InShaneee's blurblog

All The Ghosts You Will Be by Vsauce
Friday July 18^th, 2025 at 8:07 PM

Vsauce's YouTube Videos

From: Vsauce
Duration: 22:00
Views: 3,178,503

MOX NOX. Pre-order the Death Clock here: http://www.InqFactory.com/DeathClock
Special thanks to @CalebMarting for his tireless work on the prototypes. Our entire team at the Curiosity Box and Inq Factory is incredible -- it's a gift to be able to make the world curiouser with you all!

"Curiouser" is a very curious word.

LINKS TO LEARN MORE:

flour particle size: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335277332_Influence_of_milling_whole_wheat_grains_and_particle_size_on_thermo-mechanical_properties_of_flour_using_Mixolab

solar corona:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14865

eclipse footage: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14572/

KUSHIM:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushim_(Uruk_period)
https://indroyc.com/2024/02/23/kushims-story-the-first-name-in-history/

GAL-SAL:
https://isac-idb.uchicago.edu/id/b6ace1f1-9701-4dc5-b366-8c15c7da00ca
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLlP1d6zlPR/?img_index=2

Gudea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gudea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statues_of_Gudea
https://www.sumerianshakespeare.com/face-of-gudea

Other early human forms:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urfa_Man

History of human figure in art: https://jesygilkesuca.home.blog/2020/09/14/history-and-depictions-of-the-human-figure/

3D interactive DNA model: https://www.labxchange.org/library/items/lb:LabXchange:5c1562b9:lx_simulation:1

How many genetic ancestors do you have? https://gcbias.org/2013/11/11/how-does-your-number-of-genetic-ancestors-grow-back-over-time/

fossilization video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wie_entstehen_Fossilien_(CC_by_4.0)_redub_EO.webm

How to become a fossil:
https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg24632832-100-wheres-the-best-place-to-be-buried-to-preserve-your-body-as-a-fossil/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180215-how-does-fossilisation-happen

where to be buried to become a fossil Earth images: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/

Big Bertha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_(lunar_sample)

red giant sun: https://science.nasa.gov/resource/life-and-death-of-a-planetary-system/

Interactive voyager viewer: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/

Wifi signal in house: https://jasmcole.com/2014/07/12/wifi-strife/

How we’ve found partners over time https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1908630116

Screen time: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats

Mobile phones vs toothbrushes: https://bcp-advisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Cell-Phones-and-Toothbrushes.pdf

Old music outselling new: https://web.archive.org/web/20160222071723/http://www.chartattack.com/news/2016/01/20/old-music-is-outselling-new-music-for-the-first-time-in-history/

“Soy Bomb” incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OeNKBq63iM

Steve Fossett: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett

Gabby Petito: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Gabby_Petito

Unknown soldier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_the_Unknown_Soldier_(Arlington_National_Cemetery)
https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002889128/

Conrad Roy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

Frederick Douglass: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/frederick-douglass-and-the-power-of-photography.htm

Sojourner Truth: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/301989

Wallace Line:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Sunda_and_Sahul.svg

Homo Erectus image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homo_erectus,_The_Natural_History_Museum_Vienna,_20210730_1228_1282.jpg

Roman aqueduct image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct#/media/File:Pont_du_Gard_BLS.jpg

Chicago filmed from a dirigible: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Photographed_from_Ray_Knabenshue%27s_Dirigible_Air_Ship.webm

World pop density map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_Population_Density_Map_2020.png

books:
I Am A Strange Loop - Douglas_Hofstadter
A Short History of Nearly Everything Book - Bill Bryson
Reasons and Persons - Derek Parfit
Documentality - Maurizio Ferraris
Amusing Ourselves To Death - Neil Postman
Everything Bad Is Good For You - Steven Johnson
Soul Dust - Nicholas Humphrey
The View From Nowhere - Thomas Nagel

ALL MUSIC BY @jakechudnow
You can pick up Jake Chudnow’s Vsauce music on vinyl here: https://inqfactory.com/pages/vinyl

SONGS:

00ː00 - 00ː01 - J Wilde
00ː03 - 00ː26 - Food
00ː20 - 01ː14 - Rain, Dreams
01ː12 - 01ː22 - Moon Men (Instrumental)
01ː22 - 01ː33 - J Wilde
01ː26 - 02ː27 - What My Nervous Stomach Sounds Like
02ː01 - 02ː38 - For Leah
02ː39 - 03ː39 - Moon Men (Instrumental)
03ː40 - 04ː56 - Imaginary Sun
04ː49 - 05ː50 - It’s Good To Be D
05ː50 - 06ː37 - Thunder
06ː37 - 08ː03 - For You
08ː11 - 10ː08 - Rain, Dreams
10ː02 - 11ː10 - Hydrogen
11ː34 - 11ː50 - Prelude To Shona
11ː50 - 13ː02 - For Leah
13ː09 - 13ː56 - Shallow Anne
13ː41 - 13ː56 - Monkey Morning
13ː56 - 16ː10 - J Wilde
15ː56 - 19ː04 - Olive
19ː06 - 21ː54 - J Wilde

https://www.instagram.com/electricpants
https://www.tiktok.com/@corndogwilly

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InShaneee

3 hours ago

Chicago, IL

Netflix confirms first use of generative AI in its programming by Drew Gillis
Friday July 18^th, 2025 at 7:43 PM

AV Club

This week, Netflix confirmed that it has used generative AI in one of its series for the first time. Co-CEO of the streamer Ted Sarandos shared the news on a company conference call yesterday, reports TechCrunch, claiming that Netflix was the platform with “the very first GenAI final footage to appear on screen.”

The footage appears in the Argentinian series El Atonata, and AI was apparently used to help create a scene of a building falling down, which Sarandos is reported to have said was achieved 10 times as fast as it normally would have been and that it cost less. (And we’re sure all of that cost-saving will trickle down to us subscribers.) “We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper. There are AI-powered creator tools. So this is real people doing real work with better tools,” Sarandos said on the call. “Our creators are already seeing the benefits in production through pre-visualization and shot-planning work, and certainly visual effects. It used to be that only big-budget projects would have access to advanced visual effects like de-aging.”

The “AI is a tool that artists can use” stance is not totally without merit, but to suggest that pre-production use of AI tools for planning purposes is the same thing as the wholesale generation of AI footage would be inaccurate. The 2023 Writers Guild strike helped win protections against AI-generated scripts, but studios left the door open to using generated video so long as, in the words of a New York Magazine story on the subject, “a human is nominally in charge and the unions are given a chance to bargain over terms.”

Netflix’s other co-CEO Greg Peters said on the same call that the streamer will start using AI in other areas of the company, including for search functions and advertising. The call also revealed that Netflix’s revenue was up 16% from one year ago, and that they could claim $3.13 billion in profit for quarter two.

CBS is canceling Colbert's Late Show next year, calling it "purely a financial decision" by William Hughes
Friday July 18^th, 2025 at 10:27 AM

AV Club

CBS announced today that The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will be ending when its current season wraps in 2026, calling the choice to cancel the top-rated late-night show “purely a financial decision.” Stephen Colbert broke the news to his audience at the start of tonight’s taping of the CBS series. The network has made it clear that it won’t seek to replace Colbert in the spot, and instead will put the Late Show brand to rest.

CBS issued an early “in memoriam” for the show pretty much the minute the news broke, with various network higher-ups releasing the following statement, pretty clearly trying to get out in front of accusations that the network was retaliating against Colbert for criticizing parent company Paramount earlier this week.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season. We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television. This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.

So, yeah: Definitely a cancellation, and not something more mutual. The question now, obviously, is motive. (To be fair, the network has been making moves suggesting it’s ready to abdicate the costs and somewhat questionable rewards of dominating in modern late-night, having just kind of shrugged and ended things after Taylor Tomlinson announced that she was stepping away from After Midnight.) Even so, it’s wild to see Colbert—who is consistently at the top of this particular game, sometimes coming close to doubling the ratings of his various Jimmy-named competitors—be the one to get the axe, and hard not to view in light of his willingness to speak truth to Paramount about the company’s willingness to settle its lawsuit with Donald Trump in the service of getting its ongoing merger with Skydance approved.

Colbert—who took over the job from David Letterman back in 2015, after cutting his satirical teeth on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report—was reportedly informed of the decision on Wednesday night.

[via Variety]

Senate holds late-night vote to cut funding to NPR and PBS by William Hughes
Thursday July 17^th, 2025 at 2:35 PM

AV Club

After days of debate, parliamentarian maneuvers, and more opportunities than we would frankly like for J.D. Vance to be at least nominally important to the national decision-making process, the United States Senate passed a bill in the early hours of Thursday morning that would defund the Corporation Of Public Broadcasting—the independent agency through which the government funds both PBS and NPR—to the tune of more than a billion dollars. The rescissions package—which also includes another $8 billion in cuts to favorite DOGE kicking target/foreign aid organization USAID—passed with a 51-48 margin, with Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski breaking ranks with their party to vote against the bill. (Democratic Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota was hospitalized due to illness earlier on Wednesday, and missed the vote)

Per CNN, the bill will now be sent back to the House Of Representatives, which previously passed a slightly modified version, and which now has until Friday to pass the Senate’s amended take. (Otherwise it’ll become susceptible to Democratic filibuster; always nice to be reminded how much of our lived reality is dictated by these fiddly little rules.) If it passes, Donald Trump will have finally achieved his dream—dating back to his first term as President—of gutting NPR and PBS’s budgets in retaliation for ~~saying mean things about him~~ perceived bias. As many commentators have noted, the funding cuts will, somewhat ironically, probably be at least short-term weatherable for stations in big cities, where fundraising from private citizens is a workable model; it’ll be rural communities, where NPR and PBS represent small but vital services, including news, weather reporting, and emergency broadcasts, that’ll get hit the hardest. (Murkowski has stumped hard on this point over the past week, noting that, literally hours before the bill went up for a vote, Alaska’s public radio infrastructure had broadcast emergency warnings to residents about an earthquake in her home state.)

On the other hand, Trump has been mercilessly using this issue as his latest purity test to smack his wayward acolytes with, threatening to withhold support and funding from any Republican who doesn’t get in line on the bill. It appears to have worked—he might not be able to stop the base from screaming the word “Epstein!” every six minutes, but killing public TV and radio was apparently an easier ask.

The best games of 2025 so far, picked by NPR's staff by James Perkins Mastromarino
Wednesday July 16^th, 2025 at 12:37 PM

NPR Topics: Gaming

From indies like Blue Prince to big console exclusives like Donkey Kong Bananza, NPR staff and contributors round up their favorite games of the year so far.

Read the whole story

InShaneee

2 days ago

Chicago, IL

Microsoft Uses Chinese Engineers To Maintain Defense Department Systems Under Minimal US Oversight by msmash
Tuesday July 15^th, 2025 at 3:49 PM

Slashdot

Microsoft employs engineers in China to help maintain Defense Department computer systems, with U.S. citizens serving as "digital escorts" to oversee the foreign workers, according to a ProPublica investigation. The escorts often lack advanced technical expertise to police engineers with far more sophisticated skills, and some are former military personnel paid barely above minimum wage. "We're trusting that what they're doing isn't malicious, but we really can't tell," one current escort told the publication. The arrangement, critical to Microsoft winning federal cloud computing contracts a decade ago, handles sensitive but unclassified government data including materials that directly support military operations. Former CIA and NSA executive Harry Coker called the system a natural opportunity for spies, saying "If I were an operative, I would look at that as an avenue for extremely valuable access."

All The Ghosts You Will Be by Vsauce Friday July 18th, 2025 at 8:07 PM

Netflix confirms first use of generative AI in its programming by Drew Gillis Friday July 18th, 2025 at 7:43 PM

CBS is canceling Colbert's Late Show next year, calling it "purely a financial decision" by William Hughes Friday July 18th, 2025 at 10:27 AM

Senate holds late-night vote to cut funding to NPR and PBS by William Hughes Thursday July 17th, 2025 at 2:35 PM

The best games of 2025 so far, picked by NPR's staff by James Perkins Mastromarino Wednesday July 16th, 2025 at 12:37 PM

Microsoft Uses Chinese Engineers To Maintain Defense Department Systems Under Minimal US Oversight by msmash Tuesday July 15th, 2025 at 3:49 PM

All The Ghosts You Will Be by Vsauce
Friday July 18^th, 2025 at 8:07 PM

Netflix confirms first use of generative AI in its programming by Drew Gillis
Friday July 18^th, 2025 at 7:43 PM

CBS is canceling Colbert's Late Show next year, calling it "purely a financial decision" by William Hughes
Friday July 18^th, 2025 at 10:27 AM

Senate holds late-night vote to cut funding to NPR and PBS by William Hughes
Thursday July 17^th, 2025 at 2:35 PM

The best games of 2025 so far, picked by NPR's staff by James Perkins Mastromarino
Wednesday July 16^th, 2025 at 12:37 PM

Microsoft Uses Chinese Engineers To Maintain Defense Department Systems Under Minimal US Oversight by msmash
Tuesday July 15^th, 2025 at 3:49 PM