- I find that the best technologies, programs, and hardware that interest me tend to be the ones that have stood the test of time
- But the wave around artificial intelligence could not miss me, with all the positives and negatives
- Maybe it’s sad, but around mobile phones and electronics in general, I see only small, incremental improvements this year
It’s getting harder and harder to attract them. Mobile phones are similar, the world of so-called “custom ROM” is slowly dying, you find a brand you are inclined towards and standing out from the crowd is much more difficult. That’s why it’s hard for me to even choose a few things thanks to which the world of technology has advanced. The Galaxy S9 FE+ tablet was nice, but it’s not really something I’ll remember with nostalgia years from now like the first smart watch, the first drive with an automatic transmission, the first time Windows started instead of DOS.
AI may become a common companion, Eagle Transmission may be on the same level as the disk drives on a bike today, but ARMA won me over, even though it didn’t have as many stories as Operation Flashpoint.
AI for anyone
It probably won’t be anything original, but the boom in the use of artificial intelligence shocked me. Probably someone spent some time chatting with ChatGPT and testing what the tool can handle and where it will hit its limits. Then the wave subsided and there was a time of sobriety, but all the more useful practice. In the article about my devices, I mentioned PowerBI, in conjunction with ChatGPT and Bing Chat, this program is two classes more usable even for beginners.
Suddenly I don’t have to write regular expressions and SQL or DAX queries by hand, how many times I even get an idea how to solve a problem more elegantly, because I outline my need rather than asking directly about the syntax. Yes, the generative AI doesn’t always hit the mark, I still need to know if the result at least somewhat matches what I need, but the speed of solving tasks has increased significantly.
Look mainly at the last conversations: SQL, DAX, regular expressions – I would have searched for these things for a long time without AI
Of course, chats with AI are not the only case. I don’t use it so much for image generation, although I also spent a few evenings with it, but daily use turned out to be less attractive, but excellently complementary. I mean, for example, the Microsoft Clarity tool, which records, among other things, heatmaps of websites. You can infer a lot of things from them, but it can happen (a bit like the survivor’s delusion) that you look at the highlighted areas, but stop perceiving what’s going on outside of them, which can be more significant to solving the problem. Bing’s summary of results can point out such cases.
ARMA 3
How could an 11 year old game make it to the charts? I can see many reasons, but the main one is that you can spend hundreds and thousands of hours in the game. Not because of the graphics, but because of the options, heavily fueled by expansions and mods from the community. The first edition also lacked a story campaign, but showed the basics of infantry combat, aircraft and vehicles, with a healthy balance of realism and gameplay. Very quickly in Arma you realize how fragile life is and that you often don’t even see death.
The level of detail and creativity knows no bounds. The basic story takes place in 2035, but if you’d rather participate in current conflicts, there’s nothing stopping you. In the same way, you can look into the Vietnamese jungle, the events taking place around the Iron Curtain, Normandy in 1944, and perhaps you can even experience an encounter with an extraterrestrial civilization. Especially with the story DLCs, ARMA shows its storytelling talent. Where in most games you can clearly see who to cheer for, who to damn, with a fanfare and flag-waving at the end, this game is uncompromisingly honest.
The devastation and horrors of war were best captured by the Laws of War data disc, focused on the work of humanitarian organizations. In the role of an explosives specialist, you are given the task of demining the area around the village of Orekastro, but by talking to the participants of the ended conflict, you discover that although all parties had understandable reasons for their actions and tried more or less for a war conducted according to the Geneva Conventions, the resulting suffering did not correspond to the intentions. And we’re talking about the ending that most resembles a regular happy ending…
Story and sound aside, I’m also fascinated by the sandbox nature of Army. Do you want to simulate the life of an infantry squad shooter behind the keyboard? Well, there is also an add-on available, thanks to which you can change the white-hot barrel of the machine gun. Does the life of a field medic appeal to you? Nothing is stopping you, but be careful not to overdose your patients with one of the many drugs. And so it could go on ad infinitum.
But the extensions available through the Steam Workshop don’t just modify game mechanics. Some creators decided to add technology from Star Wars to Army, others create horror scenarios full of zombies, some used the game’s freedom to create ingenious missions even using ordinary realities. Want an example?
In one mission, I was tasked with eliminating fighter jets parked at a heavily guarded airport. It would be possible to shoot straight through, but extremely difficult. Using artillery support too easy. But the designer also added another option: a fuel truck was parked on the side of the airport, which was supposed to refuel the fighters on dry land. All you had to do was attach the C4 to its chassis and then just wait with your eyes pressed to the binoculars and your finger on the detonator for the driver to set off.
SRAM Eagle Transmission
SRAM is a manufacturer of bicycle components. He was the one who brought the single chainring drivetrain in the front and large-range cassette in the rear to mountain bikes, replacing unreliable multi-chainring systems in the off-road. Then he came with electronic shifting in the AXS sets, where the shift lever from the handlebars communicated wirelessly with the derailleur at the rear wheel or the telescopic seat post. But that was still not it, the mechanical design also worked great for both components.
The fastest way to recognize a SRAM Eagle Transmission at a glance is the chain with one straight side
Normally, the derailleur is attached to the frame via a foot, which also serves as a deformation zone in the event of an impact. However, this reduces the strength of the entire system. Eagle Transmission has omitted this element and solves the protection of the derailleur firstly with replaceable parts, secondly the derailleur is more hidden in the frame, and thirdly, in the event of an impact, its motor disconnects and allows free movement. The electronics will then take care of the precise adjustment, so there is no need to gently turn the screw and lubricate the bowdens.
Why all this? The new system shifts even while driving! Normally you have to find a moment on the bike when the chain is spinning but not loaded. Eagle Transmission doesn’t impose such conditions, so when you find yourself on a hill, you don’t have to remember the horrors of Czech pop music (“Když štej, předj…”), but simply switch gears and keep pedaling. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to get a personal experience, because this joke costs more than the bikes of most households combined.
Author of the article
Michal Maňak
Štúral, a cured rooter and eternal skeptic, who was forced to reconsider his definitive opinions several times under the weight of arguments. I’m interested in things powered by flashlights and human propulsion, military then passively in the real world and actively in the virtual one. In short, someone who doesn’t want to take himself too seriously.
2023-12-29 19:15:00
#Michal #Maňák #TOP #technological #trends
