Did you know the US Mint has a really interesting online shop? One of their more interesting products is uncut sheets of currency. You can get uncut sheets of most denominations: $1, $5, $10, $50, $100, and even the wonderful $2 bill. The sheets come in lots of different formats too. You can usually buy sheets of 50, 32, 25, 20, 10, 8, and even 4 note configurations.
Some gotchas:
You may need to come back to the site multiple times over a period of months if you have something specific. $2 bills were out of stock for almost a year at one point during Covid but have recently returned. In addition, since this is legal currency, the cost of the sheet is actually more than the full face value of all the bills on the sheet. For example, a 32 sheet of $2 costs $102 (more than the $64 face value). A 50 note sheet of $1 is $86. A 16 note sheet of $100 bills costs an eye watering $1860.
Adding to recent discussions about the ‘script kiddie’ Flipper Zero hardware hacking device, a new video appears to show someone burning up a smart electric meter by issuing power cycling commands really fast.
If you have a Multnomah County or other local library subscription, you can use get a New York Times group pass via your online Library card. It allows you to log into NYT’s website or via the mobile app. You’ll need to claim then renew the pass every few days, but a lot cheaper than paying for a subscription.
If you want more unlimited access to all magazine holdings (such as The Economist, Smithsonian, Inc, Fast Company, Wallpaper, etc) by using the PressReader website or app and logging in with your library card information.
A guy went in for surgery and the anesthesiologist said things were so safe now they just had to push this one button to start the anesthesia flow and then monitor him during the operation. The man, excited, asked the doctor if he minded if he got to push the button to start the anesthesia.
There is a new stop-motion game like The Neverhood and Armikrog or recent movies from Laika. Harold Halibut is a adventure game that uses stop-motion and physically captured model objects to tell the story of a community that crashes their spaceship into a planet covered by the sea.
They made all the objects and stop-motion characters by hand, with real cloth, paint, sculpting, etc. When they realized how much work the stop-motion animation was going to be, the big idea was to 3D scan their hand crafted scenes, objects, and characters in the classic T pose, then use standard digital rigging systems to apply motion captured animations instead of painstakingly hand-animating every frame.
While this was a brilliant method to reduce the massive amounts of time and animation effort required, it still took them over 14 years to complete the game. They freely admit that most of that time was spent just figuring out the workflows since they weren’t well versed in game development tools. Still, what takes Laika hundreds of workers years was completed by this team with a fraction of that effort. They were able to add use all kinds of amazing effects and create scenes nearly impossible for true stop-motion animation.
Watching the resultant gameplay, some of the scenes are gorgeous. The close-ups and dialog shots are amazing and the facial animations are butter smooth. There are even tiny idle animations and movements that you would never do with stop-motion and a great depth to the game by letting you freely walk around – something impossible with hand-modeled animation. But there is maybe the only gripe: it’s too smooth.
Part of what makes stop-motion animation so quaint and ‘comfy’ is the little imperfections and limitations like clothing that interacts differently and animations that randomly pop and hitch. With this method, I notice the animations (especially walking animations) are a little too smooth and they often lose that stop-motion quality. There are times when they stretch the mesh too much and it becomes obvious the model is just getting stretched/bent. Individual clothing layers do not interact separately – they bend together as one. It feels like a solid plastic model – instead of having individually reacting layers of clothing/hair/etc. There is also none of the random occasional popping of clothing/animations mysteriously between 2 frames.
There could be ways to fix this by turning off random parts of motion blending between keyframes and having shaders that could randomly add some pop/hitching. Layers of materials could be animated separately. Still, it’s a noticeable distraction and difference between real stop-motion.
Also very noticeable is that the lighting is computed not physical. Especially in the larger/wider scenes, lighting is clearly rendered and it makes things look flat. Objects do not cast the physically correct kinds of shadows or receive mixes of soft and hard lighting edges as if the physical objects were place together and lit as a whole. This makes the rendered versions of the 3D objects (especially in wide shots) look flatter than they would if the real scene were physically created and lit.
This is definitely a novel new technique that is likely going to transform some of the industry. I think it has some amazing possibilities for speeding up dialog and closer-up shots; but probably not good at totally re-creating the aesthetics of stop-motion. I do think some of the smoothness/deformation and lighting issues could be fixed – but that will take a lot more work. Interestingly enough, Laika goes the OTHER direction. They computer generate/animate their faces in modeling tools, then physically 3D print them to put onto the objects into the physical world.
Physical activity has been shown to substantially improve wellbeing and mental health, but most research on this topic has so far focused on deliberate exercise. But it’s unclear how spontaneous movement in daily life impacts patients seeking mental health treatment.
In 2021, a small study of 67 participants found everyday activities, like walking to the tram stop or climbing a flight of stairs, made people feel more alert and energetic.
Further magnetic resonance imaging of participants’ brains showed those who felt more energetic after movement had a larger volume of gray brain matter in the subgenual cingulate cortex – a part of the brain associated with emotional regulation.
CES 2024 showed off a lot of new automotive tech and was focused on AI – but largely gone were the earth-shattering predictions of fully autonomous driving. So if driverless cars aren’t ready to fully replace human drivers for some time – what’s the alternative?
Instead we saw other things like around improving driver-car control. Distractions surrounding using and correcting existing map/audio/infotainment systems can cause accidents. To help, Mercedes decided to add ChatGPT to it’s in-car voice control in the MBUX Virtual Assistant to promote more natural interaction with the car. VW and BMW also announced it was also adding ChatGPT to it’s in-car voice control.
Perhaps fully autonomous driving is a bridge too far right now, but we can greatly improve the driving experience in countless little ways like this. Like many have said, I don’t need an AI that does all the things I want to do – I want an AI that does all the little, dumb things I DON’T want to do (like laundry and dishes).
The Oregon Supreme Court approved an alternative licensing program that allows candidates to spend 675 hours working under the supervision of an experienced attorney and create a portfolio of legal work that bar officials will grade as an alternative to the traditional bar exam.
