The “WTF?!” Thread

[Thaluikhain]

Having looked at those Backroom vids, now youtube is recommending me lots of empty, boring liminal space vids, some even using the A-Sync logo and look.

Which...ok, makes sense, but is annoying.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Credit where it's due, the express did a funny headline for once.

 

[gorfias]

 

[EvilRoy]

Visualizing the mysterious dance: Quantum entanglement of photons captured in real-time

Researchers at the University of Ottawa, in collaboration with Danilo Zia and Fabio Sciarrino from the Sapienza University of Rome, recently demonstrated a novel technique that allows the visualization of the wave function of two entangled photons, the elementary particles that constitute light...

phys.org

So I read this article and they 100% just did not address the elephant in the room and I didn't really know what to make of it. I assumed this was just like a fun example of what quantum entanglement might look like, but real images would follow.

Uh. No. Based on my understanding of this article plus a few others on the topic, this is it. This is what the math and measurements say this specific system looks like.



So that's weird. I look forward to pop sci hippies writing articles about how this is proof of spiritual energy.

 

[Xprimentyl]

So that's weird. I look forward to pop sci hippies writing articles about how this is proof of spiritual energy.

To be fair to pop sci hippies... do you have a better explanation? As far as I know, the yin and yang predates pretty much all the technology that makes that visualization possible by a couple thousand years, and that image is a bit too precise to dismiss as "coinky-dinks." Not saying it's necessarily proof of anything spiritual, but as an agnostic, it gives me the existential crisis I'll need to keep me awake tonight. Thanks for that.

 

[Absent]

To be fair to pop sci hippies... do you have a better explanation? As far as I know, the yin and yang predates pretty much all the technology that makes that visualization possible by a couple thousand years, and that image is a bit too precise to dismiss as "coinky-dinks." Not saying it's necessarily proof of anything spiritual, but as an agnostic, it gives me the existential crisis I'll need to keep me awake tonight. Thanks for that.

Yeah? In a mood for an existential crisis ? It's clearly not the yin and the yang, it's Trump with a green monocle.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Yeah? In a mood for an existential crisis ? It's clearly not the yin and the yang, it's Trump with a green monocle.

Man, I just can't get away from that guy! Now he's in our photons, putting on pretentious airs with a monocle?? Jeez...

 

[EvilRoy]

To be fair to pop sci hippies... do you have a better explanation? As far as I know, the yin and yang predates pretty much all the technology that makes that visualization possible by a couple thousand years, and that image is a bit too precise to dismiss as "coinky-dinks." Not saying it's necessarily proof of anything spiritual, but as an agnostic, it gives me the existential crisis I'll need to keep me awake tonight. Thanks for that.

I mean I'm always happy to help someone have another sleepless night, but to be honest with you I kind of do dismiss it as a coincidence. It looks neat for sure, the parallels are undeniable and interesting, but I don't really attribute any deeper meaning to it because I'm used to seeing similarly interesting although less sharply poignant things in my work.

I have to do a lot of analysis that typically requires a visualization exercise to make the information easier to parse - its just rows and rows of spreadsheet cells otherwise - and periodically I will produce an image that is a startling parallel to real life in one way or another. It ranges from "haha that blob looks kind of like a duck" to "how did we accidentally paint a sunset with a stress profile". Its really interesting to me how things like this just appear when working with stresses and such but I don't really attribute any deeper meaning to it because although the images are 'real' in that they are based on information that carries specific and important meaning, they aren't 'real' in the sense that they exist. They're just an abstraction that we create to help us understand and work with information that is otherwise too complex to use. As much as I liked seeing my sunset girder, I could have easily tweaked a few things in the visualizer to make it appear completely boring while still communicating exactly the same information.

Now, this might not be an abstraction in the same way I'm used to, and it could be equivalent to a polaroid of the particles compared to what I do. It took me three readthroughs of the article to even nail down the fact that the image is based on actual information rather than just being a conceptual proof so I'm absolutely not gonna claim I have it all figured out. But that's my read on what's going on here, and I'm just kind of waiting it out to see what comes next. My pop sci snark has more to do with the fact that there are some people who seem to just wait in the bushes for the chance to make a discovery all about spirit energy and its frustrating when that overshadows the very hard work people did to produce this information.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I mean I'm always happy to help someone have another sleepless night, but to be honest with you I kind of do dismiss it as a coincidence. It looks neat for sure, the parallels are undeniable and interesting, but I don't really attribute any deeper meaning to it because I'm used to seeing similarly interesting although less sharply poignant things in my work.

I have to do a lot of analysis that typically requires a visualization exercise to make the information easier to parse - its just rows and rows of spreadsheet cells otherwise - and periodically I will produce an image that is a startling parallel to real life in one way or another. It ranges from "haha that blob looks kind of like a duck" to "how did we accidentally paint a sunset with a stress profile". Its really interesting to me how things like this just appear when working with stresses and such but I don't really attribute any deeper meaning to it because although the images are 'real' in that they are based on information that carries specific and important meaning, they aren't 'real' in the sense that they exist. They're just an abstraction that we create to help us understand and work with information that is otherwise too complex to use. As much as I liked seeing my sunset girder, I could have easily tweaked a few things in the visualizer to make it appear completely boring while still communicating exactly the same information.

Now, this might not be an abstraction in the same way I'm used to, and it could be equivalent to a polaroid of the particles compared to what I do. It took me three readthroughs of the article to even nail down the fact that the image is based on actual information rather than just being a conceptual proof so I'm absolutely not gonna claim I have it all figured out. But that's my read on what's going on here, and I'm just kind of waiting it out to see what comes next. My pop sci snark has more to do with the fact that there are some people who seem to just wait in the bushes for the chance to make a discovery all about spirit energy and its frustrating when that overshadows the very hard work people did to produce this information.

I'm well aware of the bias people tend to have to find meaning in randomness, but the precise yin and yang in this case, if unadulterated, is uncanny.

 

[Baffle]

WHO IS WRITING THESE HEADLINES?! READ IT BACK TO YOURSELF!

 

[Thaluikhain]

To be fair to pop sci hippies... do you have a better explanation? As far as I know, the yin and yang predates pretty much all the technology that makes that visualization possible by a couple thousand years, and that image is a bit too precise to dismiss as "coinky-dinks." Not saying it's necessarily proof of anything spiritual, but as an agnostic, it gives me the existential crisis I'll need to keep me awake tonight. Thanks for that.

If you want to be kept awake all night by something else, youtube has a lot of good horror stuff that leaves you with a feeling of lingering dread and/or fear of rat swarms.

Less flippantly, I wonder if there is a connection, in that the yin and yang symbols were created by, say, someone doing something swirly with pigment that's similar to swirliness in quantum entanglement, so to speak.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

No bullshit -

 

[Zykon TheLich]

No bullshit -

Looks like a lot of bull shit to me...

Also, liking the alteration to the "lice" car.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

 

[Chimpzy]

 

[Absent]

Soon a movie with Samuel Jackson.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Ok, this was almost a year ago, but just saw it online.

Couple contaminate drought-stricken town’s water supply by dyeing waterfall blue for gender reveal

Brazilian environment ministry says the couple may have polluted the Queima Pé river

au.news.yahoo.com

EDIT: Oh, and a recent one

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/04/americas/mexico-gender-reveal-plane-crash-scli-intl/index.html

 

[Absent]

Mysterious ‘skin-like’ golden orb found on ocean floor off Alaska coast

Scientists analysing DNA of object that could be an egg from an unknown sea creature or a marine sponge

www.theguardian.com

They don't specify the size so I'm gonna assume 5 meters wide.

 

[Absent]

I... I don't know what to feel.

Man trying to cross Atlantic in giant ‘hamster wheel’ charged over alleged knife threat

US Coast Guard says Reza Baluchi, stopped off South Carolina coast, threatened crew with knife and warning of bomb

www.theguardian.com

 

[Xprimentyl]

I... I don't know what to feel.

Man trying to cross Atlantic in giant ‘hamster wheel’ charged over alleged knife threat

US Coast Guard says Reza Baluchi, stopped off South Carolina coast, threatened crew with knife and warning of bomb

www.theguardian.com

Disappointment. Feel disappointment. With all the whack jobs crawling around these days, it's a rare treat when one is a danger but to himself. Were I in the Coast Guard, I'd have bid him bon voyage, and watched him roll off towards the horizon content in the fact that no one would ever see him again.