i just realized how absolutely earth shatteringly horny the internet at large would be for darth vader if the original trilogy came out right now
my god, every facet of his character, the mask, he’s tall, he chokes people, he’s evil, good god it would be apocalyptic, this website would be fucking unusable
people are horny for kylo ren and he’s just an intentionally infinitely shittier version of darth vader who sucks fucking shit comparatively just imagine
so imagine Star Wars comes out now, everybody’s obviously drawing their fanon interpretation of Vader as hot brooding anime men so they can ship him with whomever of luke/leia/han they find personally most attractive. Empire comes around, darth is luke’s ****** (message me for spoilers!), everyone purges their Luke/Vader art and starts drawing him as a hot dad, slicked back salt-n-pepper hair and a chiseled jaw and shit
There’s a kind of neural network that learns to imitate whatever text you give it, whether that’s recipes, song lyrics, or even the names of guinea pigs.
Their imitations are often imperfect (they only know what’s in their dataset and therefore end up accidentally coming up with things that they don’t know are bad ideas). But one area where they tend to do well is inventing new species of things. The neural net’s birds were entirely believable, and its fish were generally no stranger than the species that already exist. So for my next project, I decided to generate some snakes.
I collected English common names for about 1,000 snakes and started training.
The first thing I noticed is that its snake names were a lot more noticeably fake than its birds or fish – the snake dataset is way smaller, so it had much fewer examples to learn from.
Tostlesnake Sine cobra Snoked snake Cancan rattlesnake Chippen’s putter python Southern coat snake Pinkwarm’s Copperanada Smart sea snake Western Nack Blonded snake Ham’s Pattlescops Green tree nosh Snake Hecker’s sea snake Ned-scaled tree viper Barned dater Snake Smalle’s mock ractlesnake Bland brown snake Corned python Common bust viper Smorthead Garter Snake
Some snakes did approach the level of believability. You might be able to bluff some herpetologists into thinking these are real.
Texan farter snake Shite snake Spitty rattlesnake Thing snake Brown brown Black Snake Tamestail farter Snake Black-neded tampon Madeshine spite- racer Bognia scat snake
I also decided to see what would happen if I trained a neural net both on snakes AND on Halloween costumes. Pleasingly, here are some of the snakes it came up with:
Wonder snake Fairy rattlesnake The Spacer Snake Robo snake Sexy cobra Bob dog tree Snake
I had way too much fun generating those, and ended up generating more than would fit here. If you’d like to read the rest of them (and optionally get bonus material every time I post), enter your email here.
I’m particularly fond of the “Common Bust Snake” which sounds like it lives ina particularly rube goldberg “booby trap”
Wizards have the same trust in magic that software designers have in software, which is to say, almost none at all.
“Are you fucking kidding me I worked in a reagrent shop for a few years I don’t trust any of that stuff. Who the hell knows what other components are in the ashes.”
“Yeah I was in the circle that made Alston’s Divine Circle of Teleportation. There’s some pretty nasty corner cases you can get into but the headmaster published it without us. I just take ships. It’s way safer.”
“I call bullshit on that Necromancer channeling spirits of loved ones. What did he say he was using? ‘Medium Conduit Ruinic Circles’? That’s just a bunch of buzzwords slapped together, and they don’t even interact with each other.”
“I’ve been looking at this scroll all morning and I’m 90% sure that the scribe didn’t even look at the standard for pyromancies.”
“Help Desk, this is Gloriline, what did you fuck up this time?” *indistinct vocals* “Dave, I’ve seen the news, and, frankly, I can see the ash cloud from here. You paid for extended support, not enabling support.”
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the dream i had last night was actually a pretty neat story idea so ill write it down
so i was an alien being studied by humans in the future. it was me + a group of the same aliens. kinda like human sized shrimp/jellyfish things, in a big tank. we were human level intelligent + social, but the humans studying us didnt realise that, because we communicated with senses that were outside normal human range (i didnt think of how this worked exactly, maybe like colour changing spots that only show up under a black light?)
we were def the first sapient aliens humans had found, but not the first aliens ever- as well as scientists, there were these??? tourists?? whod come in the tank and swim around and stuff, like how people swim with dolphins or whatever. so we knew some things about humans, but not loads.
anyway because it was the future, there was some… consciousness transference technology? or something? and i got consciousness transferred into a human body. not sure if it was accidental or deliberate on my part. no one noticed in any case
so after that it was me, the alien in a human body, trying to a) free all the other aliens, but also, the more immediate problem b) figure out how to human so i dont die of starvation or whatever, but also dont get caught. (one scene in particular was right after getting out of the science building- i was wearing clothes, that looked like what humans in science building wore, but oh shit, what if those are special science building clothes, what if theyre weird in every other situation etcetera) and generally getting into hijinks
there was also a thing where like… on the alien home planet, there had been some great catastrophe in the past, and humans were on the way to developing the tech that had made that happen, so now i gotta free my friends, not die of being bad at humaning, AND save the earth??
lads i was really just going about my life today and i came into my genetics lecture and my professor put both hands on the podium and explained to our suddenly silent 200+ person lecture hall that a chinese scientist has just created the world’s first GMO babies by taking human embryos and modifying them to be resistant to HIV. there are two of them and they’re twins. apparently we don’t know yet if it’s successful but it was at a conference where a ton of GMO researchers were discussing if genetic modification of humans should be allowed and if so to what extent and apparently this dude got the microphone and said ‘ive already done it’ and showed some data (apparently not a lot though) and there’s a ton of drama happening right now because ‘what the FUCK do you MEAN you already did it????? what the FUCK dude?????’. my professor kept saying to us with complete sincerity ‘this is important, this is really, really important’ and anyway i just…….what a time to be alive, you know?
like i dont feel comfortable taking a stance on any of this without more information but i do know for certain that god, i wish i could have witnessed that room of GMO researchers when this dude got the mic and was really like ‘i have modified human embryos’
Hey! I’m a scientist who works with gene editing and can def give you more context on the gmo babies! tldr it’s unethical and Not Great, but basically there’s been an (unenforceable) international moratorium on gene editing humans since 2015. It’s maybe illegal, maybe just advised against in China. The university, hospital, and government are all denying knowledge of it tho, which makes this super shady. (1/?)
Here’s the thing: gene editing has been used in therapy in humans, but 1. patients give full consent and 2. cells are removed from the body, CHECKED, double-checked, then put back in, because gene editing can have off-target effects and we want to avoid those, and 3. only cells that can’t be inherited are edited, so that an individual is only giving consent to alter their own body, not their children and/or the general gene population. NONE OF THOSE THREE HAPPENED IN THIS CASE. (2/?)
It’s extremely unclear if the parents knew what was happening, other than that the dad was HIV+ and the research was supposed to prevent the kids from getting HIV. (There are a LOT of cheaper and more accessible ways to do this than gene editing). So far, the scientist hasn’t proven that he checked for (or prevented) off target effects – but we do know one of the kids is a mosaic, meaning only SOME of her cells were altered. This could be really bad for her health, we literally don’t know (3/?)
This guy waited until he had produced human beings to make his announcement, didn’t consult the public, other scientists, or regulatory boards, and sprung the announcement RIGHT before the human gene editing conference – which signals that he did this for his own sake, not for science. He’s set a dangerous precedent and potentially damaged the public perception of gene editing, not to mention endangering those children (the edit made them more susceptible to West Nile). So. Fuck that guy. (4/4)
……?
this is…quite literally the wildest shit like i understand the incredible temptation to try something just to see if it could be done, every scientist understands that, but holy shit dude what the fuck?
idk this has a LOT happening and im not gonna be able to address all of it but my thoughts right off the bat: current gene editing (see: modifying someone’s existing genome. different from this case because in gene editing, the person is born and is displaying symptoms of a genetic disease, where here the embryos are being modified before birth) is pretty life changing and very safe and effective from my understanding of it and what i’ve been taught, and it makes me angrier knowing that this might set back that kind of science that’s more ethical in terms of consent. i also don’t like that the lives of these kids are gonna be inherently controversial. i also don’t like……………uh…..almost all of this, actually. like this is A Lot, holy shit.
Have I watched the movie in the last decade or more? No. Do I have iron clad evidence to support my argument? Yes.
1. She’s the most knowledgeable about candy. She’s committed to it, and knows her stuff. When Wonka holds up a little yellow piece across the room, she recognizes it immediately. She was able to switch to candy bars for the sake of the contest, so we know she has personal discipline and is goal oriented. Also, two major projects play directly into her strong suits: the 3-course-meal gum that Wonka failed to make safe (gum) and the neverending gobstopper (longevity).
2. She’s the most fit to run a business. Violet is competitive, determined, hard working, and willing to take risks. Her father is a small town car salesman and politician, so she could easily pick up knowledge and support from him. (Veruca’s dad is also a business man, and in a compatible market (nuts), but it’s made very clear that Veruca has no respect or knowledge of business practices or hard work.)
3. She’s the most sympathetic to the Oompa Loompas. She critiques Veruca when Veruca demands to buy one. More importantly, Wonka has been testing the 3-course-meal gum that ‘always goes wrong’ on Oompa Loompas while he presumably just watches. Violet is ready to put herself on the front line, instead of treating the Oompa Loompas as disposable, and would therefore be a better boss.
4. Her personality ‘flaw’ is the most fitting for the company. In the moralizing Oompa Loompa song, they just say ‘gum is pretty cool, but it’s not socially acceptable to chew it all day‘. The thing is, we already know that she can stop if she wants, because she already did that to win the golden ticket. And yeah, she is defensive about the perceived impoliteness of her hobby (like when her mother tries to shame her about her habit during a televised interview) but the obsession with candy and neglect of social norms is EXACTLY what Wonka is all about. This is on brand.
5. Her misstep in the factory is reasonable. Wonka shows everyone a candy he’s very proud of. Violet is like “oh sick, that’s gum, my special interest.” Wonka then pulls a “WRONG! It’s amazing gum!” So in the very moments before she takes the gum Wonka has mislead her just to belittle her. So when he’s like “I wouldn’t do that” why should she give a shit what he has to say? She’s not like Charlie over here who’s all “Sure Gramps, let’s stay behind while the tour leaves and secretly drink this thing that has been explicitly stated to fill you with gas and is too powerful for safe consumption, oh and also I just saw what happened to Violet so I actually KNOW what this stuff can be capable of” Also, Violet is not selfish about her experience, she tells everyone what she’s tasting and feeling, and everyone is eager to hear it. Taking a personal risk to share knowledge with everyone. Violet is Prometheus: fact.
So Augustus contaminates the chocolate river. Charlie sneaks around and contaminates the vent walls. Veruca destroys and disrupts the workspace. Mike knows exactly what will happen to him and transports/shrinks himself deliberately. Violet had no idea what the gum could potentially do to her, and caused no harm to anyone or anything but herself.
Lastly: Can you imagine Charlie filling Wonka’s shoes? That passive, naive boy? Violet is already basically Wonka. She’s passionate, sarcastic, candy-obsessed, free thinking, and a total firecracker. She’s even better than Wonka, because she doesn’t endanger others.
Violet should’ve been picked to inherit the chocolate factory.
