aiislove
1d ago
Thanks for posting. Fan of fragrances here myself. I can second Philosykos by Diptyque, I actually prefer the solid of this one. A beautiful waxy fig fragrance. You mentioned Secretions Magnifiques- I still get random whiffs of things that remind me of this occasionally, so terrible haha.
I have to shout out the podcast The Perfume Nationalist- strong recommendation if you're interested in fragrance and/or media and culture from a right wing perspective. Especially fond of the earliest episodes but I still listen to his new episodes as well.
aiislove
2d ago
You’re welcome. It’s surprising to me too that the current models I tried couldn’t complete the task. I use ai almost every day for various tasks and it still surprises me nearly every day but half the time I’m surprised at how good it is at tasks that were impossible a few years or months ago and half the time I’m surprised at how bad it still is at simple tasks. That’s why I’m very skeptical of AGI/ASI happening in the next decade personally
aiislove
3d ago
Your results are going to depend on two things: What your detailed line chart images look like (including how detailed they are and the resolution) and what ai you use to analyze the images.
I quickly googled "detailed line chart images" and picked a line chart from the results (the second one on this page: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/linechart.asp ) and fed the image to both Gemini and ChatGPT. If the charts you need to analyze are harder to read than this (for example something with many lines in different colors that overlap) ai is going to have a harder time. I don't know what kind of data extraction you're looking to do specifically so the prompt I added with each image was just "Please extract the data from this line chart."
ChatGPT (OpenAI’s GPT-4-turbo model): The initial response was just telling me the labels of the X and Y axis with upper and lower bounds. It then asked I wanted it to digitize the file and extract approximate data points from it and I said yes. It then ran the chart through an edge detection algo and started to run another process on the image but I only have the free version so it said it couldn't complete the task. I then asked it to just do it without the advanced process and it gave me data points but they were completely inaccurate.
Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview: It gave me a table but it made some strange errors, like giving random amounts of days between dates and some inaccurate data. I would not trust it without checking it closely or re-prompting it with more specific directions after making mistakes.
For fun, I also pulled up the chart with the screen streaming on Gemini 2.0 Flash 001. It correctly read the x and y axis information. I then asked it to give me a weekly approximate value based on the chart and it started out accurate but started giving random numbers after that.
With most AI things, it takes quite a bit of trial and error to find the right model that does what you want it to do.
Since you're asking for an explanation like you're truly stupid I will also explain some things I didn't mention earlier below.
ChatGPT is accessed at ChatGPT.com . I just used the free base model that is default on the site now (OpenAI’s GPT-4-turbo model.) Gemini flash models are accessed at aistudio.google.com and they have a bunch of different models (change under "Run Settings" at the right.) If you want to stream from your webcam or stream your desktop (so the ai is actually looking at your webcam image or your desktop itself) use "Stream" from the menu on the left. Different models have different abilities (Gemini 2.0 Flash is the only one with image generation for example) so just play with them to find one that works best for the task you're doing. There are other chat bots available (I used to use llama at huggingface.co/chat/ but the site isn't loading for me today so idk.)
I know I have ai in my username but I am not a developer or advanced technician at all, I use it mainly for creative/art purposes so I'm interested to hear other people's responses as well. If anyone knows better ais to use for tasks like this I'd like to know.
Let me know if this all makes sense or you want me to explain anything better. Your best bet is just going straight to gemini or chatgpt and feeding it images of your charts and see what works for yourself with trial and error.
aiislove
7d ago
I think it's interesting that someone could have such uneven results... Do you think you could like, practice and train at the memory and spatial tasks and get better at them over time if you tried? Are you just apathetic to those sorts of tasks compared with verbal skills? Did you excel at, say, english and history classes in school and do worse in other subjects?
aiislove
7d ago
I think 135 is really good for verbal if English is your second language so I'm impressed personally. I did the same technique with the shape rotation that you described (identify the one plane then the other sticking out part.) I honestly already forget what the CP part of the test was so I can't comment on your questions at the end
aiislove
9d ago
Anybody down to take an online IQ test? It's not timed but according to the site takes up to 20 minutes to complete.
Feel free to share your scores. I'll go first.
Full Scale: 138
Memory: 136
Verbal: 137
Spatial: 141
I'm not surprised my memory was the lowest of the three, I feel like I've always had a bad memory (and I hate that card game called Memory where you flip over the cards to make pairs.) I always wonder if the synonym thing is really the best way to measure verbal intelligence: I just don't care to memorize obscure words which I feel drags my score down but it just seems like a waste of time to remember words that I never encounter and can simply look up the other 99 percent of the time that I'm not taking an online IQ test. Besides that, if I can imagine that a word means something else, that isn't really valued in this test either, but it would be useful if I was writing poetry or a song or something. (Like if the word is "big" and a syononym option is "ebullient," I know that ebullient doesn't mean big but spiritually, to me, it has the essence of bigness...) But I guess the intelligence to override my imagination is what the test measures. I'd rather be imaginative than book smart though, really. The spatial portion was probably the closest to measuring "imagination" in that you need to imagine the shapes rotated in your mind. I feel like I used to be much faster at this, I found myself rechecking my answers quite a few times (of course the test was untimed so I could do that without penalty.)
aiislove
4mo ago
Well the problem is that it isn't just cheap plastic crap that's going to get more expensive... All the food you eat in the US relies on Chinese produced knives and forks and cutting boards, the farmers in america harvesting the food rely on Chinese produced shirts and jeans. And so on. When the Chinese inevitably impose counter tariffs the food they used to import from the US will stop being bought disrupting the agriculture industry, the knock on effects will be on everyone not just people you're characterizing as brainless consoomers
aiislove
4mo ago
Ok, I understand this reasoning behind the tariffs, but I don't understand how that justifies the massive price increases that will inevitably result from them, which won't be just on the price of knockoff legos and polyester dresses but also everything else because everyone will need more money to buy fewer and fewer goods as the supply will shrink, people won't be switching to domestic goods (especially not right away) they will just switch to no goods at all, leading to a decline in the quality of life with inflation at the same time, and I don't think there's enough American patriotism or anti-Chinese sentiment to go around to keep the economy afloat without seeing blood in the streets
aiislove
4mo ago
Ok but the Chinese are also better workers than Americans, you just ask factories in China to make you stuff and they make you what you want, redoing entire production runs of faulty product is so cheap in China that they can do this without blinking, they work like slaves and don't even mind, the inefficiencies of the US labor force aren't present in East Asia...
aiislove
4mo ago
What is up with the proposed Trump tariffs? I work in ecommerce and everything comes from China. If it wasn't made in China it was made with parts that came from China. Get on temu or aliexpress. Things are so cheap on those sites that you would have to impose tariffs of like 300% before it would be profitable to produce them in the US instead. And reshoring manufacturing is just going to open the flood gates of immigrants (see: Italian villages filled with Chinese workers shipped in from China who pump out goods that say "Made in Italy.")
aiislove
5mo ago
I occasionally use an LLM (LLaMA) as a therapist. If I’m feeling upset or have a specific psychological issue I want to get a better perspective on I will just go on there and explain my situation and ask for answers in a style I like (usually just asking them to respond as a therapist or an evo psych perspective or something like that.) When it gives me an answer that is too woke I will just say that the answer sounds ideologically motivated and I’d rather it would tell me the hard truth or a different perspective and 90% of the time it will give me a less annoying answer. I have done real therapy a handful of times in my life and the experiences have ranged from very annoying to somewhat helpful, I don’t like speaking honestly about myself to other people and especially not professional strangers. So I prefer to speak to an ai who can’t judge me and which doesn’t make me feel like I have to judge myself when sharing as well.
I can be creative with the prompting as well which I like, like I can think of whatever character or personality I’d want to get advice from and with a short prompt the ai can mimic whatever perspective I want.
I see it as useful for me, as a grown man who understands how ai and therapy are meant to work broadly, but I don’t think it should replace real therapy for most people (like children or the elderly or normal people who are fine with talking to human beings.)
Tequilamockingbird’s point below about the ai providing validation seems valid though. I could easily prompt the ai to just agree with whatever I’m saying and always tell me I’m right and everyone else is wrong so I try to avoid that failure mode, rather seeking more objective views or explanations of my issues rather than just what would make me feel more right.
Iranian Agents Plotted to Kill Donald Trump, Justice Department Says (non-paywalled link here)
Curious to know what people think of this. My initial cynical reaction was that the plot seems too convenient and that the US government is just trying to drum up support from the right wing young men who would be tasked with fighting a war against Israel in the future. I also am suspicious of why they would release the information about it so soon after it has been found out. I imagine the justice department could just bury the story or not report on it if they don't want people to know about it but it's headline news on WSJ and the NYT right now.
Why would Iran be more interested in killing Trump than Kamala or Biden? Does Iran see Trump as a massive threat? Is Iran just trying to sow chaos in the US?
aiislove
7mo ago
Based on what you've said, it sounds like you imagine that even in the ideal situation, a long-term gay relationship with partners in stable sex act roles isn't possible, or couldn't continue to be mutually beneficial?
I am sort of agnostic on this point, if I had to tell you exactly what I believe, it is that it is possible to have a long term mutually respectful relationship between two men that is mutually beneficial, but it is very very rare and requires huge amounts of respect and humility from both partners who also understand the true dynamic of the relationship. And that this is not exclusive to homosexuality but really to all long term relationships.
Why is it that you (and apparently your past sexual partners) think someone has to "deserve" particular sex roles?
Because when you are doing sex acts with a partner, as two men, unless you are kissing or 69ing, there is fundamentally an alpha and a beta position. Because you have to, usually subconsciously and even unknowingly between the two of you, work out how the act is going to go, and to violate the order can hurt both of you if you don't understand that it's happening as a violation of the order between you two.
How much of that is just contingent on you and them happening to physically not enjoy being the passive partner?
As I've pointed at before I don't really "not enjoy being the passive partner" (aside from anal sex which I do not enjoy bottoming,) indeed I don't mind being a passive partner orally for either a man who is my top who I respect, or a bottom who I also respect and wants me to blow him.
That seems like a very bold claim; I'd be interested to see you expand more specifically on why you think that is true.
In seventh grade, I went on a trip with other seventh graders. There was this girl, let's call her Brooke. We were all like 13, Brooke was a skinny, hot, popular girl. But she went around all the time complaining about how fat and ugly she was. It drove the rest of us kids all crazy because we all thought she was hot and skinny, and if she was fat and ugly then that made us all obese and hideous. Dating today in the US is like meeting a million men who act like they're Brooke who thinks she's fat and ugly when really they're hot and nice and need to see themselves as hot and nice in order to share their hotness and niceness with the people around them who want to enjoy it as well, and this can't happen when they're stuck feeling badly about themselves. (And before someone accuses me of acting entitled to someone else's hotness or niceness or whatever, I try to practice what I preach and share my good traits with those around me too.) It's so elementary, read The Rainbow Fish if you don't believe me.
aiislove
7mo ago
This seems to me a somewhat narrow view of gay sex.
These men were seeking a mechanical sort of gratification
On the contrary I think that to imagine sex between two human beings as "mechanical gratification" is the narrow view of sex. I personally don't mind being fingered or having small toys up my butt, I do think they feel good, but at the same time this is essentially a degrading act that you must accept or reject. A finger or object is entering your body, this can be violating, or if you have a respect for your partner it can be a positive experience.
Your last paragraph is interesting to me. In my opinion homosexuality is less egalitarian because when you are both the same thing you are inevitably hierarchically compared. One is bigger, one is smaller. With heterosexuality you have greater balance because you are both looking for something different and can offer your unique strengths to the other in a more naturally equal way.
aiislove
7mo ago
That was me, I'm back. I would say on the one hand that I don't know how you can read my post and think that the entire point is that it's a one sided stereotypical power dynamic concept when really what I am trying to get at is the need for mutual respect between partners and how that happens. The fact that other gay men don't like to hear anything I have to say and "clap back" at me further illustrates the frustration I feel with gay men, I am not here to sugar coat the experience or present the mainstream homosexual view of love and relationships and sex but rather point out the difficult aspects that underlie the entire situation. Besides that my post isn't really about gay sex at all but rather I am using something I think about all the time that people here aren't as familiar with to make broader points about power and relationships.
aiislove
7mo ago
Do you have experience with long term relationships?
Not a huge amount but I have been in two longer term relationships. I disagree that the dynamics don't apply in long term relationships, when I think of my own relationships and those of friends, as well as non-romantic relationships, they all seem to fit the power dynamic I've outlined. Even relationships with friends, parents, other family members, and so on. I suspect if you don't see it you're shielding yourself from seeing it, I don't know if I would have believed any of it 10 or 15 years ago but once the pattern emerged I can't unsee it now.
aiislove
7mo ago
In that case, why am I (and I’d imagine, your average American citizen) not familiar with these terrible slave trades and exploitations of labor while I’m reminded of American black slavery nearly every day? If this was football, and your weak team had a miracle one year and beat the strong team in the next county, I imagine you’d be happier to recount the glories of beating the strong team while ignoring the glories of beating all the weaker teams. Similarly white Americans have had a history of making their enemies out to be strong, portraying the native Americans they conquered as powerful because if they portrayed them as weak it would make them look unchristian and evil and sadistic. My historic understanding of the facts in my other comment may have been incorrect but I think the broad philosophy behind it is sound
aiislove
7mo ago
I guess, if you're a gay man who sees himself as a beta and imagines a man as "straight acting" then you're imagining a guy who is confident and secure in his masculinity and isn't effeminate. Effeminacy is a whole other thing that would take forever to unpack and it inevitably veers into trans/gender ideology which I just don't want to think about right now, not to mention that effeminacy is not limited to homosexual men really.
So, to try to parse your question, you're asking if the fact that most gay men do not see themselves as alpha that it makes them want straight acting men? Well, yes, because any gay man who is seeking an alpha has degraded himself as a beta on some level, he's not going to be "straight acting" enough to be someone else's alpha, and thus that's the problem, when he's inevitably surrounded by men more beta than he is who he can't provide love to because he doesn't have the love for himself he needs to give away. (It's getting late and I've sort of lost the plot, hopefully this makes sense.)
aiislove
7mo ago
Err, no I don't think this contradicts it. Basically I think men who see themselves as bottoms need to see themselves as tops to be happy and have healthy relationships with themselves and the people around them.
Sorry the terminology is kind of convoluted. Broadly, alpha = top = active while beta = bottom = passive. I used alpha and beta because it's more relevant to straight people and carries less of a specific meaning than the other two sets of terms which might make people think top/bottom = anal sex only whereas I am trying to describe the relationships more broadly.
I'm glad you found my post interesting, thanks for engaging.
aiislove
7mo ago
I remember ilforte of all people pushing back on the blacks vs whites argument that I tried putting forward a year or two ago. I don't know how to even respond to it really because in my experience black men are so obviously stronger and more dominant/aggressive than white men that I don't know what kind of evidence I could point to that would change your mind.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1167935/racial-diversity-nfl-players/
The stats are that 53% of NFL players are black while making up 15% of the American public. White men are only 24% of the players. Asians are 0.1% of NFL but 7.3% of the US population. This is all the evidence I need to reassert what anecdotally seems true in my experiences, maybe someone else can chime in.
Besides that I think white men were fine with the enslavement of black men because they perceived black men as physically dominant/superior in some way. They didn't enslave Asians or natives to any significant degree because enslaving someone smaller than you makes you look bad and doesn't jive as well with Christian theology (see David and Goliath, Nietzschean slave morality etc)
aiislove
7mo ago
No, it's not coercion. Ideally in the situation in your first paragraph, the boy who loses at wrestling is not being forced to pleasure the winner, he is pleasuring the winner because the winner deserves it. I do not want to pleasure a man who would coerce me into having sex, but I would respectfully pleasure him if I felt he deserved it.
In a way sex/rape IS just about power, but between two men you have the chance to respect the power or lack thereof between the two of you.
Presumably most gay men are gay because they enjoy being the receptive partner, leaving a dearth of men who enjoy being the active partner
No no no, well personally I don't find pleasure in being a receptive partner. (Granted, I particularly don't like being an anal bottom because it hurts me physically and feels degrading.) In romantic relationships I've had in the past where I've been the top, the bottom usually isn't that pleased with being a bottom either. He'll go along with it for a while if he really respects the top enough or disrespects himself too much. (This is where the age gap relationships comes into play, most adult men are ready to drop being a bottom in a relationship more quickly than younger men.) Most of my friends I've grown up with who were in long term gay relationships where both partners were in their 20s seem to break up when the bottom gets older and stops wanting to be the bottom.
Besides that, being a top is really more dangerous to the ego than being a bottom. The bottom gets to play a discriminatory role generally, and performing as a top is harder. Porn makes it look really easy but I'd say that topping anally is one of the most difficult things to do in sex- you have to stay hard for a long time, you have to find the hole, you have to do all these things, it's stressful and can be embarrassing. It takes a lot of confidence to feel like you deserve to top another guy. The problem is that today most men never achieve the confidence to top, even in oral sex.
aiislove
7mo ago
Basically, you have to begin by squaring the physical situation between yourself and the other person. There is fundamentally a difference between any two men that is 100% in the physical world. In a fight between two men, one will win, or there will be a draw. If I met a guy a foot taller than me with fifty pounds more muscle who was super bad at playing Cooking Mama for Nintendo DS and I was super good at it, it doesn't make me his top, it makes me better at a little game than him. If we had sex and I was using my super good abillities at playing Cooking Mama over him to make him suck my dick, it would be humiliating for both of us. If he was using his foot of height and 50 pounds of muscle on me to make me suck his dick, it would not humiliate either of us, I would have respect for his physical state. Later on, if he wants to play Cooking Mama together and I beat him, then it will make me feel good because we are both seeing each other for who we are. He is physically superior to me but I have these other traits that he can admire in me, whether it's being good at Cooking Mama or being smarter or richer or whatever.
Are you saying that in the gay dating world, the physically weak but self-confident and authoritative men should be submissive to anyone who’s physically stronger—that it just comes down to brute strength?
Well, I'm not saying that it "should" be that way as a prescriptive norm or something, I'm saying that basically you have to give credence to the brute strength between the two of you or it isn't going to work.
And so the problem is just that too many physically imposing specimens are too meek for their own good?
Yes, this is one of my frustrations with gay dating, that men who are physically superior to me don't see themselves as such. They compare themselves too much with men they imagine to be bigger or stronger than them and fail to respect themselves for the qualities they possess.
If so, how do you square that with younger men preferring an older partner, given that a 55-year-old is statistically quite likely to be weaker than a 25-year-old? (Also, surely that can’t actually be true, can it? “Older men, up to around age 55, are perceived as more attractive to… other younger men.” I was under the impression that youth is almost always the single most highly-prized characteristic among gay men. I swear I’ve heard that dating is almost impossible after 30 for most gay men, since everyone is always chasing the 20-year-olds.)
This sounds like a sort of dated concept, I do remember hearing this idea back in the early 00's or so but I really haven't heard gay men say this sort of thing in a long time. Anecdotally I am much more popular the older I get. I can imagine if a man wants to be a bottom that he is concerned he is getting too old and would have this perspective, but he really should just man up and be a top for the sake of everyone around him and his own dignity.
Also, with regard to the birth order effect,
That makes sense, it is my understanding as well that it is considered by science to have more of a biological cause but there is also a great bias against socialization related explanations of homosexuality so I wanted to present my theory from my own experiences.
Wow, you went through all this media in 40 days? This is more than I've consumed in the past 3 years, haha. Thanks for sharing.
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