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the funny man i watched play half-life 15 years ago is speaking to EU parliament good on you, ross

Hubby will be 60 soon. My brother will be 68 and my sister 70 this year. I, of course, am still 16.

Ooookay...apologies in advance, because this is probably going to seem unnaturally harsh, but I wish people who claim to love artists would follow that supposed love into not supporting LLMs that steal their work with no compensation all so people can churn out slop that looks vaguely like their work, thus devaluing the work of the actual artist. Let's be clear, LLMs aren't AI as they don't 'know' or 'think' and they only exist throught theft of peoples' hard work. That's not getting into the environmental, electrical grid or quality of life if you live near one issues which are all significant. Right now, there is not, in my opinion, an ethical way to engage with these commercial LLMs.

Finished Clair Obscure, did all that can be done apart from the bosses in the endless trials and have put almost 3.5 day in to the game, but I think it's enough. Don't feel the need to do them too, maybe I'll come back to them. All in all the game is fantastic, the story is a masterpiece (for a game) and I will definitely play whatever is next. Even knowing the main plot points beforehand, going through all the connecting material made it so much better. The side content is interesting and I don't think there was anything that felt like padding gameplay time wise. The combat mechanics, while not something I usually enjoy, had so many extra things to them that it was fun. There were some enemies early on that I had to learn to parry and do them the "intended way", but later on when the dmg cap is removed the fun moved to how high can the numbers go. That may be the only mark against the game, but then again maybe not. As always you are free to choose how to play and they give you the tools to do so. I respect that they didn't bang their head against people cheesing stuff and from what I see they even leaned in to it. The art style is pleasing, moody, fun and unique (at least from what I have seen). The music... That may be the greatest thing about this game. Kudos to the music department. The only knock against them is that there are no subtitles, especially for that poem in White Sand. That was a big miss in my opinion. The only thing this game is missing is that it's not a CRPG, but no accounting for taste and all that.

As so happens, I sometimes read stuff on the internet. This article caught my interest and made me think about a number of related questions This monkey selfie will protect you from AI slop My own interest in AI is mostly in image generation (I was a fan of old Clyde Caldwell and Boris Vallejo paperback covers since the dawn of times, to the point of buying official prints from those artists official sites). First Stable Diffusion and now Flux are my hobbies for creating my weird fantasy images (yes, that includes bikini chaimail too). I would love to branch into short AI generated videos some day, but, that is also the extent of my interest in AI. I once tried it on my CV and I didn't recognize myself, so went screw this, my own words describe me better The BBC article is long and covers a number of areas. Like who owns the results of AI ouput (including some rulings from the US legal system, stating that nobody owns something generated by AI). It made me think back to recent movies featuring dead actors recreated by AI. Does the movie company own the likeness of an actor 500 years after their death too? What happens to a poor sucker born in 200 years time, who just happens to look like their ancestor? If your homework was solved by AI, was it your solution or those who trained the AI? Do we need humans? Luckily I am old enough to not care, but I figure the last question could be relevant for younger people Edit: Some experiences with AI shows it lies blatantly and doubles down on lies. Sounding very confident in its own words too while being obviously wrong. Then there is the whole hate speech and prejudice issue. If AI is the sum of human writing (the internet), who is to blame for obvious bias and racism in AI generated output?

lol

Crimson Desert - because I have nothing else I feel like playing/revisiting - Windrose looks maybe fun but early access and not in the mood for that. Maybe 100+ (?) hours now. I've spent too much time upgrading the Camp, because it now increases stash-storage space (1000 at max, which is a bit overkill, I'll stop before that), and I wanted to do it as much as possible before moving main quest farther. It's a lot of boring mini quests and waiting, then waiting some more. So while I'm waiting I've explored the world/done small side quests, done Research. I think I have about 38% of the map uncovered (not fully explored), swam many rivers, climbed many snowy peaks, jogged across sands and puddle hopped through rainforest. I'd guess Skyrim's entire map would fit into a tiny micro-corner of CD's map. I have over 1000 "knowledge" entries - faction knowledge, animal/plant knowledge etc - out of nearly 3000. I avoid most hostile POI's for fear of breaking future quests re: MQ gating, but I've defeated several side/world bosses. Mostly fun. Yet strangely, I kind of want to start over with one of the earlier patches. For reasons. I kept a backup of an earlier version and older saves (not the release-day version, alas). I almost feel like going back to that version for a while, but that would = repeating hours of the banal stuff. I'm not that much of a masochist. I think.

This is an interesting development but it doesn't address the main issue with AI generated content and how that undermines real human creativity and then the financial reparations Its "wrong " to use AI to create something like art that replaces humans, thats the real issue for me and your link mentions this "It definitely forecloses the most dystopian outcome of machines entirely replacing humans [in the world of art and entertainment]," says Stacey Dogan, a professor who studies intellectual property, competition and technology at the Boston University School of Law. Some predict a future where you just plop down in front of an AI system instead of watching the work of human beings. But without copyright protection for AI-generated work, the business case for building that world takes a major hit. For big entertainment companies like Disney, there's still a huge financial incentive to let humans run the creative process." This monkey photo is a real photo, it just wasnt taken by a human so this whole legal debate is really about copyrights and AI generated content And I dont want AI content to be allowed to get copyrights

Hah, that looks pretty goofy, but maybe it will work. 50 cent threw me for a loop.

So, about that world economy... Europe has ‘maybe 6 weeks of jet fuel left,’ energy agency head warns Just in time for the World cup too.

Not many details, but I like the pitch. I am glad they are returning to Metro setting. While I enjoyed Exodus, and I think a shake up was needed at the time, I did felt it lost quite a bit of identity in the process.

I've solved my own problem by just directly changing the (de)buff values. They're stored in plain text, to give credit to Supergiant for making things accessible and easy to change. XboxGames\Hades II\Content\Content\Scripts\TraitData.lua BaseDamageMultiplierAddition = 0.0, PerEncounterDamageMultiplierAddition = 0.0,

I finished Xenonauts 2. It ends on an alien planet, kind of like the original Xcom. It was a very fun trip and they did a great job of making it playable in a reasonable amount of time, instead of grinding for 80 hours. Of course the option is there to play it like Long War, but I was glad it was respectful of my time. I lost 10 soldiers overall. They all went out bravely. Except that one guy who got friendly fired. Nobody liked him and he had bad stats.

I have thoughts on the subject, which I might as well use this as an excuse to express them. I mean obviously the OST is pretty darn good. But I keep thinking whenever it is a good "video game soundtrack". I think it's greatest strength is that it is being in a way very "old school". There is no reactivity here, no dynamic soundtrack, no smooth transitions from one bit to another based on players actions. That gives E33 OST an advantage, which a lot of older games had - you can write more traditional music (with full phrases and direction) and not worry about awkward transitions if, for example, player engages in combat halfway through it. I think it very much makes it a better music to listen then a lot of video games OST, but does it make it a better video game OST? I suppose I feel about a soundtrack the same way I feel about E33 story - it's good, enjoyable stuff, but I will always have more respect for soundtrack and story that supports interactive nature of the medium. Still, considering the uninteractive tradition if jRPGs I can't really fault it for being conservative. (though I am also a bit bitter by headlines calling E33 OST #1 on Classical Music Charts.... it ain't classical music. Like none of it).

@majestic he didn't even get his turn. This felt dirty... Works with Verso>Maelle>Sciel>Maelle too. Didn't get the chance to change the order... I should have tried to struggle a bit more on my own... But I think that Verso/Sciel combo would work, especially now that I know Cheater works on Sciels force turn spell. Verso was doing similar damage, if you account for the doubling from Sciel, but I'm not sure if I could have burned him through phase 3. Maybe I'll reload and try tomorrow, just to see how close it would get without needing to parry/doge. Edit: I do wonder how much time I would need to learn all the parries, and play him through all 3 phases. Can you even parry phase 3 moves? Probably not on a keyboard, or at least not on mine. I need to get a new keyboard... :D

Prior to the DLC the go-to cheese for nuking everything in one turn is stacking burns with Verso (free aim with burn chance + AP gain until out of AP, then basic attack combo I, II + III with the sword that adds burning stacks, double burn application pictos) and using Sciel to damage buff Maelle with Medalum for Burning Canvas. DLC weapons mixed that up a bit, but it still works well enough until you actually get to the DLC and its items. Make sure that your character turn order is Verso > Sciel > Maelle (auto-die and resurrect Maelle with 1hp and equip the damage scaling pictos with lower HP = more damage, you basically want to stack every damage multiplier on her, auto-invert with more damage from being inverted, more damage from shields with auto-shield, and so on and so forth), then make Sciel give Verso another round, buff Maelle with an extra 100% damage in her Virtuous Stance and watch Simon die after Burning Canvas.

due to bug this thing is regularly appearing on my ship out of nowhere

Got suckered into WoW Anniversary (aka TBC Classic), but Blizzard really managed to ruin the experience by adding phasing to an expansion that really, really cannot support that many players in an area, and I just gave up. Anyway, apparently they also messed up by applying "final" patch balance to the start of the expansion, making early content excessively easy, but I never made it to level cap, so I guess I at least dodged that disappointment. Sure as hell killed any chance of me touching retail again if they can´t even manage to not mess up something that had already proven itself. Ugh. Not really feeling like playing much right now, current Where Winds Meet storyline isn´t really doing it for me, and constant FOMO it pushes is wearing me down. Been wanting to start Rogue Trader, but the sheer size of the game is kinda scaring me, because if it's really good it will consume me... and I've already been trying to stay away from the likes of Factorio, Stellaris, and Satisfactory to safeguard my sleep schedule... Maybe a few games of Darktide would do me. Hmm...

This needs to become an actual permanent pet you can acquire, not just a temp one you can "steal" from enemy and use for a play session. Like, STAT. It's called a KuKu hatchling, but we all know what it really is. CHOCOBO.

Yeah - I should probably stop playing until they figure out all the ways they're going to change the game. Dunno if I will, but I should. A lot of it is more QoL, but also they'll be addressing the "no more enemies" factor and other stuff. It's not out yet, but that's their roadmap I guess. It's starting to feel like an Early Access progress process, except super accelerated. Dev Update :: Crimson Desert Events & AnnouncementsView full event information here: https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/3321460/announcements/detail/534380184755767107

I got so tired of the "And then Zeratul appears and progresses the story".

I hated Star Craft 2's campaign(s). Not the gameplay, mind you, but the endless retcons, the character assassinations, the ludicrous storyline and cashing in on a highly popular franchise* by releasing a single game's worth of content in three full-priced installments. *Man, now that I spelled it out, I realize that all of that also applies to the new Star Wars Trilogy.

Urgh - yea, off-topic but I just haaate that they chose to use "the same, but not same" names for a lot of the monsters. "Fampyr", "Guls", "Wichts" - really? ... REALLY? *facepalm* I mean, what's the point. It can't be because of copyright issues (for all of them at least) because I'm pretty sure you can't copyright "vampire". If you want to be different just to be different then that's OK I guess, but at least make some effort to make a different creature if that's your goal. Taking a D&D creature and switching around 2 letters and going "LOOK - ITS ORIGINAL NOW!" just makes my head hurt (from all the facepalming). Xaurips also to a lesser extent... They are so obviously just Kobolds under a different name. Same'ish looks, behaviour, culture ect. For petes sake - if you want to use kobolds in your setting just use kobolds. If not, make something else. I half expected to run into a creature name "lioon" or something of that nature after seeing this pattern go on and on... Ok, sorry, rant over. Back on topic -Stigma

Researchers Induce Smells With Ultrasound, No Chemical Cartridges Required

So I started playing Hades 2 yesterday and have just discovered that it has this ridiculous new mechanic where, if the game determines you're progressing through the game too fast (in terms of number of deaths), it will start applying a stacking debuff to you which increases the damage you take by an increasing amount for each subsequent level you clear. Supposedly the reasoning for this mechanic is that they don't want you to clear the next bit of content before the game has the opportunity to show you the various cutscenes and dialogue relating to the current biome/boss. But this is an absurdly ham-fisted approach to the supposed problem and it's definitely soured me on the game significantly even if it's only a temporary inconvenience. The only reason this isn't a bigger deal is that this apparently stops happening after you die 10 times in total, but that's 10 too many times putting up with this nonsense.