Random Thoughts 7

[fresh_42]

Have you ever noticed that at Christmas people kiss under a parasite?

 

[WWGD]

Couldn't they really have thought out a better name than Project Manager Professional, aka PMP(Pimp)?

 

[Lyro]

I tend to agree with your ramble, though. It might not be a synthetic human in 12 months, but the way AI is already impacting things like drug discovery, material science, and even coding means the rate of invention is accelerating wildly. Every quarter is definitely going to bring some major shifts. Hope the "wrong hands" guardrails can keep up!

 

[WWGD]

Hasn't meeting people become strange and slightly uncomfortable, with all the possible handshakes available? Up to 6-7 trials before both parties coinciding?

 

[WWGD]

You would have thought with all the cheering about Transformer technology, it could have been used for autocorrect , specially for the first letter.

 

[fresh_42]

IKEA has a new ad slogan in Germany: "IKEA, made for life!" Did I miss the memo since my last time there?

 

[WWGD]

IKEA has a new ad slogan in Germany: "IKEA, made for life!" Did I miss the memo since my last time there?

No, they're just hiring hitmen. They also did away with " All the meatballs you can eat", thanks to Steven Segal.

 

[nsaspook]

I hate being called a Boomer in retirement.

 

[Astronuc]

I read a story about potato farmer who grew up on a sheep station. He showed up for a long distance ultramarathon race from Sydney-to-Melbourne in 1983 (it was an inaugural race). He won the race by 10 hours of the next runner.

Folks thought it was a joke, but he was serious about it. I had to check the story.

Cliff Young (athlete) was a potato farmer and long distance runner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)

 

[OmCheeto]

I read a story about potato farmer who grew up on a sheep station. He showed up for a long distance ultramarathon race from Sydney-to-Melbourne in 1983 (it was an inaugural race). He won the race by 10 hours of the next runner.

Folks thought it was a joke, but he was serious about it. I had to check the story.

Cliff Young (athlete) was a potato farmer and long distance runner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)

A must read.
"...without his dentures (later saying that they rattled when he ran)"

Never before heard of him.

Mostly I was amazed at the age at which he did all these marathons.

ps. I've walked a total of 2 marathons so far, one in high school, and the 2nd, not by choice, at the age of 47, where I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair....

 

[WWGD]

. Thought others may like it, though kind of long.

 

[WWGD]

So , this Physics prodigy teenager said we shifted or moved universes in 2012. Did anyone notice?

 

[sbrothy]

I read a story about potato farmer who grew up on a sheep station. He showed up for a long distance ultramarathon race from Sydney-to-Melbourne in 1983 (it was an inaugural race). He won the race by 10 hours of the next runner.

Folks thought it was a joke, but he was serious about it. I had to check the story.

Cliff Young (athlete) was a potato farmer and long distance runner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)

I really thought for a second there: "Now he finally snapped!". But no. As always, you have a knack for digging these out!

 

[Astronuc]

I really thought for a second there: "Now he finally snapped!". But no. As always, you have a knack for digging these out!

It is a pretty wild story. I've read it on different sites, but I had to check it out to determine if it was valid or not.

In the last two years, the amount of AI-generated stories has increased exponentially. With some stories, there is an indication that they are AI-generated, which could mean it has blended facts with fiction, as in so-called 'historical fiction'. I see a lot more AI-generated images.

 

[sbrothy]

True. Although to be honest AI never really occurred to me. I just thought: oh, there he burned a wire or lost a screw, but it turned out to be right! I wont doubt you again, not now that I've got a window into your process!

Nah, I'm yanking you chain!

 

[WWGD]

It is a pretty wild story. I've read it on different sites, but I had to check it out to determine if it was valid or not.

In the last two years, the amount of AI-generated stories has increased exponentially. With some stories, there is an indication that they are AI-generated, which could mean it has blended facts with fiction, as in so-called 'historical fiction'. I see a lot more AI-generated images.

It's worrisome you often can't tell which is which. Some pretty realistic AI out there.

 

[OmCheeto]

So , this Physics prodigy teenager said we shifted or moved universes in 2012. Did anyone notice?

Are you talking about Max Laughlin?
(I did a quick google)
Just finished skimming through about 10 minutes of videos and I think he may have gotten into his parents schrooms.
One thing I do like, is that it explains the apparent insanity of the universe we earthlings are currently living in.
We are in some kind of Rick and Morty universe, IMHO.

 

[WWGD]

Are you talking about Max Laughlin?
(I did a quick google)
Just finished skimming through about 10 minutes of videos and I think he may have gotten into his parents schrooms.
One thing I do like, is that it explains the apparent insanity of the universe we earthlings are currently living in.
We are in some kind of Rick and Morty universe, IMHO.

I thought the whole bit about Max was a sort of inside joke. Now, not so sure.

 

[OmCheeto]

I thought the whole bit about Max was a sort of inside joke. Now, not so sure.

Queue the Twilight Zone music....

 

[sbrothy]

I just missed hitting a deer on the way to work this morning at 4am. I drive very carefully and mostly under the speed limit because I see so many each morning. I'll have to check my dashcam tonight but I didn't see him until he was almost past the front of the car, trotting across the road. A 1/2 second difference and I would have hit him square on. As it was, I had to swerve hard left to avoid him. Very close call. That definitely got the adrenaline going this morning.

I may be naive but all the this stuff about my DIY Raman-spectrometer made me wonder if an infrared camera couldn't solve this problem?

 

[WWGD]

Queue the Twilight Zone music....

I guess Laughlin, emphasis on the Laugh part.

 

[sbrothy]

It is "Fahrvergnügen" (driving pleasure). I guess it has to do with ...
View attachment 335308

Well, yes but then you run into a staub and your effective speed becomes 5 km/h for a significant number of hours. If you hear or see a helicopter you know you're effed and it's gonna take time. Also, I was under the impression that the Italian autostrada is/was also without speed limit but looking it up I seem to be wrong. It actually reminds my of an American story (may be apocryphal):

A guy was driving alone along an American highway which had no posted speed limit so he floored it. Soon he was stopped by a cop who fined him and told him that even though there was no posted speed limit that didn't mean he could drive like an idiot!

 

[collinsmark]

In the last two years, the amount of AI-generated stories has increased exponentially. With some stories, there is an indication that they are AI-generated, which could mean it has blended facts with fiction, as in so-called 'historical fiction'.

Yep. I almost fell for one of these a few months ago. I clicked on a YouTube video (didn't recognize the author). The video was about some sort of modification made to the rear gunner sights of the B17 bomber in WWII.

The YouTube video's graphics did not concentrate on the mechanism itself; it just had a bunch of still images of WWII airplanes while a faceless narrator told the story.

According to the story, one day in his spare time, rear gunner with no background in engineering sketched out a mechanism to help him track enemy planes that were strafing the B17. He decided, at risk of potential court martial, to sneak out to his B17 one night and secretly install the modification to his existing gun sights. It involved a few metal rods and a couple of mirrors. As the story goes it worked; he shot down a plane the very next mission using the revised gun sight mechanism. However, at the next inspection, the modifications were discovered and he was called by his commanding officers to answer for his unauthorized modifications. You can guess how the story goes after that. Blah, blah, blah, unlikely hero genius, blah blah blah.

The engineer in me was curious how this mechanism actually worked, so I looked it up. The only references to anything -- anything -- related to this rear gunner and/or the mechanism was the YouTube video in question, and several just like it on other social media platforms, all released at about the same time. (There were in fact modifications to the B17 rear guns sights over the course of the war [involving a reticle], but nothing like described in this story.)

So yeah, the whole story was made up. It was just a bunch of AI slop. Jaysus, what a waste of my time.

 

[WWGD]

Yep. I almost fell for one of these a few months ago. I clicked on a YouTube video (didn't recognize the author). The video was about some sort of modification made to the rear gunner sights of the B17 bomber in WWII.

The YouTube video's graphics did not concentrate on the mechanism itself; it just had a bunch of still images of WWII airplanes while a faceless narrator told the story.

According to the story, one day in his spare time, rear gunner with no background in engineering sketched out a mechanism to help him track enemy planes that were strafing the B17. He decided, at risk of potential court martial, to sneak out to his B17 one night and secretly install the modification to his existing gun sights. It involved a few metal rods and a couple of mirrors. As the story goes it worked; he shot down a plane the very next mission using the revised gun sight mechanism. However, at the next inspection, the modifications were discovered and he was called by his commanding officers to answer for his unauthorized modifications. You can guess how the story goes after that. Blah, blah, blah, unlikely hero genius, blah blah blah.

The engineer in me was curious how this mechanism actually worked, so I looked it up. The only references to anything -- anything -- related to this rear gunner and/or the mechanism was the YouTube video in question, and several just like it on other social media platforms, all released at about the same time. (There were in fact modifications to the B17 rear guns sights over the course of the war [involving a reticle], but nothing like described in this story.)

So yeah, the whole story was made up. It was just a bunch of AI slop. Jaysus, what a waste of my time.

Wish it was required to specify that the story was AI. Ony some channels do.

 

[Borg]

The YouTube video's graphics did not concentrate on the mechanism itself; it just had a bunch of still images of WWII airplanes while a faceless narrator told the story.

There was a similar one posted on PF a few months ago about a "genius ship's cook" who made liberty ships quieter during the war. It fascinated me enough to research it and it turned out to be pure fiction. The design in the story was real but wasn't invented until 2 decades later.

 

[WWGD]

Sometimes there's a sort of description of the content , where it's specified whether the content is fact or fiction.

 

[WWGD]

I knew my then gf and I weren't going to be together for too long. A quiz she asked we both take:
" What's the most powerful force in the universe?"
Her: Love
Me: Compound growth, Exponential growth.

 

[Astronuc]

There was a similar one posted on PF a few months ago about a "genius ship's cook" who made liberty ships quieter during the war. It fascinated me enough to research it and it turned out to be pure fiction. The design in the story was real but wasn't invented until 2 decades later.

That was that story I posted. I should have investigated further. The story is basically historical fiction as it included references to actual people, but there main narrative was fictitious. The story about the cook who purportedly develop acoustic damping/dampening is published on WWII Rising Stories, and there is a disclaimer comment:
How this was made
Altered or synthetic content. Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated.

It should indicate AI-generated narrative. There are various channels like WWII Rising Stories that create 'historical fiction'.

If one listens to the narrative, one hears mention of Convoy HX 229, which is an actual convoy, and reference to German (Kriegsmarine) U-boat U758, which is an actual submarine that attacked Convoy HX 229.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoys_HX_229/SC_122#Convoy_HX_229
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-758#Second_patrol

In the beginning of the video, one hears reference to merchant ship SS William Eustis (an actual ship) on which Thomas (Tommy) Patrick Lawson is supposedly serving as cook. SS William Eustis was part of HX 229, and it was hit by a torpedo from Kriegsmarine U435 on 22 March 1943.

At 01.22 hours on 17 March 1943 the William Eustis (Master Cecil Desmond) in station #22 of convoy HX-229 was hit on the starboard side by one of two FAT torpedoes from U-435, the other missed by 200 feet. The torpedo struck in the #2 hold, blew of the hatch covers of #2 and #3 holds, flooded the hold and a split became visible on the starboard side 20 feet from the hold to the bridge. The eight officers, 34 crewmen and 30 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) abandoned ship after 30 minutes in one lifeboat and four rafts because heavy weather had damaged four of the boats and another was damaged by the explosion. The survivors were picked up after four hours by HMS Volunteer (D 71) (LtCdr G.J. Luther, RN), which scuttled the wreck by gunfire and depth charges and landed the men at Liverpool on 22 March.

https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/2796.html

There was a Professor Patrick Blackett, but it is not clear that he did research in underwater acoustics; he did serve in the Royal Navy during WWI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blackett#Early_life_and_education
During WWII, Blakcett worked with experimental physicist Evan James Williams to address merchant convoy survivability and the U-boat menace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blackett#World_War_II_and_operational_research

Early on in World War 2 Blackett asked Williams to join RAE Farnborough to apply his imaginative physical mind to the problem of the U-boat menace. One of the results was the MDS (magnetic detection of submarines) system which was taken up with enthusiasm by US scientists when presented to them by Sir Henry Tizard in 1940. In 1941 Williams joined Blackett at the newly formed Operational Research Section at the Admiralty's Coastal Command where they "essentially invented" operational research; Williams was director of research from 1941 to 1942, scientific adviser to the Navy on methods of combating submarines from 1943 to 1944, then assistant director of research in the Navy from 1944 to 1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_James_Williams

Rear-Admiral Leonard Murray is an actual person
https://www.canada.ca/en/navy/corporate/history-heritage/canadian-naval-heroes/leonard-murray.html

In May 1941 Murray was put in charge of the Newfoundland Escort Force (NEF), part of the Allied convoy system during the Battle of the Atlantic. Created in response to the movement of German U-boats into the western Atlantic Ocean, the NEF was instituted to cover the convoy escort gap that existed between the local convoy escort in Canada and the United Kingdom.
. . .
Murray would command the NEF until 1943 when he was appointed Commanding Officer Atlantic Coast and in April 1943 as Commander-in-Chief Canadian North West Atlantic (CNWA) and Deputy Commander U.S. Task Force 24.

So there are historical facts weaved into a fictional narrative. I'm not sure how a cook onboard a ship and sitting in a noisy engine room could hear how ships sound underwater. One might be able to hear noise of ships through the hull, but one would have to be distant from the engine room and propulsion systems of one's own ship. I do not think a cook would have access to a hydrophone, nor would a merchant ship necessarily be deploying a hydrophone.

 

[Borg]

That was that story I posted.

I know but I didn't want to throw you under the bus.

 

[BillTre]

I know but I didn't want to throw you under the bus.

Or (more appropriately) keel haul him.