• 1 Post
  • 17 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: August 5th, 2023

help-circle
  • This is largely the problem with most social media, and generative AI has made this problem worse just like it has made other pretty terrible facets of human interactions worse.

    Anyone who was paying attention on reddit the last couple years (even pre-pandemic) could see that bots were taking over. The main difference (love mods or hate them) was that mods who’s subreddits didn’t rely on bot content to stay active were moderating the bot problem as best they could.

    Now, most of those mods aren’t mods anymore and the vast majority only really want the engagement anyway so of course they’ll let bots basically take over.

    Reddit the corp never cared about keeping bots off the platform and they care even less now. Bot engagement counts. Bot views of ads count. Removing bots actively hurts their bottom line in the short term so of course they aren’t going to do anything with that.

    The actual human users on Reddit don’t care because they’re there to consume. It doesn’t matter to them if the posts they engage with are made by bots or not.


  • So two things. They mention repeatedly that they used the Joycons on a desk. I think that’s the first problem with ergonomics. We know that the switch gets played pretty often in couch mode where you don’t have a table to lean on as you play. So you’d more likely use them on your thighs which makes a bit more sense ergonomically.

    The second thing is there’s likely to be a whole cohort of extra peripheral upgrades to improve the ergonomics or the Joycons themselves (just like there were previously).

    I have a hunch the reason the Joycons weren’t made more ergonomic in general is because this console is still targeting kids with smaller hands despite it’s larger footprint in the second iteration.

    The market is still flooded with grips and cases to make the original switch/OLED models more ergonomic for longer play times. I doubt this will be any different.

    I’d also wager that Nintendo will put out more mouse adjacent peripherals or hori and the like will do so.





  • Tech giants welcomed Trump because they thought he would enable two things. A roll-back of regulations, and to increase profits. The thing is, the monkey wrench in this situation is twofold. The first problem is Elon Musk being placed in a position of power that enables him to detrimentally effect the profits and regulations of these industries to benefit his companies first and foremost while also being detrimental to these other tech companies. We see that a lot with the data he’s been stealing from all kinds of government agencies under the guise of saving the government money.

    This means that even regulations that are removed that pave the way for these companies to enact policy or even just products to enrich themselves are hindered by Musk being a direct competitor to a lot of them. Facebook/Instagram vs Twitter, Tesla vs Ford, SpaceX vs Blue origin.

    The second problem is the tariff situation. It cuts off a majority of tech companies from the cheap manufacture of components, devices, and even just consumer electronics that a lot of tech companies rely on in order to get their products into the hands of users so they can siphon up user data.

    A third problem is that Musk has his hands in so much stuff that he’s pressuring the government to place his companies first in the running for. SpaceX and Tesla especially for things like bullet proof vehicles (where previously the government had contracts with other automotive manufacturers), and SpaceX being used for missions that NASA might have previously handled using Boeing products etc.

    All these tech companies went to Washington DC to “Kiss the Ring” with the intention not just of avoiding a lot of legislation being leveled at them by previous administrations, but also in the hopes that they could position themselves as Musk had. For further government contracts. Because long after Trump is dead and buried, the contracts would be lucrative.

    But that assumes they survive all the upheaval his administration is causing (and not just survive it, but come out largely economically and financially unharmed).

    Anything may be possible, but the market has to survive in order for these companies to remain supreme.





  • They haven’t “won” until Meta has to pay damages. And even then, that win is hollow because not only will Meta try this again if the penalty isn’t high enough, but they’ll use the advantages of our weak leadership to further avoid any serious repercussions.

    This article assumes Tik Tok wants to sell or that they are going to sell to a company that’s basically a direct competitor. I don’t understand this assumption.


  • It’s a bad time for an increase economically. But when you realize that we have been paying $60 USD for games since at least the 90’s and $60 in 90’s money is something like $150 in 2025 money, you realize just how good we’ve had it for a long time. And then take into account that games have become more and more expensive to make (yeah yeah I understand that a lot of the cost is down to a lot of non-game development relevant jobs), you don’t start to wonder why they didn’t increase prices before?

    I’m not saying we like it. I’m saying that anyone who’s given it some thought can see why they might want to increase prices.


  • Some of them are just fine with the switch 2 hardware and even understand that game prices have been stagnant for some time. But Nintendo has been constantly showing us they aren’t a company we want to continue to support and if you couple that with affordability you’re gonna have a bad time.

    They’re charging $90 for a game that plays better on non-oem hardware than it did on it’s original intended hardware, a game a lot of fans have already bought (who would still need to pay an additional $10 fee just to get the game running the way it probably should have run from the start).

    I mean this in the best possible way, but Nintendo fans are avid collectors and they want this, but Nintendo dissuades them in multiple ways from showing support.




  • So, what (in France I know!) are you getting for said taxes that you were not getting before?

    Because that’s exactly what I’m getting at. It is the schools responsibility to enforce the rules. The point is, it’s not the schools responsibility to take on the liability of what comes with that (ie. Holding onto thousands of dollars worth of tech with the ability to keep that tech in the same condition it was in when it was confiscated for an untold amount of time), it is the parents responsibility to make sure their children aren’t ringing such distracting material to school. And this means there are already likely protocols in place for distracting material. So what are you getting out of this ban?


  • And that is the fault of the parents who chose to hand phones to these kids. It is not the fault of the school, nor is it something the school should have to do anything about. (Edit for clarification: what I meant by “so anything about it” was schools aren’t responsible for teaching good and responsible phone use and self control, nor is it their job to step in when the parent is doing their job with teaching these skills).

    I’ll also point out the argument that there was a push back then for outlawing video games and violent music because of its effect on young children and regardless of the validity of the danger to kids, it’s still the fault of parents who were allowing their children to listen to that music or play those games. Schools already likely have policies about cell phones, or at the very least policies about confiscating distractions.

    You seem to have taken this as not support for banning phones in schools rather than what it really is. A criticism of this method for the deficiencies that it creates without solving the problem or even (more than likely) changing anything about the protocols already in place for handling distractions in schools except potentially creating a worse situation for the administration who have to now be responsible for these items en masse because students and parents are going to ignore this until it hurts them personally.

    It also doesn’t teach students anything at all about moderation or the dangers of the internet, nor does it teach them anything about this tech which they will end up having to use as adults. And if you have seen adults with this tech you know it’s not just a danger to kids.


  • Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy? This happens everytime a new technology becomes popular and schools don’t know how to regulate it they do this.

    The downside is, a fair few student will have their phones confiscated by the school. But it won’t dissuade them from bringing them in. You make them better at hiding them instead of creating tools and protocols to enforce for when they can and can’t use them.

    The crazy thing is, this should be about schools not wanting to be liable for or responsible for these pieces of tech. But Everytime I see legislation like this, it’s to do with “children’s mental health”, or these devices being a distraction.

    Model it. Nobody should be allowed to have a phone in schools by this metric. No phones for students? No phones for teachers and administration.