Installing Flux.1 with stability matrix
I already had a more in-depth article, but here’s a bit faster one.
Other methods: https://medium.com/@amdadAI/4-methods-how-to-run-flux-locally-onwindows-mac-and-linux-544f4f11eab7
AI still having trouble with gymnastics
I have written about the difficulty AI had in generating gymnastic videos. It appears AI (Sora) hasn’t gotten any better.
When to make your own tools
Mr-Figs asked a great question on the reddit gamedev forum: how do you handle making your own tools needed to make a game?
It used to be that building a game also meant building all the authoring tools to go along with it. With the advent and spread of game engines like Unity, Unreal, Godot (and literally hundreds of others) along with amazing tools like Photoshop and Blender, the need to make your own tooling has dramatically decreased. Almost to the point that in a majority of cases, you probably don’t need to write tools.
Even if you do find you can’t use an existing tool, others suggest using chatGPT to either extend an existing tool or a tool in the engine you’re using via their SDK. Let AI do the work for you since tools are not shipping code nor need to be overly performant.
Strict_Bench_6264 wrote up a whole blog article to describe what he learned:
3D CPU rendering with AVX-512
AVX-512 was created as part of the Intel Larrabee project that I worked on and has made its way into client and high-end desktop systems.
Dannotech demonstrates it for some hard-core CPU graphics rendering – albeit on a 36 core Xeon W9-3475X. He also has other videos that are interesting experiments.
Or how about some AVX-512 ray marching?
More Hacking attacks on Developers
A new campaign tracked as “Dev Popper” is a sophisticated, multi-stage infection chain based on social engineering. Attackers target software developers with fake job interviews in an attempt to trick them into installing a Python remote access trojan.
The target developers are asked to perform tasks supposedly related to the interview by downloading and running code for the interview. The code is infected with obfuscated code/packages that downloads additional binaries that complete the infection. The threat actor’s goal is make their targets download malicious software that gathers system information and enables remote access to the host.
According to Securonix analys of Dev Popper, the campaign is likely orchestrated by North Korean threat actors based on the observed tactics. The connections are not strong enough for attribution, though.
Articles:
Conway’s law
Conway’s Law: Principle, often cited in software development, that states the design of a system will inevitably reflect the communication structures of the organization that created it.
Technical success is not just about having the smartest people/best design. Conway’s law was originally a sociological observation about how teams work. Technical goals can become un-achievable, or velocity will dramatically slow/collapse if the wrong structure, roles, and responsibilities are in place.
Therefore, it’s important to either set up an organization’s structure as well as the team roles and responsibilities (or reorganize the existing one) to achieve the desired design goals.
This law has been interpreted to work both ways. You can affect design through organizational structure, or affect organizational structure by changing design.
Visitors guide to finding Noah’s Ark
Dr Irving Finkel the world famous philologist and Assyriologist of the British Museum, discussed in a recent video a Babylonian cuneiform tablet which he called “the oldest map in the world”.
What makes it so interesting is that it proports to show exactly where Noah’s ark can be found.
The translated text on the reverse of the tablet describes the steps in a traveler’s journey to discover the location of the Ark, describing “seven leagues,” which they must pass through to arrive at the remnants of the ‘parsiktu-vessel’. The map leads to ‘Urartu,’ which was named in an ancient Mesopotamian poem as the Ark’s landing place and is the Assyrian equivalent to “Ararat,”, the mountain location named in the Hebrew Old Testament as the resting place of Noah’s Ark. A location close to Ararat’s summit has long been the speculated location of the Ark’s resting place, as researched by Noah’s Ark Scans. In Finkle’s explanation of the tablet, he explained how ancient travelers taking the path to Urartu may have seen the remains of the mammoth vessel on their journey.
In the Babylonian version of this tale, it is a man named Utnapishtim who undertakes this task. Finkel explained that this tablet demonstrated that “the story was the same … that from the Babylonian point of view, this was a matter of fact thing … that if you did go on this journey you would see the remnants of this historic boat”.
A location close to Ararat’s summit has long been the speculated location of the Ark’s resting place, as researched by Noah’s Ark Scans and the biblical measurements given (“300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits,” which is equal to around 515 feet long by 86 feet wide and 52 feet high) match up with the measurements of the site in modern-day Turkey.
This is just one more interesting bit of ancient evidence Finkel has uncovered showing multiple matching cultural references to a great flood event.
If you’re curious to read more, he is the author of the 2013 book The Ark Before Noah, which goes over the ancient artifacts about a flood event believed to have occurred around 5,000 years ago.
Links:
Super Mario Shining
What happens if Mario ends up in the Overlook Hotel?
765874 – Unification
This nearly dialog-free short film from OTOY and director Carlos Baena uses de-aging tech to bid a farewell to the Captain Kirk – and Spock. The film was created with help from William Shatner and the Nimoy estate for the Roddenberry Archive
Marble water wheel to charge your phone
Engineezy wanted to see if he could create a steel ball water wheel to charge a phone. He spends a surprising amount of time and effort getting the balls to roll smoothly and not jam (he takes inspiration from Wintergatan‘s marble machine). While the finished machine is an impressive feat of engineering, it (obviously) uses tons more electricity than it outputs.
It would have been interesting if he talked to some modern hydro power engineers or old water mill operators since it seems like there is a lot of overlap with hydro power generation and the problems he encountered when it came to extracting power from the balls.