Talk:2601: Instructions

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Turtle graphics

So these are instructions for a turtle graphics program. The audio is drawn from https://xkcd.com/2601/radio.mp3, a 9 hour 7 minute 12 second long audio file It's generated by feeding turtle code into a text-to-speech program, but idk which language or which program. If you can convert the speech back to text, somehow without ruining the formatting (or just do a lot of editing with regex until it looks right), you could feed it into a turtle graphics program and get the resulting drawing.

If you're not familiar with Turtle and Logo, look at this [guide]. The short version is that these commands move a little cursor, called a turtle, which draws a line as it moves and turns. At this time, contributors have applied a few different computer transcriptions to the entire audio. There are quotes about turtles from a variety of sources intermixed with Logo code. It is expected that some correction to the code is needed, such as adding parenthesis that are not spoken in the audio. Standard Logo commands found in the audio are: PENUP, PENDOWN, SETHEADING (N) (N), SETXY (N) (N), and FORWARD (N). Some custom functions are defined, including DIST (N) (N) (N) (N), LERP (N) (N) (N), MIX (N) (N), CUBIC (N) (N) (N) (N), and SQUARE (N) (N). The next steps are to test the transcripts of these custom functions in a Logo interpreter, at which point we can begin drawing the picture. Mannerisky (talk) 02:45, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
The picture indeed will be Bob Ross. The first hour of radio has him saying, "A happy little tree - holding up a happy little world." We can coordinate transcribing this code at GitHub Repository. Credit for this progress goes to the GitHub owner. Mannerisky (talk) 04:55, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what the current image on this page is. Is that the drawing you get by following these instructions? 172.70.100.4 20:58, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Wait I see now, that is the actual image for the comic. It just gets covered up by the button so I can't see it. 172.70.126.87 21:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Ah, it looks like someone realized it's actually longer than that. After downloading it, I found it to be 131,329,389 bytes. The Windows Properties viewer claims it is 8h41m08s in length, but that's wrong. It is actually 9h07m06s. By the way, the code is in the Logo language. He seems to have copied this from a book, but I don't know which one. 172.70.100.4 21:12, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Worth taking a look at? I can start looking for books that contain that text162.158.107.52 21:39, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
The automatic speech system is using standard punctuation processing, meaning that critical marks for the code aren't being announced. You can't get the code from the samples without filling in the blanks after getting a transcript. N (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

The MP3 file ends with this text: "I even talk to turtles at times. But you need to understand LOGO to appreciate the great, great things that have been created. We spend so much of our life typing, looking, but never ever seeing." 162.158.222.151 21:17, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

april fools' comic? GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e (talk) 21:18, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I think it's an April Fool's joke. 108.162.238.148 21:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Well is it 2022/04/01 141.101.77.189 21:26, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I think mine's broken. I don't get it. 172.70.130.91 21:29, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

You press the radio button, it selects it, then you can press it a zillion times in any pattern and all it ever does is blink the entire image. Nothing else ever appears other than the radio button, and there’s never any sound so pressing the speaker in the corner to supposedly turn it on or off is also completely pointless.172.70.126.65 23:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Given the alt text "happy little turtles" and the tone of the narration I assume we're supposed to pretend the narrator is Bob Ross guiding us to creating an artistic masterpiece with Logo 172.70.211.72 21:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Guys, it's been HOURS and the transcription is still incomplete. Step it up! 172.70.162.77 21:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Not even sure what the transcript should be. I did my best162.158.107.52 21:41, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I have a feeling this might be one of the longest transcripts on the site. 108.162.245.43 21:57, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Up until someone automates the process, I'll be working on the transcript and saving it in exkcd in parts (: Don't worry too much about edit overrides, I'll be transcribing in a google doc to avoid that! --Wielder of the Staple Gun (talk) 21:53, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

The sections about turtles between the code blocks seems to be from

Interesting Facts About Turtles A Little Nature Study by a Scientist that will Interest Old and Young Naturalists Alike By Randle C. Rosenberger M. D., Professor of Hygiene and Bacteriology, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa. https://archive.org/stream/foreststream861916newy/foreststream861916newy_djvu.txt

The uni.xkcd version of this comic also just shows the turtle like this article. So much for uses two April Fools comics against each other ;) 172.70.114.77 22:44, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I ran the MP3 through Amazon Transcribe. It can do only 4 hours at a time, so I had to split the original file. I went from start to 03:59:59, 03:59:59 to 07:59:58, and 07:59:58 to end. Amazon Transcribe also gave me some subtitle files (index 1). They have time codes in them. So if someone wanted to note the times of the little quips, and host the audio file somewhere where links to the middle of the file can be generated (like YouTube), that could be cool. Below are the transcriptions for analysis. Replace X with 1, 2, or 3; and replace Y with json, srt, or vtt. Pgn674 (talk) 23:15, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

https://pgn674.s3.amazonaws.com/xkcd-2601/xkcd-2601-X.Y
No need to host anything special. Let's say we want to jump to time code 02:35:14.840 from the vtt subtitle file #1 (line 7084, subtitle 1771). 2*60*60+35*60+14=9314. Subtract a few seconds, and make a link like this. Click here to learn about turtle noises: https://xkcd.com/2601/radio.mp3#t=9310 Pgn674 (talk) 23:48, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I went and found all mentions of "turtle", extracted those lines, and generated links to them. Programmatically. If anyone wants to go through and do some manual review and fine tuning, go ahead. Pgn674 (talk) 00:57, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I threw Adobe Premiere Pro at it: https://anonfiles.com/pbYfK7Sax4/radio_csv; and https://anonfiles.com/35YbKeScxe/radio_txt are the results. Note: these transcribe until 07:01:28:19. I am currently in the process of making APP suffer more and churn out the last two hours. --ẞ qwertz (talk) 23:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

So... what language is this? I'm hearing: PENUP, PENDOWN, SETHEADING (N) (N), SETXY (N) (N), FORWARD (N) - all of which are standard LOGO commands. But I'm also hearing something that sounds like CUBIC (N) (N) (N) (N) (N) (N), though it could also be QBIT, or text-to-speech for something like "^3". Either way it's NOT a standard LOGO command, so suggests it's a variant. Does not seem to be KTurtle, POOL, UCBLogo. QLogo, FMSLogo, and then I got bored searching. --172.69.71.91 00:37, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

In the automatic transcription it has "Two cubic colon X one colon Y one colon X two"... which would be TO CUBIC :X1 :Y1 :X2 ... so it is defined above. 162.158.107.230 01:15, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
Yes, some of the commands seem to be defined at the top. CUBIC at the top, SQUARE maybe somewhere else. So a shortcut to decyphering it might be to just extract and render all the cubes from the "CUBIC" and "SQUARE" commands, given their values. But what format are the cubes? Are they even the coordinates of cubes? For both commands, the six numbers seem to be in the format A B A B A B where the As and Bs are similar or even in some cases identical, which seems a strange thing for a cube:
SetXY -443 412
PenDown
Square -443 405 -443 397 -444 390

The definition seems to be something like:

ToCubic : X1 : Y1 : X2 : Y2 : Ex : Ey --- Parameter definitions?
local Make " X0 XCor  --- Local variable definitions?
Local Make " Y0 YCor
Local Make " ErrX1 Lerp : X0 : X 0.25
local Make " ErrY1 Lerp : Y0 : Ey 0.25
Local Make " ErrX2 Lerp : X0 : Ex 0.75
Local Make " ErrY2 Lerp : Y0 : Ey 0.75
IfElse
  Or
    LessP : picks error Dist : ErrX1 : ErrY1 : X1 : Y1 
    LessP : picks error Dist : ErrX2 : ErrY2 : X2 : Y2
[
    Local Make " Qx0 mix : X0 : X1
    Local Make " Qy0 mix : Y0 : Y1
    Local Make " Qx1 mix : X1 : X2
    Local Make " qy1 Mix : Y1 : Y2
    Local Make " Qx2 mix : X2 : EX
    Local Make " Qy2 mix : Y2 : Ey
    Local Make " Lx0 mix : Qx0 : QX1
    Local Make " Ly0 mix : Qy0 : QY1
    Local Make " Lx1 Mix : Qx1 : Qx2
    Local Make " Ly1 Mix : qy1 : Q
    Local Make " PmX Mix : Lx0 : Lx1
    Local Make " PmY Mix : Ly0 : LY1
    Cubic : Qx0 : qy0 : Lx0 : Ly0 : PmX : PmY
    Cubic : Lx1 : Ly1 : Qx2 : Qy2 : Ex : Ey
]
[
    SetXY : Ex : Ey
]

Least, that's what it sounds like, but I suspect round brackets and suchlike are not spoken aloud :( --108.162.221.95 01:54, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it's implementing a cubic spline interpolation, not a tridimensional cube. 172.70.131.214 11:08, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Feels like the speech processing is lossy, so generating the code will be a lengthy labor of love transcribing it, then debugging it, trying to fill the gaps. The code may also have been fed through an automated "Bob Ross filter" which may have lost even more data. --172.69.71.91 00:37, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

About a quarter of the way into the text is the line "You know, I'm beginning to suspect it's turtles all the way down!" 162.158.78.215 00:46, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

it's concerning that the only real way we'll be able to figure this comic out is to compile the entire 9 hour computer-generated voice speech. youtube.com/watch?v=miLcaqq2Zpk (talk) 01:40, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Here's my attempt to transcribe the first 11 minutes of this monstrosity or so: (I haven't run any of the transcribed code for the record.) --172.68.118.59 02:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Here is a transcript of the non-code part:

And here we want to show you that you can program a picture right along with us.
We'll use a single color, some unorthodox functions, and each line we'll put a
bit of nature's masterpieces right here on our canvas.

Today we'll have them run all the functions across the stream right now that you
need to program along with us, starting with a simple one:

(code)

There we go, just like that.

(code)

One more done!  No pressure!

(code)

Really makes our programming life easier!

(code)

I think there's a programmer hidden at the bottom of every single one of us!

(code)

Let me show you what is going on up here:

(code)

I've just covered the entire canvas with just a bit of white.

(code)

We start with a vision in our hearts and we put it on canvas.

(code)

Miriam Webster defines a turtle as a noun.  Any of an order Testudines,
genus Chelonia, of terrestrial, freshwater and marine reptiles that have
a toothless, horny beak in a shell of bony dermal plates usually covered with
horny shields in closing the trunk and into which the head, limbs and tail
usually may be withdrawn.

(code)

Here are some interesting notes from interesting facts about turtles:
A little nature study by a scientist, Forest and Stream, January 1916:
Over a great many years I have taken a great interest in the land turtle.
I have at the present time a number, some of which I have had for at least
17 years.  To most people they were ugly and repulsive, as the head when
fully protruded and extended, looks like a snake.  And furthermore, their
clumsy method of progression does not add anything attractive.

(code)

One of the interesting points about turtles is their great variety of foods.
They are, as a rule, good scavengers eating all kinds of decomposing and putrefying
materials, beef or in fact any meat is eaten.

I have seen them eat the flesh of birds and of moles, and while earthworms are
relished by them, any worm or grub is taken worms from shell barks, and ordinary
maggots are gotten rid of in a hurry.

Blackberries, may apples, cherries and mulberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and
one vegetable eagerly eaten by my stock is green sugar corn, either raw or cooked.
In the spring when they first come out of the soil, and food is not plentiful in
their pen, I have bought canned corn and they certainly have made it disappear
very quickly.  Beetles and tumble bugs, potato bugs, either in larval or mature
forms, are destroyed.

Toadstools, especially the large flat pink ones, white and yellow ones are eaten
while I have seen them pass a black toadstool by several days unnoticed.

(code)

Here we have a happy little "pen down" statement
That's it!
And then:

(code)

Occasionally when a female drops an egg on the ground, it is quickly eaten by the
others.  Ordinary hen's eggs are eaten and a great relish enjoyed hugely by them
as thick sour milk.  I have placed a quantity of this milk in two or three places
in the pen and in five minutes it is surrounded by the turtles, just like flies
on a lump of sugar.  The scrapings of Limburger cheese have also been eaten.

(code)

A piece of butter which had been upon a platter in the icebox for months was placed
before them and this was eaten in due time, crab apples and cantaloupe are enjoyed
by them, but watermelon is not so eagerly gobbled up like the cantaloupe.
I was surprised one morning when I found1 of the large turtles had caught and
disembowel, the very large toad, which I had in the yard.
I have seen turtles eating at 11:00 at night when1 would think they would be resting.

(code)

Here you have the power to do anything you want!

(code)

They prefer the shade and at certain times during the day if the sun is very hot,
they retreat under the logs which I have for a shelter during rain, they are very
active and move about with heads and necks outstretched, enjoying the shower bath
hugely and evidently on the outlook for worms.  Just as some birds after or during
a shower, the youngest of turtles I have ever had seems to take to the same food
as the adults.

(code)

As a rule, they emerge in April sometimes the middle of the month, but as early as
April six they made their appearance.  If the weather does not stay warm, they
again go back to their retreats, mating commences almost within a day or two after
their emergence.  The males are quite persistent in their lovemaking, biting at
the female etcetera.  And on two occasions I have seen the scale removed from the
shell of the female and blood ooze from these surfaces

(code)

I made friends with a turtle yesterday and he gave me his phone number.
I asked is that a landline? He said no it's my shell phone.

(code)

It is interesting to see the males fight among themselves.  They raised themselves
as high as possible and lunge and bite and snap at each other In getting away
from his opponent.  The Beaten one will beat a hasty retreat and retract his front
feet or back feet as occasion demands and glide, not run, away.
Running away is slow as compared to this turtle propulsion.  It is not a slide,
it is really a darting forward glide.  Just recently I saw one male maltreating
another in which the second fellow had all parts retracted and was being snapped
at pushed and actually rolled over on his back by his opponent.

(code)

Occasionally one can see a turtle dragging another one along, the first one
having the second fellow's hind leg between his shell.  This has probably been
the result of a scuffle.  I have never known a land turtle to bite but have
often seen them open their mouths wide and hiss or draw in their breath with
a hissing or sighing sound.

(code)

Some people have turtles in their cellars believing that they catch rats and mice.
I tried keeping some of mine in the cellar for two seasons in the wintertime.
They kept up a constant walk exactly like a caged beast.  I gave them meat,
vegetables and water, but on no occasion did they take the proffered food.
In the spring, I found several of them dead.  I believe that these turtles died
because they were exhausted from wandering around and around during their time
of hibernation.  I also believe that this unnatural hibernation led them to
refuse all food.

(code)

Regarding the catching of rats and mice in cellars, I believe that rats and mice
might be kept away by the noise made by the turtle making its endless march
around the cellar, but doubt whether a turtle could catch a rat or a mouse.

(code)

In my yard, I had a galvanized iron pin three ft. in length by two ft. in width by
3 inches in depth for water.  In this the turtles would enjoy themselves drinking
from the edge with heads submerged or with the entire body submerged for sometimes
as long as several hours.  And even for a whole day, even in the country where I
now have the herd, I have a small dish in which they can just get in and they
certainly appreciate a bath.

(code)

How about some interesting things in 10 facts about marine turtles from the WWF UK?
There are seven species of marine turtle.   Marine turtles were around more than
100 million years ago and lived alongside dinosaurs.  These days, scientists
recognize seven species of marine turtle, the hawksbill, the loggerhead, the
leatherback, the olive Ridley, the green, the flatback and the Kemps Ridley.

(code)

Turtles do not have teeth.  They use their beak like mouth to grasp their food.
This beak is made of keratin, the same stuff your fingernails are made of.

(code)

Turtle shells are made of over 50 bones fused together.  So they are literally
wearing their bones on the outside.  They also have light spongy bones that
help them float.

(code)

Their young lives are a mystery.  The first few years of a marine turtle's
life are known as "the lost years".  That's because the time between when the
hatchlings emerge until they return to coastal shallow waters to forage is
incredibly difficult to study. The "lost years" they spend at sea, which can
be up to 20 years largely remain a mystery to us.

(code)

They can be ginormous.  Marine turtle species vary greatly in size.
The smallest Kemps Ridley measure around 70 cm long and weigh up to 40 kg
whilst the leatherback can reach up to 180 cm long and weigh 500 kg.
That is over 10 times heavier.   Amazingly, Wales holds the world record
for the largest marine turtle ever found.  In 1988, a leatherback was found
ashore measuring 2.5 m long, 2.5 m from flipper to flipper and weighing over
900 kg.

(code)

It's survival of the fittest.  It is estimated that only around one in 1000
marine turtle hatchlings make it to adulthood.  This is down to the long time
it takes for them to reach maturity and the many dangers faced by hatchlings
and juveniles, from predators to marine plastics.

(code)

They make some interesting noises.  Female leatherbacks make some strange
noises when they are nesting, some of which sound similar to a human belch.

(code)

Just let it happen!

(code)

They have color preferences, turtles seem to prefer red, orange and yellow food.
They appear to investigate these colors more than others when looking for a meal.

(code)

You know I'm beginning to suspect it's turtles all the way down!

(code)

Marine turtles can migrate incredibly long distances.  The longest known record
is for a female leatherback who swam nearly 13,000 miles over 647 days from
Indonesia to the west coast of America.  That is over 20 miles a day!

(code)

They always return home.  Females return to the same beach they hatched on to
lay their own eggs and bury them in sand nests.  Marine turtles' amazing ability
to navigate comes from their sensitivity to the earth's magnetic fields.

(code)

Move the turtle.  Playing, working, just having fun.

(code)

Here are some more interesting bits from interesting facts about turtles:
A little nature study by a scientist Forest and Stream, January 1916:
The laying of eggs, this is one of the most instructive things that I have ever
watched.  Invariably they chose in my yard a situation with a southern exposure
when desiring to lay.  In only two instances was an eastern exposure observed,
and once a western part of the yard being a cement walk, we could sometimes
observe the female making motions as for digging the nest.  Sometimes for a
half a day she would remain stationary and with her back legs commenced to work
for this purpose, lifting her to the grass plot In a short time she would
commence to dig first with the left hind foot she would remove a little dirt
and pile it up on her left side, then with the right hind foot and pile the
removed dirt upon the right side.  This would be repeated again and again
probably for hours until the proper size hole and depth was obtained.

(code)

Egg laying does not always occur during the daytime, as I have observed one or
two digging away past midnight.  Sometimes they will have dug for about an
inch or so and then not make any more progress downward.  In these instances
they have met with obstructions like a small stone which they cannot remove.
I have with a pair of forceps removed the obstruction on several occasions
with the turtle still in c two and after a minute or two she resumes her work.

(code)

The nest or repository is about 3 inches in depth and about an inch and a half or
a little more in width.  When she has it finished, she discharges her eggs into it.
When the egg is deposited in the hole, she is not just satisfied in dropping it,
but she reaches down with her hind leg and places the egg horizontally and covers
a little dirt over it.  Then the second egg and the remaining eggs are all treated
similarly and when the last1 is deposited and placed, she commences to fill up with
the dirt that remains.  This she puts into the hole with an alternate right and
left leg until all is filled in.

(code)

After it is all done, she pats it with both her hind feet together and then with
her body raised and lowered pets and smooths over the place where the eggs are
buried.  Then she leaves it and never looks after it as the sun now plays its
part in hatching the eggs.  The eggs are whitish in color with a semi-elastic
shell about the size of a pigeon egg.

(code)

The number laid by a turtle varies. I have seen three and on one occasion I
have seen eight laid at one sitting.  I have also observed one turtle laying
its eggs, covering them over, and a little later a day or two, another female
dig in the same place, remove the eggs and lay her own in this doubly-dug
repository.  Once a female dug six hours and laid four eggs.  Another dug
several hours.  The hole measured two inches across and three and one half
inches in depth.  And she laid eight eggs within a half hour.

(code)

Not all eggs hatch out.  But in the instance where eight were laid, I had
the pleasure of seeing six little baby turtles come out other eggs which were
laid in a hole dug with a western or eastern exposure, never came to anything.
I have dug carefully into these nests, but I have always come upon decomposing
eggs.

(code)

For the most interesting egg laying I ever witnessed, the turtle commenced
to dig at six pm, and was still busy at work the next morning at eight o'clock.
Five days later a second turtle dug these eggs out arid, deposited four of her
own and covered the nest up personally.  I do not believe that the turtle digging
out the previous batch of eggs was vindictive or mischievous but that the ground
seemed soft and easily worked.  Therefore it took advantage of the spot.

(code)

Average person paints three turtles a year, factoid!
Actually just statistical error.  Average person paints zero turtles per year.
Turtles George who lives in cave and eats over 10,000 each day is an outlier
and should not have been counted.

(code)

The young turtles when they make their emergence at the end of three months,
are dark in color and quite active.  If you place one on its back at this time
it will arch its head and neck and come around its normal position.
The shell, of course, is quite soft, but in about three years the shell really
becomes hardened though some clear portions of the shell around the edges are
still soft.  The color of the shell gradually changes to that usually seen in
the head, and soft parts are modeled speckled or of a solid color.
I have two in my collection where the head and neck are solid yellow.

(code)

Do you know what a sea turtle's favorite sandwiches?  Peanut butter and
jellyfish!  That sounds weird, but it's actually true.  Just ask the next
sea turtle you meet.  But I think we shouldn't mention it to the jellyfish.

(code)

Here are some interesting observations from odd facts about turtles:
Christian Observer, May 11th 1919: It has been said that the turtle, like
the whale, has no other enemy than man and as much as both the little creature
and the big pursued their various ways in practical immunity from harm and the
fear of sudden death.

(code)

In many ways, the turtle is one of the strangest of living things.  Whales must
come to the surface frequently to breathe and it is pretty well known what they
feed upon.  The seal cannot remain beneath the sea nearly so long as the whale
and his food is very well known.  But the turtle in all his varieties in all his
ways, is a most mysterious animal.  It does not indeed seem to matter to him
whether he stays beneath the surface for an hour or for a week.
Nor does it trouble him to spend an equal time on I land if the need arises.
Your turtle is neither fish, flesh nor fowl.  Yet his flesh partakes of the
characteristics of all three.

(code)

Eating seems a mere superfluidity with him since for weeks at a time he may be
headed up in a barrel with a bung out and emerged after his long fast.
Apparently none the worse for his enforced abstinence from food from light and
almost from air.

(code)

All you need to draw is a few instructions, a little turtle and a vision in your mind.

(code)

In the whole category of animal organisms, there is none so tenacious of life
as the turtle.  Injuries that would instantly be fatal even to fish
leave the turtle apparently undisturbed and his power of staving off
death is nothing short of marvelous.

(code)

Just as soon as a baby turtle emerges from the egg off he scuttles down to the sea.
He has no one to teach him, no1 to guide him in his curious little brain.
There has implanted a streak of caution based upon the fact that until a
certain period in his life his armor is soft and no defense against hungry fish,
and he at once seeks shelter in the tropical profusion of the gulf weed which
holds within its branching fronds, an astonishing abundance of marine life here.
The young turtle feeds unmolested while his armor undergoes the hardening process.

(code)

Whatever the young sea turtle eats and wherever he eats it, facts not generally
ascertained, one thing is certain:  It agrees with him immensely.  He leads
a pleasant sort of life basking in the tropical sun and cruising leisurely in
the cool depths.

(code)

Once he has attained the weight of \xc2\xa325 which usually occurs within the first
year, the turtle is free from all danger after that no fish or mammal,
however ravenous, however well armed with teeth, interferes with the turtle.

(code)

When once he has withdrawn his head from its position of outlook into the folds
of his neck, between the two shells intending devours, may struggle in vain
to make an impression upon him

(code)

How about some neat facts courtesy of "10 Cool Facts About Turtles"
from Deutsche Welle?  They have been around for a really, really long time.
There is a reason why turtles look a little prehistoric.  The first ever
specimens evolved around 260 million years ago in the late Triassic period.
Shortly after their arrival, the earth experienced a mass extinction event
that wiped out about 90% of all life on land.  Luckily for the turtles,
their burrowing and water dwelling habits set them up for long term survival
in this strange new world.

(code)

They have one of the longest lifespans in the animal kingdom.  While a
turtle's lifespan largely depends on the species, almost all of them have
the potential to live to a ripe old age.  A typical pet turtle can make
it to anywhere between 10 and 80 years while larger species often keep going
for more than 100 years.  Because it's so difficult to accurately measure age
over a century, researchers think some turtles could even be hundreds of years old.

(code)

See how easy it is to create a tree in your little world!

(code)

They come in all shapes and sizes.  There are currently 356 known species of
turtles.  As a rule, they are all reptiles with a hard cartilage shell, but that
is about where the similarities end.  There are sea turtles, leatherback turtles,
snapping turtles, pond turtles, soft shelled turtles, and of course tortoises.

(code)

Not all turtles are tortoises but all tortoises are turtles.  Yes, technically
all tortoises are in fact turtles.  They belong to the Testudines family which
includes reptiles whose bodies are protected by a bony outer shell.
But the main difference between turtles and tortoises is that tortoises live
exclusively on land while most turtles live in or near water.

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Some turtles are vegetarians while others are carnivorous.  Most turtles are
actually omnivores but a few species are more picky when it comes to their diet.
Most tortoises are happy to munch on leafy greens or fruit.  Not to the fearsome
looking alligator turtle which is almost entirely carnivorous and feeds on
anything from fish to small mammals that venture too close to the water's edge.

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All species lay their eggs on land when they are ready to lay their eggs.
Even water dwelling turtles will dig their nests in the sand or the earth near
their habitat but they are not the nurturing type.  No species of turtle
sticks around to raise their young.   When the babies hatch they are on their own.

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A turtle's gender is determined by temperature like crocodiles and alligators.
A turtle's gender is determined after fertilization.  If the turtle's eggs
incubate below 27.7 degrees Celsius, the hatchlings will be male.  But if the
eggs incubate above 31 degrees they will be female.  If the temperature is
somewhere in between our fluctuates, a mix of male and female babies will
hatch.  As oceans warm, turtles tend to give birth to more females.

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They have an amazing sense of direction.  Sea turtles are known for their
amazing ability to return to the exact beach where they were born years later.
Like many animals, turtles can navigate their way at sea by sensing the individual
lines of the magnetic field, but they can also remember the magnetic signature of
coastlines and sends tiny variations in magnetic fields allowing them to guide
themselves home.

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And excellent vision, too.  Turtles have strong underwater eyesight.
Researchers have discovered that they can see a range of different colors and
even prefer some colors to others.  Although sea turtles are famous for their
internal GPS, there is evidence to suggest they do not see very well on land.

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Many species are endangered.  Having survived for millions of years, six out of
seven turtle species are classified as threatened or endangered as a result of
human activity.  Every year thousands become trapped in commercial trawl nets while
in some parts of the world they are killed for their eggs, meat and shells.

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How about some interesting facts from turtle facts by Alina Bradford,
writing for livescience.com?  Turtles are reptiles with hard shells that protect
them from predators.  They are among the oldest and most primitive groups of
reptiles, having evolved millions of years ago.  Turtles live all over the world
in almost every type of climate.

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And then according to the integrated taxonomic information system, the turtle
order Testudines genus Chelonia splits into two sub orders, Cryptodira, and
Pleurodira, and then further splits into 13 families, 75 genera and more than
300 species.

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They say everything looks better with odd values for things but sometimes I put
even values just to upset the interpreter.

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Turtle, tortoise and terrapins are often used interchangeably as synonyms, but
there are distinct differences between the types of Chelonians, according to
the San Diego Zoo.

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Turtles spend most of their lives in water.  They are adapted for aquatic life
with webbed feet or flippers in a streamlined body.  Sea turtles rarely leave
the ocean except to lay eggs in the sand.  Freshwater turtles live in ponds
and lakes and they climb out of the water onto logs or rocks to bask in the
warm sun.

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Tortoises are land animals, their feet are around and stumpy adapted for walking
on land.  They also dig burrows with their strong four limbs and slip underground
when the sun gets too hot. Terrapins live on land and in water usually in swamps,
ponds, lakes and rivers.

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With so many different types of turtle, there is no average size.  The
largest sea turtle species is the leatherback turtle.  It weighs 600 to
1500 and is about 4.5 to 5 and a quarter feet long.  According to the
World Wildlife Federation, the Galapagos tortoise grows up to six ft.
long and 573(lb?).  According to the San Diego Zoo, the largest freshwater
turtle in North America is the alligator snapping turtle.  It can grow to 2
5 ft long and weigh as much as 200(lb?).  The Yangtze giant softshell
turtle is the largest softshell turtle.  It measures up to 3.6 ft across
and weighs up to 309(lb?).

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A turtle's shell is a modified rib cage and part of its vertebral column,
according to the Animal Diversity Web at the University of Michigan.
The top part of the shell is called the carapace and the bottom is
called the plastering.  According to the San Diego Zoo, the shell is
made up of about 60 bones that are covered by plates called scoots.
Scoots are made of keratin, the same material that makes up humans
fingernails.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that "All the thoughts of a turtle are
turtles and of a rabbit rabbits."  So let's try to think like a turtle!

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Many turtles are able to retract their heads and feet into their shells.
Turtles are placed in the two sub orders based on the method of retraction.
According to the Animal Diversity Web at the University of Michigan,
Pleurodirs pull their heads in sideways, Cryptodirs draw their heads
straight back into the shell.  Sea turtles have lost the ability to retract
their heads.

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Turtles are very adaptive and can be found on every continent except Antarctica.
Most turtle species are found in southeastern North America and south Asia.
Only five species live in Europe, according to Drs. Foster and Smith,
a veterinarian business based in Wisconsin.

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Sea turtles can be found in the Coral Triangle, an area that includes the
waters of Indonesia Malaysia, the Philippines and Papua, New Guinea;
coastal east Africa, the meso-American reef in the Caribbean, the Galapagos
Islands and the Gulf of California.

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Hey, what do you get if you cross a turtle with a giraffe?  A turtleneck!

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The african helmeted turtle is the most common turtle in Africa, according to
Animal Planet.  It is a hunter scavenger that eats young birds and small mammals.
It steals bait from fishermen's hooks.  It also releases a foul smelling liquid
from glands in its legs.

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Roti Island snake-necked turtles are found only on Roti Island,
a 62 square mile island in Indonesia, according to the San Diego Zoo.

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Turtles are not social creatures.  While they typically don't mind if there
are other turtles around them, they don't interact or socialize, according
to Encyclopedia Britannica.  Most turtles are active during the day, spending
their time foraging for food.

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Turtles are not silent creatures.  Some sound like electric motors, some
sound like belching humans, and some bark like dogs.  The red-footed tortoise
from South America clucks like a chicken.

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Most turtles are omnivores.  They eat a variety of different things
depending on their species.   Musk turtles eat molluscs, plants, small fish,
and insects.  The Cooter turtle is mostly vegetarian and the green sea turtle
only eats grasses and algae.

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I read in the L.A. Times this morning that 42,000 Mazda cars were recalled
because of a spider problem.  Really makes you think doesn't it?

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The alligator snapping turtle lures in fish with its tongue which looks like a
worm.  It wiggles its tongue to attract a hungry fish and then snaps down on it
with its strong jaw.  It also eats aquatic plants, snakes, frogs, fish, worms,
clams, crayfish and other turtles.

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All turtles lay eggs.  They find a place on land to lay their eggs, dig a nest
into the sand or dirt and then walk away.  No species of turtle nurtures their
young.

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Turtles reach the age to mate at different times.  Some come of age as young
as a few years old, while others don't reach sexual maturity until around 50
years has passed.

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Some species fight for the right to mate with a female while others seduce her
with a mating ritual to mate.  Male and female turtles intertwine their tails
so that their shell openings line up perfectly.

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Sea turtles travel from the ocean to lay eggs on beaches.  Usually, sea
turtles lay around 110 eggs in a nest, though the flat back turtle only
lays 50 at a time.

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The temperature of the sand affects the sex of the turtle.  The perfect
beach temperature produces an equal number of male and female offspring due
to rising temperatures.  Too many sea turtle females are being born, contributing
to the decline in species numbers, according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

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According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, many turtle
species are listed as threatened, endangered or critically endangered.
For example, the plow share tortoise and radiated tortoise are estimated
to be extinct in the next 45 years.

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A pair of Russian tortoises went into space in 1968.  The Soviet Union
launched Zond Five, a space probe that was the first spacecraft to orbit the moon
It returned safely and the tortoises survived.  They had lost about 10% of
their body weight, but they remained active and showed no loss of appetite,
according to NASA.

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I even talked to turtles at times but you need to understand logo to appreciate
the great, great things that have been created.  We spend so much of our life
typing, looking, but never, ever seeing.

OMG, fond memories of LOGO! I'm in a loud bar at the moment so I can't listen, and I'm not listening to NINE HOURS anyway, LOL! Everybody DOES realize, someone needs to extract the program and run it in LOGO, right? I would guarantee this draws something interesting and/or stupid. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 03:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I found a GitHub Repository for transcription. May be of use to you guys for adding more info and citations to this Wiki. By the way, I didn't know this wiki existed. I don't want to create an account for it right now so good luck guys ;-; 04:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I tried running some code through "ucblogo" on a Linux distro, but didn't get very far with it. ---Tim 04:16, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Given that the audio is generated by text-to-speech, could a source-aware speech-to-text work better (fewer errors and less manual correction) than a generic one? For example, finding the right text-to-speech, extracting a sound for each phoneme, and then searching for near-identical snippets of waveform, seems like it could potentially be more reliable than the generic neural nets which are primarily trained for real human speech. Or even training a neural net on the same text-to-speech source, with a big block of sample data, if that would help distinguish homophones. Presumably someone here is good enough at this sort of thing to try that? Sqek (talk) 10:05, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I think that the original comment at the top is the best approach. Using the speech-to-text data posted yesterday, and doing some simple regsubs, I can get it into good enough shape that I can proceed to transcribe the whole program by editing the file while listening to the audio, in real time. "In real time" means nine hours to correctly transcribe the whole thing. So any other approach would have to do better than nine hours. Plus if somebody put a little effort into organization, the transcription can be parallelized and so completed in nine hours / N transcribers. ---Tim 172.70.38.41 13:10, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I was helping with this last night, and here are the major steps we've done to interpret the code and who has helped, I think.

  • Pgn674 Used AWS to make a transcription of the audio, which we have been building from
  • 172.68.118.59 Transcribed the critical functions at the top of the transcription
  • theinternetftw Found a working interpreter and set up a collaboration space at a GitHub repo, and has since been maintaining the code
  • theinternetftw Also transcribed the first hour and got us our view of a partial picture
  • somebody1234 Got a messy but runnable version of the entire transcription and a view of the entire picture with errors
  • Many people are transcribing bits of audio and submitting to GitHub. Here is the list of contributors

Mannerisky (talk) 15:06, 2 April 2022 (UTC)