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.

At OpenAI, we can’t eliminate that disruption.

… oh yes you can …

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.

Of course they’d never just outright admit to it, but it’s kinda like who farted in an elevator. Somebody is doing the jamming. Jamming is happening. I wonder who it could be? Who could it be?

Newsom is a wet sack of political ambitions with no stance or principles.

“We’re about to put a memecoin out. And you know what? Donald Trump, we’ll see how well your coin does versus our coin,” Newsom said.

Seriously, what the fuck??? Memecoins are scams through and through. You don’t release a competing scam to troll Trump. It’s asinine.

All of this is a PR team backing him up anyways. He’s had some short term success with a few hits that landed with milquetoast liberals, but he can’t sustain that “momentum” because none of it is genuine. That fake, toothy smile makes my skin crawl. The mask will slip, but even with all that said, I’m still afraid it’ll be sufficient to fool enough of the people. I hate it.

This is a good point. I’ve been trying to make it clear in a lot of my predictions that Microsoft doesn’t want or even need full control, just enough. They don’t even need to do anything particular here other than continue to manage github with their current level of incompetence.

Was trying to source an article here, wasn’t there just an outage or some other major issue a few days ago? Anyways …

not only is Windows not very profitable anymore, the real money is at businesses.

Hear me out, this is exactly why they care. Windows as a product isn’t profitable anymore, but as a market share it is. Apple has always enjoyed their locked down ecosystem and Google is trying to completely block side loading on devices we already largely don’t have control over the bootloader. It’s no secret Microsoft has been seething with jealousy for years.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

You’re a soulless corporate ghoul, how do you make those numbers work for you? Why do you think they have the absolute gall to tell you to throw your computer out and get one that supports TPM 2.0? Why do you think there are still so many people willing or not that will swallow that bitter pill that’s Windows 11?

I’m not trying to call you out in particular here or anything, but I think it’s foolish to assume they don’t

Some others have already said the “embrace, extend, extinguish” but here’s my take on it. Pair it with Secure Boot and TPM 2.0

• Embrace: Secure Boot can already work with Linux, how lucky! This gives them not exactly control, but authoritative denial over your boot process and hardware.
• Extend: This is the part that remains to be seen. If they feel threatened enough by the shift in the gaming landscape, mind you not over losing out on sales or the hearts of gamers or anything, but again control, they may begin to make Linux offerings. A concession to allow an honest to god, thick Office client on Linux would certainly appeal to some. Adobe gets in on that action to back them up with Photoshop and Activision with Call of Duty, etc.
• Extinguish: TPM 2.0. One of the less talked about features of this is remote attestation (“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.” - DRM). We’re already seeing this with CoD on Windows. They’ll allow you to run much requested Windows software on Linux, even provide direct support possibly, but at the cost of not precisely control but authoritative denial. Which still works out to be control in most ways since if you want to use the software and they are to remotely attest, they can also insist that part of that attestation is you running some sort of telemetry or not running software they disagree with.

The reason I think this route is highly likely is because it plays well with uninformed consumers. To the untrained eye it looks like they’re giving ground and actually allowing for broader support of their software while effectively gaining control over the environment once again and removing the biggest benefits of running FOSS on your system.

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.

I definitely do not agree.

While they may not be entirely blameless, we have adults falling into this AI psychosis like the prominent OpenAI investor.

What regulations are in place to help with this? What tools for parents? Isn’t this being shoved into literally every product in everything everwhere? Actually pushed on them in schools?

How does a parent monitor this? What exactly does a parent do? There could have been signs they could have seen in his behavior, but could they have STOPPED this situation from happening as it was?

This technology is still not well understood. I hope lawsuits like this shine some light on things and kick some asses. Get some regulation in place.

This is not the parent’s fault and seeing so many people declare it just feels like apoligist AI hype.

Shadow Tower Abyss (PS2 - FromSoftware 2003)

EDIT: Forgot to say, this game never released in English but there is a fan translation patch available that should be easy enough to find if you’re interested.

There’s a growing trend in indie games for the King’s Field-likes; Lunacid, Dread Delusion, etc. I’m a huge fan and if anyone has any other good ones to recommend, please let me know! EDIT: Just found Caput Mortem which looks like it might fit the bill near enough and also features music by Ockeroid of Crow Country notably …

But for this I thought I’d return to the roots. I’ve picked at King’s Field I (JP) and II a bit before and while I enjoy them, they’re overall still very clunky and I usually get distracted. I wasn’t sure how long I’d stick with Shadow Tower Abyss, but I feel like this one I may very well see through, I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far. That’s not to say it’s not still a clunky slog, and it’s certainly not for everyone, but there is real charm there.

(Scoring system: 1-5 being bad, OK, good, great, excellent with decimals being vibe based to push it closer to one rather than the other. For example 3.2 is meant to indicate a bit better than just good, but still not great. 3.8 might indicate close to great, but missing a few aspects that prevent it)

Sound: 3.2/5, Good. Like a lot of FromSoft games, there’s not really much music aside from the occasional musical sting which provides effective ambience. The sound design is minimal as well, but there are some very good moments of creepy thrumming, droning, and distant screeching that make it an intense environment to inhabit.

Graphics: 3.5/5, Good. What’s on display is generally competent and atmospheric, each new area has its own theme which is interesting to explore, but still, I feel like they could’ve done a lot more with the PS2 graphics. It’s certainly an improvement over King’s Field '94, but exactly how much is debatable …

The monster design is pretty good, everything has this kind of alien/abyssal feel to it. The overall theming is on point. Areas of the game have simple descriptions (i.e. Blue Light Area) that give the impression the player character is a foreign explorer rather than anyone with innate knowledge of this weird world. It’s a small aspect of world-building I appreciate.

Gameplay: 3.8/5, Good. Overall control still feels dated, but much less clunky than previous entries. The player moves at a brisk enough pace, but still slowly enough that you soak in the environment and progress feels meaningful. Being an older game you can’t really rebind the controls, but there are a variety of schemes including Type 4 which allow for the expected, modern dual analog stick looking/movement.

Combat can still be a little boxy and clunky but each weapon offers a left and right slash as well as an overhead bashing and frontal thrusting attack. Each weapon also has related stats for these types of attacks and enemies will have weaknesses or possible points of dismemberment making them vulnerable to particular attacks. Unlike some of the earlier King’s Field games, connecting attacks always feels good and has satisfying feedback.

The stats system is definitely very obtuse, even if you are familiar with From’s games and I recommend consulting a guide quickly before your first time playing. Again, as is very typical in From’s fashion, there isn’t an abundance of items but what exists is very deliberate. Money consists of these single large coins which you usually only find 1 or occasionally 2 at a time. Most things will only cost a handful of coins with healing potions being 2, boxes of ammo (for your gun!) being 1(?), and weapons and armor ranging anywhere from ~4-15. You’ll also find a plethora of items scattered throughout the game so there’s no shortage.

There is a unique balancing though as in order to heal yourself from the rare healing stations you have to sacrifice items for their value, although I’m early enough in the game that a basic Hat still seems to fully heal me from low health. In order to repair durability on your items from the rare purple repairing stations, you must sacrifice health with items like magic rings requiring sometimes more health than you currently have! This creates a tense and balanced management situation that feels like you might possibly softlock yourself by eating through too many resources, but so far hasn’t proved an issue for me. As a personal aside, I’m a big fan of playing games as they were designed so I’m doing my best to only save at the rare save points and not save state my way through the game, although this is of course up to your own tastes and discretion.

But is there a poison area with forced damage, I hear you ask? Yes, you fool, YES! Why would you even doubt it? Don’t let this discourage you though as understanding the stats system and equipping proper armor allows you to minimize the damage per poison tick such that it creates urgency as a pressure point more than a pain point. Definitely sacrificed a few lives just scouting the area out, though. Game Over means reload a save.

Summary/TL;DR Shadow Tower Abyss is a very competent dungeon crawler with a unique theme and atmosphere that’s worth exploring if you’d like to see historic FromSoft (it’s 20+ years old, as an ancient gamer I can use “historic” if I want). Miyazaki gets a lot of credit for modern From games and while a lot of that is certainly due, it’s fascinating to see how many of these deliberate design concepts have always been in their DNA.

As an aside, one day I’m going to write an entire essay on what makes a Soulslike a Soulsike. I missed the boat on the original hype and only got into them during COVID lockdown in 2020. I didn’t think I’d be a fan of the grueling, “git gud” experience but I’ve come to realize that’s not what makes those games interesting. It’s one concept and some people may find it unsatisfyingly vague, but it’s not the bonfires, or the losing souls on death, or the dodge rolling. It’s the stone-cold deliberateness. A lot of the difficulty from these games arises out of that deliberateness; what items you choose to equip and how you observe and approach unique situations. The games aren’t good because they’re hard, the specific design elements that make them hard are also the things that make them good.

3. What is the main focus of the One UI 8 update?

Based on current rumors and industry trends, the main focus of One UI 8 appears to be a significant leap in on-device AI capabilities (“Galaxy AI 2.0”) and a major overhaul of home and lock screen customization options.

Cool. Let’s shoehorn some AI in there and just fuck up my home screen again. I hate stability. I love it when my phone constantly shifts in my hands and never settles. I love waking up one morning to find that my device has updated itself and now nothings behaves as it did before.

I haven’t felt a significant advancement in years. It’s just shuffling UI elements for the sake of claiming you’re improving things.

I am less than enthused for this update. I dread it.

Hope you enjoy! It’s getting referenced so much these days, I think I’m due for a reread myself.

Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to police the internet, I get why this situation is darkly humorous to a lot of people.

But it’s worth considering what you’re laughing at and why, because the joke could soon be on you or someone you love.

Sarah Z did an amazingly prescient and compassionate take on this over 2 years ago with The Rise and Fall of Replika.

I urge everyone to try and approach this with some level of compassion and understanding; even though it seems ridiculous to most of us they are actively preying on the emotionally vulnerable to profit. In the same way that “you are not immune to propaganda”, the ability of AI tools to parse language and wield emotional payloads in a calculated manner (something a lot of us already refer to as “the algorithm” in various ways) shouldn’t be underestimated. Even when you’re not directly using those tools yourself, they could be used against you. Dead Internet Theory and AI posting chatbots are already a part of this.

People using AI companion apps are juts the leading edge, the volunteers. I urge you to take the danger seriously and please have some compassion for your fellow human beings, especially the vulnerable.

Anyone know what music visualizer that is in the screenshot near the bottom under entry 2? Quick search of the available music widgets and I didn’t see anything that looked like it.

Part of what makes these models so dangerous is that as they become more “powerful” or “accurate”, it becomes more and more difficult for people to determine where the remaining inaccuracies lie. Anything using them as a source are then more at risk of propagating those inaccuracies which the model may feed on further down the line, reinforcing them.

Nevermind the fact that 100% is just statistically impossible, and they’ve clearly hit the point of diminishing returns some time ago so every 0.1% comes at increased cost and power. And, you know, any underlying biases.

Just ridiculously unethical and dangerous.

What aspects of crypto have been integrated into everything?

Absolutely incorrect. Bullshit. And horseshoe theory itself is largely 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 their 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

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.