That was a pretty incredible read, not that most of it came a surprise to me. But the central thesis of what the author is presenting is very much important, and should not be dismissed out of hand. We are living in an incredibly challenging and untested age, and I do think we are already seeing [greater] cultural effects from the digital generations. In one of my past roles I was responsible for categorising such things as youtube and internet searches (which therefore means being exposed to those searches) - only vocalised. And let me for the record tell you that hearing children as young as infants look for such is things is, in fact, very much disturbing. I say that in full honesty and disclosure, with no sense of exaggeration. I don't know how much 'automation' has to do with this (and some usage of that term I would object to), but this is very much at the feet of the content moderators/suppliers without question. This is much more insidious than 'fake news' and its effects are much longer lasting and deeply ingrained. I am happy to see that some of the videos Mr. Bridle alluded to have been pulled, but I have doubts it was for any of the right reasons. As unpopular an opinion as this is going to be, this is a direct consequence of capitalism and the incessant drive to monetise absolutely everything in people's daily lives. The world has become a sad place, in many respects.
My sister is nine and grew up with YouTube, though she isn't anywhere near as deep in as some of the kids I see now. I worry about what it will mean to care for a child with access to the modern internet. This is what I was getting at with "automation", but you've cut to the heart of the problem here. It's not so much automation here as the revenue model relying on vast amounts of user content and interaction. Moderating all that would be a formidable task without some degree of automated filtering, and of course there's good old cost-cutting at work too, since hiring and administrating a small country's worth of human content reviewers might not even be viable for their bottom line. So the ad-revenue model creates an incentive for uploaders to produce tons of videos, and the sheer quantity of content means that the first level of filtering happens with automated systems that won't pick up these freaky uncanny-valley children's videos. It also creates our problem on the content creator side, which is where I think automation is more relevant. These kids' channels have found the best way to maximise profits with minimal effort is to upload tons upon tons of videos, often with the exact same "nursery rhyme" song but different visuals. So it seems a lot of the content creation itself is automated, like a program picking random characters from a pool, assigning a voice part to each and managing the background and animation and such. Sometimes that will produce really disturbing shit which the site filters won't pick up, because it comes from the whole context of the scene and not a violent image or a bad word. And it feeds itself, because as a new channel trying to establish a foothold you need to play the game and fling as much shit as possible against the wall like everyone else. What's especially unsettling for me is that this sea of weird, basically unmoderated content lets malicious actors hide. Some videos are obviously machine-generated and others obviously have a lot of human hands on production, but stuff in that 'uncanny valley' of subtly disturbing videos is really ambiguous to me. A portion could be awful people intentionally uploading videos that harm children, knowing they'll get lost in the sea. That's a very long-winded way of saying that I agree; this is absolutely a problem of capitalism. It's what happens when everything directly touching most of these videos on the user and YouTube sides is a machine, because here machines are cheaper and faster than people. I think it's also an excellent example of how capitalism in general is damaging us, but that's another long paragraph.
Why is wombat poop cube-shaped? A young common wombat ( Vombatus ursinus tasmaniensus) at the Healesville Sanctuary. These animals produce some of the animal kingdom's strangest-shaped scat.
Thanks for sharing that! Finally they figured it out! For some reason, the pic above doesn't transfer you to the on-line article, which is https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/11/wombat-poop-cube-why-is-it-square-shaped/
LOL, this is so crazy. My wife just showed me this last night. All I could tell her was that I too would like my poop to be square shaped. Who cares why or how, how do I intern?
Eating raw unripened persimmons can cause one of the tannins inside to polymerise as a result of reaction with the weak acid of the stomach, resulting in phytobezoar, or "food ball." These are hard and almost woody in consistency; and can occur regularly in areas where the fruit is grown is for harvest. Treatment can require surgery, or the advised ingestion of Coca-Cola.
Better be nice! He's almost here! https://www.noradsanta.org/ Really nifty! It keeps track of how many gifts have been flung out of the sled! Sorta hypnotic to watch as well Happy Holidays everyone! *I'm sure Scrooge would say something like, "ya know, that contraption would make a great military asset! We should package that!" Lookout North Korea! P.S. If you are looking for an alternative to gifting "things", and want to make a gift donation instead, this is a great resource to find "accountable" charities that will maximize the monies you give them, and apply it to the actual charity (some organizations eat up +50% of your donation to offset "Administrative Costs") FIND A CHARITY! https://www.charitywatch.org/top-rated-charities
Christmas cheer expressed in the technologies of the world's largest and deadliest military apparatus strikes me as pretty dystopian. ...is what I'd expect a fun-hating old Scrooge to say! Nothing to see here, immigration officials.
The issue with the trackers is when children start comparing where Santa is on more than one; answering why they are showing him in different locations starts to become problematic. Merry Christmas everyone
A nice clip on Hayao Miyazaki https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/...Fsi2DD-pzcpFSKniyxgbqEYh-P5ypb0vuVETUGoBem0Co He references the painting Ophelia, by John Everette Millais (breathtaking to see in person!). A digital image pales in comparison. More info here https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506/story-ophelia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_(painting) With the shelter-in-place affecting us all, here are some virtual museum tours you can try... https://archpaper.com/2020/03/google-arts-culture-over-500-virtual-museums/#gallery-0-slide-0 https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75809/12-world-class-museums-you-can-visit-online https://hyperallergic.com/547919/2500-virtual-museum-tours-google-arts-culture/
Thanks for those, Grace. Great idea to spend the time (although I am more busy than ever right now ). Some more amusing reading to pass that 'shut in' time, as many folks might not be aware of this, and we do love our lighter side. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hair-freezing-contest-canada/index.html I could definitely imagine some incredibly great tokusatus/giant robot tributes I could do this way! Check out the Hair Freezing Contest in the Takhini Hot Pools (YT) for more delights.
http://www.cwmcmahon.com/home.html This guy buys thrift store paintings, and inserts monsters into them! A lot of kaiju-type monsters to gawk at.
Reading this thread for the first time and noted the mention of these, having survived eating one persimmon, but more so because I have had the good fortune to handle a goat bezoar. I didn’t lick it! https://nyamcenterforhistory.org/2016/12/02/found-in-the-eyes-of-rams-the-bezoar-and-its-powers/
A sonnet a day, read by Sir Patrick Stewart... https://www.instagram.com/sirpatstew/channel/?utm_source=ig_embed https://mymodernmet.com/patrick-stewart-shakespeares-sonnets/
Classic thing you learn in Geology 101, when being lectured on volcanology (not vulcans! ) Krakatoa (wonderfully described and put into quantitative perspective) https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...the-earth-four-times?utm_source=pocket-newtab But Krakatoa pales in comparison with Lake Toba (so much ash was emitted into the atmosphere, that it lowered global temperatures by 15C / 59F, and it took 1000 years! for temps to return to normal), Yellowstone, and Flat Landing Brook (conjecture)... Super Volcanoes!
Fascinating youtube channel (good for wasting time!) Mr. Slav's youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2-G8Gpl-5QN3I9Y8cgoWw Mr. Slav's "Tops" i.e. Deep! Poison *At 11:05, is abrin from beautiful naturally growing seeds from the plant Abrus precatorius, which are highly toxic. It is said that chewing and swallowing one seed can kill you! There is no antidote to treat this poison. I used to have strands of these seeds, which were commonly made into beads (also known as Rosary Peas) in necklaces, bracelets, etc... when I was a youngster. My Mom and I never knew they were that poisonous! I think they are illegal to sell in the USA, but not really enforced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrus_precatorius Poignantly, and respect for those who sacrificed themselves for others... Something to give pause about (esp. nuclear weapons) and so on....
Angel Abby now requires CLEAR PHOTOS OF YOUR FACE to enter their online lotteries. That just seems so odd. Like I can't figure out how that would even be helpful.
@Mr. Humphreys - not sure how much of the BBC David Attenborough docs are streamed where you are but if you can find 'A Perfect Planet' - Series 1, episode 1 is all about Volcanos and both beautifully shot but also extremely interesting. The entire series is worth a watch, as is almost all (everything?) he is involved with.
Thank you @Mr Fox ! I think Sir Attenborough's series is carried by Netflix, so I'll try to find a friend with a subscription to catch the Volcanoes episode. I LOVED all of his science & nature documentaries I saw on public TV, which were broadcasted a long time ago . Definitely top notch stuff!