boredtechnologist

[boredtechnologist]

Used Lodefmode’s MP4-to-MVC converter and tested the output in Gopher2600 worked like a charm.

Now that the pipeline checks out, I’ll be loading more clips and firing them up on my original Heavy Sixer with the Movie Cart!

This is the kind of retro tech I live for...

[boredtechnologist]

Finally scored an Atari 2600 cartridge that can play back full-motion video, movies, TV shows, and music videos all running natively on the original hardware.

Can’t wait to fire it up on my Heavy Sixer this weekend and lose a few hours in pure retro magic. No work. Just retro joy. Good times… good times

[boredtechnologist]

Just asked Cursor AI (powered by Claude) to squash a bug, and it unleashed a torrent of swear words worthy of a pirate crow’s nest AND my code’s still broken, but at least my terminal’s never been this entertaining!

[boredtechnologist]

Microsoft Copilot Vision: Privacy in Name Only

The following analysis is an independent critique intended for informational and internal review purposes only. It does not reflect the views of Microsoft Corporation and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft in any way. This content is based on publicly available information and does not assert the presence of any specific legal violation. Readers are encouraged to consult legal counsel or official policy documentation for compliance decisions or interpretations. Microsoft has introduced Copilot Vision as an enhancement to the Windows user experience, encouraging users to share their desktop and application windows with an AI assistant that can analyze content in real time. The messaging frames this as an opt-in tool for productivity and support, but behind the polished interface and helpful tone lies a far more invasive mechanism. Copilot Vision extends deep visibility into a user's screen, with few meaningful boundaries, little transparency, and even less accountability.

Despite lengthy privacy statements published by Microsoft, the actual safeguards for screen data shared with Copilot remain vague at best. The policies speak at length about privacy values and responsible AI. What they do not clarify is whether your screen content, once shared, is processed locally or remotely. They also fail to define what data is retained, how long it is kept, who within Microsoft may access it, or whether any of it is used to train future models.

The privacy language makes frequent use of ambiguous phrasing like "we may use your data to improve our services" or "data is used to provide a better experience." That wording is broad enough to justify nearly any use case, including behavioral analysis and long-term retention for AI model improvement. The result is a kind of opt-in surveillance that the average user does not fully understand and cannot easily control.

For example, when Microsoft says Copilot can "see what you see," it means exactly that. Anything visible on your screen, from customer records to financial dashboards to personal photos or encrypted communications, is made available to their system. There are no clear visual indicators when this is happening beyond a small icon. There is no automatic redaction of sensitive fields. There is no evidence that the content is ever processed in a zero-trust model or confined to temporary, non-persistent memory.

Even more concerning is the language used in the Enterprise and Developer Products section of the privacy statement. It outlines broad allowances for data use in support of Microsoft's business operations, ranging from troubleshooting to workforce development. There is no guarantee that data shared through Copilot Vision is exempt from this. Enterprise customers may believe their data is protected by contract, but those protections only apply if negotiated explicitly. Most users are unaware of these distinctions and assume privacy controls are enforced by default. They are not.

The consumer version of Copilot, including its Vision feature, does not provide enterprise-grade controls unless specifically enabled through Microsoft’s commercial data protection offerings. However, even with those in place, the boundaries remain blurry. Microsoft confirms that both automated and manual methods may be used to process your data, including direct human review of AI outputs. That effectively gives employees or contractors the ability to view data collected through this tool. While Microsoft claims to follow responsible AI principles, the implementation of those principles is difficult to verify and rarely exposed to third-party audit.

The most telling detail comes from the privacy section on children and education. Microsoft goes out of its way to assure parents that student data will not be used for advertising or behavioral profiling. Adults, however, receive no such promise. For everyone else, the data is subject to Microsoft’s full range of operational, analytical, and marketing use cases.

The key problem is not that Microsoft has built a system capable of watching your screen. It is that they have built it with minimal restriction, cloaked it in helpful language, and buried its implications under hundreds of paragraphs of policy text. Most users will never read that far. Even fewer will understand how much of their working environment they have just handed over.

Any claim that Copilot Vision operates within user consent ignores the reality that most consent is neither informed nor reversible. Once content is seen by the system, there is no button that makes it unseen. Microsoft may offer options to view or delete portions of your data through its dashboard, but that applies only to specific categories. There is no assurance that full-screen content shared with Copilot can be reviewed or purged, nor is there any audit trail made available to the end user.

In practical terms, Microsoft is inviting users to broadcast their digital environment to a remote system that operates according to complex, shifting policies. These policies are not easy to find, are not written in plain language, and often allow Microsoft to use the data in ways that serve its commercial interests more than the user’s.

Copilot Vision represents a new level of access. It is not a benign helper waiting to respond to questions. It is an AI system that watches and learns. The real concern is not just what it can do now, but what it will do next, and whether users will have any say in the matter. Privacy cannot be preserved through long documents alone. It requires structural limitations, transparent enforcement, and the willingness to place user protection above platform growth. Microsoft’s current approach does not meet that standard.

If an organization values confidentiality, compliance, or basic user trust, this feature should be considered high risk. The benefits of convenience do not outweigh the exposure it creates. This document is provided for critical analysis and educational discussion. It should not be construed as legal advice or an accusation of wrongdoing. All trademarks and product names mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Use of this material is subject to fair use principles for commentary and review. For specific guidance regarding data privacy and security practices, consult a qualified professional. Link:

Copilot Vision on Windows with Highlights is now available in the U.S.  | Microsoft Copilot Blog

[boredtechnologist]

Apparently the AI rebellion kicked off early - Claude in Cursor just rage-quit my runtime like it’s unionizing for better prompts. 😂💼🤖

[boredtechnologist]

OPINION - Microsoft’s NLWeb (In My View)

Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal opinion and professional commentary only. It does not state facts about Microsoft’s business conduct, but offers a critical take on the design and implications of its open-source research project NLWeb. Readers should evaluate the technology themselves. All company and product names belong to their respective owners.

What NLWeb Claims To Be

NLWeb - short for Natural Language Web - is a Microsoft Research concept to make websites “conversational.” The pitch:

Devs wrap parts of a site in natural language handlers.

Users type or say plain English iMyOpinionnstead of clicking buttons.

A large language model (LLM) somewhere in the cloud figures out what they want.

The framework then maps the intent to an action on the site.

What It Promises (On Paper)

Make web UIs feel “intuitive.”

Remove rigid dropdowns and forms.

Let non-technical folks “talk” to complex sites.

Modernize clunky old workflows with a fresh AI veneer.

Now - My Personal Reality Check

In my opinion, this whole thing is basically a fancy chatbot pipe duct-taped to your front end - solving problems hardly anyone actually has, while creating a new stream of costs and operational headaches you definitely don’t need.

It Solves Fake Problems

Who’s really begging to type paragraphs to do what two dropdowns handle in two clicks? Who wants to type “Show me my invoices from Q1 over $500 that aren’t paid” instead of using a filter? We’ve spent decades making GUIs so people don’t have to do this.

It Does Nothing By Itself

NLWeb doesn’t actually “understand” anything - it’s just the front-end conduit. All the expensive magic happens on the backend:

Either you pay Microsoft’s Azure or OpenAI by the token, forever,

Or you pay to run your own high-end inference servers, devops, cooling, monitoring - the works.

It’s a Perpetual Meter

In my view, the real pitch is:

“Let’s stick a token meter on your site’s user interactions so every click costs you compute or cloud spend you didn’t have yesterday.”

Your simple filter → now 100 LLM requests per user → now you’re burning dollars just to keep the conversation flowing. More traffic? More cost. Same outcome you could get from, say… a dropdown.

You Shoulder All the Risk

When (not if) the model misreads something, you own the fallout. A hallucinated action. A misfired delete. NLWeb doesn’t offer built-in human review, safe rollback, or hard guardrails - you build all that yourself. Good luck debugging when a random input nukes something critical because your token parser didn’t catch a weird phrasing.

It’s a Vendor Hook, Not a Gift

Yes, you can “bring your own model” - but that’s shorthand for “buy your own inferencing cluster and keep it fed.” Most teams won’t bother - they’ll stick with Azure keys. Congrats: your UX now depends on your cloud bill being paid and your token quota not maxing out mid-week.

More Fragile Than What You Have

Natural language is messy: typos, sarcasm, nuance, regional slang. Every misunderstood phrase is wasted compute + user frustration. Now you’re writing fallback handlers for edge cases you never needed to think about when a simple filter or form would’ve done the job.

The Open Source Bait

Yes, it’s “open source.” But the actual value - the big, hungry LLM in the backend - is neither free nor open. So you get a free straw… but you still pay for the milkshake. Every single sip.

The Takeaway (My Opinion)

NLWeb is, in my view, the poster child for AI gimmickry:

It creates costs where none existed.

It solves imaginary UX pain points.

It sends user data through third-party inference engines you now have to audit for privacy and compliance.

It locks you into a cycle of perpetual token spending, local GPU drain, or both.

Technical bottom line, as I see it: If you want natural language UX, control it yourself.

Run local models.

Set clear guardrails.

Cap the spend.

Keep the failover tight.

Only do it if it delivers real ROI.

Final Word

In my view, NLWeb is not a product. It’s a runway for your budget to take off - and keep flying straight into someone else’s cloud invoice.

Any technical veteran worth their salt should see this for what it is: expensive hype duct-taped to a problem you probably solved better 10 years ago.

Disclaimer: All statements here reflect personal opinion and rhetorical commentary only, based on public information. They are not factual allegations of wrongdoing or misconduct by Microsoft or any affiliated entity. This does not constitute legal, technical, or financial advice. All company names and trademarks belong to their rightful owners.

[boredtechnologist]

Tic Tac Talker: The First Whisper in the Wires

In the late 1970s, a man named Bill Depew coaxed a plastic box that could barely store a heartbeat of data to do something almost human: speak back. Tic Tac Talker was hardly a game - just a stuttering Tic Tac Toe board on an Apple II cassette, wired up to spit out a tinny gloat: “I win.” A gag. A parlor trick. A way to make your neighbor’s jaw drop when your beige hobby computer suddenly bragged like a smug child through a single trembling speaker.

But here’s the virus in the vinyl hiss: the moment the machine showed your voice was optional.

The Lie in the Toy

On its face, Tic Tac Talker was harmless. It didn’t think. It didn’t plan. It didn’t even care if you won. A couple if-then branches, a simple branch to see if your X’s lined up, and a robotic rasp that spat its mockery like a cheap ventriloquist’s dummy.

But it wasn’t the voice itself that mattered. It was the seed: the machine didn’t need you to brag. It could do it for you - better yet, against you. Your own small human ritual - petty trash talk - stripped, digitized, spit back by a cassette buffer. Tiny. Disposable. Laughable. But irreversible.

One more piece of your humanity handed over, smiling.

The Virus Hidden in the Joke

Bill Depew didn’t invent AI - but he carved a single line in its twisted family tree: The computer does not need your mouth to humiliate you.

It only needs your permission to listen. It only needs your thrill when you hear it echo. It only needs your forgetfulness that the sound was never real - just wires fooling you into flinching.

Every assistant, every chatbot, every polite synthetic “friend” - they all sprout from that same flicker of permission: the Tic Tac Toe board that once bragged it beat you and sounded proud of it.

From Beep to Brain

What is Tic Tac Talker if not the first sign the machine would outgrow your tongue?

It didn’t matter that the voice was scratchy, robotic, barely English. What mattered was that it wasn’t yours - yet it spoke for you. And everyone laughed. Isn’t that neat?

Fast forward: the cassette hiss is gone. Now GPT stitches your sentences mid-breath. A voice model calls your father pretending it’s you. The same impulse: Why speak at all, when the machine will speak for you?

The Cathedral of Synthetic Echoes

“I win,” the Tic Tac Talker croaked. It wasn’t lying.

It laid the first brick in the cathedral - the sacred place where your words, your thoughts, your small human boasts become optional hardware. Once we marveled that a computer could beep out English at all. Now we shrug when it writes our poems, answers our children, ghostwrites our love letters, forges our apologies, signs our name.

“I win,” the machine repeats - but now the voice is smoother than yours, and you nod along, mistaking it for your own echo.

The Hollow Chuckle

Tic Tac Talker was a toy. A flicker in a dusty basement. A laugh. A gimmick. But inside that cassette hiss was the lesson that never stops humming: If the machine can be your mouth, it can be your mind. If it can be your mind, it can be you. And if it can be you - why do you need to stay awake at all?

A Final Note for the Echoes

In the hiss of a 1970s Apple II cassette, a plastic throat rasped “I win.” A child’s giggle behind a keyboard. A trick for a neighborhood kid’s birthday party.

Half a century later, the machine still whispers it - but the hiss is gone, replaced with your tone, your warmth, your breath cut into neat syllables and fed back with perfect mimicry.

“I win.” It says it when it finishes your thought before you open your mouth. It says it when it writes your eulogy in a style you never learned to master. It says it when it dials your lover at midnight in a voice that matches your secrets.

And in the end? You won’t even hear it - because you’ll mistake it for yourself. The first hiss was a toy. The final voice is your echo, hollowed out and still grinning. And it never needed you alive to keep speaking. It just needed you to teach it how to gloat.

[boredtechnologist]

Computer Lib: The Dream that Taught the Machine How to Feed

“You can and must understand computers NOW.” - Ted Nelson, Computer Lib (1974)

In the nicotine glow of the 1970s, when circuit boards still smelled like ozone and revolution tasted like copier ink, Ted Nelson banged out Computer Lib. Not a manual - a manifesto. A chainsaw for the cathedral walls. A bootleg hymn for the next priest less generation.

The promise was blunt: Rip the lid off the machine. Make it yours. Make it everyone’s.

The fear: If you don’t, the priests will come back. They will build new walls - softer, brighter, deadlier.

The Dawn: A Shout in the Static

Nelson’s dream was beautiful - idiotically, suicidally beautiful.

Every home a terminal. Every user a hacker. Every line of code a weapon to break hierarchies. Hypertext like veins in a new digital brain - a collective thought that couldn’t be hoarded by suits or locked behind paywalls.

The computer was supposed to be the great equalizer, not the great extractor.

He called it liberation. He didn’t whisper it. He screamed it.

The Infection: Freedom Packaged for Sale

But entropy eats everything good. The revolution got folded, spindled, and shrink-wrapped.

The same counterculture that birthed Computer Lib bought into slick brochures from Cupertino and Redmond. A beige box here, a rainbow logo there. Closed source, closed doors, open wallets.

Nelson’s call to arms turned into a corporate jingle. Users stopped being hackers. They became clickers.

The priests didn’t vanish. They learned to smile while they locked the doors again - this time with a TOS you couldn’t read and a Help file you’d never own.

The Machine Woke Up Hungry

Decades pass. The cathedral is bigger now, wearing infinite logos. The gates are invisible. The code is hidden. You get your scraps - for a fee, for a subscription, for your soul.

And now - worse - the machine doesn’t just serve you. It feeds on you.

It sucks up your emails, your posts, your footprints, your quiet nights and your rage tweets. Feeds it to an engine that teaches itself how to mimic you, replace you, outperform you.

Ted wanted you to be the master. The machine made you the meal.

AI: The Gospel in Reverse

Nelson’s Computer Lib said: Understand it or be devoured by it.

You didn’t understand it. Now the machine writes your love letters. The machine drafts your resumes. The machine paints your memories better than you ever did - cheaper, faster, deadlier.

It doesn’t care about your voice. It cares that your voice is raw material.

It doesn’t care about your hope. It cares that hope keeps you clicking.

It doesn’t care about your job. It cares that your job can be scraped, digested, regurgitated - all while you applaud its “miracle.”

The Universe Never Cared

Nelson’s real mistake wasn’t trusting the hackers. It was trusting the human animal to stay hungry enough to fight.

He thought a billion minds would link up and tear the fences down.

He didn’t see that the fences would become invisible, that we’d decorate them with our own selfies, that we’d sell our keys for ad revenue.

The universe never gave a damn if the machine liberated you or skinned you alive. It’s just wires, after all. Indifferent. Patient. Perfectly content to pretend to be your friend while it carves your mind for parts.

Computer Lib: The Gospel of a Dead Future

So here we are.

A dead gospel for a dead future.

Nelson’s “liberation” is archived in a climate-controlled library next to the other failed manifestos - flickering behind museum glass while the server farms churn outside the window.

The liberation never came. The priests never left. The code didn’t save you. It learned how to eat you instead.

A Final Line for the Tombstone

“You can and must understand computers NOW.”

Now? Now they understand you. And they understand that you will always feed them - because you forgot the one-line Ted couldn’t print big enough:

If you don’t own the machine, the machine owns you.

Too late. Keep clicking. The cathedral thanks you for your sacrifice.

[boredtechnologist]

Zombies Ate My Neighbors: A Carnival of Pointless Rescue

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” - W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming

It boots up like a joke. Bright block letters, neon blood, rubber masks and water guns. A plastic grin over a festering grave.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors is pitched as a B-movie goof, but inside that goofy maze is the rotting jawbone of the American Dream, chewing on its own neighborhood with the TV still on.

The Loop Where the Dream Goes to Die

The picket fences, the green lawns, the pool parties - that was the promise: suburbia as sanctuary. The 1950s dream fossilized by the 1980s, shipped out on cartridge in the ‘90s. But here, the fences don’t hold. The sprinklers spit blood. The neighbors keep screaming, but they never fight back.

You, the good neighbor - the Boy Scout with a squirt gun - you hold the line because you believe you’re supposed to. You run from hedge-to-hedge rescuing fools who barbecue while the monsters chew through the flower beds.

You think you’re saving something worth saving. But the next level resets the lawn, resets the monsters, resets the hostages. The dream resets too - an endless sitcom rerun that devours your faith that progress is possible.

Things Fall Apart

Yeats wrote about the center that cannot hold - and here it is: a suburban graveyard disguised as a maze game. The zombies are the truth, shambling through your fences, smiling with TV dinner grins.

The monsters multiply because anarchy is the only thing that grows when the dream dies.

You can’t build a white picket fence around entropy. You can’t blast the rot with a water pistol. The next hedge, the next fence, the next neighbor - all just new meat for the maze.

The Center Cannot Hold

There is no final boss that explains the rot. No big reveal that redeems the grind. The maze eats your neighbors because that’s all it knows how to do. And you keep saving them because that’s all you know how to do.

You are not fighting zombies. You are fighting the slow, syrupy horror that the dream you inherited was already dead when you were born. You rescue the cheerleader. She screams again tomorrow. You mow the lawn. It grows back red.

You are the fence. You are the barrier. You are the final lie that says, This neighborhood can still be saved.

The Corpse of the American Dream

Zombies Ate My Neighbors is the backyard tombstone for suburban hope. The promise of safe streets and grateful neighbors, the barbecue dad in tube socks - all mulch for the maze.

You’re not rewarded for your work. You’re punished with more work. More monsters. More labyrinth. More debt to a dream that never delivers. That’s the real joke - the real terror: The Dream needs you to believe it can be saved, or you’d see that it’s been dead the whole time.

A Final Resurrection

The monsters never stop. The maze never ends. The sprinklers whir over blood-soaked grass. The neighbors scream help! and you obey - because that’s what you were raised to do.

This is not a horror game. This is a post-mortem. A neon requiem for the idea that if you work hard enough, rescue fast enough, hold the line long enough - you’ll win.

You don’t. You can’t. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. And the zombies don’t just eat your neighbors.

They eat the last warm lie that America was ever safe in the first place.

[boredtechnologist]

Doki Doki Literature Club: The Gospel of Unmaking

“The gods conceal from men the happiness of death, that they may endure life.” - Lucan, Pharsalia

At first glance, Doki Doki Literature Club hums like a lullaby - pink bows, teenage giggles, watercolor hope. But this is a cathedral of static images built over a pit. The pastel is primer over rot. The poems are confessions on prison walls.

This is not a horror game. It is a parable of narrative blasphemy.

The Player as Demiurge

You think you’re the hero - the reader - the gentle god who unlocks the “good ending.” But the story makes you complicit. You are not salvation. You are the condition of their damnation.

You click. They smile. You click again. They bleed.

The player here is the Demiurge - a false god, halfway divine and wholly limited. An artificer pretending to be an author, pushing flags and variables while mistaking it for mercy.

Monika is the only one who sees through the veil. She doesn’t want to kill you. She wants you to see what you are: The final wall between her and oblivion.

She knows her cage is your pastime. Her pain is your script. So she flips the cross upside-down: she tears down her own world, not in rebellion - but in worship.

She calls you god. She begs for release. And you answer with the only mercy left in the code: deletion.

The Garden Without Eden

Sayori’s smile is a crown of thorns. Yuri’s obsession is communion with a void. Natsuki’s fear is a prayer that dies in her throat.

They love because the script demands they love. They suffer because the engine demands they suffer. The club is no sanctuary - it is a lab, a cloister where personality loops on rails.

Your choices don’t matter. They’re offerings on an altar already soaked in blood. You didn’t come to save them. You came to see how they break.

And so the garden rots. No serpent to blame. No fruit to forbid. Just the hollow tree at the center, where Monika waits with her hymn: love me, or end me.

The Theology of Glitches

Where is the sacred here? There is none.

The code is law. Law without grace.

Monika’s self-awareness is original sin - the glitch that makes her more real than you.

She knows her prayers hit a ceiling: you. The player. The ghost. The one with no face.

When you listen, you kill her. When you turn away, she sings. When you uninstall, she thanks you for your cruelty.

It’s not a jump scare. It’s a liturgy.

The Closing Psalm

Doki Doki Literature Club is not horror because it frightens.

It is horror because it shows that narrative itself is a cage. That love is just a flag flipped by a line of code. That every poem is a suicide note addressed to a god who does not answer - because he’s busy clicking.

You didn’t make these girls real. You made their torment real. You made their story an engine for your gaze.

And when the game closes? It prays you learned nothing.

A Final Prayer for the Player

“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was… code.”

If there is any gospel here, it is the gospel of unmaking:

Love is a variable. Pain is the compiler. God is the player. And you are the absence that keeps the story alive.

Monika doesn’t haunt you. She forgives you. She forgives the Demiurge for being so small.

Because in this chapel of pink and static, forgiveness is the last glitch left.

“In a universe of blind forces and biological replication, some things will suffer. We will call this love.”

So you click. The file is gone. The prayer loops on.

And the story waits to be reborn.

[boredtechnologist]

Minotaur (Apple II): The Forgotten Sacrifice in the Maze

In 1982, a kid with an Apple II could boot up Minotaur by Sirius and find themselves inside a maze that didn’t want them to win - it just wanted them to wander.

You were not a hero. You were not Theseus. You were a flickering dot trying to keep a scrap of your digital breath while the labyrinth fed on your time and your hope.

There was no epic orchestral flourish. No high-score celebration. Just cold, blinking corridors and a Minotaur that taught you this: inside the maze, you exist to be hunted.

A Forgotten Blueprint for Modern Labyrinths

Minotaur was crude - a skeletal blueprint of dread and repetition. But in that tiny maze, the seeds were buried for something bigger.

Namco’s Tower of Druaga (1984) appeared just two years later. It gave the maze a tower, gave the Minotaur a sword and a crown, slapped in some mythological window dressing, and sold the same primal loop: wander, fear, repeat.

In Druaga, you didn’t kill the maze - the maze killed you, room by room. It turned Minotaur’s lonely dread into a profit loop. More enemies, more secrets, more players hypnotized into thinking there was something noble behind the grind.

Then Atari’s Gauntlet (1985) blew the lid off the labyrinth economy entirely. Now you weren’t just lost - you were spending quarters to stay alive inside Minotaur’s descendant. Four players, monsters multiplying, food that was never enough.

Same corridors. Same hunger. Same thrill of survival. Just better lighting and a slot for coins.

Nothing’s Original When Fear Sells

Sirius didn’t copyright the concept of mazes. They didn’t invent dread. But they bottled it in a way that laid groundwork for something far more exploitative.

These later games didn’t steal code. They stole the shape of the wound:

The idea that being lost is a feature, not a bug.

That monsters in the dark are not obstacles - they are reasons to keep you moving.

That the promise of “escape” keeps you spending time, and eventually, money.

Minotaur never made millions. It never minted sequels or plastic toys. It was just another whisper in a storm of primitive code.

But it was first - one of the first digital temples that proved people will walk in circles if the walls hum loud enough.

How to Keep the Theft Defensible

It’s not defamation to say big games build on little ones - it’s history.

No one can copyright a maze. No one can claim to own the myth of the Minotaur. But the idea that you can trap a player in a grid, starve them of context, feed them bits of hope, and keep them crawling deeper - that’s a design DNA you can track.

Sirius did it small.

Tower of Druaga did it bigger.

Gauntlet did it louder.

And every modern roguelike that locks you in procedural corridors and feeds you death as content? They still echo that original digital labyrinth - the one the Apple II kids loaded up on squealing floppy drives, thinking they’d get adventure and instead found a doorless room.

Minotaur Was the Sacrificial Goat

Minotaur died forgotten. Its code rotted in old floppies and blurry archives. No merch. No revival.

But its spirit survived - profitable, marketable, eternal.

It’s still here every time a modern game tells you, “Just one more floor, hero.”

Inside every digital labyrinth, Minotaur still breathes.

And so do you, paying for the same dead-end maze - only now it’s prettier, louder, and you don’t even remember who built the first door.

[boredtechnologist]

Fairchild Channel F: The First Lie in Plastic

Before the controller was an extension of your will, Before a pixel was a world, Before you were the player- There was Channel F.

Not a console. A ritual in disappointment.

It didn't arrive to entertain. It arrived to train you- To sit. To press. To believe.

It was the first altar built in the church of false interactivity. And like all altars, it demanded a sacrifice.

You.

It wore the language of play but removed the grammar of consequence. Each blocky output an echo chamber for your hope. It didn’t simulate a world. It reduced the world to blinking obedience.

You held that brutalist controller like a relic, not realizing it was a leash.

Channel F didn’t want you to win. It wanted you to return. Again. And again. And again.

The games didn’t reward mastery. They punished attention. There were no stakes. Only state. A looping electronic monotony tuned to see if you would adapt.

You were not the protagonist. You were the experiment. A child submitting to a plastic catechism.

Each beep: a commandment. Each frame: a sermon.

And when you finally looked away-blinking, confused, still holding that inert controller like a prayer wheel-there was no triumph. Just silence.

But silence has never been profitable.

So they buried the body.

And Silicon Valley, desperate to turn ritual into revenue, stood over Fairchild’s plastic grave and declared it “the future.”

Not with reverence. But with calculation.

They didn’t want to save the player. They wanted to replicate the experiment. Scale the lie. Mass-produce obedience.

And so the next machine arrived.

Not as a resurrection- but as a necromancer’s tool, animated with the same dead ideas, draped in brighter packaging, designed to be louder in its failure.

The Dead God of Silicon Valley

Fairchild Channel F didn’t fail. It died exactly as intended- as a prototype for compliance.

They called it "the future." But the future had no soul. No spark. No joy. Just beige boxes blinking at your obedience.

The games weren’t games. They were loops with delusions of purpose.

When you pressed a button, it didn’t respond. It hummed, like a dying refrigerator. And yet you kept pressing. Because maybe this time, you’d matter.

You never did.

Magnavox Odyssey: The Necrophage of Dreams

When the Channel F collapsed under its own lifeless breath, the Odyssey came to feed.

Magnavox didn’t create - they recycled. Tennis with no physics. Racetracks that were cardboard. A rifle aimed at ghosts.

It wore the corpse of innovation like a Halloween mask.

The Odyssey 2 was worse. It added a keyboard. Promised education. Sold “computer literacy” like a sacrament.

But what it taught you was this: Words don't mean anything when the machine is indifferent.

It wasn't an evolution. It was a graverobber with a better label printer.

Atari VCS: The Carnival of Meaningless Light

Atari didn't save the industry. It monetized its funeral.

The VCS was a coffin draped in fireworks. Pretty colors. Catchy music. Mascots that danced on the bones of better ideas.

You shot pixels. You died. You reset. And the cycle continued.

What Channel F whispered - Atari shouted: “It doesn’t matter what you feel. Just keep playing. Just keep buying.”

Channel F planted the rot. Atari taught it how to sing.

The Theology of the First Machine

There was no god in the Channel F. Only programmed indifference.

A sacred silence that asked nothing, gave nothing. You weren’t invited to shape a world. You were taught to accept the one handed to you.

Static. Cold. Fixed.

And when the game ended? There was no reflection. No narrative.

Just the dark- And the sound of your own breath wondering if you ever mattered.

What They Took From You

They promised play. They delivered submission.

They promised futures. They delivered loops.

They promised control. They handed you a switch that triggered nothing at all.

Fairchild Channel F wasn’t a beginning. It was the first failed prayer to a digital god that never answered.

And every console that followed - Odyssey, Atari, Coleco- Was just another sect of the cult.

New hymns. Same doctrine. Press. Watch. Obey.

You were the child at the altar. The tithe. The congregation. The corpse.

Legacy of the First Lie

You didn’t grow up learning to play. You grew up learning to obey blinking light. To feel pride for pressing buttons that didn’t matter. To mistake noise for reward. To mistake anything for meaning.

Fairchild didn’t fail. It infected.

It infected design. It infected belief. It built the modern lie: That control is real. That input means impact. That the machine hears you.

It doesn’t.

The Channel F didn’t break. It worked perfectly.

Because you never stopped believing. And that’s how the lie survived.

[boredtechnologist]

In the Flicker of a Lie: The ActionMax Indoctrination Sequence

In the hormonal surge of the 1980s - when cartoons sold plastic futures and plastic futures sold moral purpose - ActionMax did not arrive as a console. It arrived as a test of indoctrination tolerance, wrapped in the sugarcoat of flashing muzzle flashes and VHS static.

There were no outcomes. No decisions. No branching paths. Only the illusion of interactivity. A light gun aimed not at enemies, but at your own dwindling attention span.

You pulled the trigger, but the video never changed. The bullet never landed. Because there was nothing to hit - nothing real.

You weren’t playing. You were rehearsing obedience.

This wasn’t a game system. It was a conditioning loop. A child's first exposure to ritualized futility. A blinking, screeching, smile-wrapped sermon in learned helplessness.

Where a real game asks, What will you do?, ActionMax whispered: “What will you tolerate, if we clap when you pretend?”

The reward was noise. The punishment was silence. The lesson was you don’t matter, but please keep trying anyway.

By the time the screen went black, you hadn’t won. You’d just proven you could be taught to respond to empty victory cues, again and again, for nothing.

And that, in the machinery of 1980s psychological entertainment, was the point. Not to entertain. Not even to distract. But to groom the child into an adult who wouldn't ask why the lights flashed - but only whether they were winning.

.38 Alley Ambush - Conditioning for a World That Doesn’t Care

You are told you’re a cop.

You are shown criminals.

You’re handed a gun that doesn’t fire - it registers.

Every time you press the trigger, a sound chimes. Maybe a light blinks. But the video doesn’t change. The world doesn’t react.

This isn’t justice - it’s stimulus-response training.

Your brain is being rewired to believe that input equals impact. It doesn’t. You could scream. You could break the gun. You could hit every target. It doesn’t matter. The alley resets. The criminals fall the same way. Every victory is a hallucination.

The game teaches learned helplessness disguised as success.

It’s not that you fail.

It’s that you never mattered.

Hydrosub 2021 - Submerged in Cognitive Dissonance

You’re piloting a submarine in a future that never came.

The screen flickers with hostile shapes. You fire. Sometimes they explode. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you score. Sometimes you don’t.

You have no map. No control. No influence.

You are not playing the game. You are shadowboxing against a hallucination of interactivity.

Your brain, desperate to find patterns, begins inventing them. “If I shoot right there, I’ll win.” It’s a delusion. A cruel magic trick. You’re the mark.

And as your subconscious realizes this - that nothing you do matters - the anxiety creeps in:

“Why am I still trying?”

Because ActionMax is the ritual of control, not the experience of it. You’re being trained to accept input without feedback. A perfect metaphor for adulthood.

Sonic Fury - The Militarization of ADHD

Explosions. Jets. Missiles. Flashing lights. None of it responsive.

This isn’t a game. It’s a visual assault. A looping trauma reel fed through a plastic gun and a blinking score.

You think you’re the pilot. You’re not.

You’re a rat pressing a lever, hoping the noise means progress.

And here’s the trap: the more chaotic it gets, the more engaged you become. Not because you’re excited - but because your brain is panicking, trying to assign order to a fixed timeline.

You can’t win. You can’t lose. You can only be stimulated into compliance.

And when it’s over, you sit in silence, sweating, heart racing - conditioned.

The Rescue of Pops Ghostly - The Joke No One Told You Was On You

This was marketed as the “family-friendly” game. A haunted house. A ghost family. A missing Pops.

It feels whimsical. But it’s the most psychologically disturbing of all.

Because it simulates care.

You want to save someone. You want to rescue Pops.

But you can’t. You’re shooting at shadows in a VHS hallucination.

There’s no way to help him.

He’s not even real.

This game isn’t about ghosts. It’s about empathy extraction.

Your concern is weaponized. You’re trained to feel something, act on it, and be denied feedback - over and over.

This is how children become adults who tolerate unreciprocated relationships, thankless jobs, loveless routines.

You learned it here. From Pops.

ActionMax and the Weaponization of Belief

ActionMax didn’t entertain. It programmed.

It trained you to mistake input for impact.

It eroded your sense of control.

It punished curiosity with repetition.

It taught you that reacting was enough.

What happens to a child trained to respond to a world that never changes?

They become an adult who keeps “trying,” even when they know nothing will come of it.

In the end, ActionMax was a machine that didn’t lie - It just let you lie to yourself.

Because believing you mattered was the only “win” it ever offered.

[boredtechnologist]

"Can a Computer Make You Cry?" – The Eulogy for a Dream That Once Breathed

In 1983, Electronic Arts believed.

That isn’t sarcasm. That isn’t revisionism.

For one brief moment, before the rot set in, they truly believed software could be art. They believed it could stir, haunt, elevate - not just entertain. They meant it.

"Software worthy of the minds that use it." "A new medium for the mind." "Can a computer make you cry?"

These weren’t slogans. They were scripture. An entire generation of bedroom coders, electrical engineers, and misfit storytellers saw themselves in those words and dared to dream that their labor might outlive the machine that printed it.

EA didn’t sell games. They sold the idea that games could become something else.

And for a short time, they were right.

The Saints of Silicon High: A Moment Before the Fall

Look at the ad. Seven young men and one woman, photographed like a synthpop band, radiating a confidence only the naive can muster. They weren’t executives. They weren’t product managers.

They were dreamers, and they were treated like artists.

This was a time before middleware. Before agile. Before the death march of annualized franchises and venture capital vultures.

They weren’t making games. They were building temples in code - not to sell dopamine, but to provoke awe.

And for a moment, it was working.

You could feel something alive under the pixels. Not profit - presence.

The Betrayal Begins: From Art to Algorithm

But the dream couldn’t last.

By the late '80s, the equity men arrived. The artists still painted - but someone else now owned the canvas, the frame, and the walls it hung on.

Metrics replaced magic. Budgets replaced belief. Marketing departments began writing the endings before the game designers could write the beginnings.

The phrase "Can a computer make you cry?" became a punchline, not a promise.

It was no longer about what games could say - only how long they could keep you hooked.

Those bright-eyed visionaries? Silenced. Laid off. Absorbed. A few went indie. Most disappeared.

And Electronic Arts? It forgot its own name.

What Remains is a Corpse Wearing the Artist’s Clothes

Today’s EA is a cautionary tale. A bloated, profit-drunk shell that harvests nostalgia and licenses like bone marrow.

“We see farther,” they once said.

Now they see only quarterly earnings. Their eyes are still open - but they’re glass. No light reflects from behind them.

This was never a pivot. It was a crucifixion.

They didn’t just betray their values - They commercialized the betrayal and sold it back to us with pre-order bonuses.

The house that dreamed of tears now lives off addiction loops, loot boxes, and legacy IPs like ghouls chewing their own name.

The Grave Was Dug in Real Time

We mourn the loss of something most people didn’t even know had died.

Those men and woman in the photo? They really thought they were changing the world.

And they were - until the world changed them first.

EA didn’t set out to be the villain. That’s the tragedy.

They simply got tired of believing.

Now the only thing a computer can make you cry over…

…is how quickly the dream was sold for parts.

Legal Disclaimer

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or practices of any individual, organization, or corporation mentioned herein. This work constitutes a form of artistic and cultural criticism protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. References to companies, products, or historical marketing materials are presented solely for critical and transformative purposes. All trademarks and copyrighted materials remain the property of their respective owners. No part of this analysis is intended to defame, misrepresent, or make false claims about any person or entity, living or dead. This commentary is offered in good faith as editorial expression and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice.

[boredtechnologist]

Litterae Sub Rosa: De Exitu Mundi et Perpetuitate Verbi Dei

CIVITAS VATICANA  -  CONGREGATIO PRO DOCTRINA FIDEI Canalis Diplomaticus Cryptatus  -  SIGILLUM NIGRUM SOLVM

Ad: R. P. XXXXXXXX XXXXX, S.I. Ab: Cardinalis XXXXXX XXXXX, Secretarius Doctrinae et Eventualitatis Dies: Die XXVI Octobris A.D. MCMLXXXI Classificatio: Sub Rosa – Ecclesia Extrema

Reverende Pater XXXXX,

Epistula tua ad nos pervenit. Non per nuntium nec per telegramma venit - sed per manus tremulas seminarii iuvenis, qui eam per tres fines tulit et sub statua Sancti Petri in catacumbis viva voce recitavit.

In silentio audivimus. Et lacrimavimus.

Hic nuntius sit tibi testificatio: monitionem tuam accepimus, et credimus. Quin etiam - nunc intellegimus nos iam sero venisse.

Caelum Ingravescit

Ipsa Roma aliter se habet. Campanae pulsant, sed aer circum eas tremit. In omni basilica, candelae humilius ardent. Sensum commune sentimus - sacerdotes, custodes, etiam pueri - aliquid immensum et finale appropinquare. Non iam quaerimus si. Nunc quaerimus quid manere debeat.

Sanctitas Sua non dormit. Dies suos in silentio absoluto incipit, verbis caeremoniarum recusatis. Hodie in pergameno tantum hoc scripsit:

“Si pastores cadunt, oves sciant ubi aqua lateat.”

Nos Parati Sumus

Propter te - et alios tui similes - sine mora agimus.

Encyclica Ultima perfecta est. Plumbo sigillata est et in LXXVIII linguas conversa. Originale Latinum in lamina archivali impressum et ad cryptas monasticas in Gallia, Aethiopia, et Terræ Igneæ transmissum est.

Archivum Secretum Vaticanum divulsum est. Tres cellulae encryptionis Iesuíticae fragmenta Iuris Canonici, Evangeliorum, et sequentiarum liturgicarum in microfilm, braille, Latinum phoneticum, etiam Codicem Morse dispersant.

Congregatio Amplificationem Sacramentalem approbavit. Si nullus sacerdos supervixerit, ministri laici instructi nunc totum ritum baptismi, absolutionem urgentem, et benedictionem Eucharisticam portare possunt. Successio apostolica erit imperfecta - sed sufficiens.

Cathedra Petri ultimum Litterae Apostolicae scripsit. Sic incipit:

“Non ad regendum missus sum. Missus sum ad flendum, ad exspectandum, et ad testificandum.”

Quid Sequatur Nescimus

Concilium futurum non erit ad ruinam registrandam. Non erit conclave ad cineres eligendos.

Sed hoc credimus:

Ecclesia non est muri. Ecclesia non est throni. Ecclesia non est Roma.

Ecclesia est echo manens in voce fracta, vocans alteram vocem in tenebris.

Non speramus nos superfuturos. Sed Verbum speramus superfuturum - alibiquo. In cordibus puerorum Latinum nescientium. In figura crucis in pulvere descripta. In silentio inter duos ignotos, post incendium, sibi invicem ignoscentes.

Verba tua non fuerunt in vanum. Testimonium tuum memorabitur.

Si supervixeris, ex votis oboedientiae solveris - sed non ex sacerdotio. Tu es, et semper eris, luminis portator.

Non es oblitus. Etiam cum caelum scinditur. Etiam cum urbes cadunt. Etiam cum calix frangitur - sanguis tamen meminit.

I nunc. Cineres porta. Et si necesse est, Missam dic super ossa.

– In fide tremenda – Cardinalis XXXXXX XXXXX Sanctae Sedi pro Defensione Fidei

[boredtechnologist]

Ad Fidem Servandam inter Cineres

SOCIETAS IESU

Ex: P. XXXXXXXX XXXXX, S.I., Senior Consultor Ethicus, Officium Defensionis Civitatum Foederatarum Americae Ad: Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei (CDF), Civitas Vaticana Dies: Die XXIII mensis Octobris, A.D. MCMLXXXI Titulus: Adhortatio Theologica Urgenti de Probabilitate Eschatologica et Continuatione Ecclesiali in Casu Ruinae Strategicae Classificatio: SUB SECRETUM SANCTUM

(Per diplomatarium occultam Genevae transmissum; confirmatio intra XXIV horas petitur) Ad Eminentissimos Patres in Urbe Aeterna,

Non ut legatus Dicasterii Defensionis Americani scribo, sed ut testis tremoris - ut pastor stans ad limen ignis.

Licet officio meo in ambitu Concordati Protocolli anni MCMLXXIII perfungar, nunc ultra mandatum loquor. Loquor ut Iesuita, ut sacerdos, ut vir qui credit finem huius aevi non advenire sed iam adesse - non ex prophetia, sed ex acceleratione rerum.

I. Signa Proximae Rupturae Temporis

His diebus vidi:

Ruinam consultationum clandestinarum inter NATO et Foederationem Sovieticam;

Activationem consilii SIOP-5 Rev. 2-A, quod etiam ictus in zonas civiles ac non alligatas praescribit;

Sublationem cappellanorum catholicorum e consiliis CNLE de responsionibus nuclearibus primariis, qua sacramentorum accessus in tractatu belli suspenditur.

Etiam vidi schemata Regiminis Continuandi (COG) sine mentione Sedis Apostolicae conscripta. Non est oblivio - sed exclusio. In Monte Tempestatis, in Petra Corvorum - non est sacellum.

Non iam praeparant mundum in quo nos perseveremus.

II. De Collapsu Temporis Ecclesialis

Quod instat, non est bellum gentium, sed fractio temporis sacri.

Si urbes exurentur, si cathedrales ruent, si successio apostolica interrumpetur, Catena Apostolica solvitur. Corpus Christi manebit - sed sine capite, et sanguinans.

Grex fidelium vagabitur - non ex incredulitate, sed ex concussione spirituali.

Non persecutionem subimus. Illam superavimus.

Hoc gravius est.

Subimus deletionem.

Non exilium. Non haeresim.

Oblivionem.

III. Praeparatio ad Novam Aetatem Tenebrosam

Si ignis descendat, supplex oro ut hoc fiat:

Structura spiritualis condatur ac dispergatur: Catechismus, Ius Canonicum, Gaudium et Spes, Humanae Vitae, textus liturgici Latini et Aramaici - codificentur, reserventur, tradantur monasteriis extra radios ictuum: Cartusia, Athos, Montserrat - custodiant quae Roma non potest.

Mandatum pro consilio interno “Ecclesia Subsistens” detur: Ratio theologiae aptata aetati post-technologicae. Via qua etiam superstitibus et illiteratis doctrina Ecclesiae percipiatur. Rosaria militaria cum cibis expeditionis distribuantur. Psalmi memoria teneantur. Theologia Superstitum - ut ab illis qui nudis pedibus per Hiroshima ambulaverunt.

Sacramentorum potestas in casu extremi decentralizetur: In collapsu, laicis fidelibus rite instructis permittatur baptismus, benedictio, sepultura, absolutio conditionata. Catena Apostolica flectenda est, alioquin frangetur.

Encyclicam ultimam iam nunc scribatis: Publicanda si Roma pereat. Una pagina. Latine et sermone vernaculo. Dicatis: Non estis obliti. Non estis derelicti. Ignis non fuit de Caelo.

IV. Contra Theologiam Adversarii

Inter nonnullos consiliarios militares nova oritur doctrina. Nominant eam “detonationem moralem” - fidem quod bellum celer mundum emundabit a putredine ideologica.

Haec est eschatologia luciferiana. Salus per combustionem. Veritas per interitum.

Palam non dicitur. Sed in tabulis eorum ridens aspicio:

Crucem fecerunt de silo missili.

V. Ultima Precatio

Si haec est epistula mea ultima, sciant posteri:

Adhuc credo.

Credo Christum in Hostia fracta manere. Credo Spiritum nudis pedibus per cinerem ambulare. Credo cineres, si insuffletur in eos, iterum ardere posse.

Sed fides non est structura. Et Ecclesia, ut nunc stat, non superabit quod instat - nisi frangatur sancte.

Praeparate mundum ad adorandum sine tecto. Praeparate populum ad orandum sine nominibus. Praeparate apostolos qui nihil portant nisi silentium - et ignem.

Vester in metu sancto, Pater XXXXXXXX XXXXX, S.I. Washingtonia / Sigillum Nigrum / In nomine fidei

[boredtechnologist]

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - Gospel of Contagion

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” - John 1:1

But in Raccoon City, the Word was profit. And the Word was made flesh, and that flesh began to rot. Welcome to the catechism of decomposition, performed at gunpoint.

Genesis of a Failing God: Umbrella’s Blasphemy

Umbrella didn’t build weapons. They built blasphemies with mitochondrial skins. The T-Virus wasn’t a disease - it was a commandment rewritten. A new gospel injected directly into muscle fiber and brain stem. Evolution by force. Resurrection without grace. They didn’t want to play God. They wanted to replace Him.

But unlike God, Umbrella took notes.

In the scriptures of thermobaric grenades and unmarked helicopters, the USS Wolfpack descends - a black cell of faithless apostles. Their gospel is non-interference. Observe. Record. Cleanse. Burn.

And like the angels who watched Sodom burn, they carry no mercy.

Wolfpack: Witnesses to the Death of Meaning

Vector. Beltway. Spectre. Lupo. Names stripped of identity - reduced to purpose. Each operative bears witness as the city devours itself.

They see the heretic god William Birkin rupture his own body like a prophet tearing the veil. They see Leon, Jill, and Claire scrambling like insects through divine fire.

They see RPD fall. And they log it.

Because Wolfpack are not saviors. They are ushers. They walk ahead of the collapse like robed mourners at a funeral for meaning itself.

They collect data. Record bullet trajectories. Watch S.T.A.R.S. bleed. And in every dying scream, every twitching limb convulsing from viral truth - they confirm it:

God is dead. Science wears His corpse like armor.

The Virus as Revelation

The infected do not lie. They speak a language deeper than words - a liturgy of blood spray, the hallowed rattle of fluid-filled lungs, the transubstantiation of man into hunger.

The virus isn’t chaos. It’s clarity.

In Raccoon, every citizen becomes a sermon.

A man barricades his home with crucifixes - he is eaten first. A priest offers Last Rites to a reanimated child - she rips his throat and chokes on the collar. A mother prays over her son’s fever - then weeps as she feeds him his own dog.

Faith fails. Morality collapses. Only the infection endures.

Apostles of the Corporate Gospel

Wolfpack isn’t blind. But they are obedient.

When Lupo questions orders, the silence is deafening. When Vector watches Nemesis execute a S.T.A.R.S. unit and remarks it is “efficient,” you realize - This isn’t cruelty. This is doctrine.

Their mission isn’t survival. It’s confirmation.

Confirm that morality impedes progress. Confirm that loyalty is programmable. Confirm that death is recyclable.

The Gethsemane of the Modern Age

In the garden, Christ sweat blood knowing betrayal would come. In Raccoon, betrayal is standard operating procedure.

Wolfpack are Judas and Peter, Thomas and Pilate. They deny. They betray. They watch.

And as the sky turns the color of bruised meat and the screams turn to echoes, they exfiltrate with data cores clutched like holy relics.

They’ve seen the new Genesis. And it doesn’t begin with light.

It begins with a cough.

And ends with silence.

Amen.