Summer is here. It’s so hot that the simple act of typing these words feels like a workout. This week was also the last week of school holidays – and that means “normal” life is going to resume on Monday. I guess you can expect to read more work-y stuff here in the future.
Spelunky 2 will release in September! For now there will only be a PlayStation version, but I’m still hoping for a Switch port! I played the original on PS Vita – and this game is made to be taken with you. If you haven’t played the first one yet, do it. It’s a masterclass in game design and emergent player stories.
From the New York Times:
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that clutter can negatively impact mental well-being, particularly among women. Clutter can also induce a physiological response, including increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.
Fascinating. I am also pretty sure that this is true for digital places as well – just think of your computer’s desktop. Is it neatly organized? Or total chaos? Or worse: Everything tacked away into a folder with some obscure name? Does this stress you out?
I’m stressed out just thinking about it.
Fashion models made out of beautiful pixels were on the horizon for a long time. Now they are gaining the capabilities to actually pose for the camera thanks to machine learning.
From the Vogue:
I’ll spare you the specifics of the algorithmic details, but in summary, these digital models can offer a vast array of posing options that mimic exactly what we do in e-commerce and commercial modeling. For models like myself, that’s how we make most of our money. The German e-commerce giant, Zalando (for which I have modeled almost a dozen times), has published research papers on this technology. It would seem to be only a matter of time until fashion giants jump on board.
This is almost a bit nostalgic for me: In 2001 Square Pictures released „Final Fantasy: The spirits within“ — the first feature length movie to only star digital, photorealistic avatars. There was talk about how these digital humans could not just perform in this movie, but in any other. Just like real actors they would take on new roles, express their personality and even appear at the Academy Awards.
Nothing like this happened: The movie was a total flop at the box office and Aki, the main protagonist, never appeared in another major film. And still, this prospect fascinated me as a kid to no end. And reading the report above it seems that this story might be different today.