Category: Uncategorized

Interspecies fishing

wow. reminds me of the uplifting of dolphins

They have been reported to exist in Australia, India, Mauritania, Burma, and the Mediterranean, but the best known are in Brazil. In parts of southern Brazil, human fisherman have been cooperating with dolphins for many generations. If fishermen clap just the right way, dolphins will herd fish into the desired areas of fishermen, in muddy lagoon areas. The dolphins perform a distinctive kind of dive to signal to the humans it is time to cast the net for the fish. Only some individual dolphins are able (willing?) to do this well, perhaps the others belong to the 47%. The dolphins which cooperate with the fisherman are also more social, more socially connected, and more cooperative with other dolphins

Too Many Cooks

this is indeed nuts.

Umm… wow.

This is the most infectiously bizarre thing I’ve seen in ages. Even more so if you grew up on awful 80s television. It’s as though all the intro sequences for 80s TV shows got together in the ninth circle of hell and procreated, with this video being the self-referential, recursive bastard progeny of süçh án ünhölÿ ünión. ̢͕̲̰͔́͞ it permeates all MY FACE MY FACE ᵒh god no NO NOO̼OO NΘ stop the an​̅ͫ͏̙̤g͇̫͛͆̾ͫ̑͆l͖͉̗̩̳̟̍ͫͥͨe̠̅s ͎a̧͈͖r̽̾̈́͒͑e not rè̑ͧ̌aͨl̘̝̙̃ͤ͂̾̆ ZA̡͊͠͝LGΌ ISͮ̂҉̯͈͕̹̘̱ TO͇̹̺ͅƝ̴ȳ̳ TH̘Ë͖́̉ ͠P̯͍̭O̚N̐Y̡ H̸̡̪̯ͨ͊̽̅̾̎Ȩ̬̩̾͛ͪ̈́̀́͘ ̶̧̨̱̹̭̯ͧ̾ͬC̷̙̲̝͖ͭ̏ͥͮ͟Oͮ͏̮̪̝͍M̲̖͊̒ͪͩͬ̚̚͜Ȇ̴̟̟͙̞ͩ͌͝S̨̥̫͎̭ͯ̿̔̀ͅ! Ɨ͚͙͢͟͠Ŧ̯͔̳̺̬̣̻ͅ ͖̬̰͖̺Ŧ̭̻̲̳̝̦̗Ⱥ̹̩͚͘͠͡Ꝁ̷͖̲͓̖͍̺̻Ɇ̧͈̟̞S̨̢̟̥̮ ̶̵̪̜̪̰͕̙̱̜Ⱥ̧̝͉̕Ł̰̤̲͠Ø̨̡̯͍͙̩̭̦̦͔͔͟Ŧ̵̠̣̬̝ͅ ̮͍͙Ŧ̷͍͖̳̺͕̲̬͚͜ͅØ̷̷̳̗̠̻ ̻̪M͉̠͟Ⱥ͏̫̳̣Ꝁ̶̷̜̪͈̪Ɇ̧̦̳̻̘͙̗͉̠ ̨̯͉͙͚̫͓̜̗̗͝͝Ⱥ̡͎̳̤͚ ̴̰̥̩͎̜̣̗̕ͅS̢͈Ŧ͕͉͓͚͔Ɇ͕̙͉̫͓͉͈̖͞ͅW҉̗̖̟̳́

Also, the creators did a great Reddit AMA, where I also learned that my friend Shawn Coleman cowrote the song, and did much of the sound work. Crazy stuff coming out of the ATL these days!

Iain Banks

The Culture represents the place we might hope to get to after we’ve dealt with all our stupidities: find and isolate/destroy the genes that code for xenophobia, should they exist. Plus we’d have to develop AIs and let them be themselves; another big task.

2018-02-07:

Banks’s conception of the Culture is driven by 3 central ideas. First, there is the thought that, in the future, basic problems of social organization will be given essentially technocratic solutions, and so the competition between cultures will be based upon their viral qualities, not their functional attributes. Second, there is postulation of Contact as essentially the reproduction mechanism of the Culture. And finally, there is the suggestion that the operations of Contact serve not just as an idle distraction, but in fact provides a solution to an existential crisis that is at the core of the Culture. This is what gives the Culture its ultraviral quality: it’s only reason for existence is to reproduce itself.

New Yorker got trolled

What a mess of an article, about alleged “rock star” engineers, and how they have “agents” now. Blech. Lowers my respect for the New Yorker.

Bradley asked about 10x’s talent pool: did it really include “the top developers in the world,” as Solomon claimed? Solomon dropped technological achievements the way one might talk about album sales or duets with Lady Gaga. One of his clients had overseen user-experience design for Apple’s iCloud. “Have you heard of Django? The guy who co-created Django is a client.”

Crash Simulations, the game


there’s now crash simulation software, used in forensics. i predict this will be a game soon.

Flipping open his laptop, Arvin kicked things off by showing us a kind of greatest hits reel drawn from his own crash reconstruction experience. Watching the short, blocky animations—a semi jack-knifing across the centerline, an SUV rear-ending a silver compact car, before ricocheting backward into a telephone pole—was surprisingly uncomfortable.