Need Champions and Ideas to make use of the BAR funds

[spuri87]

Think about what you can do to further the clubs mission and not about what the club can do for you.

Bruce shared the same above.. I appreciate the sentiment and reflected my thoughts on the same above.. but do you have more ideas on where we can use 30k+ USD (I may be totally wrong here and @CaseyP can share the correct number) to support the clubs mission? Maybe state wide seminars about ethical husbandry will help.

I personally believe supporting the supporting members should be part of the club's mission. At the risk of repeating myself, let's make fellow member's life a little easier.. it's not just about adding more footfall to the website by luring folks in, it's about helping supporting members by helping them solve some of the day-to-day problems.

 

[Alexander1312]

I'm probably sounding like the old man screaming "Get off my lawn," but I have to say I hate how this thread is so centered on what the club can do for us vs what the club can do for others and the hobby. Just my two cents.

Agreed this is a more one-sided thread. I guess there are some low hanging fruits related to pooling of member-wide needs and making some investments in these. But this should not make up 100% of the funds.

Who would you say are the ‘others’?

I guess if we have competing ideas for funding concrete, targeted, club-external initiatives vs., e.g., a conductivity meter (haha), then our selfishness would become more apparent. In the absence of this, we will focus on on what helps us directly which should indirectly promote the hobby.

 

[SupraSaltyReefer]

I understand that sentiment.. IMO, if you are supporting the BAR members first and then selling them for profit, that's the least you can get for taking all the pain to breed for the entire club.. We may have to give them for free to supporting members to show the value, but once that condition is satisfied, the volunteer should be free to sell them for whatever.

Here is an example on how a driver/champion can propose this:

• Need '$abc' every 'd' months to support breeding Nudis/Cardinals/Clowns/whatever.
• Out of the total 'x' produced livestock, Support the club by providing 50% (or whatever %) captive bred livestock to the members at a discounted price/free.
• Sell the remaining % for a profit to keep supporting the cause.

If we need members to support this initiative, we need to give them a reason to participate. This should be made fun (while staying ethical), even if that means, people doing it as a side-project for some bread.

Looking into this further because I do like your opinion and intent, however doing a quick search this doesn't look plausible without getting us into a sticky gray area situation.

 

[grizfyrfyter]

don't trust gemini, it's the shittiest of the main providers. I test AI for work frequently and gemini is the worst at hallucinating

 

[spuri87]

Looking into this further because I do like your opinion and intent, however doing a quick search this doesn't look plausible without getting us into a sticky gray area situation.

View attachment 79698

This intrigued me, so I searched if the payment is made to the individual for hard work or services, and this what I got (this breeding program would fall in the services category IMO)

 

[Alexander1312]

don't trust gemini, it's the shittiest of the main providers. I test AI for work frequently and gemini is the worst at hallucinating

This cannot be true. Where are the Google advocates in this club to disagree with this?

 

[Slingfox]

This cannot be true. Where are the Google advocates in this club to disagree with this?

I also use AI extensively every day. I use multiple LLMs and don’t include Gemini in my rotation currently. My firm makes pretty much every LLM available and I estimate we spend several million (maybe already into the 8 digit range) on AI on an annualized run-rate basis. 9 months ago we were spending a de minimus amount so the adoption is crazy. I can’t think of one instance in recent memory when Gemini was mentioned.

That said, I do think Gemini is getting better. I can’t help but see it’s output since Google in integrating Gemini heavily into its web search.

 

[Alexander1312]

And breaking down our mission, I feel we are doing everything we say we would do:
_____________

The primary purpose of BAR is

to promote - we do through various channels

foster - we do through conversation and events

and encourage - just ask Tu haha

education - support talks, fragging workshops, aquascape etc

appreciation - this is a given, no one would spend that much effort and money into something they do not appreciate

for the ethical husbandry - this is the part we can lean into more, but I have not seen anyone here being intentional about not trying to apply erthical practices and will be called out if unintentionally the case.

and propagation - DBTC + frag swaps. Maybe less so on the fish front, so potentially a blind spot but difficult to pursue.

of marine life. (100%)

 

[Alexander1312]

I also use AI extensively every day. I use multiple LLMs and don’t include Gemini in my rotation currently. My firm makes pretty much every LLM available and I estimate we spend tens of millions on AI on an annualized run-rate basis. I can’t think of one instance in recent memory when Gemini was mentioned.

Could it be that Gemini used to be irrelevant until rather very recently when it has dramatically improved to an extent when it could be on track to become a strong contender for a pole together with Claude?

 

[PizzaOven]

Could it be that Gemini used to be irrelevant until rather very recently when it has dramatically improved to an extent when it could be on track to become a strong contender for a pole together with Claude?

don't trust gemini, it's the shittiest of the main providers. I test AI for work frequently and gemini is the worst at hallucinating

I find Gemini to be pretty good. The latest 3.1 Pro version ranks fairly high (3rd) on the leaderboards: https://livebench.ai/#/?highunseenbias=true

From my perspective, they're all trained on the same pool of data and tend to give similar results. Some are better than others at certain tasks which I suspect comes down to data curation and hyper-parameter tuning rather than some "magical" unique architecture. They're all built from the same core block (self-attention).

Man, we're really good at wandering off topic

 

[spuri87]

That said, I do think Gemini is getting better. I can’t help but see it’s output since Google in integrating Gemini heavily into its web search.

This was due to internal politics at Google.. as an outsider, one might feel Google knows the world, Google knows every single person and their personalities and even their incognito traffic so they must be good at responding with ‘personalized’ suggestions.. nope! Google and Gemini are separate orgs at Google and they didn’t share data with each other for a very long time due to internal politics and staying relevant until Sundar Pichai intervened and gave the power of attorney to Gemini team to decide who handles what.. the difference is clear, and yes they have gotten better after this happened about 5-6 months ago!

I personally trust chatGPT for its ability to converse with me and keeping me occupied! I use Gemini for simple questions or searches that most likely won’t require follow ups. And of course, Cursor and now Claude for all coding related stuff!

 

[CaseyP]

Man, we're really good at wandering off topic

Lol these idea threads usually end up like this. Fear not, we're coming up with a standardized process soon that will hopefully make it easier to propose and push ideas through that need funding.


Moonshot idea We rent out commercial space, turn it into a clubhouse. Rows of frag tanks that can be sectioned off for users to keep and grow corals. Racks of fish holding systems for quarantine. 3d printers, equipment to borrow, etc. Couches, TVs, bar, to lounge and talk shop with others. One can dream haha. Gemini got this prompt pretty good

 

[spuri87]

Moonshot idea We rent out commercial space, turn it into a clubhouse. Rows of frag tanks that can be sectioned off for users to keep and grow corals. Racks of fish holding systems for quarantine. 3d printers, equipment to borrow, etc. Couches, TVs, bar, to lounge and talk shop with others. One can dream haha.

Great idea but I bet even this won’t be enough to move @Kensington Reefer out of his throne in SF

 

[grizfyrfyter]

A 3d printer is not a bad suggestion for club equipment. I freaking love being above to solve unique problems rapidly because I have these machines.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Lol these idea threads usually end up like this. Fear not, we're coming up with a standardized process soon that will hopefully make it easier to propose and push ideas through that need funding.


Moonshot idea We rent out commercial space, turn it into a clubhouse. Rows of frag tanks that can be sectioned off for users to keep and grow corals. Racks of fish holding systems for quarantine. 3d printers, equipment to borrow, etc. Couches, TVs, bar, to lounge and talk shop with others. One can dream haha. Gemini got this prompt pretty good

View attachment 79708

that IS what it's like....if it were neat and tidy!

 

[MichaelB]

Love this idea, yep let's do that.

even if the funds are supporting the BAR members first (read my comment above)? I think this is something we need to be a little flexible at as a club.. Honestly, we are NOT running the nation.. its just a club - a Reefing club that's just supposed to be a hobby.. lets make it fun, and keep it fun.. lets educate new members.. let's absorb and radiate.. Let's make changes, let's try new things.. If it doesnt work, let's admit that it didnt work and try another thing.. Let's innovate.. Let's not look at the past and say the idea wasn't accepted, let's try to make the idea adaptable in near future.

Nothing against you @MichaelB, you are a very valuable member of the forum and always supportive of new ideas, just stating my feelings out loud there. Also just want to add that these thoughts are not just for the above idea of breeding livestock and sharing profit - I understand it's subjective and I appreciate different point of views. I was just talking in general.

The line I'm caught upon is non profit. So far our views have all but been focused internally. Non profits typically attempt to reach beyond their own membership or in otherwords invested people.

I get it's a hobby and meant to be fun m same time as a club we should actively attempt to follow through on the mission statements. Members only frag swaps doesn't educate anyone not already a member. Yes we held frag work shops pretty much members only. A clear portion of our foucs should also be spent on engaging and educating people outside of the club as well. All the other non profits I'm involved with don't only keep everything internally focused. Internal stuff is important don't misquoted me here. How can we influence/encourage more people beyond just out existing membership. We don't currently even contribute to anything beyond the club if things are viewed simply in black and white. Yes you can access site without being a supporting member but it's arguable still not really intentionally going beyond the club.

Hopefully at somepoint we can tweak that sole internal focused viewpoint a bit and actually gain 5013c status over 501c4 in both legal status and by our actions as a club.

 

[Slingfox]

Could it be that Gemini used to be irrelevant until rather very recently when it has dramatically improved to an extent when it could be on track to become a strong contender for a pole together with Claude?

The current consensus is Claude is the best (by far). Gemini is not even in the conversation at my firm but maybe that is because me and everyone around me are lemmings. I would not be surprised if in 6 months the rankings flip. Claude has the most hype now but we are still in early days. Last month, my kids asked Amazon Alexa “What is 1 + 1?” and Alexa answered: 3!

 

[MolaMola]

Lol these idea threads usually end up like this. Fear not, we're coming up with a standardized process soon that will hopefully make it easier to propose and push ideas through that need funding.


Moonshot idea We rent out commercial space, turn it into a clubhouse. Rows of frag tanks that can be sectioned off for users to keep and grow corals. Racks of fish holding systems for quarantine. 3d printers, equipment to borrow, etc. Couches, TVs, bar, to lounge and talk shop with others. One can dream haha. Gemini got this prompt pretty good

View attachment 79708

Epic AI fail re: % of women in reef club.

 

[VacavilleFC]

The line I'm caught upon is non profit. So far our views have all but been focused internally. Non profits typically attempt to reach beyond their own membership or in otherwords invested people.

I get it's a hobby and meant to be fun m same time as a club we should actively attempt to follow through on the mission statements. Members only frag swaps doesn't educate anyone not already a member. Yes we held frag work shops pretty much members only. A clear portion of our foucs should also be spent on engaging and educating people outside of the club as well. All the other non profits I'm involved with don't only keep everything internally focused. Internal stuff is important don't misquoted me here. How can we influence/encourage more people beyond just out existing membership. We don't currently even contribute to anything beyond the club if things are viewed simply in black and white. Yes you can access site without being a supporting member but it's arguable still not really intentionally going beyond the club.

Hopefully at somepoint we can tweak that sole internal focused viewpoint a bit and actually gain 5013c status over 501c4 in both legal status and by our actions as a club.

A 3d printer is not a bad suggestion for club equipment. I freaking love being above to solve unique problems rapidly because I have these machines.

the problem with that is they do require a fair amount of experience to troubleshoot, sometimes prints go wrong for seemingly no reason at all. I think a better idea would be for the club to pay for filament for those of us who already have them and then people just request what they want printed and either come pick it up or wait till the next meeting.

I was already thinking about printing everyone cages or frag racks for the next swap.

 

[MichaelB]

the problem with that is they do require a fair amount of experience to troubleshoot, sometimes prints go wrong for seemingly no reason at all. I think a better idea would be for the club to pay for filament for those of us who already have them and then people just request what they want printed and either come pick it up or wait till the next meeting.

I was already thinking about printing everyone cages or frag racks for the next swap.

Good idea we already have a thread for 3d printed request. Not sure the price on materials used to print. Yet I could see merit in offsetting the costs of making things for members.

I have never had a 3d printer. Yet I would easily envision there is a slight learning curve to using these things over a basic computer printer. In terms of troubleshooting issues that maybe obvious to someone experienced with 3d printing. So not really sure I would consider 3d printers own by the club a solid idea. Granted I'm ignorant in this area and could easily be over thinking this.

However I think it would be cool to have a basic workshop on 3d printing in general would be super beneficial and educational to those of us who wouldn't even know how to turn them on unless it clearly said on/off on the button lol, let along actually set one of these up to print something.

I've seen many 3d printers on market place for under $100 even. So I would be inclined to trying this out if I was a little more informed about the process, and differences in printers, printing materials, what's reef safe and what isn't, and how to find cool stuff to print that you didn't know existed. If anyone with printers and some knowledge on this would be open to teaching some basics let me know any maybe we can plan it as a future club event.