Very cool. I was surprised that orangutans are described as being only 2 feet 9 inches tall, I think most are a bit larger. Maybe when sitting they're under 3 feet? From wikipedia:
"females typically stand 115 cm (45 in) tall and weigh around 37 kg (82 lb), while adult males stand 137 cm (54 in) tall and weigh 75 kg (165 lb). The tallest orangutan recorded was a 180 cm (71 in)."
It's using the size of the ruler, matching the posture as shown in the image. A few keys over and there's a picture of a grizzly bear that says it is 1m or 3'4" tall. And maybe when it's on all fours, that's a typical measurement to the shoulders - its arm length, more or less.
That's much shorter than the human at 1.7m or 5'7". From just those numbers, you might think that a human would weigh more than a grizzly or take one in a fight: But when a bear stands on its hind legs, it's 2.4m/8' tall and can be 800 lbs, I'd have put a grizzly way further to the right.
As a Steam-based game developer, I am starting to use AI more and more in new projects for asset generation (images and text) as well as some help with code. Here are some of my ideas for why we haven't yet seen a huge increase in steam game releases due to AI:
1: Even with AI, it's a lot of work to make a full game. When most people think "I have a cool game idea", they're usually imagining something polished and non-trivial, possibly 3d. You could make a short text adventure in a few days with AI, or a very simplistic 2d game, but anything more ambitious (like 3d) is going to take a lot more effort.
2: Releasing on steam requires you to pay $100. I imagine this is a substantial deterrent for "3-day projects", unless you think it'll sell $100 worth.
3: There's more to game development than creating assets and writing code. The author of the article recreated an existing game, which sidesteps one of the most difficult parts of gamedev: design. Creating a compelling game is surprisingly difficult. Granted, you don't need a compelling game in order to release on steam, but I myself have made many prototypes over the years which I've abandoned because the idea just wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be.
4: I've made a few prototypes with AI assets, and one issue I frequently run into with image generation is: it still takes a fair amount of work to generate the same character in different poses, facial expressions, outfits, etc.
5: There is still considerable prejudice against using AI to make game assets. I think some people (myself included) are hesitant to release a game with lots of AI generated assets at the current moment, for fear of public backlash. Eventually that will calm down and it will become more socially acceptable to use AI to generate game assets.
I am bullish about AI improvement over the next decade, and I think we'll gradually see all of these issues resolve themselves as AI improves. But at the present moment, it's not quite as easy as the article makes it seem.
> 5: There is still considerable prejudice against using AI to make game assets. I think some people (myself included) are hesitant to release a game with lots of AI generated assets at the current moment, for fear of public backlash. Eventually that will calm down and it will become more socially acceptable to use AI to generate game assets.
This is mostly from artists themselves. Most people are ok with even fully generated content if it's fun and interesting. Anyway, solo developer cannot afford even single artist, musician, writer.
That's where LLM helps. I recently tried GPT5 for story telling. Gave it a single image (in a bar, women, man, and a gun) and asked for a short story. Then asked for the next part 6 times. Every time at the end for illustration. The result was consistent and readable. Images generated had even similar faces. Remember, that was a problem with earlier models. I'm sure this will be used fill Amazon's bookshelves.
A more accurate analogy would be: you bought a physical DVD and DVD player, but now the film studio is preventing you from playing the DVD that you own on the hardware you own. In which case yes, we should regulate. Paying for access to a constantly changing library is not the same as paying to permanently own a single product.
What term would you prefer he use? "Offspring"? "Biological children"? I agree that he is in no way a father in the same sense as others who have actually helped raise children, but I also don't think he's claiming to be, and his phrasing makes sense to me. He is literally their father (in the most uninvolved way possible), and they are literally his children.
As an adopted person "biological <insert title>" has worked well for the parents that had sex to make me. For a donor parent, I probably just use "donor <insert title>". I'd advise not worrying too much about the language though. Being kind and thoughtful is far more important than selecting the correct words. A snap judgment selection of proximal words is sloppy but it's impractical to pause to select exactly the right language in all cases for all statements. So too with something this sensitive it might be good to slow a little.
My main point in the last comment is that inserting himself into their lives at all is disrespectful. He doesn't need a word for them because he has no relationship to them: he was an anonymous donor to enable their actual parents to have kids that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to have.
Agreed, it's highly unlikely. But they have a choice, it's not forced by anyone. If they do nothing (maybe their parents never tell them, or they don't read news, or facial recognition never informs them of similarity), there's no inheritance. If they take consensual action to make a claim via DNA paternity test, the inheritance can be claimed.
I was surprised at how closely your experience (and a commenter's experience) mirror my own. During my life, I've had a few periods of a few months where I focus intensely and work nonstop, and the work does not feel like effort at all. For me, it also comes with a sense of complete confidence, a feeling like I am fulfilling my purpose in life and that everything is exactly as it should be. It is the best sustained feeling I've ever experienced.
Unfortunately I've only experienced this three times in my life; typically around major life events (once when starting a new job in a new industry, once when quitting that job to make my own stuff, and once in grade school: the summer between 10th and 11th grade, for some reason). I look forward to seeing more research, and hopefully one day can apply these learnings to manually trigger this intense focus and motivation.
This is spot on. As a baby, you typically have two affectionate caretakers who dedicate a significant amount of their time to teaching you language/words, and also shower you with love/praise/attention for every little bit of incremental progress. Also, you're in an immersion program: you often can't communicate your wants/needs until you've learned the language, which adds another layer of incentive.
As an adult, if you were sent to an immersion program in a foreign country with two full-time foreign tutors/caretakers who loved you, like legitimately loved you with all their hearts, you would pick up that new language pretty darn quick.
Exactly; the advantage of input-based approaches is not their speed. You'll learn a lot faster if you spend the time on flashcards, grammar drills, and studying.
The advantage is that it's easier, and often more pleasant, to integrate.
That said, babies do have some neuroplasticity advantages.
We should play to our strengths - babies are hopeless at grammar drills, and adults aren't as good as babies at neuroplasticity - by applying our brain to the problem.
I say that, while having built a comprehensible input tool (https://nuenki.app). But it's useful as a complement to that study, as you can more readily run a browser extension or listen to podcasts than devote your entire life to focused study.
The #1 thing that has helped me stick to habits over the long term is starting out as easy as I possibly can. I've been exercising consistently for years now, and what finally got me to stick with it was doing 1 pushup per day. That's it. I did one pushup per day for 5 days, then I moved to 2 per day, and started ramping up faster as time went on.
I've applied the same "make it as easy as humanly possible" to other habits (working on something for 5 minutes, for example) and it seems to work really well.
I believe the reason this works for me is because 1) it's laughably easy at the start, and I can knock it out in practically no time, and 2) I ramp up slowly enough that by the time it actually starts feeling difficult, I already have the habit established. The surest way for me to abandon a habit is by trying to do too much early on.
Another thing that is death to my habits is feeling guilt/shame about missing a day. If you miss a day, don't beat yourself up. It happens. Just remind yourself why you picked the habit, and try again. Maybe lower the difficulty a bit next time.
Plus, in my experience it helps to develop an easy habit first, reestablish one's belief in oneself, and then do the harder habit(s). When I was struggling with dieting - cutting out the unhealthy stuff - I first started playing the piano daily, and after hitting something like a 50 day streak it was a whole lot easier for me to start dieting (and keeping at it).
As someone on the spectrum, though, it takes very little to break a habit - as someoneone else has posted here as well. Just one or two days where I am travelling and it's very difficult to get back, and one broken habit often leads to all of the habits-in-progress being dropped all at once. (So, I bought a travel piano, for instance).
I find it helpful in those situations to remember what David Allen said about when that happens: "you may have fallen off the horse, but you can always saddle up again"
Those things come with a cost. Erode self esteem and reinforce the idea that failure is a very real option, since "its easy to get back on the horse later".
My piano teacher tells me that every single mistake takes two successes to undo, and I think this is the same with habit forming. Keep failing and you are not going to get better at getting back on the horse, you will get better at quitting and accepting defeat.
> Erode self esteem and reinforce the idea that failure is a very real option
I feel differently about failure. I think failure failure is always, constantly, an option. But that doesn't mean it should erode my self esteem.
I don't want to negate your piano teacher's advice, because I think there's an element of truth in there, and I'm not sure what your goals are. But as a fellow (hobby) pianist who gave it away for 5 years from burnout, I now prefer to follow Stephen King's advice:
There’s also the problem where avoiding failure leads to more conservative goals. If you look at failure as a thing to avoid, you won’t try as hard as songs when you’re learning piano. You might get good, but you’ll never reach your potential.
Reaching your potential may not be compatible with experiencing joy through. In my experience I’ve been happier and better at doing things I like doing.
Always wanted to learn playing guitar, interact socially or starting a business but boy those makes me so bored.
Breaking the chain of habit is something everyone will run into at one point and it's important to understand that it's the natural order of things that it will happen. Inevitably at one point you will either be sick, or have something important, or life will throw a wrench at you — and that's okay. The important thing is that if you still want it, you get back at it. I've been lifting weights nearly all my life and I can't even begin to count the times I've missed days, weeks, sometimes months because of various reasons. What matters is that you get back to it after.
I did something similar with HIIT workouts (don’t be fooled, the intensity wasn’t super high to begin with!) which worked because I couldn’t possibly tell myself I “didn’t have time” for a 10 minute workout.
Same. When I started running 5 years ago, I started with under 1km runs. Slowly built up to 5km runs over a 3 or so years. The hardest bit is getting out bed, once that habit is in the rest is easy.
I also found that not timing myself worked really well. Too many times I would finish a run feeling good, check my time and then feel bad that I didn't beat my pb. Stopped that and every run was positive.
Exactly, make things as convenient as possible. That's why I have weights and a yoga mat, no excuse to take 30 minutes from the day to do a HIIT workout.
I think there's an opportunity here for a review platform that only shows you reviews from individuals that you personally trust. "Find a trusted friend" but for the internet.
The problem with reviews from individuals (trusted friends or complete strangers), is that for major purposes they only get to deeply evaluate a single product. So they could tell you if they are happy with the fridge they bought, but they wouldn’t be able to do a detailed comparison between multiple fridges.
This will lead to you getting a product that’s good enough, but there may be a superior quality/value option that you don’t know about
Could have been an interesting application for social networking. (Friend of a friend)^n. I’d probably trust most of my friends, and most of their friends, not to be bots. Probably want to see the links, past that.
I have thought of moving to Nevada or Arizona just to be closer to the equator. However, it is going to be hard to leave the PNW because I love hiking and backpacking. Maybe I should snowbird down south in the winters once I ditch work for good.
Consider a one-week trip to Hawaii in the darkest time of winter; supplementation studies have shown that the body can safely absorb and store 100K IU, that it takes about 2 months to deplete such an amount. Your skin produces 20k IU in 30 minutes on a sunny day at the beach (wearing a swimsuit). If you're in the PNW (or central Europe at the Southern German border) your skin cannot produce vitD from October through April because of how low the sun is in the sky even at its zenith.
I definitely should do more sunny trips in the fall/winter. I am going to try tanning in a UVB bed a couple times a week during the bad months this year. I have heard that it has helped some people.
> However, it is going to be hard to leave the PNW because I love hiking and backpacking.
I'd argue that the desert southwest is a great place for hiking though you obviously have to plan around the extreme temperatures. But the mountain ranges tend to be significantly cooler and a viable option in the summer. The big downside, more for backpacking, is that you either have to: carry all your water, stash water ahead of time, or refill at springs that may be unreliable.
Yeah, I have only hiked day trips in Nevada and Arizona in the Summer. I definitely want to try at least an overnight trip in the cooler months or at the higher altitudes. It is on my list of things to do.
"females typically stand 115 cm (45 in) tall and weigh around 37 kg (82 lb), while adult males stand 137 cm (54 in) tall and weigh 75 kg (165 lb). The tallest orangutan recorded was a 180 cm (71 in)."