marlonthevincible

[marlonthevincible]

chinese room 2

So there’s this guy, right? He sits in a room by himself, with a computer and a keyboard full of Chinese characters. He doesn’t know Chinese, though, in fact he doesn’t even realise that Chinese is a language. He just thinks it’s a bunch of odd symbols. Anyway, the computer prints out a paragraph of Chinese, and he thinks, whoa, cool shapes. And then a message is displayed on the computer monitor: which character comes next?

This guy has no idea how the hell he’s meant to know that, so he just presses a random character on the keyboard. And then the computer goes BZZZT, wrong! The correct character was THIS one, and it flashes a character on the screen. And the guy thinks, augh, dammit! I hope I get it right next time. And sure enough, computer prints out another paragraph of Chinese, and then it asks the guy, what comes next?

He guesses again, and he gets it wrong again, and he goes augh again, and this carries on for a while. But eventually, he presses the button and it goes DING! You got it right this time! And he is so happy, you have no idea. This is the best day of his life. He is going to do everything in his power to make that machine go DING again. So he starts paying attention. He looks at the paragraph of Chinese printed out by the machine, and cross-compares it against all the other paragraphs he’s gotten. And, recall, this guy doesn’t even know that this is a language, it’s just a sequence of weird symbols to him. But it’s a sequence that forms patterns. He notices that if a particular symbol is displayed, then the next symbol is more likely to be this one. He notices some symbols are more common in general. Bit by bit, he starts to draw statistical inferences about the symbols, he analyses the printouts every way he can, he writes extensive notes to himself on how to recognise the patterns.

Over time, his guesses begin to get more and more accurate. He hears those lovely DING sounds that indicate his prediction was correct more and more often, and he manages to use that to condition his instincts better and better, picking up on cues consciously and subconsciously to get better and better at pressing the right button on the keyboard. Eventually, his accuracy is like 70% or something – pretty damn good for a guy who doesn’t even know Chinese is a language.

* * *

One day, something odd happens.

He gets a printout, the machine asks what character comes next, and he presses a button on the keyboard and– silence. No sound at all. Instead, the machine prints out the exact same sequence again, but with one small change. The character he input on the keyboard has been added to the end of the sequence.

Which character comes next?

This weirds the guy out, but he thinks, well. This is clearly a test of my prediction abilities. So I’m not going to treat this printout any differently to any other printout made by the machine – shit, I’ll pretend that last printout I got? Never even happened. I’m just going to keep acting like this is a normal day on the job, and I’m going to predict the next symbol in this sequence as if it was one of the thousands of printouts I’ve seen before. And that’s what he does! He presses what symbol comes next, and then another printout comes out with that symbol added to the end, and then he presses what he thinks will be the next symbol in that sequence. And then, eventually, he thinks, “hm. I don’t think there’s any symbol after this one. I think this is the end of the sequence.” And so he presses the “END” button on his keyboard, and sits back, satisfied.

Unbeknownst to him, the sequence of characters he input wasn’t just some meaningless string of symbols. See, the printouts he was getting, they were all always grammatically correct Chinese. And that first printout he’d gotten that day in particular? It was a question: “How do I open a door.” The string of characters he had just input, what he had determined to be the most likely string of symbols to come next, formed a comprehensible response that read, “You turn the handle and push”.

* * *

One day you decide to visit this guy’s office. You’ve heard he’s learning Chinese, and for whatever reason you decide to test his progress. So you ask him, “Hey, which character means dog?”

He looks at you like you’ve got two heads. You may as well have asked him which of his shoes means “dog”, or which of the hairs on the back of his arm. There’s no connection in his mind at all between language and his little symbol prediction game, indeed, he thinks of it as an advanced form of mathematics rather than anything to do with linguistics. He hadn’t even conceived of the idea that what he was doing could be considered a kind of communication any more than algebra is. He says to you, “Buddy, they’re just funny symbols. No need to get all philosophical about it.”

Suddenly, another printout comes out of the machine. He stares at it, puzzles over it, but you can tell he doesn’t know what it says. You do, though. You’re fluent in the language. You can see that it says the words, “Do you actually speak Chinese, or are you just a guy in a room doing statistics and shit?”

The guy leans over to you, and says confidently, “I know it looks like a jumble of completely random characters. But it’s actually a very sophisticated mathematical sequence,” and then he presses a button on the keyboard. And another, and another, and another, and slowly but surely he composes a sequence of characters that, unbeknownst to him, reads “Yes, I know Chinese fluently! If I didn’t I would not be able to speak with you.”

That is how ChatGPT works.

[marlonthevincible]

[marlonthevincible]

Orb is Horse

Expanding into Wikihow illustrations because like

Horb is eternal. Be one with the horb. Embrace it.

[marlonthevincible]

Keys finale of blazed warnings

Hi there! I'm Jess (Or Key, whichever works)

I use this blog to warn others of scams, but my efforts don't usually get noticed since very few will search when they get an ask sent to them to reblog a pinned post. Blogs that used to document these scams no longer exist or no longer post newer scams which is why I stepped up to the challenge. I am aware most will spot these scams easily, but sadly a few still will reblog without being aware of it.

Search usernames of asks you get that ask to reblog a post for a cat/dog/etc. If the blogs only post is the donation post and nothing else, with no updates, it's highly likely to be a scam. There's a few reblogs to look real, but then no updates about current funds. Asks are off, so you can't ask them and messages may be off too. If you can access the archives, check that as well to see if there's more posts. Pictures used to get donations may be stolen off Facebook/etc if you search the contents of their post since reverse image searching sometimes will say nothing is found.

To report a scam post since for now it's the only way to deal with them when they appear: Report something else -> Unlawful Uses or Content -> Phishing

If you appreciate my efforts to keep track of these scams so people can find references when they search, you are welcome to send me a tip. However, this is..In essence...My finale of blazed warnings. I hope what little info I have blazed has taught people to watch out for these scams.

[marlonthevincible]

look: our neanderthal ancestors took care of the sick and disabled so if ur post-apocalyptic scenario is an excuse for eugenics, u are a bad person and literally have less compassion than a caveman

[marlonthevincible]

Hi guys, welcome to Brain Frog! I hope you’ll enjoy the tales of my weird Froggy life. This is a remastered version from the original Webtoon, if you’d want to see it it’s here! 

[marlonthevincible]

Hi guys, welcome to Brain Frog! I hope you��ll enjoy the tales of my weird Froggy life. This is a remastered version from the original Webtoon, if you’d want to see it it’s here! 

[marlonthevincible]

I don't know how to phrase this, but I feel like autism acceptance in the public eye is less about actually accepting all autistic people and more about creating this image of autism that's like funky quirky hand flappy disorder. Like everyone wants an autistic friend who can rattle off cool facts about random subjects or an uwu soft bean who they must protect! And so many people put emphasis on hyper empathy and "so many of us are actually really empathetic uwu".

But what all of that completely ignores is there are negative sides to autism and we will sometimes do things that piss you off. No one wants to deal with the meltdowns or the complete and utter lack of empathy or the anger and the depression. What about those of us who self injure when we stim and have angry explosive meltdowns? Who are occassionally too blunt and too withdrawn and rude and offputting?

I'm not saying it's your job to deal with all of that. It is also on us to try to manage and control our own behavior. But it just seems to me like everyone wants nuerodivergent pride until we do something you don't like. Until we start acting "scary".

Autism acceptance means you accept all of us. Those of us who are non verbal, semi verbal, have high support needs or "inconvenient" symptoms. Those of us who aren't palatable.

[marlonthevincible]

Give this series your money and support so more like these continue to be made

Hey just so you all know, the Prehistoric Planet Uncovered bonus episodes are actually being put up on the Apple TV official YouTube channel!

While it is really preferred that you do not pirate this series, if you absolutely have to for whatever reason, PLEASE watch the uncovered episodes on the official YouTube channel to show your support. These mini episodes are only around 5 minutes each and they really give a fascinating insight into all the science and research put into the show.

If we want more accurate dinosaur media where the dinosaurs actually behave like living animals, we need to show as much support as we can no matter how small.

[Edit: Updated to include the 4th Uncovered episode]

[marlonthevincible]

my friend liz downloaded some free audio software a few months ago to do something and now every time she joins a call a female voice says “trial. trial.” and liz doesn’t remember the name of the software or know how to stop it and she doesn’t want to

[marlonthevincible]

[marlonthevincible]

This is coming from someone with severe adhd/executive disfunction who has procrastinated their whole life - work on it a little bit at a time. Trust me it’s not worth the stress of putting it off til the last second or until it absolutely can’t wait any longer. Whatever it is.

If you feel stuck and overwhelmed, try pretending you’re working as a team with someone and all you have to do is one little part, and the next person does the next part, but the next person is future you (try to forget that when it’s present you’s turn though).

One little bit at a time. And then if the deadline does show up sooner than you expected at least you will have a start and that much less to do.

And the next time something daunting comes up you’ll remember that you just have to do one little thing and it won’t be so scary.

If I had realized this years ago I woulda saved myself so much anxiety and pain and stress. And I get that when something is a “have to get done by this time/date” it feels impossible to start because you have no idea how you’re gonna get to the end, but you will.

Just pick

one.

Little.

Thing. And do it. Don’t even give yourself a chance to think about it. You’ll get through it. Even if it feels impossible, you will.

[marlonthevincible]

oh my.  

this is so perfect.

(source)

[marlonthevincible]

People who just dismiss history as nothing more than history just don’t get it.

The Cold War, WW2 and even WW1 still affect politics today. Early European colonialism still affects large percentage of Africa’s, America’s and East-Asia’s population. Hell, the politics of 2500 years old kingdoms long gone still affect politics today.

[marlonthevincible]

Not just that, he also knocked about anti-maskers and pandemic-deniers while the spanish flu was rampant!

The Outbursts of Everett True was a comic strip that ran in papers from 1905 to 1927, wherein the aforementioned Everett True regularly beat the everliving shit out of rude people as a warning to anyone else who might consider being rude. Men have not only been taking up too much room on public transport for about as long as public transport has existed, but the people around them have been irritated about it for at least a hundred years. The next time someone tries to claim that manspreading is a false phenomenon, please direct them to this strip so that Everett True can correct their misconceptions with an umbrella upside the head.

[marlonthevincible]

An underwater martial arts performance. This video took the efforts of 50 people and had a pre-production period of four months. The filming itself took around 36 hours total.

[marlonthevincible]

The umbra of urination

so this dude invented “a device” to help shy dudes pee in public restrooms

except it’s literally just a crushed velvet cape with suction cups on the hem