Darin

Shares useless information. @ninjacritical

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

My mom's turning 70, should book a table at the club

[Ray Dalio @RayDalio]

I had a blast being out until 4am with my family and friends at UNVRS in Ibiza for my 77th birthday and thought I’d pass it along to turn you onto it, in case you’re in the neighborhood.

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

The Quickest Way Out of a Negative Thought Spiral | Psychology Today https://t.co/WaoDSjbDS4

[Warløck Scalping 🪖 @warlock_trading]

Who made this?? 🤣🤣🤣

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

Cape Verde is awesome

[AnimetrendsRE @AnimetrendsRE]

They made an anime of the Argentina vs Cape Verde match 😭

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

What the Dutch can teach the UK about tackling youth unemployment #anc #southafrica https://t.co/BELjzJ6BaA

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Menstruation ad in South African newspaper The Star

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

@Abramjee @SAPoliceService @pule_jones @eNCA Need to do an expose on Khan and Syed

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

@FightWithMemes Europe compared to Africa was densely populated, constant tribal war over territory and resources, disease and harsh climate resulted in significant progress

[J Stewart @triffic_stuff_]

😂😭 Sacha Baron Cohen as Brüno on a talk show, casually revealing he swapped his iPod for an African baby… while the kid’s rocking a “GAYBY” shirt.

The audience is shocked and outraged from the second he opens his mouth, with immediate gasps, side-eyes, and disbelief. They had ZERO idea it was all a prank for the movie. 😂

Then the host asks for the baby’s name. Bruno replies that he gave him a traditional African name… OJ. 😭

And finally the ending… To “demonstrate how much he loves the child,” they show photos of Bruno & Baby OJ together. The audience reacts with loud gasps of shock before finally walking out in disgust at what they’re seeing. 😱😭

How he keeps a straight face throughout the whole thing is amazing.

[Ole Lehmann @itsolelehmann]

Ex Machina is no longer sci-fi. China has finally built it.

The company is AheadForm, founded in Shanghai.

The product is the world's most hyper-realistic robotic face.

Silicone skin you can't tell from human, 25 micro motors hidden underneath pulling the face into real expressions.

And RGB cameras embedded inside the pupils so when it looks at you, it actually sees you from where its eyes are.

They raised $28.5M to "give AI a head," which is also where the name comes from. AheadForm = a head form.

This is the opposite of where everyone else in robotics is focused.

Unitree, Figure, Tesla, Boston Dynamics: all about the body.

AheadForm chose the face because they think trust is the harder problem to solve, and trust gets decided at the face.

The reason nobody else has tried this is the "uncanny valley."

It's the creepy zone where a robot looks almost human but not quite, and looking at it just feels wrong even when you can't say why.

Most roboticists believed no amount of engineering could make a face realistic enough to escape it.

So they gave up and kept robots cartoonish on purpose: big anime eyes, exaggerated features, clearly synthetic.

But AheadForm decided to treat it as an engineering bug instead.

Add enough motors, tune the silicone, fix the timing, the valley closes.

And they're pulling it off.

A few crazy details about how this actually works:

1. The robot learns its own face in a mirror.

You put it in front of a camera, let it fire every motor randomly, and it watches what its face does and builds an internal map of "if I send command X to motor Y, my eyebrow does this."

Same exact process a human baby uses staring into a mirror. The robot teaches itself who it is by experimenting.

2. It predicts your smile 839 milliseconds before you smile.

By watching the micro-tells in your face that precede a smile, the robot starts smiling 0.8 seconds ahead, so its smile lands at the same moment yours does.

Most robot mimicry happens half a second late, which is exactly why it always feels artificial.

3. The pupils are the cameras.

When the robot makes eye contact, the gaze and the sensor are the same physical thing.

Most humanoid robots stick the camera on the forehead or chest, so they aren't actually looking at you when their eyes are pointed at you.

4. The founder, Yuhang Hu, did his PhD at Columbia under Hod Lipson.

Lipson is the guy who in 2006 built a four-legged robot that figured out it had four legs by experimenting with its own movement, nobody told it the body shape, it discovered it.

He has spent 25 years trying to build machines that know what they are.

AheadForm is that 25-year research arc productized.

5. NetEase Games already paid them to physically embody a fantasy video game character.

That opens up a brand-new category: robotics as the physical embodiment of fictional IP.

Every character-rich studio, Disney, Riot, Hoyoverse, Pokemon, Netflix, now has a question to answer about when their characters get bodies.

AheadForm believes whoever ships the first robot you'd actually want around your family wins.

That's the bet behind the most realistic robot face on earth.

[Mustufa Khan @mustufa4socials]

Article so goated, it surpassed Naval’s original podcast’s impression and bookmark rate.

Imagine surpassing a legendary top investor’s podcast 😂

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

Your name composed of satellite images around the planet https://t.co/7pP9nnYubl

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

Inspiring: Painter Creates Moving Art Pieces Showing Jesus's Influence On The Trump Presidency https://t.co/XqZpyhgPsx

[doomer @uncledoomer]

its crazy that for millenials this was just a mid throwaway indie pop one hit wonder amidst hundreds of others during a golden age of indie music destined to be forgotten, but has recently been rediscovered because music right now is just that fucking bad

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

"Do you support Israel's 'right to exist'?"

It's a 'gotcha' queston and I debunk all the BS surrounding the 'right to exist' propaganda right here:

[The Instigator @Am_Blujay]

When you date your type 😂😂

[SuperSisi @SuperSisi]

Did you watch Ninja Scroll?

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

Cool story bro

[Disclose.tv @disclosetv]

NOW - Hegseth on Iran War timeline: "He [Trump] said four to six weeks, six to eight weeks, three weeks. It could be any particular number, but we would never reveal precisely what it is."

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

No more political interference, kak leadership is the root cause of South Africa's failures

[Simon Brown @SimonPB]

did not know about this .. a big change

[Darin @NinjaCritical]

I have to vote #DA now

[DA Gauteng @DAGauteng]

⛱️🌊 Just another day in the City of Johannesburg.

Let’s get Joburg working. Register to #VoteDA. Visit https://t.co/SzMWMxGkD8.