I tend to follow a lot of tech news because I get really depressed thinking about how Earth is retaining more and more heat in its atmosphere, which will eventually kill everything if left unchecked. We all have a long way to go towards decarbonizing but one area I enjoy reading about is ongoing battery research. The problem with battery research is there are exciting things being discovered all the time but most of them don’t scale, or it’s not something happening in the next decade. Still, there have been some interesting discoveries just this past month so I thought I’d share some!

Engineers at Drexel University (my alma mater) in Philly accidentally discovered an important step on the road to sulfur-ion batteries, which have the potential to be three (possibly even five) times as energy-dense as lithium-ion.

Using AI, researchers at the University of North Carolina have made interesting findings with a Fluoride battery, which could be ten times as energy-dense as a lithium-ion battery. Having a battery that dense could mean a car that goes over 3,000 miles on a charge but you could also have a much smaller battery, resulting in a lighter car that uses less energy to cover the same distance (with more charging stops).

Contemporary Amperex Technology just announced the Qilin Battery, claiming a 1,000 km (621 miles) vehicle range with mass production starting in 2023.

Alsym Energy just emerged from stealth mode with a water-based battery they claim is similar to lithium-ion but half the cost and with no risk of fires.

All these various solutions reduce or eliminate the need for certain rare earth minerals and lithium, replacing them with more common elements and more potential for rapid expansion without the traditional bottlenecks. The if and when remains unclear but it’s all hopeful stuff.

There’s also QuantumScape’s work on a solid state battery, which will be another step forward and could be something we see in the near future (as in the next few years). Full disclosure, I bought some QuantumScape stock when it was a SPAC and at one point my value had tripled but at the moment it's down by around half of what I invested. It could go up, it might not! Most of my attempts to invest in green tech have failed.

Besides making electric cars way more efficient and environmentally friendly, we need battery solutions for grid storage from sources like wind and solar. Sodium batteries are a big one to watch in this space; they aren’t as energy dense as lithium-ion but use salt (very abundant) vs lithium and are much cheaper, so you could see tons of large sodium batteries being used for grid or even home energy storage.

There’s also interesting things happening with carbon capture tech, something that could help pull CO2 from the atmosphere as we work to reduce the CO2 we’re putting out.

I hope it all pans out!

There's a website that does unlicensed statues and apparently they are doing Dad from Dad 'n Me!

Check it out, pretty surreal:

Been listening to Goat Girl today while programming zombie hands and a killer lawnmower.

@Dungeonation pointed out that Cathode Raybots can load levels in Ruffle now. Here's a test link if you're curious!

A few notes: You'll get to a mode select screen that will be completely blank because blend modes aren't supported yet. Click the left side of the screen to go to the level select menu. You'll then be able to select a level and it will successfully load, although the level layout itself won't be visible because it requires Cache as Bitmap functionality. Ruffle has been making progress with bitmaps and blend modes so I'm looking forward to these working in the future!

For now, it's cool to see how well the level actually runs; it never felt that smooth in the Flash Player. Cathode Raybots was a big project for me where I was trying to expand on my abilities. It has a level editor, a gameplay recorder for enemy patterns and a drawing tool, all capable of saving user creations to NG. It was a game intended to flex our content sharing API, which sadly released as Flash was on its way out. @PsychoGoldfish might eventually introduce a similar system via Newgrounds.io for HTML5 games; he's working on cloud saves at the moment.

With NG and Flash in decline at the time of Cathode Raybots' launch in 2013, I felt like it never got to live up to its potential. At least people will be able to keep playing it, thanks to Ruffle!

Yesterday I wrote about seeing Nine Inch Nails and mentioned 100 gecs opened for them. I was tangentially familiar with 100 gecs but after Wednesday some of their hooks kept looping in my head, so I decided it was time to learn more about them. I started with this Laura Les interview:

While on the topic of hyperpop, Laura notes Dorian Electra, which led me to this video:

I noticed this video was co-directed by Mike Diva, who I’ve always had a special place in my heart for; when my son was a few years old, we used to watch this video all the time:

So that got me wondering what else Mike Diva has been up to and it turns out he was at the NIN concert, bringing this story full circle!

Mike's tweet made me reflect on some of my own thoughts that night, in particular about how in high school, my friends and I were into ALL electronic music and we loved discovering new bands, new sounds. I like to think NIN fans would have that same sort of open-mindedness to new music but I imagine there’s a good portion of NIN fans who are there for the angst, vs experimental electronic music.

I do want to give people the benefit of the doubt; 100 gecs and hyperpop are a departure from what 90s industrial fans are used to and you can’t expect them to immediately nod their heads. Maybe a lot of these guys were taken aback at first but then had “Money Machine” stuck in their heads the next day, or maybe not! Who knows.

Anyway hope you learned something today.

Last night I went to see Nine Inch Nails perform at the Met in Philly. The Met was built as an opera house in 1908 and fell into disrepair for many years, only to re-open in 2018 thanks to a $56 million restoration. It’s like a more grandiose version of The Trocadero, which hosted the Newgrounds Party back in 2000 and sadly closed in 2019.

This was my second time seeing NIN live and third time seeing Trent Reznor in person, thanks to this fortuitous E3 encounter in 2002:

One of my favorite personal accomplishments was making this the default photo for Trent Reznor on IMDB for years (the default has since changed). I’ve always wondered if he noticed.

I went to the show with Rob, Lori and Greg. Rob took a picture of us at Thirsty Dice beforehand:

We were checking out the NIN Discord channel but yeah we look like phone addicts.

NG trivia: Greg was the programmer for GroundCats on iOS and NG-alumn @Bob now does the Thirsty Dice website. It's a board game cafe.

Rob isn’t in the picture but he also took a picture with Trent at E3 in 2002 so enjoy:

100 gecs opened for NIN. I’m mostly familiar with 100 gecs from people using them in animations but it was cool to see them live and now I'm diving deeper into their work. NIN of course was great!

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It was nice to get out around people, something I haven’t done often since Covid. It’s good to reboot the brain once in a while with fresh sensory input. I'll be seeing Run the Jewels with @IvanAlmighty in August, during the Adult Swim Block Party. @psychicpebbles will also be in town that weekend for a Smiling Friends panel, if you're local and want to check it out!

For the past few years I had been making a monthly music playlist but the lists were getting so long that I fell out of it. I'm giving it another go with the May playlist, where I've tried to focus on upbeat music that can inspire game ideas or work well in a game, with some other favorites mixed in along the way.

The playlist thumbnail is Share Your Heart by @TheRealArtie; I thought it fit the upbeat vibe!

I also wanted to make note of a new release by @sorohanro: a performance of Trumpet Voluntary. I could imagine animators finding this song useful in certain situations:

In general I'd love to see more people make us of the Audio Portal in their games and movies. It's why the Audio Portal was originally created almost 20 years ago!

If you're ever looking for something specific, try clicking the "Advanced" link in the top right corner of our search results. It has a lot of additional search criteria including search by length and search by licensing settings.

Try searching for random terms that fit the mood and style you're looking for!

These mock-ups are almost two years old but these were some concepts for the playlist front-end:

Desktop Screenshot

Mobile Comparison Shot

Playlist Edit Form

That mobile mockup was pretty rough, the fonts in the header would be larger. Do these hold up ok?

There's a seven page doc outlining plans for the playlist system. Playlists would replace the existing Collection and Series pages (addressing all necessary functionality), have the same sort of back-links from content pages, work better as albums for music and hubs for events, have co-curators, etc. There are other items ahead of this on the roadmap but we keep chipping away.

My kids were watching SpongeBob when this ad came on, indoctrinating them into the petroleum industry:

It's true that we all love lots of things that depend on petroleum but this ad bothered me because ultimately, we need to come up with alternatives for all this stuff and the oil industry needs to die.

Ya know the part where the guy's shoes vanish? That doesn't have to happen if we all wear Allbirds. This isn't a paid promotion or affiliate link; I'm wearing a pair of Tree Dashers right now and they're great. Take a look and consider them for your next shoes! Each change is a step into a better future.

Also I wouldn't mind a future without football lol

I stumbled on a cool Metal Slug piece by @henskelion that was never featured back in 2018:

Here's some other fun Metal Slug fan art!