I do the same thing, I never really noticed what submissions are high rank or not, I just come for my own interests.
569 karma · joined May 20, 2020
I love Phantasy Star I-IV (except III, mostly everyone agrees it's too flawed and wacky despite some good ideas). I never got into Phantasy Star Online, which is the only game people today seem to be familiar with, though. Is it even related to the original RPGs? I heard 2 has Dark Force as a boss but the events of IV make it...strange. That shouldn't be possible in-universe.
Still, Phantasy Star IV is my favorite and most likely the best RPG on the Megadrive by a long shot. It had good combat, good music, it stayed away from medieval fantasy and generally speaking was full of good vibes (except after the first battle with Zio. If you know you know.).
If you want to replay it there is a randomizer called Profound Distortion that allows to mix things up and I believe it's still in active development.
Anyway, I really loved some of the things it did with enemies like the witches using combined attacks or monsters fusing together like the Dualblade and the Life Deleter. Even today that stuff is rare to see, last game I remember with enemy fusions is Etrian Odyssey V.
I never managed to find the game in a normal shop, but when the local Blockbuster closed up, they happened to have a rental copy that I managed to get. It's still with me.
People need to learn to distrust such systems and exposing failings such as this one is a good way to do it.
We aren't going to be free of this stuff until the average Joe's mom hear of "forced age verification" and associate it to "unsafe".
At the very least drop an "allegedly" or something to make it sound a little tasteful.
We know a human can play Doom, so it kind of makes sense a portion of a human brain can do so in some fashion. But it's way more interesting when an animal that normally doesn't play Doom can, specially if it's just a portion of its brain.
Outside of that, I'm personally not very fond of hardware that can rot or die from malnutrition though. It's fun as an experiment, but as a thing you can actually use I just don't see it. It has a literal limited lifespan, requires more maintenance and imagine trying to debug it ("Turns out it caught some bacteria and it's malfunctioning" kinda scenarios? No thanks.)
Art stealing is a thing. I've had by art stolen regularly. Multiple Doom mods use sprites I made and only one person (the DRLA guy) asked for permission. I've had my art traced and even used in advertisements with me only finding out by sheer chance. I've had people use it for coloring without crediting the source. This has happened for more than thirty years. You can only learn to live with it, lest you risk going absolutely insane. If you are popular, people will do stupid stuff with your stuff. And if you aren't popular, you art is not going to be used to train, anyway (sets are ordered by popularity and only the top stuff gets used. The one with 3 upvotes is not going in.)
AI is technically another tool, and it can be used poorly (what people refer to "AI slop", using default settings, some LoRA and calling it a day) and it can be used properly (forcing compositions, editing, fixing errors...) to convey an idea or emotion or tell a story. Critical eye does the rest.
After all, the machine doesn't do anything on its own, it needs a driver. The quality of the output is directly proportional to the operator's amount of passion.
Every artist worth anything strives to be better at their craft on the daily, if that artist gets discouraged because there's something "better", that means that artist is not good because those negative emotions are coming from a competitive place instead of one of self-improvement and care for their craft or the audience. Art is only a competition with oneself, and artists that don't understand or refuse this fact are doomed from the start.
Downgraded to AI training? Nonsense. You forget artists do more than just draw for money, we also draw for FUN, and that little detail escapes every single AI-related discussion I've been reading for the last 3 years.
This strange mental separation can only bring in bad results.
It is a videogame based on/continuing a cheesy scifi novel that played with the concept of mitochondria being alive (also sentient). Sure it's not quite scientifically sound, but it still explains the concept with enough actual facts (very easy to distinguish from the fictional ones), and the ludicrous nature of it all makes it so you won't *ever* forget that mitochondria are in fact a part of the cell and their normal function is being involved in energy production.
I can warrant 90% of people who ever thought about the mitochondrion's existence and function (beyond basic school formation) that aren't working or studying in related fields are just people who played this game. I can bet there's a non-zero amount of scientists that got into this stuff because they played the game as kids or teens.
I'm not calling you out for making a typo, I'm simply amused at how much punch (no pun intended) it loses when spelled "right". I guess it's true that Ks are Kool.
Twitter is just really bad for persistent information. In a perfect world we'd have articles filtering the massive noise-to-data ratio and serving as a persistent archive of whatever happened in there.
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As an artist I see stuff like Stable Diffusion to be very interesting, a fun toy or a potential tool to unclog your brain when needing ideas, and much faster than something like pinterest, specially with niche topics. Its ability to randomly combine concepts can be an starting point for inspiration as well.
I usually like to draw robots, which aren't a common thing in popular media anymore (at least not in the aesthetic I favor, think Armored Core) so having the AI generate a bunch of random robot slop is a good way to get my brain "in the zone", maybe stuff like "oh that pose is cool" or "I can try something with this type of joint". Or even "wow this is a hot mess but the way it placed that odd shape in the arm gives me an idea for a weapon" and let my brain juices flow and do the rest. If nothing else it can help you discard things that don't work.
However, I wouldn't let it replace my work, because the process of designing and drawing is what's fun to me. My favorite subject also requires a degree of consistency the poor thing just can't pull off even with assistance, specially when animating said robots with all the moving parts and stuff that splits and folds, so I'm on my own anyway.
Double however, the idealist in me also believes that anyone that can produce a fine piece, by whatever means, by putting effort and finesse with a tool IS an artist. I have seen some people intentionally working with the tools to do stuff and the results can be impressive. This however disqualifies most AI art you might be familiar with, because most stuff spammed in the internet is stuff that anyone (on the know) can tell is just default settings slop, done in batches with no soul, or even intent to deceive. The process I'm talking about involves multiple hand-made edits, knowing the quirks of the system and knowing what to do. I've seen it used, for example, by TTRPG nerds (not an insult) to generate images tailored for a scene in campaigns. Those people have imagination and a sense of aesthetics but no art skills, and the way they put together a full scene by editing, making multiple passes, repainting areas until it looks right, training the characters involved... is something I can respect because it's coming from a place of passion and is sincere.
I guess intent matters. Some people are just trying to do fun stuff, others are trying to scam you and putting out basic slop while asking you to subscribe to their Patreons like if they were real artists, or making deepfakes. I'll always side with the former out of principle, even if they are a minority overshadowed by the shenanigans of the later.
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Now, as a programmer I see Copilot with utter disdain. I know for a fact that LLMs are extremely prone to mistakes, inconsistent, unreliable. Code is something that can easily have hidden gotchas that only an expert can notice. The consequences of people who have no idea what they are doing asking for code from a thing that has no idea what it's doing can have reaching effects that can, in the worst case scenarios, end up having consequences such as severe time, data or money loss. Or even death. I'd even question its use from seasoned programmers, because everyone can have a bad day and overlook a mistake.
I don't use my phone a lot, all I got for entertainment is Retroarch, Lichess and a generic sudoku app I got from F-Droid, so obviously my opinion is highly subjective, but it feels like having a supercomputer that can only run MSDOS. One thing at a time in fullscreen with maybe a few passive resident processes. I know some phones let you split things in two or so, but not all of them and the implementation is never flawless or limits what apps can be split.
If you mean hating the phone as a social thing, I am a bit self-conscious about being seen using it too much or taking it out in front of someone unless warranted. I wouldn't do stuff like crossing the street or driving with my eyes glued to it. But that's a people problem and not a phone problem, I think.
While I believe some exposure helps build resistance ultimately your overall health will be influenced by stuff beyond your control AND your lifestyle/activities combined.
I always lived in very clean houses and no one of us ever went barefoot. (We did change shoes for slippers or equivalent rather quickly though).
EDIT:Sibling post proved me wrong, Tilde also exists. How interesting.