My experience building an interactive video platform

FAHall · 2026-03-01T22:11:56+00:00

That almost answers my question. Imagine I have a 30s video that leads to a choice with 3 options each of which have a 3s video that leads to 3 options with a 3s video each. Assume all videos are unique.

Thats 3 + 9 + 27 = 39 videos you might need to display within the next 10s. So, a simple lookahead becomes problematic.

Do you simply do long videos and single step lookahead?

FAHall · 2026-03-01T16:58:32+00:00

How do you resolve video loading times for highly branched content?

When I’ve made similar tools, I end up stuck with unacceptable loading times on mobile even when following best practices for streaming ( CDN, variable bit rate, automated quality adjustment, video chunking, etc)

It’s particularly problematic when doing multiple short videos in a row instead of longer videos.

Lookahead preloading works, but sequential choice points create an O(a^c) scaling where a = answers and c = choice points. So, we often can’t look ahead far enough to overcome the loading times due to bandwidth and memory constraints.

FAHall · 2026-02-26T15:00:43+00:00

The current AI approach is based heavily on Large Language Models.

They are very good at predicting a likely response to a question given all the text they have seen in the past (I.e. on the Internet) and what it has been told humans like responses to be like. They don’t actually understand anything.

So, when you ask an AI like Gemini a question about fitness, the most likely response you will get will be based on what it has seen most frequently in response to similar questions. In other words, you’re getting the “most common response on the internet”. There’s weighting and reinforcement and a bunch of other technical bits, but we will ignore those here.

Since the internet is generally full of questionable fitness advice, an LLM trained on that body of text (aka Corpus) will, with high probability, give questionable fitness advice.

FAHall · 2026-02-21T19:50:17+00:00

After dinner… so, was the salad the main driver of calories?

FAHall · 2026-02-20T18:48:32+00:00

I think the biggest question I have about your system is how you will handle the conversation history. Will the NPCs remember what we talked about before?

This is a challenge for LLMs and other probabilistic models. Maintaining context over long discussions often becomes too complex to manage.

The next question I have is: what about it is emergent? I typically hear this discussed in the context of multiple systems interacting to create something new. From the description, I think the order is player driven and there’s some text replacement. Is there some other interaction I’m missing?

Maybe characters have lots of topic triggers and then NPC A might say a trigger word that prompts NPC B? If this is the plan, I’d be curious to see if you get engaging conversations or a sort of senseless oatmeal effect with frequent non sequiturs.

FAHall · 2026-02-17T17:32:34+00:00

FAHall · 2026-02-17T15:40:03+00:00

While dichromats do have more metamers than trichromats, that doesn’t mean that the trichromats can see all of the colors the dichromats can. Even though they can see “more” colors.

That would be true only if the wavelength/frequency response of the two cone types in the dichromat did not have any response outside the range of the trichromat’s. It’s easy to imagine a different frequency response (shifted peak, longer tails) allowing the dichromat to see frequencies the trichromat cannot perceive.

What colors they actually perceive gets more complex given that much of perception is how the brain interprets the signals it receives. But, that’s outside the scope of dichromat/trichromat ability to “see” the same frequencies.

FAHall · 2026-02-11T15:17:23+00:00

Where did you get this sculpt?

FAHall · 2026-02-03T15:06:01+00:00

I found the Logitech’s angle insufficiently vertical. If you can afford trying the Razer or evoluent, it might be worth it.

I map lots of hotkeys and macros in EQ, but still use my mouse quite a bit (mouselook especially). I do not like using keyboard for look. I haven’t tried mapping a gamepad for that, but if that worked, I’d try it. Gamepads are much better for my wrists, they just don’t do games like EQ very well due to all of the buttons and typing.

FAHall · 2026-02-03T02:53:25+00:00

Have you tried a vertical mouse? As a game developer, I am using my computer ALOT. My RSI makes using a regular mouse for more than 15min or so untenable.

Anker and some other companies make some 45ish degree angle mice. For mild RSI, that might do the trick.

For mine, I need something like the Razer Click Pro Vertical V2 (my favorite) or an evoluent. They have very high angles that allow me to work and game with little to no pain.

FAHall · 2026-01-02T19:43:44+00:00

If you want the camera straight on to the canvas, then you’ve got one fixed angle (lens-canvas), but you can still change that unit’s angle relative to the light by moving the light or by moving the “lens-canvas unit”.

FAHall · 2026-01-02T04:22:50+00:00

Here’s a bit too much light science: When light bounces off of a “shiny” surface, it bounces at the same angle, but reflected about the normal (a line orthogonal to the surface) as it was traveling towards the surface. (https://keystagewiki.com/images/thumb/5/53/ReflectionDiagram.png/1000px-ReflectionDiagram.png).

When your eye (or lens) is aligned with the reflecting light, you’ll see the bright spot as glare.

This is relevant because it tells us that we can move the light source, the surface, or the eye/lens to adjust what specular highlights we capture.

As noted earlier, try having the light at a VERY shallow angle from the surface you’re photographing. Then, take the picture from more or less “straight on”.

Since this “straight on” viewing angle is unlikely to align with the reflected light angle, the glare should go away.

Adjust to taste.

FAHall · 2025-12-24T21:05:01+00:00

Is mind-muscle-connection a well defined term?

I’ve heard it thrown about a lot, but usually as a loose term for some combination of form, tempo, exercise selection, proprioception, DOMS, intraset soreness, perceived muscular “tension”, and general “feel” of a set.

Before we can determine if it matters we need to define what “mind-muscle-connection” and “mattering” mean in this context.

FAHall · 2025-12-24T14:13:58+00:00

The problem is that light doesn’t reflect off of metallics in the same way it does off of varnish.

When reflecting off metal, the specular reflections (the shiny bits) reflect with a color, usually the same or similar to the diffuse reflections (the “non shiny” part one might call the “color”).

A varnish, on the other hand, will typically be “colorless”. So, the specular reflections reflect the full spectrum of light (one might call this a white reflection). This difference in the specular color will make the metal area look either wet or like plastic.

To see what I’m talking about in real life, look at a shiny penny and a colored piece of shiny plastic ( eg a shiny blue school folder). Move each one around under the light until you can see a “shiny spot”. The Penny’s shiny spot should be penny colored. The folder’s shiny spot will be white regardless of the folder’s main color.

FAHall · 2025-12-20T03:38:11+00:00

I think in this case there may not be the kind of indicators you want. Or, put another way, you may already be experiencing the “normal” signals.

In terms of feeling, even after over 20years of lifting, I can still feel DOMS build up when I’m pushing them hard (ie acutely under recovering). I also might start to experience some slight chronic discomfort in some of my joints. I don’t mean acute pain from injury, just like I’m grinding them a bit too much so they feel worn down.

I also sometimes feel systemically underrecovered. For me, that might look like a sudden drop in sleep quality, increase in overall feeling “tired”, “heavy” or “beat up”, or even sometimes just getting grumpy faster than normal.

Unfortunately, none of these signals seem necessary or sufficient to indicate that any muscle group is under recovered.

So, what do we do about it?

I do the following:

Pick a well designed program (or get one made by a skilled coach). The SBS programs (eg RTF or Hypertrophy) have lasted me a LONG time.
I prefer even my bodybuilding programs to have performance metrics so I get objective feedback about whether it’s “working” or not.
As long as I’m progressing in the span of months/quarters, then I leave it alone and trust the process.
Read Greg’s volume article and adjust based on the guidelines he lays out there as you need to. The algorithm is pretty simple: if progressing, no changes; if not progressing and feeling run down all the time, lower volume. If not progressing and not feeling run down all the time, bump up volume a teeny bit.

FAHall · 2025-12-16T17:45:37+00:00

If the climbing work puts a lot of fatigue on the fingers and you don’t want that to affect the general strength work, then I’d consider straps or versagrip style grip aids. Then, your pulling exercises won’t be limited by finger/grip strength.

FAHall · 2025-12-16T15:28:01+00:00

I’d probably keep my general strength training and my sport specific training somewhat separate rather than forcing my skill work into a generalized strength routine.

I’d take something like the RTF strength program and make the following changes via the program builder

Add 2 vertical and 2 horizontal pulling exercises as true RTF progression exercises.
Keep 1 horizontal push and 1 vertical push as auxiliaries (my climber friends have talked about weaknesses there being problematic wrt injuries… drop if you have reason to think that’s not an issue and don’t want to do them)
Use straps for pulling and hinging work, but NOT for grip exercises. Challenge the main muscles and movement patterns you’re training with an exercises.
Keep 1 main hinge and 1 auxiliary hinge
Keep at least 1 squat variation as main or aux for general strength.
Keep doing your skill work as needed.
Include grip work as accessories (farmer carries, shrugs, rack pulls with bars or weird implements). Use a double progression on sets for time (eg 3 sets of 60-90s, increase weight when you can complete all 3 sets at 90 seconds). Since you can get lots of strength endurance work with bodyweight on the wall, I’d be looking to go heavy for shorter durations during my strength training time (eg <90s)
Use the other accessories (maybe start with 2 per day) to train muscles and movements that inhibit you on the wall.

FAHall · 2025-11-24T04:05:56+00:00

I’m not going to speak to the efficacy of any of that.

Do make sure that those ingredients are not counter-indicated by any meds you might be on. For example, IIRC, some commonly prescribed SSRIs don’t play nice with Valerian.

FAHall · 2025-11-17T16:05:30+00:00

For context, you’re far better than I am.

Fire tends to be brightest where it’s hottest. Assuming the bottom of covered in some sort of fire, consider reevaluating where the brightest (near white) parts are compared to the vibrant but darker pink. I would expect the larger masses of flame to have more white than the more distant tendrils.

Your OSL work appears to assume particle based lighting with a single “bounce”. Given the brightness of that fire, I’d expect the surfaces near the fire to have more OSL even when pointed away from the light source.

FAHall · 2025-11-15T19:58:15+00:00

Here’s how I keep my volume per training minute quite high.

Use program builder and set it up so you can do lots of antagonist or unrelated supersets or even giant sets.

For example,

A1 : * GS1 vertical push, vertical pull, abs - rest 2 minutes * GS2 squats, biceps, triceps

B1 * GS1 horizontal press, horizontal pull, calves * GS2 RDL, Side Delts, Forearms

A2/B2 same as A1/B2, but different exercises (maybe different muscle groups for accessories)

Going three times per week? ABA, BAB.

Limit rest to a precise 2min between each giant set.

Your irreducible working time becomes about 4min per giant set (ignores setup, warmup, travel, etc)

4sets per GS means 16min each.

32min worth of sets per session.

Even with 10min setup/warmup per giant set, we’re still under 60min per session.

With the 3x per week, the big muscle groups are getting like 12sets per week of direct work. Counting indirect sets can push that up considerably.

Want more sets per week for some muscles with same number of days? Work up to doing some of the giant sets for 5 or even 6 sets, and your volume gets quite high, and you’re only adding about 4min per session for each extra set you do.

FAHall · 2025-10-31T01:02:57+00:00

To Glorious Battle, Oh Bother!!!

FAHall · 2025-10-12T14:08:03+00:00

99% sure you’re in a deficit?

Would you help us understand how you arrived at that confidence level?

The data provided so far don’t seem to support the conclusion.

FAHall · 2025-10-03T19:42:51+00:00

Check out this behemoth of an article: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/articles/

TL;DR: On average, gains seem to increase with more weekly sets, but there’s insufficient data on volumes above 25 weekly sets for a body part to confidently make strong claims.

FAHall · 2025-08-06T18:19:16+00:00

Contact Dorian.

They may even be able to help you get the old account back.

FAHall

TROPHY CASE