rule

Fuck Chain Rule, Marry Quotient Rule, Kill Product Rule

Results

Voting ended onNov 9, 2024

metamatar-deactivated20250401

CHAIN RULE IS AT THE HEART OF BACKPROPAGATION AND THEREFORE NEURAL NETWORKS!!!! WE'RE MARRYING

tanadrin

guy who is negatively polarized into being optimistic and upbeat because all the doomers on social media are just too annoying

#oh hey that’s me!

saranilssonbooks

A bit of Moby-Dick oceanography context:

Up until the mid 1870s, it was generally accepted that life could not exist below a depth of 550 meters. This is why some of Ishmael's whale theories are so off and why Ahab pictures the sea floor as a vast wasteland of bones and shipwrecks. 🌊

plaguedocboi

I mean. Can you blame them

plaguedocboi

Oh here it is!!!! The most unsettling thing Ahab/Ishmael might’ve believed about the deep sea

apexys

I think my favourite thing about the deep sea is just how hard it is to fathom from above.

Sonar reflects off any change in density, first you get the thermocline, when the warmer surface water gets replaced by colder subsurface water, then at some point the salt concentration changes and you another density change.

Go further down and you find a false bottom when your sonar reflects off myriads of lanternfish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_scattering_layer).

Deep scattering layer - Wikipedia

And at some point you actually get down there.

If you’re lucky, you hit rock.

You might also get a few new layers of thermal or haline density changes.

Or you get a layer of mud that’s slowly increasing in density and where the change between water and soil is somewhat fluid. The depth your sonar shows then depends on the frequency range you use.

Also, we don’t even actually know where the seafloor is for ~75% of the sea, we just estimate from satellite measurements.

And actual temperature or salt concentration measurements that you need to accurately calibrate your sonar are even rarer.

Here’s an interactive visualization of the most of the data we have so far: https://digitalearthviewer-glodap.geomar.de/ (doesn’t work on mobile)

Every dot on that globe is a temperature measurement collated by the GLODAP project (https://glodap.info).

Global Ocean Data Analysis Project Version 2

And that’s just sonar and temperature, think about how little has been photographed!

onrtrp

training a flock of starlings to precisely emulate the forward pass of the VGG-19 convolutional neural network architecture with their murmurations

tuulikki

tanadrin

the elements at the end of the periodic table barely feel like real elements to me. idk, if you can't hold a lump of it in your hand without it exploding due to radioactivity--man, radioactivity is barely the right word, it's a loose mass of neutrons and protons that only just holds together for a few microseconds--you can't do chemistry with it. it's not a chemical element, in the sense it is not found as part of any compounds on Earth or in space, because it does not exist long enough to form chemical bonds. i get that you wanna finish out the last period, make the bottom right corner nice and square. but you're not doing chemistry. you're doing Stupid Particle Accelerator Tricks.

apexys

The same way some people think it’s only work if you hit things with a hammer, maybe elements should only count if you can hit them with a hammer.