I see that AOL has ended it’s dial-up service after 30 years with barely a whimper. I think the first times I explored the internet was on AOL sometimes in the early 2000s, usually playing Slingo or downloading Quake Maps off a friends internet connection.
It was also the first time I experienced some form of gatekeeping. With AOL being ubiquitous with early internet with it’s easy setup, and the fact it was incompatible with Netscape Navigator, meant that it was always for those who weren’t the most technically literate. Something I – sadly – participated in.
This gatekeeping was reinforced when, during University in 2002, the “Social and Technical Internet” module I studied in my degree included a fascinating few lessons on early internet culture, and things like Eternal September. Further studies meant I really wanted to go back to that time.
Anyway, it’s kind of ironic that the cause of Eternal September died on 1st October.
I miss folks commenting on blog posts really. At my peak I’d post a blog post at home, walk the half a mile from my student digs to university, and then be greeted with 4 or 5 comments. Now? I think I’ve had one comment in the past year. I still don’t stubbornly take the comments off here nor Dwi’n Rhys though, in a vain hope they come back. They won’t. But they may.
But seemingly like half the attendees at LoopConf last week in London (read Tim Nash’s post about his ridiculous schedule from Yorkshire > London > Poland to be at events), I too was inspired by Ana Rodrigues’ talk “Building, Sharing, and Owning Your Online Presence”, who had a number of inspiring slides, including the one I’ve used as the header image (albeit with a terrible photo :-
Personal websites are the perfect playground for experimentation. They afford a space to explore new technologies that might not yet be suitable for professional projects and a safe space to fail.
So consider me inspired, and me testing more things that may fail. I’ve switched on Webmentions using this plugin, and also using Autoblue as well to try and foster some more comments from BlueSky (this post should automatically post there and also automatically pull in replies as comments). It may work. It may be utter rubbish. But we try.
It’s the first strand of things to do. I want to promote this blog to all the things. I want to take this blog back to the 00’s. I want to put 88×31 buttons on. I was bored on Sunday made a few because James Huff on the Post Status Slack wanted a retro button and the ones on the Web Archive were terrible. I want under-construction GIFs. I want to use my new found Aseprite skills to make this blog look a little less like the blog of a 41 year old business owner who renewed his home insurance today, and more of the bloke in his early 20’s who spend his evenings drawing little graphics, installing ridiculously unsafe PHP scripts, and generally having a good life online. Granted less of the PHP scripts, but more moving purposefully and breaking things.
Last night I’ve just finished a game that will feature very highly in my “Game of the Year” blog post – The Roottrees Are Dead. It’s a wonderfully charming romp to map a family tree to see who stands to gain a large inheritance. It’s a classic detective game in the style of The Return of the Obra Dinn (my game of the decade) and, whilst it doesn’t quite stick the landing – it suffers the same fate as most of these games do in that once you get close to the end it becomes guessable – it’s well worth your time.
As with all of these games, once completed (there’s a nice little twist towards the end), I dived into the read more about the game. Whilst The Roottrees are Dead was released earlier this year, it is a “remaster” of a game released a few years back, and the previous version did use generative AI. Only when the original game was released completed and got a bit of traction did the original developer switch to use proper assets – which saw the game become a success.
Good AI in Gaming? Maybe?
It gave me a bit of an uneasy feeling when I read that, and I think I wanted to try and justify it. The game right now that is on Steam is guilt free – beautifully drawn images, great soundtracks, voice acting, it’s a wonderful game. The AI version? Well, it’s still in essence the same game (deciphering photography is a key part of the game), but I doubt I would have played it.
I then thought about would the game have seen the light of day with the AI version? Sadly, doubtful. But once the proof of concept was there, the author did the right thing by seeing it’s potential and investing in artists to see their vision cross the line. So I think I’m happy about it.
Rubbish AI in Content Creation
I awoke this morning to find a video on my feed from YouTuber icklenellierose, that helped crystalise my thoughts on Generative AI and why it’s bad. You should watch it all below. Grab a brew, it’s good.
The basic gist of some of the elements was the fact she was tricked (from an “Inspiration” tab) to get a few video ideas. Generative AI – particularly for artists and creators – can be a touchy subject. Some folks really don’t want to use it for their well optimised creation process, and I must say I can’t blame them. I was a relative late comer to AI within my code, and even then I use it sparingly, and I curse Copilot for auto”correcting” code I write at times. Just stop it.
I’m reminded of a quote from Homer Simpson where he talks about the obnoxious character – Poochie – being added to the Itchy and Scratchy Show:-
One, Poochie needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine. Two, whenever Poochie’s not on screen, all the other characters should be asking “Where’s Poochie”?
Homer Simpson – “The Itchy & Scracthy & Poochie Show”
I feel AI is being Poochiefied. There are some genuinely cool things out there, I use it in my job at times (I used it yesterday to come up with a small idea to extend a blog post as I was under a word count and was struggling). In fields such as medicine it could be genuinely useful.
I don’t think it’s the be-all and end all mind. Keeping up with developments is both tiring and nothing makes me want to switch off a podcast than saying “We’re going to talk about AI”. Nobody as of yet has come up with a cool reason why I should use it, beyond asking it for sorting arrays, working out where I’ve gone wrong with my code or finding a hook I can use within a plugin with code everywhere. As such, I’m not convinced yet it is the deserving of the amount of column inches it serves.
I especially don’t like it when AI is either front and centre (I had an “AI Summary” present itself in Slack yesterday without asking) or when people are tricked into using it with dark UX. I imagine situations like Ellen describes and experienced by us all during our days is used in board room presentations on how the adoption of AI has been a complete success and it’s what customers want. Using words like “uptake has been stellar”.
That then leads to situations like what was on before Google did put up their prices of business accounts that’s sold on “greater AI integration”.
Cheers for asking, dicks.
I think that’s the point I’m trying to make. I don’t necessarily mind AI if it is presented in such a way that it is an option to use, and there has been education on it and also it doesn’t lurch to “Yay Nazi’s are great!”.
However, I don’t want to work where my processes are having to change due to having AI forced on me.
I picked up Life is Strange earlier on this year to play it on streaming in conjunction with The Playthrough Podcast with the full intention to play it on stream. Alas, I never got around to playing it on stream, but opened it offline for a new game to play in the evening.
The problem with narrative games is me getting invested into the story. I try to set up my system to minimise distractions as I play, to stop my mind wandering when playing. I did the same with Life is Strange.
The game begins with a tutorial teach you basic controls of movement, framed as walking to a lighthouse in a thunderstorm to find shelter. After lightning destroys the tower causing it to collapse on you, the scene changes to a classroom: the protagonist – Max – wakes up. It was all a dream.
Another brief tutorial introduces you to Max’s camera and journal, and you’re thrusted into a chaotic sequence where you have to answer questions and you weren’t paying attention. Discussions and arguments take place, and then – the school bell rings. Max is free for a break, and walks out of the classroom, into an equally chaotic corridor where you’re asked to complete the first mission: go to the bathroom and freshen up.
At this point, the game really hit me, as the sound design is excellent.
As Max puts on her headphones, the outside world dies out, and Max – takes a deep breath – and walks to the bathroom. You can interact with everybody outside, or you can go straight to the bathroom. At this point the game hooked me. Here’s the scene in full.
I don’t know why. It’s something about the music that plays, to go from the chaotic school hall, to a calming introspective. It feels a bit Dawson’s Creek or The OC. I think the tune that plays – “To All of You (American Girls)” by Syd Matters – is from one of them. It just made me sit up and take notice, and had me hooked. Also the framing on the title screen and introducing the title and the development house is done in a non obtrusive way. It was wonderful, and – now on episode 2 at the time of writing – it made me want to see this game through to the end. (UPDATE: I’m now on episode three and I love it). Although the voice acting can be a bit janky at times and the way in which people speak can seem a bit disjointed, the ambient sound effects/music and the way it interacts with the dialogue is perfect.
I often think about the openings of games that stuck with me. I have the nostalgia of watching Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter 2 on demo mode in Tandy. The first notes of “Baba Yetu” (Civilization 4) and “Vigil” (Mass Effect) make my heart skips a beat. But I struggle to think of a better opening segment of a game. Batman: Arkham Ayslum is decent (but only becomes important later in the game). The best I can think is Final Fantasy 7. The close up shot of Aeris’ face, zooming out to Midgar, only to zoom back into AVALANCHE’s exploits as they smash into the reactor is the only thing that comes close.
Although that came out 18 years prior, it shares the same publisher: Square Enix. I wonder if somewhere in Dotnod they were aware of Final Fantasy 7 and wanted to create a similar opening. If so, they nailed it.
What is your favourite opening to a video game ever?
I read with interest from Tim Nash’sNewsletter (you should subscribe to it) Cory Doctorow’s “Disenshittify or Die” article (also a talk – hopefully available soon), and it resonated with me with how there is a movement to make things less shit, and how things have become so bad.
I was going to talk about it in my newsletter (again, you should subscribe to it), but thought I’d talk about it here instead. Noticing how crap Twitter has gone, how Threads is barely functional (sorry Threads, I really want to like you, but eh) and how things online have – with a few exceptions – have gotten worse. Chuck in the collective hard on services have for AI* and the desire to disenshittify and retrieve focus for my online habits has become a focus for the year.
Becoming Leaner Online
Rather than rant about how online services have all gotten worse, I’ll share how I’ve become to be more lean online. It’s still a learning process, but here’s a few things I’ve found useful.
First off – I am subscribing to newsletters now! Newsletters are actually wealths of information (or try to be), and I try to subscribe to them. At the same time, I’m unsubscribing from ones that are either spamming their products or affiliates – looking at you Marriot Benvoy who wanted me to join a betting site recently. They seem to be following the b3ta model of newsletters with a lot of useful stuff with the occasional sponsorship. Straight into your inbox.
Secondly, I’ve really enjoyed The Disenshittify Project, which creates and curates lists of projects that are not bloated mess. These are small things that do are simple and do not need to be bloated. Two they have are a password generator and a QR Code Generator. Excellent. They also have suggestions for where to go next. I’d particularly like a JSON Decoder that isn’t ad supported.
Maybe one more to my to-do list?
EDIT: Thirdly as a Brit you have a wondrous version of Amazon that is so much better. Argos! Bezos has his billions and he can’t get folks to deliver to same day? Pish. You can get a couch the same day from Argos. A fucking couch. No knock off products, everything is of reasonable quality, and it isn’t noticeably more expensive.
Where do I see this going? I’m not sure. I would love people who create things to make the internet be supported for their work, as the reason advertising is so prevalent is creators are not being supported. Patreon systems? I don’t know.
I’m not against advertising. A lot of newsletters I do subscribe to have advertising. Or against affiliate marketing. High quality services I’m more likely to support.
But at the same time the AI, bloated tracking mess is – I feel – unsustainable. I’d love to get back to a more simpler web. Where folks own their content, and share with smaller, like minded communities. Hopefully I’m not the only one who believes that.
* It was on the Giant Bomb Podcast that we are about two years into the “AI Revolution” and there is a lot of friction still to it. I’m still not 100% sold on it, though I do use it. But like everything, I don’t want it shoved in my face at every opportunity. I want to choose to find it useful, not be the default.
