Noise, assembly, and attention spans

  1. Writing a demoscene intro for the ZX Spectrum: A year-long solo project crams a full demoscene intro with AY soundtrack, VU meters, and parallax starfield into just over 10KB of hand-rolled Z80 assembly on a stock 128Kb Spectrum. (markround.com)
  2. Multiplying noise fields in numpy: The latest sketch-a-day entry pairs numpy with OpenSimplexNoise, multiplying two separate noise series together to build its visual pattern. (github.com)
  3. OpenSimplexNoise vs. Processing's noise: Another entry in the daily sketch series pits OpenSimplexNoise head-to-head against Processing's built-in noise function to compare their textures. (github.com)
  4. NOTUN: designing for damage in cyclone-prone Bangladesh: An Architectural Association project uses water-flow simulation, wind-responsive bamboo housing, and bio-based embankment blocks to design repairable settlements that treat storm damage as inevitable rather than preventable. (creativeapplications.net)
  5. Parker Ito on the dumb truth of contemporary art: The artist discusses postinternet art, Zombie Formalism, and NFTs, coining the term 'Dumb Art' for work that looks flat next to machine-generated images until you look closer. (rightclicksave.com)
  6. Is attention the essence of intelligence?: The history of the attention mechanism gets traced from a 2014 translation experiment to the backbone of today's large language models, with the question of whether it's really intelligence's secret left open. (quantamagazine.org)
  7. AI coding agents generate more code, but not more software: A report digs into claims that AI coding agents boost output, questioning whether a flood of generated code actually adds up to more or better-working software. (unverified) (arstechnica.com)
  8. Linus Torvalds working on a hefty kernel improvement with Claude Code: Linus Torvalds reportedly turned to Claude Code to help with a substantial Linux kernel improvement, according to a report. (unverified) (phoronix.com)
  9. Epic's Fortnite video tries to launder its AI art pipeline: Artists interviewed about Epic's promotional video on Fortnite's 'art concepting process' see it as an attempt to normalize generative AI use within the studio, and they're pushing back. (aftermath.site)
  10. An AI found solutions hiding in plain sight across 22 scientific fields: Rather than inventing anything new, this AI system scanned dozens of scientific fields and surfaced existing but overlooked solutions to open problems. (unverified) (science.org)
  11. Vi Hart's big Navier-Stokes post: Vi Hart delivers a long-form explainer on the Navier-Stokes equations and the math underlying how fluids actually move. (unverified) (patreon.com)
  12. Speeding up the Unreal editor by dropping an overkill hash: Profiling Unreal Engine's startup reveals shader compilation leaning on SHA1 purely to fingerprint source text, and swapping it for a non-cryptographic hash speeds things up considerably. (larstofus.com)

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