Just a routine clearing of the baffles before we get into Six Weeks of Halloween mode; the usual dump of interesting links from ye olde internets:
- Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body – Neat! Of course, the mushroom didn’t actually learn anything and the people who wrote this article (or any of the other similar articles) should be ashamed of their clickbait lies. Scientists figured out how to read chemical and electrical energy from the mushroom and programmed a robot to move when it detected that energy. Still pretty neat, but this isn’t The Last of Us yet.
- Should the Miami Dolphins kill 5 of their players to trigger a disaster draft to improve their roster? Very nice and normal conversation over at Reddit, but I do think it’s funny when people tease out unintended consequences from a given ruleset. Like, obviously if the Miami Dolphins as an organization murdered 5 players, they wouldn’t get away with it. But if a “crazed fan” did it?
- Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art – Typically thoughtful essay from Ted Chiang that puts generative AI in perspective. It’s got some good zingers (“… the appeal of generative-A.I. programs: they let you engage in something like plagiarism, but there’s no guilt associated with it because it’s not clear even to you that you’re copying.”), but also articulates a good case for why we should value the human element of artistic expression. Along the way, Chiang also mounts a defense of writing that is “entertaining” (as opposed to “high art”), and the underpinnings of intelligence and skill, and why we engage with writing in the first place. I’ve been thinking about this sort of stuff of late and, someday, might put something up here discussing the ins and outs of a world changed by AI…
- I Am Eating Everything on Denny’s ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Menu – Yet another in Matt Singer’s quest to sacrifice his health at the alter of promotional food menus (this time with special guest!)
- The Blue Zone Distraction – Every now and again, you see a story about how the world’s oldest aged individuals tend to exist in certain geographical regions and cultures. The message is usually about diet or activity or stress, but it turns out that almost all of these geographical regions tend to have older aged populations because of poor record keeping (i.e. inadequate birth/death certificates), fraud (relatives collecting pensions for someone who’s been dead for years/decades), and other such conflations.
- Famous Folks – The realities of famous folks’ lives sound really quite awful. People seem to feel very entitled to them in a way that is deeply disturbing.
- Deborah Ann Woll Teaches Jon Bernthal Dungeons and Dragons – Remarkable on-the-fly introduction to D&D, she’s clearly an experienced DM and knows her stuff, and it’s funny seeing Bernthal’s eyes light up once he realizes what’s happening…
- Making a Sandwich From Scratch Took This Man Six Months – Making a sandwich from scratch, like, truly from scratch, as in growing the wheat for the bread, raising the chicken, etc… cost $1500 and took 140 hours of labor over six months.
- James Cameron Responds to Fans Complaining About 4K Transfers – “When people start reviewing your grain structure, they need to move out of mom’s basement and meet somebody. Right? I’m serious. I mean, are you fucking kidding me?” Sorry James, some of it looks bad (j/k, I thought they were mostly decent, even if I prefer *ahem* grain structure and whatnot). I’m still gonna snag the new Terminator 4K. Fingers crossed that they fixed the sound.
- What happened when I made my sons and their friends go without smartphones – Seems like it was actually pretty beneficial, and only hard for the first few days.
That’s all for now, stay tuned – Halloween season is almost upon us!