Just gonna leave this here!

That’s because AI doesn’t know anything. All they do is make stuff up. This is called bullshitting and lots of people do it, even as a deliberate pastime. There was even a fantastic Star Trek TNG episode where Data learned to do it!

The key to bullshitting is to never look back. Just keep going forward! Constantly constructing sentences from the raw material of thought. Knowledge is something else entirely: justified true belief. It’s not sufficient to merely believe things, we need to have some justification (however flimsy). This means that true knowledge isn’t merely a feature of our brains, it includes a causal relation between ourselves and the world, however distant that may be.

A large language model at best could be said to have a lot of beliefs but zero justification. After all, no one has vetted the gargantuan training sets that go into an LLM to make sure only facts are incorporated into the model. Thus the only indicator of trustworthiness of a fact is that it’s repeated many times and in many different places in the training set. But that’s no help for obscure facts or widespread myths!

I think most people here are missing the point of the meme. Interpreting it as “you too can write a culture-defining fantasy novel at 45!” is naive at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

The message here is that you shouldn’t feel bad about yourself if you haven’t started on your plans yet. I can say this from experience because I didn’t finish high school until my 30s and then finished university just when I hit 40. I’m starting my first job post-graduation this Monday after a year and a half of searching for a job.

I still have so much I want to get done. None of these things involve fame or fortune. These are basic things like learning how to mix a drink, learning how to make a great hot sauce from home grown peppers, learning aquascaping and how to keep a Walstad aquarium, learning how to play a musical instrument, learning how to repair vintage electronics (especially vintage computers and game consoles), learning how to use a telescope to make deliberate observations, learning how to cook Chinese food…

On and on and on it goes. No one should feel bad for taking as long as they need to accomplish their goals. No one should feel bad for having modest goals. Whether you’re 15 or 45 or 65, you shouldn’t feel like it’s too late to do the things you want to do!

I love this. I am a big fan of the use of colour, the small details, the little spires in the distance. So evocative! Beautiful!

Okay that looks really delicious! Well done!

I never use AI. Can’t stand it. Wish it would go away!

I also think it’s completely stupid and overhyped. I took a course in 4th year on building and training neural networks with PyTorch. I know how it all works at an intimate level. It’s not going to lead to a singularity any time soon (as so many people think).

I think there’s a lot of explanations for the decrease in value of the ads:

• ad market saturation
• user ad fatigue
• rampant ad blocking
• less engagement overall

I’ve heard YouTube video ads pay a lot less to the creator than they used to. A lot of creators are struggling and feel pressured to release a lot more videos and more consistently. But this can all be measured by view counts where the numbers drop off as engagement disappears.

One of the worst things a YouTube creator can do is completely change the type of videos they make. This often gets people to stop clicking videos and YouTube’s algorithm takes this as a sign to stop recommending that creator, causing their views to drop off a cliff.

I wonder if there’s a similar issue with the ads on game review sites today. I have seen some YouTube video reviews that include a sponsored segment for a game I’d never in a million years consider playing (which has no relevance to the video at hand). Maybe if people are reading reviews the ads aren’t relevant to the games they’re playing so they never bother with them?

Video game reviewers used to provide a valuable service. Back when all video games were Nintendo expensive, we needed trustworthy reviewers to guide us towards making the correct purchase. Paying the inflation-equivalent of $100+ for a single video game made a single bad purchase really hurt.

Nowadays, people log on Steam and scroll through hundreds of previously purchased (never played) games they picked up for a few dollars each during a Steam holiday sale 3 years ago. They can just click download and start playing anything that tickles their fancy!

Plus I’d also add that many gamers have found games that have enormous replay value (especially multiplayer games like League of Legends or Hearthstone or Fortnite) and they sink thousands upon thousands of hours into that one game.

What room is there for professional game reviewers reviewing new games every week and writing about them? Most gamers seem to have more games than they could ever want, plus single games that could last a lifetime by themselves.

The same could really be said for music reviews. People used to read magazines like Rolling Stone in order to get reviews of the latest songs from the hottest bands. Nowadays people just listen to the music themselves and decide whether or not they like it, no reviewers needed.

Edit: I forgot to mention streamers and lets players. People can watch a lot of these videos by amateur or professional content creators and judge whether or not they like the game based on how it plays. Reading an article, even a very well-written one, pales in comparison to a gameplay video at the job of communicating how a game looks and sounds in motion.

It’s self-consciousness (less charitably called hack writing or selling out). These are game developers trying to chase market trends rather than following their hearts.

Some are honestly trying to make games that they themselves would love. But it does have a bit of the feel of “I love ice cream and I love dill pickles, so why not dill pickle ice cream?!”

Oh yes, the 32X was one of the things that killed Sega. It wasn’t the only thing.

The Sega Saturn, as beloved a console it is with fans now, was deeply flawed. Because Sega couldn’t make up their minds whether to stay with 2D sprite hardware or to go all-in on 3D (as the PlayStation and N64 did), they ended up doing the worst compromise and including hardware for both.

The result, a dual-CPU and 8 processor architecture, was complex and difficult for developers to take full advantage of. It was also very expensive at $399 US, a full $100 more than the $299 PSX.

A big issue with the Saturn’s development was that Sega of America president Tom Kalinske wanted to make a deal with Silicon Graphics but Sega of Japan refused. As we all know, Nintendo made that deal and the Nintendo 64’s powerful hardware was the result.

Sega Saturn’s failure wasn’t just a major financial setback for Sega, it really damaged Sega’s brand in the consumer eye. They went from extremely cool with the Genesis / Mega Drive to out of touch and irrelevant with the Saturn.

The fact that the Dreamcast later fixed all of the Saturn’s issues made it an awesome console, but it was too little too late!

The 32X was one of the things that killed Sega. Making add-ons or expansions for existing consoles has proven to be a failed business model.

The problem? It fragments the player base. Game developers want the largest number of people to be able to buy their games. If your console has 3 different add-ons and only a fraction of the players have each one then game developers are going to ignore that add-ons to focus on developing for the base console which they know everyone will have.

So you end up spending a lot of time and money developing add-ons that developers are all but guaranteed to ignore and so players will ignore the add-ons because they don’t have enough games available for them. You’re far, far better off taking the time and money you would have put into an add-on and instead put it into the next generation console.

Yes, for the same reason (fragmented player base) it’s also hard to convince developers to move to your new next gen console. However, you have a few advantages with a new console that the add-on doesn’t have. For one, you can sell the new console to customers who never bought your previous console. For another, you’re not restricted by the hardware requirements or limitations of the old console in any way. This makes the new console easier to develop and easier to distinguish (graphics wise), making it a much more attractive buy for customers. The ease of development of the new, clean-slate console means it can often be a lot cheaper but also with better graphics and sound, more capabilities etc. because it doesn’t rely on the old technology (electronics wise) of the previous console.

Lastly, and this is a big one, you can convince game developers that the next gen console is the future and you are going all-in on it by stopping sales of the old console. You can’t do that with an add-on for obvious reasons!

James Dean. Credited in only 3 films (appeared in a few more as an extra):

• East of Eden
• Rebel Without a Cause
• Giant

All 3 are above average on IMDb (> 7).

Plan 9 from Outer Space!

Dubbed the worst film ever made. To be fair to Bela Lugosi, he had no choice in the matter as he appeared in the film posthumously.

Remove the need to exercise, like an anaconda. The ability to just lay around doing nothing and still be ripped to the max. That would be cool!

I’ve never been to NYC. In general I would say I’m not a fan of big cities. I guess I’m biased though.

I will say Toronto has some very nice areas where I wouldn’t mind living. They’re extremely expensive though!

I’ve been to Toronto many times and talked to loads of people who have either lived there or visited there many times. You’re the first person I’ve ever heard say that!

If you’re looking for an alternative to the USA’s big landscapes and natural parks then Canada is your best bet. If you’re looking for more cultural stuff and things to do in cities then Canada only has a few nice cities and they’re spread across the country from coast to coast.

If you really like food then learning how to cook is one of the most rewarding skills of all. Personally I think it’s even more than that. I think it’s harder to appreciate a really good meal until you’ve learned to cook it yourself.

Most of the games I buy today are less than $10 anyway. What I want from games has really changed, and a lot of the time I’m just playing free Roguelikes rather than commercial games.

A billionaire beating up a bunch of starving postdocs!