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Anyone who’s done any OpenGL graphics is familiar with the ubiquitous Utah teapot. It’s been a staple in everything from OpenGL to Pixar movies to countless other shows.

As the story goes, Martin Newell needed a simple mathematical model of a familiar object. His wife suggested modelling their tea set since they were sitting down for tea at the time. He sketched the teapot free-hand using graph paper and a pencil. Following that, he went back to the computer laboratory and edited bézier control points on a Tektronix storage tube system, again by hand.

The teapot shape contained a number of elements that made it ideal for the graphics experiments of the time: it was round, contained saddle points, had a genus greater than zero because of the hole in the handle, could project a shadow on itself, and could be displayed accurately without a surface texture.

The good news is that that now you can own your own. The original teapot was made by the German company Friesland. Apparently they were not aware of how famous their teapot had become, but restarted production – even giving it the ‘Utah’ name.

If you want to own your own Friesland Teekanne 1,4l Weiß Utah Teapot – just go to their website and order one today! The original teapot was the white 1.4L model – but other sizes and colors are available.

Update Jan 2024:

A great tragedy. It appears the Friesland factory that made the teapots was destroyed in a major fire.

On June 29, 2023, decades of German porcelain history and tradition were destroyed during a major fire on our company premises. For this reason, we are unfortunately unable to supply you with any of our old series pieces. It was simply: EVERYTHING was destroyed .

However, we are looking forward optimistically and are doing everything we can to build a new factory at the old Varel location. Parts of our popular series Jeverland white, Ecco and La Belle as well as the Walküre series Alta and NYNY are already partially available again.

I sent them an email and asked if they would have the teapots back in stock. There is no eta on when it, or any of their legacy series, will ever come back. Here was their response:

From: Service | Frieslandversand.de 
Date: Jan 5, 2024, 12:43 AM

Dear Mr. Fife,

[Until now] we don`t know when this year we are able
to deliver the teapots. Until now we don`t have a production
here after the great fire in June and we are making test at other sites
in Germany for the production of these articles.

With kind regards

The team of Friesland-Porzellan

Links:

• https://frieslandversand.de/teekanne-1-4l-weiss-utah-teapot
• https://friesland-porzellan.de/utah-teekanne
• https://friesland-porzellan.de/produkte/information

The new nVidia 4000 series cards are out – and at least part of the hyperbole about them is true. Jensen declares Moore’s law is dead to justify the high prices (it certainly couldn’t be because they’ve not kept up with new chiplet design that both AMD and Intel use to reduce power, heat, and cost). They have gigantic heat sinks that means they require at least 3.15 slots (bigger ones require 4 full slots) and have power requirements that are melting power cables.

But nVidia is late to the game. Meet the king of 90’s graphics! The BitchinFast 3D 2000! There’s even a great video review of this fictional monster along with a Bungholiomarks test run. I give this guy full credit for taking this card to the max.

It even came with a great advertisement that touted it’s amazing Bungholio marks scores.

Cassie the robot is no Usain Bolt, but did established a Guinness World Record for the fastest 100 meters by a bipedal robot. The historic time of 24.73 seconds was achieved by starting from a standing position and returning to that position after the sprint with no falls. Though staying in your lane was apparently optional.

Cassie was invented at the Oregon State University College of Engineering and produced by Agility Robotics. This achievement was accomplished through robot learning and almost a year of simulation, condensed down to a matter of weeks.

Some adults share things they think teens aren’t ready to hear – but it is actually some solid advice for all ages. Do you have some of your own to add?

1. Social media is not reality and your entire life should not revolve around it.
2. Everything you’re doing now as a teenager will be utterly cringe to your children.
3. You won’t feel different when you’re older, or have kids. You’ll just be you – it’s just weird
4. Today’s eyebrows are tomorrow’s clown makeup
5. In 15 years you’re going to think kids have gone too far and they’re going to think you’re old fashioned
6. Getting good at stuff will take time. Sometimes a lot of time. And sometimes you’ll spend lots of time on somethinig and you still won’t get good at it. That’s the human experience. Some things you struggle with will come very easily for other but some things they struggle with will be very easy to you. Don’t be made someone else possesses a skill you don’t, and don’t be a jerk for possessing skills many others don’t.
7. Nobody wants to hear whatever TikTok you’re watching. Buy some damn headphones.
8. Being controversial isn’t the same as being interesting.
9. School has a system for keeping you from falling behind. Life does not.
10. Just because you f*-ed something up does NOT mean you’re a f*-up
11. Things will likely take significantly longer to achieve than you think.
12. “Life is not like a video game where you just keep leveling up. Sometimes the thing you built will fall apart and you will have to repeatedly do the same thing over and over. However, don’t beat yourself up about it – this is normal. With experience you will also become more adept at facing and resolving problems, so each time the same problem repeats you will be better at solving them.” – This one I sort of agree and disagree with. If you’re on a treadmill of repeated failures, especially failing the same way, then there’s probably a pattern there that needs to change.
13. Not everyone can be an internet sensation, somebody has to drive the dump truck.
14. One day you too will be old and uncool. It’ll happen faster than you think.
15. Just because it’s new to you doesn’t mean it’s new.
16. As you get older you just keep realizing how dumb you were last year.
17. That heartache you’re going through? It consumes everything now but it will be nothing but a footnote in the future. You’ll rarely think about it later and when you do it won’t hurt you. It’s hard to hear that your pain isn’t the worst in the world when you’re feeling it, but it does help to know that it won’t mean as much as it does in this moment.

Jason Allen spent roughly 80 hours working on his entry to the Colorado State Fair’s digital arts competition. Judges awarded him first place, which came with a $300 prize.

Allen’s victory took a turn when he revealed online that he’d created his prize-winning art using Midjourney, an artificial intelligence program that can turn text descriptions into images.

The revelation (which he made even when he dropped off the submission) has sparked intense debate as to what constitutes art – to the point that it’s spawned people saying it’s the death of art. As AI enters each field, and then soon does better than even the best people (which we’ve seen time and again), we’re going to have to re-think society and work. When everyone can use AI tools to make the best of anything in the world – it’s going to have profound impact on everything.

I suspect we’ll see this in our lifetimes based on the current rate of AI growth and capabilities. I, like many others, wonder if we’ll survive it.

Read more about the controversy on the Smithsonian website.

Saildrone Explorer SD 1078 is an unmanned wave-rider that dove into the heart of Hurricane Fiona in the Atlantic Ocean this week. It sent back some wild video as it battled 50-foot (15-meter) waves and winds in excess of 100 mph (160 km/h).

These little Saildrones are increasingly sailing around the world’s oceans collecting valuable data. Below is SD 1078’s eerie video from inside Hurricane Fiona.