This study uses a natural experiment with game console lotteries to identify the causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan (2020–2022). Results show that video gaming reduced psychological distress and improved life satisfaction.
Category: entertainment – Page 5
PBS News Hour
Posted in entertainment
New Mexico’s ‘Earthships’ offer unique living off the grid.
Season 2024 Episode 06/20/2024
When it comes to materials for quantum sensors, diamond is the best game in town, says Cornell University professor Gregory Fuchs. Now he and a team of scientists have upped diamond’s game by generating exquisite imagery of diamond undergoing microscopic vibrations.
Recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and computing have enabled the development of new tools for creating highly realistic media, virtual reality (VR) environments and video games. Many of these tools are now widely used by graphics designers, animated film creators and videogame developers worldwide.
One aspect of virtual and digitally created environments that can be difficult to realistically reproduce is fabrics. While there are already various computational tools for digitally designing realistic fabric-based items (e.g., scarves, blankets, pillows, clothes, etc.), creating and editing realistic renderings of these fabrics in real-time can be challenging.
Researchers at Shandong University and Nanjing University recently introduced a new lightweight artificial neural network for the real-time rendering of woven fabrics. Their proposed network, introduced in a paper published as part of the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference Conference Papers ‘24, works by encoding the patterns and parameters of fabrics as a small latent vector, which can later be interpreted by a decoder to produce realistic representations of various fabrics.
2001: CREATING KUBRICK’S SPACE ODYSSEY chronicles the creation of one of the most influential films in the history of cinema. This new documentary examines the work of legendary director Stanley Kubrick and iconic novelist Arthur C. Clarke in creating what they called “the proverbial good science fiction movie.” Filmmaker Roger Lay, Jr. tackles the enigmatic film through interviews with 2001 star Keir Dullea (who played astronaut Dave Bowman) and choreographer Dan Richter (who played Moonwatcher, the proto-human ape who learned to use the first tool). Both provide personal insights into their work on the groundbreaking film.
Other interviews include 2001 visual effects technician Brian Johnson (Academy Award winner for Alien and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), film historian Michael Benson (author of Space Odyssey: Kubrick, Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece), and technologist Jules Urbach (CEO of OTOY). They discuss not only the revolutionary visual effects of the Kubrick film, but also the movie’s enduring influence.
2001: CREATING KUBRICK’S SPACE ODYSSEY features museum-quality digital re-creations of the original 2001 sets including interiors of the spaceship Discovery and the mysterious alien hotel room by Daren Dochterman, Mark Spatny, Carlos Baena, and a talented team of CG artists and animators at OTOY, including James Hibbert, Geoff Holman, J.J. Palomo, Neil Smith, and Aaron Westwood.
The documentary was produced by Roger Lay, Jr, along with Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda. Executive producer, Jules Urbach.
Made famous in 1995 by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Pillars of Creation in the heart of the Eagle Nebula have captured imaginations worldwide with their arresting, ethereal beauty.
Now, NASA has released a new 3D visualization of these towering celestial structures using data from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. This is the most comprehensive and detailed multiwavelength movie yet of these star-birthing clouds.
“By flying past and amongst the pillars, viewers experience their three-dimensional structure and see how they look different in the Hubble visible-light view versus the Webb infrared-light view,” explained principal visualization scientist Frank Summers of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, who led the movie development team for NASA’s Universe of Learning.
Researchers develop flexible, colorful films made entirely from cellulose, combining the optical properties of nanocrystals with the strength of nanofibers for sustainable electronics.
Alderon Games, an Australian-based developer behind the dinosaur-themed multiplayer survival game Path of Titans, announced “we are swapping all our servers to AMD” because “Intel is selling defective” CPUs — specifically 13th and 14th Gen models.
The post doesn’t mince words; it states that its customers have been reporting thousands of crashes on Intel 13th and 14th Gen CPUs (verified by the game’s crash reporting tools), and its game servers have been “experiencing constant crashes, taking entire servers down.” It also claims that it’s only a matter of time before Core i9-14900K and Core i9-13900K CPUs that have yet to fail will fail.
“Over the last 3 to 4 months, we have observed that CPUs initially working well deteriorate over time, eventually failing,” Matthew Cassells, Founder of Alderon Games, writes. “The failure rate we have observed from our own testing is nearly 100%, indicating it’s only a matter of time before affected CPUs fail.”
In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down with Professor Pete Mandik to discuss several different ways of conceiving of materialism along with strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Professor Mandik also gives a summary of a view inspire by Quine he calls “Type-Q Materialism.” Additionally, Ben and Professor Mandik discuss various aspects of religious mysticism and touch on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.