Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- Did anyone notice that anonymous donators[1] have the picture of Larry David, and the link points to the Curb Your Enthusiasm - Anonymous Donor Pt2[2] episode?
So geeky, so cool !
by melicerte - Ex-project lead here. The most incredible part is buried in a 7 hour long video. Last night they also unwrapped 140 columns of new text in the PHerc. Paris. 4 scroll: https://x.com/JanPaul123/status/2070304769273725278by janpaul123
- For me, this is one of the most exciting things being done with AI right now. (This and medical research)
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.
by kilroy123 - I wonder what the parellel would be 2,000 years for now:
A Post-Great Solar Flare of 2484 Step Brothers DVD Has Been Decoded
- 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.
by proee - 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.
by 9dev - Lets reflect on Aristocreon, in about 200 BC, putting their thoughts down on a scroll. They would be aware that the scroll might be kept in a library for some time. Maybe they could have imagined it surviving for 300 years. But they never would have imagined that in 300 years a volcano might destroy the scroll, but in some way preserve it. And then that nearly two thousand years later future humans with machines made of materials unimaginable to Aristocreon, but related distantly to sand and lightning, would be able to read the scroll again and instantly transmit it to nearly the whole planet, a planet with many times more humans than existed in their time. (and speaking of 'planet', in Aristocreon's time, people had fairly recently been able to show that the world was spherical but much of it was still unknown).
Do we have better imaginations? Can our sci-fi writers come up with something equivalent that is as dizzyingly far from what we know now, as now is from what Aristocreon knew?
by codeulike - I am on the vesuvius challenge team that did the segmentation, unwrapping, and ink detection, so feel free to ask any questions.by verditelabs