audaxdreik
@audaxdreik@pawb.social
- Comment on Meet the AI vegans: They are choosing to abstain from using artificial intelligence for environmental, ethical and personal reasons. Maybe they have a point 18 hours ago:
What aspects of crypto have been integrated into everything?
- Comment on ‘We didn’t vote for ChatGPT’: Swedish Prime Minister under fire for using AI 1 day ago:
Absolutely incorrect. Bullshit. And horseshoe theory itself is lately bullshit.
(Succinct response taken from Reddit post discussing the topic)
“Horseshoe Theory is slapping “theory” on a strawman to simplify WHY there’s crossover from two otherwise conflicting groups. It’s pseudo-intellectualizing it to make it seem smart.”
This ignores the many, many reasons we keep telling you why we find it dangerous, inaccurate, and distasteful. You don’t offer a counter argument in your response so I can only assume it’s along the lines of, “technology is inevitable, would you have said the same if the Internet?” Which is also a fallacious argument. But go ahead, give me something better if I assume wrong
I can easily see why people would be furious they’re elected leader is abdicating thought and responsibility to an often wrong, unaccountably biased chat bot.
Furthermore, your insistance continues to push an acceptance of AI on those who clearly don’t want it, contributing to the anger we feel at having it forced upon us
- Comment on Need a keyboard with a dedicated "slop" button 2 days ago:
Yeah, sorry, that wasn’t directed so much at you as it was using your post as a starting point.
I remember the Folding at Home program, that was more about distributed computing than AI. Game AI has been well-discussed for decades now, but in 99.9% of other AI cases it’s usually in reference to the current trend (or trying to ride that wave) and like 0.1% niche nerd talk you caught a stray from.
- Comment on Need a keyboard with a dedicated "slop" button 3 days ago:
I really don’t think there is any useful generative or general AI.
So a lot of the issue is how marketing got their slimy tentacles around the word, but most “useful” AI is domain specific, symbolic ML (machine learning). Even LLMs have their uses in very specific domains, but again, general usage is very questionable.
People are already somewhat familiar with ML, but that’s been kind of covered by the catch all term “algorithm”. What most people understand as “the” algorithm (YouTube, Twitter, whatever) isn’t a single algorithm, but a complex set of algorithms often at least partly compromised of some sort of ML.
All that to say, the general public really doesn’t need to know this stuff and the serious engineers couldn’t care less of our opinion of it. Fuck AI.
- Comment on Microsoft concedes that 'The Outer Worlds 2' retail price was too high — Xbox says it "will keep our full priced holiday releases at $69.99," with refunds incoming 2 weeks ago:
This is the biggest factor for me now, too. Not to go all old man Millennial, but humor me for a second:
I’ve been playing games since the NES era. The scene used to be a lot slower and while I never played every single game that came out or even every console, I was enough of a hobbyist that I could still follow all the major developments. These days, there’s simply TOO MUCH. And I don’t mean to imply that an abundance of choices is bad, just that it’s an absolute firehose that no one person can follow. You have to dedicate yourself to your specific interests, your specific niches. These can well be served by indies and the whole back library of games.
Because that’s the other thing, we’re starting to more thoroughly recognize games as art, as a library rather than as pure content. Unless you are absolutely committed to sucking on the end of that firehose to catch all the new content at its zenith, what’s really the point?
Fuck man, it’s time to go back to the NES for me, pick up all those games I never beat as a kid and sink 10,000 hours into learning how to speedrun some of my favorites. There’s simply no need to spend $70-80 fucking dollars on subpar, rushed, exploitative content. Fuck 'em.
- Comment on It's rude to show AI output to people 2 weeks ago:
Oh yes, I think Peter Watts is a great author. He’s very good at tackling high concept ideas while also keeping it fun and interesting. Blindsight has a vampire in it in case there wasn’t already enough going on for you 😁
Unrelated to the topic at hand, I also highly recommend Starfish by him. It was the first novel of his I read. A dark, psychological thriller about a bunch of misfits working a deep sea geothermal power plant and how they cope (or don’t) with the situation at hand.
- Comment on It's rude to show AI output to people 2 weeks ago:
Blindsight mentioned!
The only explanation is that something has coded nonsense in a way that poses as a useful message; only after wasting time and effort does the deception becomes apparent. The signal functions to consume the resources of a recipient for zero payoff and reduced fitness. The signal is a virus.
This has been my biggest problem with it. It places a cognitive load on me that wasn’t there before, having to cut through the noise.
- Comment on Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss - Closest modern equivalent? 3 weeks ago:
I’ve somehow heard about this game before but failed to realize what this actually was. Oh no … I can feel a new obsession coming on …
- Comment on Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE 4 weeks ago:
Comes to mind as an example that already exists, …steampowered.com/…/MEGA_MAN_X_DiVE_Offline/
- Comment on EU says it will continue rolling out AI legislation on schedule 4 weeks ago:
I just can’t get over how little we hear from academics RE: AI. It shows a clear disinterest and I feel like if they did bother to say anything it would be, “Proceed with caution while we study this further.”
Instead it’s always the giant corporations with vested interest in this technology succeeding. It’s just so painfully transparent.
- Comment on AI Job Fears Hit Peak Hype While Reality Lags Behind 4 weeks ago:
What kind of source is GazeOn? Based off the top menu items, looks like a pro-AI rag. Biased source.
To give them an ounce of credit, there are many factors that would prevent any sort of accurate reporting on those numbers. To take that credit away, they confidently harp on their own poorly sourced number of 75.
Whether AI is explicitly stated as the cause, or even effective at the job functions its attempting to replace is irrelevant. Businesses are plowing ahead with it and it is certainly resulting in job cuts, to say nothing of the interference its causing in the hiring process once you’re unemployed.
We need to temper our fears of an AI driven world, but we also need to treat the very real and observable consequences of it as the threat that it is.
- Comment on Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE 4 weeks ago:
For sure, 💯
- secure players’ data: there should be no sensitive player data being stored on a private game server like that anyways, you’re connecting to a server, not logging into a service
- remove illegal content: not the developer’s responsibility in this case, it’s the responsibility of the private server (admittedly this could get messier with net neutrality and safe harbor stuff? unclear, but point remains, it’s still not the developer’s responsibility here)
- combat unsafe community content: ditto. Not the the responsibility of the developer but the private servers. It’s often been argued that the smaller communities of private servers do a BETTER job of moderating themselves)
- would leave rights holders liable: HERE IT IS! We can’t let you self host something like Marvel Rivals due to all the copyrights and trademarks and brand protections. How dare you!
- Comment on Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE 4 weeks ago:
Absolute trash statement, I really hope this bites them.
They’re just repeating a lot of the same misinformation that Pirate Software had been saying, the exact things that had riled the gaming community and caused this latest wave of action. We’re already primed to discount the points they’re trying to make and it shows exactly how disingenuous they’re being.
Positively, I hope this reflects some true fear on their end.
Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.
As has been stated over and over and over again, private servers used to be an option until the industry decided they weren’t any more. If the result of this is that it forces the industry to not make shitty, exploitative games, that’s still a win for the consumers. I would rather have no game at all rather than something that psychologically tries to exploit my FOMO and drains my wallet.
- Comment on Large majority of French, German and Spanish public back tough EU stance on Big Tech, despite risk to Trump relations 5 weeks ago:
There are so many ways in which big tech is complicit with what’s happening in the US right now, but corporations have no home.
Lack of regulations, cozying up with an authoritarian, and a populace still with significant funds to drain keep them safely within bounds while things like the GDPR keep them at bay in Europe. But rest assured, once things become too difficult/drained over here, they’ll start pushing the boundaries. Likely through grassroots campaigns to make Europeans distrust the GDPR (what is the general consensus on this anyways? as an American it looks pretty good to me but I’ve never lived under it).
Big tech is a behemoth unto itself, and will need to be fought as such. Put up strong protections now while you can.
- Comment on Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base 5 weeks ago:
You would hope, but this is the same thing we see across almost all industries these days. It’s almost like there’s a root cause for it, some sort of, Iunno, economic system we could blame …
But especially cable companies, for example. Has a dwindling customer base caused them to rethink their business strategies? Or has it caused them to try and bleed that dwindling base dryer even faster?
There’s no “learning” anymore, there’s riding the bus to the absolute pits of hell and just hoping you’re not the CEO to be the one that has to go down with it.
- Comment on So you want to start playing Castlevania games (a giant primer) 5 weeks ago:
Good write up!
For my own perspective, I’d like to add that I think they’re all worth playing even if you don’t stick them out. I think Castlevania is one of my favorite series to discuss from a media literacy standpoint because it’s easy to the ideas as they evolved over the different games. You don’t even necessarily need to attempt to tackle them in chronological order because the old ones still have a direct and simple charm to them, if that’s your thing.
While Metroidvania has half of Castlevania in it (and all of Metroid), outside of Igarashi’s contribution the series didn’t show a whole lot of interest in following through on a lot of those ideas, especially as it attempted to break into 3D. Curse of Darkness was perhaps the closest, but still not very. It doesn’t surprise me that Igarashi broke off on his own eventually and now does Bloodstained. I think it’s fitting, it’s a good thing to give him his own series (while still holding clear inspirations) and let him do his thing.
I was never a fan of Lords of Shadow and for the longest time I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. As you state, the series is loosely defined as “gothic action with Dracula” so to say something isn’t a “true” Castlevania feels disingenuous. Especially when it was so open to remaking and reinventing itself prior, so what difference is another reboot? There was a clear conversation or thread of design going through the early series up to that point and Lords just kind of tosses all that aside to go in on game design of the day. God of War as you put it. I don’t want to say it’s a bad game or shame you for liking it, but it’s just a bit too far of an outlier for me to really embrace in a meaningful way
OP, you did not mention Vampire Survivors. HAVE YOU PLAYED VAMPIRE SURVIVORS?!
I initially wrote it off because it didn’t look like the kind of game I was into, but the “we have Castlevania at home” vibe is very much intentional and endearing. We 💜 you Antonio Belpaese! For $4 the game looks like a flashy mess, but it hits all the dopamine receptors in just the right way and the metagame of unlocking all the secrets is incredibly satisfying.
Which doesn’t even get into the Castlevania DLC where Konami actually gave them assistance and let them use that delightfully crunchy authentic sprite art. The ending of the DLC (completing Richter’s scenario) legitimately had me in tears, it’s so good and the kind of love letter/wrap up to the series that Konami was never going to give us. Please don’t skip this entry! 😭
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 5 weeks ago:
This is the current problem with “misalignment”. It’s a real issue, but it’s not “AI lying to prevent itself from being shut off” as a lot of articles tend to anthropomorphize it. The issue is (generally speaking) it’s trying to maximize a numerical reward by providing responses to people that they find satisfactory. A legion of tech CEOs are flogging the algorithm to do just that, and as we all know, most people don’t actually want to hear the truth. They want to hear what they want to hear.
LLMs are a poor stand in for actual AI, but they are at least proficient at the actual thing they are doing. Which leads us to things like this, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKCynxiV_8I
- Comment on Firefox 140 Brings Tab Unload, Custom Search & New ESR 1 month ago:
No worries! I did bring a bit of heat in my response and for that I accept the downvotes.
It does just make me a little angry to see someone post a question out of genuine curiosity where there is a real answer to be researched and discussed and met with a string of tired dunks. That’s some serious Reddit behavior right there (diss).
- Comment on Firefox 140 Brings Tab Unload, Custom Search & New ESR 1 month ago:
Version numbering has no implications on development.
I understand that, so then why change it?
Firefox released just as frequently before, just that they didn’t increase the major version that often.
This does not appear to be true.
That blog post has an aura of marketing speak around it.
Version numbering has no implication on development and doesn’t even need to align internally and publicly, so somewhere a conscious decision was made to do it this way for “reasons”. I conjecture those reasons are at least partially due to marketing. Is this not fair?
- Comment on Firefox 140 Brings Tab Unload, Custom Search & New ESR 1 month ago:
That’s my disclaimer that my research on the topic was less than exhaustive when I posted it at midnight, smartass. I then when on to offer a legitimate, if simple answer with sources that I linked. I see now the error of my ways in trying to provider a sincere answer to a question instead of posting the same tired dunk as everyone else.
I have learned the error of my ways and will carry this lesson with me into the future as we build this Lemmy community.
- Comment on Firefox 140 Brings Tab Unload, Custom Search & New ESR 1 month ago:
All the downvotes here kinda got me legit angry. Incurious fools and jokers.
It’s not a complete answer, but it’s partially because the development of Chrome and Firefox have always been highly competitive resulting in them both adopting rapid release cycles around the same time in the early 2010’s.
I haven’t read too much into the topic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was as much a marketing decision as well as a developer one. Similar to how Microsoft didn’t want to release an XBox 2 in competition with a PlayStation 3.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_version_history en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Development
These are just the Wikipedia links, but there is interesting discussion of development history to be had, here.
- Comment on Apple sued by shareholders for allegedly overstating AI progress 1 month ago:
I really hope this goes somewhere.
Not because I have any sympathy for the shareholders, mind you, fuck absolutely everyone involved. But I think it would be very funny to make Apple prove in court that AI is such dogshit it would’ve hurt the product more to implement it than not.
- Comment on Microsoft’s new genAI model to power agents in Windows 11 1 month ago:
There’s so many reasons this is a dumb, bad idea, but locally running models doesn’t even build confidence that they won’t exfiltrate the queries and other privacy invading telemetry. Just wait until you’re online next.
- Comment on Google releases Magenta RealTime, an open source AI model for live music creation 1 month ago:
It’s hard to pick what current AI application I hate the most, but music is right up there at the top.
It’s absolutely ruined any sort of ambient/lo-fi/vaporwave/city pop mix on Youtube. And I think now it’s coming for dungeonsynth too, AUGH!
Endless AI slop channels. You can tell it’s AI because they all have AI generated logos, overly intricate but garbled album art, no individual track names or citations, and most tellingly usually seem to be pretty consistently 1 or 2 hours exact. I’m guessing this is a sort of limitation of whatever software or paid subscription they’re using. You’ll also notice them upload a new album at impossibly prolific rates; if not daily then usually at least 2-3 times a week.
Example: www.youtube.com/@ChillCityFM/videos
Most of them admit to using AI tools if you poke around the descriptions, I think they’re obligated to if it weren’t already apparent enough.
- Comment on Salt Lake City, plans to implement AI-assisted 911 call triaging to handle ~30% of about 450K non-emergency calls per year 1 month ago:
AI is succeeding at exactly the things it’s supposed to: laundering accountability and responsibility. This measure will succeed in accomplishing that. Not everyone is a true believer, a lot of them just see the possibility of using “super intelligent AI” as a smoke screen to completely hide the need for statistical deaths to drive profitability/reduce costs and the responsibility of making those decisions while shutting out the average person’s ability to engage with any system beyond that AI smokescreen.
- Comment on Microsoft’s New Xbox Strategy Starts with Windows and Ends with No Console 1 month ago:
I keep screaming about how the TPM 2.0 requirements of Windows 11 are insidious due to the ability to implement remote attestation now. I don’t think they’ll spring the trap immediately, but it’s locked and set and you’d be a fool to believe it won’t happen eventually.
Remote attestation allows changes to the user’s computer to be detected by authorized parties. For example, software companies can identify unauthorized changes to software, including users modifying their software to circumvent commercial digital rights restrictions. It works by having the hardware generate a certificate stating what software is currently running. The computer can then present this certificate to a remote party to show that unaltered software is currently executing.
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 Hacked in 48 Hours — But Here’s Why It’s Just the Beginning 1 month ago:
It still brings a smile to my face every time I play Mario Kart 8 on my Linux desktop using a PS5 controller.
I pay for games where I think money will get to the creators that deserve it, but Nintendo only gets my most sincere disdain.
- Comment on Microsoft and Asus announce two Xbox Ally handhelds with new Xbox full-screen experience 1 month ago:
I suspect handhelds are going to be the future for awhile now. It’s not just out of a growing demand or simply because portable graphics processing and battery power have improved (although those factors do help) but it’s another chance to:
- Push locked hardware
- Funnel to controlled storefronts
- Bring down and moderate the increasingly unsustainable AAA development costs
Those first two aren’t particularly surprising, they’re the key elements that Nintendo has honed in on while Sony and particularly Microsoft continue to struggle. Microsoft feels like they’ve just left XBox to languish while they focus on Game Pass as a means to ensnare you into their economy which is why they’re first down this path, but I think Sony will follow shortly. In an ideal world, I’d love to see Sony get back to hardware manufacturing with a Vita like device you could load Linux/SteamOS onto. Vita was a great little product, done so dirty.
But moreover it’s that last point, really. It’s hard to continue to push out these extraordinarily big budget, bordering on AAAA (lol) territory games that continue to flop. I know the Switch 2 is already doing stuff like Cyberpunk 2077, but that stuff can still be hell on battery life as well as requiring lower resolution and lowered visuals in portable mode.
I feel like Nintendo is making a big mistake pushing that 4K60 envelope with the Switch 2, although I see why they made that maneuver. The Switch was perpetually underpowered and they felt the need to close that gap, but they already struggle to push out big budget tentpole franchises as is illustrated by Mario Kart World being the only big release title. Also, I just want to generally point this out, Nintendo suffers from needing to up the stakes. It’s what lead to Mario Galaxy being such a grand adventure, then Odyssey going even bigger than that. Now we have Kart World because … gotta get bigger than 8 Deluxe somehow I guess.
I don’t know what any of this means or where it’s going, I just wanted to try and call out some of these observations. Turbulent times ahead, I don’t know that anyone really knows what the next 2-3 years will look like.
- Comment on CODE VEIN II — Announcement Trailer 1 month ago:
You’re not wrong. You didn’t even stick around for the pole dancing boss! youtu.be/m4f4z6fZh1I?t=651
- Comment on CODE VEIN II — Announcement Trailer 1 month ago:
Yes! The original Code Vein is one of my guilty pleasures. It’s very rough in spots and a lot of the levels feel like they’re just hallways to connect arenas, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had if it looks like it might be your kind of thing.
The character had a ton of options and the character builds in game let you unlock skills from classes for permanent equip so you could start to blend the classes together to your liking, creating some really cool builds if you put some thought into it.
It’s a silly game, but one I recommend if you’re just looking for a bit of fun and not expecting an overly engaging experience.
…
It’s been a few years, actually reinstalls
