Links for 2022-05-23
Massive Drone Swarm Over Strait Decisive In Taiwan Conflict Wargames: “modeling shows that large numbers of [drones] especially relatively small and inexpensive designs capable of operating as fully-autonomous swarms … have shown themselves to be absolutely essential for coming out on top in these wargames.” https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/massive-drone-swarm-over-strait-decisive-in-taiwan-conflict-wargames
Reinforcement learning agents can learn to cooperate, compete, and communicate in multi-agent settings. New research explores the emergence of micro-economic behaviour as agents learn to produce, consume, and trade resources in simulated worlds https://dpmd.ai/Emergent-Bartering
Earth Goes Around the Sun? What’s Your Best Evidence? https://profmattstrassler.com/2022/04/28/earth-goes-around-the-sun-whats-your-best-evidence/
A female seed beetle has to contend with her partner's nightmarish penis – an organ covered in hard, sharp spikes which cause heavy injuries during sex. https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/article/horrific-beetle-sex-why-the-most-successful-males-have-the-spikiest-penises
A duck penis can be as long as the entire body of the duck. The erect duck penis explodes into the female reproductive tract, spiralling out like a missile. Rape is a normal reproductive strategy for ducks. https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2014/10/13/the-twisted-sex-lives-of-ducks/
“A series of uncoordinated mass stabbings, hammer attacks, and cleaver attacks in the People's Republic of China began in March 2010. The spate of attacks left at least 90 dead and some 473 injured.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China
Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10261-5
Python is slow, but it's about to get faster. Python 3.11 will bear the fruits of CPython's multi-year effort to make Python a faster programming language. https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-languages-python-is-slow-but-its-about-to-get-faster/
The spread of writing over the past 5000 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUpJ4yVCNrI
"A team of researchers have located 830 million–year–old microorganisms in a piece of Australian rock salt, and they may even be alive." https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wm7a/scientists-discover-nearly-1-billion-year-old-organisms-possibly-alive
If a group of people knew about something really extraordinary such as the existence of vampires or alien portals, how difficult would it be to keep it secret? Much easier than one might expect:
Suppose a member of the group was going to contact you about their secret. What would it take to believe them? You would most likely think that they are some random crackpot or troll and ignore them.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But extraordinary evidence is much easier to control than extraordinary claims.
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Thoughts while watching 'Night Sky' (prime video).