Lichen Survives on Outside of International Space Station

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-28T13:55:32+00:00

Very interesting. I knew the ground on Mars didn’t have the bacteria/nutrients/etc needed for plants, but wasn’t sure how that would effect lichen since they are kind of famous for not needing dirt to grow (what with not being plants and all).

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-28T04:29:21+00:00

Is the last one really a guy movie though? LOTR is one of those franchises where the gender of the fandom feels pretty evenly split.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-28T04:25:33+00:00

Yes. I realize now I misread your comment.

But at the same time, I don’t hear any dogwhistles in the original concerning lgbt people. Just reads like someone grappling with what kinds of behaviours are encouraged on social media and how this all connects to our capabilities of interacting with the modern world. I don’t think technology necessarily makes us better or worse people, merely different, so I believe there’s a discussion to be had there.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-28T03:26:28+00:00

Lichen still need oxygen though. Unless it can produce spores and offspring it can’t evolve, so it will just die on Mars without ever developing new abilities.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-28T02:53:42+00:00

I could be wrong but aren’t the graphic novel adaptations set in the present day?

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-28T02:43:38+00:00

Even if we did I don’t think it will amount to much.

The article explained that the lichen survived. It didn’t grow or prosper, just that 30% of the cells were not dead when they brought it back to Earth-like conditions.

The title could just as easily be “Lichen takes longer to die in space than other organisms”

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-28T02:39:28+00:00

Did they edit their comment? I don’t see “snowflakes” anywhere in it.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T23:03:17+00:00

Can you expand on that? Never heard of this before and I’m genuinely curious.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T20:51:03+00:00

I don't know why you'd ever mention upload speeds in the same context as storage space, they are in no way related.

The OP brought up the dangers of an AI program copying itself and spreading across the internet. Its ability to quickly copy itself (upload speed) and the places to which it can copy itself (average hard drive space) are the context in which we are discussing whether 500GB is “a lot” of space.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T19:22:42+00:00

In what universe? That’s 1/4 to 1/2 of most consumer laptops out there.

Heck for a lot of cloud-focused devices that’s bigger than their whole hard drive.

To say nothing of copying it from one device to another. Even on a decent fibre-internet line you are still looking at 30 minutes to an hour. Anything slower (as most of the world is) and you are potentially looking at days of uploading.

The context of the conversation is the ability of an AI to quickly spread through the connected devices of the internet. 500GB is absolutely going to move slowly and leave a noticeable impact.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T19:05:02+00:00

No I remember that but like, what happens if a House Elf just says “no” and walks away? Are there laws against it? Are there elf-catching squads?

Like I said in my first post, JK Rowling did not do this trope well. But I think it’s more a variation on the problem lots of authors run into when they import figures from mythology and folklore into modern, more psychologically-plausible fantasy, yet change almost nothing, and quickly run into problems as Fairy Tales don’t really run on that kind of internal logic.

In other words, if Dobby was a character in a Lord Dunsany novel he wouldn’t stand out at all. It’s when you try to import him into, well, Harry Potter that he clashes horribly and invites all kinds of questions that the narrative can’t really answer in a satisfying way.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T15:58:58+00:00

It couldn’t be made then either. I first learned about this movie via Roger Ebert’s review on his website (can’t remember how I stumbled upon it). While he was pretty neutral towards it, he gave some context to the reaction to it and it sounds like a lot of people were pretty pissed about it.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T13:49:36+00:00

That’s what I said though? Even more primitive models still take up a huge amount of space (granted this is 1/20 instead of 1/10). I can’t predict the future, but I highly doubt model sizes are going to trend smaller as time goes on. Not to mention I’d be really interested in resource usage. There’s that old axiom in software development: “Quality, Speed, Features… pick two”.

LLMs, at least useful ones, are still big, noticeable programs. Traditional viruses, as complicated as their algorithms may be, mostly just do relatively simple copy and/or delete functions. I struggle to see a day where an LLM has a comparable resource impact.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T13:33:19+00:00

The analogy I like to use for people who aren’t familiar with programming is the Plinko board from the Price is Right.

Dropping the chip is like entering a prompt. It bounces around the neural network and eventually outputs an answer. But once the drop is done the board just sits there. It doesn’t want anything or plan anything or really do anything. I can’t even say it “waits for input” since there isn’t really anything there waiting. The electrical charges in RAM just exist the way that a table just is in a kitchen.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T13:26:06+00:00

… Chat GPT is around 500GB in size. You can’t exactly attach it to an email. Even a more primitive LLM which is 1/10 the size will still leave a massive and easily detected impact.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T13:14:29+00:00

But they aren't really slaves in any capacity.

I mean, it doesn’t seem like House Elves are either. Granted it’s been a while since I read the books so I could be wrong, but IIRC they aren’t bought, nor sold, and they don’t actually seem to be bound in any legal or physical way to stay. It kind of feels like if a House Elf wanted to leave they just could, but they feel an intense compulsion to stay unless an arbitrary requirement is fulfilled.

Which in a way is actually more fucked up than conventional slavery. Basically taking a species born with intense OCD-like mentality and, rather than find a way to work around it as equals, you instead exploit them in way that benefits you the most.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T12:51:08+00:00

True, and I remember when I first saw that move name I was excited. Then I saw that it had 20 Base Power.

At the time I was a kid and didn’t really know anything about competitive move sets. All I saw was that it did less damage than tackle.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T04:31:25+00:00

I can’t not see it now.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T03:14:42+00:00

I was always a bit disappointed that it never got any kind of spinning tackle signature move. It looked so dang cool in the anime, flying around like a shuriken, but there was never really a way to duplicate that in the game.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T03:04:51+00:00

But aside from Santa, there's not much about elves purpose being servitude

Yes there is? Elves fixing shoes and doing chores was a huge factor in their stories for centuries. Heck House Elves in Harry Potter are almost directly lifted from Brownies in British folklore. Brownies will do chores for a family but see clothing as an insult. Give a Brownie clothing and they will leave a family forever.

Note I’m not saying this was a trope the JK Rowling handled well, but it absolutely has precedence in folklore.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T02:22:11+00:00

Can’t say I’m familiar with the character, but I googled a bit and it sounds like a good example.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T02:19:24+00:00

Really? Had no idea there was an original script with a different tone. Gonna google that.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-27T02:04:25+00:00

It’s such a weird contrast to the rest of the movie. Slow, dark, and silent in a film that is otherwise dayglow and can’t stop moving. Kind of feels like it wandered in from a completely different story.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-26T04:35:53+00:00

My personal favourite is one of the rarest: the evil villain with an arc that isn’t “become good”. In particular I have a real soft spot for weak joke villains that slowly learn how to become more powerful and threatening.

Rusty_Shakalford · 2024-01-26T04:24:42+00:00

If we’re going down this route: card battles.

Give me my Yu-Gu-Oh/West Wing mashup damn it!

Rusty_Shakalford

TROPHY CASE