mindbleach

@mindbleach@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Voice-controlled murder mystery Dead Meat hits Steam this year, but its embrace of generative AI might spoil a great idea⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  but it feels too reliant on generative AI.

  … how the fuck else was it supposed to happen?

  I don’t want to talk to a game.

  Then why did you review this title?!

  Here is my drive-by reaction to this: if you don’t value the written word enough to have a writer create unique, intentional dialogue, then why make a game based around conversation?

  Because a human accounting for all possible inputs is impossible, you dingdong.

  The sole screenshot is a brain in a bucket, and this article has absolutely nothing to say about the content of the game. However you feel about LLMs - these devs didn’t prime the NPCs with “You’re in an Agatha Christie story, go.” They’ve got some kind of wacky bullshit going on, and stylish macabre presentation, and (one would fucking hope) an underlying mystery.

  This isn’t Shadows Of Doubt, right? Because that game actually does let the machine make up the story.

  This kneejerk clickbait crap doesn’t even address the obvious concerns about the one part it’s fixated on. Is the LLM local? Or will this game suddenly stop working, when OpenAI changes their pricing? If it actually runs on your PC, does it require beeftank specs just to show visual-novel presentation? Does it trickle out words like everyone’s on quaaludes, if you use a laptop over wifi?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Doom on a CAPTCHA is the most frustrating though admittedly raddest way to prove your humanity to an algorithm⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Still no idea where they got those sounds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube is testing a floating ‘Play something’ button⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Also stop suggesting videos that are 6 years old and I’ve already watched them?!

  This is self-reporting, but - I think Youtube knows when I’m drunk. The recommendations become a lot of music videos I’ve seen before. And they’re not wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Large language models continue to be unreliable concerning elections⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Stop using a helocopter to mow grass.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨WordPress Forces Users to Agree That Pineapple Is Good on Pizza⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In itself, not a big deal.

  As evidence of one fucking guy being an obstacle for millions of people, holy shit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Balatro Dev Calls Out PEGI For "Real Gambling" Rating Hypocrisy Vs. EA Sports FC⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The only apolitical game is Tetris.

  … not counting the story of developing and distributing Tetris.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Coming soon – offline speech recognition on your phone⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  One day your phone might be as functional as Windows 95.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Coming soon – offline speech recognition on your phone⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Until now, speech recognition has relied upon a device being connected to the internet.

  My family’s Gateway 2000 had local speech recognition… in 1998. That machine had sixteen megs of memory and a 200 MHz P2.

  The fucking Macintosh Classic had local speech recognition. Yeah, it gave us “I helped Apple wreck a nice beach,” but things have improved since then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What If Free Speech Means Banning TikTok?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not about any opinion in particular.

  It’s not about how that opinion is expressed, or to whom.

  This is a business. It’s owned by a foreign state. Other sites offered the same kind of platform before it, and plenty more offer it right now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Firefox is getting rid of its 'Do Not Track' setting and what it's being replaced with is a bit of a bait and switch for privacy concerns⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re the best option available.

  They’re fucking up the reasons why.

  Welcome to every year for the last twenty years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LinkedIn wants to have its TikTok era⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Old shit wants to be the previous next thing

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Stop talking s*** about us' - Half-Life 2 mod blacklists a handful of YouTubers as 'anticitizens' and blocks them from playing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Demand and petition are opposite, genius.

  Don’t treat customers as if anything short groveling for crumbs is acting above their station. People who adore this product got together on their own time to hash out why, specifically, they feel dissatisfied. They collaboratively presented a single document explaining what could go better and why it’s important. And you’re treating that like it’s some 90s edgelord with an I HATE BG3 page on GeoCities because they didn’t add any of the cool story ideas he e-mailed them.

  What exactly is negative about people saying, ‘We’re excited to sink a shitload of time into adding stuff to this game for free, please do more technical communication?’

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Stop talking s*** about us' - Half-Life 2 mod blacklists a handful of YouTubers as 'anticitizens' and blocks them from playing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  … Jesus, is that what you think whining looks like? That’s the most polite request for information possible, after a bunch of people got together and discussed it amongst themselves.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Stop talking s*** about us' - Half-Life 2 mod blacklists a handful of YouTubers as 'anticitizens' and blocks them from playing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Damn involved community, trying to make all their improvements count! The freeloaders!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Huge win for Internet freedom: Google must sell its Chrome browser⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t you put that evil on us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rogue Point is a new tactical shooter from Half-Life remake Black Mesa developer Crowbar Collective⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Over 200 days after its official closure, the last user of Nintendo Network's online servers finally disconnected after a 3DS system crash⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Shit, that 3DS had better uptime than my last laptop.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sony is trying to patent a 'universal' rewind button that could fix your worst gaming catastrophes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuck software patents.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Some guy complained this fishing game only caters to queer players, so the dev added a "straight" title - it costs $9999⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No, fuck that business model.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Intel Fails To Achieve Gaudi AI "$500 Million" Revenue Target, Showing Slacking Performance In The AI Segment.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I never expected Intel would shit the bed like this, but I’d always really hoped.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Radio station drops "Gen Z" AI presenters after a week following public outrage⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah yes, two otherwise-unreachable voices: deceased 19th-century foreigners, and twentysomethings.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Indiana Jones doesn't "endorse" Nazis, Bethesda assure, just in case you were confused by him repeatedly murdering them⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hard glance at Frank Miller.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Indiana Jones doesn't "endorse" Nazis, Bethesda assure, just in case you were confused by him repeatedly murdering them⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Who’s a victim of moral luck? Who’s a coerced actor? Is it you? It is! It is you!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[DF] Bazzite - 'SteamOS' For Windows PC Handhelds - Is It A Game-Changer?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Good?

  A gaming device should not be an… eierlegende Wollmilchsau. It should play games with minimal bullshit. The possibility of being a general computer does not necessarily demand the ease of being a general computer. So long as you’re the one deciding when and how it acts like a fixed-function gizmo, great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Open-sourcing of WinAmp goes badly as owners delete entire repo⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Winamp is a prime example of all the right people making nerd-ass decisions and then getting utterly strangled by a corporate master which Does Not Get It.

  They worked on audio and video streaming, and the dolts who bought them took a long damn time to figure out that might be used for illicit purposes.

  Then they published Gnutella and WASTE as filesharing protocols and even those idiots realized what they’d be used for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google is purging ad-blocking extension uBlock Origin from the Chrome Web Store⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The right time to stop using Chrome was fucking years ago.

  Any time now is a close second.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players are now less "accepting" that games will be fixed, say Paradox, after "underestimating" the reaction to Cities: Skylines 2's performance woes⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Imbalanced mechanics can be charming.

  Occasional bugs, even crashes, can be tolerated.

  Missing content might not even be noticed.

  Poor performance just fucking sucks. The entire time you’re playing, it’s a constant nagging problem. I make games on single-digit-megahertz systems, and even I obsess over smooth interaction. You can’t just release a game that chugs on god-tier PCs, even if it looks jawdropping… which this game does not. It’s nice! It’s not “40 FPS on a 4090” nice. Mostly you forgot to do LOD models, at all, in a game with a bird’s-eye view of an entire city.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nintendo shuts down Ryujinx⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Never give Nintendo money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Peter Molyneux thinks generative AI is the future of games, all but guaranteeing that it won't be⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Video game stories being famously unique and not at all formulaic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Openblack is a an attempt to recreate lost god game Black & White in a modern, open source game engine⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s not water down the concept of lost media. Black & White was sold on physical discs with twee 2000s DRM. I guaranfuckingtee you it’s easily pirated, alongside the Fisher Price version of Windows it ran on.