WolfLink

@WolfLink@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨viruses⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For reproduction purposes, many parasites require a specific host to reproduce in. An interesting example is a worm that mind controls a snail and gets itself eaten by a bird, and then reproduces in the bird. Surprisingly, both the snail and the bird survive this process. (Granted, the difference between this and a virus is the virus uses the RNA decoding infrastructure in the infected cell to reproduce itself, while a parasite just is adapted to reproducing in the environment of the hosts body, but uses its own cells to do the reproduction).

  However, there are many, many examples in nature of some essential task (often some part of the energy production/absorption process) that are done by a different organism. Some particularly interesting examples:

  • there are a handful of animals that eat plants, absorb the chloroplasts, and use those to do photosynthesis

  • In most animals, even in humans, a lot of the digestion process is done by bacteria living in your digestive tract. Some illnesses are caused by issues with the digestive tract bacteria, such as them dying out.

  There are other animals adapted to living in environments or using things produced by other organisms. Hermit crabs get their name from their behavior of borrowing shells created by other organisms.

  Really the only organism that can truly live “by itself” would probably be something like algae.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨viruses⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There are plenty of organisms we generally consider “alive” that can’t replicate or do other key functions without other organisms.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Big Science⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  While conflicts of interest can and do exist, a lot of, if not most, science is done by grad students who are just trying to get their degree and are really there because they are passionate about discovering new things more than anything else.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netris is an open-source cloud gaming platform with Stadia-like features using Proton⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nvidia game stream is no longer being maintained, although it’s still present in the current versions of GeForce Experience.

  The Moonlight/Sunshine projects are open source implementations of Nvidia’s Game Stream protocol and they support non-Nvidia cards.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Every base is base 10⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And those who didn’t expect the joke to be in base 3

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ball's in your court, Mikey.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s cute

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon's sister is a NEET shut-in⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In the US it’s more expensive and tastes better than the US brand (Hershey’s).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lightning bugs⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep turns out frequent use of pesticides kills the bugs we like just as well as the bugs we don’t like :/

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨blast me off, fam⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think if I ate 175 pounds of cured meat, the sodium isn’t what would kill me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨sweet dreams⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Voroni pattern. It shows up in nature all the time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why can't people make ai's by making a neuron sim and then scaling it up with a supercomputer to the point where it has a humans number of neurons and then raise it like a human?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Lmfao I actually wrote that by hand but it does kinda look AI generated

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why can't people make ai's by making a neuron sim and then scaling it up with a supercomputer to the point where it has a humans number of neurons and then raise it like a human?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Short answer: Neural Networks and other “machine learning” technologies are inspired by the brain but are focused on taking advantage of what computers are good at. Simulating actual neurons is possible but not something computers are good at so it will be slow and resource intensive.

  Long Answer:

  1. Simulating neurons is fairly complex. Not impossible; we can simulate microscopic worms, but simulating a human brain of 100 billion neurons would be a bit much even for modern supercomputers
  2. Even if we had such a simulation, it would run much slower than realtime. Note that such a simulation would involve data sent between networked computers in a supercomputing cluster, while in the brain signals only have to travel short distances. Also what happens in the brain as a simple chemical release would be many calculations in a simulation.
  3. “Training” a human brain takes years of constant input to go from a baby that isn’t capable of much to a child capable of speech and basic reasoning. Training an AI simulation of a human brain is at least going to take that long (plus longer given that the simulation will be slower)
  4. That human brain starts with some basic programming that we don’t fully understand
  5. Theres a lot more about the human brain we don’t fully understand
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The “Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state” petition just got a response.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A no longer supported but DRM-free offline game can likely still be played. You can find an old computer, or use emulation or virtual machines to run it.

  But if the game uses DRM or online services it can become impossible to play once the company stops actively supporting it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are SMS messages so expensive?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I just looked it up and the $40 T-Mobile prepaid plan has a 10GB data limit. Tbh that’s probably plenty for most people, but it’s not unlimited. Their $50/mo option is unlimited, with caveats (such as throttling once you’ve used too much data).

  They are going to monitor your traffic and throttle based on estimated video streaming speed on any of their plans.

  Still pretty good compared to ATT and Verizon. Unfortunately I’m stuck with the provider I’m using since they seem to be the only one with good cover wage in my area.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are SMS messages so expensive?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What provider are you using? Both AT&T and Verizon are on the order of $80/mo for an individual, down to like $30/person/mo for a family of 5.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple will start allowing emulators on the iOS App Store⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If that’s how you want to put it, sure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm looking for play testers for my wacky Stanley Parable inspiredgame to give me honest opinion. If you are fan of those types of games, let's play : )⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wanna press the button

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple will start allowing emulators on the iOS App Store⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  iOS natively supports JIT (by which we mean writable and executable memory) but Apple locks it down to only two use cases:

  1. The JavaScript engine in Safari
  2. Support for running a debugger

  AltStore launches a debugger and connects it to your phone. Even though it’s not actually doing anything with a debugger, that’s enough to convince iOS to let your app use memory that’s both writable and executable (the key feature needed for JIT).

  Without JIT you need to either resort to a slower form of emulation or do something creative.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The free Delta game emulator for iPhones is live on Apple’s App Store⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I would love to play Infinity Blade again

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨D&D makers also want a Baldur’s Gate 4, but say they won't rush to a sequel (it shouldn't take 25 years, mind)⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m more interested in what Larian makes next tbh.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How the California forest that was Endor in 'Return of the Jedi' was obliterated (2022)⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  TLDR it was filmed in a forest that was already scheduled to be cut for lumber.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming: ‘One day you’ll barter bread for our DVDs’⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That starts with buying physical media. Except music since a lot (but not all) music is sold for DRM-free download on various sites.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming: ‘One day you’ll barter bread for our DVDs’⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Because streaming services discard shows once they aren’t “new” anymore. There’s a lot of content you simply cannot stream on any streaming service.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨degree in bamf⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Something about climate change maybe?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are game studios suddenly abandoning Black developers?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Baldurs Gate 3

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Between Guardians⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Transparent

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Citizen's first-person shooting is getting backpack-reloading, dynamic crosshairs, procedural recoil, and other improvements to 'bring the FPS combat to AAA standard'⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s playable if that’s what you mean. It’s still “early access” though.