Links
Litestack: All your data infrastructure
From the repository:
Litestack is a Ruby gem that provides both Ruby and Ruby on Rails applications an all-in-one solution for web application data infrastructure. It exploits the power and embeddedness of SQLite to deliver a full-fledged SQL database, a fast cache , a robust job queue, a reliable message broker, a full text search engine and a metrics platform all in a single package.
I’ve been learning Python for my small projects recently, but for something that wants a full stack I’ll definitely be checking this out.
Urban Isolation - Skateboarding in an empty L.A.
A very relaxing video by Russell Houghten showing skateboarders riding around L.A. with all of the cars edited out. It’s executed wonderfully. How much effort goes into something like this?Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero
Modern chess is the culmination of centuries of experience, as well as an evolutionary sequence of rule adjustments from its inception in the 6th century to the modern rules we know today. While classical chess still captivates the minds of millions of players worldwide, the game is anything but static. Many variants have been proposed and played over the years by enthusiasts and theorists. They continue the evolutionary cycle by altering the board, piece placement, or the rules—offering players “something subtle, sparkling, or amusing which cannot be done in ordinary chess.”
Using AlphaZero to evaluate modified rules, to see which would be the most productive is a really interesting application of the AI. You can evaluate beforehand whether a certain rule change would make the game less or more balanced.
Why Switch Cartridges Taste Awful
The Nintendo Switch is designed to be portable, so it doesn’t have a disc drive. Instead, its games come on cartridges, just like games for Nintendo’s handheld platforms stretching back to the original Game Boy. But there’s something different about Switch cartridges: They taste awful.
Update (March 2): In a statement emailed to Polygon, a Nintendo representative confirmed the theory that Switch cartridges are coated in a material that’s meant to dissuade people from putting the units in their mouths.
So Nintendo actually takes special steps to make their cartridges taste terrible, to keep people from swallowing them. That’s an attention to detail that I hadn’t even considered before.
Star Wars Oil Paintings
I’ll always have a soft spot for Star Wars things, but these paintings by Naci Caba are wonderful. The colors add a great bit of flavor especially to scenes in space that would otherwise be predominantly black and grey.
Box Line Text: A minimal whiteboard app
This is a great implementation of an extremely minimal whiteboard app. There is no UI, and you can click to add text or click+drag to add boxes and lines. Zoom options in your browser will change the size, and you can save the HTML if you want to keep a copy.
It’s probably not enough for work meetings, but I thought it was a great, fun product.
Wag Buys Shares Back from SoftBank
Wag was looking to raise $75 million. It went to SoftBank and was like “will you give us $75 million?” SoftBank was like “no haha we’ll give you $300 million,” because that is SoftBank’s whole thing, it loves to give startups vastly more money than they want or need. And so Wag took the money. And then like a year and a half later Wag will get rid of SoftBank by giving back, I don’t know, but I am going to say some number less than $225 million (“well below” the valuation at which it invested). Wag got the $75 million it needed for free.
So under the right circumstances, you can make more money with a flop than you can with a hit!
Wag wasn’t exactly a flop, but SoftBank’s aggressive investment strategy does result in some pretty unusual situations.
Leather Sneakers by Spingle
Spingle is a company based in Hiroshima, Japan that makes hand-crafted leather shoes, and they also have an excellent sneaker lineup. Because the leather molds to your feet over time, the shoes become more comfortable the more you wear them.
They are a little pricey, but they should last a long time and the cost is completely reasonable considering the work that goes into them. And there are plenty of sneakers that cost even more.
An AI That Begins Novels
This neural network was trained to output unique opening lines to novels. Some of the results are surprisingly great:
I have just been informed, that the debate over the question ‘is it right or wrong to have immortal souls’ has been finally brought to a conclusion.
When I was a boy, I was fond of the story of the pirate god.
He had a strange name, and he was a very big boy indeed.
The village of Pembrokeshire, in the county of Mersey, lies on a wide, happy plain, which, in a few years, was to become known as the “Land of the Endless Mountains.”
I was playing with my dog, Mark the brown Labrador, and I had forgotten that I was also playing with a dead man.
How many times have I had the misfortune to die?
The first day I met my future self, I was aboard the old dirigible that lay in wait for me on the far side of the moon.
It’s hard to call these creative since the AI probably has no concept of what these words actually mean, but there are some really compelling ideas in here.
The last sentence in particular struck me as having so many interesting elements that could be explored more as the story progresses. At the very least, these serve as excellent starting places for ideas that a normal person wouldn’t have on their own.
NAVA Ora Unica Wristwatch
I happened upon this watch in the mall over the weekend and loved how unconventional it is. The inner end of the loop acts as the hour hand, and the outer end is the minute hand. The in-between part seems to move freely, so you have a watch face that looks pretty different each time you look at it.
I’d probably need to pause for a few seconds to decipher the time so it’s not exactly practical, but it would be a good conversation starter for sure.
