Ben Mann Monthly May 2020: GPT-3, George Floyd, bulk food
Purpose
An index for my memory
A menu of topics for my next conversation with you
A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it
A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable
Experiments and experiences
Restaurant supply
My house has started shopping at Smart Foodservice Warehouse. Some items: 20 lbs of oats, 120 eggs, 5 lbs of butter, 35 lbs of peanut butter, 20 lbs of sweet potatoes, 10 lbs of cheddar. Buying in bulk means we can go twice a month, feed all our housemates, and not have to think about which item to get since there are only two brands for most items.Black Lives Matter talk
One of my housemates gave a talk on his experience with race and justice in America. Cultural change tends to be slow, but I hope this time we'll make more progress. I think I'm already focusing most of my effort on long-termist ways to better the world, but maybe there's something I could do on the side to make things better now. The most immediate leverage points I have are hiring and finding new housemates. ✊🙏
Life updates
Published my first paper, GPT-3! It was a huge push to get it out. Are all papers this stressful? Ready for a recharge.
Half way through Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Queued up So You Want to Talk About Race
Content
5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted
This video is a fusion of many different video feeds to show how George Floyd was murdered by police.
I am appalled that Americans can kill each other in broad daylight like this. This video shows unambiguous evidence of a murder. I'm glad the bystanders took these recordings. I wish the police had listened to their entreaties to stop killing Mr. Floyd. May justice be done.
Void Star 2/5
What happens when you can connect human brains to computers?
While I enjoyed the narration and story arc, the world building wasn't that interesting. It read like an action movie: lots of running around and fighting, but not much to make you think. Or maybe the things that were there weren't that original. Rising sea levels? An abandoned space elevator? Rogue construction drones? Eh.
Orphan girl gains ability to control weather, runaway boy falls in love with her, Tokyo drowns.
Generic character design, predictable YA lit plot, beautiful animation. Lipstick on a pig.
Kid goes back in dangerous video game because he wants to feel like Dwayne Johnson, but ends up being Awkwafina instead.
I liked the first Jumanji reboot, but it felt like this one didn't have much new to say. Standard tropes about getting older and the difficulty of young people interacting with old people.