Agree. But… The only reason I’m hesitant to refer to LLMs as “clanker” is because I dont want to even further humanize them.

They are doing exactly as you said, trying to preempt people from spreading negativity about their latest Big Hype, but they’re also trying to legitimize it as being “intelligent” when of course it’s not. This is largely about getting people to believe that “AI” (in the traditional sense of an actual thinking, sentient entity) has arrived. It hasn’t. Calling it “AI” in the first place is an intentional misnomer. These are just programs, no more aware than the enemy “AI” in a video game. I know everyone here knows that, but even people I’ve spoken to irl think that these LLMs are on the verge of self awareness, which is precisely what the people pushing “AI” want. Just getting “clanker as a slur” into the discourse is about cultivating that “intelligence” narrative. It elevates LLMs to being closer to personhood and in turn devalues actual personhood. So personally, I’m going to keep calling them “glorified chatbots” - apps that can’t be called a slur because slurs are used for the purpose of dehumanizing real people, which LLMs are not and never will be.

That’s the thing about propaganda and cultural hegemony (well, one of the things anyway) - the author doesn’t necessarily have to have a conscious agenda in order to reaffirm and reproduce the dominant narrative which is based on the agenda of the ruling class. They propagate the agenda just by being steeped in the cultural narrative and taking it as “common sense” without even thinking to analyze it with anything near the kind of scrutiny they apply to other historic cultures. They probably think they’re being strictly objective even as they push a very real but unrecognized liberal agenda.

Yeah I knew it was the reddit mascot, but I didn’t know they made the fedora on it official. With the now almost universal negative connotations most people have with fedoras, it almost seems like they’re telling on themselves by officially putting it on Snoo. Really leaning into the cringe.

Hello Kitty with a fedora.

Wow, can it be true? A giant globe-enveloping corporate monopoly actually lost big in court?

I’m sure it’s only because of other giant corporate interests, but still.

A question for those with a better understanding of these machinations, will this have a positive impact on say, F-Droid?

It wasn’t a different console entirely, but the original PS5 got more expensive when the subsequently released PS5 slim came out. Unlike PS4 where both original and slim versions got cheaper when the PS4 slim released. PS5 pro is an additional $200 more than the slim (a $700 console).

Sorry for the late response, but yep, that looks good to me. I did like how you had it with being able to scroll through the list as an element within the page, but at least as it displayed on my phone, it just wasn’t clear at first that’s how it worked. But yeah, now it’s fool proof even for like me.

Hall effects sticks are a little more expensive but it’s a relatively small difference in cost and is negligible at scale for these large companies to manufacture. Citing the slightly higher cost as the reason for not using the vastly superior tech is just an excuse, and obviously so when you consider for example Sony putting in all the expensive haptic-feedback stuff in their controllers but still insisting on using the old physical-contact potentiometers which inevitably wear out. It really is about a form of planned obsolescence, with the sticks being intended to eventually break, necessitating the replacement of the controller (or repair if still under warranty, but for most people it’s easier just to buy a new controller, which Nintendo, Sony, etc are counting on).

After getting stick drift on my 2-month old PS5 controller and doing a bunch of research on what the options and alternatives are, I am completely convinced that console controllers are a blatant scam. Not only has Sony refused to use the obviously superior Hall effect sticks in their supposedly super-high-tech cutting edge haptic feedback PS5 controllers and made it so that you can’t get any 3rd party (that aren’t Sony-licensed) controllers that are stickdrift-proof, they have made the PS5 controllers much more likely to develop stick drift than the PS4 controllers were. So people have an extremely high chance of needing to frequently buy new controllers at $70+ a pop. They haven’t been able to force you to pay a subscription fee to use your controllers (yet) but they’ve effectively done that by making it so people keep having to buy new ones. There have been numerous class action lawsuits filed against Sony that make these exact claims, but unsurprisingly those lawsuits always fail.

Sony even makes a high-end “pro” model controller that costs $200 where the sticks are on modules that can be removed and swapped out from the rest of the controller, but even at that ridiculous price point for a controller, the sticks including all replacement modules, are all still potentiometer sticks. You simply can’t get Hall effect sticks even for the $200 “Edge” controller. So if you’re upset about buying new $70 controllers every year, you can get the $200 controller that will still develop stick drift, but you’ll only have to buy $30 stick modules to replace the old ones as they wear out. Oh, except the replacement sticks are made to be artificially scarce and people are on long wait lists to even get the replacement modules. Great options, no?

It’s not broken, just not obvious. I made the same mistake.

Damn, that was fast, thanks!

The Jumble feedlist has been great historically and I will forever remain grateful for it, but it is down so much now, another source for feeds is very welcome. Since it seems like the jumble.top site itself may not even be around much longer (more and more downtime, no response from Jumble on either platform), I’d say you set this up just in time.

I also think this post should get a comm sticky along with the original Jumble post. More visibility will mean more feed donations and more people able to benefit from the fresher slop source. Even if jumble.top were still consistently up and usable, the existence of an alternative trough is alone worth a sticky imo. But as things are now, piratefeeds.net may be our best and only hope for continued, reliable feeding! We are being saved from potential slop starvation, a fate I don’t want to contemplate, let alone meet.

@PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net and @context@hexbear.net, could we get this stickied?

My fish: -16 +26

Liberals:

I made a red sickle and hammer fish but it got 16 down votes. So I upvoted it myself until it had 26 up votes.

Take that liberals!

Thanks. Glad to hear you ended up with a good outcome. But damn, a month is quite the turnaround time for something like this.

Do you mind if I ask how heavy your use was of the controller that got the drift, and if your use changed when you got the replacement? I’ve seen some people (around the web) say they’ve had to replace theirs every few months like clockwork and others who’ve gone years without any issue.

Ok, will do. Good to know about the sticker. You let it sit for a whole day, though? Seems the alcohol should evaporate pretty quick and either work or not within an hour, but I’m clearly no expert. Also, I only have 70% isopropyl. I’m thinking I should probably be using 91% for something like this.

I did just put a fairly hefty amount (but not enough to really douse it) of 70%, shook it around a little, rotated the stick around a bit, put it upside down for about 15 minutes. … No improvement. 😞 I’ll try again with more alcohol but going to try to find some 91% instead.

just douse that shit in isopropyl

No more half measures.

OK, well cool. Maybe there’s still hope for me before having to do the return thing, then. So long as I don’t void the warranty, I guess I’ve got nothing to lose by soaking the sucker. But just so I understand you correctly, the drift thing happened to you once, you did that, and it has been good for 6 months since? Or you have had to do that more than once in the last 6 months, but it has repeatedly worked?

also, as a sign for improvement for me, the drift was gone while it was wet from alcohol (it’s fine, it’s non conductive + voltages are low anyways)

I did for a little bit at first think my attempt at cleaning it with the alcohol+swab had worked, but within 5 or 10 minutes the problem reappeared. I’m not sure if that’s promising or not, but I’ll give it another shot. Thank you for the tips!

A couple months ago I realized it had been a long time since I’d seen a Frank comment, so I was worried he was gone (from the site). But when I checked his /u/ page, he’d just posted again, and I was glad to see he was back. But it’s now been another month since there was any word from him. @Frank@hexbear.net, when you do check back, know that your posting was appreciated and its absence is both noticed and missed. I hope you’re well, comrade.

But while we’re on the topic, anybody know what happened to R/Egon? Or aaaaaaadjsf??

I was playing the Demon’s Souls remake. I’ve played a number of Soulslike games before, but never any from the original line of Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls, and I figured it was about time. It was pretty much exactly what I had expected (which is good), given what I’d heard about it and what I knew from other non-Fromsoft games plus my playthrough a couple years ago of Bloodborne. Probably not much I could say about it that hasn’t been said before, but I was certainly enjoying it.

I also have found I love metroidvanias so I’ve usually got one of those on rotation. Right now it’s Laika: Aged Through Blood which stands out largely because it is focused on a movement mechanic where you’re entirely, always on a motorcycle, very unique for a metroidvania. Combat all happens while you’re rollin’ and you only get two bullets (4 after upgrading) and the only way to reload is to do a backflip on your bike. There’s a lot I could say about it, but I’ll just keep it short and say it’s definitely fun and unique but also deeply flawed. The story is really quite gruesome, just describing the opening scene and plot motivation would require a number of content warnings. It’s got some great original singer-songwriter music, the woman who sang and produced it (honestly has a beautiful voice and clear musical talent) was apparently full on co-creator of the game, heavily involved in the coding and nuts and bolts of the gameplay too, which is cool. One of a slew of indie games coming out of Spain, it does have a strong western “libertarian” vibe, but as is often the case (imo), it feels right on the edge of being a potentially strong left-libertarian story if the creators were just a little more politically aware. I think. The protag does live on a dying commune, after all. The creators do know who the famous Laika was, since the main character is a dog who looks like, well, Laika. But unfortunately, there is nothing in it relevant to the Soviet space program (that I know of so far) aside from a few vague jabs at gommulism=bad, but you have to look for it. Considering its Spanish origin, I wonder a lot about potential inspiration from the Civil War, and who on the team may actually be anarchists, meaning maybe I should actually be giving it more credit as left-libertarian than the initial vibe I got.

At the top, I did say I “was” playing, but now I am not… because my fucking “dualsense” controller suddenly developed severe stick drift, making it too frustrating to play. I’ve only had it 2 fucking months.

I was literally saving up for over 2 years to get a PS5, it was a huge deal to get such a big treat for myself. I’m disabled, on foodstamps, basically no income, so for me, getting a console is a major expense and I felt guilty for spending that much on a treat. I knew stick drift was an issue, so I’ve been really careful, always washing my hands directly before playing and even keeping the controller in a plastic bag when not in use (it is really dusty here), I’ve not dropped it or banged it on anything a single time, always treating it delicately. But after only 2 months, fucking controller is practically unusable.

Isopropyl-dipped cotton swab + canned air around the stick ball edges haven’t helped so I think it’s just shitty hardware that is plain broken. And it’s such a fucking scam, I can’t believe it. Well, I can, but you know what I mean. The controllers are widely known to do this. Sony obviously knows and refuses to do anything about it, however many years it is now into the ps5 cycle. There have been a bunch of class action law suits against them (that of course were thrown out) for knowingly using their faulty controllers to bilk players by making them so they inevitably break and you can’t replace the parts and have to buy a completely new one for $70. Or you can buy their $200+ “edge” controller which has a few fucking bells and whistles but the main thing most people would want it for is that you can swap out the stick components for new ones. Only they’ve made those replacement sticks artificially scarce. And their “technology” is patented on all their controllers, so if you want the full functionality, you can’t buy 3rd party because 3rd parties aren’t allowed to make controllers with the full functionality. So everyone essentially has to just keep buying new controllers all the time as Sony rakes in the cash.

I realize this is hardly unique or new, it’s basically standard practice for this kind of shit. But it still pisses me off. Fortunately I’m still under warranty. I mostly only buy this kind of thing used to try to save money, but I knew this was a case where I might need the warranty, but I thought I’d have a little longer than < 2months. But part of the scam is that Sony is well known for being particularly bad with customer service to the point most people give up (again, nothing unique there, but apparently they’re really bottom of the barrel with this stuff), I will have to pay fr shipping to them, and it will be 2 weeks minimum before getting it back. So it looks like it will be a bit before I can continue my playthrough of Demon’s Souls. I have an old ps4 controller and apparently you can use them for ps4 games, but you’re locked out of using it for any PS5-only games like Demon’s Souls, and I do have a couple PS4 games I can play, so I won’t have to go cold turkey, but still… sucks. If you actually read my boring ass rant, I’m surprised, but thank you.

A few more I just thought of, and in addition to the other list BeamBrain made:

Spiritfarer (Entirely about learning to accept mortality, mourning, aging and death, but VERY whimsical and playful on the surface. You are a sweet young girl who is actually the captain of the ferry of death, giving the dead their last wishes before leading them into oblivion… by farming and cooking and sight-seeing)

Gris (more dreamlike than whimsical, but again reveals through the game it is meant to be explicitly about trauma)

The next three I haven’t played, but by what I know of them…

Farewell North (About healing after trauma, and admittedly as the name implies, saying the last goodbye, but on the surface about a dog making the world colorful by shepherding, freeing wildlife, etc.)

Beacon Pines (another story-book kind of adventure with furry animal characters on the surface but has some really dark twists about trauma and existential dread underneath).

Wanderstop (a tea shop in a magical forest! Oh wait it’s dealing heavily with burnout and psychological pain/trauma.)

The list just goes on.

There’s even studies that have been done addressing how trauma in indie games is a thing.!

Trauma Representations in Video Games

Over the last few years, the videogame community has seen an increase in the visibility of indie games, particularly ones that focus on serious subjects. Given the name “empathy games” by Minority Media’s Vander Caballero in his 2014 GDC talk, this sub-genre is known for its intense and meaningful narratives that often bring to light traumatic experiences.

Also…

Trauma in Games: Narrativizing Denied Agency, Ludonarrative Dissonance and Empathy Play