Got some stuff to distribute today.
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Chat Battles
There’s a lot going on in the chat app field. Fediverse, Activitypub, Mastodon and Bluesky and Threads, etc.
I think this is a vast waste of time because chatting is not important. Never was, never will. It’s ephemeral. It’s in the moment. Reading 10-year-old chat logs will make anyone cringe at themselves. There’s no value in chatting besides the few minutes around when it happens. Thus all those companies and developers trying to grab an aspect of our lives that is not really worth anything, is weird (I know, they’re here for the tracking/ad potential but still).
And on the other hand, if you’re a person who likes to write and communicate with others, you probably already have a website/newsletter/stream and discuss things with people in many ways, from SMS to Zoom to Discord and whatnot. There’s no need for one chat thing to rule them all. It’s usually bad for all of us.
Just like chatting a lot.
Also WordPress is better than ever, and RSS is the only thing you really need. Tata,
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Generative AR
Them: “Generative AI is not smart, it’s just text and data parsing repeated and matrix’d up, it’s not actual comprehension!”
Me absorbing architecture daily through photos, layouts, axonometric views, articles, 3D scenes, schemes over dozens and dozens of books, blog posts, videos, understanding more and more of its importance in our lives, its literal costs, its structural engineering sub-division via repetition, revisiting the ones that I liked the most and comparing them to what I’m trying to build:
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AI 23
The year of generative AI, for sure.
I have never seen anything take over everything like LLMs did over the year. There are so many things going on in that space on all fronts that I can barely keep up.
Know for instance that full body deepfake humans in videos, at different freaking angles, are a thing now. Or that realistic 3D animation can be made from a single image. You know AI voices are extremely good now, right? Copilot on Windows 11 is impressive. And all those things are developing and improved on at an absurd velocity.
I could see that once the AI chips announced recently are used at high scale with the latest algorithm improvements and data, we’re going to break through something.
There are two main currents these days in tech about AI:
“great, a personal assistant for anyone, democratization of knowledge and increase of freedom, how awesome!!”
or
“AI is going to kill us all.”
I’m neither. I’m more like “the incentive for capitalism is to use the shit out of AI, therefore every single market out there is going to be massively impacted resulting in constant layoffs and more frightening, a lot less hiring.” Which is already happening, after barely 12 months of ChatGPT.
It’s impossible to see what it will be in five years. But I can safely say, be ready to be happy with not much. Get closer to nature, y’all.
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RIP Andre Braugher
I can’t believe he passed.
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Wondering
I’m writing about entertainment’s golden ages because with AI now and the heavy A/B test-based decisions (not the brightest by the way) of the past ten years, I feel like there’s a sense of everything being derived from something done before, at a high rate. It didn’t used to be like that.
My best example of this is floating worlds. Jesus Christ. It’s the de-facto template these days for “edgy” worlds but although it’s an old trope, it used to be rare! Now it’s like everything uses that setting. Which used to be awesome (the end of Laputa, ugh) but isn’t anymore.
What I mean is that over-optimization of entertainment leads to an increase of sameness. Which seems to be very addictive? What kind of impact does it have on people growing up on this? Their ability to discern, perceive differences and commons?
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Golden age of stuff
Games
90s-00s. The 90s were full of experimental games, produced Mario Kart, Street Fighter II and Doom. All the best arcade games ever. The 00s with 3D games never done before, FFVII, MGS, Counter-Strike and Mario64 and GTA? Give it up. Those two decades were peak video game. Everything after –massive online gaming full of bullying, mobile gaming and its whales, gambling and complacent long story-based games-, has not been it.
Movies
80s-90s. Just absurd quality when looking back after a decade of streamed movies with no soul. From the artsy, quirky French movies of those years, to the best blockbusters (Indiana Jones and E.T. and Rocky) to the movies we had never seen anything like it before (Terminator, Predator, Aliens, Akira) all the way to the 90s classics (Edward Scissorhands, The Big Lebowsky, Men In Black, Point Break), it’s been downhill from there. Everything in the 00s and beyond is just not as brilliant. It makes me want to re-watch so many things.
Music
70s-90s. Music has been insane during those three decades. Tons of music on the radio in 2023 is still from the 70s because music was everything in that time. Music in the 70s was like skins in games today: the hottest shit youth spends its entire money on. Sure, a lot of people would say that 80s music was not good, I disagree heavily. There was some technical hiccups due to transitioning from full analog to less analog, but I believe people were obsessively trying to make the best sounding music possible. And they did quite often. 80s Funk music is spectacular (Thriller, hello!). 80s metal musicians are playing playing. It’s also the start of hip-hop and house and everything electronic. The 80s were crucial. 90s electronic music is essential. 90s hip-hop is the closest to timelessness, thanks to creativity and sampling. 90s rock? From Nirvana to Korn to Pantera and Pearl Jam, just no contest here. But I think after that, the 00s and up have been rehashing ad nauseam, at a higher pitch and lower bass. Emo rock, trap music and dubstep trigger nostalgia but not much more. Even today, as the first nostalgic wave. Which is usually the strongest.
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Music and sound are simply supreme
Lots of nostalgia happening in games right now with the new GTA announcement.
Invariably, it comes down to music. GTA III, GTA Vice City were not that great of games. But Vice City introduced good 80s music to millions of dudes and that’s all they really remember fifteen years later.
You can swap GTA for Minecraft. Or Mario. Or Halo. Music and sound design shape memories like nothing else. It makes the past look better than it was.
Everything visual blurs in our memories. Considering how much effort is poured into textures, animation and 3D models, what a waste.
A distinctive sound, or melody will unearth the most pristine snapshot of that time. And those sounds can be created in an instant. Audio is the closest thing to actual magic.
I recently recovered a one hour and half recording of a dinner with my parents, sister and grandparents from I think 1999 or 2000. I remember that I was testing the microphone quality. Well, it’s really good. I can hear everyone’s voice. Utensils on the table. The dog’s collar and its movements.
It is so powerful, I’ve only been speechless listening to it once.
Hearing my grandparents (both have passed away) talk and laugh is a million times more powerful than looking at a picture of them. Video is cool, but sound is so pure; I can reconstruct the scene in my mind with the recording. It was a winter evening. I know where I was sitting and where everyone was. Grandma tells me how I should try to go door to door to get hired and I can almost remember what I was thinking in that moment.
Sound and smell are just wired at a lower, deeper level than vision.
Unless we wildly genetically change, reading a book while listening to music will always be some of the best thing you can do, ever. ‘love that.
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Convo
Me: Thank you, Josh!
Him: It’s Maxwell.
Me: My bad!
Also me, under breath: WhothefuckisJoshthen?
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I feel this
Isn’t it time?? I think it is.
(lowkey the latest technology advances like AI and Waymo are whispering “yeah we’re taking care of stuff, relax humans” but you know, greed and dysfunctional societies)
Lots of things going on personally and internationally, I guess. Some management stuff, work load and involvement into various things keep me from writing, smh.
It is the end of the year and memories show up. I made some really good ones this year. Two trips to France whooped my bank account’s ass, but it was so intensely intense and beautiful.
A few weeks ago I showed a native LA friend a gorgeous place she had no idea existed. Always a great feeling to see someone’s eyes open wide!
Fuck gentrification, it has to be said from time to time.
95% settled now. It couldn’t be better right now. Blessed.