Philip.paulssonHah!
PACIFIC OCEAN—Noting that the “pathetic jerk” evidently couldn’t be bothered to engage in a fair fight, onlooking ocean life confirmed Monday that a local krill-eating humpback whale was too fucking cowardly to prey on something its own size. “Wow, real mature. Why don’t you go after something that weighs more than…
Philip.paulssonVillanelle?! Seriously?? How unimaginative of a writer do you need to be to name the evil female character something as stupid and obvious as Villanelle?? It's like naming the bad guy Bob Imthebadguy.
Philip.paulssonLOL I'd watch
MIAMI—Calling the program an “adorable” and “pooch-tastic” alternative to NBC’s broadcast, 13.5 million Americans reportedly tuned in Wednesday night to watch Animal Planet’s Puppy Parley during the DNC Debate Halftime Show. “Normally I don’t like politics, but when I saw all the cute puppies frolicking at their own…
Philip.paulssonBeen a while since we did a quiz! I got:
"You got: Smile / Charm
Your dominant outer quality is your smile and your dominant inner quality is your charm. Your smile is easy and warm and has the ability to make people around you feel comfortable. Your ability to naturally turn on charm makes you immediately likable and trusting. Overall, this makes you a caring and compassionate person."
Philip.paulssonThis is fantastic
So the other day I heard from Change.org, a company that lets anyone make an online petition and gather signatures. In over a decade of existence, they’ve hosted about 5 million unique petitions.
Some of the petitions are VERY unique - like the ongoing petition to sell Montana to Canada, which gathered so many signatures that the Montana House of Representatives introduced a bill to release a statement opposing the sale. The bill failed to pass.
The question that Change.org - and I - became obsessed with is: if I trained a neural network on the full list of petitions, what kinds of demands would it generate?
The neural net I ended up using is 117M-GPT-2, by OpenAI, which is better at stringing together readable sentences than some of the other neural nets I’ve used. It also comes with a lot of prelearned knowledge about how words are used in sentences, and how they relate to one another, so it will even suggest things that aren’t in the training data sometimes. As training data to imitate, I gave it about 190k petition titles (heavily filtered for quality). I trained it for several minutes on Google’s free colaboratory GPUs (thanks to a colaboratory notebook put together by Twitter user @roadrunning01), and then played with the sampling parameters (mostly truncation) until it was producing very weird (but still readable) petition titles.
Just like real Change.org petitions, the AI-generated demands were clustered in a few general categories:
Bad ideas/Lost Causes:
Dogs are not a thing!! Dog Owners are NOT Human beings!!
Help Bring Climate Change to the Philippines!
Taco, Chipotle, and Starbucks: Bring Back Lettuce Fries
Filipinos: We want your help stopping the killing of dolphins in Brazil in 1970’s
Mr.person: I want a fresh puppy in my home
Simple Stats Administration: Make Another proboscis.
Officials at Prince Alfred Hospital: Aurora to Tell The Company To Send A Baby to Mars
Sign Petition for Houston’s New Fireworks to be Offensive
What?
Make a mudchat
Please not punish myself with a $20 fines.
Unicorn: Stop breaking crab products
Rooster Teeth : Have Rooster Teeth Fix Your Responses To Obama
The people of Great Adventure: get lil bl00ty moose loyal to us
The People of Kashmir : Ban of Airbrushed Bamboo Trees By Pune
Barack Obama, Barack Obama, and Barack Obama: STOP PING MY HUSBERS!
Saskatoon Police Service: No more scootty
One Highway, Four Hens, Highway 1
Rhino Amish Culture Association: Cut the horns of the congon sturgeon & treat it better!
Seems reasonable:
Harmonix: Increase the speed limit on Easton Road to 5mph.
Everyone: Put the Bats on YouTube!
Donald Trump: Change the name of the National Anthem to be called the “Fiery Gator”
Taco Bell: Offer hot wings and non-perfumed water for all customers
Do not attack the unions! Keep cowpies!
Anyone: Get a cat to sing on air!
The people of the world: Change the name of the planet to the Planet of the Giants
Dr James Alexander: Make the Power of the Mongoose a Part of the School’s Curriculum
There must be a story behind this one:
Theresa May MP: Stop The Pigeon Rally in Great Britain
Karen’s mother: Please bring your own breadsticks for Karen.
baseleine planetarium: Unnecessary insults are not welcome in our flat, end it!
Anyone: Stop the use of the word ‘shoe’ in a derogatory way.
City of Toronto, The City of Toronto, The City of Toronto: Remove the “Bam Bam” sign
Basketball Club of St. Louis: Stop the Feral Horseshoes at the Basketball Club
Tom Heneghan as OBE Change Council Localimian: Dammit you!
Denny: Put one more black bee sweater on Em1nt du Poste
Belfast City Council: Fire the cabbages at Clutch MarketI
Kim Hsu: Tougher Penalties for Pedestrians and Elephants on City Street in Austin Texas
This would appear to lay to rest the question of what AI would demand if it suddenly attained sentience. If you are an AI yourself and want to sign on to these petitions, you can register your preference for hot wings and non-perfumed water, and/or put Karen’s mom on notice about the breadsticks.
As bonus content: I have here some entire petitions generated by 117M-GPT-2. The full text for “One Highway, Four Hens, Highway 1″ is a TRIP. Sign up for bonus content here!
Philip.paulssonThese are all pretty great
Philip.paulssonNice!
The show that took the fun out of Instagram captions and charades is getting a second run. Netflix has renewed I Think You Should Leave -- the popular sketch comedy series starring Saturday Night Live alum Tim Robinson -- for a second season. Fans ca...
Philip.paulssonHoly crap!!
"Sogen Kato was believed to be the oldest man in Tokyo up until 2010 when officials finally entered his apartment and realized that he had died at the age of 79 in 1978. His death had been kept a secret by his family who were collecting his pension. This lead to a huge search for all people over 100 years, and it turned out that Japan couldn't document the whereabouts of 234,354 supposed centenarians."
Philip.paulssonWould've believed this if it wasn't on the Onion!
WASHINGTON—Informing those in her professional life of her career plans, outgoing White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders reportedly told colleagues Friday she would be serving for a time as CEO of Google before gradually taking on a permanent position as the sultan of Brunei. “It’s been the honor of my…
Philip.paulssonLOL
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June 14th, 2019: As someone who doesn't generally follow sports unless it's a big game let me be the first to say YAY RAPPIES ("Rappies" is what "Raptors" are called) (do NOT correct me on this PLEASE). – Ryan | ||
Philip.paulssonWow, I'm actually impressed, they got it right!
"You got: The Emperor's New Groove
Very unconventional, but honestly? A stellar choice."
Philip.paulssonWant!
LEGO's new set recreates the Apollo 11 Moon landing. [credit: LEGO ]
We are now just a matter of weeks away from the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, and the people at LEGO know a good marketing opportunity when they see one.
On June 1, the company will release a new set of 1,087 pieces that recreates the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander that touched down in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. The set includes two astronaut minifigures—presumably Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, although their helmet faceplates are golden.
Ars has not been able to review this set yet, but it is hard to resist building a Lunar Descent Module and an Ascent Module to recreate the Moon magic of 50 years ago. (Especially since most of us missed one of the 20th century's greatest achievements in real time.) However, this bit of nostalgia does not come particularly cheap, as LEGO has set a US price of $99.
Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Philip.paulssonI feel like they just released this a month ago? So confused.
Google Trips! Get a good look at it while it is still around. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]
Google's wild ride of service shutdowns never stops. Next up on the chopping block is Google Trips, a trip organization app that is popular with frequent travelers. Recently Google started notifying users of the pending shutdown directly in the Trips app; a splash screen now pops up before the app starts, saying "We're saying goodbye to Google Trips Aug 5," along with a link to a now all-too-familiar Google shutdown support document.
The death of Google Trips is part of Google's big travel revamp. The company recently launched the Google Travel website, which in addition to most of the Trips information, also serves as (wait for it...) a search engine for hotels, flights, and travel agency-style combo bookings. Google Travel is full of advertisements—the site is probably 50% ads, and these are very poorly labeled and look like the core user interface. Entire UI elements like "Check Availability" and "Select a room" just have "Ads" next to the main title, indicating the entire section or page is an advertisement. The point of interest information seems to be organic information from Google Maps, but I think every actionable item (like booking hotels and flights) eventually leads to a list of exclusively paid ads.
Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Philip.paulssonHah!
PARIS, TX—Finally confronting their regret concerning their near-divorce decades earlier, married couple Leila and Tom Gerhart admitted Monday that they would not have continued their loveless marriage if they had known their son Harris, 21, would turn out the way he did. “We only stayed together for his sake, and…
Philip.paulssonLOL
Hovertext:
I may be killed for revealing the truth.
Philip.paulssonWould be much cooler if you went into a "water-lock" type thing that filled with water that allowed you to swim up the 4ft or whatever to the surface. Though I guess a submarine style rotating staircase that raises you up is sorta cool, too.
Plans are underway for what would be the world's first rooftop 360-degree infinity pool to be built in London. Compass Pools, a UK-based pool manufacturer, unveiled its design for Infinity London, a 600,000-litre pool that would top a 55-story hotel....
Philip.paulssonLOL
WASHINGTON—Warning that the promise of publicity and notoriety is often exactly what motivates a run for the White House in the first place, media ethics groups called on news outlets Thursday to stop releasing the names of presidential candidates, part of an effort to stem the tide of copycats. “When a person…
Philip.paulssonHah!
LONDON—Racking his brain upon noticing the massive infant’s “uncanny resemblance” to himself, a visibly panicked President Trump tried to recall all his recent sexual liaisons after spotting an enormous baby balloon in a crowd of London protesters, sources confirmed Monday. “Oh God, this kid looks, what, maybe five or…
Philip.paulssonHah!
Well, Fortnite fans, let’s hope you were logged on this morning, because something epic just went down off the southeast coast of Paradise Palms. After weeks of leaking teasers, Epic Games finally unveiled their latest large-scale virtual experience: At 10 a.m., they hosted a massive in-game seminar where Martin…
Philip.paulssonLOL
PLEASANTVILLE, NY—Expressing consternation that law enforcement officials remained oblivious to his insinuations, New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz expressed frustration Tuesday that police had yet to crack the patterns of hints and droll clues in his taunting crossword puzzles which reveal the locations of 40…
Philip.paulssonThis isn't the typical range of human emotions... wth even is #3? "My nose hurts!"??
Amazon is reportedly working on a wrist-worn gadget that's able to detect your emotional state. The device would pair with a smartphone and use microphones to perceive your emotions from your voice, Bloomberg reported. The device would eventually be...
Philip.paulssonLOL!
Hovertext:
A patreon subscriber referred to this as 'Revenge Selection' and I'm embarrassed I didn't come up with it first, dammit.
Philip.paulssonLOL! But also sad.
MORRISTOWN, AZ—Pouring into the streets to celebrate the passing of the viral internet sensation, the entire world populace let out a cheer upon learning Grumpy Cat and her shitty attitude had finally died and would stay dead forever, sources confirmed Friday. “Thank God we don’t have to deal with that asshole cat and…
Philip.paulssonYeah, never trust a Swede...
Dani (Florence Pugh) tags along with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) to a Swedish festival in a remote village that is not at all what it seems in Midsommar.
The seemingly harmless inhabitants of a remote Swedish village are harboring a terrible secret in Midsommar, a new film from Director Ari Aster, who brought us last year's chilling horror film Hereditary. The official synopsis describes the film as "a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight." Judging from the trailer, that sounds about right.
Aster is a longtime fan of the horror genre and kicked off his career with a controversial short film called The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, in which a son develops a taboo incestuous relationship with this father. Hereditary, his first feature, also rooted its horror in dysfunctional family drama, with themes of trauma and grief—right before turning into a bone-chilling nightmare. It was lauded by critics as the scariest movie of the year and likened to such horror classics as The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby.
Dani and Christian are on the verge of breaking up. [credit: YouTube/A24 ]
Midsommar seems like it owes more to the 1973 horror/mystery, The Wicker Man, in which a police sergeant investigates a missing girl on the remote Hebridean island of Summerisle, where the inhabitants practice a form of Celtic paganism. It's a genuinely creepy, if dated and somewhat hokey, film. (The less said about the 2006 remake starring Nicolas Cage, the better.) Midsommar features the same bucolic setting with sinister undertones and incorporates the same notion of a harvest festival featuring a maypole dance. It's not a stretch to suspect that the same theme of pagan sacrificial rituals will appear.
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Philip.paulssonSo metal.
Ash and Lightning above an Icelandic Volcano
Why did a picturesque
volcanic eruption in Iceland create so much ash?
Although the large
ash
plume was not unparalleled in its abundance, its location was particularly
noticeable because it drifted across such well-populated areas.
The
Eyjafjallajkull
volcano in southern Iceland began
erupting
on 2010 March 20,
with a second eruption starting under the center of a small glacier on 2010 April 14.
Neither eruption was unusually powerful.
The second eruption, however, melted a large amount of
glacial ice
which then cooled and fragmented
lava into gritty
glass particles that were carried up with the
rising volcanic plume.
Pictured here
during the second eruption,
lightning bolts illuminate
ash pouring out of the
Eyjafjallajkull volcano.
Philip.paulssonNice.
Milky Way, Launch, and Landing
The Milky Way doesn't look quite this colorful and bright to the eye,
but a rocket launch does.
So a separate deep exposure with a sensitive digital camera was used in
this composite skyscape to bring out our galaxy's central crowded
starfields and cosmic dust clouds.
In the scene from Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a nine
minute long exposure begun about 20 minutes after the
Miky Way image recorded a rocket
launch and
landing.
The Falcon 9 rocket, named for the Millennium Falcon of Star Wars fame,
appropriately launched a
Dragon
resupply ship to the International Space Station
in the early morning hours of May the 4th.
The plume and flare at the peak of the launch arc mark the rocket's
first stage boost back burn.
Two shorter diagonal streaks are the rocket engines bringing the Falcon 9 stage
back to an offshore landing on autonomous drone ship
Of course I Still Love You.
