Various Cladonia lichen and moss landscape among rocks

#lichen #LichenSubscribe #moss #Mosstodon #LichenLandscape

Google employees are known as ‘Googlers’. New employees are ‘Nooglers’ and dogs that come to work with their owners are ‘Dooglers.

In the 1800s, some people tried to disguise toilets as stacks of books (Image: FrDr; CC BY-SA).

Andy Weir's The Martian astronaut (supposedly a botanist), played by Matt Damon, almost starved due to a misunderstanding of #potato #propagation. He waited for his #garden's first crop to make tubers before starting the next generation when, instead, he could have taken stem cuttings, or even leaf cuttings, and made hundreds of new plants.
Of course that would have killed the dramatic tension.
Learn plant propagation. It can save lives, AND it's not f*cking rocket science. /end rant
#permaculture #ScienceFiction

#silentSunday ferns on tree (also one for #mosstadon )

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alighodsi_hello-dolly-democratizing-the-magic-of-chatgpt-activity-7045014694385917952-JUVH?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop "We are open sourcing Dolly, a ChatGPT-like model that can do instruction following, brainstorming, summarization. The remarkable thing is that we created it for $30 using one server for 3 hours on a small dataset using a 2 year old open source LLM model. The secret in magical human-like interactivity probably lies in a small dataset, not huge models, not training for 100,000 GPU hours." #StochasticParrots #LLM #MachineLearning

I’ve been writing quite a bit about Indian movies recently. This is mostly because I get up early in the morning these days and am trying to get through my backlog of movies and a lot of them are Indian movies.

Speaking of which, I watched “Writer Padmabhushan” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15341106) yesterday and I was entranced 🙂 It was funny, heartfelt, and very, very interesting.

I loved most of the cast but especially, the actors who played the parents of the protagonist — Rohini and Ashish Vidyarthi.

Now anybody who watches Indian movies probably knows Ashish Vidyarthi. He generally plays corrupt cops, or villains. But here he plays a loving and supporting father and it was a joy to watch his performance.

Perhaps I have a soft-spot for actors who generally play villains who play a loving parent/support role, but this was like watching Amrish Puri in “Gardish” (or “Muskurahat”) or Anupam Kher in “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” or Jagapathi Babu in “Father Chitti Umaa Karthik” … It’s a special kind of joy watching these actors transform 🙂

But, back to the movie. Again, it might be personal preferences, but I do love well-told stories about writers (and maybe writing). This was such a story. It’s about the protagonists need to be known as a writer and his journey in actually getting there but with some interesting (and emotional) twists and turns.

#Movies #MinReview #Telugu

The Indian film industry is huge. I think back in the ‘90s they said that India release around a 1000 movies a year. I’ve seen figures online (unverified) saying that the figure was at around 1900+ before the lockdown.

Most people think that Indian cinema is just Bollywood/Hindi movies. But there are a lot of other regional movie industries such as Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati etc. Each of these languages/sectors have their own vibe/feel.

I started my Indian film journey as a child with Tamil and Hindi movies. Then I kind of dropped out of Hindi movies for a while since I didn’t understand the language, but in my 20’s I learnt Hindi and got back into watching Hindi movies.

Back in the ‘90s Bollywood was all about romantic movies — it was boy-meets-girl all the time. And I loved it! They had love stories happening in all sorts of places and under all sorts of circumstances. It might have been a single theme, but I personally enjoyed it a lot since it was an escape from daily life into a magical world where things just worked out in the end.

These days though, Hindi cinema seems to be kind of in limbo. I hardly ever see any more love stories. It seems to be mostly movies trying to be Hollywood blockbusters and not quite succeeding. You have the huge budgets, the stars, and the glitz and glamour, but they don’t seem to be able to make things believable/likeable.

Tamil cinema too has undergone its one metamorphosis but in a different direction. Back in the day it used to be a mix of love stories, action movies, and some very-down-to-earth stories about life and people. These days, it seems that the thoughtful stories are less common and you get a lot of hyper-violent action movies or revenge/political dramas. Of all the Indian movies we watch, my wife generally does not want to watch Tamil movies because of the level of violence.

I got into Telugu movies late — probably about 5 - 6 years ago? But they seem to be where Hindi and Tamil movies were at one time. They have action, love stories, and the colourful scenes that makes Indian cinema so interesting. Telugu is probably my most favourite Indian cinema language at the moment for sheer entertainment value. Of course, Telugu cinema isn’t without its own share of issues. Especially with older movies, you see a lot of subtle/casual misogyny. Without going into deeper issues, in the older movies the way the protagonist expresses love is usually by teasing/harassing the object of his affection — which seems rather problematic on so many levels.

But on a positive note, haven’t seen movies like that from Telugu cinema recently. In fact, I’ve seen some very interesting love stories where the characters behave in unexpected ways. So yeah, Telugu cinema is changing too and is one of my favourites at the moment.

Then there’s Malayalam. I’ve watched Malayalam movies on and off since the language is close enough to Tamil that I can understand at least some of it. And with the advent of subtitles, it becomes even easier to understand what is going on 🙂

With very few exceptions, every Malayalam movie I’ve seen has impressed me in some way. Back in the day, Malayalam movies used to be slow though. The stories were good but the build up was slow and it took a while for you to really get into the story. But that too is changing and the newer Malayalam movies seem to tell stories at very different paces and some are so fast moving that I’d sit at the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened next. But they all retain that old ability to be thought-provoking in some way, no matter what.

And that’s just four of the wide variety of Indian movie sectors/languages. There are so many more, each with their own flavour. So if you’re a cinema buff, you owe it to yourself to try out some and see if you find something that you really like …

#Movies #IndianCinema #Hindi #Tamil #Telugu #Malayalam #Bollywood #Kollywood #Tollywood #Mollywood

Started watching “Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu: Part 1 - The Kindling” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14182646) today and what a difference from “Pathaan” from yesterday …

It took us quite a few breaks to finish “Pathaan” because it was all style and no real substance. We didn’t care for the main character and almost every situation was predictable. About the only thing that I liked was the bits of humour here and there …

This movie on the other hand is raw … I’ve been in the kind of situations that the movie portrays — well, maybe not 36 people sleeping in a single room and being part of a gang, but I have had to live in strange cities/countries where 4 - 5 of us shared an apartment. I can feel for what is going on in the movie.

And above all, I actually care about the protagonist and want to see what happens to him. This shows life in Mumbai from the not so glamorous side and I want to know more …

#Movies #MiniReview #Tamil #India

I got a suggestion to use hashtags to help kickstart my network here. So here's a hashtag-dense list of my interests:

I'm a data-focused #machinelearning engineer at #Apple, working with #PyTorch, #Spark, and #Python which I write with a #Haskell accent. I used to work in #LearningTheory.

I enjoy long distance #running and #trailrunning and am training for my first #ultramarathon.

In my spare time I make electronic #ModularSynth/#Eurorack music and am learning #JazzPiano and the #GameOfGo.

The wife and I are fans of “classic” Shah Rukh Khan (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0451321), so even though we were fairly certain that it would be bad, we went ahead and watched “Pathaan” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12844910) anyway …

It was much, much worse than we’d feared 😕

The movie was a by-the-numbers spy movie — nothing original, and everything feeling devoid of life. There didn’t seem to be anything at stake at any point and we didn’t feel as if there’s was any danger or jeopardy.

The fights felt like choreographed dances where everybody flexed their biceps and their hair moved slowly and languidly while they went through their moves 😛

We haven’t finished watching the movie (and honestly, we don’t want to.) But we’ll probably go ahead and finish it just to see if it gets any better. But I’m certain it won’t.

I don’t think that despite him wanting very badly to be an action hero, Shah Rukh Khan is cut out to play that kind of role. Especially not if he has people directing him like in “Pathaan” because this was not action — it was all choreography …

#MiniReview #Hindi #Movies #Pathaan

Sometimes it seems lonely over here on Mastodon but I’m plugging away, looking for good accounts to follow to keep up with what is going on.
SUGGESTIONS ON ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW WILL BE WELCOMED. To that end Reblogging this post would help.
Thank you to the handful of accounts that follow me.👋🏽

For #throwbackthursday, one of my best shots from before I joined Mastodon – a male blackbird on an autumn morning.

The sky reflecting off the wet asphalt makes it look like a studio shot, and the unseasonably-green plant looks sort of fake too – so much so that I'm inclined to dislike this shot because it just looks staged? Knowing that it isn't, though, I'm really happy with it.

#birding #birds #birdwatching #birdphotography #photography #wildlife #wildlifephotography #naturephotography

#introduction

I'm a senior researcher at Microsoft Research AI4Science in Amsterdam.

My research interests include AI4Science, single- and multi-agent reinforcement learning, and structure, symmetry, and equivariance in deep learning.

#reinforcementlearning #ai4science #machinelearning #deeplearning #equivariantagents

#introduction I am an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam in the Amsterdam Machine Learning Lab (https://amlab.science.uva.nl/).

My research interests span approximate inference, computational statistics, causality, and their application to the sciences.

Currently working on diffusion models, generative flow networks, molecular dynamics, statistical hypothesis testing, variational methods, Monte Carlo methods... #ml #machinelearning #statistics #academic #research

Hello everyone! I am a #PhD student in #CS at #UCL. I am interested in #AI and #ML. I am also interested in #mathematics and #statistics!

I am into #graphs and Gaussian processes. I am also curious about geometric deep learning, probabilistic modelling and interpretable models.

I'm really looking forward to meeting new people here!

#introduction #research #academic #academia #computerscience #artificialintelligence #machinelearning #deeplearning

One of my past year “rain bird” photos. The background is the stringy part of a palm tree.

6 senior + 6 tenure-track faculty positions open at Johns Hopkins in #neuroscience: https://jobs.sciencecareers.org/job/641252/assistant-professor-of-neuroscience

Let's hope many insect neuroscientists working in #Drosophila, #mosquito and other critters apply.

Contact Chris Potter of #Anopheles mosquito research fame http://potterlab.johnshopkins.edu/ for an insider view of how it is to run an insect neuro lab there.

#jobs #academia

“Carnival Row” and “Shadow and Bone” are the two best fantasy TV shows on at the moment, in my opinion, of course 🙂

Both have such vibrant and detailed worlds with their own sets of rules as to how things work. Sure, I wish that “Carnival Row” could be a little more “Star Trek”-nice in terms of how people are treated (instead of being human-crummy) but then the story probably wouldn’t work … We just finished the second season of “Carnival Row” and while I don’t know if there’ll be another season, I sure hope there is.

We just started season 2 of “Shadow and Bone”. We were very excited to watch season 1 back in 2021, but then it kind of slipped from memory in the pandemic haze years. I had just sort of remembered that we had no idea what happened to the show when season 2 suddenly re-appeared!

On watching the first episode of season 2 though, we were both reminded that we’d forgotten a whole heap of stuff. So we went back through season 1 over the weekend and I’m glad that we did 🙂 So much of the story is now back in my head and I’m looking forward to going through season 2 and savouring every bit of it …

#TV #CarnivalRow #ShadowAndBone #Fantasy

The wife and I have been sick for over a week now. So we weren’t doing a lot except to just try to get through each day.

And then the “Diablo IV” beta weekend started 😛 Though we weren’t really up to it, we weren’t going to miss it if we could …

Based on the reports overnight, I thought we wouldn’t even be able to get in since a lot of people were reporting that they were getting long queues and that they were getting disconnected after playing for a short time.

I got connected on the first try within like 30 seconds and the longest delay we had was in connecting my wife’s PSN account to her battle.net account. Then we were off to the races … Or to questing/slaying 🙂

We played for at least an hour before I got disconnected and then I could not re-connect and we gave up for the first day at that point.

Yesterday was much better. We again connected fast and while I did get disconnected a couple of times, re-connecting went without a hitch. We played much longer and were reluctant to stop playing when we got to lunch time — so yeah, the game is interesting and the quests keep you going.

We took a break and then played a bit more in the afternoon but the afternoon session turned out to be a long grind that tired both of us out. So we quit before completing the story.

Overall though, the visuals are darker, and grimmer than I remember from “Diablo III”. There’s more blood and gore and I’m not a huge fan of the violence and the gore. But the story is also different enough and has some interesting elements. We haven’t looked at all the new crafting options etc since we simply wanted to get through quests and make story progression but I think both of us are looking forward to playing when the game comes out in June …

#Gaming #DiabloIV #PS5 #COOP