#even though its a base model its still SO much more advanced

[doctorweebmd]

accidentally* brainstormed a very complete outline for chapters 4-8 for eih, which should theoretically take us through Part 1. which is. you know. a godsend or whatever.

*accidentally meaning i was just eating delicious pancakes and the thoughts happened. usually its me crying screaming and shitting myself in front of an empty word document where ideas manifest. this is notably much more pleasant.

[balioc]

A Simple Model

Both of the major US political parties are really very bad, right now.

(Blogger Has Amazing Novel Insights!)

The electorally-significant Dems, having finally lived up to their destiny as the new Party of the Elite, are a pack of careerist apparatchiks incapable of any vision beyond "keep the engine of the world chugging along for another day." (Turns out, that's the kind of person you have to be in order to rise to the top of the Party of the Elite.) They are aligned with enough of the major institutional power-players of American society that they're pretty much at the mercy of those power-players. They can be counted on to provide the kind of ass-covering deceit that big bureaucratic institutions generally provide (cf. Covid guidance). The last wave of "big change ideas" that were cutting-edge in the early-to-mid 2000s - marijuana legalization, public healthcare, stimulus spending, No Really We Could Just Have Open Borders, etc. - has been thoroughly assimilated, dealt-with or not-dealt-with to varying degrees, and they're not really having any new ones.

Mostly separately from that, by a weird quirk of intellectual history, the otherwise-extremely-stodgy modern Dems managed to attach themselves to a very unpopular version of identitarian group-liberation ideology. There are arguments to be had about how much this matters in the long run, how long-lasting the effects are going to be, how likely the problem is to solve itself (and under what circumstances), etc.; but one way or another, (a) it's a political albatross, and (b) it's created a bunch of actual-factual problems on the small-to-medium scale.

The Republicans, meanwhile, have become so totally unmoored and directionless that their political program consists entirely of lashing out at things they don't like. The coalition has no center, and no integrity, save for its opposition to the elite sociocultural establishment. It is capable of embracing insane/inane "ideas" like tariff-based tax systems, border-wall-building, The Plague That's Killing A Ton of People Just Isn't Happening, etc.; it can be easily baited into gleefully embracing things as evil as police brutality and war crimes, just by presenting it with a smarmy opposition on those issues. It can toss random bones to constituent ideologies like right-libertarianism or religious social conservatism, but not advance their agendas in any overarching way. It is actively opposed to institutional competence, because competent institutional actors are assumed to be Of the Enemy, which is more important than anything else. It doesn't even try to keep most of its (insane) promises. It is increasingly dominated by naked grift, mostly directed at its own base. It is, in short, the kind of party that could nominate and then elect Donald J. Trump twice.

...either of these parties could easily, by this point, have become Totally Nonviable. This hasn't happened, mostly because both of them are coasting on their legacies, and through spinal reflex doing just enough to keep those legacies on life support. The Republicans are the traditional party of the rich and respectable, and even though they're increasingly unappealing to the country's newer middle-class cadres, they're still the party of Big Tax Cuts etc., which...stanches some of the blood flow. Meanwhile, the Democrats are the traditional party of minorities, and - although they're less and less able to depend on those minorities, as we just saw in the 2024 election - there are enough credible signals that they're Less Racist Than the Other Guys to keep the minorities more-or-less voting for the apparatchiks.

At this point, both parties are mostly selling "at least we're not the other guys." This is a very easy and low-energy thing for them. It requires no vision and relatively little competence; it plays on partisan hate and fear, which are more reliable and easier-to-stoke than hope or inspiration, in an environment suitable to them.

They will both continue selling that thing, rather than anything else, until forced to change. Which is to say, until one of them actually becomes Totally Nonviable and has to spend some time in the wilderness becoming a genuinely different kind of party. (Or, hypothetically, until one of them actually gets replaced by an outside institution. Good luck.)

Which is to say, we are going to be in this nightmarish stalemate until one of the parties breaks the other one over its knee, in the world's most depressing geriatric cage fight. This is actually even more important than it sounds, because the political situation is yoked to the sociocultural situation. We're going to be stuck in some version of this dumbass culture war until there is an ideological power capable of uniting the warring tribes, a power that is stronger than their toxoplasmic hostility to one another; that power could imaginably be a sui generis religious movement or something, but it's much more likely to be some kind of all-encompassing We're Actually Good political thing, a new Reaganism or War Rooseveltism or whatever.

I would strongly prefer for the Democrats to win that fight. I would strongly prefer to be ruled by the bleak sclerotic establishment, during the period when the opposition is getting its shit together and coming back to force a New Better Binary, rather than by a gang of nihilistic hucksters likely to dismantle random parts of the system and to make essentially-random diplomatic gestures to volatile dangerous foreign powers.

Until recently, I would have said that the Democrats were going to win that fight, in the sense that the contemporary Republicans literally couldn't. I thought that nihilistic hucksterism would always provoke enough horror, when given the power to do anything, that the bleak sclerotic establishment would have room to push its way back. Maybe that's still the case. But, like so many people, I've become more pessimistic.

[copaline]

MY FELLOW DEGENERATES IT'S WEDNESDAY!

@man--eater (You just posted a fic chapter but here I am demanding more!)

@sunsetofdoom (your writing has an amount of white gloves that is found nowhere else)

@i-prefer-base-twelve (*pokes hoping something falls out*)

@punedrr (I choose to believe you are sitting on a pile of gold now gimme!)

@ancharan (This is what happens when you expose me to shrimp colors)

@tempusedax-rerum (WELCOME TO THE FANDOM! You are now tagged!)

No pressure to share but I'd love to see what you have! And as always, if you see this and want to join in, please do! Consider yourself tagged by me! The banner is free to use!

This is a clip of the spinoff of Horror Vacui called The Dealer and the Oracle!

It's a fix it fic that answers the question "what if someone had rescued a young 1982 Model Ford as he was being tortured by Bill?". Here's a little snippet of the upcoming Chapter:

The 1980s were a shit decade. Leaf knew it. Jheselbraum knew it. Bill knew it. Everyone knew it. The music was tinny and insipid, the tech was clunky, the people were painfully backwards but thought themselves advanced, and that was before anyone took into account what passed for fashion. The 80s lacked the innovation of the 70s, the dynamism of the 60s, and the reverberating Potential of the 50s. The 80s weren’t experienced so much as they were inflicted upon a population that had no other choice but to exist in linear time. Case in point: The Rio Bar.  This faux Brazilian monstrosity was meant to look and feel exotic but only managed to embarrass itself. With its ever-present tobacco smoke and the reverb-heavy music, Leaf supposed it was a place where the uninspired could get a little taste of something safely foreign yet familiar. The bartender approached her in a ridiculous bleach-blond pompadour and what passed for a tropical shirt. “What can I getcha?” he asked cheerfully. Leaf locked eyes with him and scrutinized his saccharine smile before leaning in closer. “Tell the Grand Wormwood I’m here about her tab.” There was a crackle of static in the fringes of reality as the seams wrinkled and yielded to the words. The bartender’s face became dazed as his eyes glazed over and shifted from brown to a vivid lime green. He then blinked and looked around in confusion. “Hello Absinthe,” Leaf smiled. “Wisp? Where the hell did you drag me off to…” he trailed off as he looked positively disgusted. “I already helped you put the squeeze on Rico, I kept my end of the deal!” The Grand Wormwood, Absinthe the Green, otherwise known as the patron fae of that specific sort of regret that comes after you had far too good a time the night before. The Green Fairy’s domain lay behind the bar with the bottles of spirits, in theory she could manifest anywhere you could find a bartender, but even she had standards and this place certainly fell short of them. She was not pleased and was looking at Leaf as though she had dragged her to some back-alley slum to be murdered. “What? You don’t like banana leaves, bad music, and neon colors?” Leaf teased and it earned her a green-eyed glare. “You’re not funny.” “Well as long as you’re here, can I get a Blackberry Bramble?” It was amusing to see Absinthe puff up and glower while inhabiting a man a full head taller than Leaf. Eventually, the fae relented and manifested blackberries in a tumbler. “This was not part of the contract, Wisp.” “Oh no worries, I’ll pay for the drink.” “That wasn’t what I meant,” the bartender hissed, “you said I just had to help you find him. You never said I had to help you break him out.” “I also didn’t say you needed to kill Rico or his men,” she pointed out. “I only killed half.” “The other half were committed to the local insane asylum.” “And this is how you repay my restraint.” “My Lady Green, sulking is most unbecoming of you. You agreed to my deal. Last I checked, you still have half of your tab outstanding,” Leaf corrected as she caught the drink Absinthe slid across to her and took a sip, “mmm… bit sour.” “It’s February. Blackberries will be out of season for another twenty Februaries until global warming ramps up,” the fairy huffed. “Shame,” Leaf sighed as she pretended to be fascinated by the drink. “Is that it? You dragged me here to make you an anachronistic drink that won’t be invented for another year and a half?” “Misery loves company,” Leaf’s pointed reply was softened by the amusement in her eyes. “You know… you never said what Stan was doing in a place like this.”

[charlotteheehee]

Wario Land influencing Wario the Character (and vice versa)

Yeah I rambled to some friends of mine and I'm gonna copy-paste it here, with some tweaks and additions.

The Game Boy had a small screen, and since Wario's rather big frame would take up a good portion of it, it was decided his game would be slower pace as to prevent the players from not being able to react to what's ahead of them

Wario's greedy nature was established by selfishly stealing Mario's own castle in his debut game. This, combined with the above factor, influenced Wario Land's primary objective: looking around for LOOT.

With the incentive to explore levels that were slower and somewhat more open than Mario levels, it's a guarantee for more playtime and replayability.

(Would you look at this haul, wowzers!)

This is expanded upon in the sequels, which are even more exploration-based, fitting for Wario's newly-displayed hobby of treasure hunting.

And when the screen for Wario's games got bigger, whether it be on Virtual Boy or Game Boy Advance, Wario was allowed to ram into who-knows-what even faster.

Wario's design changed a tad following his new series, he was slightly redesigned to be less.. goofy-lookin for the protagonist role.

Here he is in 1992, his debut year, he's a real charmer.

The lazy eye, my dear lazy eye, was removed quite soon after.

Here he is in 1994 with his trusty treasure-hunting hat, his debut as the lead of the Wario Land series. He has a confident smile that says "You're-a playing as Wario now! That's right, soak it in, hee hee hah hah!"

(I know that's a safari hat, but the way it's shaded always makes it look like metal.)

Here's where his strength is first emphasized, what with powerfully ramming into everything and everyone against him. note those toned arms of his, this trait will become more visually apparent soon.

The next year, my darling Virtual Boy Wario Land released. Take a gander.

Here he's drawn notably slimmer than usual, spooky, though this is rather inconsistent.

Not much else to say here or for the next couple years outside of the advent of his 3D model, so let's skip to 1998

Behold, Wario Land II !

Would you look at that, someone's shortened his sleeves!

To emphasize Wario's cartoonish levels of strength of which he displays in his games frequently, the designers have given Wario permission to show off his enviable biceps. (Mario spinoffs went back and forth on this for about 6 years. The funniest example to me is Wario having short sleeves in Mario Tennis, yet having long sleeves in its sequel.)

Wario has reached the conclusion of his design evolution, good for him. Well, there's WarioWare, but that's for another day.

Despite these tweaks to his design, Wario is still very much a goof, so all his transformations are just comedy.

Initially, Wario's power-ups were just that. Wario utilized a variety (3) of hats, all of which granted him abilities such as a flame attack or a flying dash attack.

(look at that, incredible.)

The world turned upside-down on, once again, the release of Wario Land II. Those deranged folks back at Nintendo get a lot of yucks inflicting life-threatening slapstick onto Wario, all because Wario is naturally goofy, poor guy.

Thus, "Wario with a Dragon Hat that Breathes Fire" became "Wario Running Uncontrollably on Fire" and "Wario with an Eagle Hat that Helps Him Glide" became "Wario Got Stung by a Bee and His Balloon Head Gives Him Flight" among others, there's a lot more than three this time.

I love this guy.

[realcleverscience]

There are different definitions of "AGI" (Artificial General Intelligence). Some people focus on AI's understanding and possibly even sentience, while many focus on what it can do. Some people define it as equivalent to the abilities of the average person; others, as equivalent to the abilities of experts.

Part of the challenge is that intelligence comes in many forms. For instance, the ability to grasp objects is a form of intelligence though it's not something people generally think of as a business-related skill. And at the same time, the moravec paradox observes that computers are great at things humans are not and vice versa (e.g. computers have a hard time grasping objects but can do advanced maths in milliseconds.) So, comparing human and machine intelligence is challenging.

That said, I favor the "what it can do" approach because that has the most immediate impact in people's lives. That is, if we have AI systems that can do economically useful work just as good as the average person (or even better, the average expert), that means a few things:

People won't be needed to work. (Jobs? Economy?)

All economic output could increase several times over. For instance, AI may advance our tech. At a minimum, robots can work 24/7/365 whereas humans work a fraction of that. Imagine our ability to fabricate advanced computing chips doubling, which can then be used to make more chips, etc.

We may have begun the "singularity", where digital based knowledge and skills skyrockets. This is because we will have reached a point where the AI can improve itself. This means expanding the types of jobs it can perform, improving its performance, and likely innovating new techniques or technologies to assist with its goals.

(Of course, that could have tremendously good or tremendously bad outcomes - e.g. global retirement and healthy ecosystem vs literal doom - but that's another discussion.)

This vid argues that we've hit AGI by this definition. And I think that by some narrow definitions, this may be the case. (I still think we need more accuracy, a better "ecosystem" for it to function, more real-world modeling, etc. OTOH, this isn't preventing it from being massively useful right now.) So, this doesn't mean that the things I just listed will happen tomorrow - but it does mean that we should be expecting more enormous advances in the lab, and start to see real world applications slowly beginning. The line between AI and AGI is quickly blurring. Buckle up.

p.s. I know casual readers probably hear about AI here and there but may still have a picture in their head of AI as basically just a tool for making crappy pictures. I'm begging y'all to see that AI is both way beyond that (e.g. it's now making literal movies, and rapidly approaching market-ready results) and more importantly, that it's much more than that. AI is advancing every field of science, from fusion energy to quantum computing to curing diseases and so much more. This is no longer a curiosity. This is real and it's here.

[floatingcatacombs]

Tech So Bad It Sounds Like The Reviewers Are Just Plain Depressed

12 Days of Aniblogging 2024, Day 8

I really do try to stay away from armchair cultural criticism, especially when it's this far removed from my weaboo wheelhouse, but this one’s been eating away at me for the entire year. What are we doing here?

2024 has been full of downright bad consumer tech! The Apple Vision Pro, the Rabbit and Humane AI pins, the PS5 Pro… those are just the big ones, and that’s not even getting started on vaporware like Horizon Worlds and Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC initiative. Sure, there are Juiceros every year, but this recent batch of flops feels indicative of a larger trend, which is shipping products that are both overengineered and conceptually half-baked. Of course, there’s plenty of decent tech coming out too – Apple’s recent laptops and desktops have been strong and competitively priced, at least the base models. The Steam Deck created a whole new product category that seems to be thriving. And electric cars… exist, which is better than nothing. But it’s been much more fun to read about of the bad stuff, of course. These days it feels like most of the tech reviews I read these days have the journalists asking “what’s the point?” halfway through, or asserting in advance that it will fail, like this useless product with a bad value proposition is prompting an existential crisis for them. Maybe it is!

yeah yeah journalists don't write their own headlines. I can assure you that the article content carries the same tone for these though.

What did a negative tech review look like before the 2020s? Maybe there wasn’t one, really. The 2000s and the 2010s were drenched in techno-optimism. Even if skepticism towards social media emerged over time, hardware itself was generally received well, mixed at worst, because journalists were happy to extrapolate out what a product and its platform could do. Nowadays, everyone takes everything at face value! As they should –the things we buy rarely get meaningfully better over time, and the support window for flops is getting shorter and shorter with each passing year. On the games side of things, look how quickly Concord ended! With that out of the way, I’m going to start zeroing in on the hardware I saw a “why does this exist” type review for this year.

The Apple Vision Pro

People have been burnt time and time again by nearly every VR headset ecosystem to release (other than mayyybe Oculus, but Facebook’s tendrils sinking in don’t feel great either). The PSVR was a mild success at best and the PSVR2 was an expensive and unmitigated disaster that lost support in a matter of months. Meanwhile, the Valve Index couldn’t cut it with its price, and Microsoft actively blew up their own HoloLens infrastructure earlier this year. It’s at this point it's clear that VR is a niche, and one that’s expensive to develop for and profit off of.  Surely Apple will save us!

completely isolate yourself from your family for the low, low price of multiple paychecks

With most of the competition focusing on gaming, Apple attempted a blue ocean strategy with the Vision Pro by instead making their target audience… nobody! It’s hard to tell what anyone was ever supposed to do with these things, and reading long-form reviews, it became very clear that the reviewers were trying to come up with viable use-cases and largely failing, because it’s just not very practical tech. There’s no physical input devices, so you’re instead using mix of hand-tracking, eye-tracking, and voice commands to control the thing. That’s pretty cool, but it means that the one niche that VR has been proven in, gaming, is effectively impossible. Things like office software can also be hard to use without a keyboard and mouse, and even when there’s tailor-made headset applications for existing software, it’s still usually not better than just doing it on your desktop!

The tech is real, and that’s the saddest part. Looking at teardowns, I fully believe that the hardware had to cost multiple thousands of dollars to break even, and as someone who suffers from VR motion sickness, I’d be really curious to see if all the stabilization tech from their extra onboard chips helps with that as much as the press releases claim. It’s like a more drastic version of the iPad problem, where the hardware is amazing on paper, but interfacing limits with the form factor itself combined with a subpar operating system mean that you can’t actually do as much as you’d hope to with all that power.

Of course, the Vision Pro is also full of prototype hacks and hard design problems – that battery pack is a nightmare! If it’s a productivity device, how are you supposed to share content with other people when the headset has to be custom-fit every time and there’s only one profile? Apple still has no good answer. That leaves the only available niche for this device as white-collar productivity done in isolation, and most people fundamentally do not live in that world. It feels lonely and dystopic, even.

If I had to guess what happened, the VR division at Apple was working on this for the better part of a decade, and facing headwinds, Apple decided to cut their losses and force them to deliver a doomed product. There’s a potent business fantasy of a bad version 1.0 leading to a successful 2.0 and beyond, but Apple has not pulled that off any time in the twenty-first century. It’s either a success or it is a proven failure, and this is so, so, obviously the latter. I do hope that the stabilization tech makes it into other headsets eventually though, so that I can play Blade and Sorcery at my friend’s house without throwing up. Everyone else, please copy Apple’s homework or steal their patents, preferably to the tune of under $3500.

Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pins

The current AI paradigm has been around for two years now, and since we've all heard way too many arguments already, I will try to keep my own takes brief. The LLM results we have right now are real (even if everyone is trying to dress them up as superintelligent snake oil when they’re just cool computer synthesis), but from everything I read, it seems like the era of drastic improvement is over. It would take exponentially more text and images and video than we already have to get more linear improvements, and a good chunk of the world has already been scraped, and the lawsuits are already pouring in, further slowing down data ingestion. The tech is slowing down, and the industry won’t be able to grow its way out of the hard social problems it’s invoked. If there are gains to be made, it's in more fine-tuned and curated LLMs, and that's far harder work than most of these companies want to get up to right now.

With that out of the way, are you interested in wearing an LLM on your shirt?

The video that notoriously tanked a company. Of course, now I'm also supposed to make fun of this guy for using b-roll of himself speeding in a school zone . Nobody wins.

Not one, but two separate startups pushed this idea to market this year. Humane’s AI pin launched for seven hundred dollars plus a twenty-five dollars per month subscription, all for the privilege of getting to ask a little square on your chest questions and getting GPT answers spoken back to you. But what about like… ChatGPT’s own phone app? Or hell, even Siri! Apple and Android’s voice assistants are both are over a decade old– do you really have that many ungoogleable queries? And specifically, ones that voice responses make the most sense for, and not text? To make things worse, this thing has serious overheating issues and a battery that can’t even last a day. The Rabbit R1 at least has a cute design, and actually has a screen, and is much cheaper, but it requires a data tether to your phone, so like…why not just use your phone. Reverse-engineering has confirmed that its app can just run on a normal Android phone, so there’s really nothing special other than the little orange square that it’s hosted in.

Why would you even try to roll out a product as doomed as these, instead of just going bankrupt and pocketing a year or two of salary like most startups? The AI boom, of course! After the NFT hype cycle, everyone really did convince themselves that you can just fail upwards with no real limit. Unfortunately, people have higher standards for hardware than PNG transaction platforms, as they get far more upset when they’re left physically holding the bag. I’ve been watching Deep Space 9 recently and have to ask, are these companies trying to capture the fantasy of Star Trek comms badges? Because if so, they should honestly lean more into it. It wouldn't be any more functional of a product, but if there’s one thing nerds always love, it’s themed garbage.

welp

The PS5 Pro

This one just launched a bit ago for the holiday season. It makes some sense on paper – most PS5 games offer a choice between a performance and a fidelity mode, so why not just make a version strong enough that it can get the benefits of both? Great! That’ll be seven hundred dollars.

Okay, $700 doesn’t sound as insane in the context of that Humane pin I was just talking about. But it’s $200 more than the PS5 at launch, and it doesn’t even come with a disc drive unless you want to fork over another $80. The past few generations of gaming have been defined by heavily subsidized console prices with the goal of roping gamers into more lucrative ecosystems, but Sony here seems to be testing the waters for an unsubsidized era.

I've heard the external disc drive install process is surprisingly user-friendly, but at this price point they should have included a little automaton who does it for you

If you can stomach PC gaming, at that price you’re halfway there to buying something that could trounce a PS5 Pro, plus a monitor close enough to your face that you might actually notice the 4K improvements. There are also only a couple of games per year being produced at high enough fidelity for there to be any noticeable quality improvements. The returns are diminishing and the AAA landscape is narrowing, and console upgrades like these only hasten the industry’s spiraling. Is all this sustainable from a development perspective? I don’t know. If Nintendo announced a Mario Odyssey sequel for the Switch 2, I’d buy it at launch regardless of the graphics, and my PS3 can play Demon's Souls and my anime blu-rays just fine. So I’m well aware that I’m not the target audience for stuff like the PS5 Pro, but I think it's going to become harder and harder to compel that audience going forward.

_

The end of the low interest rates in US has drastically changed the underpinnings of its tech industry, and I think every one of these bad product launches can be traced back here one way or another. The era of running flashy ventures at a loss for years in order to corner the market is profoundly over, unless you’ve got Thiel blood money or a GPT transformer, and even then. This, combined with the end of quarantine-era user habits, has left many companies to repeatedly go all in on hype cycles like blockchain and the metaverse and AI, pretending like the last one never happened every time. This trend-chasing means, that depending on each company’s circumstances, they need to either spin something up quick, reroute an existing prototype, or risk delivering laughably late. You need a product and you need it fast. And rushed tech is always going to have load-bearing and stupid problems, no matter how long the initial development time was. Everyone loses, especially the saps who actually believe in the sales pitches enough to buy these things. And those poor, poor tech journalists who have to review it all are being consumed with eldritch madness watching this all unfold. Hey, at least they’re not trying to simp for Microsoft Copilot!

Hopefully, this particular era of tech ends sooner rather than later, so that I don’t feel compelled to do another essay of this type. If I were more of an idealist or a doofus I’d be dreaming of a serious anticonsumerist movement and/or Xi Jinping liberating us all, but unfortunately I’m of the belief that we’re doomed to dumbass gizmos destined for the landfill until the end of the silicon era.

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Apollo 1993 Downtempo / Breakbeat / Ambient Techno / Ambient

Here's an absolutely breathtaking self-titled sampler that was put out in the early 90s by Apollo, the "ambient" sublabel of the great Belgium-based R & S Records. Honestly, as far as early 90s ambient and ambient-adjacent comps go, this is hands-down the best one I've ever heard. It's like the electronic music equivalent of hearing Dark Side of the Moon for the first time—just total mind expansion by way of progressive psychedelia that leaves its listener in awe; a completely unparalleled sonic experience. And I'm sure the nifty outer space-themed album art isn't a coincidence either.

The way the word "ambient" got thrown around back then was as an umbrella term; it wasn't just largely percussionless, beatless electronic music as we tend to define it today; it was just stuff that was markedly slower and less intense than stuff that was made for a typical dancefloor. So, although this is usually classed as an ambient album—the release itself has a sticker on its jewel case that literally says "file under ambient"—by today's standards, it's really mostly not. It's more so downtempo, techno, and breakbeat. And even though techno and breakbeat are usually referred to as dance genres, the vibe here is way more of a chill one, hence people's use of the term "ambient techno," for example. So, to put it more simply, most of this album isn't actually just purely ambient music, despite its own claim to the contrary.

Anyway, without the constraints of needing to make something uptempo and dancy, it allowed artists to really explore and push the bounds of electronic music. Canvasses were basically blank and there was no "rule" to incessantly loop any rhythms or melodies. You could pretty much craft whatever the hell you wanted, however the hell you wanted. And this album collects some great, early 90s creative electronic efforts that were made with that spirit in mind, which still have the capacity to amaze as we approach this release's upcoming 30th anniversary.

On here you'll find both abstract electronic music's greatest innovator, Aphex Twin, and the godfather of techno himself, Juan Atkins, and both of them turn in stellar contributions, with Aphex's being the first track from his famed Selected Ambient Works 85-92 compilation (one of Apollo's first releases), "X-tal," and Atkins' song being the lesser-known "The Passage," released under his Model 500 moniker. Both very unique and stunning ambient techno-breakbeat journeys there.

And then there's the star of this show, the relatively obscure David Morley, who gets two tracks of his own as well as a remix of Golden Girls' "Kinetic" to kick off this whole shebang. Guy hadn't amassed much of a solo career when this album was initially released, but his tracks here are all fantastic. He seems to enjoy utilizing and intertwining multiple layers of psychedelic synth sounds, generating these warm and comfy blankets, and with his three different placements here, he manages to apply that complex synth approach to IDMish, ambient techno, and chillout room frameworks. Brilliant stuff with a lot of texture to it 😌.

So, for me, among early 90s electronic comps, this ranks on the same level as Warp Records' pioneering IDM album, Artificial Intelligence, from 1992. Both still manage to totally floor me despite how archaic the technology that went into making them was back then when compared to today. And, to a certain extent, I've never really cared about when something came out anyway—the Holland-Dozier-Holland-crafted Motown sound that busted up the pop charts in the 60s still sounds better than pretty much any other pop era or craze that followed it—and the same goes for electronic music. A DAW can only really get you so far. It's still the mind of a creator that matters more than anything else, and an album like Apollo makes that sentiment crystal clear, technological advancements be damned.

Highlights:

Golden Girls - "Kinetic (David Morley Remix)" Model 500 - "The Passage" David Morley - "Evolution" Aphex Twin - "X-tal" David Morley - "Calibration" Neuro - "Mama (Justin London Mix)"

[miloscat]

[Review] Avatar: The Last Airbender: Quest for Balance (PS5)

This show deserves better than this cheap and sloppy tie-in.

Peru-based studio Bamtang are the latest to be granted the Avatar licence, after making some decent kart racers for Nickelodeon. Quest for Balance is the result, and although it’s functional this revival game struggles to live up to the predominately Australian-made tie-in games that were contemporary with the show (and movie).

My expectations were quite high for this given the advances in technology since 2006-2010. But there are always other factors at play in game development, like budget, time, and the experience of the dev team, that are potentially lacking here. What I'm saying is the game feels cheap, from the bland level design to the simple combat to the abundance of rough edges.

Quest for Balance covers all three books of the original show... more or less. The six levels in each try to hit the major points while some episodes and events are skipped over; if you're lucky these will be summarised with a cutscene. But even the significant stuff is dealt with perfunctorily. I did like the side quests in the more hublike levels, with named NPCs and items to find that expand on the world a little bit, although it doesn’t amount to much.

The core gameplay isn’t too different from child/family games we have known such as the Traveller’s Tales Lego games. You explore a level, break objects and interact with interactables, get into fights, and solve some puzzles. Locking the fights into little battle arenas reminded me of the first two Avatar DS games, while the puzzles (maybe the strongest part of the game) recalled the third DS game. I still think I liked those better though.

These gameplay elements are often sectioned off, and the levels are mostly a flat and uninteresting sequence of rooms. There’s an inventory which I barely touched, and an upgrade system that incentivises finding goodies by improving your combat powers. I did get through most combat by just mashing with the most effective characters (Sokka and Toph as far as I could tell) but there is some depth when you’re not just getting stunlocked. Like most of the game it’s just let down by a pervasive clunkiness.

Co-op is available… most of the time. A fatal flaw is not letting a second player participate when the story requires a solo character’s involvement, as well as being unbalanced. That is, when the maximum three-character party is present, player 1 can swap between two of them while player two is locked to only one. These choices hamper its viability as a multiplayer experience (also, my spouse just thought the game in general was subpar and so left me to it).

I’d like to circle back to the cutscenes, as they represent the ramshackle feel of how the game is put together. A mere handful are in 3D, using the game models with some decent animation, which despite being prerendered can chug heavily when a lot of stuff is happening. Some are in 2D, going for a motion comic look but with distressing animated png warping. This includes a cute framing story where Iroh, Bumi, and Pakku are recounting the tale to a Ba Sing Se playwright. Others are brief in-engine dialogue scenes where the characters stand motionless. Or you might just have one of the aforementioned three recounters summarising exposition over a paragraph of text. Even with these various methods of varying levels of effort, they will at times neglect to properly set up the next gameplay portion. It’s frankly a mess.

I also have to mention the voice acting, which ranges from decent soundalike performances (eg. Katara or Toph) to… “an attempt was made”. As far as I can tell from a quick search of Behind the Voice Actors, the only VA that returned was Dee Bradley Baker for creature noises, and even his mastery in the field is undermined when you play one of the dull Appa autoscrolling segments and notice that they appear to have forgotten to apply any pitching down or treatment to his voice?? It sounds bizarre and unfinished. I do have to give the game credit for casting a higher proportion of actors of Asian descent though which is nice to see.

Let it be known that I 100%d Quest for Balance… minus some trophies like the one for completing boss battles hitless. In this janky combat engine and with the bosses as boring as they are, I couldn’t face it. But the game is just competent enough and revisiting stages is streamlined such that I didn’t mind going back for the side stuff, which is my favourite aspect anyway. On the whole though I can’t really recommend this game except to superfans; the old tie-ins are frankly of a higher standard and by virtue of having dedicated instalments for each season, do a better job covering the material on top of having more depth and variety. Plus the first one has an original story! This could have been a triumphant revisit of a beloved story, but it ended up a cheap cash-grab. Oh well.

[rkplaced]

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎　　　　　　𝐏‎𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 .*⊹ @thiriumblood.

felix always felt much safer going out at night than he did during the daytime; & as much as he'd love to say he didn't know why that was ... well, he did. despite being such an advanced piece of technology, despite being built practically from the ground up to harm or intimidate, despite everything that should have made him feel superior to humans — he was still terrified of them. terrified they'd bring him back to that place, somehow. it was foolish of him to think that it would even occur to anyone would return him to cyberlife, & hell, it was foolish of him to think cyberlife cared enough to want him back in the first place. sometimes, he saw through his own paranoia & felt stupid for believing in any of it, for being so scared of such unlikely outcomes. usually, though, he was too worried about it to think clearly ( as ironic as that was for an android, ) & instead made his decisions based on the irrational fear that he was in danger at every step.

he knew his vision was going to be superior to a human's under any conditions, but at night, the disparity was particularly strong. he could see far better in the dark than them, & he felt safer there because of it. felix knew most people felt the exact opposite way, because that was pretty common knowledge ... but he had never been afraid of the dark. it was lonely, but he still felt at home in it. if anything, he was more scared of the sort of blinding, sterile - white brightness which always reminded him of where he'd come from. he'd take the early night in detroit, with the beginnings of a rainstorm overhead & the dim, flickering streetlights all around, any day.

the usefulness of his walks was dubious. he had a self - imposed mission to protect androids where he could, & told himself he was going on patrol in case he was needed. really, he couldn't stand being cooped up by himself all the time & needed the nightly change of scenery. the RK900 often found his mind wandering, but at the end of the day, if anything happened around him ... he still registered it, important or otherwise. so no matter how lost in his own head he may have been as he aimlessly traveled the city's outskirts, his reaction to seeing another android coming towards him at a similar pace, with a large dog at its side, was immediate. he analyzed the animal first — saint bernard, adult male, approximately twenty - nine inches at the shoulder & roughly 170 pounds — but was quick to dismiss it. it was an intimidating canine, certainly, but if worst came to worst ... felix knew he could defend himself from it effectively. he focused on the android instead, & that was when he froze.

the RK800. his predecessor, given the name connor, was different from felix in that there was only ever supposed to be one of him at a time; capable of backing up his data for reuse in a new body, but there was no need to mass - produce what was effectively a prototype for the more commercially available RK900 line ... or that had been cyberlife's intention, at least. instead, the androids had revolutionized, & the potentially dangerous RK900s had been destroyed, with refunds issued to their buyers. as far as felix knew, he was the only one who'd survived the culling of his model. he'd never really stopped to consider what had become of this android, though.

fear was felix's immediate reaction, like always. again, despite knowing his own strengths, he was fearful at his core & that fact always seemed to be making itself known. the worst part was the way he could never force himself to act when he was scared, the way he stood in place as if his systems were stalling. he couldn't tell himself to run. he could only wait there for the other android ( & his companion ) to get closer. the RK800 was built to hunt deviants, & even if there was no way he was still affiliated with cyberlife, felix was too caught up on that fact to dismiss it. connor was a deviant hunter, & felix was a deviant. what good could come out of this ?

willing himself to move still wasn't working. he couldn't do so much as take a step back, so he straightened up instead, tried to look fearsome instead of scared. he was the better model between them, or so he told himself. he was the upgraded version, & there was no way he could lose in an altercation against an RK800 for that reason. the fear did not subside. ❝ what are you doing here ? ❞ he asked, holding onto the cuffs of his jacket as he spoke, as if this couldn't be a coincidence. as if he'd been found.

that was how he felt, after all.

[beesandwasps]

Note that the reason it’s so successful in the places where it is successful is that there’s very little differentiation in those spaces: all Android phones are running essentially the same stack of Kernel plus Android-Windowing-and-DE; Linux took over webservers because of the low-maintenance, easy-to-deploy LAMP stack (Linux + Apache + MySQL + Perl) and although there are a few more options now (especially in those last two parts) Linux dominance is largely based on easy, common parts which work well together. (And, of course, are free. The business market will nearly always choose “free and can be made to work” over “costs money and just works”.)

Which is why it still keeps failing to take off on the desktop. Linux windowing systems and desktop environments are a mess, and precisely because there are so many mutually exclusive options, if you encounter a problem, you stand a good chance of being the only person ever to have it, and the devs absolutely will not be any help — the Open Source world is notorious for developer hostility to users with problems. (Unless, of course, you pay for support. Whoops! That’s still “pay to unlock” and was always intended to be that way — all the way back in the 1990s, the prime booster and part-creator of the GPL, Richard Stallman, was saying that paid maintenance and support should be the business model for companies who wanted to go open-source. If you know what the term “perverse incentive” means, you may start to understand why the Linux desktop is less reliable than its closed-source cousins.) You’ll have to do your own frequently-totally-unguided troubleshooting, in a system where it’s not unusual for the windowing system to crash and take down everything you had running. (But, hey, it’s stable because the Kernel itself is still running — you lost all your work the same way you would if Windows bluescreened, but technically it wasn’t a crash!) First you have to make a bunch of choices just to get the system working, and then you get to troubleshoot those choices when they inevitably prevent you from doing something you wanted to do. There’s no equivalent to the LAMP stack or the Android stack for the desktop — no baseline “just give me something that is known to work” — because no open source project is considered real unless there are at least a few alternatives so that developers have to keep reinventing the wheel instead of cooperating.

And, of course, it’s not stopping e-waste. If you start to talk to a Linux user, they’ll tell you how one of the failures of the Mac/consoles/tablets is that they’re not upgradeable. But every time you upgrade a machine, you’re still creating e-waste by discarding the old parts, and of course the first thing a Linux user will tell you to do with an old computer is to upgrade it — tear out the graphics card and maybe the CPU, replace the RAM chips with bigger ones, chuck that old hard drive and get a bigger one, and so on. And if you don’t do that, or buy a newer machine, then playing modern games on Steam (among other enticements) will be so slow you won’t even want to try.

You’ll also have driver problems aplenty unless you are lucky enough to have a machine where all the parts have been completely reverse-engineered or where the manufacturers have released open-source drivers, another thing Linux proponents don’t talk about very much. If you make the switch, you can almost certainly say goodbye to advanced power management on your laptop, and you’ll probably have headaches any time the number of displays changes, because Linux generally doesn’t have drivers for the former and the windowing system is designed without genuine support for the latter (even though the Mac has been doing it seamlessly since the mid-90s and even Windows has been handling it just fine for decades). Linus Torvalds, the founder of the project, has admitted that he got some basic things wrong about the design, one of them being the driver model. Linux uses what is called a monolithic kernel — that is, all hardware drivers have to be part of the basic layer of the OS and present at all times, rather than loaded on the fly and installable without interruption. When you hear a Linux user brag about “recompiling the kernel”, they’re talking about how they’ve managed to wrangle an issue which other operating systems don’t even have, and which the designer of their own OS says should not be there in the first place. What an accomplishment! (And then there’s the kernel team’s openly admitted record of deliberately sabotaging the driver model to keep closed-source drivers out, which also incidentally hampers people who are trying to develop open-source ones, making good driver support lag even more. Hardware support on Linux is bad in part because it’s a political football for zealots rather than a goal.)

You’ll also find that even “stable” Linux releases will ship things which are still experimental by the standards generally applied to closed-source software. For years, the ext4 filesystem — now the default on most Linux distros — had problems which would cause data loss, but was still considered to be fully supported. Some of those problems are fixed, at least one is merely understood and considered a “known issue”. (But, hey, at least as far as we know, nobody involved with ext4 murdered their immigrant former spouse and left the body in a shallow grave, leaving their project to be removed from Linux because no new updates were issued after they went to jail… That’s got to count for something, right?)

You’ll also have to learn never to use spaces or characters except the plain ASCII alphabet and numbers in the names of folders and files, and especially in user names, because a surprising number of open-source projects assume that all paths contain no spaces or multibyte characters and refuse to work with anything that doesn’t comply with that unstated assumption. That’s a little surprising, considering that the POSIX standard (which was largely the point of creating Linux in the first place) says that a name can contain any bytes except the null byte. Then again, the POSIX command line does not have any way to quote/escape paths which doesn’t cause problems with wildcard characters on at least a few obscure edge cases, so it’s not surprising that no programs bother to get it right. (Even the supposedly safe methods of path wrangling which are recommended by supposed gurus still fail occasionally; I used to have a link to a list of the details of all the edge cases for the different methods, but I tossed it a while ago.)

But, hey, if you want to make a hobby of tinkering with the computer itself, rather than use the computer to do other things, Linux is great. You, too, can tear out one desktop environment and install another one and then post screenshots to Reddit to show how the icons in this new combination are shinier.

I don't think people realize how absolutely wild Linux is.

Here we have an Operating system that now has 100 different varieties, all of them with their own little features and markets that are also so customizable that you can literally choose what desktop environment you want. Alongside that it is the OS of choice for Supercomputers, most Web servers, and even tiny little toy computers that hackers and gadget makers use. It is the Operating System running on most of the world's smartphones. That's right. Android is a version of Linux.

It can run on literally anything up to and including a potato, and as of now desktop Linux Distros like Ubuntu and Mint are so easily to use and user friendly that technological novices can use them. This Operating system has had App stores since the 90s.

Oh, and what's more, this operating system was fuckin' built by volunteers and users alongside businesses and universities because they needed an all purpose operating system so they built one themselves and released it for free. If you know how to, you can add to this.

Oh, and it's founder wasn't some corporate hotshot. It's an introverted Swedish-speaking Finn who, while he was a student, started making his own Operating system after playing around with someone else's OS. He was going to call it Freax but the guy he got server space from named the folder of his project "Linux" (Linus Unix) and the name stuck. He operates this project from his Home office which is painted in a colour used in asylums. Man's so fucking introverted he developed the world's biggest code repo, Git, so he didn't have to deal with drama and email.

Steam adopted it meaning a LOT of games now natively run in Linux and what cannot be run natively can be adapted to run. It's now the OS used on their consoles (Steam Deck) and to this, a lot of people have found games run better on Linux than on Windows. More computers run Steam on Linux than MacOS.

On top of that the Arctic World Archive (basically the Svalbard Seed bank, but for Data) have this OS saved in their databanks so if the world ends the survivors are going to be using it.

On top of this? It's Free! No "Freemium" bullshit, no "pay to unlock" shit, no licenses, no tracking or data harvesting. If you have an old laptop that still works and a 16GB USB drive, you can go get it and install it and have a functioning computer because it uses less fucking resources than Windows. Got a shit PC? Linux Mint XFCE or Xubuntu is lightweight af. This shit is stopping eWaste.

What's more, it doesn't even scrimp on style. KDE, XFCE, Gnome, Cinnamon, all look pretty and are functional and there's even a load of people who try make their installs look pretty AF as a hobby called "ricing" with a subreddit (/r/unixporn) dedicated to it.

Linux is fucking wild.

[jcmarchi]

The Next Frontier in AI: Consumer-Centric Applications for Real-World Impact

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-next-frontier-in-ai-consumer-centric-applications-for-real-world-impact/

The Next Frontier in AI: Consumer-Centric Applications for Real-World Impact

AI still feels like a cutting-edge breakthrough, even though it’s been around for decades. 

Machine learning has quietly powered search engines, recommendation algorithms, and speech recognition for years – but only recently has AI become a consumer product in its own right.

Since generative AI as a sub-category of AI ‘went mainstream’ in 2022, ChatGPT set records as the fastest-growing app of all time. Gen AI user adoption is rocketing, with one in three adults and four in five teenagers now using it daily. 

However, despite generative AI becoming relatively normalized within just two to three years, it still recalls the early days of the internet or mobile apps: powerful, exciting, but not yet fully integrated into daily life. 

It’s a familiar cycle. The first wave of the internet was about making it work conceptually and practically. The real transformation came later when companies built on that foundation to create frictionless, indispensable services.

Is AI following a similar path? If so, what forms of consumer AI can we expect to see as the technology matures?

AI is here – but it’s still finding its feet

AI is advancing fast, but mostly still revolves around the efforts of a few major players. Big Tech – Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta – have poured billions into research, while NVIDIA, the backbone of AI hardware, has nearly quadrupled its market cap in two years. 

Investment has been concentrated on building ever-larger foundation models – driven as much by competition as by the need to justify staggering development costs.

Off the back of this, the first wave of B2C AI applications has focused on delivering immediate value by taking over repetitive tasks, such as meeting organization and scheduling, which previously consumed significant user time. While these tools simplify workflows and generate high-quality media across different formats, they often still require substantial user input. 

In many cases, getting AI to produce great results still takes effort. And that’s a barrier to mainstream adoption. Essential technology doesn’t demand mastery from the user. No one had to learn how to optimize routes for Uber or navigate Google Maps manually.

AI isn’t there yet, but that’s where it’s heading. The new wave of B2C AI tools will be all the more instinctive, responsive, and woven into daily life – incredibly intelligent, easy to use, and anticipatory without effort. 

The new era of consumer AI

The next generation of AI won’t just be a tool we directly interact with – it will be an intelligence layer embedded into our digital (and physical) lives. 

Let’s take a look at where consumer AI technology is heading right now and its future potential. 

Agents and personal computing

AI has proven itself capable of fantastic results, but the results still depend heavily on the user’s input. Extracting high-quality, consistent results from many AI tools today often requires skill, experimentation, and technical knowledge. It places a burden on the user, naturally capturing the tech-savvy rather than a wider user base. 

The next generation of B2C AI will remove that filter, becoming more intuitive, adaptive, and agentic – refining behavior and managing complex tasks without constant oversight.

With this, AI is moving closer to something that “just works,” much like Uber, Google Maps, or TikTok, which require little expertise yet deliver seamless experiences.

The next logical step? AI systems that don’t just generate responses but act on behalf of the user.

OpenAI’s Operator, Claude Computer Use, and Google’s Jarvis demonstrate early progress in AI that executes multi-step tasks independently. Right now, AI can help you complete a task in 20 minutes instead of an hour – but you still need to be present to oversee and execute the process. With agentic AI, you might not need to attend your PC at all.

This will lead to AI that anticipates, automates, and orchestrates workflows across apps and services. This manifests across a huge variety of products:

AI-powered financial automation – Imagine a finance app that automates savings, adjusts budgets dynamically, and ensures bills are paid at the optimal time. Instead of manually moving money around, users could set general goals, and AI would handle the rest.

AI-driven shopping and logistics – Envision an AI assistant that notices when household essentials are running low and orders refills at the best price, without constant input. Any retail product returns and replacements could be processed just as easily, with AI handling back-and-forth, providing a label and drop-off location. 

AI to manage time and productivity – A scheduling tool that doesn’t just set reminders, but actively reshuffles plans based on real-time priorities, energy levels, and personal habits. It could suggest when to focus, when to take a break, and even when to reschedule less urgent tasks.

Consumer-facing automation – AI that links everyday services together, automatically adjusting grocery deliveries based on meal plans, syncing smart home settings with routines, or coordinating transportation based on real-time data. 

We can already build some of these applications today, but they require complex setup and manual configuration. For example, automation services like If This Then That (IFTTT) can be used to link multiple platforms. 

That’s what will change. Instead of requiring users to learn automation, AI will handle the setup itself. You’ll simply describe what you need in plain language, and AI will take care of the rest.

Multimodal, multi-platform apps for creativity and entertainment

Think about how naturally we switch between speaking, gesturing, writing, and drawing when sharing ideas. Creativity isn’t confined to a single medium, yet most digital tools still are. 

The next wave of AI will change that, making it possible to express ideas across text, visuals, sound, and interactive experiences – blurring the boundaries between different forms of creation.

Starting with language models like GPT, the gen AI ecosystem now includes tools for images (MidJourney, DALL-E), audio (Suno, Udio), and video (Runway). The next step is merging these modalities into unified, intuitive platforms where storytelling, design, and content creation become as fluid as imagination itself.

Simultaneously, Meta’s Quest and Orion, and the Apple Vision Pro are blending the physical and digital world alongside AI, paving the way for immersive applications like augmented reality (AR) environments for home and work, immersive entertainment environments that adapt to real-time inputs, and virtual classrooms that simulate hands-on experiments. 

This all points to apps that work more like we do:

AI-powered filmmaking and animation – Describe a scene in text or verbally or sketch an idea visually, and AI generates the rest, from storyboards to final renders.

Game creation without coding – Build interactive worlds using voice commands, text prompts, or visual reference without game engine expertise.

Music and sound design from any input – Hum a tune, describe a vibe, or explain your ideas via text – AI generates a full composition.

3D content and AR creation made seamless – Generate characters, environments, and effects through voice, gesture, or sketches.

Instead of forcing everyone to create the same way, technology will truly adapt to different styles of thinking and communicating while bridging the physical and virtual worlds. AI tools won’t ‘specialize’ in different modalities but switch between them seamlessly – redefining entertainment in all forms. 

AI for health, accessibility, and empowerment

For years, technology has been built around rigid interfaces – structured apps, manual inputs, and systems that expect users to adapt to them. 

AI is flipping the script by personalizing to individual needs, making health, wellness, and decision-making more accessible and intuitive for everyone.

This could take a number of forms:

Proactive health coaching – AI-driven wellness tools that don’t just track habits but actively adjust recommendations. Fitness plans that adapt in real-time based on energy levels, environments that fine-tune conditions for better sleep, and stress management systems that recognize early signs of burnout.

Simplified access to care – AI that helps bridge the gap in healthcare by providing real-time language translation, assistive diagnostics, and personalized health insights that make medical information more understandable. Instead of context-switching between complex systems, users will receive straightforward, personalized guidance based on their needs.

Bespoke education for every learner – AI-powered tutoring that adapts to a student’s pace and learning style, helping those with ADHD, dyslexia, or other learning challenges access content in ways that work best for them. Instead of rigid lesson plans, AI can create personalized learning environments, breaking down complex subjects in the preferred medium. 

Interconnectivity will be key here. Instead of context-switching between multiple apps, wearables, and dashboards, users will interact with one fluid intelligence layer that works across different domains. 

The future: AI that works for us

While current AI systems are already incredibly impressive, they also lay the groundwork for the technology’s future trajectory. That presents a tantalizing future. As AI moves onto our devices and infrastructure matures, we’ll see an explosion of creativity and innovation.

Innovation won’t just emerge from Silicon Valley. It will come from hospitals and schools, studios and workshops, from people solving real problems in their fields. AI won’t just enhance productivity – it will expand humanity’s potential.

People will have more time for creativity and self-expression – As AI handles routine tasks and lowers skill barriers, more people will be free to create, experiment, and bring ideas to life.

Health and well-being will improve – AI-driven personalization will help people stay healthier, manage stress, and access expert guidance in real time.

Technology will become more inclusive – AI will adapt to individuals, not the other way around, making tools accessible regardless of language, ability, or expertise.

A culture of creation will replace passive consumption – High-quality storytelling, game design, music production, and visual art will no longer be limited to those with years of training or expensive tools.

This isn’t just about better technology. It’s about AI becoming as diverse as the human experience itself. Some tools will focus on accessibility, others on creativity, many on challenges we haven’t even identified yet. 

The future of AI isn’t about bigger models or better chatbots – it’s about making creation, innovation, and opportunity accessible to all. And that future looks a lot more interesting than anything we can imagine from where we sit today.

[blogchaindeveloper]

How Generative AI & ChatGPT will change business

The way we use software is about to change due to generative AI, and this is significant for organizations that rely on software to interact with their clients. It's about ushering in a new era of personalization, when digital interactions are customized to meet every client's unique preferences and needs, possibly revolutionizing how businesses compete.

Thanks to generative AI, customers will interact with software in a more fluid and user-centric manner. This means bidding farewell to intricate menus and features that are frequently overpowering. Instead, clients will be presented with a straightforward query:

For today, what are your plans?

After that, the software will make recommendations based on previous exchanges, the present situation, and the client's primary objectives.

This change in engagement has an effect that extends beyond certain brands. Software must now provide all-inclusive solutions covering any task a client desires. This could entail working with outside partners, reconsidering the conventional definition of what a brand offers, and building the data and technological infrastructure required to integrate each solution component seamlessly.

Not only can generative AI produce text, but it can also produce speech, images, music, videos, and even code. When paired with an individual's personal information, it expedites the completion of tasks. No more figuring out convoluted menus. Alternatively, users can ask, and in milliseconds, the software will develop code to carry out the specified activities.

This streamlined method of interacting with software would democratize access to apps, freeing users to concentrate on accomplishing their goals rather than being constrained by the software limitations of a brand. There will likely be a significant shift in user expectations and interactions.

Although generative AI has drawn much attention for its capacity to produce sounds, images, and text, it is also quite good at writing code. It provides a shortcut from a command to an action by creating code responding to user commands, eliminating the need to go through menus. Furthermore, a straightforward query can now be used for complicated data analytics that formerly required manually gathering data from multiple sources. For example, queries such as "When is my next trip to NYC with an available dinner slot?" or "Who are the contacts I haven't called in the last 90 days?" can be quickly and swiftly answered.

Thanks to this change, more brands can develop applications as a component of their value proposition, streamlining current applications' user experience. The capabilities and economic models required for this new era are already emerging, even though the game is just getting started.

Businesses looking to develop their offers in a world where generative AI and other advanced AI systems are becoming more and more commonplace need to concentrate on four essential areas:

Bring Data Together: Integrating data from several sources inside and outside the business is necessary to offer clients a comprehensive solution. Although it has historically been challenging, AI systems can now assist in lining up the schemas of various databases, improving the efficiency of data integration. While AI capabilities make data integration more accessible, data governance and purification are still essential.

The Rules Layer: Establishing precise guidelines for AI replies becomes progressively more important as traditional software interfaces are eliminated. Companies need to establish guidelines so that the AI reacts correctly and doesn't react to its capabilities or improper ones.

End-to-End Journeys: The primary goal should be providing clients with comprehensive solutions. Through seamless information sharing, companies can develop alliances to expedite a customer's journey. This network of business partnerships will make brands stand out.

Differentiation Through Ecosystems: As companies expand their end-to-end journey capabilities, they should consider new types of partner partnerships. The partners' data's nature, reliability, and application will define these partnerships.

Setting Safety, Fairness, Privacy, Security, and Transparency as Top Priorities: A brand's identity is partly shaped by managing its data. Reducing the dangers associated with prejudice, accuracy, copyright, privacy, and manipulated rankings is essential. Businesses must examine data for bias, proactively handle possible hazards, and guarantee data privacy and integrity.

The potential of generative AI is expanding at a never-before-seen rate despite the significant hazards involved. As additional data sources are accessed and efforts are made to address and remedy errors, AI systems' accuracy will increase. Startups and well-established brands seeking to develop AI-driven products will be drawn to the software's potential for ease of use, customization, and democratization of access.

Encouraging Organizational Change: The Importance of Chatbot Education and Certification

Chatbot training has enabled organizations to utilize ChatGPT and adjust to these revolutionary shifts entirely. Professionals and companies should use chatbot certification programs to become certified chatbot experts. 

In addition to providing people with the skills needed to create, improve, and manage chatbots, chatbot training ensures that these machines follow security and ethical guidelines. A ChatGPT certification denotes proficiency in using state-of-the-art AI technologies to enhance user experiences and streamline corporate processes. A certified chatbot can quickly negotiate the complex world of generative AI, guaranteeing that its chatbots are efficient, secure, dependable, and in line with user expectations.

Investing in chatbot certification is crucial if companies want to stay on the cutting edge of innovation, increase customer satisfaction, and set their brands apart in the rapidly changing digital landscape as they use generative AI in customer interactions.

Conclusion

As generative AI becomes more deeply ingrained in businesses' operations, businesses' interactions with customers will revolutionize. By concentrating on data integration, well-defined regulations, comprehensive journeys, ecosystem development, and preventive measures, enterprises may effectively leverage the potential of generative AI to provide inventive solutions and improve consumer experiences. Generative AI can revolutionize the business sector by enabling companies to create new revenue streams and differentiate themselves from competitors.

Blockchain Council is the best place to remain current on AI innovations and get essential certifications. This reputable organization of fans and subject matter experts is committed to furthering our understanding of emerging technology.  By offering AI certification and other training programs, Blockchain Council ensures that people and companies are prepared to prosper in the quickly developing field of artificial intelligence. Blockchain Council's dedication to education and certification can boost your competitiveness in the corporate world by properly enabling you to use generative AI and other cutting-edge technologies.

[nenamatic]

The GPT-4 language model, developed by OpenAI, is considered to be the most advanced language model used to power the latest artificial intelligence (AI) systems. It's been used in ChatGPT (ChatGPT chatbot) with great effect. But that's not where the story ends. Just like GPT-3-5, it's possible that GPT-4-5 model for language will be released before we get to GPT-5. What is GPT 4.5 ? GPT-4.5 is believed to be the next step in OpenAI's language models following the GPT-4 model that was extremely popular and successful which is accessible for GPT Plus subscribers as well as various other web-based AI tools. It's anticipated to launch prior to when there is a release date for any future-generation GPT-5 model and will likely make some changes to the model that currently exists. GPT-3.5 model is extensively used in ChatGPT's free version ChatGPT as well as a handful of other online tools. It could offer a much quicker response time and greater comprehension than GPT-3. However, it still far behind GPT-4. GPT-4.5 could be a tiny move within AI development, in comparison to the massive leaps in development observed between GPT-4 and the full GPT generations. GPT 4.5 - When Will Be Ready To Use? GPT-3's development GPT-3 took about two years, from its first announcement in the year 2018 until the official launch at the end of June in 2020. In light of the fact that GPT-4.5 is anticipated to be a major improvement over GPT-3 and GPT-3, it's possible that it will take longer to complete. But, OpenAI is not able to provide timelines or estimates of GPT-4.5 timeframe for release. We don’t know when we’ll be able to use GPT- 4.5, but some people have said that it might be possible if OpenAI were to remove its plugins (such as internet search, code interpreter, and custom instructions from beta), that would be the GPT4.5 upgrade itself. Features Of GPT 4.5 Even though OpenAI hasn't given us any specifics about the features that come with GPT4.5 yet, there are some potential updates that could come with it. Here are some of the most obvious ones: 1 Bigger Model Size: One of the biggest changes that could be made to GPT4.5 is to make models bigger. Currently, GPT3 is the largest model for language that's out there, with over 175 billion parameters. But there are hints that OpenAI could be working on bigger models. In a recent paper, they showed how they created a language model with 2.6 billion parameters, which is 10 times bigger than GPT-3. 2 The implementation of multilingual instruction in GPT 4.5 could enable the model to produce superior text in a wider range of languages. 3 Making GPT more efficient: Another thing that could make GPT 4.5 better is making it more efficient. GPT3 takes a lot of computing power to run, so it's hard for a lot of users and researchers to get it up and running. By making GPT3 more efficient, it'll make it easier for people to use it, and it'll help reduce the amount of energy used to run and train the model. 4 GPT-3 has a lot of flexibility, but it's not perfect. There are some areas where it's not as good as it could be, like when it comes to spotting sarcasm and thinking logically. Hopefully, GPT 4.5 will make improvements in these areas, so it'll be a better model for language. 5 Context is key when it comes to understanding language, and GPT 4.5 could make it easier for it to understand and use context when generating language. This could lead to better-quality, more cohesive language and better performance on tasks that need a lot of context. Of course, these are just a few of the potential capabilities GPT 4.5 , GPT 5 could support. OpenAI hasn’t released any details about the model’s capabilities yet, but it’s highly probable that there will be many more updates and improvements that will be included once the release date is confirmed. Issues GPT models have caused a lot of ethical issues, like bias and false info. As they get more advanced, it's important to make sure they're designed and implemented in a responsible way.

The huge amount of computing power used to train and train models like GPT-3 could have a big impact on the environment. If GPT4.5 is bigger and has a bigger amount of computing power, it could be even more serious. It's really important to find a more sustainable way to train and run GPT 4.5 models. If GPT 4.5 is more efficient, it could help make it more accessible, but there are restrictions on who can use it and who can access it. It's also important to make sure the benefits of the system are shared out to everyone, not just a few people or companies. And GPT 5 ? GPT-5 was a hot topic when it first came out, but OpenAI shut it down and said they're not actively training the next language model. They said they need to do more security and safety checks before they can develop any language models. OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman . said he thinks GPT designs will be really big changes in how we do things. They take their time for the next version. OpenAI has been in the business for a while, and they've filed trademarks for it. They even built a robot that'll collect data from the internet and use it to train future language models. But that could be tricky since they're facing lawsuits from different organisations and people for using their work to train GPT models. Conclusion The effects the impact of GPT 4.5 can be substantial, specifically in areas like translation, language generation, and research. But there are other obstacles and limitations that need to be taken into consideration in relation to ethical issues as well as environmental impacts and accessibility. As AI advances in the coming years, it will be crucial to tackle these issues and ensure these advanced tools are designed and implemented in a manner that is responsible. In the end, the launch of GPT 4.5 is a significant moment in the continuing advancement of AI and natural language processing. This could lead to exciting developments and breakthroughs on the subject. Read my other article-Chat GPT Ask Your Pdf Plugin And 8 Amazing Alternatives

[intercitymetro]

save me fiat 500....

something that i really feel is missing from the automobile market these days is cars that are actually cute. every car company wants to have the massive, powerful looking trucks for the many americans with tiny penises, but in reality they mostly just look like shit.

take the honda cr-v for example. between 2016 and 2022 (5th gen), the honda cr-v looked really nice in my opinion. 11 year old me really thought that honda had mastered nice looking car design, and it really does look good. then in 2023 they refreshed the look (6th gen), which makes sense, its been the design for basically 7 years, but they made it with this unnecessarily massive grill that feels so unnecessary. it really looks more fit for one of their larger vehicles, but whatever. worse though, they fucked up the hood for the engine, which now is extremely flat in comparison to the more sloped ones on the older models. this drastically reduces pedestrian visibility, especially of children. and also they are simply getting bigger and bigger, its annoying. the honda h-rv seems to have taken the place that the c-rv held just a few years ago.

Then (2019) & Now (2023)

anyway. this is not about honda. this theme is prevalent across automakers, and don’t even get me started on pick-up trucks, which are really the worst offenders. the less pedestrian visibility and the bigger grill, the better, apparently, and while i can understand the appeal to some, it should not have taken over the market as it has. cars do not need to look badass, or fucking massive and run over a billion pedestrians turning right on red. no. they need to look cute. and that is where i present to you the fiat 500. the ideal cute car these days.

the first thing you may notice about the 500 is it’s size. it is small. of course, it is certainly larger than it was when it was first introduced, but that is the nature of automobile advancement, we learn about airbags and better rollover protection and bumpers and shit and we have to put them somewhere. so that is not really surprising, im not expecting a car to have the exact same proportions as one that was introduced in 1957. but it still shares a lot of similar attributes, like the round headlights, and the slanted back.

Comparing the sizes

even still, it looks nothing like it did when originally presented. but that makes sense. the fiat 500 began in 1957 as of the first purpose built city cars, made to navigate the small streets of italy. they didn’t sell between 1975 and 2007, where they brought it back based off one of their concept cars from 2004, so obviously there is a lot of difference there. the car was among those made in a sort of retro style, among the mini coopers and vw beetles of the world, and it clearly worked well.

The look these days

so, look at the face of the regular model today. it is a small car, which is very important when justifying cuteness. it has no massive protruding front end, it just calmly slopes down. i like it. in the front, it has two circular headlights, which look very good. can’t go wrong with that. and inside it is small, but tbh ive never been inside one so how would i know. (yep, really great idea to have thoughts on a vehicle you’ve never even been in) another thing i like about the fiat 500 is that it is such a good timeless design. while the car has changed, and there was a minor facelift in 2016, it looks pretty much the exact same as it did in 2007 when it was reintroduced. i think this is a testament to how good of a design it is, that it hasn’t had any really drastic changes made to it since 2007, and really convenient to used car buyers because you could get one from 10 or so year ago and it wouldn’t even look that dated. it is a very recognizable car (“is there any car more recognizeable than a fiat 500?” -autocar.co.uk), and that is something i like.

the 500 is a massively popular car. as of 2024, it is the 9th best selling automobile in europe (tesla model y is number one, boooo kinda). it rutinely sells in the hundreds of thousands year after year. so good for them. and fiat clearly knows this. they have made many variants of the car over the years such as: 500X: a slightly bigger 4 door version of the 500 500L: made before the 500x but basically the same thing (but completely different for some reason) 500C: convertible (cool!) Abarth 500: faster idk 500e: electric! they made the front lights weird. they gave it eyelids. they made it tired. 600: not a variation but a similar name so ill count it. this one is more of an suv. same eyelids as the 500e.

^ The 500X

^ The 500L

^ The 500e

^ The 600

there are also like a billion special editions of the car but you can just go to wikipedia for that.

really what i am saying is that we need a return to small cars. there are a good number of ones that look good, even if they are no fiat 500, in europe, but not in america because the haters (vw, stellantis[fiat’s owner], ford, toyota, literally everyone) don’t want americans to get good cars. so that sucks. but you gotta make them know you want it. buy more 500s. and somehow, someday, we will make cars cute again.

(worth noting that this is not a car based blog i just say whatever and im trying this out because all of my previous attempts to put together a website on my own fell to pieces. <3)

[nickgerlich]

Discovery Zone

I have long been a student of consumer behavior. I suppose going to grad school—both MBA and PhD—at a school whose Marketing Department was known for its consumer behaviorist professors helped make that happen. Indiana U was a great place to be back in the 80s.

By virtue of my training, I became intrigued by how people process information, how they initiate their searches, and how they ultimately buy. If marketers could ever figure this out completely, there would never be any flops or failures, because we would know in advance if something is going to fly. Or not.

Alas, we are not much closer today to where we were 40 years ago, but not because of lack of trying. It’s just that humans are a complicated lot, and just when you think you have figured out one thing, you realize you don’t know nearly as much as you though in other areas. We are irrational, fickle, and prone to whimsy, in spite of what we may profess.

Shortly after Pandora launched in 2005, I became enamored of their approach to serving music. As many of you know, Pandora creates playlists on the fly, based on user input of either an artist or genre. Unlike the Spotify or Apple Music so many of use today in which we play our own playlists, or direct the service to play a specific song, album, or artist only, Pandora actively encourages discovery. In other words, it is likely to deliver music and artists you have never heard before, its algorithm predicting what you will like based on your simple input.

If you are willing to deal with all that uncertainty, that’s great. I know I certainly was introduced to a lot of new tunes and artists that way. And now comes Amazon with its Rufus, an AI shopping tool that enhances discovery much the same way that Pandora did nearly 20 years ago.

While I have long applauded Amazon for its suggestion engine—“People who bought this also bought that…”—Rufus intends to take it to a whole new level. After all, once you have people in the store, online or within your four walls, they are already in the mood to shop, and quite possibly buy. If Amazon can help point the way to things we might need or want, it only stands to pad its bottom line.

From a consumer behavior perspective, there are two different views of how this process starts. The standard AIDA model (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) cannot unfold unless first there is awareness. That’s Rufus’ job. As much as we might like to fancy ourselves savvy shoppers, we truly do not even know the tip of the iceberg when it comes to product knowledge, at least the depth and breadth of product offerings. It is staggering.

The second path is more purchase-oriented in that it examines the entire process, from when we acknowledge that a “problem” exists, which can be as simple as noticing the milk jug is nearly empty, the orange light on the dashboard has illuminated, or there is water flowing out from under your barn door, like what happened to me during the recent cold wave. Basically, this is the point at which we have recognized need.

From there we search for ways to solve the problem, evaluate the resulting options, make a buy-or-no-buy decision, and if we did purchase, make post-purchase evaluations. It’s a handy little model, and I realize it does not capture all the nuances of the many types of purchase situations (like when you really have no choice but to just pay the man), but it works.

The AIDA model, while different from the buying model, still applies. It’s kind of like having two witnesses to a crash, but from opposite sides of the street. It often runs in the background, because we see ads every day, filing away little bits of information either intentionally or by happenstance. These bits may be accessed when the need arises. Or, we may go looking for information as situations dictate.

But back to Amazon. As we all know now, AI is here to stay. While it may have taken the arrival of ChatGPT for AI to become a household word in the last 15 months, it has been around for at least two decades. It just keeps getting better.

If Rufus can discern that I am not only looking for a running vest with a water reservoir, but also perhaps getting ready for an event, it could serve up far more than just accessory items that other people also bought. You know, like shoes, clothes, caps, and everything else that goes into decking out a trail runner.

I suspect that, just with ChatGPT, Rufus will only get smarter as time passes, its knowledge of us growing each and every time we search, browse, and buy. It will be the spouse that not only thinks they know you, but has perfect memory, as well as the ability to make connections that would stretch the human brain.

I know. That sounds a bit scary, but this is where it is heading. Rufus will be looking for the common denominator whenever possible, just like I expect it to do the next time I am inside a Whole Foods waving my palm over that fancy scanner. It should be able to deduce a lot of things about me, more than just the obvious.

I also expect Walmart to hop on this train as well. I can look back at all of my grocery purchases via the Walmart app, because I use the camera to scan the QR on the POS terminal, and instantly link to my stored Walmart+ data. If they were really on their toes, they would begin to understand the patterns, and then be able to help me discover new items that fit my shopping persona.

This is all genius, and I rather like it. As I have said before, I do not mind targeted advertising. I would much rather see ads for things I have a serious shot at buying, not something that will land with a thud and deaf ears.

Rufus is being rolled out slowly, first to a small trial group, and then nationwide later this year. So be patient. You’ll get a chance to use it, as will I. Until then, I am expecting great things, not to mention bigger purchases.

Dr “Sell Me Something New” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[adamtheamazing5]

Time to get back into the swing of things: this means getting me ready to do 3D modeling again.

I decided not only to warm up my 3D Modelling skills but also to keep up to date with my animation and rigging skills while trying something a bit more advanced. Back in 2018, I made a similar 3D robot and animated it without any rigs or skin weights,

So, this time I’m going to make a more advanced robot which is a mechanical spider with double the legs, more geometry, bone rigs, and at least two animations instead of one.

The robot is not skin rigged organically, only skinned rigged non-organically. Meaning the parts won't easily flex or stretch, just rotate on certain parts of the mesh.

This also prepares me to make my own 3D models based on my imagination rather than relying on royalty-free assets to fill the gaps in game projects too much.

Original Model here:

WHAT I LEARNED

• In Autodesk Maya, you can use layers to switch on or off image panels and 3d models.

• In Unity, I learned you can turn off compress animations, with a single click to make exported animations look how it was animated in Maya rather than slight auto changes when exported in Unity. This reduces potential landmines in animation exports.

• Creating IK for the legs so I can move them by dragging connected circle pivot points (once created) on the feet to move them around without dragging their bone rigs making animating much easier to execute.

• In Autodesk Maya, Moving bone rigs, not in organic movement but more robotic. E.g. rotating from capsule joints.

• How effective it is to break things down simply piece by piece until it gets to a complicated 3D model.

• Creating bone rigs from scratch on the body and each leg rather than using Maya’s default humanoid rig.

• Making bone joints connected with the cylinder joints in the legs in the center so they can be rotated accurately.

WHAT WENT WRONG? WHAT COULD I HAVE DONE BETTER?

• I had some rigging issues for the spider along the way, I thought I could export the body and the rig together for the Unity game engine, even though it was skin painted, it could not be exported as a complete model. It might be due to how the geometry is parented with child objects that caused exporting issues.

• I wanted to animate the fangs to move and rotate, but I couldn’t because the geometry was not straight, so I need to make sure they are straight next time so its easier to animate and they don’t look like they are wobbling around like it was about to fall off.

• I didn’t really organize the layers and geometry very well including their names, so I need to get in a better habit of organizing the groups and naming conventions.

• I couldn’t get the rest of the parts on each leg to sync with the walking animations, that’s why in the final render I had to take them off and just have the main legs themselves. I am going to try to keep warming up my rig and animation skills so I can get those extra parts to move and rotate with their main legs during animations like walking.

OVERALL:

• I was going to try to test the mechanical spider model, rig, and animations in the unity engine, but the mesh blew up and the animations didn’t respond well to the mesh despite it being paint skinned.

• It’s been a while since I rigged a 3D model in Maya, I may need more practice before I export well-polished 3D models for my next games. I had a lot of problems doing this, it didn’t really help that the tutorial for the mechanical spider I did was outdated, so next time I need to find a more updated one to teach me to make better 3d characters.

• Even though it was tough, I managed to work my way around it as much as possible almost matching the intention with execution perfectly, but yet again: I will still need more practice.

• Other than that, I’m happy that I tried some new techniques that can be used to make characters including robots while catching up with skills I haven’t used for a while.