Merijn

this new technique for inpainting video is unreal

A few weeks ago during the Q&A session after his lecture for MIT’s online biology class about the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci shared his expert opinion on when things might return to “normal” in the US. Here was my paraphrased tweet about it:

With a very effective vaccine ready in Nov/Dec, distributed widely, and if lots of people take it (i.e. the best case scenario), the earliest we could return to “normal life” in the world is the end of 2021.

At the New Yorker Festival earlier in the week, Michael Specter asked him about a return to normalcy and Fauci elaborated a bit more on this timeline (starts ~10:22 in the video).

When are we gonna get back to something that closely resembles, or is in fact, normal as we knew it?

We’re already making doses, tens and hundreds of millions of doses to be ready, first at least, in graded numbers at the end of the year in November/December. By the time we get to April, we likely will have doses to be able to vaccinate anybody who needs to be vaccinated. But logistically by the time you get everybody vaccinated, it likely will not be until the third or even the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2021.

So let’s say we get a 70% effective vaccine, which I hope we will get, but only 60% of the people get vaccinated. There are going to be a lot of vulnerable people out there, which means that the vaccine will greatly help us to pull back a bit on the restrictions that we have now to maintain good public health, but it’s not going to eliminate things like mask wearing and avoiding crowds and things like that.

So I think we can approach normality, but I don’t think we’re going to be back to normal until the end of 2021. We may do better than that; I hope so but I don’t think so.

Leaving aside what “normal” might mean and who it actually applies to,¹ there’s some good news and bad news in there. The good news is, they’re already producing doses of the vaccine to be ready if and when the phase 3 trials are successful. Ramping up production before the trials conclude isn’t usually done because it’s a waste of money if the trials fail, but these vaccines are so critical to saving lives that they’re spending that money to save time. That’s great news.

The bad news is that we’re not even halfway through the pandemic in the best case scenario. We’re going to be wearing masks in public for at least another year (and probably longer than that). Large gatherings of people (especially indoors) will continue to be problematic — you know: movie theaters, concerts, clubs, bars, restaurants, schools, and churches — and folks staying within small pods of trusted folks will likely be the safest course of action.

A change in national leadership in both the executive branch and Senate could change the outlook for the better. We could get some normalcy back even without a vaccine through measures like a national mask mandate/distribution, a real national testing & tracing effort, taking aerosol transmission seriously, and easing the economic pressure to “open back up” prematurely. We’re never going to do as well as Vietnam or Taiwan, but I’d settle for Greece or Norway.

Update: In an interview posted yesterday, Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Dr. Caitlin Rivers gives her best guess at a return to normalcy:

Topol: When do you think we’ll see pre-COVID life restored?

Rivers: I wish I knew. I’m thinking toward the end of 2021. It’s really hard to say with any certainty. We should all be mentally prepared to have quite a bit ahead of us.

1. It’s America. If we know anything by now about this country, it’s that access to healthcare and economic opportunity is going to apply unevenly to the people who live here. For instance, it’s likely that Black & brown communities, which have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, may face difficulty in getting access to vaccines compared to wealthier, predominantly white communities.↩

Tags: Anthony Fauci   Caitlin Rivers   COVID-19   medicine   Michael Specter   science   USA   vaccines   video

A while back, I was contracted by a regular client to help him set up his new restaurant (website, social media, logo, etc…). I also agreed as a favor to help him navigate Mailchimp and set him up with an account so that he could send out newsletters to his guests. One day I receive an email titled “Database Imports” containing an Excel file.

Me: What’s this for?

Client: These are subscribers to be added to our new Mailchimp account.

Me: Oh, great! How did you collect them?

Client: Friends, family and a few regular customers from my other restaurants.

Me: Cool ok, it’ll be nice to start with a few subscribers. Let me take a loo-

Me: …There are 66,256 names on this list.

Client: Yes so what?

Me: You got 66,256 people to agree to sign up?…

Client: Of course I didn’t. They signed up to newsletters from my other businesses. Same thing.

Me: No it’s not. This is illegal.

Client: You worry too much. Do it.

Me: But…

Client: Just do it. I have 30 years’ experience in this biz and that’s how it’s done.

Fast forward a few months and the introduction of GDPR…

Client: WE URGENTLY NEED TO REVISE ALL OUR MAILING LISTS. I TRUST YOU HAVE A WAY OF SEPARATING THE ONES WHO SIGNED UP FROM THE ONES WE ADDED?

I actually saw this coming and set up different lists, just in case so it would be a breeze to delete the offending entries. But I’m still debating if I shouldn’t dish out some poetic justice and tell him he needs to start from scratch because I hate the way he handles his customer private information.

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Got a story about a client getting his just desserts?

The post GDPR Revolution appeared first on Clients From Hell.

Client:  My email still isn’t working, and I’ve followed your instructions to the letter.

The post I’ve followed your instructions to the letter appeared first on Clients From Hell.

In a global health crisis, like say, a pandemic, accurate and complete data about its spread is a "must have". Which is why, in the UK, there's a great deal of head-scratching over how the government "lost" thousands of cases.

Oops.

Normally, we don't dig too deeply into current events on this site, but the circumstances here are too "WTF" to allow them to pass without comment.

From the BBC, we know that this system was used to notify individuals if they have tested positive for COVID-19, and notify their close contacts that they have been exposed. That last bit is important. Disease spread can quickly turn exponential, and even though COVID-19 has a low probability of causing fatalities, the law of large numbers means that a lot of people will die anyway on that exponential curve. If you can track exposure, get exposed individuals tested and isolated before they spread the disease, you can significantly cut down its spread.

People are rightfully pretty upset about this mistake. Fortunately, the BBC has a followup article discussing the investigation, where an analyst explores what actually happened, and as it turns out, we're looking at an abuse of everyone's favorite data analytics tool: Microsoft Excel.

The companies administering the tests compile their data into plain text which appear to be CSV files. No real surprise there. Each test created multiple rows within the CSV file. Then, the people working for Public Health England imported that data into Excel… as .xls files.

.xls is the old Excel format, dating back into far-off years, and retained for backwards compatibility. While modern .xlsx files can support a little over a million rows, the much older format caps out at 65,536.

So: these clerks imported the CSV file, hit "save as…" and made a .xls, and ended up truncating the results. With the fact that these input datasets had multiple rows per tests, "in practice it meant that each template was limited to about 1,400 cases."

Again, "oops".

I've discussed how much users really want to do everything in Excel, and this is clearly what happened here. The users had one tool, Excel, and it looked like a hammer to them. Arcane technical details like how many rows different versions of Excel may or may not support aren't things it's fair to expect your average data entry clerk to know.

On another level, this is a clear failing of the IT services. Excel was not the right tool for this job, but in the middle of a pandemic, no one is entirely sure what they needed. Excel becomes a tempting tool, because pretty much any end user can look at complicated data and slice/shape/chart/analyze it however they like. There's a good reason why they want to use Excel for everything: it's empowering to the users. When they have an idea for a new report, they don't need to go through six levels of IT management, file requests in triplicate, and have a testing and approval cycle to ensure the report meets the specifications. They just… make it.

There are packaged tools that offer similar, purpose built functionality but still give users all the flexibility they could want for slicing data. But they're expensive, and many organizations (especially government offices) will be stingy about who gets a license. They may or may not be easy to use. And of course, the time to procure such a thing was in the years before a massive virus outbreak. Excel is there, on everyone's computer already, and does what they need.

Still, they made the mistake, they saw the consequences, so now we know, they will definitely start taking steps to correct the problem, right? They know that Excel isn't fit-for-purpose, so they're switching tools, right?

From the BBC:

To handle the problem, PHE is now breaking down the data into smaller batches to create a larger number of Excel templates in order to make sure none hit their cap.

Oops.

I work in a call center as an IT Helpdesk. A client was calling regarding a full disk encryption. Aside from a terrible line quality as if he was calling from a potato, his listening skills were close to zero.

Client: My account is locked.

Me: Your account seems fine from my end. Do you happen to be on the Disk Encryption (added lots of details) screen? 

Client: No, I am on a blue windows screen.

This was already tricky. Since he was a laptop and VPN user, and he stated he could not get into the laptop, I knew I cannot help him unless he is connected to a LAN. After 10 minutes of bickering he blurted out that he needs a long code. I was already infuriated because I have asked the user at least twice is he truly on a windows login screen and not from the Disk Encryption. As soon as I told him to hold on so I can generate a code for him, he dropped the call.

After 15 minutes I got him again on the line. Since I already knew what he needed I instantly generated the code and gave it to him. He entered it wrong no fewer than 5 times, necessitating me reading it out to him again each time. After 10 minutes he managed to log into the laptop.

Me: Okay, I’m going to ask you get on your VPN so I can connect to your laptop remotely and do the rest for you.

Client: Something popped up.

Me: I am trying to connect to your laptop – that’s the notification window. Can you approve it for me?

Client: How do I do that?

Me: Just click approve or connect, just don’t decline.

For the next 3 minutes, he kept hitting “decline.”

Client: This isn’t working. Just tell me what to do.

I tried to tell him step-by-step, but this was a complete non-starter. No wonder, since he couldn’t figure out a simple instruction like “hit accept.”

Finally, I tried accessing his computer remotely again after 20 minutes of this. He hit accept, and I had to mute my phone because the coworkers who had started to amass at my station to watch the train wreck started to cheer.

Me: Ok Sir, I’ve done what needed to be done, and there is one last thing you need to do: LOG OFF. Do NOT turn off the computer, do NOT restart the computer. Just LOG OFF. Otherwise, it will ask you for the very long code again.

Client: Ok. Do not restart the computer?

Me: Do NOT restart. Just log off.

Client: Okay.

After a minute or two of silence.

Client: I have the same issue.

Me: …Is it asking for the very long code again?

Client: Yes.

Me: …Did you restart the computer?

Client: Yes, I restarted the computer.

This is the only time in my entire support career that I ever intentionally dropped a call.

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…This one was a doozy. Ever had a client who wouldn’t listen? Tell us! 

The post My only intentionally dropped call, ever. appeared first on Clients From Hell.

MetaBallStudios (previously) is back and they recreated their old starship size comparison video, adding the Earth for scale and including some additional models. The video starts off with the 1 foot tall Hocotate Ship from Pikmin and by the end is using the Sun for scale. I, too, once thought the Ark from Halo was the largest starship in popular culture but oh how wrong I was. Turns out it was actually my wiener.

A YouTuber interpolated Tom & Jerry footage to 60 fps using AI and the results are less than desirable. It's definitely smoother, but it's pretty clear upscaling framerates doesn't really work for animation. Animators generally make deliberate choices when it comes to frame duration, and the rhythm of the 60 fps version just feels off. It's like watching somebody clap off beat to your favorite song. The music is still great, but now you're annoyed for no reason and can't really enjoy it. I mean, c'mon, it's just clapping! It's not that hard, Steve! Why do you always have to ruin everything?!

Elder Scrolls 6 in Xbox Game Pass day one?

A friend of a friend came to me with a “business opportunity.”

Client: I’m starting a new project. Something big, we’re talking YouTube but for a more specific market.

Me: Honestly, I’ve been through this song and dance before with plenty of “businessmen” who say they want the next Google or Facebook or whatever. This kind of project would cost minimum six figures, probably more.

Client: Money is not a problem.

Me: …I’ll be frank. I know you owe a few of my friends money, which is fine, I get it, but unless you’ve won the lottery my understanding is you don’t have that kind of money.

Client: I’m in the middle of something, but I’m going to have the money soon.

Me: Let me guess: you just received a letter from some a lawyer, and a rich relative you didn’t know you had left you all his money, and all you have to do is send the lawyer a “legal” fee to get millions.

Client: …How did you know?

Me: Because I get the same letter from scammers roughly 10 times a week.

He was legitimately about to send a few thousand to these scammers.

So, no, I did not land a 6-figure contract – but he did buy me dinner and a few drinks for saving him a couple thousand from scammers.

The post Nigerian Prince Charming appeared first on Clients From Hell.

Science communicator Kurtis Baute set up a 300 meter long row of dominoes to represent a timeline of history from the Big Bang to now, with each domino representing 1 million years. It's pretty incredible that he managed to make each domino, set the whole thing up, and successfully film and narrate the whole thing himself. It's not the kind of thing you want to do multiple takes of and the fact it worked and he did it all himself is super impressive. Also, when I say he made each domino I mean he physically made each domino. Like he bought a bunch of lumber and cut each individual piece. The only thing I've ever been this committed to is an asylum, and that was against my will. Keep going for the full video, along with the behind the scenes of him making each piece and setting it up.

For his Roman Emperor Project, Daniel Voshart (whose day job includes making VR sets for Star Trek: Discovery) used a neural-net tool and images of 800 sculptures to create photorealistic portraits of every Roman emperor from 27 BCE to 285 ACE. From the introduction to the project:

Artistic interpretations are, by their nature, more art than science but I’ve made an effort to cross-reference their appearance (hair, eyes, ethnicity etc.) to historical texts and coinage. I’ve striven to age them according to the year of death — their appearance prior to any major illness.

My goal was not to romanticize emperors or make them seem heroic. In choosing bust / sculptures, my approach was to favor the bust that was made when the emperor was alive. Otherwise, I favored the bust made with the greatest craftsmanship and where the emperor was stereotypically uglier — my pet theory being that artists were likely trying to flatter their subjects.

Some emperors (latter dynasties, short reigns) did not have surviving busts. For this, I researched multiple coin depictions, family tree and birthplaces. Sometimes I created my own composites.

You can buy a print featuring the likenesses of all 54 emperors on Etsy.

See also Hand-Sculpted Archaeological Reconstructions of Ancient Faces and The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture.

Tags: art   artificial intelligence   Daniel Voshart   Roman Empire

it was easier to rename MARCH1 and SEPT1 than wait for Microsoft to allow users to disable autoformatting

It’s desperate times, fellow designers, but don’t be too eager for a job that it ends up costing you money.

I’ve been targeted by scammers twice in the past month via text message. I believe they got my number from Creative Hotlist where I (used to) have my phone number listed. I got the first text on April Fool’s Day, appropriately enough.

Client: Greetings. I’d like to know if you offer graphic design services. Let me know how you are doing?

-Robert Jack.

I know, I know. I should have run right away. But I thought maybe English was his second language and he preferred an American alias, so why not just reply in case it was a real offer.

Me: I do. May I ask who referred you so I can thank them?

Client: Thanks for the quick reply. I need visual identity and catalog design. Can you take on new projects? I came across your info on Creative Hotlist.

I asked him to email me with details of his project request, which he did. He sent two PDFs and, although his furniture company name seemed lame (Woodrx?), I said I’d put together a bid. Naturally, I bid quite high and stated that I required 50% down. I figured that would be the end of it. He replied immediately.

Client: I got your estimate. Pricing looks good I’d like to proceed. As for payment I’m presently in Delaware for medical purposes I’ll pay with my card.

Me: Okay, great! I’ll draw up a contract. I’ll need you to sign it before we proceed.

Client: What accounting software do you use?

Huh? If you’re paying by card it shouldn’t matter. He says he can only pay through QuickBooks. I should have run then but I figured it would be easy enough to create a QuickBooks account.

Contract sent, contract signed, QuickBooks account created… and then the rub. An email with the subject line: Assistance Needed.

Client: I got in touch with the project consultant but I’m having a little issue with him regarding my agreement with him, I’d signed the agreement to make cash or bank deposit to him for his payment but due to my present condition I was diagnosed with lung cancer and will undergo a surgery soon so I’m limited and I won’t be able to do that. Kindly send me an invoice of $7,590 in which $2490 will be your payment for the job and $5000 you will help me forward to the project consultant so he can release the raw files for the catalog to you. You can keep $100 as tip. Once I make the payment and you have funds in your possession then you can help me forward to him. I will balance upon job completion.

$%#@! I’d allowed myself to be a player in a two-bit scam as old as online transactions. I quickly replied that I don’t funnel money and that the contracts were void, I voided them in Quickbooks and ignored his pleading emails that it was all on the up-and-up.

Two days later, I got another text that was exactly the same that “Robert Jack” sent from “Bob Donald. I never replied.

Fellow designers, take note. This “person” is truly a Client from Hell.

 

The post Don’t Fall for It appeared first on Clients From Hell.

singing a song about parenting while parenting

To create this ultra HD footage of the surface of Mars, high-definition panoramas created from hundreds of still photos taken by the Mars rovers are panned over using the Ken Burns effect. The end product is pretty compelling — it’s not video, but it’s not not video either.

A question often asked is: ‘Why don’t we actually have live video from Mars?’

Although the cameras are high quality, the rate at which the rovers can send data back to earth is the biggest challenge. Curiosity can only send data directly back to earth at 32 kilo-bits per second.

Instead, when the rover can connect to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, we get more favourable speeds of 2 Megabytes per second.

However, this link is only available for about 8 minutes each Sol, or Martian day.

As you would expect, sending HD video at these speeds would take a long long time. As nothing really moves on Mars, it makes more sense to take and send back images.

(thx, paul)

Tags: astronomy   Mars   photography   space   video

Client: Do whatever you want.  You’re the artist. You know what’s cool.

Me: Here you go! I think this is a really cool design.

Client: No, not this.

Me: Okay… this is an even cooler design. 

Client: Still not it. Let me be more specific: if there was a song that encapsulates how I envision the look and feel of the design I want, it would be Beyond by Daft Punk. Especially like the first 45 seconds of the track, like it’s an orchestral arrangement of the kind of music that plays when Mario defeats Koopa.

The post Synesthesia on demand appeared first on Clients From Hell.

This clip is from a 1947 French film about the imagined future of television called “Télévision œil de demain”. The film is based on a premise by science fiction author René Barjavel and directed by J.K. Raymond-Millet. It predicts not only handheld smartphone-like devices but also, with uncanny accuracy, the behavior that comes with them — like people walking around looking at screens, people on screens bumping into each other, oblivious screen users walking out in front of cars, etc. I mean, just look at this:

And a bit later in the clip, the film shows a car crash resulting from distracted driving.

See also some early smartphone predictions by Nikola Tesla (1926), W.K. Haselden (1919), and L. Frank Baum (1914):

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

And also from Mark Sullivan (1953):

In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent, and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk.

Tags: J.K. Raymond-Millet   Rene Barjavel   telephony   video

YouTuber ChuggersRCT synced up his custom roller coaster in Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. He says:

This is a synchronized coaster I've made in Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, that works completely in game, as long as you have the required custom music. A download for this save file will be released soon, as I have some work to do to make it more user friendly to operate.

This is an insane amount of work to put into a game that came out in 2002, and a testament to how great the Roller Coaster Tycoon series is. Let's also take a moment to acknowledge this guy's ROI, considering he's gotten 18 years of entertainment out of a $40 PC game. It's like the exact opposite of the guy who paid $114,000 for a Super Mario Bros. cartridge and will never play it once.

The Confederacy Was an Antidemocratic, Centralized State. "The actual Confederate States of America was a repressive state devoted to white supremacy." [theatlantic.com]

Sleeping Giants has pushed big advertisers to drop their support of racist & sexist media brands. While that was going on, co-founder Nandini Jammi says: "my white male co-founder gaslighted me out of the movement we built together". [medium.com]

America Is Refusing to Learn How to Fight the Coronavirus. Instead, we have "a pattern of failure following failure, with each successive failure normalized by the last". [nymag.com]

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This is delightful. Over the past few months of pandemic lockdown, the residents and staff of the Sydmar Lodge Care Home in Edgware, England have passed the time by recreating famous album covers.

Tags: music   remix

between 15 to 26 million Americans participated in protests

The past few weeks, I’ve been writing software for a recording device. This is good, because when I’m frustrated by the bugs I put in the code and I start cursing at it, it’s not venting, it’s testing.

There are all sorts of other little things we can do to vent. Imagine, if you will, you find yourself writing an if with an empty body, but an else clause that does work. You’d probably be upset at yourself. You might be stunned. You might be so tired it feels like a good idea at the time. You might be deep in the throes of “just. work. goddammit”. Regardless of the source of that strain, you need to let it out somewhere.

Emmanuelle found this is a legacy PHP codebase:

if(mynum($Q)){
    // Congratulations, you has locurlicenseucesss asdfghjk
} else {
    header("Location: feed.php");
}

I think being diagnosed with locurlicenseucesss should not be a cause for congratulations, but maybe I’m the one that’s confused.

Emmanuelle adds: “Honestly, I have no idea how this happened.”

also: YouTube banned Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer, and more, while Twitch temporarily banned Trump

Chen San-yuan, a Taiwanese man who has been nicknamed Pokémon Grandpa, has affixed an array of 64 phones to his bike in order to play dozens of simultaneous games of Pokémon Go.

When I first posted about Chen back in Nov 2018, his mere 15-phone setup looked like this:

How much bigger can he go? He’s averaging adding ~2.5 phones per month to the array (assuming linear growth, which I’m not sure we can, but let’s start there) so he could reach 100 phones by August 2021. Stay tuned!

Tags: Chen San-yuan   Pokemon   telephony   video games

impressive NYT data visualization of the spread of Covid-19 in the U.S.

Without blood groups, transfusions would be way easier. A newly discovered enzyme in the human gut can strip the sugars from type A and B to transform it into O, the blood type most people can accept. If it proves to be safe, it could revolutionise donation. More blood available. More lives saved.