this site has two programmers

 

dorky femme droid

eggbug enthusiast

important eggbug lore

 


 

if you use the phrase "be normal" as if it's something to aspire to, kindly take a long walk off a short plank. or block me. whichever is easier for you.

 


 

child of the 80s

 


 

i escaped a cult.
all of the content warnings.
all of them.
tag: exerian's tragic backstory

 


 

                                 
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nora
@nora

i think the other problem with using "AI" like midjourney or large language models for art is they are tweaked by executives with too much power to produce bland marketable garbage optimized for an algorithm that already is promoting bland marketable garbage. (the first problem is obviously the stolen content and energy usage but i am not addressing that here). old school procgen, if you do it right, combines things in a way that sparks human imagination; "AI" wants to replace human imagination.

take what is, in my opinion, the best example of procedural generation done without "AI": dwarf fortress. dwarf fortress creates huge sprawling skeletons of stories and leaves it up to the players to pick out the interesting bits, fill in the details and turn into anecdotes. but you're constantly bombarded with procgen story bits when you play, and you only remember the fun bits. you're a part of turning the gameplay into fun anecdotes about what your dwarves are carving on the walls and stuff.

and, i dunno, some of the reason that chatgpt and shit like that doesn't bloom the way dwarf fortress does is capitalism. and it's the silicon valley culture that flourishes under capitalism. but it's also not doing what you can do well with a bunch of humans making tools with rngs that they hand off to other humans to make stories with. it's trying to do something else entirely. and i just am not very interested in most of those products. because they are not built by people with an insane, beautiful artistic vision like dwarf fortress. they are reaching for an approximation of something impossible that they can pass off as real to rube investors. they all are replicating the bullshit education they got at stanford for being briefcase business boys, not trying to recapture the magic of rolling a natural 20 in dnd in a tense situation. and i just don't care what briefcase business boys have to say about anything, they do not imagine cathedrals, only plastic bags


nora
@nora

Kids aren’t learning science right these days! The teachers teach it like it’s just supposed to be useful, like, here, learn this geometry so you can design a building, here, learn this chemistry so you can make a plastic bag. Of course kids don’t like it! No kid comes home from school and says, ‘I want to make plastic bags when I grow up!’ We already have plastic bags, and comfy chairs, and flying cars, we’ve had them for centuries, and they aren’t getting better because they work already so no one’s interested in replacing them, just making them cheaper, or with more games. That isn’t science! Science is figuring out where the universe is going! Science is noticing that the ants crawling up the picnic table like your sandwich better than your ba’sib’s and asking, ‘Why?’ Not ‘How is this useful?’ not ‘Can I make this into a plastic bag?’ but ‘Why?

-Cato Weeksbooth, Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer


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in reply to @nora's post:

T-T This is Exactly why i hated school. every single thing u do is "because itll help you get a job" and i grew up wondering why Getting A Job is the only thing im allowed to spend my time on ? i wanted to draw and play in the garden and collect bugs but it was more important to learn about some other shit for a job i am never applying for bc im already interested in other things and would love a job relating to those things? but like those are the wrong things and school teaches you to be interested in the right things (being employable)

funnily enough i think if i was allowed to learn about the things i actually wanted to i probably could have a job by now !! but i had to kill my interest and focus on fuckin. shakespeare and ancient greece and ancient egypt so i can answer the questions in the exam that are about shakespeare and ancient greece and egypt. and then i can show an employer my Good Grade Award and get a job i dont know anything about because school didnt teach me that ..... ??? i havent used any of the skills i learned in school during my adult life and ive had to learn so much other stuff i need weekly or daily by my fucking self and also rediscover my own identity i guess? digging up my interests and hobbies from some deep freeze bc i finally have the adult freedom to have hobbies