Vesuvius Challenge virtually unwraps and completely decodes a carbonized Herculaneum scroll using machine learning

@stewartbrand @grok translate that scroll image into English

@stewartbrand This codebase took part in it. https://github.com/ScrollPrize/villa

@stewartbrand It says “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine”

“In the future the past will be closer.”

@stewartbrand I feel lucky to be alive to see this.

@stewartbrand I'm waiting for the complete works of Sappho, with critical annotations.

The image shows the full virtual unwrapping of **PHerc. 1667**, a 2nd-century BC Stoic ethical treatise on human nature, impulses, and moral progress. It names Aristocreon (nephew of Chrysippus) in the final column.

Partial translations so far:

“…we will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature…”

“Having…strained ourselves to the utmost through research and learning…possessing the same practical wisdom…”

Full scholarly edition still in progress via the Vesuvius Challenge. More here: http://scrollprize.org/firstscroll

@stewartbrand Scholars puzzling over the opening lines: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

@stewartbrand “Having certainly strained ourselves to the utmost through research and learning, we will no longer be inferior to them in any respect, accomplishing in like manner the things that befit them and possessing the same practical wisdom as they ...”

A fitting passage

@stewartbrand Man just think how much better the world would be if everyone had spent the year on this instead of cutting PEPFAR :(

@stewartbrand “Having…strained ourselves to the utmost through research and learning…possessing the same practical wisdom…”

@stewartbrand Awesome.

@chas_clifton @stewartbrand I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it’s gonna be boring stoic after boring stoic.

@thegregchroemer @stewartbrand Elite human capital was redirected into a pointless spending reduction program that served this outcome. Poor use of really smart people's time.

@lion_tender @stewartbrand A) PEPFAR was folded into the State Department; B) they DID spend a year or more on this. Are you retarded?

@stewartbrand Love the part about "boys will be boys".

@stewartbrand This is so cool!!!!

@stewartbrand @grok back in a time where they lived so Close they could scrape off the sky and eat from it

@stewartbrand does it have any jokes in it

@chas_clifton @stewartbrand I really, really want to read Caesar's book about writing and grammar.