Debating whether this should be here or in /h/kino. The beginning scene is burned into my memory, as well as most scenes where a new creature is introduced.

Also brigade! Brigade! Brigade!

This is a good alternate scene !trekkies!

Savage Dragon is the first comic property to degenerate into straight-up porn

@

!math am I being bamboozed by this fricking nerd or what?

NEWS 🚨: The Event Horizon Telescope has captured the first image of our supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A, in polarized light pic.twitter.com/6KdrtMG4x1

— Latest in space (@latestinspace) March 27, 2024

https://eventhorizontelescope.org/blog/astronomers-unveil-strong-magnetic-fields-spiraling-edge-milky-way%E2%80%99s-central-black-hole

A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This similarity also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A*. The results were published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

This is probably fine pic.twitter.com/Q1p6qCyXpB

— ØSØ (@OsoBlanc0) March 24, 2024

https://futurism.com/the-byte/biologist-says-sun-conscious

A bong rip of a theory suggests that all matter possesses some form of mind or consciousness, not just animals — including, as one biologist suggests, the Sun itself.

In a fascinating dive into the hypothesis, which adherents call "panpsychism," Popular Mechanics reports that this out-there concept has existed for thousands of years, and in its more crystallized form has been bubbling around for the last few hundred years.

Though inklings of similar thought had existed since ancient Greece, the term "panpsychism" was, as the report explains, coined in the 16th century by Italian philosopher Francesco Patrizi. Though it enjoyed 19th century credibility when the psychology superstar Williams James publicly ascribed to it, the theory was veritably killed in the 1920s by the Vienna Circle when its "logical positivism" — the idea that philosophical questions must have logical answers — took hold of the philosophical world.

Fast forward to the year 2004, when another Italian, the neuroscientist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi, proposed what he called the "integrated information theory of consciousness," which suggests that consciousness is, essentially, almost everywhere. By and by, a sort of panpsychist renaissance began to take place, and in 2014 — nearly 100 years after the Vienna Circle killed the feel-good theory — the respected neuroscientist Christof Koch argued in Scientific American that if lumps of matter can form into human bodies and become conscious, there's no reason that groups of elementary particles couldn't either.

While AI pioneer and fashion-forward hat-wearer Ben Goertzel has been an adherent since at least '04, perhaps one of the most compelling instances of panpsychist thought came in 2021, when biologist and author Rupert Sheldrake published a paper questioning whether the Sun itself might be conscious.

"Consciousness does not need to be confined to brains," Sheldrake told Popular Mechanics in its new story. "The link between minds and physical systems seems to be through rhythmic electromagnetic fields, which of course are present in our brains. They are also present in and around the Sun, and these could be the interface between the solar mind and the body of the Sun."

To be fair, there isn't a lick of evidence of support this theory. And Sheldrake is a peculiar character; he does hold a PhD in biochemistry, and he did research at Cambridge University in the 1970s. But since then he's been drawn to a variety of extremely out-there topics ranging from crystals to telepathy, and been largely dismissed in the mainstream.

Still, it's a fun idea in a sci-fi type of way. The Sun is a complex system; maybe it harbors mysteries we haven't yet comprehended.

And say the whole thing is somehow true — if so, what would the Sun think about?

"It may be able to choose in which direction to send out solar flares or coronal mass ejections," Sheldrake mused to PopMech, "which can have an enormous effect on life on Earth, and to which our technologies are very vulnerable."

Discuss.

https://twitter.com/StarfleetDesign/status/1772111358487625907

Tfw I'm not in anyone's family book.

In retrospect, this seems obvious but I'm too r-slurred and/or uncreative to think to do this before But for those who like to gather technical certifications, GhatGPT can be a game-changer.

Instead of paying for online practice tests via Udemy or other online retailers, why not get generative AI to make them for you? This has been working gangbusters and saving me a ton of time. Instructions I used:

>List all current exam objectives in [technical certification exam]

>Prepare to ask me multiple-choice questions following those course objectives using the latest available material from the vendor that would be similar to real questions on the [exam]. Shuffle questions randomly between course objectives. Wait until my response before proceeding to the next question. Increase difficulty as we proceed.

>After I answer, provide if I am correct or not, explain why the correct answer is correct and why the wrong answers are incorrect. Append the results with a URL to a 3rd party source from [vendor and or related forum and or Wikipedia] for your answers.

Boom. Mega win for understanding the material without going cross-eyed having dozens of whitepaper tabs open like in the days of old. Asking it to provide a source increases reliability of the answers as this forces it to be self-checking and allows you to independently verify the accuracy of the information.

I've asked it to pause and extrapolate into deeper detail on subjects I was unfamiliar with as the generative test progressed before resuming.

I've also had it mix in a few "explain the [thing]" questions as well as "match capability to relevant service" questions like you'd see on a test.

Oh yeah, it's grinding time.