RatCreature's Journal

it looks like AI get sleep deprived too?

2020-12-11T23:03:44Z

Apparently AIs that mimic neural networks start hallucinating if they work too long continuously on their task and need to rest with some static white noise type input? (Here's a press release by the Los Alamos lab researching this.) So it looks like all the SF where androids wouldn't need rest breaks was a bit too optimistic on the artificial brains being more efficient than ours...

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it's the little things tripping you

2019-09-13T19:16:20Z

I'm reading an erotic romance novel, so the characters are having sex early on, and the heroine's and hero's chemistry is decent, but I just can't get into the sex scene, because when the heroine woke up in the morning her dog was mentioned, and she didn't take it with her. So the heroine and hero had this chance meeting (well actually their second, but that's kind of irrelevant) some time before noon, and eventually we are getting to marathon sex in the evening after they do a lengthy lunch, and the heroine never got back to her apartment for her dog at any time.

How am I supposed to like a character who just forgets their dog because of pants feelings? Also it will certainly have peed and pooped in her apartment at this point.

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flatpack chocolate bunny

2019-04-18T19:32:33Z

dine alerted me to the existence of this IKEA product, so I got a "VÅRKÄNSLA" a while ago, and now assembled it in preparation for the Easter holidays. It is actually the total extent of my decoration.

So it comes in a flatpack:

In typical IKEA fashion one of the pieces was a bit scuffed (the head area of the main piece), because there's always something... but it was complete, non-broken, and the instructions where clear:

And this is the finished chocolate bunny:

I can't speak as to its taste yet, that will have to wait until Easter Sunday at least.

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the catastrophe options seem to expand every day

2019-02-10T20:05:42Z

Just now I read that according to a review of multiple studies the insects populations are collapsing even faster than the (already bad) expectations were before, which will collapse all ecosystems and our food supply fast (even faster than climate change).

And since it's been 2017 since I did the last version of this poll...

View Poll: why ratcreature should only look at pictures of fluffy baby animals, 2019 ed.

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kind of obvious in retrospect

2018-06-27T08:29:33Z

But when looking for some random TV distraction that is not news, because those are so depressing and anxiety inducing, settling on a Thirty Year War documentary might not have been the best choice.

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idle musings

2017-10-06T20:49:07Z

After reading another article about how Neanderthals may have contributed even more to the genetic mix of modern humans outside of Africa than previously assumed, I've been wondering how these groups of humans would have seen each other.

Would they have actually thought the other group to be more different than other groups of their own "species"? (I'm actually not sure you can really call these human subtypes different species when they could and did reproduce with fertile offspring, but from what I gather the species concept overall just breaks down at certain points when you poke at it anyway.)

I mean, sure when you look at Neanderthal reconstructions they look somewhat different from us, but not different like a chimpanzee, and modern humans among ourselves also have quite a lot of variation (though I'm not sure how much of that had developed at what time), not just skin color, hair and eye color but facial features, size etc. leading to the whole "human races" construction, and the difficulty to get to a consensus that we are in fact all fundamentally the same. So if you are an early Homo Sapiens and see a Neanderthal would you think them really "other" or just somewhat "other" (i.e. like some unrelated other clan of Homo Sapiens)? They also had tools, fire and probably art too after all.

Of course we probably won't ever know, and afaik they haven't found sites of mixed groups that might be a sign that the mixing was even somewhat consensual. And there doesn't seem to have been that much mingling considering both kinds shared Europe several thousand years.

So then another interesting question is of course whether the later Neanderthals were aware that they were slowly going extinct. I imagine they must have been on some level, as their groups got rarer and modern humans more numerous, but then each group might think it a local problem?

I feel like there should be more speculative fiction about this. The examples with Neanderthal appearances I've read were either older (like Auel) and/or more like SF with alternate timelines where they didn't die out (like Neanderthal Parallax) and such.

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no limits to your catastrophizing choice these days...

2017-08-12T00:22:54Z

In the little bit over a year since I last did this the news got of course even worse, and yet I still seem unable to just limit myself to looking at fluffy animal pictures.

Still with ticky boxes for everybody who can't decide what to be most anxious about:

View Poll: why ratcreature should only look at pictures of fluffy baby animals, 2017 ed.

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perpetually feeling out of the loop in fandom

2017-05-24T11:32:14Z

Is there some sort of big current wank/kerfuffle going on right now that I've been totally oblivious to? Somehow I never notice these things even if I'm in a fandom at the time they are happening.

I've seen vague references while browsing my network reading list, but as is usual for me I couldn't connect it to anything. They could maybe be referring to the YOI wank that was even featured in this week's OTW newsletter. (A wank I incidentally also missed happening on Tumblr, but then I'm not into YOI though it appears on my dash from time to time because I'm into Check Please! and there is overlap in fans.)

But I'm not sure. I always miss these things.

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depressing fandom things

2017-04-17T17:38:17Z

Going to your bookmarks on AO3, that you tagged with "To Read" for later, only to see a blank "This has been deleted, sorry!" placeholder in your list. :(

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that's just cruel...

2017-04-02T20:46:21Z

...to find a new WIP update notification in your mail and then, when you go to read it, AO3 is down.

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Looks like it was a glitch not a feature update

2016-12-27T10:11:45Z

I just clicked a kudo button twice on AO3 by accident because my tablet was lagging, and it resulted in two kudos with my name showing up in the list, rather than one kudo and an error.

But it seems this was just a glitch because of my wonky clicking. At least when I tried leaving kudos again on a WIP I follow that didn't work. Too bad, I wouldn't mind being able to leave more than one, especially with long chaptered stories.

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ew

2016-08-20T16:38:32Z

I unwittingly caused a life and death drama in my fridge's vegetable drawer: I just found a giant, dead caterpillar (well about four centimeters long) in the bowl of plums I had also stored in the drawer. It definitely wasn't in the plums when I put them there, considering that I transfered them to said bowl from a bag and it was too big to have been inside any of the plums without doing obvious damage (and not the type of critter you commonly find in plums either). I think it must have come hidden in the cauliflower I also stored in the drawer (though that wasn't sitting directly next to the plums), somehow tried to desperately escape the cold or something, and then expired in my plums.

Well, I guess it's good to know that despite not being organic or anything, my cauliflower was wildlife supporting. I kind of feel bad for it, trying to escape and then slowly dying of cold. It was still unpleasant when I found that thing as I just wanted to grab some plums to snack on, though.

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does anyone want an Imzy invite?

2016-07-30T14:04:49Z

Thanks to goss' invite I'm now namesquatting at Imzy, a new platform that is sort of like reddit but with some setup changes that are supposed to discourage trolling. I'm not sure how similar the interface is because I never got a reddit account and rarely even read threads there, but apparently it was created by some ex-reddit guy.

Also on Imzy there is some inbuilt system that makes it possible to pay/tip for posters'/moderators' content, which is intended to eventually finance the thing by Imzy getting some cut of those transactions, instead of having advertising? But I'm not really clear on that.

It doesn't seem very large yet, e.g. when during the sign-up process I searched for communities based on my interests there wasn't even one for pet rats yet and not many fandom ones either, but maybe it'll take off.

Anyway, now in turn I have five invites, so if you want one to check out that site, comment with your email. (Or if you don't want to give your email in public, comment and then PM me the address through DW or such -- I didn't set comments to screened because then you can't see whether five others have commented already.)

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weather griping

2016-07-02T10:43:26Z

I really hope summer will get a bit drier as it goes on. However, I'd be happy if it stayed on the cool side, because anything above 25°C makes me miserable. Though actually according to a weather press notice I just read, it turns out the average June temperature has been almost two degrees above the long term average here, but I guess it didn't feel like it because it's been much wetter than usual (135l per sqm instead of 70l per sqm).

Anyway, I feel like indulging the time honored tradition of weather griping, so have a poll:

View Poll: summer weather griping

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I ought to just stop watching the news

2016-06-15T10:29:24Z

It's been awhile since I last did this. Unfortunately the news haven't gotten any better. Still with ticky boxes for everybody who can't decide what to be most anxious about.

View Poll: why ratcreature should only look at pictures of fluffy baby animals, 2016 ed.

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wtf, fruitfly?

2016-04-17T09:38:14Z

I was making myself some banana-oatmeal pancakes for breakfast when a tiny fruitfly decided to commit suicide by flinging itself into the hot butter. So I had to fish a tiny fried insect out of my pan. I guess it was lucky it didn't try to land on the then still soft topside of my pancakes.

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poaching eggs

2016-03-02T13:22:43Z

So how many tries does it typically take to get the knack of this technique? After consulting online instructions I just tried it for the first time, and the result was not encouraging. I mean, it was edible and had the characteristics of poached egg in that the yolk was warm but still runny and the egg white was cooked, so not a total fail, but I didn't manage to make the egg white adhere to the egg yolk, and instead had to fish out most of it in bits from the water.

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lunar eclipse...

2015-09-28T02:15:49Z

We got lucky with the weather and so far it's clear after all (the forecasts were unsure about fog). And I can conveniently see it directly from my bedroom window that's in the right direction. It's very pretty with the red cast to it. And considering that I am constantly waking up due to my stupid cold, the cough and the clogged nose anyway, the sleep disruption to watch isn't even much worse than it would have been otherwise.

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Gaah!

2015-09-05T11:06:39Z

Checking links can also be hazardous (or at least leave you in need of brain bleach). I just clicked on a story link, the fanfic site has vanished, but now there is a site with porn videos titled "granny fucking video" featuring delightful content such as "dog fucks grandma" videos. At least they weren't autoplay. Yikes.

It adds motivation to also update my xover rec page (which unfortunately right now inadvertently links to this crap), though. On the upside, the story in question is still online elsewhere.

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random werewolf thought of the day

2015-01-12T00:46:11Z

So werewoves in fiction generally are good at regeneration, also they tend to grow canines when they shift. Do you think when an adult human gets bitten and transforms into a werewolf form for the first time they regrow any missing/crowned teeth?

I mean that has to be a common issue, because most adult humans have at least have a crown or two by their thirties, often earlier, yet I can't remember ever seeing a scene in werewolf fiction where the newly made werewolf has to spit out their now obsolete dental implants...

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unexpected sun is unexpected

2014-12-06T14:03:29Z

There is a bright yellow light in the sky! I haven't seen it in a while. The morning was overcast and the forecast said it was to stay like that all day, but right now the sky is blue and there is a visible sun. Granted it will go down in an hour because it is December and sunset is at four in the afternoon currently, but still. I think I'll head out briefly, just to take advantage for a quick walk around the block or something. I hadn't planned venturing outside today, but there is light, so...

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weird marketing strategies

2014-10-28T15:37:45Z

So I was buying some mouthwash, and saw the weirdest ad line on a nearby toothpaste I've encountered yet.

In the prominent byline place near the brand name, where normally you'd see claims like "recommended by dentists" or such it advertised with "compatible with homeopathy". Just what? And it wasn't a toothpaste of the organic/all natural/no mineral-oil derived ingredients kinds or some other niche product either.

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urgh

2014-06-11T18:12:23Z

One of the downsides of warm weather is how fast you end up with swarms of fruit flies. I do bring down my garbage far more frequently in summer, i.e. way before a full garbage bag accumulates, and they are still a nuisance. Just now I noticed two in my garbage can, which meant I had to take it out again already -- obviously once I spot even one, I get rid of any organic garbage fast, because otherwise who knows how many of them there would be hatched soon after.

That seems enough to avoid true infestations with swarms in my kitchen *knocks on wood* but they are still annoying. And of course the garbage bins downstairs are popular breeding grounds, so you often have small clouds of fruit flies emerging when you open these. :P

I know you can do easy traps with soap/vinegar in water to attract them and do population control, and I'd probably entrap some before I notice any flying around (I mean as soon as you notice a pest it's a safe bet that there are more you didn't see), but frankly the idea of bowls with floating dead insects standing around in my kitchen as preventative measure is also gross.

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it probably says nothing good...

2014-04-11T16:01:20Z

...about how I spent my time recently that my major accomplishment has been to get to a 4096 tile (screen with the tile as my trophy *g*) in that addictive 2048 game. (You can play on after you won and I got to 2048 a few times now but to 4096 only once so far.)

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gross

2014-03-08T21:30:17Z

I just took down a poster and in the sticky tape on the back of the thing were three larvae or maggots or something developing as I peeled the tape areas off. Upon taking it down fully I also found a huge dead moth squeezed behind it (the poster wasn't entirely snug to the wall throughout, so it's not as if you saw a moth bulge on the visible side). So maybe the other critters were the moth's offspring. Alternatively two different vermin populations are interested in the backside of posters as habitat.

I find this actually somewhat grosser than finding insects colonizing my foodstuff as opportunity. You anticipate your food to be attractive and watch out for that, but tape being attractive seems entirely random. I guess anything is edible to someone.

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