Not attempting historical accuracy but still had to learn a heck of a lot to model the steering mechanism for a #medievalyork #mysteryplay pageant wagon. #blender3d #blender3dart

Later I need to add spokes to those wheels. In my simulation most of this will be hidden by curtains, but I still wanted to get it right. Similar:Interface changes make it a little harder to work with Google's image searchWhen I’m looking for a picture I’m going…BusinessTeenage Usability (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)Teens often work on…

Alphabet in Motion: How Letters Get Their Shape: pop-up book by Kelli Anderson

A fascinating concept. (Thanks for the suggestion, Mom!) Ever wonder how we ended up with so many different styles of letters? Open any text editor, email client or design app and you will immediately be bombarded with a buffet of typographic choices. Serif or sans serif? Display or text? Classical or contemporary? Formal or casual?…

I didn’t ask for the AI icon on my Kindle app. I can’t turn it off.

I really hate that little sparkly icon which reminds me of all the human labor that was stolen to create a product that enriches the tech barons while contributing to the environmental destruction of the planet. I absolutely to NOT want to ask my book questions. I’m reading a book precisely because I want to…

Wood pile stacking animation (Blender 3D)

For a medieval project, I wanted a wood pile, but I didn’t want to have to stack the individual wedges manually. I’m experienced enough with Blender 3D that it only took me a few minutes to get this simulation running — but as this video clip attests, I need to adjust a few parameters. …

‘Tentacles squelching wetly’: the human subtitle writers under threat from AI

Artificial intelligence is making steady advances into subtitling but, say its practitioners, it’s a vital service that needs a human to make it work […] AI is unable to decide which sounds are important. “Right now, it’s not even close,” Deryagin says. He also stresses the importance of the broader context of a film, rather…

Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy

The illustrations clients bring to her are commonly littered with unclean lines and nonsensical text, and they look like a mess of pixels when blown up beyond a certain size. “There’s people that are aware AI isn’t perfect, and then there’s people that come to you angry because they didn’t manage to get it done…

Study finds AI tools made open source software developers 19 percent slower

Coders who used AI self-reported that they worked 20% faster, but an objective study found AI actually made coders 19% slower. This study confirms that while AI can help for general low-level tasks, humans with deep knowledge of the specific project could spend far more time working on higher-level tasks, rather than hunting for errors…

I MacGyvered myself a heat sink

I’m getting ready to record about 18hrs footage from four different cameras, and I noticed my new 4K webcam was heating up pretty fast. I’m settled in a dorm room at the University of Toronto, far from the junk drawers and tool boxes that would have aluminum foil and copper wire. I suppose I could…

My crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule NPCs at 130fps. I’m really pushing my coding skills.

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More than a million people die on roads every year. Meet the man determined to prevent them

Imagine a society that engineers its highways so that ordinary people who make mistakes, and even people who intentionally break the law, are less likely to kill people with their cars. On 22 May 1997, the Swedish government presented Bill 1996/97:137 to parliament. It cemented zero deaths as a long-term goal for road fatalities. It reiterated that…

Stapler jam during a midterm exam.

My years of watching MacGyver definitely paid off. (Not that my GenZ students got the reference.) I’m doing a lot more in-class work with paper, giving students handouts to annotate in class, asking them to write in copybooks. For the midterm I gave students a short academic article, excerpts from a play we haven’t read…

January 6th … the board game?

About 20 of us are here in Brooklyn to play a large-scale war game — think Risk — but we’re also each assigned a character, which is a bit like Dungeons & Dragons. We’re told it’s Jan. 6, 2021. We’re given rows and rows of hand-painted mini-figures, a bowl of dice, and a measuring stick showing how far…

For some reason, I saw a bump in traffic to a page that linked to a “make-your-own-Trump-executive order” page

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Quick visit to see my mother and siblings.

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A former student working in SEO shared this. I miss Google classic.

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I’m thinking this is a still from the cringey Season 1 episode of TNG where the natives build a religion around a bag of Starburst candy that falls out of Wesley’s pocket. #design #aesthetics #startrek #tng

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Each building in my #medievalyork simulation has four levels of detail (so that distant objects render faster). #blender3d #mysteryplay #design #cgi

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Another corner building. Designed and textured. Needs an interior. #blender3d #design #aesthetics #medievalyork #mysteryplay

Another corner building. Designed and textured. Needs an interior. #blender3d #design #aesthetics #medievalyork #mysteryplay Similar:Bird flight simulator. The boy goes for altitude and distance, the girl does stunts.In the bird-flight simulator at the Pitt…CybercultureUnnatural Selection (ST:TNG Rewatch Season 2, Episode 7)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…MediaThe Tribune-Review published a nice preview of Dani Girl.My daughter…

There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI

Two years after the release of ChatGPT, it may not be surprising that creative work is used without permission to power AI products. Yet the notion remains disturbing to many artists and professionals who feel that their craft and livelihoods are threatened by programs. Transparency is generally low: Tech companies tend not to advertise whose…

The complex geometry on this wedge building took me all weekend. #blender3d #medievalyork #mysteryplay #cgi #aesthetics #design

The complex geometry on this wedge building took me all weekend. The interior walls still need work. And from this angle, those roof tiles look too big. Similar:More household props for a #blender3d #steampunk project. I had made the spice rack and utensi…AestheticsMore than a million people die on roads every year. Meet the man…