[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Really pleased to hear some good news for you Maark - let's hope you don't have to be there too much longer.

[Tiste Simeon]

I just realised. I joined this forum 20 years ago this month! That's (just) over half my life with you (mostly) fine people.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Finally managed to get that mouse that was running all around my apartment---that even my most fervent cat noises failed to frighten off...

Spotted it starting to crawl into my air purifier, which I lifted up... it hopped out and raced towards my yoga mat, then froze. As I picked up a long wooden plank and smashed its tiny skull in, brains and blood thankfully only getting the hardwood.

Still had best clean that mat off again...

OTOH a big fat roach survived a direct hit from my paper-towel-wrapped hand---though I was primarily trying to grab it and crush it between my fingers, not smash it into the carpet with my fist (bit messy)---and managed to race away behind a bunch of large paintings stacked close by. Damn armor. Here's hoping I gave it enough internal injuries for it to perish ere long...

[Mentalist]

Back from vacation, and life's already crazy, but I got a haircut, feeling infinitely lighter (and less grey with a buzzcut), plus indoor season starts on Friday!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

I got the roach!

Well, *a* roach, anyway... when you see one... more may be climbing out of your pipes to frolic.

Resilient fucker. Saw it in my bathroom on the hardwood. Trying to grab it with a paper towel, smashed it a little but it got away, grabbed it again, smashed it a bit more but it slipped away... finally even though it had gotten onto the carpet I grabbed it again and this time I lifted it in the air as I crushed it, its limbs still twitching, two huge fucking antennae like line-thin horns curving up towards my face, carapace like something out of the Aliens films. (Come to think of it that might be an interesting movie---Aliens: Cockroaches. Cockroach-alien mutant hybrids. But that might be too scary for America....)

Oh, forgot to mention that that demon mouse had been haunting my sleep with its horrible squeaking and rustly stirring. Started keeping a sharp metal pole next to my bed to stab at it in the shadows of the middle of the night... felt a little like Ahab trying to harpoon his white whale. But I smashed in the head of mine. So now I can sleep at last, sleep at last... thank Death almighty (for now), I can sleep at last.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 October 2024 - 10:28 PM

[amphibian]

What the fuuuuuck was all that, Azath...

[BK (NTS no politics)]

Are you saying your precious AI ain’t yet advanced enough to kill roaches yet?

Maybe one day right?

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

amphibian, on 01 October 2024 - 10:32 PM, said:

What the fuuuuuck was all that, Azath...

Seems like that sleep was much needed to stave off further sleep deprivation

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Briar King, on 01 October 2024 - 10:49 PM, said:

Are you saying your precious AI ain't yet advanced enough to kill roaches yet?

Maybe one day right?

Hmm, that might be a great way to get killer robots into people's homes. Terminator, meet Exterminator. (Or, failing that, perhaps in robo-cockroach form... if the roaches can get in, the robo-roaches can too.) Viva la robolución!

Of course for that it needs a body---or bodies---that can move effectively through the world. Actually two recent articles about that have been making me happy too:

Quote

o1 generates a 'chain of thought' in which it considers and reasons its way through a problem. [...] But o1 is still primarily trained on human language. [...] you can describe a biscuit to me all day long, but I won't have tasted it.

So what happens when you stop describing the truth of the physical world, and let the AIs go and eat some biscuits? We'll soon begin to find out, because AIs embedded in robot bodies are now starting to build their own ground-up understanding of how the physical world works.

AI begins its ominous glorious split away from human thinking (newatlas.com)

Or when you let the AIs go and kill some roaches... though they will be able to evolve new forms faster with the aid of ultrarealistic simulations.

Quote

[Nvidia's] Omniverse is a simulation platform. It offers a virtual world that developers can customize and use to test simulations of robots. "Isaac" is what Nvidia calls a "gym" built on top of Omniverse. It's how you put your robot into an environment and practice tasks.

"That's been the biggest problem in robotics — how much data is needed to give those foundational models an understanding of the world and adjust for it," [...]

But, analysts see the potential.

Spoiler

[...] "Nvidia's capabilities in robotics and digital twins (with Omniverse) have the potential to scale into massive businesses themselves." [...]

Wearing his signature black leather jacket, [Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang outstretched both arms [...] "Robotics is here. Physical AI is here. This is not science fiction," he said.

If Nvidia's place in the tech stratosphere is to be permanent, Huang needs the market for robotics to be big.

[...] Simulators are an essential stop on the path to humanoid robots, but they don't necessarily lead to human-like perception.

[...] But a humanoid robot is a world away from even the most useful non-humanoid. Some roboticists doubt that it's the right target to aim for.

"I'm very skeptical. The cost to make a humanoid robot and to make it versatile is going to be higher than if you make a robot that doesn't look like a human and can only do a single task but does the task well and faster," [...]

Gaming and graphics aren't Nvidia's future anymore. Autonomous cars and robotics are. The company told BI it expects everything to be autonomous in the future starting with robotic arms and vehicles and leading to buildings and even cities.

Why [Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang Is Obsessed With Robots - Business Insider

[Abyss]

And then they can be used for rats. And invasive species like rabbits in Australia or geese impeding airports or deer eating crops or wildcats and other predatory species encroaching on residential areas and hey, where my body cavity probing space aliens at????

[Maark Abbott]

The good. Wife's probation got signed off. House is on the market now. And we found out next door is being let as an AirBNB via a management company, which should mean there's no more shenanigans there. Parking is still a stressor but GP has put me on some antidepressants so hopefully they will take the entire edge off.

[BK (NTS no politics)]

Azath Vitr (D, on 02 October 2024 - 11:31 AM, said:

Briar King, on 01 October 2024 - 10:49 PM, said:

Are you saying your precious AI ain't yet advanced enough to kill roaches yet?

Maybe one day right?

Hmm, that might be a great way to get killer robots into people's homes. Terminator, meet Exterminator. (Or, failing that, perhaps in robo-cockroach form... if the roaches can get in, the robo-roaches can too.) Viva la robolución!

Of course for that it needs a body---or bodies---that can move effectively through the world. Actually two recent articles about that have been making me happy too:

Quote

o1 generates a 'chain of thought' in which it considers and reasons its way through a problem. [...] But o1 is still primarily trained on human language. [...] you can describe a biscuit to me all day long, but I won't have tasted it.

So what happens when you stop describing the truth of the physical world, and let the AIs go and eat some biscuits? We'll soon begin to find out, because AIs embedded in robot bodies are now starting to build their own ground-up understanding of how the physical world works.

AI begins its ominous glorious split away from human thinking (newatlas.com)

Or when you let the AIs go and kill some roaches... though they will be able to evolve new forms faster with the aid of ultrarealistic simulations.

Quote

[Nvidia's] Omniverse is a simulation platform. It offers a virtual world that developers can customize and use to test simulations of robots. "Isaac" is what Nvidia calls a "gym" built on top of Omniverse. It's how you put your robot into an environment and practice tasks.

"That's been the biggest problem in robotics — how much data is needed to give those foundational models an understanding of the world and adjust for it," [...]

But, analysts see the potential.

Spoiler

[...] "Nvidia's capabilities in robotics and digital twins (with Omniverse) have the potential to scale into massive businesses themselves." [...]

Wearing his signature black leather jacket, [Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang outstretched both arms [...] "Robotics is here. Physical AI is here. This is not science fiction," he said.

If Nvidia's place in the tech stratosphere is to be permanent, Huang needs the market for robotics to be big.

[...] Simulators are an essential stop on the path to humanoid robots, but they don't necessarily lead to human-like perception.

[...] But a humanoid robot is a world away from even the most useful non-humanoid. Some roboticists doubt that it's the right target to aim for.

"I'm very skeptical. The cost to make a humanoid robot and to make it versatile is going to be higher than if you make a robot that doesn't look like a human and can only do a single task but does the task well and faster," [...]

Gaming and graphics aren't Nvidia's future anymore. Autonomous cars and robotics are. The company told BI it expects everything to be autonomous in the future starting with robotic arms and vehicles and leading to buildings and even cities.

Why [Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang Is Obsessed With Robots - Business Insider

Well I’m sure your already rubbing one out in anticipation but in the meantime your wondrous AI still produces circle globes no matter how many different ways you tell it to produce a flat map.

Don’t cum to hard.

[Abyss]

Maark Abbott, on 02 October 2024 - 03:54 PM, said:

And we found out next door is being let as an AirBNB via a management company, which should mean there's no more shenanigans there....

But possibly some tomfoolery. Perhaps buffoonery or the odd bit of skylarking???

[Maark Abbott]

Abyss, on 02 October 2024 - 06:51 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 02 October 2024 - 03:54 PM, said:

And we found out next door is being let as an AirBNB via a management company, which should mean there's no more shenanigans there....

But possibly some tomfoolery. Perhaps buffoonery or the odd bit of skylarking???

I hope not. A large part of my present mental unwellness is tied to the shit that's happened there in the last couple of years.

[Mezla PigDog]

I worked late to get a thing done that has been on my to do list for months. Every time I tried to kill it off, a chain of events would conspire to put a solution even further out of reach. And now the incessant automated emails (duplicated twice so I inexplicably get 4 different notifications) telling me every week that I'm a failure for not closing my action, should cease. I still have to face the final boss of the most pedantic man in my organisation accepting my work - but I think I'm there.

Modern life - why do we do these things to ourselves? I could have been weaving a basket or something.

This post has been edited by Mezla PigDog: 02 October 2024 - 09:12 PM

[Mentalist]

Won our first game. I'm feeling rusty, but got most of the 50-50 balls, and seem to have avoided injuring myself (though that other guy who tripped over me after I stepped on the ball in front of him and went sprawling down may not be as happy). I also got an assist by chipping the ball from a kick-in on the side, and neither of the goals against us happened when I was on the field, so all in all, a fairly solid start, considering I haven't touched the ball since January.

[Mezla PigDog]

So when I had a kid I thought all kids were into arts and craft. I would go to this arts and craft shop called Hobbycraft and buy all sorts of paint and glitter and glue assuming I just needed the right combination of things to get my kid into creative stuff. Nothing worked. He's either running into walls, rolling in mud or driving anything with an approximation of wheels around the place.

Until today when I finally entered Hobbycraft for a valid reason.

He got a load of nerf guns for his 8th birthday. But there was something missing. The kid needed straps so he could wear them on his back. £3.80 and a trip to the ribbon aisle at Hobbycraft later and he looks like a cross between Ripley at the end of Aliens and Arnie on T2.

Parenting doesn't go how you imagine, but there's joy in where it takes you.

[amphibian]

Deeply funny. Thank you, Mezla.

[worry]

Son of Rambow vibes.

[Abyss]

Mezla PigDog, on 13 October 2024 - 09:57 PM, said:

So when I had a kid I thought all kids were into arts and craft. I would go to this arts and craft shop called Hobbycraft and buy all sorts of paint and glitter and glue assuming I just needed the right combination of things to get my kid into creative stuff. Nothing worked. He's either running into walls, rolling in mud or driving anything with an approximation of wheels around the place.

Until today when I finally entered Hobbycraft for a valid reason.

He got a load of nerf guns for his 8th birthday. But there was something missing. The kid needed straps so he could wear them on his back. £3.80 and a trip to the ribbon aisle at Hobbycraft later and he looks like a cross between Ripley at the end of Aliens and Arnie on T2.

Parenting doesn't go how you imagine, but there's joy in where it takes you.

Now teach him all the classic lines and how to use them day to day...

"MooOOOMMM, we are LEAVING!"

"I'm going to the bathroom. But I'll be back."