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Press Your Luck was my favorite gameshow as a kid. I was recently watching the Twitch channel YerOlDad who watches classic old episodes of gameshows like Press Your Luck. During one run, I came up with this ditty.

There once was a whammy from Nantucket
Who put all your money in a bucket
He then dumped it all out
And shook the bucket about
And said, “How much more can I take?”

Bengisu Selçuk shares how he created Volumetric ice materials in UE5 for Rift of Souls. https://www.artstation.com/bengs

Links:

• https://80.lv/articles/intricate-volumetric-ice-material-set-up-in-unreal-engine/
• This and other effects on his Artstation site: https://www.artstation.com/bengs

Ideal made this toy in 1975 and I have to say I re-enacted that scene of making my sister’s pony tails flip up at a gas station while we were waiting for our mom to fill the car.

I was blown away back in 1996 when Resident Evil came out for the Playstation. It did so well, that the developers started making a follow on. After a period of time, they realized it wasn’t working and abandoned that initial sequel. What happened next, however, turned into a multi-year attempt to find what had been completed.

The story of the collectors trying to find and secure a copy is a … very interesting story in human nature. A copy of the 60% complete version was secured but at a cost to those pursuing it that went far beyond money. Predictably, like many of these pursuits, it turned into a years long search with fakes, name calling, and even lawsuits.

Believe it or not, people have gotten it working and done playthroughs of the acquired game. They even continue to fix bugs.

You can finally see how far the next version would have looked like in these most recent playthroughs:

Global sales of luxury flatlined in 2024 for the first time since 2008 (excluding 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic), according to a recent report by the management consultants Bain & Co. The report’s authors said consumers were prioritizing “experiences over products” in these uncertain times and that the luxury goods market, rather like the art market, is suffering from buyer fatigue.

Big auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s were down for a second year (down 24% and 6% YOY respectively). Sotheby’s has had to lay off 100 of its staff and take a $1B cash-for-equity bailout by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund just to stay afloat.

Both supply and demand for bit-ticket art has slumped. Auction houses had been switching from classical art to luxury goods. Sotheby’s has been offering ‘instant purchase’ of luxury real estate, classic cars, dinosaur fossils, game worn jersey’s, wines, etc as a way to attract new buyers and enticing buyers to spend much more on larger auction items later. As Christie’s was saying, “Luxury and art will merge with each other”.

Even that switch to luxury is falling flat. The super-wealthy in the 30-50 age range have shifted to high end experiences over high end possessions. Luxury markets have entering a downward spiral after a decade of growth – especially in Chinese markets where the very rich appear to be pulling back.

Besides art and luxury, they are now experimenting with curated experiences. They worked with Marriott and Alexander McQueen, winners bid on experiencing where McQueen got his start, five-course meal for tour, private visit to Victoria & Albert Museum and personal photo session with Ann Ray (fashion collaborator).

Links:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/arts/design/christies-sothebys-luxury-goods.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/18/briefing/art-market-downturn.html

Quantum tunneling and other quantum effects are big hurdles to future, smaller chip design. Currently they define the lower limits to what can be designed. But what if we utilize those strange properties instead of fighting them?

MIT Scientists designed new transistors to utilize quantum tunneling and quantum confinement. They achieve quantum tunneling in a way that lets transistors switch on with much less voltage. They also utilize quantum confinement, where the nanowire’s cramped dimensions tweak the properties of the materials.

Combining those effects let the MIT get blazing fast switching times using very little voltage. Testing showed their slope of switching voltage was steeper than conventional silicon’s limits resulting in around 20 times better performance than other tunneling transistors.

Researchers admit there is still a long way to go to make this commercially viable; but it’s the first steps beyond traditional design and into the quantum realm.

Articles:

• https://www.techspot.com/news/105454-mit-3d-nanoscale-transistors-use-quantum-tunneling-design.html
• https://www.techspot.com/news/104039-mit-scientists-develop-new-transistor-switches-nanoseconds-lasts.html