I do, especially when someone’s profiting from it, while my license is strictly for non commercial.

Uber wasn’t making profit anyway, despite all the VCs money behind it.

I guess they have reasons not to pay drivers properly. Give Uber a free pass for it too

https://petapixel.com/2024/01/03/court-docs-reveal-midjourney-wanted-to-copy-the-style-of-these-photographers/

What’s stopping AI companies from paying royalties to artists they ripped off?

Also, lol at accounts created within few hours just to reply in this thread.

The moment their works are the one that got stolen by big companies and driven out of business, watch their tune change.

Edit: I remember when Reddit did that shitshow, and all the sudden a lot of sock / bot accounts appeared. I wasn’t expecting it to happen here, but I guess election cycle is near.

We all could see that Unity’s layoff was coming, that pricing backlash not only drove away many developers, also probably was driven by troubling financial within the organization.

Twitch is sort of unexpected, but when I see the number of impromptu rules they rolled out and rolled back last year, whether from restricting multi-streaming, to limiting showing brands logo on stream, to restricting / unrestricting female streamers from showing too much skin, etc. I assume that means that even with all those intrusive ads, Twitch is still losing money.

I guess from now on, when a tech company starts to arbitrarily change their T&C / rules to either protect their revenue / market share, and maybe rolling back from backlashes, then it’s a sign that there’s trouble brewing (if you work at those companies, beware)

Try to train a human comedian to make jokes without ever allowing him to hear another comedian’s jokes, never watching a movie, never reading a book or magazine, never watching a TV show. I expect the jokes would be pretty weak.

nope, “The dog is cooking a dinner” is that kind of absurdist sentence that works. So that I just don’t guess a human on the subject position. Or ‘eating’ for the verb

I’ve seen quality drops of Duolingo, ever since their … IPO, sadly.

Anyway, here’s some ways you can milk the rest of the Duolingo before completely abandoning it.

• Use the web version, and type in all the answers if it’s possible. Selecting words are good for introducing new words (and reminder in case you forgot), but by typing it on your own, it’s faster to commit into memory.
• Use classroom mode to get unlimited hearts, create your own classroom and invite yourself in. I assume that Duolnigo will probably eventually stop this loophole
• Use search engine to search for the sentences you’re unsure of. No, don’t use machine translation, but search on the internet, and see if the sentence ever being used by the sites (news, academic, or personal homepage) using the target language.

I sadly still don’t know what other comparable free alternatives to Duolingo. Anki is great, but it’s largely flashcard for words, not sentences (unless you want to create your own deck). The others require subscription fee.

Other methods? Search for pdf of language grammar files, there are a lot out there. Some are godawful to read, especially those ‘Comprehensive Grammar Guide’ books. Some are amazing, e.g. Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese.

Yeah, this is frustrating.

I can handle absurd sentences like “The dog is cooking the dinner”, and actually finds them beneficial because it prevents me from guessing the whole sentence.

But this is a sign that not enough human efforts are poured into create permutation of the answers.

I’ve just finished replaying the base FF7 Remake, in preparation of FF7 Rebirth. Also I haven’t touched INTERmission yet.

Some of the games that I’m excited to play in 2024: FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor ReFantazio, Eiyuuden Chronicles, and maybe Dragon’s Dogma 2.

I remember Mirai botnet that scanned for default password on IoT cameras.

They could definitely become a weak link.

I think Google support team might have started to see the pattern, getting feedback that they are starting to take action against them.

I have the 8BitDo Pro 2 controller, it’s great.

However the thumbstick’s rubber eventually crumbled off after a year or so, so I 3D printed these replacements (it’s for SF30, but fits Pro 2), then I got cheap Switch thumbsticks rubber pad to put on top of them. IIRC, you might be able to request thumbstick replacement from them. The 3D printed treplacement + cheap caps feels kinda better than the original.

I finished (again) God of War 2018. I thought it was going to sour on me, just like how my 2nd playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn did (and subsequently my 1st playthrough of Forbidden West). But no, it’s still a very good game. Combat is simple but still satisfying, side quests aren’t excessive like Forbidden West, story is still good but less intense than TLoU. My only complaint is that the fast travel is just way too slow. I’m looking forward to Ragnarök now.

My top is probably FF16, I have soft spot for this type of siblings story, also loving the Asura’s Wrath section.

No, there’s a mac version of retroarch. OpenEmu is a bit better in term of user interface.

And RetroArch has a history of harassing emulator devs, e.g. Stenzek who made Duckstation, were harassed by them until Stenzek went hiatus. IIRC, they might have harassed Near (developer of Snes9x), Near eventually killed themself.

I try to minimize the use of RetroArch

I played thru Octopath Traveler, and the story doesn’t tie everyone together until that secret last boss. Nothing much interesting in the writing until that part, I guess.

I read that Octopath Traveler 2 rectified that, and it’s one of the best JRPG of this year. I bought that on sale, but haven’t touched it yet.

I dropped Tunic halfway thru, the combat just doesn’t gel with me.

• I finished the first Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney from the remake trilogy

  • The game is really frustrating, because at times it feels more like you’re supposed to guess what’s the developer want you to do, instead of presenting things based on logic / evidence to the witness’ statement
  • The writing can be very awful, some characters are just straight up annoying in order to pad the game. People veer off conversations all the time, trying to be funny, but they are not. And the melodrama that’s supposed to convey the character’s feeling, can be repeated on every new scene that it’s very tiring to play thru it.

• I’ve also finished Curse of the Monkey Island

  • It’s still a such a hilarious delightful game. Many people stopped by my stream to tell me that they love this game. I was expecting to the game to be not clicking with me since Ron Gilbert departed after Monkey Island 2, but apparently it’s still a very good game.
  • My main complaint is the clicking mechanic, where you need to click and hold to bring up the talk / observe / use option.

• I’m currently replaying God of War (2008)

  • Apparently I forgot to upload my save to the cloud, so I can’t do NG+
  • It’s still a very good game. I’m at the Alfheim region now, and unlike Horizon Zero Dawn, I have yet to feel fatigue replaying this game. Maybe it’d happen later in game

Oh no, if you’re starting Ultima 7, then you might want to consider running it using Exult

Exult has some QoL additions, fixes, mods that should make your playthrough more enjoyable

Guile = Gooey Leh

I kept mispronouncing Red13 as Red7, but on hindsight, his real name is Nanaki, so I was close.

Oh wow, I’ve never even heard of Mobius FF. That song bops

Games wise, very likely. There are way too many 2023 games that I bought (that’s on sale) that I haven’t even touched yet, and still more heavy hitters that I’m waiting for a bigger discount (e.g. Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Yakuza Gaiden, Spider-Man 2, etc). It’s not only newer IPs, there are many games based on older IPs that are well received, e.g. Dead Space, FF16, RE4, Armored Core 6, etc.

Game devs wise, it’s probably one of the worse. There’a already more than 9000 layoffs, with many studios shuttered. Half of them probably came from Embracer Group. We are probably gonna be seeing a rapidly shrinking number of mid-size games within the next 5 years.

I actually enjoy the Spider-Man games a lot, I am only surprised that Venom is coming first than Wolverine.

However, I doubt that we will see Sunset Overdrive in the near future, the game only made $567 in profit

I was initially expecting to see Wolverine released end of next year / early 2025, was not expecting it to be around end of 2026. I assume it’s easier to create Venom’s game based on the existing Spidey’s engine.

I wonder what exclusive game would Sony announce for next year’s holiday? Maybe Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima 2?

• I’ve finished Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising, as a preparation for Eiyuden Hundred Heroes.

  • It’s not a good game, but it’s not terrible either. I played it while watching TV.
  • The combat is interesting, you have 3 attack buttons, and each of them switches your main character. However it’s really unpolished, you can’t do uppercut or downward attack before upgrading your weapons.
  • The story… is not interesting at all. It’s largely fetch quests for the residents to build / expand stuff.

• I’m halfway thru Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

  • This is a bad game. The gunplay is okay, but the level design, the enemies become increasingly dull and boring in later chapters. Halfway thru the game, I just find most chapters are way too long, empty, and repetitive.
  • The story / writing is not good at all. All those Deepground characters are boring, cliched, and annoying.

Also, I’m back with my BS, where I play Resident Evil Zero with a guide and skipping all the cutscenes, so that I can get the infinite rocket launcher, before replaying the entire game for the story.

Marc Andreessen is too low there.

Musk is a clown that says vile and stupid thing. An useful idiot for others Silicon Valley VCs.

Andreessen and Thiel (and too some small extent Luckey) are in the background trying to push for far right libertarian dystopia.

Andreessen is the guy who kept pushing for web 3.0, trying to dominate it before it becomes big, so that he can monopolize / become a new digital libertarian govt, but of course it got hijacked by scammers, and states like Russia or North Korea, but he doesn’t give a flying fuck.

Thiel of course is far right financier. There’s a reason why they try to hide in the background.

Subscription only makes sense if there’s an ongoing service, e.g. processing in the cloud, cloud data storage, etc.

Apps that don’t need to be subscription:

• Camera apps like Halide or Filmic Pro, wtf
• Any todo / habit apps, the ‘cloud’ part is usually iCloud / Google Drive
• Notetaking apps, e.g. GoodNotes, wtf
• Duolingo, mainly because the contents of some lessons are outdated (missing audio, etc).

Let’s hope it doesn’t stumble and fall, by properly paving paths that connects people.

Errrm, errrm, I’m gonna turn off my WiFi and BT connection while watching it. Whales.

I played a lot of great games this year, but also many that didn’t click with me.

There’s a huge spikes of games that I played this year, because I decided to start tackling my backlog by streaming them, these include games I’ve bought on sale, and those that are on PS+ Extre.

IIRC, Nemo was bit unsatisfying to play in DMC4, and the issue kinda exacerbated in DMCV. He feels underpowered compared to others.

I also remember being really frustrated by the platforming for the secret stages in 4.

They are still good games though.

I just finished replaying DMC V. After replaying DMC 1 - 4 + DmC in the past 6 months, made me realize that I don’t like playing as Nemo. He feels underpowered at times, and his skillset are kinda boring compared to Dante.

In DMC V, I enjoyed my time playing as Dante and V.

V is a change of pace, being slower and ranged, while Dante has really satisfying moves and weapons. I like Nemo’s robotic arm, but the idea that it’s a consumable and sometimes you might ended up picking up an arm that you are not familiar with, does disrupt the flow. Even his basic swordplay feels kinda lacking.

I could see people who became deaf-mute using it. Apple has Personal Voice for iOS that allows people who are losing their voice to use it to connect to their loved ones.

I just have hard time trusting EA.

Brothers Remake, now with 2 more brothers and you need to use your toes to control them!!

I know it’s really weird. I don’t like ammo scarcity in games but really love how the weapons feel in RE games.

I generally don’t play horror games, or watch horror movies. Except for a handful, and mostly it’s not because of the survival or horror part.

2 things

• Resident Evil HD Remaster

  • I followed a guide, and finally got my infinite rocket launcher around 2 hour 41 mins!
  • Skipped all the cutscenes, got the bad ending, I have no idea what’s happening in the game, and somewhat learned some speed running moves (e.g. stair skating and kiting).
  • I’m excited to finally playing the game properly (with rocket launcher) in the future, both Chris and Jill scenarios.
  • There’s quite a lot of work involved, I used the IGN video walkthrough, spliced the video into like 13 parts for 13 saves, then just redo those parts until I feel like I’ve finished the section without losing too much time

• Final Fantasy 7

  • I’m replaying it again, the last time I finished this game must be at least a decade ago.
  • It’s still my favorite mainline FF, I still love the Materia system and how you can chain them together. The combat is still very speedy, especially compared to FF9, the characters and story still hold up. You can definitely see Shinra Corp existing in our society right now.
  • I’m also surprised at the parts I’ve missed. After the temple morphed into the black materia, did Cloud shove Aeris to the ground and punch her repeatedly? I was shocked at that scene, didn’t realize what was happening when I was younger.
  • With knowledge about what’s happening with Crisis Core and FF7 Remake in hand, now I could definitely understand some of those scenes, the voices Cloud is hearing, etc.
  • I’m playing the PS4 remaster / re-release. Liking the QoL features (fast forward, battle assist), but there’s still an unfixed bug where the music would just stop playing.

I remember when Joe Rogan was getting giant paycheck from Spotify promoting antivax stuff, and people talked about moving to Apple Music, but it feels like many just stuck with Spotify.

I came across a post on instagram that says that Al Yankovic’s 80 million stream on playlist only netted him enough money to buy a sandwich.

Also, Spotify underpaying artists, making fake playlists with cover artists to undermine artists, are not new. It feels like the mainstream crowd just doesn’t care, which pushes me further into depression.

Ys IX Monstrum Nox

I’m at the final chapter of the game, and here’s my thoughts:

The game has adopted many bad trends from other games that it becomes annoying halfway thru the game, here are some of my complaints:

• The dialogue, a lot of useless fluff dialogues that takes extra 2 seconds for the characters to animate. If there’s 10 people in the scene, then those 10 feel the need to chime in to say something frivolous.

• Just can’t get emotionally invested in the character, maybe it’s the writing, maybe they just follow cookie cutter anime tropes most of the time (thrown in some ‘twist’ later on). I weirdly care more about the side characters from Lacrimosa than this one.

• The constant interruption of the flow. You gained control of your character, moved to main/side quest point, cutscene, walked forward 10 steps, another cutscene. And the problem is, most cutscenes are just insubstantial.

• Side quests that are not side quests anymore, since you need them to remove those artificial barriers. You can farm nox, but it’s way slower. Side quests also suffer from ‘everything needs lengthy writing’ RPG syndrome nowadays. Better writing, not more writing. I had the same issue with Horizon Forbidden West, where most side quests contain way too much dialogue that’s been used to pad the game to 100+ hours, where it could be a 30 hour game.

• The raids / grimwald sections are bit too much. I like how they are mostly optional in Lacrimosa. In this game, you even need to do them to remove the barriers to optional area.

• Third Eye / detective mode is a mechanic that devs should move away from. Just outline the points of interest, don’t make it so it’s hard to see everything else.

• The lock-on in combat is a wild mess for me. I don’t know whether it’s my settings, or the game.

On the other hand, what I like about this game:

• The vertical mobility, that’s to shake up the exploration. The problem is it’s kinda janky, I’d often fall down after grappling to a ledge, because the ledge is too small. Wall run often ends up being blocked, etc. I hope that they will polish the mechanic more in the future. In combat though, I barely use them to fight enemies thanks to the messy lock-on

• I enjoy doing the collectibles (petals, treasures, graffitis) in this game.

Besides that I’ve been slowly progerssing Resident Evil HD Remake, trying to get infinite rocket launcher.

why did I misread that as AutoCreamPie?

I don’t like remasters, especially those which are usually just re-release with hi-res textures. They are charging like $30 and above for hi-res texture, and some of them has unstable framerates. At certain point of time, using emulator yields better graphics & performance than some of those remasters, especially for PS1/PS2 games.

On the other hand, I actually like remakes way more.

Remake not only exploits that nostalgia, but also tend to make game plays better with added QoL functions, sometimes with new gameplay mechanics. Some of the remakes that I really like:

• Yakuza 1+2 Kiwami
• Crisis Core
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
• Resident Evil 1+2 (have not played 3+4 remakes yet)
• Live a Live
• Mass Effect Trilogy (thankfully it’s not just a hi-res port)

Remake is great when there’s a significant technology and time gaps between the games, which is why TLOU remakes drew some ires.

I use BiasFX2, and it’s pretty okay for me. The tone cloud seems to be lacking of content nowadays (maybe it’s harder to search)

If you wanna use opensource + deep learning amp simulators, there is Neural Amp Modeler I’ve never used it (even though I downloaded and it’s sitting in my folder for a year now), but it seems like you just need to feed it with the wav of the guitar tone you want.

Let’s hope that with enough international pressure, this truce will stay longer, and humanitarian aids can be properly given to Palestinians.

I mistook Larry Summers as Larry Elison (ex Oracle) previously and made a comment that it gone from bad to worse.

I’m retracting it, I don’t know much about Larry Summers.