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My special interest of late has been something called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction the TL;DR is:

1. One of, if not the, most missing piece of quantum mechanics is answering the question "what is measurement"? You've probably heard of things like the double slit experiment which lead to weird things like quantum erasure where one can seemingly cause a photon to retroactively determine which path to take. Spooky stuff! However, these experiments all follow the basic idea of "when something is entangled, it follows probabilistic rules defined by the schrodinger equation, then a 'measurement' happens, and the entanglement 'collapses' and only a single, 'real' value is well defined"
2. Roger Penrose, a nobel prize winning physicist, has, since the 1980s been arguing that because entanglement implies that a particle exists in two places at once prior to measure that this places gravitational pressure on the fabric of spacetime in two places at once and that measurement is a gravitational event where spacetime "heals" itself by collapsing the wave form, and making it so the particle is finally only in one place.
   Penrose further expanded this, to enormous controversy, that consciousess itself is a measurement event. He wrote a book, "The Emperor's New Mind" then a follow-up "Shadows of the Mind", neither of which I've read, but have had summarized to further develop these arguments.
3. This was, for lack of a better term, a crackpot theory. There wasn't anything testable or falsifiable so it was brushed aside. Crucially, to the point it gets its own paragraph,
   The overwhelming opinion of the physics community, to this day, believes that quantum coherence is not possible in "wet, warm, noisy" environments like the brain.
   It is, to this day, believed that, the quantum world is a thing that happens only at extremely small scales, and that's why quantum computers all start with the assumption of cooling the material to near absolute zero with as few additional perturbations as possible.
4. However, there were 2 findings I find extremely motivating to combat this assertion. First, leaves. Leaves are quantum objects and photosynthesis is too efficient to be explained by classical mechanics alone: https://berkeleysciencereview.com/article/2021/11/30/plants-do-the-wave/ Second, birds. Birds that use the magnetosphere for orientation do so by becoming quantumly coherent with the ions in the magnetophere using a protein in their eyes so they literally see the earth's magnetic field using the blue cones of their eyes https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/birds-are-real-and-so-is-quantum-physics/
5. Enter Stuart Hameroff. Hameroff was a working anesthesiology for some 20 odd years. He read The Emperor's New Mind and reached out to Penrose. He, of course, was very intimately aware of the deep biological processes that make the different between a conscious, aware, thinking human being, and a piece of meat that can be safely operated on. He believed that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule structures in the neurons were responsible for consciousness.
   After further research, they both began to believe that these microtubule structures in human neurons were capable of what others believed were impossible.
   Quantum coherence in a wet, warm, noisy environment.
6. This was still crackpottery until quite literally (IMO) last year. A group of biological researchers showed experimentally that the exact networks of tryptophan microtubule structures in neurons do exhibit super radiance (the same kind of quantum coherence leaves show) https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c07936

To me, this is the most exciting piece of science I think I've seen in my life. The implication is that human (and other) consciousnesses are literally a byproduct of our ability to maintain and calculate quantum states in a wet, warm, noisy environment. It feels like a genuine push for us to finally move past the age of information, past the age of computation, and into the age of consciousness.

Another aspect of this is I really, deeply, believe that the substrate necessary for AGI is either necessarily biological, or, at the very least, can only be done efficiently in a biological substrate. Notably, a human brain takes 20 watts to exhibit generalized intelligence. No nuclear reactors running data centers, just a Twix bar. This last bit I honestly leave mostly as a point of discussion, because there's an enormous amount of interesting implications and avenues thereof.

What y'all Tildeans make of this? Anyone else been thinking about this kind of stuff?

I controlled Mars, but the Servants, who worship the aliens as gods, had taken Phobos and Deimos. From a previous failed campaign I knew that if I let the Servants gain orbital superiority over Mars, they would shell all of my mines into regolith from low orbit while I watched helplessly. Then, starved of crucial shipbuilding resources, my faction - the Resistance - would wither and die. I’m sure they felt the same fear looking at my fleet. We were both building up our forces as quickly as we could: reinforcements, whether from Earth or the Inner Belt, would take more than a year to arrive, meaning that whoever won the battle for Mars orbit would control the fate of the red planet - and its riches - forever. Or at least until the aliens arrived to wipe us off the map, which amounts to the same thing. Eventually I was able to gain a sliver of a technological lead and force their fleet to battle.

—-

Hooded Horse came out of nowhere a few years ago to become one of the best (IMO) indie game publishers anywhere. I still haven’t been able to figure out whether they’re actually that good or if my tastes and theirs just overlap perfectly, but who cares: they’ve produced hit after hit. Not necessarily critical successes - though almost all of them are rated “overwhelmingly positive” on Steam - but games that just rule. The kind of game that swings for the fences and succeeds in more than it fails.

Terra Invicta is one of those games. Aliens have come to Earth, and you play as one of the secret societies reacting to that news. The first 10-15 hours of a run are spent in what is basically a political thriller simulator - your agents subvert governments, spread propaganda, and initiate coups to try to control as much of the globe as possible. All the while, you devote every resource you can to sprint towards where the actual game begins: space. At that point Terra Invicta turns into an outrageously detailed orbital mechanics simulation. I haven’t actually won yet so I’m not sure what happens after that, but so far it’s awesome.

It’s not for everybody. The game is kind of hostile - it’s obscenely complicated, really doesn’t give you much in the way of tutorials, and in each of my four attempts, thus far, I’ve realized that I made a deadly mistake about 3 hours ago from which there’s no recovery. (Specifically: One time, I concentrated too much of my space infrastructure on Mars, so when the Aliens cracked the planet, I lost everything. Another time, I was so focused on space that when the China-India-EU alliance invaded my America, I was wiped out. Another time, I was so aggressive against the Alien quislings so early that the Aliens left everyone else alone and crushed me.)

But if you’re the kind of person that thinks spreadsheets are fun - if you’re the kind of person whose biggest problem with strategy games is that they’re too easy - TI is the game for you.

Picture

• One Battle After Another
• Sinners
• Hamnet
• Sentimental Value
• Marty Supreme
• Frankenstein
• Train Dreams
• Bugonia
• F1
• The Secret Agent

Director

• Paul Thomas Anderson - One Battle After Another
• Ryan Coogler - Sinners
• Josh Safdie - Marty Supreme
• Joachim Trier - Sentimental Value
• Guillermo del Toro - Frankenstein

Original Screenplay

• Sinners
• Sentimental Value
• Marty Supreme
• Weapons
• The Secret Agent

Adapted Screenplay

• One Battle After Another
• Hamnet
• Bugonia
• Frankenstein
• Train Dreams

Lead Actress

• Jessie Buckley - Hamnet
• Rose Byrne - If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
• Renate Reinsve - Sentimental Value
• Chase Infiniti - One Battle After Another
• Emma Stone - Bugonia

Lead Actor

• Timothee Chalamet - Marty Supreme
• Leonardo DiCaprio - One Battle After Another
• Michael B Jordan - Sinners
• Wagner Moura - The Secret Agent
• Jesse Plemons - Bugonia

Supporting Actress

• Teyana Taylor - One Battle After Another
• Amy Madigan - Weapons
• Odessa A'zion - Marty Supreme
• Wumni Mosaku - Sinners
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas - Sentimental Value

Supporting Actor

• Benicio Del Toro - One Battle After Another
• Stellan Skarsgard - Sentimental Value
• Jacob Elordi - Frankenstein
• Sean Penn - One Battle After Another
• Paul Mescal - Hamnet

Casting

• Sinners
• One Battle After Another
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• Frankenstein

Cinematography

• Sinners
• One Battle After Another
• Frankenstein
• Marty Supreme
• Train Dreams

Costume Design

• Frankenstein
• Sinners
• Wicked: For Good
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme

Film Editing

• One Battle After Another
• Sinners
• Marty Supreme
• F1
• Frankenstein

Makeup and Hairstyling

• Frankenstein
• Wicked: For Good
• Sinners
• The Smashing Machine
• One Battle After Another

Production Design

• Frankenstein
• Wicked: For Good
• Sinners
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme

Original Score

• Sinners
• One Battle After Another
• Frankenstein
• Marty Supreme
• F1

Original Song

• "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters
• "I Lied To You" from Sinners
• "The Girl in the Bubble" from Wicked: For Good
• "Dear Me" from Diane Warren: Relentless
• "Drive" from F1

Sound

• F1
• Sinners
• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• One Battle After Another
• Frankenstein

Visual Effects

• Avatar: Fire and Ash
• Frankenstein
• Superman
• F1
• The Lost Bus

Animated Feature

• KPop Demon Hunters
• Zootopia 2
• Arco
• Elio
• Little Amelie or the Character of Rain

Documentary Feature

• The Perfect Neighbor
• 2000 Meters to Andriivka
• The Alabama Solution
• Cover-Up
• Apocalypse in the Tropics

International Film

• The Secret Agent
• Sentimental Value
• It Was Just an Accident
• No Other Choice
• Sirat

I cannot recall the last time I devoured a series so quickly. I loved Cradle. The characters were so colourful and endearing, the plot was permanently escalating at a pace the resonated perfectly with me, and honestly, I found the writing style to be spot on.

And now I've left feeling rather empty... (perhaps rather on point!).

Others who have enjoyed this series, what else did you love?

To give a sample of books I've enjoyed recently: Children of Time, Stormlight Archive, Kingkiller Chonicles, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Red Rising.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

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LISP and schemes have always, from a distance appeared to be the best way to write code. I even started my own language that has languished for the past couple years, and it's taken on a pseudo-likeness to (scheme)-like languages by accident.

This brings me to my questions -

1. How did you start?
2. Does anyone here do systems-level scheme/lisp? what do you program in for that?

I need a German phone number, so I need a German SIM.

My preference would be a prepaid year because it’s a bit cheaper. Also, I have a physical sim slot and would rather use a physical sim than an eSIM.

Many apps (Mein O2, MeinMagenta for cell services and most of the local transit apps) are region locked. I can’t currently change my Apple ID to Germany and can’t make a new Apple ID for Germany without a German phone number.

Any hot takes on Telekom, Vodafone, O2, etc. or recommendations on getting a physical SIM card?

Note: The Aldi closest to me only had eSIM today or thought they only had eSIM.

Edit: I actually need a phone number for things, e.g. kita being able to call me if one of my kids get sick at daycare.

Imgur album of what I'm thinking, apartment-provided floor plans that aren't 100% accurate. Kitchen and bathroom dimensions are not accurate, I just put them there as a reference for walkways and such. The patio is on the north side of the living room and opens from the right side.

Okay! So since the last time I posted asking for advice about housing options (thank you all who read or contributed to it), a few factors have come up with the housemate option that made it a bit less appealing. Is it so unappealing that 1k extra in savings isn't worth it? Probably not... but I actually really liked this apartment unit even if it still lacks things like the in-unit laundry and have been approved for it.

I have to hire movers. There are two items that I physically cannot move on my own once they are plopped down by the movers: the Ikea Hemnes daybed (twin size bed that can expand to full size) and the larger standing desk with my gaming PC setup. I can probably shimmy the desk around if nothing is on it, but that daybed is... not moving. Because of this I'd really like to work on laying out my potential future apartment with those two items in mind.

Some personal preference notes:

• I would like the living room to feel at least a bit cozy even if I don't expect guests regularly at all. I will not be obtaining a couch/sofa because I'd need one that I can actually sit on, but that is pretty far out of my preferred budget at this time - like I'd rather get two Ikea Poangs instead of one cheap sofa that will hurt my back to sit on.
• Avoiding certain things within reason - no backs to windows while seated at a computer desk, prefer no back towards entryway. I realize my tentative layout plan absolutely has my back towards entryways but I'm struggling to find a layout that really ticks all boxes
• I can buy new furniture! Not immediately because I mentioned money being an anxiety-inducer of mine even if I'm doing comparatively well. But I'm not really sold on needing a big TV. If I want to watch a show while working on some arts and crafts, I do it on the iPad or 16in portable monitor.

I've considered:

• Two desks in living room, bedroom only for sleeping. I'm not against it, but with just a twin bed and maybe a bookshelf or two, I don't know what I'd even put in here... I've never had an entire bedroom dedicated to just sleeping, minus the several months prior to the breakup :')

• One desk in living room, another in bedroom. Probably gaming desk in the living room. I don't like my options for the bedroom because of the bathroom placement and closet doors along the west wall that make it difficult to place anything on that side. I don't enjoy the work desk having my back to the entrance, but those closet doors don't really allow me to put the desk anywhere that doesn't have my back to it in some way.

Any and all thoughts appreciated, whether it's on the two desks in living room vs. 1/1 split setup, or a layout of a specific room!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.