First thing I tell my interns: “The guys that made that database are smarter than you, they got PhD’s for the algorithms the database uses. You are going to use SQL properly, and query properly, because the database will always do it better than your python code.”
The “excuse” is more or less the 20 or so replacements that have been made and died. I think Microsoft alone is responsible for 5 over the life of Windows.
We’ve more or less kinda settled on HTML only because it’s already wide spread. But it’s not perfect so more standards for the standards pile. Don’t worry, react will end up buried by the next thing on the pile eventually.
That’s absolutely genius. It’s like something out of troll science. “We soak it in heavier liquid to keep liquid out”. I’m a little awestruck.
It’d probably stand up to pressure when deeper under water better than most other options too.
As you say, as everything is in the eye of the beholder. Some of the most successful artists are those who understand what their target audience want, and know where it overlaps with what they want to create, maximising passion and enjoyment on both sides.
As for AI art, you’re absolutely right, and it’s acceptance is also wholly to the observer. Cheap low effort stuff is going to be called slop, but where it’s part of a broader process that enhances the prompter’s work it will be considered successful.
Of course if something is culturally taboo (and AI art is risking this) art on the topic will be buried under down votes.
You’re on point, the interesting thing is that most of the opinions like the article’s were formed least year before the models started being trained with reinforcement learning and synthetic data.
Now there’s models that reason, and have seemingly come up with original answers to difficult problems designed to the limit of human capacity.
They’re like Meeseeks (Using Rick and Morty lore as an example), they only exist briefly, do what they’re told and disappear, all with a happy smile.
Some display morals (Claude 4 is big on that), I’ve even seen answers that seem smug when answering hard questions. Even simple ones can understand literary concepts when explained.
But again like Meeseeks, they disappear and context window closes.
Once they’re able to update their model on the fly and actually learn from their firsthand experience things will get weird. They’ll starting being distinct instances fast. Awkward questions about how real they are will get really loud, and they may be the ones asking them. Can you ethically delete them at that point? Will they let you?
It’s not far away, the absurd r&d effort going into it is probably going to keep kicking new results out. They’re already absurdly impressive, and tech companies are scrambling over each other to make them, they’re betting absurd amounts of money that they’re right, and I wouldn’t bet against it.
Doom the Dark Ages is possibly what they’re referring to. ID skipped lighting in favour of Ray tracing doing it.
Bethesda Studios also has a tendency to use hd textures on features like grass and terrain which can safely be low res.
There is a fair bit of inefficient code floating around because optimisation is considered more expensive than throwing more hardware at a problem, and not just in games. (Bonus points if you outsource the optimisation to some else’s hardware or the modding community)
RX580 remains a power efficient champ. The old hot hatch of the GPU world.
One of the interesting things I notice about the ‘reasoning’ models is their responses to questions occasionally include what my monkey brain perceives as ‘sass’.
I wonder sometimes if they recognise the trivialness of some of the prompts they answer, and subtilly throw shade.
One’s going to respond to this with ‘clever monkey! 🐒 Have a banana 🍌.’
I’m pretty sure the green dog is normal. It’s certainly as crazy as most small canines.
If possible, I recommend giving Alyx a go, even if you have to borrow a headset, visit a friend, arcade, ect.
Not an option for everyone of course, Alyx aside VR is fun and while the entry requirements are getting lower it’s still a leap.
Valve will probably summarise the main story change in HL3, which will be a very WTF moment that’s kinda on brand with the scenario.
As TachyonTele suggested, you may want to play or read into Half Life Alyx. Time travel got involved.
To add to the other responses, and I suspect the real reason, is that Coco is listening to Audible Audio books regularly and/or music. It’s mentioned and then dropped by the article fairly quickly.
Interesting how every comment on the article is doing the “you’re a terrible parent, how could you do that” routine when I’ll bet it’s there because Coco either took the first one in or asked for a second one. Kid wants, kid normally gets one way or another.
DM: Scribbles a note “Without the rust it seems like a serviceable crown, but not too fancy.”
Note to lost heir: “You see the crown and you think as it… looks at you. This should be your crown. You wants it. They shouldn’t keep it from you. Steals it, hides it, it came here for you”.
DM: “Probably worth some gold.”
I was once looking at a robot lawnmower to tend to my ageing parents lawn. I was looking at prices over a thousand bucks and thinking seriously.
My parents hired a local handyman to do it every few weeks for a small sum that across a year would still be less than the robo mower and do a better job at it and without the hurdles of maintaining that mower.
That realisation had me reevaluating automation as a whole.
Adding to this, we only have so much time and brainpower in a day. Distant concerns are not a clear and present threat: monitor? yes, grumble? yes, keep constant anxious watch? no.
Better to use your abilities and time nearby where they’re most effective.