Dave Prout

Product x Technical Art 👾 Frmr Epic Games, Halo, Doom, COD, Dreamworks 👾 Non-partisan 💜 Liker of controversial tweets. Aspiring Christian.

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

They're happening because

// The setup

1. The Fed dropped a key interest rate after 9/11...

2. This pushed investors looking for good returns to high speculation, which included "tech"

3. "startups" became cool between dot com bust and subprime mortgage crisis

4. Most film budgets exploded to include visual effects, studios began consolidating due to increasing costs to compete, culminating in Marvel infinity stones saga + Disney owning everything

5. Game budgets exploded with each new console, game dev studios funded via speculative investment cash (directly or indirectly), culminating in sequelitis and looks like a Microsoft vs Sony war is next (and Nintendo will waltz through it, impervious, with the Switch being the lowest-end device for Fortnite)

// The drop (aka why now?)
6. The world wide panic response to Covid caused the US to print so much money that it's equivalent to 40% of all cash ever printed by the US in the last 3 years

7. The Fed HAS to stop the bleeding by raising rates or the economic will explode

8. This is the first meaningful rise in rates since 9/11

9. The entire tech and entertainment sector was living heavily on speculative welfare money for 20 years but didn't realize it

10. The US is at $31 trillion (with a T) in national debt with interest accruing in November of $1 Trillion PER MONTH for the first time

11. The smarter folks at the big gaming companies see what's going on and have pre-emptively tightened their belts and battened down the hatches because a huge storm is coming

12. Hundreds of billions has been printed for Ukraine and now Israel

13. Jobs report shows way more people are working multiple jobs to make ends meet (but this is buried in rosy sounding jobs numbers)

// What can we do?

14. Expect to need to get scrappier than we think we will. Work extra freelance while it's still there. More projects will run out of cash next year. Take the work while it's there.

15. Realize we're in a sea change. Next console cycle is coming. AI is here. Corporate game companies know that brands aren't enough anymore - they need platforms. Which is why UEFN, Roblox, etc.

16. This means VFX artists will compete with each other as fellow creators instead of team members. Same with most art categories.

17. Become a creator or support a creator. Find your paying audience and give them what they want to see.

18. Remember that story about those parents who told their kid who wanted to play in the NBA? Have a backup plan. That's an idea worth spreading.

When the dust settles everything will look different, but the same. There will be short and long-form entertainment. It has to be priced in a way that most people can afford to buy it. Tons more "everyday stuff" will be automated. We may not even shop at a supermarket anymore - the groceries will just be delivered.

Remember https://t.co/E38LWEj39a?

What ideas do we have right now that are just before their time? We should make those.

❤️

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

@pushmatrix This is really cool

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

@n1neshards Please share your prompt/technique. GitHub?

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

Bravo!

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

On me demande souvent si je crois vraiment que l'Occident va gagner.

Alors j'ai fait le calcul. Froidement. Avec les données, pas avec l'espoir.

Voici les odds.

D'abord, concédons tout ce qui doit l'être. Le wokisme tient encore les universités. Il tient les administrations. Il tient une génération entière de Millennials diplômés, installés dans les postes intermédiaires pour trente ans. Seulement 5% des entreprises ont réellement supprimé leurs programmes DEI. Le reste a juste changé les étiquettes. Le vocabulaire meurt, la nomenklatura reste en poste. Quiconque vous dit que c'est déjà gagné vous ment.

Maintenant, regardez les courbes.

The Economist a mesuré la présence des idées woke dans quatre domaines: opinion publique, médias, universités, entreprises. Partout la même courbe. Montée en 2015, pic en 2021-2022, déclin continu depuis. "White privilege" apparaissait 2,5 fois par million de mots dans la grande presse américaine en 2020. Trois ans plus tard: 0,4. Chez les étudiants américains, l'identification non-binaire a été divisée par deux entre 2022 et 2025. Le soutien à BLM s'effondre année après année.

Une idéologie ne meurt pas quand on la réfute. Elle meurt quand elle cesse de recruter. Et elle a cessé de recruter.

Dans les urnes, c'est un réalignement historique. Pour la première fois de l'histoire moderne, les partis anti-système sont simultanément en tête dans les trois principales économies d'Europe. Reform écrase tout au Royaume-Uni avec un Starmer à -61 de popularité nette. L'AfD devant la CDU. Le RN plus haut que jamais. L'Italie gouvernée. L'Autriche, le Portugal, les Pays-Bas qui basculent. Trump réélu. Milei qui redresse l'Argentine en direct.

Ce n'est pas une vague. C'est tout le bloc occidental qui rejette le même logiciel en même temps.

Pourquoi maintenant? Parce que l'idéologie a commis l'erreur que sa version précédente avait mis 70 ans à commettre: elle a pris le pouvoir. Une idéologie d'opposition est irréfutable. Une idéologie au pouvoir produit des résultats. De 2020 à 2024 elle a gouverné, et le réel a recommencé à envoyer ses réfutations, comme Budapest 1956, comme les boat people. Tout le monde a vu les villes ingérables, les écoles effondrées, les fondatrices de BLM s'acheter quatre manoirs avec l'argent de la cause. Le peuple n'a pas eu besoin de lire Foucault. Il a regardé qui s'enrichissait en prêchant le sacrifice.

Et puis il y a le facteur que ni l'URSS ni la French Theory n'ont jamais eu à affronter.

En 2024, Peter Thiel dîne avec Elon Musk. Thiel lui dit: si Trump perd, je quitte le pays. Elon répond: "There's nowhere to go." Il n'y a nulle part où aller. Thiel rentre chez lui et comprend deux heures plus tard ce qu'il vient d'entendre: Elon ne croit plus en Mars comme refuge. Parce que le gouvernement socialiste et l'IA woke le suivraient jusque sur Mars.

L'homme qui construit des fusées pour quitter la Terre venait de conclure que la fuite était impossible.

Qu'a-t-il fait de ce désespoir? Il n'a pas émigré. Il a racheté la place publique mondiale, cassé le monopole de la censure, mis sa fortune dans la bataille. Cet homme est aujourd'hui en route pour devenir le premier trillionaire de l'histoire de l'humanité, et il a fait de la destruction de cette idéologie un objectif explicite. Jamais, dans toute la guerre froide, le monde libre n'a eu un atout pareil. Les dissidents soviétiques tapaient des samizdats à la machine. Nous, nous avons les fusées, les modèles d'IA et les réseaux de distribution de l'information entre les mains de gens qui ont choisi notre camp.

Reste le mécanisme de fond, celui que presque personne ne voit.

Le wokisme est une économie politique de la rareté. Il a besoin de gatekeepers qui contrôlent l'accès aux carrières. Il a besoin de commissaires entre vous et le résultat. Il a besoin que les places soient rares pour que leur redistribution ait un sens. Son apogée fut le covid: populations immobilisées, dépendantes des canaux officiels, chaque interaction soumise à autorisation. Le pic du projet globaliste et le pic woke tombent la même année dans toutes les données. Ce n'est pas une coïncidence. C'est le même phénomène.

L'IA détruit les trois piliers à la fois. Elle pulvérise le diplôme comme péage. Elle remplace l'organisation et ses commissaires par un individu et ses agents. Elle casse la somme nulle en créant l'abondance cognitive. Une idéologie de gestion de la pénurie ne survit pas à la fin de la pénurie. Le marxisme économique n'a pas survécu aux Trente Glorieuses, il a dû muter en marxisme culturel. Cette fois, la mutation n'a nulle part où aller: l'IA attaque aussi le monopole du récit.

Une seule condition. Que l'IA reste entre les mains des bâtisseurs. Une IA capturée serait l'inverse exact: le commissaire politique installé dans chaque poche. C'est le seul scénario de défaite totale, et je le chiffre à 5-10%.

Donc voici mes odds, posées publiquement pour qu'on puisse me juger dessus.

Perte de l'hégémonie culturelle woke d'ici 2030: 90-95%. C'est presque déjà fait.

Perte des institutions d'ici 2035: 55-65%. C'est la bataille de la décennie, la plus dure.

Victoire civilisationnelle de l'Occident d'ici 2040: 60-70%. Conditionnée à une seule variable: qui écrit les valeurs dans les machines.

Probabilité que dans quinze ans on regarde 2020-2024 comme le pic historique du wokisme, son 1977 à lui, l'extension maximale juste avant le reflux: 85%.

Alors non, le UK n'est pas fini. La France n'est pas finie. En 1975, les bâtisseurs étaient apolitiques et les clercs avaient le monopole du récit. En 2026, les bâtisseurs possèdent les canaux et sont entrés dans la bataille. C'est une inversion du rapport de force sans précédent depuis 1966.

Le déclinisme n'est pas de la lucidité. C'est l'idéologie ennemie qui tourne dans votre tête et vous fait faire son travail gratuitement.

Il n'y a jamais eu autant d'espoir pour le monde libre. Le vrai. Pas le mirage de 1989.

Au travail.

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

@Jonathan_Blow Any chance the demo is coming on switch too? 🙏

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

Encouraging!!

[The Real Mike Rowe @mikeroweworks]

https://t.co/W5E3KgVZ9p
As most of you here know, my foundation has sent thousands of men and women to trade schools all over America. Through our work ethic scholarship program, mikeroweWORKS has helped train the next generation of skilled workers, and in the coming months and years, we’ll train thousands more. But the truth is, there aren’t enough trade schools in the country to meet the current need, and a lot of people who might otherwise consider a career in the skilled trades, have been discouraged by the cost of doing so.

Happily, a lot of influential CEO's have done the math and concluded that closing the skills gap is nothing less than a matter of national security. Every week, some leader in some consequential industry calls to tell me about a new initiative to reinvigorate the trades, and many have reached out to see if mikeroweWORKS might join their efforts to help train the next generation of skilled workers. Recently, I’ve been really encouraged by companies like @WellsFargo, @BlackRock, @Ford @HomeDepot, @Lowes, and so many others – all looking for better ways to make a more persuasive case for hundreds of thousands of AI-proof, six-figure jobs that don’t require a four-year degree. The most recent initiative to hit my radar comes from Meta. It looks promising, and I’m happy to support it.

The attached op-ed appeared in yesterday’s The @WSJ and outlines the details of The American Workforce Academy - a five-week, super-intensive training program that doesn’t cost the workers a dime. In fact, the workers are actually paid as they learn. And then, they’re guaranteed a job on the other side. I co-authored the piece with Dina Powell-McCormick the President of @Meta, and today, Dina and I'll be making the rounds on the usual networks, talking about the pressing need to attract more workers into the skilled trades as soon as possible.

The AI economy, like it or not, is upon us, and the infrastructure that’s being proposed to support it will cost upwards of $10 trillion and require hundreds of thousands of skilled workers. Workers that, for the moment anyway, do not exist. I know that data centers are controversial, and I know people are nervous about AI. I’m not downplaying any of that. In fact, I think it’s really important for those in power to make a more persuasive case for a future that has so many unsettled. All I can tell you for sure is that the future is coming at us very quickly. The AI Race is real, the stakes a very high, and the United States cannot afford to lose.
On the other hand, we can’t possibly hope to win, without skilled labor. This program, and others like it, are an important step in the right direction.

COMMENTARY (U.S.)
High-Tech Seeks Skilled Tradesmen

Americans have been told a fable about our economic future. Construction and manufacturing were giving way to a digital economy based on knowledge alone. Skilled labor was outdated. Shop class was defunded. Four-year degrees were idolized. Blue-collar job losses and brittle supply chains were the price of progress.

This myth assumed that high-tech and the trades were alternatives, even rivals. In fact, they are interdependent. For 250 years, America has claimed the lion’s share of the world’s greatest inventions. But it was generations of American workers who strung the telegraph wire, laid the railroad tracks, and built the interstate highways and buried the fiber. They shared in the prosperity that resulted.

The artificial-intelligence revolution shows that America’s technological progress and skilled workforce are still inseparable. To maintain our technological edge, we need to build infrastructure at scale and with great speed. This requires better pathways into high-paying trades for Americans hungry for opportunity.

The skilled trades and Silicon Valley need each other—and America’s future needs them both.
That’s why Meta and our partners, including the @ABCNational and the The National Urban League are announcing the launch of America’s Workforce Academy, the largest private-sector commitment to the skilled trades in American history, beginning with a $115 million commitment in the first year and committing hundreds of millions over time.

AWA will reject the failed approach that asks workers to pay for their own training and hope to be rewarded with a job. The men and women who enroll will be paid for their time. Parents won’t be blocked from learning tomorrow’s skills because they need to put food on the table today. Courses will take weeks and leave graduates with industry-standard certifications in high-demand fields such as electrical work, mechanical systems and plumbing. Every graduate will be guaranteed a job on a @Meta partner’s construction site. AWA, we believe, is the start of a revolution our economy needs.

Practically every major industry is desperate to hire more skilled workers. The mikeroweWORKSFoundation has spent years sounding this alarm. At Metaalone, we anticipate needing thousands more workers as we build infrastructure to empower students, families and small-business owners.

There is no lack of Americans eager to learn and work. Earlier this year, Meta launched LevelUp, a smaller training program focused on fiber installation. In the first seven days, we received more than 35,000 applications for 1,000 openings. Demand isn’t the problem. What has been missing is a practical bridge linking America’s workers to America’s needs. AWA will be that pathway.

Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time. They manned the factories that built the arsenal that won World War II. Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American economic strength for a new age. The AI revolution is bringing change and uncertainty, but also historic opportunities.

Americans don’t flinch from challenges. When opportunity shows up as a hard hat or a pair of overalls, we put them on and get to work. That’s always been our story. AWA will help us write the next chapter—one where the future is for everyone.

@dinapowellMcC is president of Meta. Mr. Rowe is CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation and host of the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs.”

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

Insane

[Will Eastcott @willeastcott]

The most incredible 3DGS you will see today 🤯
A 20 million Gaussian scan by @DuckbillStudio of a primeval moss forest in Japan. 🌳
The sheer scale of splats continues to grow, covering ever larger areas. And this experience can be delivered to any device with a web browser. 🔥

[Sebastian Aaltonen @SebAaltonen]

Internal test game created by a single (senior) developer in 5 days using our new tools and engine. Uses WASM mini-engine (ECS, rendering, animations and physics). 100% AI generated assets using our new asset pipeline. Custom character controller. Slop or not?

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

@JeremyTate41 @Sachinettiyil these should be made available online for the ravenous learners to use as a scaffolding

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

Exxxxcellent

[Castlevania Official @Castlevania_EN]

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
Launching October 15, 2026 — Pre-orders available now!

Set 23 years after Castlevania Dracula's Curse –
follow Rose Belmont’s journey in an all new 2D Action-Exploration title from KONAMI, Evil Empire and Motion Twin.

#Castlevania #CastlevaniaBC

[Castlevania Official @Castlevania_EN]

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
Launching October 15, 2026 — Pre-orders available now!

Set 23 years after Castlevania Dracula's Curse –
follow Rose Belmont’s journey in an all new 2D Action-Exploration title from KONAMI, Evil Empire and Motion Twin.

#Castlevania #CastlevaniaBC

[桐山登士樹 @kiriyama_trunk]

金属研磨された金属が液体のように波打つ素材をテーブル天板に「FLUX TABLE」、今後どう発展するか楽しみな素材。
(株式会社ダイカン)

[Handre @Handre]

Andrew Jackson destroyed the Second Bank of the United States in 1836, delivering the single greatest blow to financial tyranny in American history. You won't hear this story told correctly in any economics textbook, because it reveals how central banking works: as a government-sponsored cartel that redistributes wealth from productive citizens to politically connected bankers.

The Second Bank held a 20-year federal charter starting in 1816. It controlled the money supply, issued currency, and held government deposits. Sound familiar? Nicholas Biddle, the bank's president, wielded more economic power than any elected official. He could trigger financial panics at will by restricting credit. He bought newspapers and bribed congressmen. When Jackson opposed recharter in 1832, Biddle deliberately crashed the economy to punish him.

Jackson called it "a hydra of corruption" and he was right. The bank created artificial booms through credit expansion, then triggered busts when politically convenient. Biddle openly bragged about manipulating markets. Free market economists and Jackson both recognized the core insight: this was legalized counterfeiting with government backing, not free market banking.

The political establishment united against Jackson. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and the entire Whig Party defended the bank. Biddle spent millions buying influence. The press attacked Jackson as an economic ignoramus. Every "respectable" voice supported recharter. Jackson stood alone with the American people.

After Jackson killed the bank, the country experienced the strongest economic growth in its history. From 1837 to 1862, America operated without a central bank. Industry flourished. Wages rose. Innovation exploded. This wasn't coincidence. When you stop subsidizing financial speculation and let productive capital find its natural home, prosperity follows.

Central banks don't stabilize economies: they destabilize them for private gain.

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

Take my money

[eXtas1s 🎮 Noticias & Rumores @eXtas1stv]

🤯 LOS DE CUPHEAD SE HAN VUELTO LOCOS🔴

El nuevo juego de Cuphead está siendo desarrollado nativamente para la Sega Master System. Studio MDHR se lo está tomando tan en serio que lo están programando en lenguaje ensamblador puro y respetando las especificaciones técnicas de los 80s.

Obviamente saldrá para PC y consolas actuales, pero han confirmado que también va a existir un cartucho físico real para la Master System.

Qué ganas de jugar el Mighty Cuphead Adventure para ver esta locura xdd

[Lukas Ziegler @lukas_m_ziegler]

End-to-end neural networks racing drones in Abu Dhabi! 🚁

Check out the drone racing team from Delft University of Technology!

A completely end-to-end neural network solution, from pixels to direct motor commands.

There are no Kalman filters, and no computer vision feature detectors.

As they nicely put it in their article: "Just neurons flying the drone."

The challenge is extreme. These drones fly at high speeds and need split-second decisions with minimal onboard resources: a single rolling-shutter camera and an IMU.

Their approach is called SkyDreamer, based on the Dreamer-v3 reinforcement learning algorithm.

First, a world model is trained in simulation. Then, the neural network learns how to fly in its dreams through reinforcement learning. The network's internal state can be read out to see where it thinks it is on the track or how fast it's going.

Even better, the drone estimates some of its own body characteristics during flight, like the camera angle relative to the body, eliminating time-consuming manual calibration.

The system uses only a single camera and the gyros from the IMU, ignoring the accelerometers, just like human FPV pilots do.

Read more here & video source: https://t.co/jEN7RRvc5G

~~

♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → https://t.co/GoA3ZuwoPB

[Kōda @aimikoda]

Saber Poi Ritual

Midjourney + Gpt Image 2 + Seedance 2.0 + Suno

Workflow and prompts are in the replies.

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

The rest of the decade will feel like hurtling down a greased slide

[Object Zero @Object_Zero_]

Single Crystal CVD Diamond

Have no doubt, you are at the dawn of an industrial revolution. There is a string of breakthroughs happening throughout upstream industries that all compound.

Diamond manufacturing is now able to produce CPU size single crystals wafers.

Currently these are marketed as heat spreaders because they have thermal conductivity of 2,200 W/mK which means they move heat incredibly effectively.

However, that somewhat misses the wood for the trees…

Diamond has physical and electrical properties that exceed traditional silicon, making it uniquely suited for high demand applications.

Thermal Conductivity: Heat is the enemy of electronics. Diamond conducts heat better than almost any other known material, about 5 times better than copper and over 10 times better than silicon.

A diamond chip can act as its own heat sink.

Ultra Wide Bandgap: Diamond can handle massive amounts of voltage and operate at incredibly high temperatures without electrical breakdown.

This makes it perfect for high power applications like electric vehicle inverters, power grids, and aerospace technologies.

High Frequencies: Electrons move very quickly through diamond, allowing chips to operate at much higher frequencies, which is ideal for advanced telecommunications and radar.

Radiation Hardness: Diamond is incredibly resilient to radiation, making diamond based chips ideal for satellites, space exploration, and nuclear facilities.

To make a material act as a semiconductor, you have to "dope" it. To do this you inject impurities into the crystal lattice to create a positive (p-type) or negative (n-type) charge.

Diamond's atomic structure is so tightly packed that forcing other elements into it is hard. While p-type doping (with boron) has been figured out, reliable n-type doping (with phosphorus) remains a massive hurdle.

Theoretical ceilings

Band gap
Silicon wafer = 1.1 eV
Diamond CVD wafer = 5.5eV

Clock speed
Silicon wafer = 5-6 GHz clock wall
Diamond CVD wafer = 1-2 THz clock wall

Max Running Temp
Silicon wafer = 150°C
Diamond CVD wafer = 1,000°C

Whilst we etch silicon with photolithography and Extreme UV light, this doesn’t really work with chemically inert diamond.

Diamond CVD is currently etched with oxygen plasma etching, but this lacks the precision of EUV.

However, we can etch diamond to extreme precision with electron projection lithography. EPL was invented in the 90s by Bell Labs, IBM and Nikkon but abandoned as it was harder than EUV.

Electrons repel each other so the beams blurrs too readily.

What if we built a femto electron beam?
What if we built it to extreme such that it was a ‘single electron’ pulse?

What if we build a microscopic "bed of nails" containing millions of nanoscale tungsten or silicon tips (photocathodes). You shine a massive, highly complex femtosecond laser system across the entire array.

Every time the laser pulses, millions of tiny tips each fire a single, perfectly straight electron at the exact same time.

Turns out, research teams at likes of MIT and Stanford are currently experimenting with exactly this, laser driven nanotip electron emitters.

Pair that tool with Diamond CVD substrate tech and we approach the material limits of both semiconductors and nanotechnology.

Would require asynchronous logic to escape fatal clock skew and operate at full capability.

But I think I will live to see it.

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

@namcios @grok how does this compare to an M5 chip

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

@bluewmist I feel seen

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

@SamaHoole What about Daniel, who happened to be a total badass

[Dave Prout @Prouticus]

Nuclear is the way

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

.@ApolloAtomics builds the most compact nuclear reactors with the highest uptime and a deployment time of less than 24 months.

Apollo took the pressurized water reactor technology that already powers 80% of the world’s nuclear plants and flipped one part, the steam generator, to make the plant an order of magnitude smaller without compromising power.

Congrats on the launch, @AssilHalimi & Drew!

https://t.co/5lGDpZhmQ5