Ben Schmidt

I feel like Smaug and this post is the black arrow.

It's kind of fascinating to read this article and discover it doesn't once mention that Rodney Brooks founded a humanoid robot startup company, Rethink Robotics.

That said, I think he's right. Which isn't surprising, because Brooks is (rightfully) highly respected in the robotics world.

Yes, but what about the Philladdephiia team, as the flag indicates?

To be honest, I could have chosen some better known bands for some of the letters, but where's the fun in that?
I mean, I could have easily gone more obscure for several letters as well, so I think it balances out!

Aesthetic Perfection
Bauhaus
Covenant
Dismantled
Ego Likeness
Front 242
Grendel
Hanzel und Gretyl
Icon of Coil
Jordan Decay
KMFDM
L7
Ministry
Nine Inch Nails
Osiris Taurus
Project Pitchfork
Qntal
Rotersand
Suicide Commando
Terrorfakt
U2
VNV Nation
Weird Al Yankovic
XP8
Y: none
Z: none

I saw a reference to a "name one band you've seen for each letter of the alphabet" meme, and decided to see just how many letters I could pull off. Turns out, I'm only missing two. Granted, some of these are rather obscure.

Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia

Happy Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov Saves the World Day, everybody.

42 years ago today, Lt. Col. Petrov prevented an accidental nuclear war.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisl...

Maybe it turns out it actually happened, but it turns out nobody actually qualified to be taken :D

I don’t either - the xplay skits would ruin it so fast that they’d regret ever having the idea in the first place, which is why I would find it hilarious if someone poisoned the training data like that

It would be hilarious if this ended up getting trained on the old X-Play "Stan Lee Experience" skits.
I figure it would take at most five people talking to it before they shut it down.

Is this a different kind of oryx than the ones that roam around White Sands Missile Range? (Apparently they were imported there at one point, and have made themselves at home since. Alas, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures when I was there)

A painted miniature of an MC30 Frigate from Star Wars. The ship is pointed to the left and slight towards the camera. Designed by Ravensfell, and printed by Memnoch Manufacturing.

A painted miniature of an MC30 Frigate from Star Wars. The ship is pointed to the right and slight away from the camera. Designed by Ravensfell, and printed by Memnoch Manufacturing.

And finally, an MC30 Frigate. At some point, I need to take a picture of the full fleet of Calamari ships I've built up...

A painted miniature of an MC40 Light Cruiser from Star Wars. Designed by Onil Creations and printed by Memnoch Manufacturing.

And now we move on to the Mon Calamari fleet, starting with an MC40 Light Cruiser

A painted miniature of a Captor-class Heavy Munitions Frigate from Star Wars. The ships is pointed to the left and towards the camera. Designed by Xenon of Slightly Used Space Ships Yard, and printed by Memnoch Manufacturing.

A painted miniature of a Captor-class Heavy Munitions Frigate from Star Wars. The ships is pointed to the right and away from the camera. Designed by Xenon of Slightly Used Space Ships Yard, and printed by Memnoch Manufacturing.

And another Separatist ship, this time one that appeared in comics. The Captor-class Heavy Munitions Cruiser.

A painted miniature of a Techno Union Frigate from Star Wars. Designed by Xenon of Slightly Used Space Ships Yard, and printed by Memnoch Manufacturing.

Moving back to the Separatists, we have a Techno Union Frigate, which is actually entirely a fan creation, but fits in pretty well, and fills in a gap for smaller Separatist ships.

A pair of painted miniatures of CR20 Troop Transport space ships, as seen in the Gennady Tartakovsky Clone Wars animated series. Designed by Xenon of Slightly Used Space Ships Yard, and printed by Memnoch Manufacturing.

From here, we go to another set of Republic ships - set up as a flotilla for the Armada game, this is a pair of CR20 Troop Transports, from the Tartakovsky Clone Wars.

A painted miniature of a Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser spaceship from the West End Games Star Wars Role Playing Game sourcebooks. The ship is painted in beige and red to indicate its use by the Galactic Republic, and it is pointing to the left and slightly towards the camera. Designed by Mel Miniatures, and printed by WesJanson3D.

A painted miniature of a Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser spaceship from the West End Games Star Wars Role Playing Game sourcebooks. The ship is painted in beige and red to indicate its use by the Galactic Republic, and it is pointing to the right and slightly away from the camera, to show the engines. Designed by Mel Miniatures, and printed by WesJanson3D.

This is the second time I've acquired a @melminiatures.bsky.social designed Dreadnaught. This time, printed by WesJanson3D.
I painted this one in Galactic Republic colors this time.

A painted miniature of a Neutron Star-class Bulk Cruiser spaceship from the West End Games Star Wars Role Playing Game source books. Designed by Onil Creations and printed by WesJanson3D.

Next is a Neutron Star-class Bulk Cruiser, another ship from the old West End Games sourcebooks.

A painted miniature of a Diamond-class Cruiser, a Separatist ship from Attack of the Clones, facing a little down and to the left of the camera. Designed by Onil Creations, and printed by WesJanson3D.

A painted miniature of a Diamond-class Cruiser, a Separatist ship from Attack of the Clones, facing away and to the right of the camera. Designed by Onil Creations, and printed by WesJanson3D.

First up, is the Diamond-class Cruiser, which was a blink-and-you-miss-it Separatist ship from Attack of the Clones.

It's been a while since I posted some painted ships, and I've done several, so I guess I'll just go with an extra-long thread this time.
Consider yourselves warned!

That was literally my college dorm room’s playlist 🤣

If you hate plagiarism, you now understand racists!
Oh, wait, that’s just what I hate about “AI” (I really hate that generative LLMs have co-opted the term)

If you want to believe it, check it twice
::clap clap::
If you want to believe it, check it twice
::clap clap::
Doesn’t matter if it’s awful
Doesn’t matter if it’s nice
If it confirms your bias, check it twice!
::clap clap::

Number one thing on the agenda: stop saying transphobes have “legitimate concerns.”

They don’t. Their concerns are stupid and made up. Say so. Show people who don’t have a lot invested in this, and take their social cues from others, that normal people think transphobes are stupidheads.

Oh, definitely. It’s just that I’ve seen genAI fail on even factual structured data. We have a list of error codes in a structured format for the robots I work on. The “AI” on our internal wiki system gets it wrong at least half the time when it decodes the codes to text, despite that.

For added fun, "purely factual, structured data" is no guarantee of accuracy, either.
Realistically, it depends on the training data input into the LLM.
If the pattern matching in the LLM matches enough of the training data, it can generate a text list accurately.
On other things, YMMV.

That Sheetz is built on the front of a property that used to be a drive in theater. Last I knew, at least one of the screens was still up behind the Sheetz.
I wonder if they just built a stage there…

The first 100% effective HIV prevention drug is approved and going global An epidemic that's been sustained for 44 years might finally be quelled, with the milestone approval of the first HIV drug that offers 100% protection with its twice-yearly injections. It's a landmark...

Well, I'll be damned.

It's royalty free and there's already six, generic manufacturers lined up.

newatlas.com/infectious-d...

I used a very light touch with some speed paints, keeping the overall amount of pigment fairly low, and it gave that sort of washed-out look I was hoping for.
I have no clue if I'll ever be able to replicate that, though! 😅

An unpainted miniature of an MC87 Calamari Light Carrier

A painted miniature of an MC87 Calamari Light Freighter

And the last new ship is an MC87 Light Carrier, also from the background if Return of the Jedi.
For fun, I’ve decided to include pictures of how it looked unpainted as well as after I painted it