AI: OK. AI learns to write computer code in ‘stunning’ advance DeepMind’s AlphaCode outperforms many human programmers in tricky software challenges Ruh-roh. Wisdom:
A visualization of how high a human could jump on other worlds, due to the differences in local gravity. Not included is the difficulty in jumping while wearing a space suit… And similar:
Not politically, literally: The Great Purpling I’ve noticed a number of streetlights around here pumping out a distinctly blue/purple light for a while now. It’s disconcerting… it’s not an unpleasant color, but it’s *different,* and everything looks funny under it. I thought it was a choice, but it turns out it’s a manufacturing…
… of just what constitutes this garbage. What fraction is paper? How much plastic? And how much is just sticks and weeds, stuff not normally considered “garbage” in the ecosystem? In any event, this mechanism seems to be working quite well. I wonder if it could be made actually productive, though, rather than…
This is weird. And if this is confirmed, it’ll mean… something. Asymmetry Detected in the Distribution of Galaxies As if playing a cosmic game of Connect the Dots, the researchers drew lines between sets of four galaxies, constructing four-cornered shapes called tetrahedra. When they had built every possible tetrahedron from a catalog of 1…
Looming crisis: Follow-up study shows significant decline in sperm Ccounts globally, including Latin America, Asia and Africa Turns out it’s not just the developed world, but apparently the precipitous drop in sperm count – more than 50% in the last 46 years – seems to be world wide, with no sign of stopping. This would…
Not enough time to do anything about it, but then it was only a meter or so wide. At that side it was probable to be harmless. Ten times bigger, though, it starts to get worrisome. A hundred time the diameter, you need to stand up, take notice and consider launching the nukes. This…
So Elon Musk posted some photos of a recent “code review” at Twitter. One photo in particular has some people upset… because the people who are there doing actual work seem to be… well, take a look: https://twitter.com/iOnlyBvz/status/1593899565169758208 If you read the Twitter comments, you’ll see that some people are upset…
AI Drew This Gorgeous Comic Series. You’d Never Know It There are two points that I think should be noted: First: “AI image generation is advancing so rapidly, he adds, that The Lesson, out Nov. 1, marks a clear visual step up from the first comic in the trilogy, Summer Island, a folk-horror…
