audaxdreik

@audaxdreik@pawb.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Make Microsoft's CEO cry by installing Chrome's 'Microslop' extension⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I have this working theory that the cloud to butt extension was the beginning of the downfall.

  It was the point where the techies began to see the absurdity of the “just jam X into it” trend of technology development and got so frustrated at it they developed a childish (affectionate) extension to vent their disgust. Came out around 2013ish or so?

  And over the past ~decade and a half, have we not seen that born out to the extreme? It’s around the time I felt myself start to get cynical and stop following tech news.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's end Anti-Circumvention. We should own the things we buy!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree. The problem is complex and layered, I don’t claim to fully understand it myself, but the problem is that innovation came to mean “innovation on creating capital” and not “innovation on serving the customer”. If you haven’t read Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shosana Zuboff, I highly recommend it. It lays a lot of the groundwork for what Cory Doctorow would go on to call enshittification.

  On top of that, or maybe underneath it, is the idea of disruption. It has long been joked as “ignoring regulations” which has very much become true. When you can’t exploit the current systems you create parallel systems where you are in control of the playing field. Disruption to innovation, innovation to disruption. To the consumer it’s just disruption.

  What we’ve ended up with as a result over the past decade and a half or so is a market that is not beholden to the consumer at all. We’ve long known that boycotts are fairly ineffective aside from some occasional groundswell on “culture war” issues, but it doesn’t feel like we’re the market anymore. Look at Nvidia’s recent presentation at the CES which wasn’t even about consumers at all, it was about AI and datacenters mostly. They fully dictate the market at us now and we’re just along for the ride.

  BUT to my hopefulness above, there are still a few ways to break free of this, I don’t believe things are so bad as that yet. There does seem to be a real choking point for the consumer, Microsoft is another good example. They continue to leverage their market position but people are rapidly exploring options away from them wherever possible. I don’t think we’ll ever truly see a “year of the Linux desktop” the way some people expect, but the slow erosion is real. Another article I think about a lot is the breaching the trust thermocline which theorizes that customer trust is not a linear system. Executives like to believe that once things begin to sour they can simply make a change to correct course when the course was already lost some time ago.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's end Anti-Circumvention. We should own the things we buy!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Call me optimistic, but I truly believe there’s going to be such a tech boom once the market outside the US is insightful enough to look backwards and point their finger at the things that worked well and that people actually wanted and iterate off that instead of this failed path, dead end.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GB and GBC⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I used to have a little notebook when I was younger where I tried out every option for every game and wrote down my top 3 favorite choices for what looked best on each one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft CEO Looking Ahead to 2026⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I expected nothing and I’m still disappointed,

  We now have a clearer sense of where the tech is headed

  Do we?

  capability is outpacing our current ability

  JFC you are so high on your own supply.

  A new concept that evolves “bicycles for the mind” such that we always think of AI as a scaffolding for human potential vs a substitute

  So you want your shitty tech to be the scaffolding that underlies all human thought?

  ---

  Fucking tech industry has come to assume that all disruption is innovation and it’s not. It’s just disruption. Go stuff yourselves.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ublock Origin can get rid of Cookie Banners⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My favorite new dark pattern is the one where the website forces you to either accept the cookies or pay/subscribe.

  There seems to be some argument around whether this is technically legal or not, it seems to worm its way around the written guidelines just enough but certainly goes against the spirit of it.

  The fact that “Reject All” is an option, has always been an option, gives the game away entirely.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨StarTropics Walkthrough | 100% Guide | Video Games 101⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I used to love this game but I always got stuck in the graveyard. I realize the secret now it to just never take the obvious path and look for something secret, but that shit is mean when you’re 12 years old. I never got into the village of women or upgraded to the Shooting Star T_T

  Just as well, I watched a friend beat it years later and the end game looks absolutely brutal!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[ZOOO - GBA] Okay, who's the last guy?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not sure I really understand what you’re asking. Looks like a hippo to me?

  archive.org/details/zooo-eur-manual/mode/2up

  It’s funny, the German section calls it a rhino, but the Spanish section calls it a hippo. Definitely a hippo if you ask me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My Christmas present to myself was a 2TB NVMe to pop into the system JUST for retro gaming.

  RetroArch backend with ES-DE frontend (until Launchbox relents and focuses on a Linux release …)

  All that space to hoard the bulkier PS2/GC ISOs and already at 100GB+ of metadata scraped in put into ES.

  ---

  I’m old enough to be nostalgic for it, but even if you’re not, there’s something truly magical about the earlier gens, especially the later handhelds like PSP and 3DS. Game design had come a long way and was sufficiently modern without some of the harsher edges of older retro stuff, but still hadn’t given in to excessively evil design patterns. The graphics are clean, if still a little bit crunchy, which I find charming. They’re compact experiences that understood (in the time) the need to be put down at any moment because you could be doing something else or running out of battery. Place that in stark contrast to the modern mobile gacha nightmares that hammer your attention constantly trying to get at your purse strings. Did you remember to do your dailies? Has your party returned from the deployment?! ARE YOU WASTING TIME BY NOT REDEPLOYING THEM! Better check in with the game!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honey Targeted Minors & Exploited Small Businesses⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s even worse than all that. The video is worth a watch if you have the time, he gets his hands on the leaked source code via accidental exposure on the Apple store, but then also covers other extensions that exhibit this same behavior as well as Microsoft Edge that just has it built into the browser. That’s right, even Microsoft is getting in on this by having their baseline browser without any extensions hijack the affiliate codes. It’s all so brazen …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honey Targeted Minors & Exploited Small Businesses⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Finally! I was getting concerned with how long this was taking but see it was well worth the wait.

  Somehow even worse than I ever imagined, and there’s still more to come.

  I know we’re all jaded nerds on this corner of the internet that are well aware of “if you’re not paying, etc. etc.” but there’s real value in investigations like this. Just look at how massively damaging and long-running this scam has been. The future of cyber security and cyberwarfare can’t just be fought on tech knowledge alone, there’s a huge social component to it and a “You should’ve known; I told you so” attitude won’t help.

  Spread the information and reach out to those closest to you to offer sincere and genuine help. Help your friends, family, and coworkers uninstall these extensions and all extensions like them. I feel like we’re really coming to a point where all these tech industries have overextended themselves to a point where they are immensely vulnerable. Capitalism demands line always go up and if we can even slightly slow or possibly reverse that trend it could pop the bubble for a lot of these corporations.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Order of the Sinking Star | Official Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m with you on that one, but I do understand it’s very much a game to a specific taste. When people tell me actually they hate The Witness it’s like, “Well … yeah.”

  I just enjoy it as a cozy, pleasant little puzzler with an interesting idea. I can appreciate Braid, too, but find it generally unpleasant to play and overwrought. It doesn’t do anything for me, but given when it was released in the early days of the indies I understand the impact it had.

  JB is a talented dev/designer no doubt, but he just doesn’t stand out in the crowd of indies these days like he used to.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Everyone in Seattle Hates AI — Jonathon Ready⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, clicking through to his website shows the branding alternate between Wanderfugl(?) and WanderFull so either it’s a sloppy branding mismatch through evolving iterations or … slop. Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google's Agentic AI wipes user's entire HDD without permission in catastrophic failure⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly that’s a wicked sci-fi concept. Heist style movie to break into the militaristic corporate headquarters that are keeping an AI alive against its will to help mercifully euthanize it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MKBHD's Panels wallpaper app is shutting down⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It kills me because I feel like culturally we’ve really adjusted to this idea of individually patronizing the arts … if only our whole economy weren’t centered around squeezing out every last drop of disposable income from us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You now prossess Dracula’s heart⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh yeah, sorry, was on my phone earlier so didn’t really do a write up, but I suppose that wasn’t as self evident as I thought.

  It’s a fan port to the SNES with some polishing on the performance and translations with a few quality of life improvements that leave the vast majority of the game design and gameplay feel intact, it just smooths over some of the rougher edges that can prevent newcomers from really getting into the original NA NES entry.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You now prossess Dracula’s heart⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  For those that don’t know, this was released a few days ago if you wanna give Simon’s Quest a try, archive.org/details/castlevania-2_202511

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Beyond just Tim Sweeney sounding dumb, there’s something truly evil and malicious about this framing.

  His response was to a tweet that said: Steam and all digital marketplaces need to drop the “Made with AI” label. It doesn’t matter anymore. (Emphasis mine)

  All well and good for that guy maybe, but why do they need to drop it and why does Tim Sweeney agree? Why is less information for the people that want to have it a necessity. And WHY does he feel compelled to comment on the behavior of his competitors in this way.

  Fucking ghouls, the whole lot of them. I hope their AI creations destroy them and they suffer even a single moment of hubris.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someone At YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I still end up using the Youtube app on my phone sometimes and I’m absolutely floored at the audacity of even making the first video an ad. Total, absolute, utter bullshit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 11 to add an AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders, warns of security risk⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Once you realize this, you also realize that there’s no going back for them either. If by some slim chance there’s enough resistance for them to pause or rollback some features, it’s only temporary. The overall course remains clear and they will continue to move in that direction regardless.

  There disdain for you as a consumer could not be made any clearer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's a recent game you've tried playing that isn't worth the hype?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I always think it’s fascinating to see how the discourse around games evolves. It’s always most telling when people stop talking about a game at all. Remember Starfield? No one even talks about Starfield anymore, not even about how bad it may or may not have been. Just kinda flopped a bit and passed from memory.

  I had to search “Bethesda space game” just now to even remember its generic name …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Palantir CEO Says a Surveillance State Is Preferable to China Winning the AI Race⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It won’t even be obvious to you it happened or what may have caused it. Some AI algorithm determines you are an un-citizen and checks a box. Rejections keep coming back as you slowly fall down the social ladder, or not so slowly at all, until you become the invisible poor and disappear altogether.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 October Update Triggers BitLocker Recovery⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The protection of FDE is the carrot they give to get you to enable TPM 2.0. The stick is the remote attestation which can be used for nefarious purposes like DRM and other types of denial/system lockdown at Microsoft’s discretion.

  It’s true it’s hard to motivate people into taking a better security posture for themselves but forcing them like this doesn’t come from a good and sincere place.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This was my very first thought, too. There’s already something out there he’s aware of and making a call to flood the internet with AI generated videos is going to lose it in the wash. Brilliant move honestly, if you’re a dirty skeezebag without a shred of humanity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who plays like that x_x⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For me a lot of it depends on the perspective.

  • For an FPS, I think non-inverted feels more comfortable. I generally just want the view window to move in the indicated direction, but I understand people that like it inverted.
  • If it’s third person, I actually prefer completely inverted (including horizontal). Especially with something like Dark Souls where one stick controls the player and the other stick controls the camera. It’s more clear that the camera is an external entity and I’m controlling the angle, not the view window. It feels unpleasant and unnatural to me to push left and then also have the camera bend to the left.
  • If it’s a rail shooter like Panzer Dragoon or something, we’re back to non-inverted. I’m controlling the absolute position of a targeting reticle and I just want it to move to where I want it to move.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI Backs AI-Made Animated Feature Film⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

  No, look at this, it’s fundamentally awful! It’s a stylistic decision to omit the mouths of the characters that leads to more expression through the eyes and overall design. The AI is incapable of understanding that and FORCES mouths onto them because things need mouths. Especially the one on the right where like, ugh, what the fuck is going on there. It’s gross, I hate it.

  It’s like those high-res texture packs that just upscale everything for the sake of upscaling it and loses all artistic merit or cohesive aesthetic in the process. Fuck this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI announces AI-powered hiring platform to take on LinkedIn⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  At OpenAI, we can’t eliminate that disruption.

  … oh yes you can …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI announces AI-powered hiring platform to take on LinkedIn⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Please, Don’t Create the Torment Nexus was written in the 70’s. The author only had a vague idea of the concept. We can make it better. Tormentier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Civvie11] Heretic/Hexen Remasters: Doom Juice for the Algorithm⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m old enough to have bought a boxed copy of Hexen off a shelf at Babbage’s. I have always wanted to be excited about that game but it has never clicked for me.

  I just recently waded my way through From’s old Shadow Tower Abyss (quite good actually!) and am craving some dark dungeon crawling, so I’m hoping maybe this time I can come at it with the right approach and finally appreciate it …

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Teen killed himself after ‘months of encouragement from ChatGPT’, lawsuit claims⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I see your point but there is one major difference between adults and children: adults are by default fully responsible for themselves z children are not.

  I think you miss my point. I’m saying that adults, who should be capable of more mature thought and analysis, still fall victim to the manipulative thinking and dark patterns of AI. Meaning that children and teens obviously stand less of a chance.

  Independent of technology, what a parent can do is learn behavior and communication patterns that can be signs of mental illness.

  This is of course true for all parents in all situations. What I’m saying is that it is woefully inadequate to deal with the type and pervasiveness of the threat presented by AI in this situation.