I am researching for a talk on the philosophy of code, the similarities of engineering and art, and why we enjoy reading old code. This amazing work you folks have done may be an interesting tangent.
The biggest question I have for you is why you imagine we are so interested in reading these old scrolls. Surely some of it is to see whether or not, technically, we can. Surely some of it is to get a glimpse into the human expression inscribed on them. Are we looking to learn anything, or just to connect with our ancestors? I'd like to hear your take on it, both for why you think it's important and, if you know, why your colleagues feel similarly.
Can you tell me how many scrolls there were to begin with, how many have been confirmed to have been lost, and how many could he salvageable if they are in broken / dessicated form? And how many there are left? Thank you so much. :)
Scrolls from Herculaneum have been read for a very long time. Not disputing the achievement of digitally unrolling one, but the scrolls from the library of have been studied since the 18th century.
I always wondered about this, how was there not already tech for a liquor store owner to scan all the lottery tickets without scratching them? On the rare occasions I want to buy a lottery ticket, that's one more reason to only do one where I pick the numbers.
When I read translations like these, I always wonder if the tone is translated. Did the writer mean to convey a very formal “to the utmost”, or was it a more casual “to the max”.
How much of the translators bias makes these seem like academic papers instead of social media posts.
Students find it hard to read poetry in Latin class, but common Romans of the time couldn't read it either. I'm guessing ancient Greek was even more like that. So would assume everything in there is formal and not how people really talked.
Have also heard of graffiti being cited as how people talked, but dunno about that. Our graffiti is definitely not how we talk.
Every time you feel depressed by the state of tech, and how so many intelligent people seem to work on forcing ever more ads down people's throats (a common trope around these parts), remember that projects like this do exist too!
There are lots of very smart folks working on incredible things, they just aren't as loud.
I imagine it's not the first time, It must've at least been proofread at the time of writing :)
But really impressive stuff! Between this and (a particularly optimistic outlook on) the Linear-A news from the other week this is an exciting time for linguistics.
The person who wrote this was was closer in time to the technology that was able to unwind and read burned fragments of their text, than the technology that build the pyramids. pretty wild to think about.
But wait, the work seems to be from the 2nd century, but it was buried during the Vesuvius eruption in the 1st century?
I love stuff like this because it gives a glimpse into Roman society. To me it seems like they were very similar to us today, forever contemplating learning, existence, gods.
Discs of this era are frequently marked with a specific, unknown sequence of symbols: FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8. Archaelogists believe it may have religious significance.
Only about 20% of the Herculaneum site has been excavated, so there is high probability that more scrolls exist. The current scrolls were not part of the main library, but more of a private collection at the time.
So imagine how cool it would be to find a full library with thousand of scrolls across many different topics, that can now be read with this technology.
So far this is some of the best uses of ML I've seen to date! This is one of the few things you can point at and say "AI made the world a better place" IMO (this and medical research).
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[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 42.0 ms ] threadThe biggest question I have for you is why you imagine we are so interested in reading these old scrolls. Surely some of it is to see whether or not, technically, we can. Surely some of it is to get a glimpse into the human expression inscribed on them. Are we looking to learn anything, or just to connect with our ancestors? I'd like to hear your take on it, both for why you think it's important and, if you know, why your colleagues feel similarly.
A thought: I guess the days of scratch off lottery tickets are numbered?
I'm kind of obsessed with the ancient world. I dream of being able to read entire pages of new text from ~2,000 years ago.
How much of the translators bias makes these seem like academic papers instead of social media posts.
Have also heard of graffiti being cited as how people talked, but dunno about that. Our graffiti is definitely not how we talk.
There are lots of very smart folks working on incredible things, they just aren't as loud.
But really impressive stuff! Between this and (a particularly optimistic outlook on) the Linear-A news from the other week this is an exciting time for linguistics.
I love stuff like this because it gives a glimpse into Roman society. To me it seems like they were very similar to us today, forever contemplating learning, existence, gods.
A Post-Great Solar Flare of 2484 Step Brothers DVD Has Been Decoded
Beautifully ironic, that we find this message.
So imagine how cool it would be to find a full library with thousand of scrolls across many different topics, that can now be read with this technology.
Amazing!
Fantastic work!