I just finished reading “The BOFA Encounter”. It was muuuuch spicer than I expected ,but I suppose there’s a reason why that one in particular wasn’t on wattpad lol.

also there’s a anime dating sim x tax filing software, so that’s cool.

Watching more Kiff on Disney Plus. Not sure what exactly this text in the background is a reference to, but it feels kinda targeted lol. 🎈💥

Uhhhh interesting PoV, I might try drawing this later.

Please don’t misunderstand me, this Youtube channel is actually pretty decent and has some nice content. But it also serves as a very strong example of what happens when the human operator behind an AI gets so obsessed with letting the AI optimize for algorithmic metrics (Youtube’s recommendation algorithm, which is in turn based on user usage data) that they forget that the end users of the things they’re making are _humans_ that don’t like being treated like static, arbitrary machines in a system.

Admittedly, when you look at the huge view number jump after the switch to the repetitive clickbait title screen, I can understand the incentive for them to keep doing it. But it’s short sited because it results in what me and others have been doing:

Once it becomes clear we’re being manipulated and tricked into clicking unreasonably clickbaity content with an obvious pattern, we start to get skeptical and upset. We start to make fun of the pattern or complain. We start to unsubscribe, realizing that the human operator behind the AI was so preoccupied with the new visibility via clickbait that they break the usability and utility of the thing they’re making for the other humans that the SEO techniques and clickbait titles are supposed to be appealing to in the first place.

I am very _for_ AI and ML tools. I think it’s some of the coolest tech we’ve got going on these days and I kinda wish I had focused on ML when I was back in University. But people *must* keep their wits about them when using these things. People have to remember that they are humans making things for other humans. Everyone has to remember that at least for now all of these tools have humans behind them, and when the human stops considering the other humans and gets stuck chasing metrics, they’ll find themselves optimizing towards a misleading, unhelpful goal. (cough cough, please stop buying into the capitalism hype, it does not work and fails on regular cycles and exists purely to keep the people already at the top on top by fooling all of the people doing the real hard work into thinking they’ll be next in line on top if they just work hard enough. Work for your peers and equals, not for huge rich overlords cough.)

Watching the first episode of Kiff. Was amused when I got to 16:14 https://youtu.be/Gx5XjAT9a_o?t=974 and the scene goes from “Oh neat, it’s like one of those teenager youtube channels” to “not sure if this if they’re making fun of the in-video sponsor segments or if they’re making light of fetishistic requests during Twitch streams… or both”.

Either way, the show got my attention and I’ll probably give the whole first season a try. Besides,. I have a softspot for squirrels and bunnies and cheery light-hearted characters and the show’s primary cast is scratching all of those itches for me.

Also, I don’t remember what I originally made this blog for. But it’s mine. I’m going to use it. Suffer like G did.

ALL PLAYABLE CHARACTERS IN YAKUZA 5 CAN GET THEIR REVELATIONS THROUGH BLOGGING

I WANNA UNLOCK MY SECRET POWERS

GIVE ME THE POWERS

I’m not really a fan of Linus Tech Tips, I normally just click on a couple of the short Clips when they show up in my recommendation box and seem relevant, but I am fond of Linux

The clip was interesting enough that I hopped over to the full podcast, and had a very fun moment of them pointing out a social dynamic I’ve never had a big enough audience to experience in real time. The “Genuinely Helpful Fans” and the “Toxic GIT GUD hecklers” in large enough numbers in the same chat to immediately prove the point of why the podcast speaker was reluctant to be honest about their issues as a Linux Newbie.

There’s a point early in the Linux segment where somebody in the chat mentions “Don’t worry, we like to help newbies get in. Let us know what you’re having trouble with.” Linus sees this and acknowledges this, but points out that people like the person saying that are not the loudest ones or the fastest people to step in.

about 15 minutes later when he’s explaining a genuine issue trying to download and run a shell script from Github. When he tried to download it, he kept getting an HTML file and was confused and frustrated about why there isn’t a one-click solution to just make it run properly.

The “Don’t worry I’m a dev I have that issue too, here’s how to fix that” guy gets acknowledged again in voice, but sure enough the “RTFM” and “that’s a browser problem not a github problem” and “NO YOU DID IT WRONG [w/o tips for fixing the issue]” all start screeching.

Not really sure what ones to combat that kind of scenario, since being overly aggressive with trying to help can come off as pushy and unpleasant too, and nobody wants to be stuck spending 3 hours in a chat with a stranger when what they were trying to do is just use their computer.

Just finished reading 70-Seas and the 70 Seas Extras. It definitely gives a bit more context to certain parts of Latchkey Kingdom! Overall, I enjoyed 70 Seas and right around chapter 10 I started seeing characters that appear somewhat prominently in Latchkey Kingdom. Meanwhile in the Extras there’s a bit more expansion on side characters (Snake Guy, Hilde) and some of the popular characters for patreon art requests that otherwise don’t show up much in LK or 70S’s main comics like the twin sisters and that Barbarian wizard slayer lady.

I will say though, the main comic is pretty solid and has a relatively consistent sense of humor that lines up pretty well with Latchkey Kingdom. The extras shift considerably in tone, though. Some are great. Some just don’t appeal to me. And well, there’s one or two jokes in 70 Seas that aged horribly. But still, overall more than worth $8!

I might be a little hard to reach come this Tuesday.

And if you reach me via Hangouts or Email, I might be a tad snippy. Apologies in advance.

Holy crap I could make so much money as a freelance 3D artist.

Questioning my decision to not go to an art school right now. But only a little.