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We're digging
There are few things Feedback values more than a truly dedicated hobbyist: someone who happily spends months or even years creating something that has no practical use, just to be able to look at it or play with it.
So in the online world Mining craft. For those who may be unfamiliar, Mining craft is an open world game where everything is made up of cubic blocks. Players dig into the ground to collect useful mineral cubes that can be used to build things. For example, they can build a house so that monsters that come out at night cannot reach them.
Or they might get big. Really big. Feedback loves a group called Minecraft Middle Earth (Shouldn't this be Minecraft Middle Earth?) whose members built some of the largest locations from J. R. R. Tolkien's stories, such as Minas Tirith and Moria mines (Certainly). The group claims its map of Middle-earth is 29,000 by 30,000 blocks in area.
By its scale, Mining craft a completely different project from YouTuber Sammyuri small for comparison, with a capacity of only 1020 x 260 x 1656 blocks. But it is also impressive in another way: it is a large language model (LLM), like ChatGPT or Claude. Summuri inevitably called it CraftGPT.
The YouTuber built CraftGPT using redstone, which in the game is a mineral that behaves like an electrical circuit and can be used to create mechanisms. Most players use redstone to make simple things like monster traps, but Sammury took it and ran with it. In fact, in a meta twist, they previously created raw version from Mining craft within Mining craft.
Their new design starts with a keyboard and screen that allows players to enter clues and see the model's answers. Behind it rises an array of red stone blocks that looks like a city with hundreds of skyscrapers. They are configured to emulate LLM components such as the tokenizer, KV cache, and rectified linear unit (ReLU).
All this allows CraftGPT to have conversations like: “Hey, how are you?” “I feel very happy today, thank you for asking.” He can correctly tell you that the sky is blue and that fruit is good for your health. When Summuri asked, “Did you know you were a machine?” CraftGPT replied: “Yes, I think it’s quite interesting, especially with new technologies and technology.” This led Summuri to the ironic conclusion that CraftGPT “probably” doesn't know it's an AI.
On the one hand, no one could accuse sammuri of false modesty in this regard. Their video on CraftGPT begins with a text warning that “some viewers… may suffer adverse effects, including but not limited to having their brains spectacularly exploded.” However, they go on to claim that CraftGPT “is technically a 'small language model' because it only has 5 million parameters; That’s about as much as my poor old laptop could handle.”
Feedback found us staring with glassy eyes at huge masses of red stone that were sure to repeat themselves. Extremely, amazingly repetitive. We can't imagine how boring it was to build them.
It's me!
While we're on the subject of video games, Feedback recently learned of some major upheaval in the gaming world. president Nintendo America is retiring at the end of the year after nearly a decade in his post. That's 10 years of helming the new Mario games, pitting a nervous Italian plumber against giant evil turtle Bowser and his armies of Koopa Troopas and Goombas, all to protect Princess Peach and her mysteriously undefended Mushroom Kingdom.
But perhaps this was intended, given that the future ex-president's name is Doug Bowser.
Reinventing paper
At this stage the feedback is quite wise to the technology hype machine. There are only so many times you can read claims that some “game-changing” start-up company is “disrupting” a sector of the economy by “revolutionizing” the way a task is done before you become suspicious.
So, in terms of truly revolutionary new technology, the “minimalist, paper-based case manager” has received very positive reviews as New York Times And Wired last year. Known as Analog and created by Ugmonk, it aims to replace online task management tools so you can work offline without the distractions of social media. It's a wooden block that sits on your desk with a bunch of lined white cards with bullet points on it for you to fill out your assignments on.
In other words, it's a few cards and a piece of wood. NOWThe reviewer called it “deliciously old school.” She anticipated the obvious question: “Why not just use a notepad, right?” For her, however, such approaches have “never worked,” whereas “the analog system appeals to my Gemini spirit, allowing me to feel both professionally serious and surprisingly free.”
An Analog a starter kit will set you back £75. Then you need to keep buying cards. Annual replenishment will be usually costs £141but there is an alternative: Ugmonk allows you to sign up for a monthly subscription to receive regular deliveries. Yes, this is another example of a company trying to trick you into paying them money every month for a service that you probably won't use but forget to cancel.
Feedback, by the way, recognizes the irony of pointing this out while being part of a magazine that sells subscriptions. You don't need to write to let us know.
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