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Size of Life

neal.fun

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Re: Size of Life

#121

Post by ralfhn »

wormpilled wrote: post #83
chrismorgan wrote: post #55

The dynamic soundscape is delightful, as it subtly adds instruments and musical texture as you progress. And going back down the scale regresses it to simple again. Smoothly done. It reminded me of Operation Neptune (1991): each level starts with just one channel, probably percussion, and as you progress through the rooms it adds and removes more channels or sometimes switches to a different section of music. It is u…

I absolutely loved that looping music track, please authors make it available.

From the author on twitter[1] "The background music is a cello performance by Iratxe Ibaibarriaga and composed by Aleix Ramon" [1] https://x.com/nealagarwal/status/1998788695449808920

Re: Size of Life

#123

Post by prmph »

jphoward wrote: post #6

It seems to be like some of the scales slightly off? If you are looking at the ladybird (ladybug) with the amoeba to the left, the amoeba isn't an order of the magnitude smaller - it would actually be visible by the human eye (bigger than a grain of sand)? Indeed, the amoeba seems the same size as the ladybird's foot? Similarly, this makes the bumblebee appear smaller than a human finger (the in the adjacent picture)…

Cool visualization, but I also noticed the switch from SI units to imperial. From micrometers to inches, which was jarring and hard for me to compare.

I'd suggest keeping the SI unit , or at least having both once we get to the level of inches.

Re: Size of Life

#124

Post by jiggawatts »

baxtr wrote: post #35

If you’re interested to read something on that topic I highly recommend the essay "That's About the Size of It" by Isaac Asimov (in his book "View from a Height"). He argues that human perception of animal size is skewed because humans use themselves as a benchmark. He takes a logarithmic approach to illustrate where humans actually fit within the overall scale of the animal kingdom. We are way larger than we think w…

We are megafauna predators! We’ve wiped them almost all out, which makes it less obvious, but that’s our ecological niche.

Re: Size of Life

#125

Post by graybeardhacker »

paddleon wrote: post #47
cainxinth wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Viruses are to life as LLMs are to reasoning: they often behave like their category expects but not for the same reasons as the genuine article.

as a former virologist, I love the thought that LLMs are the virus of reasoning :)

Once a virologist always a virologist I always say.

Re: Size of Life

#127

Post by arunc »

It was great until Sea snail appeared in inches. Transitioning from micrometer/milliliter to inches is pretty rough

Re: Size of Life

#128

Post by Mogzol »

arunc wrote: post #127

It was great until Sea snail appeared in inches. Transitioning from micrometer/milliliter to inches is pretty rough

For me it appears in millimetres, but I'm in Canada not the US. I'm guessing the default is chosen based on your browser's language. You can change the units in the top right.

Edit: I checked the page's code and it does indeed set the units based on language. If your language is "en-US" you get imperial by default, everyone else gets metric.

Re: Size of Life

#129

Post by susiecambria »

Sorry to say that my first reaction was that this is heresy. . . all this talk of science is a hoax.

But then the music calmed me right down and I wended my way through, not understanding 99% of what I saw but in awe of nature and Neal's art nonetheless.

Re: Size of Life

#130

Post by Mogzol »

smallerfish wrote: post #8

I like it, but the switch from metric to inches is confusing, and I think introduces a bug - there's no way a sea snail is 5-6 neurons high.

You can change the units in the top corner. It defaults to metric for me, but if your browser language is "en-US" you get imperial by default.
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