Brett Saint Cloud

Nintendo's lead physics engineer saw the prototype that became Tears of the Kingdom and said "are we really doing this?!" Then they did it. That's why players can build working trains inside the game. At GDC 2024, the team broke down the architecture. The rule from day one was simple: build a system, let fun emerge. To make that rule run, they removed every non-physics object from the game world. Gates, cogs, doors. Everything got rebuilt as a physics-driven object. Two layers of physics underneath: Havok (the same commercial engine powering Half-Life 2) at the bottom, Nintendo's in-house physics layer on top. Every wheel in TOTK is three rigid bodies: wheel, motor, shaft. Torque from the motor flows through the shaft. Friction with the ground creates forward motion. That's why a player-built train rolls correctly even though no developer ever scripted "trains." The cooking pot is the funniest piece of the architecture. Nintendo added a joint at the bottom so soup wouldn't spill on uneven terrain. Players figured out the joint was a ball-and-socket and turned it into vehicle suspension, robot arms, and laser turret mounts. None of that was on the design doc. Sound runs on the same trick. There is no pre-recorded "wagon noise." Every sound emerges from rolling wheels, jangling chains, and creaking joints colliding in real time. The director called it a physics engine for sound. The audio team said on record they don't recognize half the final sounds because the system made them. All of this runs on a Switch with 4GB of RAM and a 10-watt power budget. Studios with 10x the hardware budget can't let you put a barrel on a horse. Tears of the Kingdom lets you build a train.

Still the greatest tweet of all time

zoom in on the syrup

This isn’t accurate. I explain this often. Space is *quite* colorful. EVERY digital raw photo is monochrome. Your phone has something called a bayer filter that allows it to turn one photo into 4 captured through different color filters. Telescopes like Hubble do the same thing through alternating filters, and most of the photos they share are true color. JWST shoots in infrared which is outside the visible spectrum, so it has to be shifted to visible light by its very nature, but the colors are still accurate to the wavelength separation captured, they’re not selected arbitrarily and show real detail. This process is usually overexplained which leads to confusion, when the reality is space photos are generally far more precise than any casual digital photo, including the color.

@left2reigns This is amazing. I can’t believe I didn’t know this about him earlier. Props.

Stone Cold Steve Austin on same-sex marriage: “I am for same-sex marriage. I don’t give a sh!t if it's two guys, two gals whatever… any human being that wants to be married, more power to them ” He also questioned some religious groups, asking who actually spoke to God and decided same-sex marriage wasn’t allowed (The Steve Austin Show 2O13)

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words, which feels a bit passive-aggressive.

Jennifer Welch: “Jimmy Kimmel — keep going. Do not bend the knee to this insecure, diaper-wearing, full face of makeup wearing dipshit surrounded by completely broken people. Do not obey in advance. Will somebody grow a pair and tell the Trump regime to go fuck themselves?”

Interested to hear if anyone finds this answer persuasive!

@PodSaveAmerica @jonfavs Honestly f*ck this dude. Cant believe he’s running the DNC (actually can 100% believe it)

Jon Favreau questions DNC Chair Ken Martin on why he won't release the DNC's autopsy on the 2024 election.

Tapp Jaker is desperate to keep his job when MAGA ghouls take over CNN. Pathetic spineless little lying weasel.

Ben Sasse is a member of a political party that has done everything it can for decades now to create a political economy in which fewer and fewer Americans can afford to raise a family in comfort, security, and dignity. Talking about candy crush or whatever is pure silliness.

I had honestly forgotten that Andrew Cuomo lost the democratic primary and then ran again as an independent and lost again. Mayor Mamdani got to beat Andrew Cuomo two separate times in six months.

Imagine calling Renee Good and Alex Pretti “domestic terrorists” and calling immigrants “animals” then turning around and telling people they need to “tone down their rhetoric.”

The Simpsons go to town Artist Rudy Willingham

Just noticed that I can no longer play a song I purchased on iTunes a few years ago. I get a “this item is not currently available in your country or region” message Carries a faint whiff of robbery without a refund.

Amazon workers pee in bottles to meet quotas but Jeff Bezos buys yachts so big that in 2022 they nearly dismantled a historic bridge to move it through Rotterdam. And we’re debating whether a $30 minimum wage is “realistic.” The debate itself is obscene.

At some point we have to accept health care "reform" is not the answer. Single payer is the answer.

This is the primary dividing line in Dem politics today: between people who think Trump appeared out of nowhere, and people with a modicum of understanding of history and political economy who understand he’s a symptom and we’ll be fucked if we don’t solve the underlying issues.