The announcement of a new Perfect Dark has reminded me of a good story from my time at ATI. It was 2005 and I was in the 3D Application Research Group. The team which included @shaderwrangler @ChrisOat @mirror2mask @pixelmaven was working on the "Ruby: The Assassin" demo for

the launch of the ATI X1800. The ATI X1800 was significantly delayed (that's a great story too about a crazy hardware bug, but someone else who knows the details better should tell that one) and Microsoft was about to show the Xbox 360 for the first time at E3 2005. They were

planning to show Perfect Dark Zero, but apparently it was delayed. ATI had made the Xenos GPU for the X360 and Microsoft got wind of the new Ruby demo. It was a female character who vaguely resembled Joanna Dark so they asked us if we could port our demo to run on the Xbox 360

in time for E3. If memory serves, E3 was about three weeks away, which was insane. Our managers told us MS were offering each of us on the team $5,000 each if we were able to pull it off. This was a rare kind of incentive to get for us and I was really excited.

Anyway, we got pre-release dev kits which were actually Mac Pros with Radeon 9600 I believe. The first thing we had to do was get it all to build and run. The hard part there was dealing with PPC/endianess issues, but fortunately we had a lot of experience with that from porting

11 December 2020 #MAGAanalysis #Overturn

The Theory Of The Case

I have much more to study from the "BRIEF OF STATE OF MISSOURI AND 16 OTHER STATES AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE BILL OF

The New York Times is claiming in a long, front-page story today that recent fires killed "countless ancient redwoods" in California

The claim is false and should be immediately corrected

There is no evidence that the fire killed even a single ancient redwood tree

THREAD

As background, I love ancient redwood forests and helped save California's last significant grove of ancient redwoods in private hands between 1996 - 1999

This summer, I was the first to debunk claims that fires had killed ancient

“The protected trees, some 2,500 years old, were nearly wiped out by loggers in the 1800s,” claimed CBS News’ @JonVigliotti

“Now human-caused climate change has damaged or destroyed many of these ancient giants.”

“Big Basin Redwoods State Park has burned through,” reported New York Magazine’s @dwallacewells “Some, older than Muhammad, had stood for a thousand years by the time Europeans set foot in North America. The youngest are older than the Black Death."

But every school child who has visited one of California’s redwood parks knows from reading the signs at the visitor’s center and in front of the trailheads that old-growth redwood forests need fire to survive and thrive.

November 2020 US NPD THREAD - November 2020 consumer spending across video game hardware, content and accessories reached a November record $7.0 billion, 35% higher when compared to a year ago. YTD spending totaled $44.5 billion, 22% higher than the same time period in 2019.

US NPD HW - Consumers spent a November record $1.4 billion on new video game hardware, an increase of 58% versus YA. Growth was driven by the launches of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series. Year-to-date hardware spending reached $4.0 billion, 34% higher than a year ago.

US NPD HW - PlayStation 5 was November's best-selling hardware platform in consumer spending, while Nintendo Switch led the market in units sold.

US NPD HW - PlayStation 5 achieved the highest launch month unit and dollar sales for a video game hardware platform in U.S. history. The records were previously held by the PlayStation 4, which debuted in November 2013.

US NPD HW - Nintendo Switch has been the best-selling hardware platform in units sold for a record 24 consecutive months.

How I came to play the bagpipes

A story... and a thread

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Melodie. She liked music. In fact, she liked music so much that she made it her job! She connected with many people because of her abilities, and had many opportunities to obtain, play with, and try out many different instruments.

When Melodie was very young, she began collecting musical instruments. A flute here, a clarinet there, six trombones here, an accordion there, and the list goes on and on. As she got older, her collection grew. She got married, and her husband had his own collection as well.

Melodie developed many unlikely friends. Her personality was such that she could make friends with and talk to almost anyone. One day she made friends with a boy who played the bagpipes. He told her many wonderful stories of highland games and competitions. This did two things,

First of all, it made Melodie question whether or not the "mutt" of her father's heritage was at all Scottish in origin, but it also made her consider what playing the bagpipes must be like. Her studies led her to search for her genealogy.

With @franklowery our new study on attributes of T cells that contribute to successful cell therapy in cancer patients in @ScienceMagazine today w/ colleagues @slgoff_SB, @NCI_CCR_SB @theNCI a TL;DR thread on key findings with caveats :) 1/10

has a long history of using tumor infiltrating T cells (TILs) to treat cancers since well.. before I was even born. We analyzed our most successful melanoma ACT trial for cell surface phenotypes in TIL infusion products of patients (aPD1/immunotherapy naive) /2

Surprisingly we found a CD39- TIL subset (CD39-CD69-, DN) associated with ACT-response. TBH we were expecting the opposite (CD39+). We only included CD39 bcz multiple groups (e.g. Simoni et al, 2018) had reported CD39+ as enriching for anti-tumor/neoantigen reactive T cells. /3

CD39- DN TILs RNA/epigenetics resemble stem-like memory progenitors, and in vitro were able to self-renew, and give rise to other CD39+ subsets. OTOH the most dominant subset of patient infusion products were CD39+ CD69+ (DP) and these guys were terminally differentiated.. /4

So, to clarify we specifically analyzed tumor-specific mutation-reactive Tcells. Turns out, ACT-responders had pool of neoantigen-reactive TILs in the CD39- phenotype, while non-responders did not (despite other irrelevant CD39- Tcells) -> not all CD39- T cells are bystanders /5

The Review: GW 11 - A thread

Hi everyone, welcome to “The Review” where I look back on the key numbers of GW 11 with a look ahead to GW 12:

#FPL #FPLCommunity @OfficialFPL

(Data taken from @FFScout and @FFH_HQ with consent)

1) Which Tottenham Hotspur assets are worth holding?

Another solid performance on both ends of the pitch saw Spurs earn bragging rights over Arsenal in the north London derby. Despite having tough fixtures Heung Min Son and Harry Kane have still been among the goals for Spurs...

... therefore it may be worth to have another look at how the duo have been performing and who would seem to be the better option to invest in:

Son (GW 1-8) vs Son (GW 9-11)

Mins per shot inside the box: 49.4 vs 267
Mins per big chance: 71.3 vs 267
Mins per big chance created: 214 vs 267
Avg. FPL points per game: 9.25 vs 8.67

Kane (GW 1-8) vs Kane (GW 9-11)

Mins per shot inside the box: 28.6 vs 270
Mins per big chance: 79.3 vs 90
Mins per big chance created: 89.3 vs 270
Avg. FPL points per game: 10 vs 6

1. In some respects @IgnatiusPost is right- @JoeBiden's cabinet IS built for comfort- BUT its imp to rem the context.

That comfort is a function of the extensive exp this cabinet has- the antithesis of Trump's appointments.

This country NEEDS the antithesis of Trump's cabinet

2. But its also built for another purpose. Its built to be an olive branch to one man- @senatemajldr who is expected to yield either total control over confirmation, or at the least, great influence. Its meant to signal to him that Biden is serious



2. about his "governing for all" campaign pledge & asking for a reset moment in American politics post-Trump. Something he continues to hope for even as more than 1/2 of the House GOP Caucus signs onto an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States that argues to end

3. democracy itself, as @SteveSchmidtSES articulates so clearly in this video that every American should see. Biden could not have presented to the GOP Senate, to McConnell, a more serious peace offering than this cabinet and its a good move that if it

4. works would pull America back from the brink of a civic collapse. So it MUST be tried even if people like myself think the odds of success are depressingly low. It simply MUST BE TRIED. BC if we are to plummet off the cliff, it needs to McConnell & the GOP who on their own are

Non-fish people look away. Huge amounts of conflicting info is dished out on UK/EU fish catches in “UK waters”. It’s late in the game but I decided to look again at the “real” figures, as established by Dr Ian Napier for the Uni of the Highlands and Islands. 1/13

Dr Napier has crunched the figures not for EU national quota shares (which often overlap the UK/EU zones) but for actual catches, by nationality and precise maritime location. To read the whole of this painstaking July 2020 report go here.

The report is factual and draws no political conclusions. On the surface (as it were), Dr Napier’s findings justify the complaints of UKG and parts of the UK fishing industry that Britain has an unfairly low share of catches in the UK EEZ up to 200 miles. BUT…. 3/13

Although some UK complaints are justified for some species and some sea areas, the report shows that the overall figures often bandied around in UK media (ie 70% for EU boats, 30% for UK) are misleading or grossly exaggerated. 4/13

For instance….I’ve failed to notice this before myself (slap in face with wet cod) but the stats often quoted conveniently ignore non-EU Norway’s share of catches in the UK EEZ. (The UKG has already agreed to maintain this N. access in return for UK access to N. waters.) 5/13

1st grade mathematics work sheets and my mother's mathematics teaching style. Mathematics will not be so terrible, since it seems that parents are interested in preparing their little ones for mathematics before school age.

I grew up without understanding how people talk about mathematics as difficult as they do, it was my best topic at school.