What’s your field of work? I work in IT and really try to find some day to day use cases where AI might help and I just don’t seem to find any. The odd presentation or maybe a sprint review protocol, but nothing recurring or anything that feels game changing.
Hello Everybody I’ve been encountering a recent occurred Problem with my installation of Debian 12. When I plug in my Phone (Fairphone 4) to transfer some large files, it won’t get recognized, which is odd because I do this every few Weeks and since a couple of months this keeps happening. It will something like:...
Thanks! Except for the safety, it really looks like a WWII or earlier tanker’s sidearm. The shorter barrel, duck tail, hammer, wear and tear, grips, all that.
A Spanish tourist has been trampled to death by elephants in a South African national park after apparently trying to take pictures of a breeding herd that included three calves....
A neuroimaging study has revealed differences in brain activity between cannabis users and nonusers during cognitive tasks that involve switching behavior based on changing task requirements. Cannabis users exhibited weaker neural responses during these switches compared to nonusers, although both groups performed equally well on the tasks. This research was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Cannabis is one of the most widely used recreational drugs in the U.S., second only to alcohol and nicotine. Recent statistics show that approximately 19% of Americans, or 52.5 million people, used cannabis in 2021, up from 13% in 2014. This increase likely reflects more positive attitudes toward cannabis use over the years.
Despite its growing popularity, scientific studies suggest that cannabis may negatively impact higher-order cognitive processes. These detrimental effects can occur both immediately after consumption and in long-term users, regardless of whether they are currently under the influence.
One cognitive ability thought to be impaired by cannabis use is cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to selectively switch behaviors on a change in stimulus or environmental demands. This ability to change behavior based on changing conditions in the environment is something people generally need in their everyday lives. Due to this, decreased cognitive flexibility makes individuals less able to adapt to their environment impairing their overall functioning.
Study lead author Kellen M. McDonald and her team aimed to investigate the impact of regular cannabis use on neural processes involved in cognitive flexibility. Previous research had shown altered neural activity in cannabis users related to visual processes, but little was known about its effects on cognitive flexibility.
The researchers used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure brain activity in real-time while participants performed tasks designed to test cognitive flexibility. MEG detects the magnetic fields generated by neuronal activity, providing precise information about the timing and location of brain activity.
The study included 25 cannabis users and 30 nonusers, aged 19 to 60. Cannabis users had consumed the drug at least three times per week for the past three years or longer. All participants underwent thorough interviews about their substance use history and completed assessments for alcohol and cannabis use. Urine and breathalyzer tests confirmed that they had not recently used other substances.
Participants’ cognitive functioning was assessed using a series of neuropsychological tests. During the MEG sessions, they performed tasks that required switching between two sets of instructions. For example, they had to determine if a number was greater than five or if it was odd or even, depending on the shape surrounding the number. These tasks tested their ability to switch behavior based on changing instructions.
Results showed no significant differences in task performance between cannabis users and nonusers. Both groups were slower to respond during trials with changing instructions compared to those without.
However, MEG data revealed differences in the dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices—brain regions involved in task-switching. Cannabis users exhibited weaker neural responses in these areas. Additionally, the level of cannabis consumption correlated with the strength of brain activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.
“In summary, we found that cannabis users exhibit altered theta oscillations [rhythmic electrical patterns in the brain, occurring at a frequency of about 4-8 cycles per second] during a task-switching paradigm that probed cognitive flexibility,” the study authors concluded.
“Essentially, nonusers displayed the typical switch cost activation pattern of stronger theta activity in the dmPFC and dlPFC [dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices of the brain] during switch trials [tasks where instructions for responding were changing] relative to no switch trials, while this effect was blunted among cannabis users. Furthermore, weaker theta switch cost effects in the dmPFC were significantly correlated with greater cannabis involvement in the cannabis users, a novel finding in the MEG literature.”
The study sheds light on the specificities of neural activity in cannabis users. However, the small sample size means that only strong differences would be statistically detectable. It is possible that more subtle performance differences could not be identified due to the limited number of participants.
The study, “The neural oscillations serving task switching are altered in cannabis users,” was authored by Kellen M. McDonald, Mikki Schantell, Lucy K. Horne, Jason A. John, Maggie P. Rempe, Ryan Glesinger, Hannah J. Okelberry, Anna T. Coutant, Seth D. Springer, Amirsalar Mansouri, Christine M. Embury, Yasra Arif, and Tony W. Wilson.
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Unsurprising. The first game, while novel and interesting, was not a good game. And from what I read, the general consensus is that the actual gameplay of this one is even worse than the first’s. I admired what the first game was trying to do and I even think they did it well, but at the end of the day the majority of people play videogames to have fun.
Regardless, some folks love both games, and I’m happy for them. That being said, it’s a very niche game and I find it odd for Microsoft to have bet so heavily on it to be more popular.
I know that communities don’t translate well to Mastodon, I just find it a little odd how it seems to be a firehose of all comments in a community when viewed in Mastodon. I was expecting it to “repost” posts submitted to the community and have comments in the replies to those posts. Just something odd I was thinking...
Reminds me of my sister-in-law’s husband, who fell heavily into Brexit propaganda. Ranting about foreigners coming over, to his wife’s face. She was from Iceland.
This seems like an odd move. Let China pay money to use ClosedAI hallucinations instead of using the money to develop their own hallucinations that the US has no insight into.
There’s no technology transfer if they just using the hallucination outputs, it’s just free money for trash.
It’s pretty common to show various things near your routes? It’s a feature built-in car map systems had since forever, at least. Always got the odd moment where you want to detour to a gas station or need to stop at a pharmacy.
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
A recent study published in Developmental Science has discovered a connection between prolonged pacifier use and reduced vocabulary size in infants at both 12 and 24 months of age. The study indicates that extended use of pacifiers may negatively impact language development, with later pacifier use showing a stronger association with smaller vocabulary sizes compared to earlier use.
The use of pacifiers is widespread among young children across the globe, often valued for their soothing effects on infants. While pacifiers are recommended by health organizations for reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and can provide comfort, concerns have emerged regarding their potential impact on a child’s development, particularly language acquisition.
Previous research has mainly focused on the physical impacts of pacifier use, such as dental misalignments and increased risk of ear infections. However, the potential effects on language development have received less attention. This study aimed to fill that gap by investigating whether sustained pacifier use could disrupt early speech perception and language development by restricting the movements of the mouth and tongue.
“Our interest was sparked by a study by Bruderer et al. (2015) showing that infants had difficulty distinguishing sounds when their tongues were blocked by a teether. We wanted to investigate if prolonged pacifier use might eventually lead to differences in how quickly children learn words,” explained study author Luis Eduardo Muñoz, a PhD candidate at the University of Oslo.
For their study, the researchers recruited parents of infants from Oslo, Norway, through birth registries, covering the period from 2019 to 2020. Initially, the study included 1,630 participants, but after applying specific inclusion criteria, such as monolingual exposure to Norwegian, being born full-term, and having no reported visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments, the final sample consisted of 1,187 infants.
To assess vocabulary size, parents completed an online questionnaire that included the Norwegian versions of the Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs). For 12-month-old infants, the CDIs measured both vocabulary comprehension and production, while for 24-month-olds, it measured vocabulary production only. Comprehension refers to the ability of infants to understand and recognize words when they hear them, while production refers to the ability to actively use words in speech.
Parents also provided detailed reports of their child’s daytime pacifier use. They retrospectively estimated the average daily use in whole hours for two-month intervals from birth until the assessment date. This allowed the researchers to calculate the total hours of pacifier use over the infants’ lifetimes, referred to as Lifespan Pacifier Use (LPU).
The researchers uncovered a significant negative association between sustained pacifier use and vocabulary size in both 12- and 24-month-old infants. Specifically, for 12-month-olds, an increase in pacifier use by one standard deviation (about 1.8 hours daily) was linked to a reduction in vocabulary comprehension and production percentiles by 2.9 and 2.6 percentiles, respectively. For 24-month-olds, a similar increase in pacifier use corresponded to a 2.4 percentile decrease in vocabulary production.
The researchers also explored how changes in pacifier use over time influenced vocabulary development. They found that infants with increasing pacifier use as they aged had lower vocabulary sizes compared to those with declining or stable pacifier use. This effect was observed even after controlling for the total amount of pacifier use.
Notably, the impact of pacifier use was stronger when it occurred later in infancy. For instance, 24-month-olds with higher pacifier use between 18 and 24 months were 3.6 percentiles lower in vocabulary production compared to their peers.
Further analysis focused on the most recent period of pacifier use before the infants’ second birthday. The results showed that greater pacifier use between 22 and 24 months increased the likelihood of infants scoring in the lower 15th percentile for vocabulary size at 24 months. Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in pacifier use during this period raised the odds of being in the lower percentile by a factor of 1.4.
“We found it interesting that recent pacifier use (within the last two months) had the strongest link to smaller vocabulary sizes, indicating the potential significance of the most recent amount of pacifier use,” Muñoz told PsyPost.
However, it is important to note that the study’s design does not allow for establishing a causal relationship between pacifier use and vocabulary development. The study is cross-sectional, meaning it looks at data from a single point in time rather than following the same children over an extended period.
While this can show associations or correlations between variables, it cannot determine whether one factor directly causes another. In other words, while the study found a link between prolonged pacifier use and smaller vocabulary sizes, it cannot definitively say that pacifier use causes reduced vocabulary development.
“Our study doesn’t provide evidence that pacifiers themselves cause slower word learning, but it does suggest a link between frequent pacifier use and smaller vocabularies at ages 1- and 2-years-old,” Muñoz explained. “There could be many other factors at play, such as parenting styles or the child’s temperament.”
To better examine the potential for causality, researchers could conduct longitudinal studies, which track the same group of children over several years. This approach allows researchers to observe how changes in pacifier use over time might influence vocabulary development.
“We aim to further explore how pacifier use, parenting styles, and children’s temperament interact to affect word learning,” Muñoz said. “Pacifier use is a culturally sensitive topic, and we don’t want this study to stigmatize parents who use them. There are valid reasons for pacifier use (soothing), and our findings should not be taken as a reason to discourage it.”
The study, “Sustained pacifier use is associated with smaller vocabulary sizes at 1 and 2 years of age: A cross-sectional study,” was authored by Luis E. Muñoz, Natalia Kartushina, and Julien Mayor.
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NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
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I’m not a fan of Tate and don’t like him at all but I have never once seen actual evidence of the claims. Which I find odd.
If he truly did all these horrifying things, he should be sent to prison for good. However, I haven’t seen a single evidence of any claims. Perhaps it’s me not looking the right way.
The sad truth is that most of these devs would not have survived without embracer. MAYBE some of them can pull a Platinum and say “Yo, want to pay us to make a really mediocre tmnt game?” to help make ends meet. But with funding in the indie space what it increasingly is becoming… the odds of pulling that off are poor.
Of course, BECAUSE of the mass consolidation by platform holders and publishers those studios don’t even have the opportunity to try and make a shitty transformers game to keep the lights on.
Like, a decade or two ago the talking point was the EA killed all these amazing studios who were one hit wonders when they were bought out. And yeah, fuck EA. But there is a reason most of those genres ALSO died out with the studios because… they were one hit wonder genres. People loved the novelty of Dungeon Keeper and then rapidly lost interest with every iteration.
But also? Maybe those studios could have pivoted and we would have had what we see today with The Defenestration Trilogy and so forth.
A long-running heat wave that has already shattered previous records across the U.S. persisted on Sunday, baking parts of the West with dangerous temperatures that caused the death of a motorcyclist in Death Valley and held the East in its hot and humid grip....
My dad back in Georgia called me yesterday because he saw on the weather channel that we hit 90 and he thought that a tad odd. I told him that this is in some ways more brutal than summer in Atlanta because at least all those buildings have industrial central air. I’ve got two portable units running just to keep my bedroom bearable
There are a lot of linux people out there who are…very odd. I ran into a bunch who laughed at the thought of a gui terminal server - something i’ve been working with professionally for over two decades. Some really don’t understand jack nor shit and just parrot half-truths and poor knowledge like it’s gospel. “Don’t uninstall apps, you’ll break shit!!” No, uninstalling apps improperly breaks shit…
/rant
(Btw if i see one more person wail about how terrifying it is to run DD ima choke a bitch…)
As I was growing up, my family had a couple of sayings I took for granted were universal, at least within my language. As I became an adult I have learned that these are not universal at all:...
My Grandmother used to say “It’s better than a kick in the teeth” when deflecting disappointment in an outcome–putting a positive spin on a negative. Being from the UK it seemed universal, but moving to Canada and saying that, people gave me odd looks.
The other one is when somebody is talking nonsense or a bit crazy, they would say “They are out of their tree”. For the Welsh the tree symbolizes stability and mental wellness (druids I guess) and if you were stressed or needed to chill their phrase translates to “I need to go back to my trees”
People talking shit about Andrew but I’ve had seriously weird issues with Windows throwing out odd permissions errors on seemingly basic shit on files that are 0kb after restarting and doing all sorts of basic troubleshooting including CMD Prompt and Powershell guides only for none of them to work.
It reeked of virus but never was. Just weird stupid shit that wasn’t easily explained, should’ve worked but didn’t, or various other things that the allmighty Lemmings here think is just beyond a google apparently.
FWIW I’m pretty sure it was straight up related to corrupted files in weird shared folder spots.
You have to pretend they don’t exist and never think about them again after hiding them then hopefully never remember or just reinstall because it’s been a couple years and probably good to do anyway.
Most of my friends were generally similar: straight-shooters, into science, and unique.
I had a friend whose kid I related to so much, that eventho I am generally pretty bad with kids, they used to ask me for advice on how to address certain issues with him.
When I was at a farmer’s market, I saw some toys that looked interesting. I asked the salesperson what they were for, and she responded saying that they were for autistic kids because it helps them calm down. I seriously said, “Man, those autistic kids know what’s up.” I bought two of the toys. One was for the kid mentioned above, and the other was for me.
A year later, a friend that is a psychologist tells me that I’m autistic. I get a formal evaluation just to make sure, and yep, I’m certainly autistic. For the next year, all these odd experiences in my life start to make sense:
I tell my friends and they said that they are autistic too and thought I knew because it was so obvious.
I learn that flappy hands is an autism thing. The kid mentioned flapped his hands whenever he would get excited. They weren’t necessarily asking me how to raise their kid. They were asking me for advice with autistic traits and issues.
They toy was a fidget toy, and I bought one for myself because it was soothing… because I am autistic and adhd.
So you don’t have any experience raising livestock or farming produce then. Noted.
It’s funny to me that you keep harping on “credentials” without ever addressing the substance of my argument. LOL.
But to your odd reply: I’ve done chickens, goats, sheep, and dairy cows but my main thing has always been veggies.
The fact that you clearly do not know what “speciality crops” means tells me you are not very experienced or educated in ag, in general. It’s a very common, well-established and frequently used term that really anybody in the farming world should know. It means more or less anything that’s intended to be sold directly to people for direct consumption and not processed, ie that isn’t a commodity, which since you may not know, is crops like wheat, corn, soy beans that are refined before being sold to consumers.
I think we’ve reached the point where you’ve demonstrated that your only rebuttals are “because I said so”, “I need to argue for reasons”, and “you suck” and that you simply do not have a good grasp of the fundamentals, hence your inability to make any point at all.
So have a nice day and maybe read up on some ag topics before attempting to engage on the topic.
AI is effectively ‘useless'—and it's created a ‘fake it till you make it’ bubble that could end in disaster, veteran market watcher warns (fortune.com)
Problem with File transfer
Hello Everybody I’ve been encountering a recent occurred Problem with my installation of Debian 12. When I plug in my Phone (Fairphone 4) to transfer some large files, it won’t get recognized, which is odd because I do this every few Weeks and since a couple of months this keeps happening. It will something like:...
Loyalty (lemmy.world)
Spanish tourist trampled to death by elephants in South Africa (www.theguardian.com)
A Spanish tourist has been trampled to death by elephants in a South African national park after apparently trying to take pictures of a breeding herd that included three calves....
Archaeology Problems
New Hellblade 2 Sales Data Offers a Clearer Picture of How It Did on Xbox Game Pass and the Charts (ign.com)
(It didn’t sell well)
Easy (programming.dev)
Mastodon handles lemmy communities a bit strangely, doesn't it?
I know that communities don’t translate well to Mastodon, I just find it a little odd how it seems to be a firehose of all comments in a community when viewed in Mastodon. I was expecting it to “repost” posts submitted to the community and have comments in the replies to those posts. Just something odd I was thinking...
Giant phallus-shaped iceberg floating in Conception Bay surprises residents of Dildo, Canada (www.livescience.com)
It’s a bit old but the shape and the city name were so funny that I couldn’t not post it XD
Trump-loving gays say their MAGA support is ruining their lives (www.lgbtqnation.com)
Chinese developers scramble as OpenAI blocks access in China (www.theguardian.com)
Tales of Lost TV: The Secret Weapon of 117 (Stage 7) - Gene Roddenberry's possibly lost first produced science fiction script (www.tvobscurities.com)
A copy of the script is still in existence, but no one appears to have scanned it in- tvobscurities.com/…/gene-roddenberrys-secret-defe…...
Google Maps tests new pop-up ads that give you an unnecessary detour (www.androidauthority.com)
This is unironically fine
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan accused of being ‘serial tax evaders’ (www.theguardian.com)
Self-proclaimed misogynist ‘brazen’ about refusing to pay tax on revenue from online businesses, court told...
Gothic, Risen, and Elex Dev "Piranha Bytes" Reportedly the Latest Embracer Studio to Shut Down (www.ign.com)
Persistent heat wave in the US shatters new records, causes deaths in the West and grips the East (apnews.com)
A long-running heat wave that has already shattered previous records across the U.S. persisted on Sunday, baking parts of the West with dangerous temperatures that caused the death of a motorcyclist in Death Valley and held the East in its hot and humid grip....
What are the applications that I can remove from Mint? + Mini Rant.
What are the packages that comes default with Linux Mint Cinnamon that I can remove without any problems....
What family sayings did you think was universal?
As I was growing up, my family had a couple of sayings I took for granted were universal, at least within my language. As I became an adult I have learned that these are not universal at all:...
Andrew just wants to open his files on Windows 10 (programming.dev)
…microsoft.com/…/6f33e814-3cc6-4ce6-993c-dffcf1bb…
Anon vibes with his gf's brother (sh.itjust.works)
These queer farmers and ranchers are boycotting Tractor Supply and want you to join them (www.advocate.com)