I mean, the statistical properties that set Voynichese apart from natural languages are very widely documented. The very low entropy is perhaps the largest issue, playing into the repetitive nature of it and creating "loops" as per this video (elaborated on in this blog post)
Even then though, we can never prove a negative. It's impossible to prove it's not a natural language, we can only demonstrate that it works in ways that are completely different from all other known languages.
showing statistical regularity in it that's of a type that wouldn't exist if it was statistical random gibberish (which many people have tried and failed to do).
I don't quite follow you here as several people have demonstrated in various ways that the Voynich manuscript text does not at all conform with random gibberish. In fact, the highly regular and peculiar (often repetitive) structures of it is part of the problem. Now, that doesn't mean it contains meaningful information, or indeed that it is a language at all. In fact those rigid and repetitive structures that distinguish it from random noise also make it incompatible with known natural human languages.
It could (and most likely is) simply be highly structured, deliberate and constrained nonsense, devised by a semi-random process following a complex algorithm. This doesn't preclude the possibility that the semi-random part somehow hides encoded information, though with the number of distinguished codebreakers who have had a crack at it I am skeptical. It would also be a highly sophisticated form of cryptography for 15th century Europe.
I don't believe Voynichese is any known or unknown natural language, and even unusual Romanisation wouldn't explain the peculiarities of the manuscript text. In my opinion, there are only two likely scenarios:
1) Voynichese is an unknown constructed language
2) Voynichese is highly structured gibberish, created systematically and with great care to mimic the behaviour of real language.
Even if the second is correct, it would be a remarkable achievement for some early 15th century scribes. The amount of linguistic awareness required to create this language-looking gibberish is impressive in itself.
Only just started Pentiment. And by that I mean I got through the background selection, and I'm now trying to decide if I'm happy with my choices or want to go with something else. The game looks really good so far, I've heard good things and I'm excited to see how it plays out.
FromSoft reported sales of Elden Ring increased by over 200% following its GOTY win, if I remember right. It definitely has an impact. I can't imagine it's irrelevant in terms of attracting or keeping talent either, and it probably would help maintaining creative integrity and sticking to your vision in talks with investors.
It's still completely up in the air, and as I said above: paradoxical. Voynichese doesn't behave like any known language, and has several problems besides just entropy. On the other hand it obeys Zipf's Law, and topic analysis indicates the content of the writing varies with the subject matter of the pages, like a real language would.
I have a very hard time seeing any of those competing with either Clair Obscur or Death Stranding 2, apart from maybe Silksong (if it actually ever does come out). But even then I'm not sold.
Mina the Hollower will probably duke it out with Blue Prince for the indie game of the year.
All evidence suggests it was created in the first decades of the 1400s by several scribes. It would have taken weeks to write, and probably a year to finalize including the illustrations. The materials and labour cost would have been rather expensive at the time. It could still be a hoax, but it's a very old and elaborate one in that case.
It is, however, incredibly unlikely that the text itself is a natural language. That much is widely agreed among experts. The big question is whether the text contains meaningful information at all. Is it a conlang, an elaborate code or is it a nonsense text generated through a series of rules and mechanisms that merely visually imitates language?
The paradoxical nature of the Voynich is part of its allure. It's so easy to think it's "just a hoax", but then you start looking into it and more and more the hoax theory starts to feel unlikely. Then you start to think "maybe it is a language", but the more you look into that the less sense it makes as a language with all the strange patterns and rules and behaviors that are so unlike known languages.
It's a very compelling mystery, it doesn't surprise me that it has consumed so many people and destroyed quite a few careers.
I finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided this week, and I'm now trying to decide whether I want to push through the DLCs or not. I'm kind of done with the game but if I don't do them now I probably never will.
Overall I found MD to be good, but uneven. The main story overall suffers immensely from being the second game in a planned trilogy, but the side content is very very good. Gameplay was a step up from Human Revolution in most regards and there were some pretty good level designs strewn around as well. The final mission felt absolutely awesome to me and was one of my favourite Deus Ex missions, and Golem City was another highlight. The running theme of apartheid was also extremely well executed and the climax to that arc with martial law at the end felt very impactful.
Overall I think Human Revolution is probably better as it's a more self contained and complete experience, but the highs of Mankind Divided are definitely higher than those of HR, in my opinion.
Likeliest I think is GT3 cars, he really loves those both IRL and on iRacing. Would be absolute box office and a huge marketing win for the series if he rocked up at GT World Challenge or DTM.
Otherwise yes, it wouldn't surprise me if he did WEC hypercars too at some point. He's talked about teaming up with Alonso before, so he's definitely thought about it.
If so I didn't get the memo. I can't even remember the last time I bought a physical game. I think FIFA 2014 got bundled in when I bought a PS4 like 12 years ago if that counts. Don't believe I've bought a single one since. I love the convenience of my Steam and GOG libraries.
Coelacanth @ Coelacanth @feddit.nu Posts 16Comments 2,688Joined 2 yr. ago
I remember that map, it was a great resource. Like you say, visualizing defederations would be especially helpful.