Khrux

In my own opinion, it’s Disney good.

Early Simpsons was slightly edgy, not in a shock factor way, but in a way where it could explore mature themes without any tonal whiplash, while still being entertaining for kids and adults.

As Fox deteriorated, so did the Simpsons, presumably from bad producing and low funding. Pretty much as soon as the Disney acquisition happened, quality began to climb again, and people have been saying it’s good for a few years.

But I can’t shake the feeling that the real feeling isn’t that it’s good, just that it isn’t bad anymore. It’s as inoffensive and bland as many Disney IPs, but doesn’t carry the true badness of Fox. I don’t trust that Disney is able to give it the ingredients for it to be great again.

Oops, you’re right. It is copying something of its time because it’s all my dad would tell me when watching it growing up, but I can’t remember which film.

In time is absolutely an idea that I wish would get revisited for a TV show.

When I was a kid, for some reason, I loved the original West World movie, which is about 20% high concept and 80% “how do we copy terminator when all we have are a bunch of random Wild West, medieval and classical back lots?”

Obviously a few years ago HBO picked it up for a show, and that first season explores some of the richest philosophy I’ve seen on TV, in the way only Sci-Fi can; by building characters and technology directly around their philosophical takes and stress testing them. Also simultaneously it created an incredibly compelling story and characters. All of this stemmed from the idea “what if there was a wild west theme park manned by perfectly realistic animatronics?”

In Time may not have the cult classic reputation of the first Westworld but it’s got appeal and charm, while being basically only interesting in it’s high concept, and therefore perfect to pull apart and explore an HBO style branching plot. I bet you could get Justin Timberlake to appear in it again too, for added audience appeal. A show like this can also explore multiple characters in different classes, and those who interact with both. It’s just wasn’t that suited to a movie.

Just to ask, nobody understood the full picture of what they were making? Or was there someone who created the concept but intentional obfuscated it from everyone else via bureaucracy?

Also worth addressing that people are using large language models exactly because the ad driven web was enshitified enough that people clambered for this new option.

There will be at least one LLM that’s good for web searching and doesn’t give in to advertising, and in the meantime, we’ll just need to keep jumping ship whenever one becomes awful, as we did with the old web.

I have a surprisingly forgiving opinion on AI. There are many cases that I think it’s purpose is stupid or defeats the point but it has the potential to cause such a large break to employability and capitalism in general that it has it’s upsides.

People are right to take issue with the fact that it is causing people to lose their jobs or be unemployable by no fault of their own, but underlying that issue is the fact that society shouldn’t function on the employment being necessary (which I am aware is an opinion).

Even in its absurd energy and water usage, this is largely an issue with how we currently get our energy and water. Having our technocrats suddenly more invested in new and better forms of energy, even just for powering AI has the potential to be a path to better clean energy options.

AI is fundamentally a neutral tool, but as much as it may be sued for evil, it may accelerate flawed economic and environmental systems to a breaking point where a redesign of those structures will be required, which could be the greatest opportunity to implement better structures that we’ve had since the industrial revolution.

Tragically when I first switched to Lemmy, my friends convinced me to get Instagram to stay in better contact with them.

The difference in how much I engage with Instagram reels Vs YouTube shorts is huge. YouTube shorts suck and I get cripplingly bored or annoyed with them after 2 minutes, where as Instagram reels suck and I lose multiple hours to that fucking app. Fortunately I run a version of the app without ads etc so I’m only rotting myself and not contributing as directly to the end times.

I never tried tiktok and I’m too low willpower to stop using Instagram until they make it too shit to put the effort in, but I do feel that YouTube shorts sre the worst interation of this shitty format.

Back in 2013, I bought an old PS3 + GTA5 for £150 or so just to play the game, then once I had it, picked up two more exclusives, before never touching it again pretty quickly.

Getting a console for GTA6, plus the game, this time may set me back more than my expendable income after rent and bills. It will absolutely sell consoles but I’d wager people are actually able to buy a console much less than in 2013.

I had it from release and honestly, even day 1 it smoked the competition in the city sim genre, releasing with features and scale than Sim City ever had.

The DLC often introduced more systems, but they did feel ‘extra’, the game was perfectly functional before parks or tourism or natural disasters etc.

The reason CS:2 felt so necessary is because the first was bloated and had underlying issues in it’s simulation logic, like unrealistically inefficient driving, or a large expansion to residential areas causing all the new residents to die of old age at the same time, crippling the city. Every part of the GUI and logic just felt clunky compared to modern, polished games.

The flip side to this article is that most of the criticisms, while really valid, talk about the intended play style for life sim games to be to live through the key points of their character’s lives with immersion.

For literally 20 years, I’ve barely seen it used for this purpose, instead people make themselves, their friends, their dream house, they cheat in money and turn off aging etc. Actually stopping to roleplay your character making friends is the activity most people do when their bored of the regular things they do.

Still, InZoi seeming to not simulate the lives of any of the other NPC’s is a big loss. Even if you’re not interacting with that part of the game, knowing it’s there is great. The Sims 4 (or 3, I forget) strove to reach the dream version of this: You buy a cheap property in a fully open world and ‘functioning’ town and you could walk from your front door to the town center, and the neighbour you see may also drive to town and you’ll see them there. Then as you play, you go from working in the gym to owning it, and can now modify it like your property because it runs on the same rules, the same goes for everything else. The Sims didn’t manage this but their later games clearly launched with this as their design’s guiding light.

I’m mostly interested in the game as a character creator and house builder, but that’s because I don’t expect any game to do a good job of what the article writer wishes for, The Sims included.

The Reddit alternative from before Reddit was big. At one point they were comparable in size and had a friendly rivalry, I believe in the late 2000s. Digg is no better than Reddit, they have had numerous migrations to Reddit from admin issues, if I remember right.

One thing I did notice a while back, was seeing the 2022ish interface for YouTube and Google search and feeling how dated it was, still absolutely usable mind you, just clearly with a design ethos from an older era.

Most the time, I feel that changes Google make are absolutely arbitrary, rounding a button and then squaring it again, but I need to give them credit that there is something more, something about staying at the forefront of GUIs. It’s still all bullshit of course, the old one looks older but is identically useful.

I agree, it’s unfortunately impossible to boycott AI outright. The game you love that didn’t use it for the writing, art or code probably still had plenty of planning meetings where copilot PowerPoint tools were used. A programmer who doesn’t use AI may use something from someone who did. An artist may get a job over another because they used AI for their job application.

And that’s ignoring everyone that uses it intentionally for projects. I genuinely loathe AI content but it’s not worth boycotting like many other causes.

In the 19th century, the Jacquard loom became widespread, using punchcards to automate weaving. Belgian workers who lost their jobs from this would protest by throwing their wooden shoes, their sabots into the machines. This act is the origin of the word saboteur. This era of industrialisation was shared by the movement of the romantics. Romanticism existed to contrast industrialisation and enlightenment, to celebrate nature and imagination and individuality. Poets like Lord Byron led wonderfully flawed but human lives, while capturing this feeling in their art, poetry and philosophy.

But humans although wonderfully flawed, seek convenience. Evolution loves convenience, dopamine loves convenience, capitalism loves convenience. When it’s allure comes from all directions, we cnt fault ourselves for succumbing to it.

Although their name lives on, the saboteurs couldn’t stop the world seeking convenience. Although Romanticism always existed before it’s heyday, it eventually diminished. From the punchcards of the Jacquard looms, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace (the estranged and father-loathing daughter of Lord Byron) developed the general purpose computer. Technological convenience survived.

There is a growing opinion that we are living through a new romantic era, this time opposing the digital world, the algorithm and artificial intelligence. I agree with this sentiment. Although I consider myself a socialist, pro workers rights and supporter of radical ideals, I don’t see the new saboteurs winning; I don’t see boycotting AI, or poisoning our art and media with AI confusing language and imagery as a path to victory. Eventually convince always wins. Instead I want to be a romantic, who can celebrate everything human that AI cannot be, without believing that I can exist outside of it’s influence. I can both love human made art, media and content, and consume that which has been touched by AI.

God knows why I wrote this all I guess it’s just not a conversation I’d ever get to have in real life. There are probably typos in here, I hate to proof-read.

How do you mean? I know it’s pretty standard to pirate the Sims games because of their dlc costs, but I don’t know any way to get it legally and on steam.

I’m on a GTX 980ti and my plan is to pick up a 4000 series, maybe a 4080 super, when the 6000 series is announced.

To be fair, my 980ti has been amazing at punching unreasonably far above where it should.

I saw an announcement from Sega a couple of months ago saying that they’re looking to return to their MO: Being the punkrock to Nintendo’s mainstream pop. I think this is really the difference between Sega’s Sonic Vs Paramount’s Sonic. Paramount want to make a mainstream Sonic movie and mainstream mean filing off the rough edges.

I don’t think it’s got anything to do with today’s political landscape as much as the nature of all high budget cinema. Never mistake the film industry as anything but venture capitalism, with art being incidental and anarchic messaging being a facade and only existing for profit. Any for-profit art, particularly a $122 million cost piece of art, is going to only care about the most profitable choices.

It it to wait 30 mins then do it every 10, and pop it in startup, those were the days.

The other was Free_Cupholder.EXE. I miss disk drives for this reason more than for actual use.

I’ve never understood what twitter style websites are actually for. They seem to have a tiny niche of celebrities and known personalities making a statement with no reasonable conversation stemming from it.

I don’t understand how that structure was once one of the largest social media platforms in the first place.

One enormously clear thing at release was that a lot of content and mechanics were half ready. I recon there was a lot of work towards immersive audio before the initial release that’s only finished now.

Also companies that spend years fixing their broken games often receive a lot of praise for their diligence, maybe getting more commendation than if they’d just released a working game.