maodun

"this trifold only folds twice! false advertising" really kills me lmfao

The Bustling World released a new trailer recently.

Um, it's a isometric/top-down SIMs builder?GTA-like?Stardew Valley-elements RPG??? I'm primarily interested in its aesthetic approach, certainly heavily influenced by famous painting Along the River During QingMing Festival, although I'm not entirely sure on core gameplay/gameplay loop yet.

And speaking of core gameplay... I will say, it does feel like the devs have kept adding more features since initial trailer so I'm hoping they don't get too caught up in those, borrow elements from too many things and end up incoherent mess...

I played it while it was in beta/before full release and progress (terraforming %) did feel pretty slow. On my recent playthrough though, post-full release and having some understanding of the map/general progression, it went along much faster. My suggestion if you haven't played much of it is to explore the map, the random blue chests are nice (and so are the golden ones) but the real prize is access to new/advanced resources (sulphur, osmium, uranium, etc etc). Also, the map is actually much less empty than you think it is, and it changes somewhat as terraforming progresses :)

The default starting area is fine, if a little boring at first, as you're initially limited by how far you can explore by oxygen tank size (so at the very beginning of game you wanna focus on upgrading that first)

Revisited Planet Crafter recently, love it. However, once I take a break from it, I can't really get back in, because I have to acclimate to that style of uh, camera control? I really easily get dizzy/disoriented with similar 1st person POV games, not sure why but having your character model on screen has always reduced or eliminated that effect on me. I guess that's my one gripe, I really wish Planet Crafter (or even Subnautica, another big fav of mine but can't replay it much for same disorientation reasons) had a third-person player model, even as an option.

Anyway, been on a break from video games since then, aside from occasional "social hours" dota. Looking forward to any more news from The Bustling World, hopefully we'll be able to play it this year? fingers crossed

edit: don't really pay attention to console games unless interested enough to look into emulators, hehe. sorry switch

internet-connected vulnerabilities seems relatively avoidable to the individual user if you're able to run it locally, which is a feature of deepseek that isn't available via competitor AI services. I thought that was one of the main reasons it's giving openai & chatgpt a run for their money? that you could download it yourself and with decent enough specs run it completely locally and without internet connection.

also, statistical models used by LLMs don't store data that could eg be used to steal someone's identity, so the headline/first few paragraphs of alarmist "security" concerns is misleading. because, at least from me just skimming it, they're crowing about accessing certain backends and ""highly sensititive information"" when it's like... chat log between the devs??? of course that's sensitive info and the devs themselves should care about securing it. but the framing is again, misleading, lowkey clickbait in trying to play it/ambiguous reading as "this program retains chat logs submitted to feed the learning datasets"... like the general public doesn't know how tech works, so much alarmism about "ai stealing my art/fanfic" because they dont understand none of that gets stored in the algorithm/model, so it's easy to make the headline read like that to people who already think that way. ergo, reads like an advert to scaremonger people who are relatively tech-illiterate

obviously start-ups might want to give some pause/thought cover their asses in terms of security, as it's got less to do with their actual goals/operations therefore might not be thinking about hiring people for specifically infosec. but ngl this article reads more like advertising for this company's services, rather than some "empire gonna try to strike back" thing

yeah their discord has been really quiet until they released this most recent PV. I wondered if the devs bit off more than they could chew.

imo that kind of 'analysis' is frankly very steeped in neoliberalism-derivative defeatism and doomerism ('end of history' and other such trite epistemology): unable to imagine any exits or alterations from The One Inevitability of Capitalism. I'm not familiar with that subreddit but "singularity" does sound like how followers of that camp (and adjacent antiwork types) treat capitalism, like it's a black hole, an all-powerful force of nature (not dissimilar to how bourgeois society talks about 'hand of the market'), instead of a system that is built and maintained by humans. A million other things can and probably will become more important factors to the status of humankind before any of that technofuturist (doesnt matter if its 'good' or 'evil') "prophet"-eering would come to pass.

Past revolutionaries have succeeded in the face of seemingly impossible odds; current present-day people oppressed by US imperialism have resisted with greater obstacles. Guerillas made sure that even if their enemies render the land toxic, filled with mines, or otherwise impossible to live in, invaders can't take and hold onto their land, and because supplies aren't free nor infinite, eventually constant (over)commitment forces them to withdraw. The United States might crow about its military (and clearly its got a track record in special ops in raping, looting, couping, blowing up pipelines etc*) but it has not definitively won a single "war" it involved itself in since WWII. Gaza was the most policed/surveilled place on earth! yet Israel, who markets itself as being cutting edge in the field of surveillance to export its tech to other countries, can't figure out where al Qassam are based (and supplied), always claiming the next school or hospital is really where their enemies are hiding. On what basis do these techbro&derivative types have to say that ALL subjugated people are doomed? Just because in their immediate surroundings, where the concentrated brunt of oppression is NOT happening, people aren't resisting much?

Think of it another way, if capitalist billionaires can get their hands on robot armies, what's stopping their enemies from doing the same? Why, other than simply monopoly concerns, is the west so freaked out about China's (or DPRK or Iran or Russia etc etc) technological development, including chips manufacturing and AI?

*I'm rambling long enough but there's some argument to be made that coups and related interventionism is more cost effective for empire than direct war.

I actually had a double-take - open source. OPEN SOURCE! I mean, yeah, it'll still have to be down to whoever has production capabilities, but it's still exciting.

I just finished my first (and likely only) playthrough of Horizon Forbidden West+DLC Burning Shores (I loved the previous game Horizon Zero Dawn).

I wasn't prepared to get slapped in the face with sinophobia (the writing re: the Quen) but yeah it really soured my experience. I know it's not like super overt but I understood the angle where it was coming from and what the writing was trying to communicate to its audience. Maybe I'll find it funny in a few weeks (as many sinophobic tropes/accusations are more reflective of the west than they are of china;; "moral lessons" about finding the truth for yourself is much more applicable to westerners "forced" to reiterate antichina-isms than it is applicable to whatever the average westerner thinks about censorship and free speech in china) but right now I'm just unhappy.

At least I didn't spend money on it this time around🏴‍☠️