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whtrbt commented on NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission   cnn.com/2025/10/20/scienc... · Posted by u/voxleone
Waterluvian · 2 months ago
Re: 1. I think the America of Theseus mindset is a bit troubling. A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in. Based on zero expertise whatsoever, I have a sense that this is a bit self defeating. To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy?

Today’s America scores zero points for its accomplishments of the past. But I think one way it can be a good thing is the, “we’ve done it before, we can do it again” attitude. Which is somewhat opposite to “we already won!”

whtrbt · 2 months ago
_America of Theseus_ is a great shorthand for what you're describing. Did you just come up with it then?
whtrbt commented on A 4k-Room Text Adventure Written by One Human in QBasic No AI   the-ventureweaver.itch.io... · Posted by u/ATiredGoat
eru · 2 months ago
And, of course, it will be inferior to what the machines make.

Just like machine created cutlery is essentially perfect, but human smithed cutlery will have lots of small imperfections.

whtrbt · 2 months ago
In what way do those imperfections make something like cutlery inferior?
whtrbt commented on Self-Assembly Gets Automated in Reverse of 'Game of Life'   quantamagazine.org/self-a... · Posted by u/kjhughes
Y_Y · 3 months ago
I was doing something similar with fluid equations on meshes more than ten years ago. Once you have Automatic Differentiation it's fairly straightforward to reformulate a time evolution process into one that solves for some free parameter.

It's a pity they don't give a video of the butterfly battle, that sounds a lot more impressive than the static 2d lizard.

What I'd love to see is a reproduction of the kind of embryo development videos you can get from lightsheet microscopy, e.g. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2Vnyph3Vmic

whtrbt · 3 months ago
You can probably manage to reproduce the butterfly battle here (original paper): https://distill.pub/2020/growing-ca
whtrbt commented on The underground cathedral protecting Tokyo from floods (2018)   bbc.com/future/article/20... · Posted by u/barry-cotter
srvmshr · 6 months ago
I have been to this place.

It is limited viewing, requires a reservation & the slots run out practically in seconds. Tough for us residents to get it as well. My wife could snag it in her third try, as a late birthday trip last year.

It is gargantuan & having massive holding capacity. To give semblance with something familiar, it was like standing in NY Grand Central station, except it was felt bigger, empty, damp & illuminated by floodlights from all sides. It is probably one and half football fields in length & scales high as much as a five storied building. Uploaded three pics to show the scale of this megalith. (The base of the pillars here are taller than average height of person to give a rough scale. The stairs come down from the ground level)

https://i.imgur.com/Jtcy0Ct.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/8Q08eKS.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/y75sfGP.jpeg

In addition to this underground chamber, there are two massive pumps on either sides, which divert the water from whichever river is surging to the other (Arakawa & Edogawa possibly). The chamber is the buffer zone between the rivers, not a storage tank ultimately. I was told by the civil engineer of this plant they could pump out as much as a jumbo jet's volume per minute in its storm surge channel/drain to manage flooding. You can walk up to the turbine room at the end of this room, and see its massive blades at an arm length. All with earthquake protection in place as well. Honestly mind-blowing piece of engineering.

whtrbt · 6 months ago
I've also been (December 2024), I didn't realise it was so difficult to get reservations.

It is an awesome space and surprisingly well lit.

whtrbt commented on Probabilistic Artificial Intelligence   arxiv.org/abs/2502.05244... · Posted by u/pavanto
svilen_dobrev · 10 months ago
stupid question: can a LLM (i.e neural network) tell me the probability of the answer it just spew? i.e. turn into fuzzy logic? Aaand, can it tell me how much it does believe itself? i.e. what's the probability that above probability is correct? i.e. confidence i.e. intuitionisticaly fuzzy logic?

Long time ago at uni we studied these things for a while.. and even made a Prolog interpreter having both F+IF (probability + confidence) coefficients for each and every term..

whtrbt · 10 months ago
Maybe stupid answer, but I’ve read a few older papers that used ensembles to identify when a prediction is out of distribution. Not sure what SotA approach is though.
whtrbt commented on Stimulants in Germanic communities of the Roman period   degruyter.com/document/do... · Posted by u/indigoabstract
amanaplanacanal · a year ago
This seems like a huge stretch. They find tiny spoons, and assume (based on no evidence whatsoever) they are used for taking drugs. Then they list a bunch of plants available in Europe which contain drugs. None of which are commonly powdered and snorted like they are proposing.

I admittedly just skimmed the article, so maybe I missed something.

whtrbt · a year ago
They mention that the length of the thong by which the spoon is attached to the belt is about the right length to lift it to your face, but that's it.
whtrbt commented on The new science of meditation   vox.com/future-perfect/23... · Posted by u/ojarow
hirvi74 · 2 years ago
Anyone have any recommendations for those of us without attention spans?

I've always wanted to mediate, but after a few attempts, I have started to question if it's more possible for some to partake in than others.

whtrbt · 2 years ago
You're going to be battling with your attention a lot in the beginning. I think just making a habit of it regardless and putting in the time is necessary.

You could always go on a retreat — you'll have very limited options for distractions. It might sound like an extreme thing to do, and maybe it is, but I did it without much prior practice and got a lot out of it.

whtrbt commented on The 90s Developer Starter Pack   retrocoding.net/the-90s-d... · Posted by u/ingve
0dayz · 2 years ago
I wonder if at some point we will have people see developing the "old school" way as a form of art/hobby or challenge people actively take part in.
whtrbt · 2 years ago
Does the demoscene count?

u/whtrbt

KarmaCake day106October 3, 2012View Original