USAID was ironically a significant customer for Starlink. People are probably already familiar with the 5,000 Ukraine terminal scandal, but pretty much all their offices (in Colombia at least) had 1 or more terminals.
What does USAID have anything to do with this conversation? Well, DOGE was largely responsible for putting the final nail on that coffin. If you think he cares about remote rural schools having connectivity you better think again.
These companies have super talented engineers and can afford to invest in skunkworks projects like these when they can’t find any suitable options in the market.
Colonialism? Take the Falkland Islands as a small example. Ever since the British won the war in 1983 all inhabitants were automatically granted British Citizenship, hence no need for a separate passport.
It's all shaders! That's why they take up so little memory space.
Here's a video where IQ explains how to "model" a greek temple using this technique: https://youtu.be/-pdSjBPH3zM?t=303
> Where Unity beats Godot is in the "Triple I" and "Double A" categories, as it has better 3D/performance features, tooling and add-ons
While this is true it does come with a big caveat. Every single AA developer has had access not only to the Unity source code, but in some instances also to Unity employees who became directly embedded in the production cycle.
There’s a GDC presentation from the team behind Ori and
The Blind Forest where they talk about how some Unity devs were flown to Austria to help out with custom tooling. Playdead also has a really nice blog where they talk about all the changes they had to make to the engine in order to achieve good lighting performance/fps for Inside.
https://blog.playdead.com/articles/inside_presentations/insi...
I’m sure that if the Godot foundation had enough resources at hand then you would also see more games like Cuphead and the ones previously mentioned above.
Point taken! I would only add that Ray-Bans have become somewhat of a timeless fashion icon and this isn't something that you can easily replicate no matter how much R&D money you have at your disposal. (Just look at how goofy Snap's Spectacles are in comparison)
This so called “sweet spot” comes at the cost of billions of dollars in operating losses and layoffs at Reality Labs year after year. The worst part is that Meta is merely licensing the Ray-Ban form factor and this also comes at a hefty price tag. Specially if other companies such as Google enter a bidding war to snatch that exclusivity away from them.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/07/31/metas-reality-labs-posts...
Google has a Creative Lab which employs a handful of creative coders who primarily work with emerging tech on experimental projects. They also offer a one year paid fellowship to young grads to join their labs in either NY or London: https://www.creativelab5.com/
Creative coding is everywhere these days. From the parametric architecture of Zaha Hadid and MAD architects to procedurally generated furniture designs and jewelry. https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/
The big players in this field are actually Optitex and Gerber AccuMark. Lookup any pattern making job from the likes of adidas, Patagonia or Arc’teryx and they require knowledge in one of those two.
The reason why CLO is becoming so popular in recent years is because they’ve been really smart about striking partnerships with fashion schools and offering their software at steep student discounts. I once tried to get a price quote from a regional Optitex rep and they just shrugged me off because they only deal with BIG companies.
If there ever was an industry ripe for disruption it would be fashion. The incumbents have been resting on their laurels for decades so it’s nice to see upstarts like CLO trying to apply the Final Cut Pro formula to dethrone them.
Worldwide? Nothing Phone 1 wasn't even available for purchase in the U.S and I've yet to see any of their other products being sold throughout latam. They operate like the infamous street fashion brand Supreme with limited "drops" in carefully chosen markets to generate hype through manufactured scarcity.
> How do these managers get jobs in these big name companies?
Nothing is very far from what I would consider a "big name company" They are actually a really small joint venture between Carl Pei and Teenage Engineering. This whole iMessage fiasco is exactly why I have such a hard time taking Carl seriously in anything he does. He seems more concerned with creating hype through smoke and mirrors than in releasing anything truly innovative and substantial.