Random News not worthy of own thread

[Gavrushka]

Baldur's Gate is the next video game that is being turned into a television show, this seems to be the big thing right now, not to sure how I feel about it.

It could be decent, or it could be rubbish. It will have to use a lot of CGI, and I wonder if it will follow any of the BG games, or will it be a new story? so much potential, but so much to mess on. Especailly with the license.

Really depends on a lot of factors. plus who will be in it? so a lot could go very wrong.

Edit

There are some D&D films, never watched them. I think the first one was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of ratings. Unless anyone here has seen any of the films? I guess whatever the BG film will be like, it probably will be of similar quality? So again, might be decent, or might be a total flop.

I'm just curious as to whether the subtitles will include dice rolls.

[Usenko]

There are some D&D films, never watched them. I think the first one was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of ratings. Unless anyone here has seen any of the films? I guess whatever the BG film will be like, it probably will be of similar quality? So again, might be decent, or might be a total flop.

I saw Honour Among Thieves, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't heard of any talk of a sequel though.

[Gavrushka]

It's rare I sit down and watch a full movie, but that one I did. Yes, great entertainment.

[clakclak]

Yeah I had not heard about it and watched in one evening as some light entertainment while gaming, ended up turning off my game to focus on the movie. It reall struck the right spot of light hearted silly fun.

[Usenko]

One thing I noticed: As a long term D & D fan, I loved the little nods to the game and its world you could see in the script and the acting. They'd shown their work.

HOWEVER - I watched it with my daughters, who both couldn't care less about D & D - and they enjoyed it too.

They've somehow managed to hit the sweet spot - a movie that's fun if you don't know the in jokes, but which is enhanced by that knowledge.

[felter]

A few weeks back there was a debate between pro vaccines and anti vaccines, the whole thing is around 90 minutes long but this is a break-down on the best parts, and it shows just how dumb and stupid the anti vaccine people are and how they don't have a clue what they are talking about, while doing a lot of damage and killing people in the process, it's really worth a watch. By the way those are supposed to be the main and reliable source on how bad vaccines are for you and the ones who people listen to for advice on vaccines, they are not just some random dudes, the one on the right (can't remember his name) was the one who actually asked for the debate.

[Chips]

A few weeks back there was a debate between pro vaccines and anti vaccines, the whole thing is around 90 minutes long but this is a break-down on the best parts, and it shows just how dumb and stupid the anti vaccine people are and how they don't have a clue what they are talking about, while doing a lot of damage and killing people in the process, it's really worth a watch. By the way those are supposed to be the main and reliable source on how bad vaccines are for you and the ones who people listen to for advice on vaccines, they are not just some random dudes, the one on the right (can't remember his name) was the one who actually asked for the debate.

Cheers for the vid, it was entertaining but not for the slam reasons, more for the hearing what anti vaxers may claim and increasing domain knowledge for the counters. The actual video from Professor Dave Explains is *far better* source for this (and also names the two anti-vaxxers, neither of whom I've ever heard) without someone else regurgitating his video and comments for their own channel views... but that vid does supply the links to it/channel. The reason for that is simply that while making it more consumable, there's so many more examples of absolute insanity in the original!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30W2w02n360

Genuinely, this is a far better video to watch (but it is *long*), but wouldn't have found it without your post - so cheers.

The gotcha of them supplying "evidence" they've not even read is a literal definition exemplified of conspiracy theorists tbh. If they were making informed opinions by actually *reading* then they'd not be where they are; so not even bothering to read their own supposed "supporting evidence" to form their opinion was the easily predictable avenue for the folks who actually prepare and have actual domain knowledge.

Pointing out how stupid / dumb the arguments of anti vaxers are actually highlights in this video just how much knowledge is required for an average lay person to do so though. The employment of bad pseudo science arguments and the "appeal to authority" (?) isn't something Jo Public can reliably counter unless this sort of misinformation was tackled at education level (used as an example for people to research/form opinions).

There's always going to be contrary people who believe all sorts of crap -- but the modern day social media and absolute surrender to it (as an authority) is why this garbage is becoming a *real* problem; idiots are finding each other and spreading their poison (and some may just be made up balls as entertainment to see what's believed). Lesser examples of this (more innocent examples) are legion; you only have to look at other threads to find even intelligent people are relying upon being told what to think via "influencers" providing their *interpretation* -- rather than formulating their own opinions based on observations, they consume other's opinion framed as news. Doesn't mean the conclusions are 100% wrong. But once you start down that surrender path, it's ever easier to be misled as a dereliction of source checking gives way to self-appointed authority figures; and confirmation bias is becoming baked in.

btw the debate wasn't a few weeks ago. It was September 13th 2025. 5 months ago. A minor point to be made, but... the irony that not checking sources was a big part of the vid shouldn't be missed!

Genuinely, suggest watching the video by the Dave chap above if you can spare the 1hr 40mins. It's so much more insane than you'd believe from the short-take one.

[felter]

Found another interesting video, this time it's about the noise from data centres. I'll be honest, I have never thought of that before, and it turns out it is a big health problems. It isn't the noise that you can hear that is the biggest problem, but rather the ones you cannot hear and people living near to these massive data centres are suffering various health problems, so if you live near a data centres and have health issues this might be the cause and if they are planning on building one near you, well you might want to object against this happening especially if it is Musk who is behind the data centre, I knew there was a reason for him closing down some of those government agencies.

Going to throw this one in the mix (nothing to do with the above) I wasn't going to as I originally thought it was AI, but it turns out it's not, those robots are pretty impressive, now let the war begin.

[fiksal]

There's an idea that Neanderthals died out in, or rather, from, an isolation


https://english.elpais.com/science-tech ... apsed.html


Some points are questionable to me, some are interesting.

I haven't seen anything that pointed out that Neanderthal had successfully mixed in with humans. At least none that I read. Which leaves this scenarios of isolation and eventually decreasing numbers as plausible.

[mr.WHO]

I haven't seen anything that pointed out that Neanderthal had successfully mixed in with humans. At least none that I read. Which leaves this scenarios of isolation and eventually decreasing numbers as plausible.

Isn't there like few percent of Neaderthal genes in human DNA already?
Specifically populations of Europe and Northern Asia (and less to none in other continents).

That seems like a solid proof some mixing happened.

This doesn't exclude the isolation extinction, but it seem some Neatherthals did sucessfully pass their DNA to humanity.
Mayne Neatherthals extinct because they live in (relatively) smaller groups than humans, but ocassionally, when Neatherthal group near died out, a few Neatherthals did join and mixed to human groups (hominids are social creatures after all, you need social group in the end).

[clakclak]

I haven't seen anything that pointed out that Neanderthal had successfully mixed in with humans. At least none that I read. Which leaves this scenarios of isolation and eventually decreasing numbers as plausible.

Isn't there like few percent of Neaderthal genes in human DNA already?
Specifically populations of Europe and Northern Asia (and less to none in other continents).

That seems like a solid proof some mixing happened.

This doesn't exclude the isolation extinction, but it seem some Neatherthals did sucessfully pass their DNA to humanity.
Mayne Neatherthals extinct because they live in (relatively) smaller groups than humans, but ocassionally, when Neatherthal group near died out, a few Neatherthals did join and mixed to human groups (hominids are social creatures after all, you need social group in the end).

Yes there is and it has some minor lingering effects . The big question is how it got there. Did the two groups mix voluntarily? If so how was the contact between them?

These are really interesting questions, for example let's assume both Neanderthals and our ancestors possessed language (because quite frankly we have to assume they did), were they able to communicate? The question sounds dumb at first, surely they had the vocal range to at the very least approximate each others utterings, but that isn't what I mean. Language is about a lot more than just the tones produced. It is an expression of thought processes. Even if you can understand the noise, understanding the meaning and connotations is something entirely different. That being said, I do not think it is out of the realm of possibilities that they could talk with one another, did they ever do it? Or was their relationship one filled with hostility?

Modern humans experience something called the uncanny valley effect, when they see something close to a human, is this maybe a leftover of dealing with other human races? A way of telling the brain that what you are seeing isn't quite the right type of human and might mean danger?

[mr.WHO]

Did the two groups mix voluntarily? If so how was the contact between them?

It doesn't really matter, if it was voluntary or not - most likely both like with various human cultures.

These are really interesting questions, for example let's assume both Neanderthals and our ancestors possessed language (because quite frankly we have to assume they did), were they able to communicate? The question sounds dumb at first, surely they had the vocal range to at the very least approximate each others utterings, but that isn't what I mean. Language is about a lot more than just the tones produced. It is an expression of thought processes. Even if you can understand the noise, understanding the meaning and connotations is something entirely different. That being said, I do not think it is out of the realm of possibilities that they could talk with one another, did they ever do it? Or was their relationship one filled with hostility?

Yes, it would be tricky if they would want to discuss philosophy, good that this wasn't invented yet beyond simple burial both races already developed.
We can comunicate with animals (e.g. dogs, cattle), so communicating with Neatherthals would be much easier.
We don't even need to speak or understand the words of eachother. Simply by interaction, it would be easy for both sides to figure out words/meaning for basic stuff - like stone, spear, fire.
This would cover basic communication needs to work on basic group level. Who knows, maybe some words we are still using today have been adopted from Neatherthals? We will never know.

Modern humans experience something called the uncanny valley effect, when they see something close to a human, is this maybe a leftover of dealing with other human races? A way of telling the brain that what you are seeing isn't quite the right type of human and might mean danger?

This might be an evolutionary bias passed into our DNA, but I guess, slightly bigger nose and more hairy apperance wasn't uncanny enough for our ancestors to seal the deal

[fiksal]

as someone who only catches various articles on this without studying the topic, I think the idea is still that yes, there were common children, but the two never mixed settlements.

however those children had existed, they ended up in one camp over the other and didn't bring any knowledge or culture with them

so we didn't merge with them into a single human, we had some children so that only some of us carry their DNA, not everyone by far, and they died out

[mr.WHO]

IMO, as Neatherthal groups were smaller, they were more prone to catastrophic failure - this would produce a few strays that could eventually end up adopted/tagging along human groups.
There wouldn't be much of cultural/technological transfers...there wasn't much a pool of of this anywhay at that time, both sides.
Still it's not unlikely that some Neatherthal words could become viral and be adopted to human vocabulary and some handful few Neanthertal tools/techniques that might be more useful in Northern climate.

It's like exchanges of gene pool between animal herds - I guess at that time human groups were like "welp, additional pair of hands and fresh genes won't hurt"
Aparently it didn't, since the genes we sucessfully passed till modern days.

[chew-ie]

Nice! NVIDIA hiring Linux driver engineers to help with Vulkan, Proton and more

@source: gamingonlinux.com

[clakclak]

More Ai news, this time not from a school. Burger King will use an Ai to police the speech patterns of its employees. If the Ai finds that an employee to not be servile enough in the way they speak, it will prompt a small electric shock in the employees headset to correct the behaviour. After three strikes the headset will detonate a Battle Royal esque explosive collar which cleanly seperates the offending employees head from their soulders.

Ok, I made up part of the story, but this is also only the first iteration of the device, so we will see where it goes.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial- ... tant-patty

[clakclak]

IMO, as Neatherthal groups were smaller, they were more prone to catastrophic failure - this would produce a few strays that could eventually end up adopted/tagging along human groups.
There wouldn't be much of cultural/technological transfers...there wasn't much a pool of of this anywhay at that time, both sides.
Still it's not unlikely that some Neatherthal words could become viral and be adopted to human vocabulary and some handful few Neanthertal tools/techniques that might be more useful in Northern climate.

It's like exchanges of gene pool between animal herds - I guess at that time human groups were like "welp, additional pair of hands and fresh genes won't hurt"
Aparently it didn't, since the genes we sucessfully passed till modern days.

I am a bit late getting back to you, but I stumbled across a video after this topic came up and it certainly gave me some information I did not have before, for example that Neanderthals were far from the only other human species our ancestors interbreed with. If you are interested: https://youtu.be/wpgjpehp8sc?si=kzhYomGWHJ1vFwxl

[mr.WHO]

I am a bit late getting back to you, but I stumbled across a video after this topic came up and it certainly gave me some information I did not have before, for example that Neanderthals were far from the only other human species our ancestors interbreed with. If you are interested: https://youtu.be/wpgjpehp8sc?si=kzhYomGWHJ1vFwxl

It's almost like Nature is "Nope, can't let good genes go to waste".
I wonder how much in total, modern humans are mix of all human species - it would be impressive, if it would be 10% (probably not, given huge overlap within humans, and that were like 96% overlap with pigs and 98% with chimpanzees ).

[chew-ie]

Wonderful morning - thanks to Hannah & Zack

Green party wins Gorton and Denton byelection

@source theguardian.com

[PersonyPerson]

Wonderful morning - thanks to Hannah & Zack

Green party wins Gorton and Denton byelection

@source theguardian.com

Reform, Reform-lite and Reform Extra-lite all got battered. All 3 of them have now gone into a state of panic, stating the most deplorable of excuses ranging from false claims of sectarianism and electoral fraud, to insinuating that Muslims are monsters... It doesn't help that the BBC uncritically plays along with some of these claims...

In any case, today is a good day . First time since the last general election (2024) in which I feel there might be signs of hope nationally in the UK. I tactically voted to remove my local Tory MP in 2024. Was rather euphoric to finally get rid of him after he tortured us for 14 years, but unfortunately he got replaced by a party which in their infinite wisdom on a national scale decided to copy Tory and Reform UK policies and rhetoric, not adhering to their original manifesto or the interests of the people who actually voted for them... Labour betrayed my trust and it's not helped by the national opinion polls, which have looked very grim for quite a while given that Reform is leading.

Greens winning a seat in Manchester is probably not a turning point, but I do very much hope that it is, given all the extra coverage that the Greens have finally been getting. First time I've seen their policies getting more widely discussed. Hopefully the Lib Dems and the SNP/PC all get a similar treatment during the May elections in which hopefully Reform, Tories and Labour all get battered by the rest of us again.