DnD from the early 2000’s

DnD from the early 2000’s

I recently had a flashback to my own college days when The Gamers movie from Dead Gentlemen came up in my Youtube feed. No series has captured the personalities and real-life nonsense of 90’s and early 2000’s DnD playing with friends so well.

Sit down and give them a watch. This is what the internet was originally designed for. Not monetization and influencer videos, but sharing passions and having fun.

One of their follow-on movies:

Even in mid-2000’s people waxed nostalgic about old DnD:

and of course – the original Summoner Geeks:

Robotic seed planting

Robotic seed planting

Contrary to popular tropes about unintelligent farmers, agriculture has long been in the forefront of technological advances. Farmers have developed and quickly embrace world-changing inventions like tractors, planters, bailers, the cotton gin, and harvesters that replaced backbreaking work that used to be done by hundreds of hands.

In yet another dramatic and astounding embracing of technology, John Deere’s announced its ExactShot planting system that can plant and fertilize 6,600 seeds in 3 seconds.

The system is made up of 54 modular electrified robots and sensors that register when each individual seed goes into the soil. As this occurs, the robot will spray only the amount of fertilizer needed, about 0.2 ML, directly onto the seed at the exact moment it goes into the ground. Instead of needing to continually spray, the targeted fertilizer approach can reduce the amount of fertilizer used by over 60%.

This level of automation means that farmers like Todd Westerfeld, a fifth-generation Texas farmer, can plant wheat, soybeans, corn, and cotton on 5,500 acres with only three people. This is an astounding feat of automation and technology.

Being a farmer today means managing million dollar annual budgets with razor thin margins. I would bet the average farmer handles much more responsibility than 90% of the flashy marketing, sales, or leadership jobs you see on Linkedin. Farmers must manage constantly changing global financial and commodity price conditions, become an expert at financial and production risk management, understanding advanced soil and chemical testing/mapping technologies, stay on top of the latest farm implement innovations, and do all of this with single digit profit margins (in most cases). Nobody else does so much for so little.

Scalable IO vs SR-IOV Virtualization

Scalable IO vs SR-IOV Virtualization

Are the days of SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization) numbered? SR-IOV was originally designed for 20 or so VMs with most instances using 8 vCPUs or less. Now that we have 60-128 cores/120-256 hw threads and beyond with multiple sockets and CXL, things have changed.

Scalable IO offers better scalability, flexibility, over-provisioning, and a Scalable IO system can still support traditional SR-IOV in backwards compatibility mode.

It does this with hardware-assisted, efficient routing and has different modes for direct and intercepted path functionality. I won’t claim I fully grock all the details, but it does seem like a great way to start taking advantage of newer architecture enhancements we’re seeing in a wide variety of upcoming hardware platforms.

Give the spec a read to learn more.

Links:

How to navigate with a compass and map

How to navigate with a compass and map

It is incredible how many seasoned hikers bring compasses, and yet cannot even use them. There are a few things to learn, but shockingly easy once you know.

The Map Reading Company channel has the best video I have seen on the subject

Windows 11 finally gets over 50% installs, then instantly retreats

Windows 11 finally gets over 50% installs, then instantly retreats

After 4 years, Windows 11 installations finally reached an adoption rate of just over 50% – likely due to dire sounding announcements about the end of Windows 10 support. And just one month later, install rate immediately starts a retreat and Windows 10 sees an increase of installs.

The OS wars are long since over, but it is obvious some folks at Microsoft clearly haven’t learned, or just don’t care, about disappointing your customers.

Links:

Isolating particular sounds

Isolating particular sounds

Is your product producing a bad/annoying/loud noise but you can’t figure out where exactly it is coming from? Using a camera with what looks to be a ring of microphones, this device allows you to isolate where sounds are coming from – and what the frequencies of those sounds are. Particularly useful if you want to isolate noises generated by secondary effects (like rushing air) of a device.

Opening the doors to quantum manipulation

Opening the doors to quantum manipulation

MIT physicists have for the first time measured the geometry, or shape, of electrons in solids at the quantum level. Scientists have known how to measure energies and velocities of electrons in crystalline materials, but those systems’ wave form geometry could only be guessed at.

This allows us to understand, and perhaps manipulate, new quantum materials. They’ve already done this by using the technique to discover the mechanism behind quantum materials such as kagome metal.

This is a dramatic development that will help scientists and engineers manipulate, and create materials with unique magnetic, electrical, and physical properties.

Links:

Religious do the same jobs

Religious do the same jobs

People seem to have forgotten that religious were, and often still are, employed in every manner of jobs. Some of the most pre-eminent scientist in history were religious. People such as Augustinian friar Gregory Mendel who is the father of modern genetics. Or Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre, who was regarded as making the first formulation of the Big Bang theory. Or Sister Mary Kenneth Keller who was the first female granted a PhD in Computer Science – and a nun. But there were lots of people like Sister Mary Christina (below video) that did surprisingly interesting everyday jobs – especially in a time period not known for those opportunities being open to women or men.

Religious live their lives in service to the love and care God taught in community – with their lives dedicated to the celibate state so as to focus on what they deem most important. While many scoff at celibacy in a ‘modern’ and ‘liberated’ world, the reality is that even among non-religious, voluntary celibacy is on the rise – especially among younger people. While psychologists are ascribing some of this modern celibacy to fear, the religious person does make celibacy professions out of fear, avoidance, or because of others.

They discern through years of prayer and experienced mentors. By getting to know ourselves through the eyes of God and listening to Him and his teachings of what constitutes true love daily, many learn they would be happier in their vocation in an unmarried state. Others learn that celibacy may not be for them. Both paths are equally good, but which will actually make YOU happier? That’s a question that requires a lot of personal insight and soul searching – something we can only properly do in the light of Truth.

It is a question we could all use some self-reflection on, and make sure of, instead of just falling into one way or the other out of circumstance and regret later.

Transfer Murals with ease

Transfer Murals with ease

Artists used to mark off walls into squares to transfer drawings to walls. It still required a lot of manual eyeballing and skill. Things got a lot easier when people realized they could use digital projectors to simply project the image to the wall and trace it. It still had problems in very bright locations or in narrow areas (like hallways) where you can’t get a single projection. You have to move the projector around and do lots of calibrating of scale to avoid introducing distortions.

Now, people are using VR headsets in AR mode so they can apply images to walls without the projectors. @katdieuxart demonstrates the technique.