basfo

I worked for a well-known SaaS company for 4 years. A few months after we were acquired, I decided it was time to move on. I gave a 3 week notice to ensure everything was properly handled before my departure.

Two days later, I couldn’t log in to my PC. I was, for all intents and purposes, fired from my actual work. Technically, I was still employed and paid for those remaining days, but I was locked out and never got the chance to say goodbye. It was the worst experience I’ve had, and I never had any issues with any manager or anyone before that. Apparently, it was just the new company policy.

Another Problem i see with this trend of "everyone is fullstack now" is that no one knows what they are doing.

Basically, you and your team spent a year or so architecting and building something that you know, it's your domain, you know the in and outs of the system. Then your manager comes and says that team X needs a feature that needs a change on your system, but instead of working with them to implement it, we should work on something else and they will do the changes on our system.

Clearly team X has no experience on the stack or the system itself, and they start to create nonsensical PRs that don't even compile, you spent a lot of time reviewing those, explaining them the issues until it becomes a political/ego driven discussion and... congratulations you are a blocker now.

You experience the same working on your own feature, messing with code that you don't like or even understand, creating yamls that you don't have a clue on what they actually do, just replacing string where you see it fit, learning on production.

Of course, you have no time to actually understand what you are doing, is expected to be done by yesterday.

Suddenly, in name of productivity, everyone is working in the less efficient way possible, taking months what could be weeks, weeks what could be days, and days what could be hours.

English is not my first language. Sometimes, especially when I try to write a complex and long idea, I use LLMs to correct my errors, syntax, etc. In those cases, even if the idea remains the same, the text ends up looking LLM generated, since the correction applies its own "robotic style." This is even more noticeable if you ask chatgpt to translate it from another language.

(I'm not the author of the post, just mentioning it since it will probably become harder to detect such cases.)

I agree that the washed-out textures haven’t aged well.

But at the time, not having pixelated textures was the first thing people looked at when judging graphics quality. I remember that being a HUGE selling point of the N64 and something that made the console look almost a generation ahead of the PlayStation and Sega Saturn to kids back then.

Today, I think I prefer the PSX look, thoug. Maybe with Z-buffer correction to avoid the warped textures of the PlayStation.

I remember how i was amazed when i got my first 3d card, a Voodoo 2. It was like having an arcade at home.

The 3dfx logo spining up when you launched a GLide game was something.

Unreal in particular was amazing, i remember as a kid just watching the lighting and the water.

At that time every light in a game had to be colored, just because it could be done. Small rooms with green, red and blue lights moving all over the place, so 90s.

I never had that "Wow" factor again, from there everything felt like incremental instead of revolutionary. How an absolute market leader disapeared in 2 years is incredible.

I think i only got the same wow factor the first time i tested a VR headset.

Well, i'm fron south america, far away from the conflict. Personally i think russia moved this to the military realm. Even if there was clearly a geopolitical dance going on that could be considered a menace, they invaded, so they started, they are the ones to blame. They left politics behind and started a war. But that doesn't mean that i will ignore there is propaganda going on on both sides, and that this article makes a statement with huge gaps in the argumentation. And that i will not mention it just because that statement benefits a particular side.

To me, this article looks like a psyop designed to make people ignore any response from language models that may reflect a Russian point of view. This article is probably also propaganda.

Edit: To clarify my point, since I’m getting downvoted:

Newsguard (the authors of the article) confirmed that "Pravda" is influencing chatbots.

How did they confirm this? By asking ChatGPT about "Russian narratives." However, it’s unclear which narratives they tested—while they mention two or three examples, they claim there are hundreds. This raises questions about whether some of these so-called narratives might simply be subjective opinions, or how they select those etc.

If the language model validated these vague statements, they concluded it was "infected."

They also quote someone who allegedly said, “By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI.” This is presented as proof that the process is already happening, which is at least a huge leap, but also there is no clear source for this statement.

How do they know LLMs used these sites as training material? Their reasoning is that LLMs produce similar responses. However, these responses could come from a variety of sources, as they are common in multiple news outlets.

Additionally, when they claim LLMs quote specific articles, they don’t specify which LLMs did this. A quick test with popular ones (such as asking ChatGPT why Zelensky banned Truth Social) does not replicate the claims made in the article.

My point is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this report doesn’t provide it.

It seems biased—making a major claim without proper documentation on how the process actually works.

Well, that's because this console has different hardware than the others, with it's own pros and cons. And that has happened in every console generation.

Nobody would say the Sega Saturn wasn’t a console because it couldn’t run Crash Bandicoot, or that the N64 wasn’t a console because it couldn’t run Final Fantasy VII.

The Switch may not run certain titles, but it can run other AAA, like DOOM, Mortal Kombat, No Man’s Sky, The Witcher 3 and more. Sure, those games may run better on more powerful hardware, but that hardware isn’t portable. That doesn’t make the Switch any less of a console.

Most AA and indie games are available on all platforms, and all the reeeeally popular ones like Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, Rocket League, etc.

Easily 80% or more of the catalog is the same across all consoles.

So why we define what a console is by those games that aren’t on the Switch’s catalog?

All 3 consoles are doing the same, they sell a closed hardware/software solution with access to a propetary storefront where they sell you games, the same games mostly. Their marketing may be directed to different demographics but at the end they all do the same and compete for the same market.

It's interesting how many people see the Switch as being in its own category rather than acknowledging it as the winner of this console generation (which I completely agree it is).

Most people think the “console” battle is between PlayStation and Xbox, and that PlayStation is the winner.

This is probably a big win for PlayStation’s marketing team.

Obviously there isn't a switch 2 emulator yet, and probably will be a while until one is released.

The challenge will not be hardware emulation (if it's a nvidia tegra 2 based SOC that will be easy) but hack the OS/security to make it usable.

So don't expect to play mario kart 9 on your steam deck anytime soon.

Edit: with easy i don't mean that it will not demand a really top of the line computer to run it. But that isn't completely undocumented or custom hardware, like i don't know, ps3 or sega saturn.

that would be cool.

I would like the command & conquer/red alert remaster on switch.

Maybe Microsoft releases aoe2 since they are open to release games on other platforms now?

yeah, i agree on that, makes more sense to update 8.

BUT, i don't know if i would use that as the first look at the new console, basically looks like really similar to a game that was released 10 years ago, i wouldn't buy a new system to play again mario kart 8.

I thought they were showing the retro compatibility feature, since the gameplay comes after the message that switch 1 games would be playable on 2 (maybe upscaled or something)

For action games doesn't look like a good option. But i think it will be used if it works well on any surface.

Probably there will be a resurgence of point and click adventure games pushed by the new mouse functionality (or even republish some old sierra/lucas arts stuff with mouse support).

Also may be useful for pc ports like simcity clones and strategy games (i could use that in civ).

Some propietary nintendo stuff will use it like mario maker or wario ware, some zelda dungeon probably will have a gimmick around it. And also some small indy third party stuff, like i don't know, mini motorways, things like that, will be built arround it.

It was mario kart 9? it looks way too similar to 8 then.

That was a new mario kart? it looked like mario kart 8 to me.

Honestly i was expecting a little more info. I get this is on purpose, to create hype, but not having a graphical demo, a release date... anything really more than the design, input ports, and joycons, seems too little.

And the direct in april seems too far away honestly.

All they showed is the things that leaked, i mean, to me (besides the confirmation of something that was obvious) is like nothing happened really. I know the same as yesterday + the plastic texture maybe and i have to wait almost 3 months for the next official info.

At first, I really thought this was a bad idea. If you don't like reality, shutting yourself away in your own safe shell isn't helpful. The things you dislike will still be there, and by isolating yourself, you not only lose contact with them but also lose any chance to intervene.

However, over the last few months, Twitter/X has clearly become a propaganda tool that promotes a particular worldview (I won't say "a political party" because Elon Musk's project seems broader than just U.S. politics).

I feel like the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange: in one quick scroll, you'll see explosions, puppies, tits, Nazi supporters, and Elon Musk's tweets all mixed together.

Now, i agree it's time to leave the platform. He is going way too far using a social network to push his own agenda, is too evident why he spent 60 billon on this.

Yeah, i'm taking as base my own library of xbox games, built over many years. Most games i bought digitally for xbox.

Probably for gamepass they select games that can be used on pc and console, and the store has xbox and pc versions of many titles, but that doesn't mean that if you bought the xbox version you have rights over the pc version.

They are improving this tough.

I don't see a problem with my programming skills, but with my ability to play the corporate game.

Probably because i have a lot of experience, i kind of know when a manager wants to push a team too much because he wants to play some game of thrones with another manager. I know when they decide to ignore all warnings to get to a deadline, and then when everything explodes they blame someone else. I know when someone has no idea on what he is doing but has too much power. I know when they are demanding world class results on half the time and a tenth of the resources any serious company would dedicate to the effort.

Today you have this "go fast, break things" mentality, which sounds cool and "based", but justifies breaking any rule of software engineering (who has time to write test, amirite?).

And now with IA, is even worse, any manager thinks they can rewrite their stack because they got "hello world" running on localhost.

Maybe i'm getting old...

Well... they want that, but aren't there from my point of view.

From the xbox library (including 3rd party games you got on xbox, old 360 games and so on) only a handful of titles are actually playable on pc, around 10% in my experience (those labeled as "play anywhere", mostly "newish" first party games... 3rd parties want to sell you another copy to play on pc even using the xbox pc client).

And the look and feel of "the platform" is quite different on pc than the console, i think they will try to make the whole library playable and have the same experience (booting up directly to it or running it as a client on any supported device, similar to steam big picture mode)

The problem with cloud gaming is that isn't available in all countries and it depends a lot on your ISP, so the experience may vary for different people.

Yep, users try to consolidate their gaming library in a particular platform. If you have 100 games on steam, why you would get the newest fifa-718 on xbox instead of steam, where you have all your games?

They plan game pass to get users to the xbox ecosystem, but i'm not sure if it will be enough.

Does steam run on GNU/Hurd?

Yep, probably that will be the future of xbox, it will become like steam so you can use and play your xbox library on every device. There may be some Microsoft branded Xboxes, like they have the "surface" PCs, but will be just another device that runs the xbox client.

Even if it's free, the experience of using windows 11 as a portable gaming device is awful. Microsoft must create a gaming focused version of windows for this kind of devices. There are rumors of an "xbox OS", but who knows.

I bought an Asus Rog Ally X on a recent trip to NYC (i'm not from the US, and the steam deck isn't sold on regular retailers).

I can't believe how awful the user interface is, they are bascially installing windows 11 in a computer shaped as a portable console, with really small icons and imprecise touch controls, onedrive and microsoft 365 offers, crazy.

If you can install Steam OS on it, all those consolized PCs will end up using native Steam OS, and the next step is the living room (console like desktop pcs).

Microsoft must be really thinking about an Xbox OS, or at least a native and usable gaming interface for windows 11. Valve is trying to remove microsoft as a dependency for their bussines. And i think microsoft sees valve as it's bigger competitor on the gaming space, not Playstation as everyone thinks, that's why they are going with the "everything is an Xbox" ads and rumors about "third party xboxes".

It depends, would you still have farted if someone else were around?

Just the fact that you dress up is a political act, you are accepting and reproducing that being naked is wrong, or at least you do it because you can't do it otherwise due to social punishment. Or you go naked, and that's also a political stance. If you live in a society, everything you do is political.

And that's ok, there isn't anything wrong with that.

>Having a worldview is not inherently a political act

yes it is, because that world view doesn't come up to your head in the vaccum, is result of all social interactions you had in your life and every thing you saw etc, and from that you are creating a political posture. You may not take any action and be completely silent about it the rest of your life (doubtful) but even not talking about it is a political act.

Well, that depends on what you eat. Do you eat meat, or are you vegan?

Breathing is a physical action, so there isn’t much to debate there. However, even some physical actions—like using the bathroom—can have political or cultural dimensions. For instance, why do you use a toilet instead of a bidet, as is common in parts of Europe or South America? That choice is shaped by cultural and economic factors that influence your behavior.

Having a worldview is a political act. In fact, even having a sense of right and wrong is political. My point is that humans are inherently political beings: we don’t live in a vacuum, and our values, life choices, and even our language arise from a particular social system. Everything we do is political.

Your perspective seems limited to the more common or everyday meaning of “political,” and I understand that; however, in social studies, “political” usually has a much broader scope.