Grzmot's recent activity
-
Comment on Pluribus full season discussion in ~tv
-
Comment on Pluribus full season discussion in ~tv
Grzmot Link ParentThe LLM idea was something that the showrunner was asked about in an interview and shot down, but acknowledged that it's unlikely that anyone will believe it given how perfect it is. The pilot was...The LLM idea was something that the showrunner was asked about in an interview and shot down, but acknowledged that it's unlikely that anyone will believe it given how perfect it is. The pilot was written before LLMs were a big thing (I miss that time).
-
Comment on Pluribus full season discussion in ~tv
Grzmot Link ParentI doubt it will go this way, unless successfully spreading the virus unlocks some new stage that causes destruction. I think it would be anti-thetical to the show though and cheapen the premise if...It would be interesting to see what the pluribus does once it is done building the big antennae... does it just kill off all the humans?
I doubt it will go this way, unless successfully spreading the virus unlocks some new stage that causes destruction. I think it would be anti-thetical to the show though and cheapen the premise if the others become evil by achieving their goal. How would they even know? The signal they received travelled for 600 lightyears. Given that anyone affected cannot harm living things under any circumstance including plants, there's a solid chance that no one is around anymore on that originating planet due to everyone having starved.
This is smart writing that mirrors how viruses work in reality. Their main purpose is to spread, and this trumps their ability to harm. This is why, as diseases spread, they tend to become less harmful rather than more, because killing your host before they can spread you to other creatures is not how you succeed in evolution. I doubt they will discover some kill switch. Rather most people will die building the antenna and then presumably all of earth's resources will be dedicated to aligning it with planets we believe are most probable to have intelligent life, which will cause even more people to die until we reach some critical point the amount of people on the planet is so small that even with their pluribus hivemind, their individuality will return, or presumably, Carol and Menousos will figure out how to break individuals out of the hivemind first.
-
Comment on UK Conservative party would ban under-16s from social media in ~society
Grzmot Link ParentOf course some sites are going to comply and some are not. But the UK government has forced its own citizens to expose their own private data to random companies around the world in order to...Of course some sites are going to comply and some are not. But the UK government has forced its own citizens to expose their own private data to random companies around the world in order to verify their age, and these include pictures of faces and the matchid IDs, which of course contain a ton more data than just your date of birth.
The main issue is that only some sites will comply, and porn, for the most part, is porn. It doesn't matter wherever you get it on xvideos or pornhub, but if xvideos doesn't force an age check, then people will start going there. But these sites are naturally more unregulated and will contain porn that is even more harmful in what it depicts and how it was created.
Social media companies are more exposed, you are correct, and there is more money to be made, but the ultimate issue is that you can still easily get around this with a VPN.
-
Comment on UK Conservative party would ban under-16s from social media in ~society
Grzmot Link ParentThe issue with going after the algorithms is that your legislation needs to have teeth for that to work. Either rising fines that are a percentage of a businesses' revenue, or banning the service...The issue with going after the algorithms is that your legislation needs to have teeth for that to work. Either rising fines that are a percentage of a businesses' revenue, or banning the service if it doesn't comply.
But banning it is nearly impossible. The UK already tried it with porn. It just doesn't fucking work, you either need to government to verify the user's age, which the UK didn't even bother to implement, or send your very personal identifiable information to some fuck-off porn site providers somewhere.
The EU is trying it's best with its own implementation of zero knowledge age verification, but we'll have to see how well that'll work.
-
Comment on Looking for audio recording advice in ~hobbies
Grzmot (edited )Link ParentHi! Fellow small youtube creator here. The way you can picture sound is like bubbles. Something makes a noise, like your mouth, and then an air bubble expands into all directions from that point....Hi! Fellow small youtube creator here.
The way you can picture sound is like bubbles. Something makes a noise, like your mouth, and then an air bubble expands into all directions from that point. All hard surfaces like walls, desks, computers, kitchen fronts, etc, will echo this sound back very well, which is what's picked up by the microphones and makes your voice sound echo-y and hollow.
So yeah, sound will reflect from the ceilings as well. There are a few things you can do:
- Get an enclosure for your microphone like this one or that one. The principle of these are always the same: Isolate the microphone from all directions but one; the one you're speaking from. The reason why they use the triangle foam is simple: The sound gets lost between the peaks, instead of a flat surface like a wall bouncing the sound right back at you, and the soft foam is incredible at "destroying" sound. I use something like this for recording, and the difference is incredible. This is why people are recommending adding cloth everywhere. The softer your surroundings, the more the sound gets lost in them instead of being reflected back at you and the microphone. Even hanging up curtains and drawing them closed makes a major difference, because you're removing your glass windows, a very hard and echo-y surface, and replacing it with soft cloth.
- Software processing. I'm not sure what you use right now, but I'd recommend the free software Audacity. It has features you can use to isolate your voice in the recording, plus plugins that will do that for you in an even more automated fashion. I'd recommend looking up something like "Audacity voice isolation".
- Microphone gain. Professional microphones have gain knobs you can increase and decrease. Think of that like the "sensitivity" of the microphone. The higher the gain, the more it will pick up from further away. I'd recommend experimenting with the gain and your normal speaking voice to see what gain setting is best for picking up your voice and not much else.
- Microphone pattern. I saw that you purchased the Yeti, which is a multi-pattern microphone. You'll want to set it to the "cardiod" pattern so that it's most sensitive at the front you're speaking into and least sensitive at the back. This will further reduce echoes getting picked up as the sound hits the opposite wall and is reflected back into the microphone back.
-
Comment on Far Cry 5 | When gameplay and story fundamentally oppose each other in ~games
Grzmot Link ParentThis is because across like 10 to 15 years of gaming becoming a really big market, analysists detected a pattern in the way games succeed, and that was fairly simple: middle of the road...Then they adopted the universal big media strategy of putting every egg in a few big name IP baskets and expect the market to reward them with exponential returns.
This is because across like 10 to 15 years of gaming becoming a really big market, analysists detected a pattern in the way games succeed, and that was fairly simple: middle of the road "mid-budget" or "AA" games never became huge successes. Huge successes either came from indie developers that created something truly unique (which these companies didn't own) or huge AAA games like Call of Duty or GTA. So from the perspective of a publisher, who's going to pay these developers for 5 years anyway, you can run the numbers: given the previous performance of AA games across the market, is it better have them make 2 or 3 smaller games, or spend 5 years on one huge game? You are spending the cash either way, because game development budget is just salary, so there is functionally no difference to those holding the money.
This was the same sort of resource consolidation that hit every big media company from Disney to Netflix to even YouTube.
For streaming the effect was similar, but for a different reason. Streaming completely transformed the television industry. Royalties became functionally worthless, which were the backbone of old movie and tv projects. You used to be able to star in a movie for a shit payday because it used to bring you in money every time a television station showed it. This is no longer the case on streaming services, so actors are asking for bigger salaries upfront, which balloons the budget and killed the mid-size movie.
Now, Ubisoft pulled in a similar direction, but they added a weird company theme to it, where there was creative office full of old french dudes in Paris where every creative director pitching a game had to go and convince them that this game is worth funding. This creative office also oversaw specific gameplay decisions which is why for a while every Ubisoft game from Assassin's Creed over Far Cry to Ghost Recon turned into an RPG (probably also because an RPG makes the mictrotransaction easier to sell).
The issue is ultimately that the Far Cry series became a game about the protagonist being a one-man army defeating evil despots that has a really strange fetish for telling the player that this doesn't solve any problems. FC5 is just the most extreme variant of this plot, because the world literally ends if you try to save the day. Like literally. Nuclear war means the world is done and we might get intelligent cockroaches in a couple million years.
-
Comment on Pluribus full season discussion in ~tv
Grzmot Link ParentTo be fair, I don't consider that to be a plot hole or a flaw of the show, but it's just one reason why Carol was frustrating to watch for me. S1 is mostly about her coming to terms with the death...To be fair, I don't consider that to be a plot hole or a flaw of the show, but it's just one reason why Carol was frustrating to watch for me. S1 is mostly about her coming to terms with the death of her wife, and most of her actions are about that death, especially at the start. On the surface level she says she wants to reverse this and stop them, but what is really driving her is Helen's death. Sometimes people say one thing, but then do another.
-
Comment on Pluribus full season discussion in ~tv
Grzmot Link ParentYour enjoyment of this show is completely valid and okay, and I do not want to take it away or mess with it in any way with my criticisms of the show. They are subjective opinions. Art will appeal...Your enjoyment of this show is completely valid and okay, and I do not want to take it away or mess with it in any way with my criticisms of the show. They are subjective opinions.
Art will appeal differently to different people, and the slice of life that you crave with such drawn out scenes is what makes it grating for me. We react differently to the same things.
I just want to “follow along” and be there with Carol if that makes any sense.
It does! :] It means you care about the character and her journey. I'm happy you had a great time with it.
-
Comment on Pluribus full season discussion in ~tv
Grzmot Link ParentYou're right, the Others being truly or falsely happy can't be stated with certainty. It's just my personal take. I think for that we'd need to see more interaction between the Others without a...You're right, the Others being truly or falsely happy can't be stated with certainty. It's just my personal take. I think for that we'd need to see more interaction between the Others without a survivor present. We haven't had many scenes where we see the Others without the influence of a survivor, and in every scene where they interact, the Others are trying to fulfill their every single wish and whim. I presume in places where they do not, every single individual is working towards spreading the virus towards the next planet or upkeeping Earth.
I think the reason that I see it as a false happiness is also that there is just a lot of miserable people on the planet. Their misery evaporates in this big whole that the Others are, and they only feel bad when someone is mad at them, where they go into shock, or when they are forced to act against their biological imperative like when Carol almost made Zosla tell her how to reverse the process.
I simply cannot believe that reason would win, given how many deeply unreasonable people we have on the planet. So the virus does more than just connect people, it also forces extreme pacificism even towards plants, and it creates this blissful state, which is why I'm calling it "false".
EDIT: I think this connects nicely with @jamfox's comment: The Others are incapable of properly addressing Carol's grief because the only thing they can do is execute her commands. They can't really challenge her in the ways she needs to be challenged because of their extreme pacifism. This to me indicates that along with that pacifism, the virus induces a blissful "false" happy state, like a drug.
-
Comment on Pluribus full season discussion in ~tv
Grzmot Link ParentIt is very difficult to criticise art to any level of objectivity beyond talking about what works on the technical level, which on a production of this scale, things usually do unless the lead...It is very difficult to criticise art to any level of objectivity beyond talking about what works on the technical level, which on a production of this scale, things usually do unless the lead creative(s) make some batshit decisions like when Zack Snyder decided that every scene needed an extremely shallow depth of field in Army of the Dead.
Ultimately, what may work for one person, may not for another. I can enjoy a slow burn, my favorite director is Denis Villeneuve, and I'm definitely not part of the youtube shorts/tiktok generation with an average attention span of 30 seconds.
I think the prerequisite to being able to enjoy a character study is if you can watch a character for a long time. Pluribus tries to make this levy this up as much as it can, with scenes like the drone trash pick-up, but I do think that even as a slow-burn, it stretched out some scenes beyond a reasonable degree. Menousos' bottle episode was the point where the kettle boiled over for me. His determination is not something that needs to be shown anymore. He already spent days searching every single radio-frequency for minutes at a time, and he was shown eating dog food rather than accepting food from the Others. The only thing we learned in that episode was that he's so determined that he'd rather die than accept help from them, and that's a pattern that we had in every episode, except for episode 1.
Ultimately, neither Carol nor Menousos worked for me as likeable protagonists. They are not meant to be entirely likeable, and Carol is obviously constructed to be the exact opposite to the Others, it's the foundation of the show; but for a character study, too much time was spent on her by herself, which is not really something I enjoy. For someone trying to figure out how to reverse this thing, she was surprisingly non-inquisitive about how the Others work, which culminated in episode 6.
But to reiterate, Pluribus is still a good show in my eyes, not just for the unique premise, but also that it doesn't go for the obvious, cheap twist of the Others turning bad. It's set up two diametrically opposed sides and now explores wherever the trade-offs that each side has are worth it for the gains. That's really interesting.
-
Pluribus full season discussion
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
The first ep. got its own thread on Tildes and a decent discussion, I figured I'd try to get one going for whole season. Since it finished airing like 2 weeks ago.
I binged S1 yesterday, and am very happy that I waited till all episodes were out, as the pace of the show is glacial and I would've likely lost interest were I not able to skip around a bit. That's one of my two major issues. The other being that I found Carol insufferable at moments in the show. I think it does a good job at humanizing her and explaining why she is the way she is. It's also important to note that a majority of the show plays out days after Carol's wife Helen dies and she's reeling from that loss, as well as losing everyone else too. For me this culminated in ep 6, when she has a conversation with another survivor after having uncovered that they process human corpses into protein powder, and she thinks it's a big reveal that everyone else already knows. She just wasn't told because she's made everyone not like her.
That being said, the premise of this show is excellent and I love the questions it makes me ask and think about. The way it's shot is also fantastic. Yes, all of humanity is in a blissful state, but most of us would also die due to starvation, but there's no murder, no robbings, but it's also clear that this blissful state is more akin to being happy because you're on drugs, not "true happiness". I think this was most evident in the scene when the Peruvian girl turned willingly. Just before she does, she's shown with a lamb on her lap, which she likes and pets. The moment she turns, she just walks off, leaving the lamb behind. Obviously also all expressions of individualism are gone, this means all art, plus the question hasn't been properly answered on what exactly the Others do when they don't have someone around to make happy. I guess work together as a collective on sending the signal onto the next planet.
I think the big answer is going to be when they hopefully break someone out of the hivemind in S2. I just hope that it won't be the season finale, but sooner. I dislike the trend of prestige television being at such a slow pace.
What do you guys think? Both the smart writing and the pacing issues seem to be the main two things i see mentioned online. Anything else you liked or disliked? Any theories on where it'll go?
49 votes -
Comment on Far Cry 5 | When gameplay and story fundamentally oppose each other in ~games
Grzmot Link ParentI've never played FC6, but apparently, even though the writers are different, they follow the same sort of theme, because you defeat the dictator and nothing really changes. FC5 really does feel...I've never played FC6, but apparently, even though the writers are different, they follow the same sort of theme, because you defeat the dictator and nothing really changes.
FC5 really does feel like either writers wanted to creat the worst "gotcha!" moment of all time or they were done working on the series and wanted to burn it to the ground.
-
Comment on Iran’s supreme leader signals harsher crackdown as protest movement swells in ~society
Grzmot Link ParentI recently met an Iranian woman who emigrated 10 years ago but was a pro-democracy activist. I was not aware of there being a pro-monarchy crowd at all, and she informed me that when it comes to...- Exemplary
I recently met an Iranian woman who emigrated 10 years ago but was a pro-democracy activist. I was not aware of there being a pro-monarchy crowd at all, and she informed me that when it comes to the opposition to the regime, right now the pro-monarchy people are the loudest. According to her, they are numerically the minority, but are leading the protests right now.
It makes her very sad, because it replaces one despot with another.
-
Comment on Far Cry 5 | When gameplay and story fundamentally oppose each other in ~games
Grzmot LinkIf it isn't clear because my Youtube account has a different name: This is my video. Far Cry 5 (FC5) is a game that has haunted me for a long time. 8 years ago, while sitting in a boring lecture...If it isn't clear because my Youtube account has a different name: This is my video.
Far Cry 5 (FC5) is a game that has haunted me for a long time. 8 years ago, while sitting in a boring lecture and reeling from having recently played it for the first time, I wrote a rant here on Tildes about this game that flowed easily from my finger tips, even if it may be tough to read and so specific it sparked no discussion. No harm done, really. Some time later during Covid, I found myself in one of those late night online discussions and somehow we ventured into the topic of this game and I began ranting with such vigor that it took me about 40 minutes to finish. A friend in the discussion literally left their chair, went to the toilet, grabbed a drink and returned 10 minutes later and I didn't even notice and was still going.
I'm now out of university, my life is quite different, and it's been 10 years since I've played it for the first time. Indirectly, FC5 is one of the reasons I try to engage with media on a deeper level now, simply because of abysmally dogshit the story is. I've begun learning the complicated skill of video editing, and have found essay writing and editing to be a fulfilling hobby. I'm not looking to turn it into a job, because I am not interested in having Google and Youtube's recommendation algorithm become my new masters. To be this is purely my own creative expression, and while I strive to improve with every video, I don't want to make them differently to have broader appeal. If they change, it's because I want to. This is my stuff, and I'm proud of it.
In a way, despite it's absolutely terrible messaging, FC5 is responsible for that. Maybe I would've found my way towards this hobby without it too, but I think it would've been much later. Either way, I owe a strange thanks to this piece of art, no matter how despicable its message might be.
Thank you for watching.
-
Far Cry 5 | When gameplay and story fundamentally oppose each other
17 votes -
Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society
Grzmot Link ParentJust to affirm, rehabilitation being the main goal of a justice system was my opinion already when I wrote the original comment. I just didn't apply my own worldview and sought a bandaid solution...Just to affirm, rehabilitation being the main goal of a justice system was my opinion already when I wrote the original comment. I just didn't apply my own worldview and sought a bandaid solution for a specific and also incredibly rare problem, which, like you correctly point out, wouldn't be a problem if the focus was not for prisons to just be concrete boxes where people wait out their sentences, but actual facilities where the state pays great care to its inhabitants and also prepares them for when their sentence eventually ends and they are released back into society.
-
Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society
Grzmot (edited )Link ParentAnd I genuinely appreciate you asking this question, because it has broadened my horizon! It would be a lie to say that I was thinking of anyone else but trans people when I wrote my original...And I genuinely appreciate you asking this question, because it has broadened my horizon! It would be a lie to say that I was thinking of anyone else but trans people when I wrote my original comment, which is absolutely not okay.
Prison in general is a terrible place and I think too many people think that because it is a punishment, we don't need to care for prisoners, especially in the US, but really in a lot of places outside of Scandinavia, where the states have taken the correct path and focus on rehabilitating criminals into society rather than punishing them and then also brandmarking them forever.
Rehabilitation always beats punishment and should be the main goal of any justice system not just because it is more humane, but also because it's just better for society in the long run, and to rehabilitate people they need to feel safe. But you're right that I could have been smarter and poked it from the same perspective that you have, but I appreciate that you wrote your comment, because you have made me wiser.
-
Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society
Grzmot Link ParentThis one pains me still, because these things will keep happening, and do each case justice, probably require individual review by the authorities to decide where a person should be placed to...Gender Recognition Reform in Scotland was passed in 2022, leading to stronger self-identification privileges for trans people. It was quickly abused by Adam Graham / Isla Bryson, a convicted serial rapist, who demanded and was allowed to serve his/her sentence in a women's prison.
This one pains me still, because these things will keep happening, and do each case justice, probably require individual review by the authorities to decide where a person should be placed to serve their sentence. That being said, Bryson was isolated in the women's prison and afaik despite TERFs summoning this banshee to limit people's gender expressions legally, this has not lead to anything bad. I do think keeping people that have been convincted of sexual crimes against women out of women's prisons is probably a good idea.
-
Comment on Looking for Backroom games with something to do in them other than walking in ~games
Grzmot LinkCould you define, what a Backroom game is? Is that in reference to the backrooms creepypasta?Could you define, what a Backroom game is? Is that in reference to the backrooms creepypasta?
I hope that in the next season they break someone out of it successfully so that we can actually get an account of what it's like to be inside the hivemind. Since they all work towards a particular goal, it would also be interesting to see what their longterm thinking is, plus what happens when their goal is achieved.