Smart Nonsense

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AI image models are insanely good now. But they still can’t reliably draw one thing... Hands. Seriously! Ask your favorite AI tool to generate a picture of a human hand. WHY DOES IT HAVE SIX FINGERS?! Ok, sometimes AI gets it right… But hands and fingers are still one of the most consistent failures in image generation. And that actually tells us something important about how these models work. You see, AI image tools don’t “draw” images. They don’t search Google. And they don’t copy-paste anything. So then what are they actually doing? Well, they’re built using something called diffusion models. It’s a bit complicated, but basically diffusion models learn to remove noise. Here's how: Take a real image. Add static. More static. MORE. Usually 50 layers of static until you’re left with pure TV noise. The AI uses math to model each step of that static layering process. But it also uses math to figure out how to run this process in reverse. Static in → image out. So when you ask ChatGPT to gender-swap your friend, it starts with total static, and removes it layer by layer until you get something… good?? And faces? Easy. Two eyes. A nose. A mouth. Roughly the same layout across millions of photos. The model has seen so many faces that it basically has them memorized. But hands?? 27 bones. 29 joints. A million valid poses. The statistical map for "hand" is enormous, which makes the mathematical variance high. So when AI reconstructs fingers from static… It’s not “drawing” them. It’s guessing what should exist based on probability. And sometimes, probability gives you six fingers... AI model labs are actively working on this problem. #AI #MachineLearning #DiffusionModels #GenerativeAI #TechExplainers

Your phone fires 30,000 infrared dots at your face every time you unlock it. But how does this light recognize…your face? Take a quick look at your phone, specifically the black notch toward the top, near the camera. Apple calls this system TrueDepth. Eight components packed into that little black notch, all firing in the fraction of a second it takes you to glance down. One of those components: the dot projector. It…projects dots. 30,000 in a fraction of a second, every time you need to open your phone. So FaceID isn’t taking a picture of your face. It's building a 3D map of it. The dot projector casts 30,000 infrared dots across your features, and because your face has contours, those dots distort in predictable ways. The infrared camera reads that distortion and reconstructs the geometry of your face in three dimensions. Remember when you had to roll your head around during phone setup? The 3D model gets compared to the mathematical face print you created during setup. This process uses a TON of data, but it happens so fast. How? Apple built a dedicated chip specifically to run this. The Neural Engine inside the A-series processor handles the face-matching math at a speed and security level the main CPU couldn't manage alone. And your face data never leaves your device. It lives in something called The Secure Enclave [*oooooh, ahhhh*], which is an isolated processor that even the operating system can't read. This system has an error rate of roughly 1 in 1,000,000. Touch ID is 1 in 50,000. All of that, before you've finished picking up your phone!

Your product deserves a better explainer... Whether it’s... • Feature explainers that don’t feel like demos • Launch videos that build hype, not just awareness • Sales explainers to accelerate the sales cycle • Paid ads that people don't swipe past • Or even an owned YouTube channel Let's explore how our unique storytelling can help you drive engagement, conversion, and retention🌈

Theranos: The $10 Billion Blood Test Scam She faked her voice. Dropped out of Stanford at 19. Raised nearly $1B. Got Obama, Kissinger, and Walgreens to buy in. The pitch? Run 200+ blood tests from a single drop. Revolutionize healthcare. There was just one problem: The tech didn’t work. But she said it did. She fired skeptics. Silenced engineers. Inflated projections. Then came one whistleblower. One investigation by The Wall Street Journal. And just like that, $9 billion in value evaporated. Today, she goes by Liz. The black turtleneck is gone. The baritone voice is gone. But the story remains one of the most expensive lies in Silicon Valley history...

How does a SpaceX rocket..LAND ITSELF?! Because for all of time NASA rockets were one-time use: You launch them, they make it to orbit... Thennnn run out of fuel and fall into the ocean. This is insane! That’s like taking a Spirit Airlines 737 and just flying it into the water. Here's how it actually works:

What do piggy banks have to do with..money?? Turns out NOTHING... (kinda) In the 1200s there was this cheap orange clay in England called "pygg." People made little pots and cups and jars out of it. Super basic stuff. And eventually they started storing their coins in these pygg jars. But fast forward a couple hundred years, language shifts. Some guy walks into a potter's shop like "hey can I get a pygg jar for my money" and the potter goes "...a pig jar? Like a pig? Say less." So he hands him back a jar shaped like a pig. Because pigs were a symbol of... - Wealth - Abundance - Food security If you owned pigs back then, you were kinda crushing it. So the shape stuck! Now every kid in America learns to save money by stuffing coins into a ceramic animal that only exists because a potter in medieval England didn't know his clay vocabulary.

Remember Bridgit Mendler from Disney Channel? Turns out she went to Harvard, earned a PhD at MIT, and is now CEO of a space startup that raised $30M from @a16z and @foundersfund... Her first prototype? Built in her garage with Home Depot parts...

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But nobody uses it anymore!  So Ray formats his new email language: (it was so clever we never stopped using it)

Ya, that little symbol was used by medieval merchants to mean ‘at the rate of’ Like:

Why does every email have ‘@‘ in it? Well, the year was 1971. The guy was this computer engineer, Ray Tomlinson:

Advertising explodes. We’re talkin’ brand campaigns, jingles, slogans, highway billboards, Super Bowl commercials.

BOOM! They invent focus groups and advertising becomes a ~science~.

The world’s first advertisement dates back to ancient Egypt. Can't read the glyphs? I'll translate: “Missing: Shem, the slave of Hapu. If anyone brings him back, the owner will give one gold coin. For those who turn a blind eye: the shop of Hapu the weaver is where the finest linen is woven to your desire.” Banger. A lost-and-found notice, but also ‘yo, come to my shop for sick drip’. Smart move, Hapu. But unfortunately, Shem the Slave was never found..