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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 7h

Too late for this year, but not for next.

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 7h

Fyrefly A: the only #conlang so cursed that it can literally induce seizures in susceptible populations. #CCC4

Fyrefly A - #conlang #CCC4

YouTube video by Logan Kearsley

youtu.be

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 8h

Whether or not LLMs can be made to generate conlangs on-par with human creators is an interesting question from an academic standpoint, but the history of LLM deployment so far gives me serious ethical concerns; once it is built, even if the output is trash, it *will* be misused.

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 8h

The evaluation framework seems like the actually-interesting, potentially-useful part.

Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 8h

How could a machine-generated language tell us anything useful about natural typology? As for videogames, we can procedurally generate near-relexes without LLMs. And if you want anything more complex than that, machine translation still sucks.

Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 9h

Why would you want it to? The creative process is the point!

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Reposted by Logan R. Kearsley

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 12h

This is insane. I feel like I’m going insane when I’m watching this. Not just the fact that it’s clearly their fault, but the way a heavily-armed squad of masked thugs immediately jumps into the street and brutalizes the woman they just hit, despite having no idea who she is.

Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 1d

ICE GOONS crash into car and then point weapons to kidnap man.

77 510 1.4K

Reposted by Logan R. Kearsley

AKA NickleDave @nicholdav.bsky.social · 12h

When part of a word is replaced by noise, humans still hear the whole word. How do brains do this?

New from Meliza group in @natcomms.nature.com

Le et al. study this in zebra finches, a model system for vocal learning

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#prattle 💬
#neuroskyence

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The zebra finch auditory cortex reconstructs occluded syllables in conspecific song - Nature Communications

Neural mechanisms underlying auditory restoration are not fully understood. Here authors show that, neural populations of the zebra finch in the equivalent of auditory cortex respond to song with deleted syllables as if the missing syllables were actually present, indicating that information about the temporal structure of song is stored in this area. Their findings suggest that the internal model has a generalized representation of species-typical syntax.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Logan R. Kearsley

Todd @toddgreener.com · 1d

@hankgreen.bsky.social Just watched your latest video. I've also been thinking about how to create user agency while enabling social interactions online. To me, the problem is the structure of centralization and the profit motive of the platforms. I have a solution to address both simultaneously.

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 15h

The primordial environment would be rich in methane and ammonia, and I imagine it would be hard to evolve out of an ammonia dependence, so maybe there's a multi-step cycle to close the metabolic loop involving ammonia oxidation, carbon fixation, and nitrogen fixation.

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 15h

I haven't done a new Weird World (or updated an old one) in a while, but the recent news about atmospheres in the Trappist-1 system got me thinking: what would a biosphere look like that started out hydrogen-breathing, and had to switch to oxygen-breathing due to atmospheric stripping?

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 2d

This is brilliant. #conlang #ccc4 #xenolinguistics

Medjedic: A Language Associated with Two or More Fish | CCC4

YouTube video by MicroBlogganism

youtu.be

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 6d

Notable entries being "I am not a person (I'm three possums in a coat)" and "Three Kobolds in a Trenchcoat".

Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 6d

I really love the extremely tiny sub-genre of modern folk music that involves non-human things pretending to be people.

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 7d

It suddenly occurs to me that this would be an excellent justification for "just trying to communicate with the eldritch abomination leads to madness and death". They weren't trying to hurt you, it's just that their natural communication system triggers seizures in a significant number of humans....

Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 7d

!!EPILEPSY WARNING!!
youtu.be/iQKuozwaSsM
I managed to synthesize the complete 2-segment word list for Fyrefly A. So if I can get the translation done, I might actually manage to submit something for the Cursed #Conlang Circus on time!

Fyrefly A - 2-segment word list

YouTube video by Logan Kearsley

youtu.be

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 7d

If you think "ew, that's a really disgusting shade of yellow", take heart in the fact that standard digital color displays made for humans are actually incapable of producing the correct spectral distribution, and it would probably look better in real life.

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 7d

!!EPILEPSY WARNING!!
youtu.be/iQKuozwaSsM
I managed to synthesize the complete 2-segment word list for Fyrefly A. So if I can get the translation done, I might actually manage to submit something for the Cursed #Conlang Circus on time!

Fyrefly A - 2-segment word list

YouTube video by Logan Kearsley

youtu.be

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 12d

Just popped in to my head. Wasn't even dreaming about Dune...

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 12d

The sleeper has awakened! Earlier than he wanted to...

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 14d

Ah, but black hole stars can only form in near-zero metallicity environments, so they cannot in fact be suns!

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Reposted by Logan R. Kearsley

Boo-is @louisevans.bsky.social · 14d

one of the darkest pieces of spec fic I've ever read:

97-Year-Old Dies Unaware Of Being Violin Prodigy

ROCKFORD, IL—Retired post office branch manager Nancy Hollander, 97, died at her home of natural causes Tuesday, after spending her life completely unaware that she was one of the most talented musici...

theonion.com

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Reposted by Logan R. Kearsley

Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcc.bsky.social · 14d

Hey. The fragmentation of the social media landscape has been hard on indie #scicomm 🧪 projects

So if you'd like to follow a podcast that's enthusiastic about #linguistics, could you check out @lingthusiasm.bsky.social?

And if you think your followers might like to, could you give this a repost?

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 15d

After spending a long time designing digital radio protocols, working on ethernet interfaces is making me anxious about profligate network protocols are with bits. 14 whole bytes for an ethernet header!? Duplicating MAC addresses ARP messages? What decadence!

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 16d

I first read this as referring to autism, and was about to be really mad. But it's actually about literal masks on your face.

Olivia- COVID resources in bio @o-bel.bsky.social · 16d

Shoutout to my fellow maskers!

colorful star motifs surround black text reading “if you’re still masking, you’re making the world a better and safer place for everyone. Oliviabelknaptherapy”

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Logan R. Kearsley @gliese1337.bsky.social · 16d

Today I Learned: If you attach an Android device to an ethernet connection, it will repeatedly perform ARP scans of your entire subnet range.

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