In 2017, I stepped onto the Facebook campus in Menlo Park. They took us to the Oculus VR lab first. A geeky engineer gave us a demo of the VR features and ended on the haptic gloves that let you "feel" virtual objects without touching anything real. Then he paused, voice almost reverent: “Imagine connecting anyone in the world… real social interaction… without ever leaving home.” The demo was amazing but I walked out with a strange feeling. This guy is "solving for humanity" and is excited about a world no longer needs physical human connection
We passed a long hall of developers. One guy—Black, friendly—leaned over his monitors and asked where the group of us (mostly Africans) was from. We chatted. His desk had big screens, half-eaten snacks, the faint smell of takeout lingering. His neighbor, paler watched curiously but, too timid to join. The desks were comfortable, the food smell everywhere, as it was available in every corner. It all felt… contained. Like this campus was its own sealed ecosystem, where the world outside was just data to optimize.
Fast-forward to 2020. I work at Andela, where we placed remote engineers with Silicon Valley teams. Some companies flew their leads over to meet the "remote" teammates in person. When they visited the Kigali campus I went to dinner with them. They were 5. Of this dinner I vividly remember 2 conversations. One guy launched into how "all humans are actually lactose intolerant after infancy… we're the only species that keeps drinking milk." They all nodded, confessed their own intolerances like it was a quirky universal truth. Then came the photos: a dog's birthday party. Balloons, cake, friends invited. The owner beamed like it was his kid's party. I love dogs. But something twisted in my chest. These are the people shaping the tools billions use every day—yet their version of care, connection, family… felt redirected, abstracted.
Now it's 2026, and Sam Altman says training an AI costs less than "raising a human"—because it takes "20 years of life and all the food you eat during that time before you get smart." He compared childhood—first steps, heartbreaks, scraped knees, bedtime stories, learning trust—to server racks and electricity bills. I think back to that VR promise of connection without leaving home… to offices smelling of food and isolation… to dogs celebrated like children while real human messiness gets optimized away
Dom was an incredible person, clinician-scientist, athlete, and voice for the 🇨🇦🫀community. I first met Dom in the @SCC_CCS_Trainee circles in 2020. We co-led workshops together and and he was a huge support in my PhD applications. His mission and legacy will live on forever.
the saddest thing about all this is that it feels like Apple has lost all of that luxurious software feeling they've had since the early days of OS X
as a kid, seeing those extremely detailed and pixel perfect icons of OS X apps always brought me a feeling of amazement and respect for the Apple systems
nowadays I feel like that entire vibe has disappeared in favour of some stupid distortion shader.
hey @Disney i didnt realize you were making a video game of zootopia. this looks incredibly subpar for the brand, and is the deciding factor in my decision to not go to the theater for Zootopia 2
everyone is saying "oh you could do this with a computer"
but the original electro mechanical version, with minimal upkeep, still works to this day, no computer required
meanwhile your microcontroller from shenzhen burns out after 2 years and its also been discontinued
Thank you Jeff, for solving the mystery of why people interested in making toys no longer visit my website.
It was a puzzle why, recently, traffic fell to zero - since my website had always been a helpful resource to answer questions about toy making.
The interested individuals would read a few Q and A's and often email me and I could work with them to make toys.
Now all that is gone. I didn't know where it went or why it disappeared.
It's because you scraped my website and used my work to build an AI based system that cuts me off.
Thanks!
@PerreAye@_hxneyglow I don't believe this is a digital vs film issue. This is a lighting issue. Since so many things are "fixed in post" nowadays, it means that interesting and directed lighting has gone by the wayside in favour of something more flat - as it's easier to work with.
Totally unnatural work flow. The gentleman in this video clearly has no idea how the elderly (as he references, "Grandma") use technology.
Here is a more realistic approach.
1. Grandma notices font is too small. She has a difficult time seeing and/or reading the text.
2. Grandma incorrectly asserts Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook (now Meta) has developed this computer and blames him for defaulting to such small font. "Ugh, that idiot Zuckerforge* makes the text too damn small. Nobody can see this!"
3. Grandma picks up the laptop and places the camera directly up to her mouth and says, "Alexis, make the font big". When nothing happens she raises her voice, "ALEXIS, MAKE THE FONT BIG". Alexis doesn't respond.
4. Grandma, becoming increasing frustrated, remembers that Alexis is for Amazon, not Microsoft, so she corrects herself. "Siri, make the font big, please". She anxiously waits for a reply but nothing happens again. "SIRI MAKE THE FONT BIG". Siri ignores her pleas.
5. Grandma, exhausting all options, decides to call her children and/or grandchildren for assistance. The conversation begins discussing technology but quickly derails into something else such as the weather, sports, trivia, or (most likely) family gossip.
6. Grandma concludes her troubleshooting by calling Mark Zuckerforge a "stupid Italian" (she falsely believes he's Italian) and decides to stop using the device. Grandma is deeply prejudice to Italians because of an argument she got into with an Italian couple in 1973
This story is insane.
The founders of Fireflies AI (now worth $1B+) pretended to be an AI notetaker before the tech existed.
The founders would:
> Join meetings on mute as "Fred from Fireflies"
> Take notes by hand while sitting silently
> Send the "AI-generated" notes 10 minutes later
They did this for 100+ meetings to pay rent, before actually building the product that went on to become a unicorn.
@TravisToastLord@KelaMakesGames Bro this is just a regular 3D scene being rendered at a lower scale and then boosted up to res. Exact same tech as used in 1000s of indie games. Super easy to implement