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A four-tonne machine just printed a house in the US. Texas just opened its biggest 3D-printed neighbourhood as a solution to its acute housing problem.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Oct 14 at 7:51 AM - 38 comments

Records of Pompeii’s survivors have been found—and archaeologists are starting to understand how they rebuilt their lives. [more inside]
posted by rory on Oct 14 at 7:32 AM - 10 comments

"Hi. We’re a group of comic book writers & artists who are furious about Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s plan to consolidate power under authoritarian rule. So we made a bunch of comics to explain their agenda and move you to vote against it." stopproject2025comic.org (quote from Bluesky) 15 comics up now on Internet freedom, taxation, the environment, anti-trans legislation, and other issues; more coming soon. License: CC BY-ND. Transcripts included. Contributors include Matt Fraction, Greg Pak, and Greg Rucka.
posted by brainwane on Oct 14 at 7:09 AM - 10 comments

Pokémon developer Game Freak suffered a server breach recently, leaking an enormous amount of unseen assets, including diagrams of the universe's pantheon, frightening concept art (YT 15:02) and some quite unusual lore.
posted by lucidium on Oct 14 at 7:03 AM - 8 comments

Black on Both Sides is the best Rawkus Records album ever (OkayPlayer, archive.is). [more inside]
posted by box on Oct 14 at 6:39 AM - 10 comments

Tell me if you've heard this one before: a curious young bug hunter discovers a major software vulnerability, tries to report it, and is ignored and gaslit. Today's villain is Zendesk, which you've probably used if you've interacted with customer support tickets.
posted by Rhomboid on Oct 14 at 5:05 AM - 29 comments

Visual Effects channel the Corridor Crew (previously) look at AI scams and how to identify them (25 minutes)
posted by TheophileEscargot on Oct 14 at 2:40 AM - 6 comments

Apple Intelligence engineers don't think that LLM's reason, and have described their tests to see if the reasoning is reliable and predictable (and useful for an Apple-style 'it just works' product). Here's a summary rolled up from exTwitter by Threadreader, and this is the arXiv.org pre-print. More analysis at why this is a bad thing at Gary Marcus' substack: LLMs don’t do formal reasoning - and that is a HUGE problem.

In particular, adding irrelevant data to the input or swapping names of things (rose, schmose) caused unintended variability in the LLM's response.
posted by k3ninho on Oct 14 at 1:39 AM - 40 comments

I always try to live by what Thoreau said, which is that it’s very important not to let your knowledge get in the way of what’s more important—which is your ignorance. As long as I know that I’m ignorant, I can learn something. from SPIN DNA: William T. Vollmann on Journalism
posted by chavenet on Oct 14 at 12:51 AM - 12 comments

Queensland's Houdini crocodile to remain in popular lake, but mystery remains about how it got there. An elusive freshwater crocodile that has been the talk of an outback town for months will not be targeted for removal after wildlife authorities deemed the "shy and timid" animal no threat to human life. Context: No human fatalities are known to have been caused by this species. [more inside]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Oct 13 at 7:52 PM - 2 comments

On October 13, Space X launched Starship 5 and several minutes later, caught the first stage ( called Super Heavy Booster) when it returned to the launchpad from whence it came! Scott Manley has great commentary about the feat, including the separate return of Starship itself into the ocean.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Oct 13 at 5:24 PM - 48 comments

“According to my notes, Netscape went live shortly after midnight on Oct 13, 1994. We sat in the conference room in the dark and listened to different sound effects fired for each different platform that was downloaded. — jwz (Jamie Zawinski) reminisces on his blog about releasing the first public version of Netscape. [more inside]
posted by ambrosen on Oct 13 at 1:12 PM - 28 comments

While scanning these files I came to realise that timezones were even more complicated than I had originally understood, with the rules in a constant state of flux. I was intrigued to see what patterns might emerge if I could visualise this dataset in its entirety ... from Exploring 120 years of timezones [Scott Logic, 2021]
posted by chavenet on Oct 13 at 12:04 PM - 64 comments

A paper to be presented at Siggraph 2024 examines the geometric properties of tightly curled Black hair and creates algorithms to model it for computer graphics. This is essentially the first formalized description and algorithm for rendering tightly curled hair in the decades long history of computer graphics.
posted by seanmpuckett on Oct 13 at 11:09 AM - 2 comments

On Point Nemo, the most remote place on earth (Cullen Murphy for The Atlantic)
posted by box on Oct 13 at 9:40 AM - 15 comments

ARCHiOx (Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Oxford) is a project to create detailed 3D models of a variety of books and objects from the collections of the Bodleian Library, allowing users to explore highly decorative and unusual bindings without a visit to the reading room. (Previously)
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 13 at 7:39 AM - 5 comments

The protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong has been banned this year under Hong Kong's National Security Law, which criminalizes advocating for "secession from China" or "seditious activities. Looking back, Hong Kongers reflect on where they started, and where they are now: “I thought 2014 was shit at that time, but compared to 2019 it was just a piece of cake,” she says. “I was so naive, believing the government would be sensible, respect people’s voice, and abide by the promise in the Basic Law. But now I can say I was totally wrong.” HKFreePress follows up on 12 leaders of the protest movement and where they are today. Founder of defunct Apple Daily Jimmy Lai was denied a request for a jury trial for his libel case against a pro-Beijing newspaper. (Previously, previously, previously.
posted by toastyk on Oct 13 at 7:39 AM - 8 comments

Marlene Weisman: "So, as you can imagine, this “think fast” boot camp was amazing training for my creative thinking up to this day. As the famous SNL adage goes: The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30."
posted by cupcakeninja on Oct 13 at 6:15 AM - 9 comments

When mostly men went to college? Prestigious. Aspirational. Important. Now that mostly women go to college? Unnecessary. De-valued. A bad choice. from Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? [Matriarchal Blessing]
posted by chavenet on Oct 13 at 12:17 AM - 121 comments

Elders bring home sacred Indigenous artefacts held in UK museum for 120 years. Warumungu artefacts, including a famous boomerang, are being returned to country in Central Australia in an emotional milestone for the community.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Oct 12 at 11:38 PM - 3 comments