I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I didn’t feel like I have had anything of value to say. There is still a couple of drafts that I started writing and abandoned because they felt like they lost their substance before I finished them. Or rather I ran out of thoughts.
Also I feel in advance this post may become a series.
It’s a Saturday where I have lots of outstanding tasks, none of which are of high urgency therefore I will procrastinate them by writing this post.
For some reason I am a trusting person. I prefer to believe people and believe in people. I try to adhere to my standards of ethics and truth, which are admittedly high. For example, in last 4-5 years I turned down several recruiters who wanted to interview me for a position in a company that works in gambling. And I would do the same again, would that happen today. Same way I would turn down questionable enterprises like scam call centers or Ponzi schemes.
But it is really difficult to keep your principles when you see how modern society functions. People lie. Often. A lot. You can ask a consultant at an electronics store for an advice and in half of the cases they won’t be able to provide you with an adequate answer or even will lie to your face outright. This is not normal and this should not be an everyday thing. Yet we seem to live in a society™ plagued by deception and incompetence. One of the most noticeable things is social media. Specifically instagr*m.
I wholeheartedly hate the cult of envy and attempts to present yourself as something that you are not. Something that is better than you. Well, you are not better than you. Just be honest with yourself and the world.
People lie on their resumes and get hired for positions they don’t deserve. People lie to you in ads to sell you something you don’t need or something that does not match your expectations. Tech giants don’t lie outright, but they do lots of other shady (and in my opinion deceptive things): dark patterns, dopamine exploitation and artificial addictions and of course shitty conditions of service/license agreements that most people never read. Is being a liar, manipulator or just a soulless profiteer is a requirement to succeed in life? Does that become part of your job requirement at some point? When you enter middle management or something?
Tangential rant over, now to the meat and potatoes.
Running games on weaker graphics cards. Upscaling low-resolution videos. What do these processes have in common? That’s right. Deception. The neural networks that are responsible for these processes just make shit up on the go. Millions times per second millions of pixels get just made up. Sure, they are not outright random, they take into account the previous frames, the objects in them, the training data that they use as reference for details… But it’s still a deception. Highly sophisticated, incredibly complex __deception__.
Of course it did not appear out of the blue by itself. But I think that all these frame generation technologies are just bodge that holds together the failed state of modern game development. Studios want more profits faster and don’t really spend much time on optimization of the games.
However, it wasn’t always like that. Back in the day when gaming consoles had hard limitations on memory and processing power, the developers used all their ingenuity and talent to fit a game into the limited space on the cartridge (seriously, look it up. The optimizations were ingenious. UA 0:00 / 9:20 How Super Mario Bros Was Made Into 40 Kilobytes )
Nowadays every next Elder Grand Theft Assassin’s Cry of Duty will require a GPU upgrade because it is just not enough anymore. The studios just don’t bother. It’s “good enough”. If you are poor, you will use upscaling. If you are rich, you are ok with throwing resources at it.
Also in hindsight the DLSS stuff might have been a harbinger of the upcoming ai shitstorm.
I kind of lost my point while overthinking this topic, so this is the end for now. Maybe I will get back to this post later and update it.
TL;DR: Don’t lie on your resume, don’t do instagr*m, dlss bad, optimize your games instead.
It’s so difficult to get some good sleep lately. Either due to heat waking me up early in the morning or due to russians shooting their missiles at us again. Or just something else entirely like an uncomfortable bed and pigeons making noise at 5 am. I dream of the day when I would be able to crank the AC to maximum cooling and have a big soft bed all to myself for 10 to 12 hours.
I have been trying my best to get some good sleep for some time now. Best I was able to achieve was somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 hours last night. And I must thank all gods I know for that because yesterday I was barely functional.
Do you know the sensation when your toes are hot in your shoe and stick together? You try to wriggle them to make it better, but it does not help. If the situation allows, you take your shoe off and try to air out your foot so it cools down, but it still does not help as well as you expect.
I have been having similar sensation but on the scale of my entire life for past couple of months. I am stuck in a small apartment where there’s not enough space for all my things. Where I was able to find places for items, it became difficult to access them. To get a hammer you need to first un-stack some heavy containers from one another, then open the container where hammer is and then perform all of the operations in reverse. For me something that is buried so deep in layers of containerization is just as good as gone.
I don’t have AC. Hypothetically I even have money to buy it. But I can’t install it because reasons.
And to top it off, I cannot get rid of the cold I caught about a week ago. It seemed to be coming to an end, but then it just… remained. I still have some weird sensations in my nose and yesterday my head ached almost an entire day.
It would seem that the end of my misadventures is close: I have found a job and Aug 1 I’m starting a new position that will pay even more than my previous one.
… But it still feels like it’s not going to solve everything. I need to find a new place to live much sooner than I will get my first paycheck. And the market is just… fubar. And besides, even if I found a nice place to live soon, I am not ready mentally for another move. I haven’t fully recovered from the previous one, which took about three days and a lot of money. Much more than I planned and was comfortable with.
I hate making hasty decisions out of desperation. Such decisions are always bad and just set you back – in money, time or both. I know that trying to run away from pain immediately will result in bigger loss than well thought-out gradual strategy, but so far I don’t see where such strategy might start.
I want to believe that the Universe has something awesome in store for me, the way it has happened previously, but so far I don’t see any hints of that.
Today scrolling a hopeless hellscape of LinkedIn i stumbled upon a post.
In this post a marketing person praises the “beautiful execution” of an ad campaign for Oreo. Someone (or rather a group of people) decided that pasting this vomit of blue all around the train car is a good idea.
People would walk into the car, needing to use it to commute to/from work, go basically anywhere and see this. Your gaze cannot escape this vast field of corporate-mandated color, splashed all over. You can only look at your phone, ceiling, floor or aimlessly stare at the tunnel walls and cables out of the window.
Or alternatively be subjected to the influence of this visual assault. Why would anyone who is not a complete psychopath decide to subject tens of thousands of people to this every day? Truly beautiful execution, isn’t it?
Interestingly enough, the comment section of the post was limited to the direct contacts of the post’s author. I wonder why…
Lately I catch myself saying and thinking in categories of “We as a society”™, which is just a fun observation about what outlets you find for your energy when you have little work to do and a lot of free time.
We as a society somehow just accepted that corporations are allowed to invade our everyday spaces and just steal our attention. Just because they paid (probably through a chain of shady deals, corruption and middle-man companies) to the company, person or entity that owns the space. Which is especially annoying when it is not only a public space, but also something essential, something that people use every day and rely on.
I do also want to go on a tangent about how the entire business of advertisement in the metro cars in Kyiv is corrupt and full of bribes and kickback deals. It is sad to realize that I rented a large and decently furnished apartment from a guy, like 10 years younger than me, whose mother just gave it to him having worked exactly there: in advertising in the very Kyiv metro I am talking about.
I do not consider myself a communist or even left-wing politically in any way (neither I subscribe to right-wing agenda), but it just rubs me the wrong way that some people, who can hide behind large teams of lawyers in their ivory towers of corporate offices keep getting away with systematically making other people’s lives shittier, little by little. This is not the norm. It should not be the norm. It should not be allowed to be the norm.
You can probably protect their view by saying something along the lines of…
Umm, no, I’ll do it differently. Welcome to IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS!
— You should not spam your ads all over the metro car. You are adding visual noise to my literal field of view.
— Well, I paid money for that and therefore I can do that. If you don’t like it that much, just don’t go there. Wait for another train or use a bus instead.
— Yeah, right. You think you are the only one doing that all-surfaces ad thing?
— Well, sucks to be you then. This is what you get when you use public transport. You can always get a car and avoid that altogether.
— Okay-okay, so you’re telling me that I am the one who needs to pay to avoid seeing your shit. Not you just not paying to have it put up, but we both having a contest of who pays more. And by the way, what’s that there, over the highway? Isn’t that your billboard?
— Yes it is. See, you can feel the presence of our corporation everywhere. There also will be a branded truck passing by your window somewhere in the next 10 minutes. Don’t miss it! I got a huge bonus for running this campaign.
Imaginary conversation with an imaginary opponent who has been purposefully dumbed down and eviled up by a strategically delivered shot of 5G-enabled COVID vaccine.
Is this so much to ask? Just not being constantly advertised to, sold to, called to action and influenced. The world has ran just fine previously without ad blimps, branded metro cars and other ethical equivalents of the state of Florida. Moreover, I heard that in Sao Paulo they banned ads altogether and the world did not implode after and/or because of that.
When I was a kid, I legitimately tried to imagine what a world looked like if all of the companies were required to use the same exact plain white design on their products and where their products could only be told apart by reading the label. Don’t know where I’m going with that, just a thought 10-year old me had.
I would like to conclude this rambling by another stolen post from another social network:
As an impromptu post scriptum I also want to reflect on the post above. Not only the empty and nearly sterile interiors feel like a deafening quiet juxtaposed to the visually noisy adscapes, but also if you think about it, they can serve as an excellent canvas, upon which such vomits of color would stand out even more. Just imagine an object from the last picture inside one of the monotone homescapes from the picture above it. It would announce its presence and draw all attention. Just as intended. So, maybe dull interiors are just as bad? The truth is out there.
Post-post scriptum:
I just thought about the entire idea of ads. Shouting louder so that more people get a newspaper from you instead of your competitor. Running an ad in a magazine so that everyone knows that your new perfume is in this season. Convincing people that they have a serious and frankly embarrassing condition that everyone notices but does not tell them about so that they buy your oral hygiene product. True story.
It is all about inconveniencing other people some more to advance your business. Not enough that they would come and punch you in the face, not enough that they remember to avoid you at all cost because of how annoying you are, but just enough for them to remember you.
Do you remember how in newspapers there were separate pages for classifieds? I think it is the only more or less ethical way to present ads. You dedicate a specific space on a physical or digital medium, which one would need to visit or browse deliberately (opt-in instead of opt-out) and could easily stop/avoid interacting with. It was a thing not so long ago, you know.
Then corporations can have all the pissing contests they want trying to one-up each other by buying entire pages, which still would be limited to their dedicated space, without spilling out onto branded benches in parks and other artifacts of marketing bullshit.
An ad should not be something that distracts you on your way to work but rather something you consciously decide to see. It’s the difference between scaling a rock to get to the office and going to a climbing gym on the weekend.
Я нещодавно заходив в свою пошту на простигосподи яндексі, щоб перевірити, чи не залишилось щось на неї зареєстрованим, і, якщо ні, то залишити її помирати.
Досліджуючи всі куточки і закапелки особистого кабінету там, я не переставав дивуватись тому, в скільки різних сфер звичайного кацап’ячого життя яндекс запустив свої руки. Тут тобі і електронні версії документів по типу паспорта чи водійського посвідчення. Тут і адреси для доставок. І їхній голосовий помічник аліса… Я впевнений що якийсь середньостатистичний масквіч вже поглинений екосистемою яндекса набагато більше і глибше, ніж будь-якою іншою.
Здавалося б, навіщо взагалі замислюватись як воно там у росіян? Але мені спало на думку дещо цікаве. А що, як…
Тоді замість росії вона називатиметься ОЯТКРІ – Об’єднані яндексом території колишньої російської імперії.
Москвічі навіть не помітять що щось змінилось, допоки яндекс єда та яндекс лавка все так же привозитимуть їжу і якесь барахло для дому.
Втім, це триватиме недовго. Мало який тех-гігант здатен помірятись з бюджетом цілої країни. Навіть такої занепалої, як росія, яка роками дозволяла собі втрачати мільярди на корупції і трильйони на війні. Холдингу знадобляться інвестори.
На погонах поліцейських з’явиться якийсь дивний символ, з трьох відрізків, які сходяться в єдину точку. Загалом все залишиться як було. Втім, не всюди. В регіонах, де проживають завойовані російською імперією, радянським союзом, або післярадянською росією народи можуть спалахнути повстання. Але вони будуть на диво швидко придушені дуже професійною армією найманців. І одразу після цього в яндекс лавці стануться знижки, а на кінопоіску вийде черговий серіал ні про що. В яндекс навастях напишть що в дагестані нічого не сталось і ОЯТКРІ житиме далі у незнанні. Тим часом в Китаї запустили ще один модуль для станції Тяньгун-4.
І тільки колонки з яндекс алісою будуть уважно слухати кожне слово.
В дагестані нічого не сталось. На площі тянаньмень теж.
I just had an interesting situation. I stumbled upon a game on Steam and I liked it. So much so that I downloaded a demo and started playing.
7 minutes into the game and like 2 minutes into actual gameplay after all the cutscenes I notice something that makes my spidey-sense tingle. There was an object labeled in cyrillic.
This label made me question the origins of the game. I googled the name of the publisher and found their website. On there it says that they are located in Cyprus. You know, the home country of many legitimate game studios such as uhhh… ermmm… I mean, maybe they exist, but I am drawing a blank right now. Right, where were we? On the same result page there also was a link to a Ukrainian website warning people that these are russians, just hiding under the guise of their HQ address. Which makes sense when you are a russian game studio and you want to look as as innocent as it is humanly possible while still employing people from russia and letting their taxes fund the war.
In the same article I found a Steam curator that issues warnings for games that are openly or discreetly made by russians. Which is nice. I subscribed to this curator.
By the way, a small tangent: Steam’s UX when it comes to the curators is just terrible. I had a page with the curator open in my browser, and in the desktop app I had to find the curator from scratch through the non-intuitive process of opening a game’s page, where one of my currently subscribed curators would have left a review and from their page going to general “Curators” page and searching for the curator I need.
I read through the list of games. Honestly it is hilariously bad. It has maybe a dozen games that may be considered interesting, but most of them are either hits from the yester-decade or quick cash-grabs made exclusively to cash in on a meme or a social trend. They are cheap and even not knowing they are made in russia I don’t think I would buy them.
Which brings me to the last thing I have thought about the matter. Choice.
Specifically, Humble Choice, to which I am subscribed since its first month. I am concerned that they might choose to overlook some of the questionable origins of the games and some russian game might eventually end up in my subscription.
Granted, I could just not activate it and pretend it’s not there, but in my opinion that would be wasteful. I pay money for my Humble Choice, therefore I should be able to activate all games and play them without the need to sift through them and argue with Humble’s helpful, yet slow support agents.
Next time I write about gaming, I will tell the story of my clash with Ubisoft.
Через росіян по всій країні вже вдруге тривають відключення світла. Окремі уривки інформації, які прориваються в мою інформаційну бульбашку, доносять тезу, що взимку буде ще гірше.
Маю зізнатись чесно, мені пощастило. В цій квартирі, де я живу зараз, світло не відключають. Востаннє тут не було світла десь 15 травня. Для довідки, я пишу цей пост 29 червня, коли відключення світла є скрізь і надовго. В зв’язку з цим у мене є декілька теплих тейків щодо цієї ситуації.
По 1)
Я, начитавшись постиків від Като (https://t.me/katotheca), про те, що станом на зараз генерація електроенергії спирається переважно на сонячні ЕС, сильно перебудував свої побутові процеси з врахуванням цього. Прання і посудомийка – лише вдень, з 11:00 і до 19:00. Це найбільш енергозатратні процеси у мене вдома. Кондиціонера немає і це з однієї сторони добре, бо немає спокуси його увімкнути, але з іншої – мене плавить від спеки. Але це не стосується теми.
Що мене надзвичайно розчаровує, так це мої сусіди. Майже щоночі я чую їхній кондиціонер, який безперервно гуде, перетворюючи сотні ватт електроенергії на чиюсь охолоджену сраку. Вночі, коли, додаткової генерації немає. Це ще один невеличкий пункт, який призводить мене до розчарування в людях.
У мене навіть є бажання роздрукувати та розвісити якісь невеликі буклети, в яких пояснити сусідам, що світло потрібно економити навіть якщо його не вимикають у тебе. Але поки я не назбирав очок дії щоб цим таки зайнятись. І тому просто сиджу і розчаровуюсь далі.
І, подруге
— Що бажаєте замовити?
— *переглядаю меню*
— Я бачу що ви дивитесь бургери. На жаль, ми не зможемо їх приготувати, ми зарад від генератора і тому не можемо вмикати гриль.
Ще взимку 2022-2023 я звернув увагу на те, наскільки бізнеси не змінили свою поведінку і не підлаштовуються під нові умови існування. Аптеки світять вітринами і вивісками так, наче хочуть щоб їх бачили з Міжнародної Космічної Станції. Світлодіодні екрани з рекламою на пивнусі не вимикаються поки не зачиниться сама пивнуха і темними зимовими вечорами осяює своїм примарним світлом будинок навпроти.
Епіцентр… Ох, Епіцентр. Колись він був моїм улюбленим місцем для паломництва за всякими ніштяками мачо-хлопчачого асортименту. Але тепер — що далі, то більше ненависті у мене викликає ця мережа. Тут я залишу за дужками співпрацю власників з терористами і окупантами, оскільки цей пост не про це.
В 2024 році нічого не змінилось. Хіба що більше бізнесів повстановлювали собі генератори і тепер не дбають не тільки про об’єми споживання енергії, а і про звукове забруднення. Чому охоче допомагає виконавча влада (Пост на сайті МОЗ зі спростуванням новин про введення штрафів за перевищення норм допустимих рівнів звуку).
Бізнесам просто насрати. Коли у них є електроенергія від загальної мережі, вони анітрохи не намагаються її економити. Епцентр виблискує LED-екраном на пів-фасада. Всередині – всюди екрани з рекламою, вивіски і ще тисячі речей, без яких можна обійтись.
Мені зараз спало на думку, що з економією електроенергії відбувається приблизно те саме, що і з забрудненням планети пластиком. Замість того, аби зарегулювати бізнеси, які можуть, але не хочуть робити краще, відповідальність перекладається на “обичних пиздливих граждан”, які хоч і можуть вплинути на нестачу електроенергії, але все ще менше ніж гіпермаркет, який зможе прожити без підсвітки вивісок пару місяців.
Ми як суспільство чомусь якось колективно заплющили на це очі і навчились не помічати. А варто було б схопити ці бізнеси за їхні колективні cojones та не відпускати, доки вони не почнуть економити. Чомусь їм хочеться економити лише коли мова йде про живлення від генератора. Бензинчик-бо чи солярка коштують грошів, так само як і більший генератор, який би зміг заживити гриль для бургерів або пічку для піци.
Примітка автора: перерахування шляхом неграмотного числення виду “По 1)” та “Подруге” це свідоме рішення.
I am once again embarking on a journey of having a presence on the internet in the form of a personal blog or something similar to that. Here I will be posting my hot, lukewarm and cool takes on anything and everything that catches my mind’s eye.
Also expect posts here to be a mish-mash of languages, styles and genres. Let’s go.