Amarok's recent activity
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
Amarok Link ParentI highly recommend it - just the one season, but it ends up parked at a great spot that could be picked up again kinda like Stargate Universe did. It's the closest thing I've seen to perfect...I highly recommend it - just the one season, but it ends up parked at a great spot that could be picked up again kinda like Stargate Universe did. It's the closest thing I've seen to perfect cyberpunk on the silver screen. Great story, top tier acting, brutally dark humor that had me rolling, and it hits too close to home for comfort if you've worked in corporate America before. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had a guaranteed hit on their hands here, but as is their wont Syfy's people bungled the marketing. It was cancelled before anyone even knew it existed.
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
Amarok Link ParentThat's interesting. I've stayed awake for a little over five days at a time before (non-stop Babylon 5 marathon with friends) and towards the end of it, my color vision was washed out almost to...That's interesting. I've stayed awake for a little over five days at a time before (non-stop Babylon 5 marathon with friends) and towards the end of it, my color vision was washed out almost to black and white. Never knew sleep deprivation lead to hallucinations before you mentioned it.
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
Amarok Link ParentYeah, I'd qualify those results as ready for prime time, good enough to be a version one product!Yeah, I'd qualify those results as ready for prime time, good enough to be a version one product!
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
Amarok Link ParentOh, the implications are a lot worse than that. Here's a taste of the bad side from one of my favorite totally unknown science fiction shows. To quote one of the best movies ever filmed,...Oh, the implications are a lot worse than that. Here's a taste of the bad side from one of my favorite totally unknown science fiction shows. To quote one of the best movies ever filmed, "Gentlemen, progress has never been a bargain - you have to pay for it."
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Comment on New ‘Stargate’ TV series ordered at Amazon from ‘Blindspot’ creator Martin Gero in ~tv
Amarok (edited )Link ParentIf it were up to me... *Spoilers for Stargate : Universe* I'd always assumed that they'd eventually walk the tone of SGU back towards the original SG1 and bring the hope back - not that I mind the...If it were up to me...
*Spoilers for Stargate : Universe*
I'd always assumed that they'd eventually walk the tone of SGU back towards the original SG1 and bring the hope back - not that I mind the gritty, I just get tired of the dystopian. I'd have had them slowly uncovering the ship's secrets and restoring it piece by piece until it was back in great condition again throughout the series alongside the various episodic plots. That ship represents humanity's lost legacy, it's the story and the prize while they ride it around the galaxy. Eventually at the end I'd have liked to see them return the ship to Earth after finally getting it under control. It's Stargate's 'starship enterprise' in a sense, and it'd make the finest flagship for Earth's forces anyone could ever wish for. Great way to do a surprise evening of the odds if humanity finds themselves outgunned by events in the new series.
SGU's saving grace is that they left it parked perfectly to explain large time gaps and changes in the casting - though if Robert Carlyle isn't brought back as a recurring guest I'm going to be miffed, he's always been one of my absolute favorite actors and he was brilliant in SGU. I'd expect them to try to gate to the ship again if they can find a planet with a suitable quantity of naquadria to power the connection... hopefully this time without detonating the planet (which was a really tacky way to strand them on it at the beginning - do better this time). Also let's not blow the damn ship up either, Star Trek got into the habit of blowing up the enterprise all the time and that was also tacky as hell. Only done right once imo, in Star Trek III.
They could pick up something along these lines and weave it into the new series.
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Comment on New ‘Stargate’ TV series ordered at Amazon from ‘Blindspot’ creator Martin Gero in ~tv
Amarok Link ParentI'd agree with that assessment. I'd only rank it above TNG because there are more top tier Stargate episodes than there are top tier TNG episodes. There's so much Stargate, and now we'll get even...I'd agree with that assessment. I'd only rank it above TNG because there are more top tier Stargate episodes than there are top tier TNG episodes. There's so much Stargate, and now we'll get even more. :)
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
Amarok Link ParentNot so surprising that some hyperfantasics self selected it either - fewer visual distractions here than on places like reddit or X because nothing is embedded, no ads or images to leak unbidden...Not so surprising that some hyperfantasics self selected it either - fewer visual distractions here than on places like reddit or X because nothing is embedded, no ads or images to leak unbidden into your visual canvas. Perhaps we should add 'most differently neuro-divergent community' to our accolades. Somehow we've managed to exclude the middle and focus on the extreme ends of the bell curve. :P
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
Amarok (edited )Link ParentThis immediately made me wonder if we'll ever manage to get a helmet that can pick detailed images out of someone's mind with some training. I'll skip on the direct brain implants, but I'd dip in...I just realized that hyperphantasia is probably why I'm not a great teacher. As others mentioned here it's as difficult to imagine the lack of a vast sensory library as I imagine it would be to contemplate the presence of one. If I'm constantly expressing myself in terms that not all the students are equipped to imagine (there's that word again), of course the lessons won't connect.
This immediately made me wonder if we'll ever manage to get a helmet that can pick detailed images out of someone's mind with some training. I'll skip on the direct brain implants, but I'd dip in with a helmet or circlet for a brain computer interface - like the ones that were shown in the Three Body Problem. We're a lot closer to this than most people realize.
For someone like you, one day in the not so distant future you might be able to broadcast your mental images directly out of your own head through that sort of interface and have a clever AI throw it up on the screen for everyone else to see. Perhaps even download something like architecture blueprints through the interface into an AI that can instantly make the plans real engineering diagrams. That might catapult your teaching skills into a category that no one has ever seen before. ;)
This is the sort of AI application that outclasses either human or AI output by synthesizing the two into a real time feedback loop. I see it as a category of careers that don't exist yet, but will still be keeping people employed in the future to replace some of the jobs it's automating away.
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Comment on New ‘Stargate’ TV series ordered at Amazon from ‘Blindspot’ creator Martin Gero in ~tv
Amarok Link ParentThe only scifi show I'd rank above it is Babylon 5, and not by much. It's better than all of the others, has the best groundhog day episode of all time, and with 3 series at 10/5/2 seasons...The only scifi show I'd rank above it is Babylon 5, and not by much. It's better than all of the others, has the best groundhog day episode of all time, and with 3 series at 10/5/2 seasons respectively, the whopping total of 354 episodes and six movies will keep you entertained for a long, long time. ;)
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Comment on New ‘Stargate’ TV series ordered at Amazon from ‘Blindspot’ creator Martin Gero in ~tv
Amarok LinkI'm so in for this, and with modern budget and effects it'll make for quite the spectacle. Hopefully they'll tie up the loose ends from Atlantis and Universe. I'm still ticked that they canned...I'm so in for this, and with modern budget and effects it'll make for quite the spectacle. Hopefully they'll tie up the loose ends from Atlantis and Universe. I'm still ticked that they canned Universe just when it was threatening to turn into the best of the three series. Stargate is just too big and rich, a reboot would be a total waste of a mountain of delicious canon. A continuation is just what the doctor ordered.
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Comment on A new era of intelligence with Gemini 3 in ~tech
Amarok LinkObligatory video covering Gemini 3 from AI Explained. The short version - this AI embarrassingly beats the pants off of all other AI models on every benchmark, and Google is now in the lead where...Obligatory video covering Gemini 3 from AI Explained.
The short version - this AI embarrassingly beats the pants off of all other AI models on every benchmark, and Google is now in the lead where he expects they will remain for some time.
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
Amarok LinkDamn, how many aphantasics do we have on Tildes?! I'm one too. Best I can manage is a dim wire frame that pops into my mind for about the duration of a camera flash in a pitch black room, and I...Damn, how many aphantasics do we have on Tildes?! I'm one too.
Best I can manage is a dim wire frame that pops into my mind for about the duration of a camera flash in a pitch black room, and I can't flash that camera more than once every couple of minutes for any given scene. No colors or textures, just vectors, shapes, edges. I can't remember dreams at all, not even a tiny fraction of them.
I've got the omnipresent visual snow and tinnitus to go with it, though the migraines stopped once I was out of my 20s. Even magic mushrooms and LSD hit my mind like a brick wall - I don't think it's possible for me to have hallucinations, I've tried on several occasions. The closest I get is some washed out almost transparent pastel rainbow stripes if I stare at a bright white wall while under a heavy dose. I do get enhanced color perception and the 'breathing' visual effect while tripping, but no trails.
Never seemed to bother me when reading books, doing calculus or physics, or various engineering tasks. Never bothered me on the art either, but then I don't imagine an image and try to draw it, I just start plopping things down onto the paper and working with them once I can look at them. I'd say the only thing about it that bothers me is the reflexive irritated eye-roll I do every time I hear someone say the word "visualize" when trying to explain something. That technique is utterly useless to me.
My audio memory is probably better than normal, though. If I listen to your voice for about five minutes and we don't talk again until twenty years later on the phone, I'll recognize you from just your 'hello' even if your voice has changed. Using this to freak people out is kinda fun. I can play back complete songs I've heard in my head like there's an embedded mp3 player in there if I've heard it enough times, though it's not instantly memorized and I do forget them over time.
I was doing some digging on this out of curiosity some time ago and found some anecdotal evidence that Ayahuasca and DMT can 'cure' it for some people - and not just while high, I mean permanently after one dose. Doesn't work for everyone, but apparently the heavy psychedelics do work for some people. Haven't tried either of those yet myself. In fact being able to remember everything I'd seen before seems like hell - all that visual crud in the brain would clog up and slow down my thinking like a Tildes front page full of cat pictures.
I also found some meditation techniques that presented a method for training that visualization process. I tried it out of curiosity and after some practice it did seem to work - I could lift a small image off a page and keep it around like the tiny spot you'd see from staring at the sun, and lasting about that long. Didn't bother keeping up with it though, as I said it doesn't seem useful to me.
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Comment on Twenty-five movies, many stars, zero hits: Hollywood falls to new lows in ~movies
Amarok Link ParentYou need one police officer around to supervise the public and the shooting location, but now you've got to pay for ten because codes, that sort of thing. Expect to have to pay for many times the...You need one police officer around to supervise the public and the shooting location, but now you've got to pay for ten because codes, that sort of thing. Expect to have to pay for many times the manpower you require. Loads of people who make movies have been complaining about it forever, and it's a major reason why film is leaving California. Goes back at least as far as New Line building an entire alternate film industry for LoTR in NZ including WETA - it was about more than just the gorgeous location. Even in the spaghetti western days it was cheaper to shoot in Italy and avoid Cali's bureaucracy.
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Comment on Twenty-five movies, many stars, zero hits: Hollywood falls to new lows in ~movies
Amarok Link ParentIf they'd gut the budgets down to 20-50 million apiece, they'd have few genuine flops. Wasteful spending (and usually double the budget in marketing) is what has destroyed it all - well, that and...If they'd gut the budgets down to 20-50 million apiece, they'd have few genuine flops.
Wasteful spending (and usually double the budget in marketing) is what has destroyed it all - well, that and the lack of any writing above the level of a pre-school. Cinema is now a bloated, union-laden, nepotistic industry that is so choked on its own legacy bullshit that it's suffocating.
They keep beating dead horse franchises (guaranteed losers) rather than making dozens of smaller productions for the price of that one tent pole property. Time was you made every movie cheap as you could in the hopes that one of them would run away at the box office and fund the next fifty films. Now they think they know which ones will run away to a billion ahead of time - that's pure arrogance.
That's alright, though. Hollywood is in its final death throes and it is never coming back, good riddance. Cheaper productions can increasingly be done by anyone anywhere with no need to cater to California's bullshit unions, institutions, or politics. Good cinema will live on, the tiny region of the world that has had film in monopolistic chains for decades will not.
Doesn't look so good for the theaters, though. Hollywood hasn't got the writing talent or the acting chops to fill every seat in them every single weekend like they once did. In fact, that's been the case for so long that at least two younger generations of people don't know why they would ever bother going to a theater in the first place. Once that habit's broken, it's broken. Took decades to instill it the first time around. Good luck bringing that back.
I'm still waiting for dinner theaters to become more common, and for my theater ticket stub to get me a rebate on the blu-ray. I can only assume no one is genuinely serious about solving this problem. :P
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Comment on Valve announces new hardware: Steam Frame, Steam Controller, and Steam Machine in ~games
Amarok Link ParentThe main draw for me is longevity and quality of the hardware. Valve's been good at that, and frankly, I'm tired of controllers that break after a couple years of use and don't allow for battery...The main draw for me is longevity and quality of the hardware. Valve's been good at that, and frankly, I'm tired of controllers that break after a couple years of use and don't allow for battery replacement.
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Comment on Valve announces new hardware: Steam Frame, Steam Controller, and Steam Machine in ~games
Amarok LinkI have to commend Valve for nailing down precisely what gamers want out of their hardware. My hat is off to a marketing team that listens to customers rather than dictating terms to them. I think...I have to commend Valve for nailing down precisely what gamers want out of their hardware.
My hat is off to a marketing team that listens to customers rather than dictating terms to them. I think I'll take at least three, possibly four of these... just one VR headset (because VR tourism is fun), with lots of extra controllers. I was looking at making some home theater PCs to replace my aging Nvidia Shield devices, something built out better for gaming and emulating older consoles. This is the perfect replacement. This machine can handily emulate every prior console, run HTPC software like Kodi or Plex, and run about 98% of all PC games that exist. I'd be hard pressed to top the hardware with any of my own builds.
Since this is a real PC, the modding scene will operate here with total freedom. That's never happened in the console space before, though the modding scene for the very first Xbox is about as close as we got. That was a lot of fun, so many programs and apps and emulators were ported to it and grew out of it (including Kodi). Actively stamped out by all latter generations of every platform, of course, because it defeated their walled garden mentality. Valve is going the other way, jungle mentality, and that's going to profit them handsomely.
If this platform hits a certain level of critical mass, the mod tools are going to start supporting it (and linux by extension) directly on Valve's standardized hardware. That's a swift path to one-click installs of mod collections for thousands of games and better linux mod tools. I hope Nexusmods is paying attention, wouldn't take much for Valve to become a competitor if they put some more effort into the steam workshop.
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Comment on An AI-generated country song is topping a Billboard chart, and that should infuriate us all in ~music
Amarok Link ParentJust to pile on, I can reality-check that assumption with this pure-AI track. Those actually are AI-written lyrics, too. From the actual human who created this (imo rather delightful) little...There’s no question that AI generated music lacks the heart and soul you find from artists who live and breath their music. There’s no depth to the lyrics, no intricacies to the music, and nothing particular interesting about the crap they’re putting out.
Just to pile on, I can reality-check that assumption with this pure-AI track. Those actually are AI-written lyrics, too. From the actual human who created this (imo rather delightful) little track:
Music is mainly all generated using AI. Only 0% to 5% of the generated lyrics get manually adjusted afterwards by me, so there definitely will be some lyrics which will play with your imaginative interpretation skills. I'm mostly intrigued with the AI mathematical manipulation, instead of following the common musical compositionsI'm a software developer who also, as a side project, does coding of AI + RAG using Python. I love listening and appreciating all forms of musical sounds and patterns of all things living (which includes us humans) that internally move me or makes me wonder.His little AI experiments are all right here. There are a lot of them. So, this track was created by a software developer, not a musician.
If you want to discover the track you've still got to play it live, give it a chance to breathe and echo at a few shows, play with it on tour. I want to hear this AI track covered by The Greyhounds. They would embarrass any AI with the final cut. ;)
I'd also like a tool that could track the influences the AI used creating this track back to the original sources. If it's just lifting and remixing, seems like it's on the scent of some artists I'd like to hear... no credit is given to whatever sources the AI cribbed this from. Gotta admire capitalism for impossibly reinventing theft yet again, in an entirely new way. I think all the artists suing over AI right now have got a point. No attribution, no compensation.
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Comment on Tilderinos in ~talk
Amarok Link ParentSome of us would, had we not nuked our accounts from orbit on the way out the door of that other place. ;)I would bet a bunch of the first Tilderfriendos have even older accounts :)
Some of us would, had we not nuked our accounts from orbit on the way out the door of that other place. ;)
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Comment on An AI-generated country song is topping a Billboard chart, and that should infuriate us all in ~music
Amarok LinkLet's note that Billboard has been the textbook definition of slop quality for several decades at least. This is 'secondhand smoke at the airport' music we're dealing with here. The charts are...Let's note that Billboard has been the textbook definition of slop quality for several decades at least. This is 'secondhand smoke at the airport' music we're dealing with here. The charts are politics and payola, that is all they have ever been. At no time in history did charts ever cover the 'best' music. They listed whatever was being pushed by the industry at the moment, typically via backroom deals with labels for radio exposure and market trend capitalization.
Charts exist as advertising to create popular music, not simply catalog it. The one who controls the catalog gets to choose what is popular, that's the scam. They pick the artists that make them the most money, period. If you didn't pay into that system in some way (usually by giving up more of your rights and a lot more of your profit), you didn't get radio play, and you didn't get to be on the charts. It's 'product' and all about moving 'units'. Even the language used by the people in the industry does its level best to divorce the art from the end product. Now ask yourself... does AI music make them more money than real artists do?
Put another way, Billboard charts are what people who don't listen to music consider to be music. The kind of people who if you asked them to name seven genres, they couldn't do it. I look forward to watching AI slop devour the charts permanently - if there's one thing an AI is going to be good at, it'll be cranking out basic 4/4 popcorn for elevators and bad DJ mixes for dull dancefloors.
I think musicians who make library music are the ones who are truly doomed. That large and quiet segment of the music industry just went up in digital smoke. If artists want to make money in this world, the old way is still the best way - get good live, go on tour, sell tickets, sell your albums and swag at the shows. Retain your rights, remain independent, keep your entire revenue stream to yourself - do not share it with corporations.
Here's an unpopular take - if an AI can kick your ass as a musician, perhaps it's time for a career change. It wasn't so easy back in the day to set up a digital audio workstation for a couple grand and compose your magnum opus. You had to have real talent and be at least good enough to keep up with the session musicians without them kicking you out of the million dollar studios where the music was made, because you were a chump who hadn't put in the work to develop chops yet.
On some level, all this kicking and screaming about AI strikes me as panic from pretender musicians who were never good enough at their craft to be offered a record deal in the first place. Cheap production and savvy computer software convinced them they could make millions without bothering to learn their chords and scales. Auto-tune trivialized singing for people with zero vocal control, and now it's replacing those same people. Now that AI is here to challenge them, they don't want to put in the work to do it live and go on tour.
I'm strangely cool with that as a cutoff point. If you can't beat the AI, you don't get to play this game. Turns out it's not hard to beat the AI - just show up as an actual live person and know how to jam. If you can't do that, I haven't got a lot of sympathy. Life is competitive, and learning how to play well is real, hard work even if you have natural talent. You were never promised a record deal as part of your basic human rights package - some things have to be earned the hard way.
That reminds me, have we killed Ticketmaster yet? It's a bigger problem for every touring artist than AI will ever be. Kill that malignant racketeering cancer and musicians get to double their ticket profit at the same time they cut the ticket price in half so the rest of us can afford to see the show.
That is exactly how it worked for me when I was trying to visualize things. I'd have a blank piece of paper with something small on it (like a thumbnail-sized bird) and stare at it, then try to retain it after I closed my eyes. I could pick it up and hold it for a bit, I'd lose it after a minute or so unless I dipped back out onto the page to refresh it. I figure if I practiced at this a lot every day I could perhaps open up a wallet-at-arms-length size area where I could place a visual image that would persist, perhaps even with some control.
The 'cloud-rorschach' trick is much, much harder to pin down and control. My visual snow looks an awful lot like this but mine is calm - all the images people make to show how it looks are running at 60Hz compared to my 2Hz speed. My snow drifts around, changes colors, and shifts more lazily than falling snow on a still day. Mine's also more transparent than that, it's hard to even notice it if my eyes are open unless I'm looking at a bright solid color background.
If I close my eyes, I get what's more like HPPD static but again, vastly more calm than that image implies. If I try to focus on a scene, sometimes the snow will swirl over and around what I'm trying to imagine in waves that flow from the edge of my vision to the center. It's as if you took the pixels on a video you were watching and set them free to flow around all over the screen, but they have to follow the slopes and shapes of things even though they've now lost texture and all turned into shifting rainbow colored sand. Then they rebel and abandon the forms they were briefly following and I lose the image. It's really quite pretty but not useful. :P
I can't pin down a size for the individual snowflakes/pixels either, which I've always thought was peculiar. It's as if they shrink when I try or are somehow infinitely small to begin with, like I'm looking at plank-length flecks of light. Pixels on a monitor are gargantuan compared to the ones making up my static.