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Windows Robocopy – efficiently copying files and directories
The Windows “Robust File Copy” utility for efficiently copying files and directories, with built-in retry, logging, and mirroring capabilities.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy
https://www.pdq.com/blog/hitchhikers-guide-to-robocopy/
https://activedirectorypro.com/robocopy-examples/
The Windows “Robust File Copy” utility for efficiently copying files and directories, with built-in retry, logging, and mirroring capabilities.
By default, Robocopy skips copying existing files if the specific metadata of the files match.
/mir : Mirror the source directory tree to the destination (equivalent to /e + /purge):
/e : copies all subdirectories, including empty ones
/purge : deletes files/folders at the destination that no longer exist at the source
/sj : Copy NTFS junction points (“soft-links”) themselves rather than what they point to. This preserves the junction at the destination.
/sl : Copy symbolic links as links (don’t follow them and copy the target file/directory).
/mt:24 :Run the copy operation using 24 concurrent threads (range 1–128; default is 8), for higher throughput on multi-core systems. This switch cannot be combined with /ipg or /efsraw.
/J : unbuffered I/O (good for large files)
/R:<N> : to limit retries (default is 1 000 000)
/W:<S> : to set the wait time in seconds (default is 30)
/NJS : No Job Summary.
/NC : No Class – don’t log file classes.
/NFL : (No File List) Suppresses the per-file lines (e.g. “New File …”, “Copied …”). Benefit: Cuts down console I/O, often shaving 10–20 % off total runtime on large trees.
/NDL : (No Directory List) Suppresses the per-directory header lines. Benefit: Further reduces console chatter.
/NP : (No Progress) Suppresses the percentage-complete on each file. Drawback: You lose the “XX %” indicator
/NJH : (No Job Header) and /NJS (No Job Summary) Only affect the very first and very last block; negligible on runtime and you probably want at least the summary.
/NS (No Size) and /NC (No Class) Remove size and class columns from each line. If you’re suppressing file/directory lists anyway, these don’t help much.
/XD : ignore given types
/ETA : Show Estimated Time of Arrival of copied files.Note:
Robocopy’s support for NTFS reparse-points (symbolic links and junctions) is a bit quirky:- /SL only affects symbolic links (it tells RoboCopy to replicate the link itself rather than follow it).
- /SJ only affects junction points (ditto for directory-junction reparse points).
- If you use both /SL and /SJ, RoboCopy can still attempt to enumerate a link as a real folder—leading to that “ERROR 267: The directory name is invalid.”
Because of this, this errors can be ignored:
2025/05/15 12:09:11 ERROR 267 (0x0000010B) Copying Directory C:\redux-remember\ The directory name is invalid.Bat file example:
@echo off setlocal :: Define the source and destination directories set "src=%cd%" set "dst=C:\TEMP" echo Copying %src% to %dst% :: Use robocopy to copy the contents robocopy "%src%" "%dst%" /MIR /SJ /SL /MT:24 /J /R:0 /W:2 /NFL /NDL /ETA /NP /NC /XD "__pycache__" ".pnpm" pause endlocal -
Disney Hacker Admits Using Malware-Laced AI Art App to Achieve Breach
https://cyberinsider.com/disney-hacker-admits-using-malware-laced-ai-art-app-to-achieve-breach/
A 25-year-old Santa Clarita man has agreed to plead guilty to hacking a Disney employee’s personal computer, stealing login credentials, and exfiltrating 1.1 terabytes of confidential data from internal Slack channels.
The charges stem from a targeted cyberattack carried out in the spring and summer of 2024 that compromised Disney’s internal communications and led to the public leak of sensitive corporate data.
“Kramer, operating under the alias “NullBulge,” created and distributed a malicious program disguised as an AI art generation tool. He uploaded this trojanized application to GitHub and other public repositories in early 2024, enticing users interested in generative AI. At least three victims, including one Disney employee, downloaded the program. Once executed, the software provided Kramer with remote access to the victims’ machines and stored credentials.”
After infiltrating the employee’s personal system, Kramer accessed corporate Slack credentials to infiltrate Disney’s internal Slack workspace and downloaded around 1.1 terabytes of data from nearly 10,000 channels including unreleased media projects, internal code, links to APIs, and credentials for internal web services.
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President Trump Says He Will Implement 100% Tariffs on Films Produced Outside the U.S.
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/trump-tariff-foreign-film-national-security-1236386566
Jon Voight has presented his Hollywood rescue plan…
While President Trump dropped his 100% foreign film tariff bombshell over the weekend, Oscar-winner Jon Voight was already at Mar-a-Lago pitching his industry revival plan. The presidential “Hollywood ambassador” has been making the rounds with unions, studios, and officials to craft his proposal—and now we’ve got the details:
•For filmmakers, Voight proposes stackable federal tax credits (10-20%) on top of existing state incentives. His plan would expand Section 181 provisions, allowing producers to write off 100% of costs in the first year. Instead of blanket tariffs, he suggests targeted penalties of 120% on productions that could have filmed in America but chose foreign locations just for tax incentives.
•For infrastructure, the plan includes tax credits for building or renovating theaters, studios, and post-production facilities. It would create job training programs to ensure Americans have skills for high-paying industry positions, with special emphasis on developing production capabilities in heartland states.
•For streaming platforms, Voight wants to revive regulations that once prevented networks from owning the shows they aired. Streamers would need to pay producers premiums (25-40% of production costs) for exclusive licenses, return more ownership rights after license periods end, and share copyrights 50/50 with content creators.
•For international work, the plan proposes co-production treaties with countries like the UK to enable collaboration without triggering tariffs. It includes exemptions from penalties for legitimate international partnerships that truly require foreign locations. -
Vulkan Gaussian Splatting – Real-Time GPU-Accelerated Gaussian Splatting with NVIDIA DesignWorks Sample vk_gaussian_splatting
https://github.com/nvpro-samples/vk_gaussian_splatting
vk_gaussian_splatting is a new Vulkan-based sample that demonstrates real-time Gaussian splatting, a cutting-edge volume rendering technique that enables highly efficient representations of radiance fields. It is the latest addition to the NVIDIA DesignWorks Samples.
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Foundry Nuke W_hotbox – A fully customisable ‘favourites menu’
https://www.nukepedia.com/python/ui/w_hotbox
W_hotbox is basically a fully customisable ‘favourites menu’ that pops up for as long as you press the shortcut and disappears as soon as you release. The buttons that make up the menu represent python scripts and change depending on you selection. The ‘Hotbox Manager’ offers you an user friendly interface which allows you to add new buttons on the fly. Those buttons are directly accessible via buttons that appear in the menu under your cursor.
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Yasuharu YOSHIZAWA – Comparison of sRGB vs ACREScg in Nuke
Answering the question that is often asked, “Do I need to use ACEScg to display an sRGB monitor in the end?” (Demonstration shown at an in-house seminar)
Comparison of scanlineRender output with extreme color lights on color charts with sRGB/ACREScg in color – OCIO -working space in NukeDownload the Nuke script:
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TED 2025 Rob Bredow – Artist-Driven Innovation in the Age of AI
https://robbredow.com/2025/05/ted-artist-driven-innovation/
https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_bredow_star_wars_changed_visual_effects_ai_is_doing_it_again
Rob Bredow speaks at SESSION 3 at TED 2025: Humanity Reimagined. April 7-11, 2025, Vancouver, BC. Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED -
Chongqing the world’s largest city in pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2025/apr/27/chongqing-the-worlds-largest-city-in-pictures
The largest city in the world is as big as Austria, but few people have ever heard of it. The megacity of 34 million people in central of China is the emblem of the fastest urban revolution on the planet.
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Fluent 4.0 released for Blender hard surface modeler
Beyond the boolean support, this add-on also provides cloth panel, grid, head screw, wire and pipe tool.
https://cgthoughts.gumroad.com/
https://superhivemarket.com/creators/cg-thoughts?ref=82
FEATURED POSTS
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Black Body color aka the Planckian Locus curve for white point eye perception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation
Black-body radiation is the type of electromagnetic radiation within or surrounding a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, or emitted by a black body (an opaque and non-reflective body) held at constant, uniform temperature. The radiation has a specific spectrum and intensity that depends only on the temperature of the body.
A black-body at room temperature appears black, as most of the energy it radiates is infra-red and cannot be perceived by the human eye. At higher temperatures, black bodies glow with increasing intensity and colors that range from dull red to blindingly brilliant blue-white as the temperature increases.
(more…)
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Photography basics: Production Rendering Resolution Charts
https://www.urtech.ca/2019/04/solved-complete-list-of-screen-resolution-names-sizes-and-aspect-ratios/
Resolution – Aspect Ratio 4:03 16:09 16:10 3:02 5:03 5:04 CGA 320 x 200 QVGA 320 x 240 VGA (SD, Standard Definition) 640 x 480 NTSC 720 x 480 WVGA 854 x 450 WVGA 800 x 480 PAL 768 x 576 SVGA 800 x 600 XGA 1024 x 768 not named 1152 x 768 HD 720 (720P, High Definition) 1280 x 720 WXGA 1280 x 800 WXGA 1280 x 768 SXGA 1280 x 1024 not named (768P, HD, High Definition) 1366 x 768 not named 1440 x 960 SXGA+ 1400 x 1050 WSXGA 1680 x 1050 UXGA (2MP) 1600 x 1200 HD1080 (1080P, Full HD) 1920 x 1080 WUXGA 1920 x 1200 2K 2048 x (any) QWXGA 2048 x 1152 QXGA (3MP) 2048 x 1536 WQXGA 2560 x 1600 QHD (Quad HD) 2560 x 1440 QSXGA (5MP) 2560 x 2048 4K UHD (4K, Ultra HD, Ultra-High Definition) 3840 x 2160 QUXGA+ 3840 x 2400 IMAX 3D 4096 x 3072 8K UHD (8K, 8K Ultra HD, UHDTV) 7680 x 4320 10K (10240×4320, 10K HD) 10240 x (any) 16K (Quad UHD, 16K UHD, 8640P) 15360 x 8640
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THOMAS MANSENCAL – The Apparent Simplicity of RGB Rendering
https://thomasmansencal.substack.com/p/the-apparent-simplicity-of-rgb-rendering
The primary goal of physically-based rendering (PBR) is to create a simulation that accurately reproduces the imaging process of electro-magnetic spectrum radiation incident to an observer. This simulation should be indistinguishable from reality for a similar observer.
Because a camera is not sensitive to incident light the same way than a human observer, the images it captures are transformed to be colorimetric. A project might require infrared imaging simulation, a portion of the electro-magnetic spectrum that is invisible to us. Radically different observers might image the same scene but the act of observing does not change the intrinsic properties of the objects being imaged. Consequently, the physical modelling of the virtual scene should be independent of the observer.
