#0083: Artificial dribbling

M@
M@
Aug 31, 2018 · 5 min read
Photo by Patrick Wittke on Unsplash

Newsgasm

I know I’m just showing my age here but I find this kind of thing super useful: Taskbook is Trello for the command line. I feel so much more at home on the command line. #getoffmylawn #cli

I’ve never really been a big fan of Tom Cruise, for a variety of reasons that need not be explored here. However, I saw the latest edition of the Mission Impossible franchise last week and, wow. It is by far and away the best of the franchise. Notwithstanding the last 35 mins or so, which involve one of the most ridiculous helicopter chase / crash / bomb diffusion cliche scenarios I’ve ever seen, the rest of the movie is really, really good. I was chuckling and ooh-ing and ah-ing all the way through it. I was also marvelling at how good the CG looked compared to some recent action movies that I have seen (as in every single stupid super hero movie of late). It turns out, the reason why the CG is so good is because most of it’s not CG. Thanks to JJ Abrams preference for “practical effects“, most of the stunts — including the stupid helicopter chase — are real. Cruise is actually the pilot of the helicopter in the chase. Which I know is hard to believe. But watch this behind the scenes video of the making of the special effects. It’s 30 mins long, but it really is incredible. And I guess it explains why movies like this cost so much to make. #movies #practicaleffects #cg

At the other end of the scale from MI’s practical effects is this series of shorts from the writer/director of District 9, Neill Blomkamp. What is truly amazing about this is that the whole thing is done as a live render out of the latest version of the Unity3D video game engine. Here are the first three episodes: Adam Ep01, Adam Ep02, and Adam Ep03. And here’s a behind the scenes making-of short: The making of ‘Adam’. If this doesn’t blow your mind, you’re very hard to impress! #3d #vr #movie

This — I’m not sure what to call it, because “article” seems so inadequate, so I’ll just call it a “media experience” — is nothing short of amazing. Ali Wong — Structure of Stand Up Comedy. The web design is something else, and the content is both fascinating and funny. It’s well worth your time. Note: some of Ali Wong’s content is a bit #NSFW, so perhaps wear headphones. #media #comedy #meta #experience

This is also wild: the folks at DeepMind have created an AI and taught it how to dribble a basketball inside a virtual 3D model of a basketball court. DeepDribble: Simulating Basketball with AI. #wow #ai #ml

This amusing demo gives a fascinating visual insight into the way neural nets work. Rather than look at a picture and work out what was in it, this neural net turns that task on its head, taking a description of a scene (in words) and attempting to create the picture that is described. The results are … amusing. But you need to see for yourself. #ai #ml #neuralnet #gann

If you wanted a place to start to learn about deep learning, this big list of deep learning references is a great resource. #ai #ml #deeplearning

If Google made a bank, what would it look like? #google #ai #ml #bank

Here’s a totally bonkers idea: what if we let software developers run software development? It’s a pitch for a book called Developer Hegemony, with lots of quotable lines, such as “Who would have guessed that a structure for organizing militaries throughout history might not make the best structure for writing software?” and “… they do it with the effectiveness of you using a marionette to indirectly change a watch battery.”. The author proposes that software developers move, en masse, out of corporates and into their own self-organised firms. I’m not sure if this is workable, but it’s an interesting idea: “If you want a model to understand how such a shift might look, imagine the relationship between major corporations and law firms. These corporations staff general counsel who reaches out to specialized law firms when needed. They don’t look to hire legions of lawyers as line-level employees and have six layers of management above them.” One minor criticism: it’s a shame he didn’t credit the original source of the ‘corporate hierarchy’ diagram at the top of the article. #management #software

I’ve noticed the thoughtsphere kicking off recently with a number of articles highlighting microservice horror stories. The sentiment is not even all that new, as this article goes back to 2016. What is going on? Is it just more “pendulum of opinion” thinking, or is there something deeper at play? #boringtech #pendulumofopinion

Here’s a potentially disruptive business model for autonomous vehicles: create an add-on that allows existing vehicles to take advantage of some simple autonomous driving features. Comma.AI aims to be “ghost riding for the masses”, with a view to doing for autonomous driving what Android did for smartphones. It’s certainly an interesting idea, even if it only has a short lifespan. #autonomous #driving

There’s been quite some controversy about dock-less bike share systems around the world. This investigation and analysis of one such scheme in Melbourne, Australia is fascinating. I had no idea just how dodgy the whole thing was. #dockless #bikeshare #dodgey

It’s been a while since I’ve linked to a blockchain bear article, but this one is sobering. From the article: “Corporate America’s love affair with all things blockchain may be cooling.#blockchain #decentralisation

Candidate for Tweet of the Year, in response to a tweet to the effect of “I still don’t get bitcoin” was this reply: imagine if keeping your car idling 24/7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin. Genius. #bitcoin #blockchain #cryptocurrencies

Is The Blockchain Failing Corporates?. It’s starting to sound a little bit like we’re heading into the blockchain equivalent of an AI winter. #bitcoin #blockchain #cryptocurrencies

Only in Australia

A drone captured dozens of crocodiles on camera sunbathing by the Daly River in Australia’s Northern Territory. Such a large number is thought to signal the river is healthy. Which I guess is good news. #onlyinaustralia

Regards,
M@

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M@

Written by

M@

Building stuff with bits since c1990. https://keybase.io/matthewsinclair https://twitter.com/matthewsinclair

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