Originally we actually started messing around with 3D assets, which turned into RCT, then we learned about Ramp Labs! Very cool project as well. There's is more "how can AI play RCT" whereas this is "how can we construct theme parks using components"
I'm currently reading 'There Is No Antimemetics Division' and this news item reminds me of that. Also, 1984, in which the government actively establishes false narratives as actual history and do it so many times that it's impossible to remember what really happened.
the post on BoopSnoop was very impactful for me too! As a software engineer, it's drilled into your brain that you have to think about high scalability and user facing products. I used to have a lot of ideas, but the first instinct was always to build a paid user facing product. None ever got built. But after reading that post a few years ago, my mindset was completely flipped. Since then I've built umpteen tools, services, macOS menubar apps, tail scale services .. just for myself. And I love it!
Hex is my new favorite STT on MacOS. Also uses Parakeet V3. I didn't think it could possibly be faster than Handy, but it is much faster - even long ramblings transcribed within a second. It's MacOS only, leverages the CoreML / Apple Neural Engine.
For local speech-to-text, Whisper remains the gold standard - you can run it locally with good accuracy across languages. For speech-to-speech, you'd typically chain Whisper with a local TTS model like Coqui TTS or use something like Tortoise TTS for higher quality but slower processing. The key is balancing accuracy, speed, and resource usage based on your specific use case. If you're doing content creation workflows, consider what post-processing you might need - sometimes the raw transcription needs structure and enhancement beyond just accurate words.
+1 on the post-processing point. Raw Whisper output is ~90% there but punctuation, grammar, and formatting are the missing piece.
I built MumbleFlow to address exactly this — whisper.cpp for STT plus llama.cpp for smart text cleanup, all running on-device. Metal/CUDA accelerated, sub-second latency on Apple Silicon. Global hotkey works in any app.
For anyone interested in seeing how dithering can be pushed to the limits, play 'Return of the Obra Dinn'. Dithering will always remind you of this game after that.
It's intended, aesthetically, to remind you of Atkinson dithering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_dithering), a variant of Floyd-Steinberg dithering often used in graphics for the black-and-white Macintosh.
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