BREAKING NEWS
LATEST POSTS
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Luca Rossi – How to Help Underperformers
https://hybridhacker.email/p/how-to-help-underperformers
- Understand Performance is Systemic: Recognize that culture, systems, management, and individual traits impact performance.
- Address Underperformance Early: Use consistent feedback and the accountability dial (mention, invitation, conversation, boundary, limit).
- Provide Balanced Feedback: Reinforce, acknowledge, and correct behaviors.
- Use an Underperformance Checklist: Evaluate issues related to culture, systems, management, and individual traits.
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Suite Platinum Medley cover by Diego Cebrián
Bonus: Mike Oldfield MEDLEY (Amarok|Ommadawn|TubularBells)
Diego Cebrián & Alejandro Sotomayor
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The Sunny 16 rule – exposing film photos without a light meter
Basic rule
- On a sunny day, set your aperture to f/16.
- The shutter speed should be the reciprocal of your ISO setting (1/iso).
For example, with an ISO of 100, the shutter speed should be 1/100 seconds.
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GoldmanSachs.com – GEN AI: TOO MUCH SPEND, TOO LITTLE BENEFIT?
Tech giants and beyond are set to spend over $1tn on AI capex in coming years, with so far little to show for it. So, will this large spend ever pay off? MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and GS’ Jim Covello are skeptical, with Acemoglu seeing only limited US economic upside from AI over the next decade and Covello arguing that the technology isn’t designed to solve the complex problems that would justify the costs, which may not decline as many expect. But GS’ Joseph Briggs, Kash Rangan, and Eric Sheridan remain more optimistic about AI’s economic potential and its ability to ultimately generate returns beyond the current “picks and shovels” phase, even if AI’s “killer application” has yet to emerge. And even if it does, we explore whether the current chips shortage (with GS’ Toshiya Hari) and looming power shortage (with Cloverleaf Infrastructure’s Brian Janous) will constrain AI growth. But despite these concerns and constraints, we still see room for the AI theme to run, either because AI starts to deliver on its promise, or because bubbles take a long time to burst.
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FEATURED POSTS
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Composition – These are the basic lighting techniques you need to know for photography and film
http://www.diyphotography.net/basic-lighting-techniques-need-know-photography-film/
Amongst the basic techniques, there’s…
1- Side lighting – Literally how it sounds, lighting a subject from the side when they’re faced toward you
2- Rembrandt lighting – Here the light is at around 45 degrees over from the front of the subject, raised and pointing down at 45 degrees
3- Back lighting – Again, how it sounds, lighting a subject from behind. This can help to add drama with silouettes
4- Rim lighting – This produces a light glowing outline around your subject
5- Key light – The main light source, and it’s not necessarily always the brightest light source
6- Fill light – This is used to fill in the shadows and provide detail that would otherwise be blackness
7- Cross lighting – Using two lights placed opposite from each other to light two subjects
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Guide to Prompt Engineering
The 10 most powerful techniques:
1. Communicate the Why
2. Explain the context (strategy, data)
3. Clearly state your objectives
4. Specify the key results (desired outcomes)
5. Provide an example or template
6. Define roles and use the thinking hats
7. Set constraints and limitations
8. Provide step-by-step instructions (CoT)
9. Ask to reverse-engineer the result to get a prompt
10. Use markdown or XML to clearly separate sections (e.g., examples)
Top 10 high-ROI use cases for PMs:
1. Get new product ideas
2. Identify hidden assumptions
3. Plan the right experiments
4. Summarize a customer interview
5. Summarize a meeting
6. Social listening (sentiment analysis)
7. Write user stories
8. Generate SQL queries for data analysis
9. Get help with PRD and other templates
10. Analyze your competitors
Quick prompting scheme:
1- pass an image to JoyCaption
https://www.pixelsham.com/2024/12/23/joy-caption-alpha-two-free-automatic-caption-of-images/
2- tune the caption with ChatGPT as suggested by Pixaroma:
Craft detailed prompts for Al (image/video) generation, avoiding quotation marks. When I provide a description or image, translate it into a prompt that captures a cinematic, movie-like quality, focusing on elements like scene, style, mood, lighting, and specific visual details. Ensure that the prompt evokes a rich, immersive atmosphere, emphasizing textures, depth, and realism. Always incorporate (static/slow) camera or cinematic movement to enhance the feeling of fluidity and visual storytelling. Keep the wording precise yet descriptive, directly usable, and designed to achieve a high-quality, film-inspired result.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/139mxi3/chatgpt_created_this_guide_to_prompt_engineering/
1. Use the 80/20 principle to learn faster
Prompt: “I want to learn about [insert topic]. Identify and share the most important 20% of learnings from this topic that will help me understand 80% of it.”
2. Learn and develop any new skill
Prompt: “I want to learn/get better at [insert desired skill]. I am a complete beginner. Create a 30-day learning plan that will help a beginner like me learn and improve this skill.”
3. Summarize long documents and articles
Prompt: “Summarize the text below and give me a list of bullet points with key insights and the most important facts.” [Insert text]
4. Train ChatGPT to generate prompts for you
Prompt: “You are an AI designed to help [insert profession]. Generate a list of the 10 best prompts for yourself. The prompts should be about [insert topic].”
5. Master any new skill
Prompt: “I have 3 free days a week and 2 months. Design a crash study plan to master [insert desired skill].”
6. Simplify complex information
Prompt: “Break down [insert topic] into smaller, easier-to-understand parts. Use analogies and real-life examples to simplify the concept and make it more relatable.”
More suggestions under the post…
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Zibra.AI – Real-Time Volumetric Effects in Virtual Production. Now free for Indies!
A New Era for Volumetrics
For a long time, volumetric visual effects were viable only in high-end offline VFX workflows. Large data footprints and poor real-time rendering performance limited their use: most teams simply avoided volumetrics altogether. It’s similar to the early days of online video: limited computational power and low network bandwidth made video content hard to share or stream. Today, of course, we can’t imagine the internet without it, and we believe volumetrics are on a similar path.
With advanced data compression and real-time, GPU-driven decompression, anyone can now bring CGI-class visual effects into Unreal Engine.
From now on, it’s completely free for individual creators!
What it means for you?
(more…)
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Romain Chauliac – LightIt a lighting script for Maya and Arnold
LightIt is a script for Maya and Arnold that will help you and improve your lighting workflow.
Thanks to preset studio lighting components (lights, backdrop…), high quality studio scenes and HDRI library manager.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/393emJ