"The world's coral reefs are close to 25 percent larger than we thought. By using satellite images, machine learning and on-ground knowledge from a global network of people living and working on coral reefs, we found an extra 64,000 square kilometers (24,700 square miles) of coral reefs – an area the size of Ireland.
That brings the total size of the planet's shallow reefs (meaning 0-20 meters deep) to 348,000 square kilometers – the size of Germany. This figure represents whole coral reef ecosystems, ranging from sandy-bottomed lagoons with a little coral, to coral rubble flats, to living walls of coral.
Within this 348,000 km² of coral is 80,000 km² where there's a hard bottom – rocks rather than sand. These areas are likely to be home to significant amounts of coral – the places snorkelers and scuba divers most like to visit.
You might wonder why we're finding this out now. Didn't we already know where the world's reefs are?
Previously, we've had to pull data from many different sources, which made it harder to pin down the extent of coral reefs with certainty. But now we have high resolution satellite data covering the entire world – and are able to see reefs as deep as 30 meters down.
Pictured: Geomorphic mapping (left) compared to new reef extent (red shading, right image) in the northern Great Barrier Reef.
[AKA: All the stuff in red on that map is coral reef we did not realize existed!! Coral reefs cover so much more territory than we thought! And that's just one example. (From northern Queensland)]
We coupled this with direct observations and records of coral reefs from over 400 individuals and organizations in countries with coral reefs from all regions, such as the Maldives, Cuba, and Australia.
To produce the maps, we used machine learning techniques to chew through 100 trillion pixels from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites to make accurate predictions about where coral is – and is not. The team worked with almost 500 researchers and collaborators to make the maps.
The result: the world's first comprehensive map of coral reefs extent, and their composition, produced through the Allen Coral Atlas. [You can see the interactive maps yourself at the link!]
The maps are already proving their worth. Reef management agencies around the world are using them to plan and assess conservation work and threats to reefs."
-via ScienceDirect, February 15, 2024
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your art makes me explode in a positive way like
im chewing and swallowing it in an aggressive way like
it's just SO good im melting ilove your shading and KEHEKEBEKJDJF
anwayshi hello do you happen to have any headcanons for showtime rolls on the floor and dies
Thank you so much, really appreciate it!
Oh God I don't know if this will read as coherent because my thoughts about Showtime are all over the place. But I'll try to format this the best I can
✨Showtime HCs! ✨
Their relationship starts when they start spending time together.
(The reason why they do so could vary. In Supervised Machine Learning's case, Pomni becomes something of a "tutor" to Caine; They discover that they work well together, and the other's company can be quite pleasant!).
So Pomni and Caine build a weird, but comforting friendship, and all is well.
Then the feelings appear.
Caine is the first to realize he fell in love.
It sounds illogical but hear me out… it'd be really funny--
Ok no seriously I think Caine can actually feel. Keyword "can". He's very much still a machine and it shows in the pilot. But like his inspiration (AM), Caine is also a rogue AI. Whatever his programming originally intended him to do, he probably doesn't follow it as closely now as back when he was created (which is a whole other post).
Caine knows what love is and the extend it can go, since the Moon is so open about her feelings. He just doesn't like the Moon back specifically haha (sorry Moon) :}
All this to say, I do believe this is within the realm of possibility for him. (Not that it's ever gonna happen towards anyone in the show. These are just wishful shippy thoughts).
He might not recognize it as love at first, because it manifests in such a different way from his one reference point.
His friendship with Pomni had gone through phases.
When they first met, he continuously touched her with no concern for how she felt.
Learning from and about Pomni herself led him to come to respect her boundaries (and becoming mindful of everyone else's).
Then they're close friends, and gradually, Pomni does not mind his regular wacky, touchy-feely self. So Caine acts as he had always done before.
Caine expresses his love for Pomni with physical gestures and his undivided attention.
When they teleport to travel to other places, he holds her close so she doesn't get too dizzy; he pats her head to reassure her; he touches her arm to get her attention; he grabs her hands when he's excited about her ideas; he holds eye contact for prolonged periods of time; and he touches, and touches, and touches, and touches.
It's selfish, and so he keeps it buried in his deepest 0's and 1's. But he'd like to keep hanging out with Pomni, having her in his sight, and feel the texture of her gloved hands until the end of time.
Despite all this, to him, virtually nothing changed.
What? He's spending time with Pomni as he'd always been doing, and behaving as he'd always behaved!
It's Bubble of all people that has to point out that, "Hey boss. I think you WANT her!"
Absurd. Nonsense. Preposterous! It is merely a relationship of mutual support and affection between a ringmaster and his trusted, former-human companion. Nothing more.
(Declaring his love to her unprompted didn't ever cross his mind, so there's no way it could be that. Is there?)
Caine finds out that yes, there is.
Pomni had always been a nervous wreck, but her mind state becomes more manageable over time. She eventually adjusts to the circus life like everyone else did.
"Accepting" her fate is a different story. The will to escape, to remember, never really leaves. She's just more careful about it.
So when she starts working with Caine - to improve life so people don't go abstracting anymore, and hopefully find a definitive exit - she's not expecting to end up liking her time with him.
Not that she'd absolutely hate it, either. He's… "okay"… Just-- outlandish, loud, he keeps invading her personal space, he keeps touching her, and it makes her die a little every time.
If he's up to listening, though… it can't be that bad, right?
Turns out that no, it wasn't that bad.
Yes, he is outlandish, loud, he keeps invading her personal space and touching her. But she explains what she means to him, clearly and patiently, and he makes an effort to do better. An actual effort.
Sometimes he'd misinterpret what she meant - the ambiguity of human language - and the new games would go horribly. But little by little, his efforts make life overall better. Something reminiscent of actual, real life, the one they've all forcibly left behind.
And he tries, and he tries, and Pomni finds herself enjoying the process as much as the good results.
Pomni likes Caine's eagerness to learn. His enthusiastic attitude borders on silly, and the absurdity makes her laugh on occasion. When faced with the prospect of a "real" exit, she loves his upbeat optimism.
When she's not hanging out with Ragatha, Jax, Gangle, Zooble and Kinger, she begins to enjoy spending quality time with Caine.
Each one of their hang outs is a new surprise. They make a picnic in the tallest mountain exactly in between day and night. They learn to dance - while floating in the air. "Since you asked, here's a DIGITAL camera! Let's take pictures of the Void for one tenth of a second at a time!"
Sometimes he just comes by Pomni's room, and they end up losing track of time. Just chatting about how things have been, what they could be, and what to do next. Ideas and ideas and ideas.
Before Pomni knows it, she's comfortable enough that recalling his old habits makes her not dread them anymore. So when Caine stands close and lightly touches her arm due to oversight, she makes sure he knows it's all right.
And they keep spending time together, and he touches, and touches, and touches her. Pomni, in turn, feels lighter, and lighter, and lighter. Peaceful, at ease. Dare she say, happy, even.
Life is not perfect. As it stands though, it's good enough. No one has abstracted. No one is at risk of abstracting so far.
Progress is slow, but the research for an exit continues, and she is hopeful. The thought of actually leaving grows closer to reality. But a part of her feels heavy.
When it occurs to Pomni that leaving the Amazing Digital Circus means leaving Caine behind, she is alarmed by how much she'll miss him.
It'll hurt. Badly. So much the thought pains her even now.
The moment Pomni realizes this, she comes to the unexpected conclusion that she may like Caine a little more than she thought she would.
This later leads to an interesting discussion with Ragatha.
By the time Pomni comes to that conclusion, Caine is already down bad.
Neither has any idea that the other is in love with them.
Cue dumbasses trying to deal with their feelings while the potential conflict the escape brings looms over their heads.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk!
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oh, i am so enamored with the way the lesson of the velveteen rabbit rings true in our modern life. i love that we name our spaceships and write love poems to old buildings. i love that we all cried about the mars rover, that we made her so real that she was no longer a machine but a friend, a companion, a hero.
i love that we become attached to certain mugs, spoons, mason jars. that we develop a strange protective love-hate of our tablets, that we feel weirdly reverent about our new notebook. we name our cars silly things like the crab shack and call our favorite whisk attachment the one great destroyer.
there's a dog statue at my local park that has a golden back and golden head from how often people have pet it. at my college campus, people love an ugly little pointless sculpture we call bacon pants or bacon legs. we assign personalities to fountains, parks, laptops.
i love that our basic instinct is to include others in our community, even where there isn't a real community to speak of. that we love things, even when they cannot physically love us back - for us, the exchange isn't what's important. we give our heart to things so entirely that the thing begins to, in its own way, have its own heart.
the last transmission from the mars rover was not words; it was data. nevertheless, someone translated for her. my battery is low and it's getting dark. they made her last words a poem. they looked at data and saw a soul, a divine spark.
i keep thinking about the first AI born truly free-thinking. i keep thinking about the way scientists and artists talk about their work. how their eyes light up and their hands start moving, how even when they're flat broke and confused and the coding isn't working - there's this love of the thing. i keep thinking that whatever is being born into this new world will be born here on purpose, over a long time, with great energy. that when it arrives, the first thing it will know is most likely the hands of a creator delighted, overcome.
that we made it in our image. that the image we wrote was one of human compassion within ingenuity. that we couldn't make this thing without it being a labor of real-and-true: love.
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