Category: Cool Site

These AI-generated human faces look utterly real

Posted on by Fred Langa

ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com is an AI-powered website that displays a random, computer-generated face each time you refresh your browser. Here are some examples — all fake. (These are 1/4-resolution screen-grabs; the site produces higher-res images.) It’s interesting… and spooky. More on the site and its tech: ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com uses AI to generate endless fake faces Permalink: https://langa.com/?p=2092

Sunday Morning Listen: the Sounds of Saturn

Posted on by Fred Langa

Recordings released by NASA/JPL let you listen to “plasma waves moving from Saturn to its rings and its moon Enceladus… like an electrical circuit between the two bodies, with energy flowing back and forth.” NASA/JPL article: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7186 Recording, if above embed doesn’t work: https://youtu.be/hWHLCHv4PiI Permalink: https://langa.com/?p=2082

A 4,000 year-old customer complaint… in the original cuneiform.

Posted on by Fred Langa

Some things never change: Linguists have translated a clay cuneiform tablet from the city of Ur, circa 1750BCE. The tablet is from a copper buyer named Nanni to the seller, Ea-nasir, complaining that the ingots were inferior, and that Ea-nasir was rude. “What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with…

A reader asks: “Have you heard of the TUTAC computer?”

Posted on by Fred Langa

I hadn’t, but I’m glad you asked (thanks!). This was fun to research, not only because it involves an interesting artifact from the early days of computers, but also because it shares a concept with Bandersnatch, the Netflix choose-your-own-ending movie! TUTAC stands for “TUTorial Automatic Computer,” a device that existed only on paper, in the…

Have you played the hidden text-adventure game in Chrome?

Posted on by Fred Langa

Yup, it’s yet another “easter egg” hidden inside Chrome, this one recently-discovered: A classic 1980’s-style, text-based adventure game, of the sort from the early days of computing! Graphics? GRAPHICS? We don’t need no steenking graphics! Just look at the text around the blue G: See for yourself: Open the Developer’s Tools (under the “More Tools”…

Cool site: Digital Museum of Planetary Mapping

Posted on by Fred Langa

The Digital Museum of Planetary Mapping houses some 2000 examples of humankind’s best attempts to map our solar system, from the earliest pre-telescope hand-drawn maps to NASA’s latest high-resolution offerings. Examples: 400 years ago: “The oldest map available on the website is a sketch made between 1600 and 1603 of the moon’s surfaces, drawn without…