Uber ran a study to figure out, how people feel about being managed by ‘the platform’. And to no surprise, Captain Obvious helped with the results. Drivers working for the company, feel like they are managed by a micromanager, watching every small step and worse, criticising every small mistake, leads to worse, sometimes toxic results. There is way to go for algorithms to catch up with social achievements.
It’s like having a micromanaging boss who’s always watching you.
It’s time for the last beta release of Python 3.8. Go find it at: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-380b4/ This release is the last of four planned beta release previews. Beta release previews are intended to give the wider community the opportunity to test new features and bug fixes and to prepare their projects to support the new feature release.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX built a Mars lander and put it to test. During it’s first flight, Starhopper launched to reach 150m height and land again 100m away.
Having been part of the demo-scene for many years myself, this is – at least to me – big news. Starting with the arrival of computers and first commercial software, crackers started copying others intellectual property and made an effort overcoming copy protection. Groups formed to not only solve the technical difficulty to ‘crack’ these systems, but also distribute the results. Soon, pretty presentations were included with these files, to advertise the group that managed to overcome copy protection. Shortly after, these presentations turned into their own discipline, giving programmers, music- and graphic artists an opportunity to compete in artistic demos.
The first demos I remember include 42 by halcyon, 4 kings by orange or daze by urinate. Given the first exposure to the hardwares limits, these were fascinating productions that never failed to amaze me. A close friend from the mailbox scene pointed me to the immortal ‘Second Reality‘ by Future Crew, that finally blew my mind.
Second Reality by Future Crew
Among my peers, this demo was the starting point for many people that I spent a lot of time with and some of whom I am still proud to call my friends. The years following I had the opportunity to not only attend many demo parties but actively contribute my own work to competitions and learn fundamental technology from idols I was lucky to meet at these events.
Now recently, Andreas Lange & Tobias Kopka have started an initiative to bring the demoscene onto the list of the UNESCO intangible world cultural heritage. The initiative advocates the mindset and innovation this scene has developed, contributing technology to culture and leveraging technology to create art. It will likely take a long time to proof this influence and all that I have seen in the past twenty years is well worth bringing this scenes achievements to a broader audience.
