TwinIon

I agree with @legend that there isn't any reason to suspect this thing is sentient, it did make me think that it would be pretty difficult to tell the difference between a system that actually is and one that is just the world's best chatbot. I honestly don't know how one might meaningfully make a distinction. I agree with @LazyPiranha that I'd expect an actual AGI to respond to things in a decidedly non-human way. So it would need to be human enough that we recognize its' intelligence, but at the same time you wouldn't expect them to always have a perfectly human response to every query. I think it'll be fun to be able to talk to something like lambda. I wonder how resource intensive a conversation is right now and how far away they are from some kind of commercial application.

I'm looking forward to Diablo 4. I played a bit of D2R and enjoyed it, but there was so much that rightfully felt ancient. It seemed like they are really modernizing the format and the gameplay loop, and I hope they find a way to make it fun. Blizzard hasn't been anyone's favorite game company as of late, but everything I've seen of D4 looks good.

The gunplay looks pretty poor. There was very little movement from either the player or the enemies. I'm interested in low/zero G combat, but far from convinced they can make it fun. The guns seem pretty standard, and overall it just looked bland.Graphically it was about what I would expect from it; good but not spectacular. The environmental detail looks excellent and the lighting engine is doing some work, but the faces and animation don't live up to the highest standards. The star system view looked really bad, but hopefully that's just a work in progress. Unfortunately the Bethesda jank still seems present. After playing Forbidden West, I don't know if I can go back to a big RPG where the camera just snaps to the face of everyone we talk to. There were some camera movement in dialog scenes, so hopefully there's more of that and less straight on camera shots. The two things that really blew me away were the base and ship customization and the sheer size of it. I can easily imagine spending a lot of time building my perfect ship (or fleet, if that's a thing). Having NMS like planets while also still having a bunch of hand crafted locations seems like an ideal setup. I just hope that they did spend enough time building out the cities and outposts and what not so that the core planets feel substantial and purposeful. I'm sure that 990 or so planets will be algorithmically generated blandness, and that's fine, as long as there is enough well crafted stuff to play in. I do hope that we get NMS style travel, while also having some kind of fast travel. The solar system view had you choosing a landing spot, so some kind of fast travel is obviously included. We didn't see ground to space travel, which I hope is included. It also seems like a modder's dream to have a huge game like this where things can be added. It'll be a largely blank canvas that we'll see expanded on for years (assuming it's any good). It really feels like they're leaning into the idea that they want this game to be another Skyrim, a game where people can spend 1000s of hours over a decade.

I think the hearing so far was well done, but I also can't help but feel like it's all rather toothless. With the Impeachment, the stakes were very clear. They were presenting information in order to make a specific judgment on Trump. With this hearing, everything felt desperately important, but also almost irrelevant. They're shouting from the rooftops how close we came to literally losing our democracy, but at the same time this hearing is not (at far as I was able to tell) about solutions or consequences. Maybe that comes in the following hearings, but I think as a framing device it's rather important to be consistent and clear about it. Yes, it's important that we understand how much Trump did to incite Jan 6 and how little he did to diffuse the situation once it got out of hand. It's important to know that everyone around him was telling him that he lost the election, to give up on the big lie, and that many pleaded with him to do something to stop the violence. All that important information would have felt more vital if they were recommending Trump be prosecuted under the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause like Cawthorn (at the very least). It's also important to know that a bunch of GOP congresspeople sought pardons after Jan 6th, implying they thought they could be guilty of a crime, but it would be great if we got some insight as to if the committee looked into those potential crimes and enumerated what they might be and what the DOJ was going to do about it. So yeah, I'll tune in and support any effort to educate the public as to what happened, but what I'm hoping for is some indication that those in power are going to do more than make a televised special.

I agree. On Facebook they have a policy against setting up multiple accounts or accounts under fake names, but that's not the case on Twitter. There's nothing really stopping reporters from having a personal account to tweet bad jokes and workplace complaints and whatever else while not leveraging the audience that is following them for their work product or other professional views. I have the feeling that if you asked reporters why they don't do that, they'd probably ask why they should have to "hide" their opinions or their jokes. I don't think she was trying to get fired in order to secure some kind of settlement, and I think that she had a valid complaint, but at the same time it's understandable that maybe the organization you work for wouldn't be too happy if you keep putting them and your coworkers on blast.

MS has done a lot of Samsung exclusive deals in the past, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's a year or more before we see it on most other TVs. I'd also guess (or at least I'd hope) that MS is putting some effort into validating the experience and that we don't just get a bunch of mediocre TVs that struggle to play well.

I agree that "edgy" is probably a fitting descriptor for what we got in that trailer, but that's not exactly selling me on the film. When it comes to DC taking big swings, I remain skeptical.

The Xbox App on a TV feels like the natural endpoint for so much gaming, even if this version is bound to be questionable at times. The only thing that surprises me about it is that it got built into a TV app before we got the Xbox "keystone" streaming stick. I'm very curious as to what about it needed to be revised. Sure seems like MS has the capability to put together a small streaming box that runs the Xbox versions of media apps alongside Xbox game streaming, but maybe they couldn't figure out the pricing.

Probably doesn't help that we're only getting a meh 1080p feed, but I agree that it wasn't terribly impressive. It didn't look bad, but it didn't blow me away. Remastered still holds up pretty well. Maybe when we get some higher quality 4k footage to compare it'll stand out more.

Even if it's for stupid reasons, I'm always happy to see public funding for stadiums fail.

I wish the article had more info on what the impetus was for the change. Given that these decisions are made at a local level, I don't even think a federal guideline could drive such a shift. Is it simply a cultural change or was there some organized push?

We have a Niro EV and while I think it's a fine car, I love that it's electric. We bought it not long before the pandemic and it wasn't a terrible buying experience. We emailed every Kia dealer in a wide radius and asked for their best and final price for the exact model we wanted. In the end only two of them would give us a price over email. We ended up getting it for retail with minimal hassle, but the whole exercise is unnecessary. The first dealer we went to to test drive it wanted something like 10k over asking. Crazy. The Niro is a very normal car that happens to be an EV, which is what my wife wanted. For myself, once my 2003 M3 dies, I'm loving the look of the Polestar O2 concept. Everyone is finally making practical EVs, but I want a 2 door convertible that has no expectations of ever carrying a child seat and looks like it drove off the set of Blade Runner. Tesla's new roadster is vaporware and will be terribly expensive. I doubt the O2 will be cheap enough for me to actually justify the cost, but it's enough for me to imagine buying it for now. What I would love to see is something like an EV Miata. I want it small, sporty, and affordable. Hopefully the M3 lives long enough for such a car to exist, or for me to talk myself into spending enough for the Polestar.

Given the huge performance challenges that the current consoles have with the "real" next-gen stuff like UE5, I'm sure that we'll see some Pro consoles this gen, but when and at what price is unclear.

My wife and I both really enjoyed Maverick. It's very aware of why the audience is seeing this movie and therefore setting aside any problems that might get in the way of those reasons. They fairly quickly breeze through why Maverick is still flying, why they need to fly F-18s, why they might be fighting against 5th gen fighters, why you're bringing the "best of the best" back for more training, and why they'd need to fly in a completely bonkers way. It's sufficiently believable, but they don't linger on any of it much, because that would just get in the way of macho fighter jocks getting in pissing contests and freaking awesome sequences in fighter planes. I've recently watched a bunch of Marvel stuff before going to see Multiverse of Madness, and even though I really enjoy those films and shows, man was this a breath of fresh air. No nano-suit helmets appearing and disappearing, no CG monsters or unnatural pacing in fight sequences. Nearly everything about the flight sequences felt genuine and breathtaking. I'm sure there were plenty of effects still used, and I have no clue how fast they were actually flying, but the end result is spectacular. Even the human element is well handled throughout, which honestly felt like a bonus more than anything. It's also a legasequel that really knows how to handle the nostalgia element, even when it pushes it to the limit.

I have to imagine the long term impacts to the UK and London in particular are going to be severe.

This is definitely the most interesting of the recent NFT stories, mostly because it actually involves real copyright issues. Theoretically the ownership of the NFT grants copyright, which Green is using to make a real show. So in theory DarkWing84 could sue Green for using the Ape in the show, but I don't think that has actually been tested. Then there's the issue as to how much plausible deniability you have in purchasing a stolen ape when the history of the ape is encoded in the blockchain. I'm guessing that no part of this ever goes to court and this doesn't end up actually answering any of the questions it brings up. It is a good example of both how the blockchain doesn't solve problems and how it always comes back to legacy systems. Just like how cryptocurrency is really only valuable as a way to store dollars, NFTs that grant copyright are really only a different way of handling standard copyright. You're not eliminating the old way, you're simply building on top of it, adding a layer of problematic technology that doesn't actually simplify or eliminate any of the complexities it was seeking to.

Looks very generic, but could be fun.

Bummer. I've had a few of these and always liked them.

The Wachowskis really had to do something off the wall to make their version work, and it was pretty off-putting for most. I have a hard time seeing this working out well.

Fair enough. I don't know the story beyond the game, and I didn't mean to portraying the only way I thought it could work, just an option that would have put some emotional weight behind the choices the show ended up making. In the end they put a lot of focus on the creation of the spartan program and all the evils that Halsey and crew were willing to commit, but there's never any context to their choices. Maybe I missed some lines in the show, but from what I could gather by the end, the whole program was born from Halsey's hatred for humanity. That might be a motivation for her, but it's hardly an explanation as to why anyone was willing to go along with her. Still, I agree that this is hardly the show's biggest issue. So much of what happens in the show has no real context and doesn't give us a reason to care.

I hope they throw a few of the previous films back in IMAX before release. I'd happily watch Fallout again in the theater before going to this one, which looks awesome.

I'm guessing you're right, but it does surprise me. I suppose they suspect that COD players generally want to play the newest games (for MP) and likely have access to some system on which they can play them. Still, it does seem surprising that they couldn't find any worthwhile niche on the Switch. We've seen time and time again that people seen to buy Switch games that have been on other platforms for years. COD doesn't seem like it would be a real exception.

The trailer looks like it could be fun, but that CG needs some work.

I've been trying to find another game to play with a friend of mine that's a very casual gamer. I was thinking it would be fun to play through the GTA5 campaign together, but as far as I can tell, you can't do that. Am I correct? Seems odd that they have the technology, but never got around to co-op campaign. I've still never actually logged into GTA Online. I finished the campaign before it came out and never got around to trying it.

The last couple episodes have been pretty rough. I really think the only decently handled relationship in the entire show is Cortana and MC, which would be fine if they were the only characters that mattered like the game. Unfortunately this show is trying to do so much else and failing so badly at it. At this point I'm curious as to what they'll do next, but my only remaining hope is that Reach falls and season 2 resets things enough to give it a chance to improve.