Camillemormal creates some incredible web design effects. Some of which are incredibly cool; but also incredibly straightforward. It’s a great example of how art and engineering work together in really interesting ways – and those that can do both cleanly and simply are able to come up with mind-blowing stuff.
Not unlike the coding artistry of early video game programmers that squeeze crazy effects out of woefully inadequate hardware.
Here’s another example:
Need some royalty-free music or sound effects for your game or a video you made? Do you need a drum solo, ambient music, or other audio track to set the mood? TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 list called out the Stable Audio AI music creator as such a tool to get music generated for free.
As an example of how good Stable Audio is, enter “Post-Rock, Guitars, Drum Kit, Bass, Strings, Euphoric, Up-Lifting, Moody, Flowing, Raw, Epic, Sentimental, 125 BPM” for a 95-second track – and the site will create audio like the results in this YouTube video. (It just generates the music, not any imagery)
Sources:
I wrote about the e-ink based color changing features on some BMW concept cars a while back. This video has a little more overview of the different features in the BMW Dee concept car – such as augmented reality directions and driving experiences.
Here’s the official videos:
And a kind of ridiculous one with Arnold Schwarzenegger and David Hasselhoff (though the Germans do love the Hoff after he did a little singing gig in 1989 that made him popular in Germany)
Anybody remember hypercolor shirts – the ones that changed color based on heat?
Project Primrose, displayed here as an interactive dress, uses wearable and somewhat flexible non-emissive light-diffuser modules that change state electronically. They can display source content from various Adobe products.
Here’s the demo from Adobe MAX Sneaks 2023 or read the research paper.
Reminds me of similar efforts being tried out by BMW on their color changing cars.
The Sphere in Los Vegas has captured the world’s attention. Inspired by it, DrZzs & GrZzs made a replica in their backyard. Their 8-foot diameter mini-sphere has 20,028 RGB LED pixels and is driven by a Kulp 32 controller and xLights software.
world_of_engineering_75 shares this experience of 5D theatre. It has real fire effects that make you feel like the theater’s on fire. There’s very little information about where this highly dangerous attraction is located – but it is supposedly somewhere in China.
While somewhat cool – it’s realistic enough to be terrifying as fire often flashes over like this right before almost certain death for anyone in the room.
Fascinating Horror is a YouTube channel that tells the true stories behind real life disasters. It’s not a channel for the faint of heart as he covers some of history’s greatest disasters that often resulted in tremendous, and often terrifying, loss of life. If you ever wanted to know why OSHA exists, concert and sporting arena designs and safety crews are present, fire regulations, occupancy limits, building codes, and other government controls are in place at any place where people gather – this channel will show you why they say “Safety regulations are written in blood”
Alex Le Guillou made a clip for the documentary film “THE GIANTS, the story of Bob Brown and the forest. The project started in 2021 when he had the chance to illustrate the trees of Tasmania using Lidar data captured from the ground and by drone.
MakeMKV offers regular beta keys that usually last about a month if you want to try out the latest builds. You can find the updated beta keys here; or using this script.
Eatch has created a complete robotic kitchen that can cook up to 5000 meals a day – completely unaided. And the meals it makes are not simple, fast food type meals or all the same kind. It is able to cook complex, healthy meals from fresh ingredients. Steak and asparagus, vegetable and shrimp dishes, curry and Indian dishes, rice and vegetables. It not only cooks them, but also dishes them up, cleans itself, and can cook up more.
It’s a complete solution; and one that is likely going to become more and more popular. Automation happens when labor costs exceed the cost to automate them. Labor is expensive and it getting more expensive every day, despite experiments to change that. McDonalds already has an automated restaurant – and Eatch’s chef machine is just another example of this principle at work.
Here’s a great video of it at work. You can also see an even fuller demo on their website.
The fellow from the Map Reading Company channel did something that I tried during my Mazamas mountaineering courses. He tried to find a video or document that described all the different markings, rulers, and parts of a standard baseplate compass and how to actually use them.
It turns out that he found what I found – a solid guide and explanation of all the parts didn’t exist. Even on the compass company websites. So he made this excellent video that shows how to use the different parts to set bearings, navigate, determine slopes, and use all the other hidden tools the compass provides you.
It’s worth stating that just having a compass and a map will do you no good unless you know how to use them. It’s like having a car but not knowing how to drive it. It is just as useless as not having one – or maybe even more dangerous if you use it wrong.
“I have a maps app on my cell phone” is something you read all the time from people that get lost and need to be rescued in Oregon. Why? Because it is surprisingly common to get into a spot with no signal or not enough signal to download the map. Some apps try to re-download the map every time you open it and greet you with a blank screen until it can re-acquire signal. Something you often don’t learn until too late – far in the wilderness. Beyond cell coverage, some canyon/bottom areas/cliff areas do not even have reliable GPS device coverage. Electronics have batteries that run out after you spend a few hours lost and using them – let alone more than a day or two. I lost a device when it started raining/snowing and the electronics got just wet enough to stop working/screen fogged up until it was dried out. Electronic devices can be dropped in water, or destroyed if you fall/drop it. Additionally, a surprising number of lost hikers don’t even have the basic navigation skills to understand where they are and how to get somewhere safely with a digital device or map.
Click this YouTube link below to see his great video on baseplate compasses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVf0v0TqoOg
Or Lensatic compasses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI7C8VlbYfI
His youtube channel also has lots of other videos about bearings, navigation on slopes/rough terrain/around obstacles, timing/pacing, etc that are definitely worth checking out.