/int/ - certified time wasters

Don't be mad it ended. Be mad how it ended.

An Euro spent is an Euro lost.

God is dead, but it wasn't me.

This is the Radio Ernstiwan-thread. The server stays the same, but is now reachable at:

radio.ernstchan.top

It is recommended to switch to this address for both listening and streaming, though the old xyz-domain is still supported from our side. But given what happened on the old chan we can't guarantee that the xyz-address will be kept available for us. Also all technical/festival announcements by radio staff will be made here from now on.

Everything else stays the same: The public stream can be used by everyone (see pic 4 for details), but if you stream regularly, an own account is recommended, write a mail to ernstiwan at protonmail.ch to get one. Include your desired user name and ideally (though optional) an avatar picture for the radio stats page. Reliable and production proven streaming software is butt: https://sourceforge.net/projects/butt/ (lightweight and easy to use, but lacks some features like updating artist/title) and mixxx: https://mixxx.org/ (can do it all, but setup is more complicated).

Also please remember that the radio recently switched from port 8000 to Port 80 (no SSL/TLS) and 443 (SSL/TLS mandatory).

...

Worst thread returns for another round

I shamelessly bumped the old one in order to finally open this shiny new one again with a picture of my choice the actually picture I wanted to use gives an error.

I've always had the idea in the back of my mind of visiting Swiss communes as if they were entities in themselves, and carefully documenting the visit.
I recently found some friends crazy enough to come along! I didn't want to flood the existing IWO thread, so I decided to make my own containment thread.


The rules :
-at each outing, the commune of the day will be drawn from this wikipedia list using a random number generator -> https://fr.wikipedia.org/[...]ommunes_du_canton_de_Vaud
-the designated commune cannot be refused under ANY circumstances
-during the visit, it is forbidden to leave the boundaries of the commune, otherwise the visit will stop
-you can't decide to continue visiting neighboring communes after the fact without having rerolled for a new and completely random commune
-if possible, only consume goods purchased within the commune during the visit
-draw up an exploration report when the commune is drawn, and complete it with photos and anecdotes at the end of the visit.
-Most of the visit are going to be made in the canton of Vaud
-Each time ther's a 20 percent chance that we're going to visit another entirely diffrent welsch canton randomely chosen: Geneva, Neuvchâtel, Fribourg, Valais, Jura or Bern.
-After the random canton have been selectionned, the commune will be chosen randomly using the same rules.

We're going to have a lot of fun!

old >>20700

General A.I. thread.
As in: general thread about anything A.I.

Do have a post in mind, but wanted to keep OP neutral, since there seem to be a few Ernsts using and/or interested in A.I.. That way the thread can develop while I don't work on my post.
Maybe just one little thing: A.I. is a misnomer. It is statistics with a pseudo random number generator on top to induce variations; nothing intelligent about it. While popular culture likes to romanticize general purpose A.I. in media, I would prefer if we keep the thread somewhat close to current techniques we attribute the misnomer A.I. to.

It is said that we are adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers. That is, we have inherited the instincts that made our ancestors pass on their genes, but we don't value passing on our genes as such.

But it is also said in an internet meme: Why not both?

Humans value game achievements. For example, there is a game achievement in the Torchlight II game that counts how many breakable objects (vases, boxes etc.) the player destroys while dungeon-crawling. If you destroy enough, you have accomplished the game achievement and get a nice icon for it.

Other people are out there in the real world driving race cars in circles at fast speed or kicking balls into nets.

So why not also have human DNA as a game achievement? It may not be our one and only maximization imperative, but there is no reason why we cannot as a species also value how much of the human DNA molecule there is in the universe. After all, it is a part of our origin and our identity and it doesn't occur in nature outside of humans (although some other organisms share some of our genes, non-living matter doesn't even have those).

We could, as a civilization, aim at this game achievement in the same spirit and with the same motivation as we aim at other game achievements. And unlike a single-minded maximization imperative, it would be very compatible with very many other goals and values. The universe is filled with resources. Winning a reasonably sized human DNA fitness game achivement would require only a tiny fraction of them.

Such a goal would also give you, yes YOU, the person who reads this, more intrinsic value because you also have human DNA inside of you. (In addition to whatever other value you have.)

So consider treating human DNA fitness as a game achivement for our civilization to which you can contribute in some way or another!