…except it’s the hippos who go looking for fights. They’re more akin to the 6’ 4", 350 lb. kid with attitude out the wazoo.
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I’ve been around many cows and many horses for decades. Cows are much more terrifying.
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You are almost completely right. OTOH horses have better aim. And top teeth.
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The author/illustrator notes that “The Pursuit of Hipponess is the discovery of self and the uncovering of little quirks in life.”
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Be careful. Hippos have better memory than most elephants, and kill more people than crocodiles. They can outrun most humans both in top speed and in endurance, and are surprisingly agile even when changing directions.
Also, they have teeth which would put a sabre to shame and which can go right through your chest if they bite you. Or through your head, come to think of it.
My advice: don’t mess with hippos. Ever.
Trust me.
[Edit: and tell the kids. If they spread the word, they will be king or queen of the kindergardens, and less people will die because of hippos!]
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You are hitting on something I was vaguely alluding to. How many people get murdered by cows vs. murdered by horses? Similar to hippos and rhinos.
And to be completely fair, I call hippos and cows stupid not because they are, but as a simple insult. 
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[quote=“japhroaig, post:26, topic:96428, full:true”] I call hippos and cows stupid not because they are, but as a simple insult.
[/quote]
I really appreciate this.
But All Hail our hippo overlords!
Just FTR: Seriously, some of the more frightening situations in my life included hippos. Others elephants. And I slept perfectly fine with a spotted hyena laughing some five to ten meters next to my tent, while knowing perfectly well that they are fiercer hunters than a pack of lioness.
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The correct answer is “No, that’s not my cow!”
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I camped on the rogue River once, and a group of black bears circled my tent All. Night. Long. The dog we had with us rotated like a clock, tracking those beasts.
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Note to self:
- learn about machine learning
- build and train algorithm on earworm detection
- use algorithm to filter browser content not to display / play content classified as earworm
- STOP HUMMING ALL NIGHT LONG
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#ReggieWatts
You are now damned to earworm, dancing hell.
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"This machine learning bundle is your ticket to AI mastery
Boing Boing’s Store "
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You live in So Cal! HA! Seen enough of those billboards driving around.
There’s a particularly sneaky one in the OC. Called “the Library”… Where are you going this afternoon? Oh, “the library”. (though to be fair I always assumed that the folks going are probably not regular library goers. Yes, I know, painting with a broad brush, but…)
Mine’s particularly argumentative, and I’d always take the “Honey, I think that’s supposed to be a hippo, just a not very accurate drawing. See, no horn.”. Then the argument on why it was a rhino… (which was pointless to engage in).
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I have not set foot in SoCal in about ten years.
I think I’d call all those inflationary, like the “title inflation” we run across all the time in the corporate world - think of all the support “engineers” who haven’t a BEng to save themselves. All these terms don’t really deflate the language so much as depreciate it through puffery. How should we say it? The term has more currency and less value than before, hence it’s undergoing inflation.
This is how S-D curves get reversed. So I agree, to a point.
On the other hand, the investments in machine learning amount to a holding of investment in something which value (no whos to whose) is artificially high. So like an asset in a bubble (@generic_bitcoiner take note), actual use of the instrument would drop as the relative value of everything else drops and the value of the thing (AI cob-job puffery) rises compared to an average of other goods in the economy.
To be grumpy, inflation and deflation are commonly thought to be currency issues. If a particular sector really takes over and an economy gets yanked around by it, it can be useful to flip the script to note that level of market power. The value of gold and silver versus the good of civilization played this game for thousands of years.
*To those grumpy about hyperbole generally, Cory’s use of this isn’t outrageous. No need to be dissappoint.
Andy, I’m not disappointed. It’s just not a particularly good use of the word “deflation”. I wasn’t really referring to the economic value of AI either: the precision of the English language is, in this instance, taking a beating because of vague definitions and inflated claims, and in this way, the term “Artificial Intelligence” may be said to be inflated (in much the same way as title inflation). It is a fairly standard use of the term “inflation” when referring to language. As for my last sentence, “currency” has more than one meaning - I was having my little joke.
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I wasn’t directing the “dissappoint” at you. Sorry, didn’t make that clear. Fixing.
Ah, OK. There are times when Cory could use a bit of editing to good effect, but I find most of what he has to say to be bang on.
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The signs are still there…
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