&c as an abbreviation for etc was very common historically. For example, look at the OP. It would not normally be used for an et that is not the latin et (and), as in et cetera. Its use for an 'and' in latin carried over to english, for some reason, and that usage has stayed with us.
It is easier to see in other fonts, but yes, I am aware of that. However as far as I am aware, it was never used to join an e and t that were not the latin et.
I like it a lot, and it makes me happy to see someone using the ligature of "e t"[0] ("&") not only as "and" but also as it's original "et" in the abbreviation "etc".
To me it reads like someone playing with words in a fun way, which is not that common in my parts of the internet
I understand hand knitting as craft (that can also or exclusively be art).
I also understand some programming as craft (that can also or exclusively be art).
But when you combine the two and add some kind of machinery it is much harder for me to see it as craft and not as production. This has me thinking, I like to think!
The work you do expands my understanding of the world, thanks!
My old cynic, grumpy mind can't see this as anything but virtue signaling. I would be overjoyed to be wrong.
One corner stone of the EU is the 4 freedoms[0] that among other things denies public institutions the ability to look at anything besides the monetary cost when deciding who to contract for anything.
And as JIT[1] no longer only applies to goods but also to people noone has people working for them anymore, but contract everything out.
Obviously I haven't read the report/document so maybe there are some political steps that the signees are binding themselves to take towards a non-growth-at-all-cost system but I really doubt it.
I do think there are absolutely instances of people virtue signaling.
But, after observing society over the last few years, I've come to think that people who _whine_ about virtue signaling are so full of vice that they cannot possibly believe someone _else_ isn't also as base as they are.
Its all such a shame. It seems like society has no ability to have reasonable, sensible conversation. I really wonder how the enlightenment even _happened_.
Do you know that about everyone who is virtue signalling, or are you just assuming that to be a blanket truth about everyone? I don’t think you can ever know the extent to which someone is actually trying, even if imperfect because some things just aren’t within individual control.
I mean I don’t know anything absolutely about someone else’s internal mental state. But I’ve just observed enough to come to certain conclusions, though not necessarily about any particular person.
I'm just kind of old, tired, grumpy and sad about the state of the world and my low capacity to influence the general direction or even small local things.
At least accepting that one lacks virtue is intellectually honest and saves resources otherwise wasted on deceitful proclamations of nonexistent and imaginary virtues. It's not like anything was meant to be done either way.
Pretending to be good at least may influence/shame other people in to actually being good. When everyone is just rolling around in the muck there is no incentive to be better.
> When everyone is just rolling around in the muck there is no incentive to be better.
There have been many celebrated and uncelebrated people throughout history, known for their tremendous insight and wisdom, who all say the same thing about virtue: It's better, by far, to be a good person with fuck-all than a pos with billions.
* "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - JC
* "The one who lives a hundred years immoral and uncontrolled is not worth as much as one who lives a single day virtuous and meditative." - Buddha
* "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor" - Seneca
* "Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself." - Marcus Aurelius
Etc. And that timeless fact doesn't change no matter where or when or who you are; or how many people are "rolling around in the muck".
It's not even an especially hidden fact. It's awful sad that grown-ass adults can look at people like Musk or Gates or Trump or the Manosphere shitlings and think, wow, those look like happy content people.
This is a programming article, just not in your subfield.
If you have any programming background and some time to aquiantence yourself with the specific words and aspects of this kind of programming I'm sure it will make sense to you too :)
I wonder if you have asked the same LLMs to explain or summarize a paper in one of your fields and see if it still makes sense.
It could be that the LLMs are good at stringing words together in a way that seems reasonable when you are not an expert yourself, much like people from other fields seem very knowledgeable until you compare many of them or hear/see them talk with each other.
> I wonder if you have asked the same LLMs to explain or summarize a paper in one of your fields and see if it still makes sense.
I have, and it does, hence my confidence in its ability to do the same in other domains. Depending on what you're using it for, it is advisable to maintain some level of quality control (spot checks, sampling, deep dives, more rigorous continuous review) as in any process control.
I don't understand what you mean by "intellectual mode".
I mean that it's a kind of lowest common denominator average where it's more important to seem reasonable and to not upset anyone rather than be really good in some ways and bad in others.
If human knowledge were a pyramid, LLMs just make the pyramid flatter, i.e. shorter, wider at the bottom, and narrower at the tip. It makes Humans dumber.
I think it's important to think more holistically about the environment than just CO2, or the Ozon-layer (that we actually managed to fix!). Full report: https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-imp...
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