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> Catching an LLM hallucinating often takes a basic understanding of what the answer should look like before asking the question.

We had the same problem in the early days of calculators. Using a slide rule, you had to track the order of magnitude in your head; this habit let you spot a large class of errors (things that weren't even close to correct).

When calculators came on the scene, people who never used a slide rule would confidently accept answers that were wildly incorrect (example: a mole of ideal gas at STP is 22.4 liters. If you typo it as 2204, you get an answer that's off by roughly two orders of magnitude, say 0.0454 when it should be 4.46. Easy to spot if you know roughly what the answer should look like, but easy to miss if you don't).


We do know. There have always been ways that people could avoid the painful process of learning, and...they don't learn.

Here's a competing thought experiment:

Jorge's Gym has a top notch body building program, which includes an extensive series of exercises that would-be body builders need to do over multiple years to complete the program. You enroll, and cleverly use a block and tackle system to complete all the exercises in weeks instead of years.

Did you get the intended results?


It doesn't contradict the logic of the essay.

There are flowers that look & smell like female wasps well enough to fool male wasps into "mating" with them. But they don't fly off and lay wasp eggs afterwards.


But there is a distinction we can make between flowers and wasps. If there is no distinction we can make between Schwartz and non-Schwartz, then we are susceptible to the sample problem with or without AI. And if there is a distinction then we can use that distinction to test Bob, and make him learn from his test failures.

Just answered my own question to my satisfaction; they are stars.

The same specs, which match star charts, show up in two images taken a few moments apart at different exposures (links were given down-thread).


How do you know that they're stars? I believe they probably are stars as well (by visual comparison with a star chart, suitably rotated), but I've found no source for either claim.

I did find multiple sources, including TFA, for the brightest being Venus.


They're much brighter than the noise floor. Photographic noise doesn't really have such outliers.

Why would you think they are not stars? Not really sure the confusion on the matter. Are we leaning towards this being shot from a soundstage?

Well one of them is obviously Venus. How did you determine the others weren't stars?

I’m talking about the grainy noise over all the black parts (actually over the Earth disk as well), including beyond the window edge. The window edge itself looks like a denser and brighter stripe of stars.

Zoom into this higher-resolution version: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019...


Yep, that's definitely noise.

Sped through that, couldn't stomach the whole thing. Is there more to it than "argument by sneering dismissal"? (Basically, so far as I can tell, her point seems to be "this was intended as a joke to see if you're stupid, so if you believe it, you are, neener-neener!")

Some days I wonder if the most effective way to hide a message at this point in history is to simply write it out, as clearly as possible, in plain English. For some reason, many people have trouble reading (or even detecting) this.

Damn. Should have written this up and posted it two days ago; it would have made a great April Fools gag.


Pro tip: If you're trying to raise awareness of an issue that's important to you, don't lard up your exposition with sarcasm, insider references and incomprehensible innuendo. If all you manage to communicate is that you're unhappy, people may feel sorry for you but they won't know why.

Say what you mean in plain language; explain the issues and why they matter, and let your readers come to their own conclusions.


I'm sorry it's confusing, perhaps an attempt to add humor to a bleak and dramatic change in the LibreOffice project has made it less than clear. The bald facts are fairly simple: The Document Foundation, now ~controlled by its non-programmer staff just ejected its main core code contributors based on complicated and apparently contrived reasons. Lots of non-profits get bogged down in pointless in-fighting that eats away at their purpose sadly.

Hey Michael, that's alright but can you perhaps edit the article to have all the facts clear out there in the manner that Markus has said.

There are times to be satirical, don't get me wrong, but those are usually when the dust is settled and maybe a reminiscence on the past.

Have a nice day and I hope that something positive comes out of all of it. I always believe that there are only few projects which get to the eyes of the general public enough to get funded, LibreOffice is one of the very few. People trust Libreoffice with donations and money to fight against Microsoft and show a path of freedom.

For the document foundation to betray the people who programmed the code in the first place, is also, a betrayal of the people who have funded libreoffice for years, who would love to demand more answers and I hope that in the article, that you can talk _effectively_ to them. It's really sad to see all of this happen and I wish if something happens as I don't wish for people to lose hope in open source foundations with cases like these.


What are the complicated apparently contrived reasons?

It's not at all clear from the article.

All I really got from the article is "collabora are banned from contributing to open office, and aren't happy about it". What reason did they give? What's the actual reason you think it is (you mention things are contrived, so I assume there's another reason you think)? What's the libre office online stuff got to do with it?

All of this is unclear from the article.


Collabora is not banned from contributions. It's banned from the board, because of a lawsuit between those two.

What the lawsuit is about would be interesting.


This exactly sums up my read of this. I have no idea what is going on but it appears to impact a thing I use in my nextcloud so I should possibly care, but damned if I have any idea what is going on here.

I think you meant OnlyOffice(?) it seems like there is also some turbulence and you will soon be migrated to a fork(?)

https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/4/onlyoffice-ends-its-pa...


It's called CODE in nextcloud which stands for Collabra Online Development Edition and it is integrated in nextcloud. It isbfor sure a thing. Don't try to confuse me more lol.

> required branding, logos

I'm no lawyer but I don't think the AGPL says you must use the same branding in a fork, in fact most hard forks tend to prefer changing it in my experience, as the original branding might be trademarked and so they can't legally use it themselves without permission, and/or they just want to distance themselves further from the parent.


> people may feel sorry for you but they won't know why.

Or worse, they'll just think you're a jerk and not feel sorry for you.


Agreed, I found this article hard to follow and emotive in a way that made it feel extremely biased.

And, even more importantly, don't post it on April Fools Day! Delay gratification for 24 hours.

I can confirm the later effect; prior to the internet, my primary exposure to sans serif fonts were government documents and forms, and advertisements, neither of which inculcated an association with any virtues.

Perhaps you should compare government documents and forms from different governments. UK government forms are extraordinarily beautiful, and welcoming, and are easy to fill out. US government forms, on the other hand, seem almost calculated to be unfriendly, and are incredibly difficult to fill out even when you use supporting instructions. It almost seems like they have been deliberately designed so that they cannot be filled out without the assistance of a lawyer. Canadian forms seem pretty neutral, and practical, but are nowhere near as pleasant to fill out as UK forms are.

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