▲ 18 r/sanpedrocactus
Tip Grafts took!
First four are dubyah and then the last three are some TPM buttholes I isolated.
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 7 hours ago
▲ 4 r/sanpedrocactus
A long time ago....
In a galaxy not so far away... I took the most horrific journey of my life. It was the first time I had ever felt in such awe and also in such danger that I felt the need to share my story with you all.
Picture 1:
In search of the fountain of youth, I crash land on a strange moon of a distant planet in the milky way. I had been buying some plants from this guy u/IMDAVESBUD, on a website I think his kid runs for him. He was super friendly, but after I realized I was addicted to buying stuff from him, was when I realized that there may be more malicious behavior. Something seemed not right. Anyways, I get out of my craft and look around, and wow! What a sight to behold. The biggest penis cactuses I have ever seen, everywhere!
Picture 2:
I begin my search for this man "Dave" who claims to be my bud. I'm not convinced yet.
Picture 3:
I come into plain sight of a cacti forest, and i climb the nearest cactus I can find, with a huge dick on top that I held onto for stability, while I tried to get a good look around and gain my bearings. it was then when I saw the first monster i had ever seen in my life. Staring at it in horror, I briefly glanced around and tried to plan my next moves.
Picture 4:
Making my way out of the forest, I get lost in some weeds.
Picture 5:
I stumble across a protocol droid, who claims to serve Dave and the family he didn't mention in his life story video. The droid was nice enough, but I got weird creepy vibes from him, and I knew something was strange, and those monsters were starting to haunt me in my memories.
Picture 6:
I climb a small plant, and peek over the edge. I see some battle droids posted up next to the biggest TBM bush i have ever seen in my entire life ! The pictures don't do it justice, this thing is huge!!! WOW!
Picture 7:
I immediately sense something is wrong, and leap into combat, because I have the keen reflexes of a samurai trained assassin panther cat, and take the high ground
Picture 8
I defeat my enemies easily, I didn't even have to try at all. I think I burned the energy of a single serving of raisins probably taking out Dave's "goons".
Pictures 9-10:
In search of the ringleader of the duality that enveloped this beautifully horrifying garden of questions, I come across some asshole and his little pet, who refused to tell me any info. The guy refused to take off his helmet and said he preferred the smell of his own sweat to the stench of whatever was coming from Dave's house.
Picture 11:
I make my way back, and continue my search. I stop and peer back into the forest where I saw the monsters, and I see this weird creepy hooded created posted up, I think he was selling weed. I could smell it with my keen sense of smell, much higher than the average person, but his weed was undoubtedly pretty decent. I knew he had to be hiding good shit here somewhere now, I was more certain of it than of anything ever.
Picture 12:
I make my way back to the huge TBM stand, and sneakily peak back over. This was the first time I laid eyes on Dave. All the images i had seen had been a lie, he had been using AI to alter his true image. He was some clanker-human hybrid, pretending to be some buff hippie who still has working lungs that can smoke the weed he claims he grows. IDK man.
Picture 13:
I confront Dave, and ask him why he has battle droids guarding his plants. He says it's standard in his area, but he refused to concede anything even after I told him they shot at me first.
Picture 14:
I draw my weapon again, maybe just this once I'll have to go all out to bring peace to the system. Dave says he doesn't believe in fighting, despite sending his goons after me earlier, and flees to his ship that he called with a "cheetah call" - it was really weird, he denied it being weird at all, and by the time he was done justifying himself, he was already on his ship before I could catch him.
Picture 15:
Dave flies off through the forest
Picture 16:
Dave lands safely in an opening in a field. I know this because I managed to throw a tracker on his ship... what a fool!
I will need to track this man down. We're still buds, but I think something fishy is going on and I need to follow him to get to the bottom of this for everyone and all of his customers. I think they deserve to know when the robots have taken over. I'll report back when i can, for now, I am going to hang out with these plants and celebrate!
Happy fourth!!! I'm dave's bud!!!
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 1 day ago
▲ 92 r/sanpedrocactus
Dubyah, an American plant to celebrate the holiday!
So there I was, high the fuckin Sears tower, staring off into the void in my new greenhouse, probably thinking about who I was gonna try and buy more grafting stock from. I had just made 11 rob BC grafts and was feeling quite unhinged.
I suddenly come out of meltiness back into reality and see this melty TPC x Sharxx crest graft staring back at me. It was like I had manifested this melty cactus by getting melty myself. Realizing I had not closely inspected growth in months, I took a lil peeksy poo, and my God ! I think I found a dargon !
Unfortunately, I do not remember who I got this from as a seedling. I looked for hours and can't find the post. I grafted all 4 funky tips yesterday onto some rooted stock, I'm gonna see what happens.
The three main tips have all gone completely bald. I'm gonna graft the crested pup behind the super melty one on the side, and give it to u/psilocybincoop for inspiring me to be kind to others today.
Anyways, I don't know if I'm allowed to officially name it because I didn't plant it myself, and I don't know who did, but i did receive as a rooted seedling or yearling.
for now I'm gonna call it "Dubyah" for myself, for obvious reasons. And also named after my favorite shapeshifting reptilian lizard overlord, George W. I figure there's no harm until I decide to share it (and I will, if you're my friend you're on the list already), and I can see if it's cool enough that I could officially name it.
Happy weekend and happy 4th to all my fellow americans ! Its tough out here, stay strong everybody, the only way is through ! We can do this if we all care for each other !
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 2 days ago
$1 Auction - DBA Megaladon
The usual stuff. $1 auction, minimum increments of $1, ends Sunday at 9pm EST. Buyer pays pirate ship from virginia. 5 min no snipe. This is a degraft, grown in my basement in a tent, originally obtained from u/aarbear23. BIN for $60 + ship
minor blemishes as pictured
Happy friday cactus friends!
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 10 days ago
$1 Auction - Frankie
The usual stuff. $1 auction, minimum increments of $1, ends Sunday at 9pm EST. Buyer pays pirate ship from virginia. This cut has been in soil for a month or so now after I degrafted it, and is showing signs of stress at the tip. In my experience, this clone will grow out of it, and there will only be minor blemishes. Because of this, I am not sure what it's worth, so it's up for auction. 5 min no snipe blah blah. Happy friday cactus friends!!!!
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 10 days ago
Landfill - Pay what you think it's worth + ship from VA
Indoor grown, glaucous blue, landfill. It's not the fattest, as it was grown indoors. This is a degraft. Pay what you think it's worth (to you), plus shipping from virginia, and it's yours! Needs a week to callous. Happy Friday!
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 10 days ago
▲ 10 r/sanpedrocactus
The pup dance worked!!
This thing literally regrew its tip from this slab, and grew ~8 stock pups before I did a pup dance and it pupped. Variegated Volta I isolated from my mother plant about a 9 months ago. Super excited to grow this out and share it :)
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 12 days ago
▲ 10 r/sanpedrocactus
Some yellow to match the name
Found this vari on my volta last summer. It refuses to pup :(
Who wants to do a pup dance with me?
Anyone else seen vari volta before ?
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 14 days ago
▲ 3 r/robotics
Sampling-based motion planning, genetic algorithms, and biological evolution might all be running the same underlying search algorithm
I work in robotics, and have for almost a decade now. I keep noticing that a huge chunk of search-under-uncertainty problems, in robotics and outside it, converge on the same two-step architecture: generate variation indiscriminately first, then apply a scoring/selection pressure that keeps what works and discards what doesn't. No model of the problem is required upfront. Most the "intelligence" lives in the selection step, not the generation step.
The clearest version of this in our own field is sampling-based motion planning. RRT and its relatives don't try to compute a path analytically. They expand randomly in many directions through the configuration space and then retain/extend the branches that make progress toward the goal, pruning the rest. Genetic algorithms and evolution strategies (CMA-ES, for instance) run an identical loop in parameter space instead of configuration space: generate a population of variants, score them against a fitness (cost) function, keep the survivors, repeat. Simulated annealing is a single-particle version of the same thing, generate a random perturbation, accept or reject it based on a score.
Once I started paying attention to this pattern, I noticed it shows up well outside robotics too, in places that have nothing to do with computer science:
- Slime mold expanding in all directions through a maze of food sources, with the inefficient tendrils pruned back, and famously reconstructing something close to the Tokyo rail network when food sources are placed at the positions of major stations.
- Evolution itself: random mutation generates variation with zero regard for whether it's useful, and survival does the selecting after the fact.
- Neural development: neurons and synaptic connections proliferate in directions that aren't pre-planned, and dopamine-linked reinforcement selectively stabilizes the ones that turn out to matter.
Once I started looking for more instances, I found two more that fit the same structure almost exactly:
- The immune system: B-cells mutate antibody variants somewhat randomly (somatic hypermutation) and the ones that bind the pathogen get clonally selected and expanded.
- Thought/creativity: you can't generate a genuinely novel idea by deduction from evidence that it's correct. The evidence only exists after the idea does. Novelty has to come first; judgment comes second.
That last one turns out to have a surprisingly direct precedent. Henri Poincaré, describing how he worked out the theta-fuchsian functions, wrote that ideas rose in crowds and collided in his mind until pairs interlocked into stable combinations, almost like watching his own unconscious work made partially visible to consciousness, and that what got selected from that flood of combinations was governed by something close to an aesthetic sense of mathematical elegance. That's a generate-then-select loop running inside a human mind, described in 1908.
The principle has been formalized more than once since then, from different directions:
- Richard Dawkins' Universal Darwinism: the claim that variation/selection/retention isn't a biology-specific mechanism but a substrate-independent algorithm that biology happens to be one instance of.
- Donald Campbell's blind variation and selective retention (BVSR), later developed extensively by Dean Keith Simonton, which applies the same two-step structure directly to creative cognition.
- Karl Popper's conjectures and refutations model of how knowledge grows: blind generation of new theories, followed by selective retention of the ones that survive criticism. Popper explicitly treated this as the same process as biological evolution, just running on ideas instead of organisms.
- Gerald Edelman's Neural Darwinism (Theory of Neuronal Group Selection), the formal version of the neuron/dopamine point above: synaptic overproduction followed by activity-dependent selective stabilization.
Worth flagging here: I'm not claiming the expansion step is ever truly random. In every example above, the variation is guided. Slime mold follows chemoattractant gradients, not isotropic noise. Mutation isn't uniform across a genome, there are hotspots and repair biases. Axon growth follows chemical guidance cues, not random angles. Informed RRT* deliberately biases sampling toward the goal region instead of sampling uniformly. Even Poincaré's account isn't pure randomness, he describes an aesthetic sense that seems to steer which combinations even get generated, not just which ones survive afterward. Liane Gabora has made this exact critique of BVSR, that calling the variation "blind" overstates how random it actually is.
But that's the part I find more interesting, not less. The expansion step across all of these systems is intelligently informed, biased toward promising regions by something the system already "knows," and yet it still needs the separate selection/scoring step on top of that guidance to actually converge. Neither half does the job alone: the guidance is too crude or too local to solve the problem outright (that's why expansion is still happening at all instead of direct computation), and the selection pressure has no foresight of its own, it only works because it's filtering output that the guided expansion already biased toward viable territory.
Has anyone else found that this specific combination, intelligently biased expansion paired with a separate selection/scoring step, actually performs best in practice? I have personally found, that at least for my applications in autonomous vehicles and motion planning, this combination works the best. Curious whether other people doing sampling-based planning, evolutionary algorithms, or other search methods have found the same thing I have: that this architecture outperforms the alternatives, rather than just being one option among several that works comparably well. I will personally only ever use this type of algorithm after realizing this is how nature does it.
Lastly, I am not proposing that analytical algorithms are better or worse than machine learning algorithms. I believe that HOW this is solved is irrespective of the fundamental search algorithm of the universe I have observed. I believe that it is the expand, then score mechanism that is important here, and does not exclude any method of expansion or scoring, as I have observed this in the above stated forms across nature.
Thanks for the read if you're here, I've been thinking about this all year and needed to post it somewhere.
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 18 days ago
▲ 6 r/complaints
Reddit Website Quality
I have noticed a significant decline in reddit site quality. What used to load on my phone in seconds, will now freeze for up to a minute sometimes. My phone has not changed. This happens on both my laptop and my phone. I see other people complaining that the pages wont load, too. Specifically chat. Nobody can convince me that reddit (and other large software companies) haven't been taken over by shitty AI dev practices.
Do better Reddit! Your site loads slower sometimes than when I had AOL Dialup to play "math games". Congratulations, in your attempt to add more features, you have degraded general use.
/rant
Happy Sunday thanks for reading 😄
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 21 days ago
▲ 15 r/sanpedrocactus
Thirsty Monster (De Cota Cota)
Had to get a pic of that rib sticking out! It went three wang for awhile. This thing is a cool one ! Happy weekend !
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 22 days ago
Friday Summer Sale!!!!
For sale I have some cactus I grew in my basement. They are not perfect and some have blemishes. All prices include shipping from Virginia.
Lower 48 only please, the usual payment methods are fine.
Happy Friday friends and thanks for looking! Each BIN comes with a free holographic sticker I made with AI.
If you feel the prices are not fair, feel free to message me and let me know, and/or make an offer in a DM.
Open to trades but only for very specific clones.
If you buy more than one, I will give $5 off for the first additional cut, $10 for the second, etc.
Right to left:
Lizard King: $70, ready to ship. Sourced from u/DeniedEssence
Serpent: $75, ready to ship. Sourced from u/aarbear23
Rosei2 x Rosei1: $60, ready to ship
DBA Megaladon: $65, ready to ship. Sourced from u/aarbear23
Althea: $125, ready to ship. Sourced from u/DeniedEssence. I am in no hurry to sell this one and if it doesn't sell at this price I am going to plant it.
PPK61 Ribshifter: $55, needs time to callous. Cut today. Sourced from u/Ok_performance275
Oceanside02: $40, needs time to callous. Cut today.
The last three are currently up for auction, and end tonight at 9pm est, at the same time my Sam02 giveaway ends.
Banana pc from Dave: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanpedrocactusforsale/comments/1u2kald/1_auction_105_pc_banana_degraft/
Vari Miriam: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanpedrocactusforsale/comments/1u2ke9g/1_auction_14_inch_vari_miriam/
Vari peruvanoid from Dave: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanpedrocactusforsale/comments/1u2kie9/1_auction_17_variegated_peruvanoid_degraft/
Original post for giveaway! : https://www.reddit.com/r/sanpedrocactusforsale/comments/1tzq5mo/sam02_sunday_scaries_giveaway/
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 23 days ago
13" Lizard King $70 Shipped
13" Lizard King degraft with root nubs. Sourced originally from u/DeniedEssence.
$70 shipped from Virginia. Tip has some mild stress, and the base is very firm. What you are seeing is mud, I washed off the dirt right before taking a picture, this was planted.
This one hasn't gone monstrous too much yet, a skipped areole or two, but it seems to like to grow reverted for a bit and then throw out the weird lumps after awhile in my experience.
Lower 48 only please, cash app, Zelle, or Venmo!
Thanks for looking, and I hope you have a wonderful Friday :)
I will continue to lower the price on this daily until it sells
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 24 days ago
▲ 27 r/sanpedrocactus
Beeholes
Met a close friend over this cactus. its got some nice beeholes goin
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 24 days ago
13" Lizard King with Root Nubs $100 shipped
13" Lizard King degraft with root nubs. Sourced originally from u/DeniedEssence.
$100 shipped from Virginia. Tip has some mild stress, and the base is very firm. What you are seeing is mud, I washed off the dirt right before taking a picture, this was planted.
This one hasn't gone monstrous too much yet, a skipped areole or two, but it seems to like to grow reverted for a bit and then throw out the weird lumps after awhile in my experience.
Lower 48 only please, cash app, Zelle, or Venmo!
Thanks for looking, and I hope you have a wonderful day :)
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 24 days ago
$1 Auction: 17" Variegated Peruvanoid Degraft
Hello cactus friends!
I have here a fresh cut 17" of variegated peruvanoid I got from u/IMDAVESBUD off his site, made a bunch of cuts for friends, and grew this one out for myself! He says this is a Trichocereus peruvianus.
But I have bills to pay.
Bidding starts at $1. Free shipping after bid surpasses shipping cost from Virginia.
Minimum $1 increments.
Ends Sunday, June 14, 9pm eastern
I just cut this, so it will need a few weeks to dry. I will ship this on Wednesday, June 24 from Virginia.
USA Lower 48 Only please! 5 min extension no snipe or whatever the heckaroo it is.
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 25 days ago
$1 Auction: 14 inch Vari Miriam
Hello cactus friends!
I have here a fresh cut 14" of variegated Miriam.
Bidding starts at $1. Free shipping after bid surpasses shipping cost from Virginia.
Minimum $1 increments.
Ends Sunday, June 14
I just cut this, so it will need a few weeks to dry. I will ship this on Wednesday, June 24 from Virginia.
USA Lower 48 Only please! 5 min extension no snipe or whatever the heckaroo it is.
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 25 days ago
$1 Auction: 10.5" PC Banana Degraft
Hello cactus friends!
I have here a fresh cut 10.5" of PC banana! I got this from u/IMDAVESBUD off his site, made a bunch of grafts for friends, and grew this one out for myself!
But I have bills to pay.
Bidding starts at $1. Free shipping after bid surpasses shipping cost from Virginia.
Minimum $1 increments.
Ends Sunday, June 14
I just cut this, so it will need a few weeks to dry. I will ship this on Wednesday, June 24 from Virginia.
USA Lower 48 Only please! 5 min extension no snipe or whatever the heckaroo it is.
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 25 days ago
Sam02 Sunday Scaries Giveaway!!!
Hi! Happy Weekend friends!
I have this Sam02 plant I got from u/DrugThroughTheDirt . It has produced two pups for me on a two areole slab graft. It is on rooted PC. He gifted me this plant when it was only a slab graft, and I now have been able to clone it enough, that I have multiple for myself, and I've given it away to most of my friends. I thought it was time to pass the original plant along!
This one has some reverted growth, but all of the other pups I got were weird and melty.
I am not placing restriction or anything on what you do with this, it's completely free to the winner, shipping and all! but if you want to pass it on somehow in the future that'd be cool too. But it's rough out there, and healthy food is expensive. May this plant produce joy and comfort in some way as it has done for me.
To enter, upvote this post, post a picture of your favorite cactus, or if you don't have one, post a pic of your animal, or something else cool. Also, a number 1 through 1000. I will pick a winner Friday, June the 12 at 9pm Est. Ships bare root. I took this picture 30 days ago, and it has probably grown some since then, but I didn't measure.
Happy Sunday!!!
u/Pepperoni-Flame — 28 days ago