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The CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, has argued that platforms like Steam should not label games that are made using AI. From a report: Responding to a post on Twitter from a user who suggested that storefronts drop this tag, the industry exec said that it "makes no sense" to flag such content. Sweeney added that soon AI will be a part of the way all games are made. "The AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation," Sweeney said. "It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production."
oh now I know why people were dissing on sweeny on the socials today
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In the latest Windows Insider beta update, Microsoft has announced that it is exploring preloading File Explorer in the background to improve launch performance. The feature will load File Explorer silently before users click on it and can be toggled off for those who prefer not to use it. Microsoft introduced a similar capability earlier this year for Office called Startup Boost that loads parts of Word in the background so the application launches more quickly. The company is also removing elements from the File Explorer context menu in the same update.
in the bad old days all the programs wanted to preload to overcome sluggishness when first opened. power users hated it, less savvy users had no idea why all their RAM was used.
Lo, then we got SSDs and all our software started instantly!!!!
Well, I have bad news: it's so bad that the damn file explorer needs preloading again, let alone the office suite.
Lo, then we got SSDs and all our software started instantly!!!!
Well, I have bad news: it's so bad that the damn file explorer needs preloading again, let alone the office suite.
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The abstract of a paper on NBER: This paper examines a large-scale randomized evaluation of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program in 531 Peruvian rural primary schools. We use administrative data on academic performance and grade progression over 10 years to estimate the long-run effects of increased computer access on (i) school performance over time and (ii) students' educational trajectories. Following schools over time, we find no significant effects on academic performance but some evidence of negative effects on grade progression. Following students over time, we find no significant effects on primary and secondary completion, academic performance in secondary school, or university enrollment. Survey data indicate that computer access significantly improved students' computer skills but not their cognitive skills; treated teachers received some training but did not improve their digital skills and showed limited use of technology in classrooms, suggesting the need for additional pedagogical support.
OLPC didn't work :sob:
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Amazon's 14,000-plus layoffs announced last month touched almost every piece of the company's sprawling business, from cloud computing and devices to advertising, retail and grocery stores. But one job category bore the brunt of cuts more than others: engineers. CNBC: Documents filed in New York, California, New Jersey and Amazon's home state of Washington showed that nearly 40% of the more than 4,700 job cuts in those states were engineering roles. The data was reported by Amazon in Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, filings to state agencies. The figures represent a segment of the total layoffs announced in October. Not all data was immediately available because of differences in state WARN reporting requirements.
death of a thousand (job) cuts
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Check out the newest tutorial from Erin St Blaine: Get WLED running on your MatrixPortal board and control an LED matrix with no coding. This is a really cool project — we’ve been wanting to see WLED’s amazing 2d animation effects on a high resolution matrix display for ages. As an extra bonus, we’ve gotten it working with the MoonModules fork of WLED which also includes a whole array of new 2d animations from Animartrix. The kaleidoscope animations are blowing our minds!
This project was inspired by Living Stained Glass as seen at the Autumn Lights Festival in Oakland, CA.
From the guide:
Make a glowing stained glass window with over 2000 LEDs that animate and glow in hundreds of different patterns and colors, all without writing a line of code. The magic lies with WLED, a free, open-source LED animation program that runs over WiFi. Control your LED matrix with your smart phone or web browser, and watch your creation dance.
This guide uses the MoonModules v 14.5.0 beta (“Small Step”) fork of WLED, which works on the MatrixPortal S3. As a bonus, it also contains the Animartrix library of effects — a large pool of brand-new 2d animations that turn your LED matrix into a whirling kaleidoscope of color.
Use a laser cutter or a Cricut vinyl cutter to create a “resist” layer out of opaque material, and a black LED acrylic layer for diffusion, to make a beautiful stained glass window style art piece that shifts and moves with colored lights.
Full tutorial here: https://learn.adafruit.com/matrix-portal-stained-glass-with-wled/
and another one from Erin
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Check out the latest tutorial from Erin St Blaine: build a sound reactive music visualizer light for your wall or living room that pulses and animates with your favorite color palettes when your music is playing. Place it on top of your home stereo speaker for a fantastic living room light show that you made yourself.
This guide will show you how to choose your favorite shape and set it up in LightBurn for laser cutting, with size and rotation variations so that the cutout appears to “move” when animated lights move across the edge of the acrylic layers. Connect your lights to the Mini Sparkle Motion controller and your shape will appear to grow and pulse to the beat.
This is one of the best looking sound-reactive projects we’ve seen to date, and it uses the free, open-source WLED software which is easy to install and use with no coding required. Tweak the audio settings to pulse beautifully in time with your favorite style of music.
From the guide:
Turn your living room into a mini light show with this audio reactive laser-cut Star Illusion. This layered acrylic sculpture comes alive with WLED and the Adafruit Mini Sparkle Motion board, easily creating sound-reactive animations that pulse, spin, and shimmer to your favorite music. The stacked layers, each slightly rotated and resized, create a hypnotic illusion of motion as NeoPixel LED light races along the edges. The result is a psychedelic, audio-responsive art piece that feels like it’s pulsing along with the beat.
This is a fairly easy project that requires a little bit of soldering but no coding at all. WLED can be installed with a few clicks, and animations and color palettes are controlled with your smart phone or web browser. It’s also easy to sync up multiple instances of WLED: Make a few with different shapes or put one on top of each of your speakers for a delightful music visualization experience.
Full tutorial: https://learn.adafruit.com/star-illusion-laser-cut-audio-reactive-light-with-wled/overview
I was just wondering what Erin was up to. This looks amazing.
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