Steam is so funny.

Buying there instead of pirating is a joy, the ads actually feel like a benefit instead of a punishment, the analytics seem to be aimed at saving me time by highlighting stuff I’ll like instead of gaslighting me into emptying my wallet…

The result is:

I buy lots of games, watch lots of ads — share ads with friends even — go out of my way to give them more analytics data points, and trust their recommendations enough to shell out $2.99 for something on sale after only 10 seconds of research.

Why are other companies not able to follow Steam’s approach?

Sounds like they are preparing to “pull an Apple” with more than just pricing there.

Part of the benefit of Apple’s M series is the unified memory model. They’re able to convert that into increased GPU performance because you no longer have to transfer data in and out of VRAM.

But Apple can only pull that off because they control the CPU, GPU, and the OS (specifically the graphics SDK). Writing graphics code in a unified model is quite a bit different from the conventional x86 model.

Intel would need their own equivalent to Metal if they wanted to do a similar move.

I don’t know enough about Vulkan to say if it’s compatible with this kind of approach, but if not then is Intel really up to starting from scratch?

If they got Unreal and Unity on board, I guess that would give them a good chunk of the market right off the bat for new titles, but what about legacy ones?

The venerable master Qc Na was walking with his student, Anton. Hoping to prompt the master into a discussion, Anton said “Master, I have heard that objects are a very good thing - is this true?” Qc Na looked pityingly at his student and replied, “Foolish pupil - objects are merely a poor man’s closures.”

Chastised, Anton took his leave from his master and returned to his cell, intent on studying closures. He carefully read the entire “Lambda: The Ultimate…” series of papers and its cousins, and implemented a small Scheme interpreter with a closure-based object system. He learned much, and looked forward to informing his master of his progress.

On his next walk with Qc Na, Anton attempted to impress his master by saying “Master, I have diligently studied the matter, and now understand that objects are truly a poor man’s closures.” Qc Na responded by hitting Anton with his stick, saying “When will you learn? Closures are a poor man’s object.” At that moment, Anton became enlightened.

We do what we can, because we must.

I think it’s kind of strange.

Between quantification and consciousness, we tend to dismiss consciousness because it can’t be quantified.

Why don’t we dismiss quantification because it can’t explain consciousness?

“Insufficient detail. Please ask a specific question.”

“Read the wiki”

“Nobody here is interested in holding your hand.”

Cherry pie

Only too true.

the study finds that people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.

…

it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more—not less—susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability.

Yall ever notice that professions that specialize in logic also tend to produce the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet?

“Google is insidious. They’re really an advertising data-collection company, but people think they’re a tech service company. Their whole strategy is to provide stuff like Chrome for free so that lots of people use it and it becomes a de facto standard, and then they flip a switch and quietly mine all of that data.”

15 minutes later…

“Anyway, I prefer Android cuz it’s FOSS.”

I like how “description” is one of the components of the… description.

BigYiff69 is edging to a match-3 game in My Waifu HVAC Repair Elf 6

That’s a weird take. I’d say pretty much everything from impressionism onwards has (if only as a secondary goal) been trying to poke holes in any firm definition of what art is or is not.

Now if we’re talking about just turning a thorough spec sheet into a finished artifact with no input from the laborer, I can see where you’re coming from. But you referenced the “only seven stories” trope, so I think your argument is more broad than that.

I guess what it comes down to is: When you see something like Into The Spiderverse, do you think of it as a cynical Spiderman rehash where they changed just enough to sell it again, or do you think of it as a rebuttal to previous Spiderman stories that incorporates new cultural context and viewpoints vastly different from before?

Cuz like… AI can rehash something, but it can’t synthesize a reaction to something based on your entire unique lived experience. And I think that’s one of the things that we value about art. It can give a window into someone else’s inner world. AI can pretend to do that, but it’s a bit like pseudo-profound bullshit.

But the company culture.

¯\(ツ)/¯

I’m not an entomologist.

https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=551

There is plenty to criticize about Apple when it comes to anti-consumer and anti-competitive business practices…

But if you’re gonna talk on the level of “evil” and “freedom”, Apple’s greatest sin is their supply chain.

And then there’s Google, whose evil I would place somewhere between [Apple’s] pseudo-monopoly and [Apple’s] pseudo-slavery. At least Apple is a tech company. Google is a surveillance company that just happens to make tech so they can monitor you more closely.

Working with the shared-space AR APIs in iOS and Android really drove home the difference in their priorities. The iOS SDK only allowed us to share AR data through a local, SDK-managed connection. The data is opaque, can’t be directly serialized, and doesn’t work anyway if you try to persist/distribute it yourself. Android, on the other hand… They wanted us to upload your AR data to Google-owned servers, where they could do Google-knows-what with the scans of your living room.

It’s sad that we’re at a point where you have to either pay for your privacy, or pay with your privacy. But we can at least not be naive about it. Android is more interoperable, more prolific, and more lenient with third-party code. And that’s because it’s a good strategy if you’re a surveillance giant. Not because it’s good for consumers.

Edit:

Got a couple of comments that are like “Um, actually, Apple is still subject to government surveillance and exploits”.

Let me be clear: You should not expect any off-the-shelf product to shield you from intelligence agencies and state-sponsored hackers. You will have to radically change your life to accomplish that, and “Apple or Google?” won’t even be a relevant question for you.

And I’m not saying Apple doesn’t do shady monitoring for their own commercial purposes.

All I’m saying is that Google’s core business model is shady monitoring, and that directly influences their decisions regarding Android. So painting it as the commoner’s hero against the greedy walled-garden warden is a dangerous proposition.

There are no good guys here.

There’s some hardware, SDKs, and back-end services that you can evaluate on their own merits if you’re capable.

But if you want to just look at business practices:

• There’s one company that doesn’t want to integrate with anything outside of their own products – because that’s good for their bottom line.
• And there’s one company that wants to integrate with anything and everything – because that’s good for their bottom line.

Don’t assume the difference is benevolence.

We need a new Trillian or Adium. Fucking anti-interop gatekeepers.

I think refusers go to military prison, not regular prison.

There should be an override mechanism. It could be super narrow, so like “All non-veto-holding members must unanimously agree to override the veto, and the override must then be sustained by a general assembly vote of 3/4”