LLMs are a tool. Like all tools, we are going to go though a learning curve as we adapt to safe usage of that tool. LLMs cratering companies would be a really tame way to learn those lessons. Usually, we don’t start writing regulations around tools until we have buckets of blood to write those regulations with.

The thing about inbreeding is that it isn’t an instantly bad problem. The Habsburg dynasty was all about doing the nasty with cousins for a number of generations. It took a few rounds before the Habsburg Chin developed. Records also indicate that sister marriage was a common royal practice in pharonic Egypt.

It’s all a matter of probabilities and compounding problems. The first generation of inbred kids will probably turn out ok. With the second generation things can start getting sketchy. The more generations you go, the more likely you are to get Crimson Tide fans.

This is also why populations under a certain size can be problematic. When the family trees of a population start looking like brambles, problems start sticking out like thorns.

I still break out the old Sierra games (specifically the Quest for Glory series) from time to time. Those are still a lot of fun and ScummVM makes them run damn near perfectly.

Most non-indie stuff is complete and utter trash.

Ya, it’s telling that some of my favorite games these days all started as indie games. I do worry about them as they get in bed with larger producers, but I also understand the draw. E.g. I still love Valheim, but they were Embracer’d by private equity. And I’m waiting for that relationship to push them to shit all over their players. Though I understand that publisher backing lets them focus more on development and less on the marketing and distribution of the game.

So now I expect it will be just a patronising nostalgia IP reboot fest designed to extract as much cash as possible.

Ya, this is one of the big turn-offs for me. For example, I really liked Prince of Persia: Sands of Time back in the day. I’ve got exactly zero interest in the remake. Ubisoft’s logo now looking like a neat pile of dogshit, viewed from above, is pretty apt.

I think it’s pretty telling that so many of the people they talk to and a lot of the focus of the article isn’t really about older gamers, it’s about their money.

The opportunity is substantial. The 40+ segment in the US is on track to grow from $19 billion in 2022 to $43 billion by 2030, a 132% expansion at a moment when the rest of the industry is shrinking. These are players with the most disposable income, the longest gaming literacy, and the highest brand loyalty.

I’m in that “40+ segment” and I suspect part of the “problem” these companies face is that older gamers have seen the enshitification of so many of the brands we love. Our tolerance for bullshit is basically gone at this point. Micro transactions, season passes, fucking ads in games, all of that bullshit is a quick way to not get our money.

I also suspect “brand loyalty” is basically gone for the same reason. As a kid, I looked for the Electronic Arts logo. If I saw this logo on a game package, I knew I was looking at a good game. I haven’t bought an EA game in years. I don’t expect to buy an EA game any time soon and I basically ignore everything they do. Sure, if a trailer for Starflight 3 dropped, I’d sit up and take notice. I’d also expect it to be an enshitified mess wearing the skin of a beloved series to sucker me in, before pouncing on my wallet.

So ya, maybe just make good games and older gamers will inevitably buy them. I mean, Larian can pretty much say, “hi we’re making…” and I’ll have my wallet out and be pulling bills before they get any further. And maybe that’s your “brand loyalty”. Game companies who make good games and aren’t private equity firms wearing the dead skin suits of brands we used to love.

You can buy resin molds for the AR-15 lower, which is the regulated part. Then just buy all of the non-regulated parts retail and assemble a “ghost gun”. There’s also things like the FGC-9 which is mostly printed parts. And the Luty SMG if you’re skilled enough.

This genie is so far out of the bottle, it’s lapped the regulators and is going around again.

Brought to you by Jeff Bezos

Everything old is new again, I guess. Many companies have responsible disclosure processes and even bug bounties, directly because they got raked over the coals by security researchers in the early 2000’s and 2010’s. When someone can completely fuck your reputation by releasing direct proof of your failings, pissing them off is a pretty bad plan.

But, it would seem that all of the intelligence at Microsoft really is artificial these days.

Soldiers give up a lot of rights when they sign their enlistment contract.

He might be right. He’s a complete ass for pointing it out. And the fact that he would think he might need to point it out should be cause for some serious self reflection. But ya, disparaging someone above you in the chain of command is going to run afoul of the UCMJ. I’m just not sure of the VP is considered in the chain of command.

We walked to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways!
Now get off my lawn!

Jokes aside, I think one thing we had pretty good was not having to live in constant fear of every stupid thing we did likely being put online immediately. And there not being an “online” where your mistakes would haunt you forever. I did a lot of stupid stuff in my late teens and early 20’s. And there is thankfully very little evidence of any of it. Kids these days don’t often have that luxury. We’re all young and stupid at some point. As you get older, that stupid stuff should be something you and your friends laugh about over beers, not something you fear a current employer is going to find at the top of the results when they google your name.

That said, the easy access to media and information is insanely cool. If I want to learn about the mating habits of marmosets, there is likely an in-depth Wikipedia article with way, way too much information. And it’s likely up to date and well edited. Compare that to whatever blurb might be in the encyclopedias at your local or school library, plus anything you could dig out of the periodicals and microfiche, and it’s not even in the same universe of information availability. Sure, there’s a lot more to sift through online. And it’s getting easier and easier to get lost in a sea of misinformation. But, you still stand a much better chance today of finding more, faster, than what we had back then. It’s funny to think back about instructors making a big deal about not using Wikipedia when it first came out. Now, it’s likely recommended as the first stop in researching something.

Also, I have a fucking computer in my pocket with more processing power than the entire world had available when we sent men to the moon. And I can use that computer to communicate with nearly anyone in the world instantaneously. And that computer can access that insane wealth of knowledge I just mentioned above. Again, almost instantly, from most places I am likely to be. I can be taking a shit in the woods and reading up on marmosets fucking while chatting with someone shitting on Twitter. It’s the goddamn future over here.

I’d wonder how in the world such a young kid could have made that much money. And did so without me noticing.

More seriously, assuming this happens well into the future, I’d congratulate him and just ask that he be sure to take good care of his mother when I die.

My company has let us get Enterprise Copilot and has been pushing us all to “use AI”. So, I now use it as a a semi-functional search for SharePoint/Outlook/Files on an almost daily basis. I also ask it questions about Microsoft documentation on a regular basis. I wonder how long it’s going to be until they yank my license.

Some of column A, and some of column B. You are going to have tasks which need to get done, but you don’t really want to do. Do I want to wash the dishes? Honestly, no. It’s not something I enjoy doing. Do I need to wash the dishes? Yes, if I don’t we get ants in the kitchen, the dishes start to smell and we run out of clean dishes. There will be tasks which ate less time dependent and I can do something I feel like doing first. Maybe the chores I need to get done around the house are done for the day and I can spend a bit of time playing a video game.

Life isn’t all playtime and roses. Sometimes:

Kinda yes and kinda no. While the front end you’re using will necessarily request data from Twitter, which means there will be traffic generated, it’s bot traffic which is much less valuable.

But, as much as I agree with the “fuck Musk” sentiment, really it’s about your own well being. Twitter is a cesspit. Wallowing in a cesspit, whether physical or virtual, is bad for your health. Even if you aren’t in the official cesspit, just a pool filled with the same shit, it’s just as unhealthy.

Anything SharePoint.
So many companies end up using SharePoint for “knowledge management” not realizing they are dooming their knowledge to be lost in some byzantine hole of information where no one will ever be able to find or use it ever again. Worse, as more knowledge is yeeted into the pile, the search becomes better and better at presenting outdated, or irrelevant information. So, you will have new employees who find a process which is 5-10 years out of date, completely wrong, but it looks official and the links still work for some gods forsake reason. Of course, the right information is in SharePoint somewhere, but it’s probably locked behind a site with broken permissions, in a document library in a Word document which isn’t properly indexed and there’s 4 different versions of the same document with names like “New procedure_v3_DRAFT_bob’s edits.docx”, because no one understands how file versioning works.

“Now stop reading Twitter”.
If you’re using a front end, you’re still reading Twitter.

I’ve deleted my Twitter account

Now stop reading Twitter. You can’t fix folks who want to wallow misery.

Messing with DNS is how a PiHole works. You set the devices on your network to use the PiHole for DNS and it “blackholes” domains related to advertising and tracking. You can do something similar with any system acting as a DNS server on your network.