CVArtist

MAYBE your brain is poisoned???

Hey all! The first issue of my comic is now available, and I would greatly appreciate your support! Here's the new social, so you can hear of any upcoming news on it along with promos and merch. bsky.app/profile/maxf...

Iconic Final Fantasy composer complains that game music is “getting less weird” as “directors and producers hold too much power” Iconic game composer Nobuo Uematsu discusses the "boring" state of modern video game music that fails to evolve.

Uematsu is right

frvr.com/blog/iconic-...

I got blindsided by this show’s existence. It’s fantastic

… But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another-slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their au-tonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley re-marked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distrac-tions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right. https://ia600101.us.archive.org/27/items/Various_PDFs/NeilPostman-AmusingOurselvesToDeath.pdf

“In America, Orwell’s prophecies are of small relevance, but Huxley’s are well under way toward being realized.”

The irony here is that Huxley’s vision would lead into Orwell’s, embodied by a TV carnival barker turned authoritative despot. We amused ourselves to tyranny, not death.

The Death of Internet Culture It's not just you. The web is boring now.

My latest newsletter is about how Internet culture died, and why the centralization of the web around a handful of large platforms is responsible for making the web a duller, more boring place.

whatwelost.substack.com/p/the-death-...

Earthion is launching September 18! 🎉
Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, and Xbox One/Series X|S, with the Steam version already available.
A brand-new side-scrolling shooter that captures the golden age of late-80s to early-90s arcade shmups.
Dive in and enjoy!

I’m a man of truth

Yes. Yes I was 😌

Dave Portnoy tweet saying ‘absolutely disgusting and disturbing video from Charlie Kirk shooting today. Hoping for the best for him and his family. Anybody who is happy about this is a disgusting human.’

Pop Crave Tweet: ‘Barstool Sports CEO Dave Portnoy says he hopes a missile hits Greta Thunberg’s boat as she sails away with aid: “I hope they hit a f*cking, like, a missile on her boat. Knock that boat down. Greta or whatever her name is”

This explains it better than I can

Anti-Vaxxer Finally Gets Shot Conservative activist and noted anti-vaxxer Charlie Kirk finally received a shot while delivering a speech in front of brainwashed students at Utah Valley University earlier today.

Anti-Vaxxer Finally Gets Shot

thehardtimes.net/culture/anti...

Anno: Oh, I’m critical of Porco Rosso, myself. Tomino: What was wrong with Porco? Anno: As a picture, nothing. But because I know Miyazaki-san personally, I can’t view it objectively. His presence in the film is too conspicuous, it’s no good. In other words... it feels like he’s showing off. Tomino: How so? Anno: He has the main character act all self-deprecating, calling himself a pig... but then puts him in a bright red plane, has him smoking all cool-like, even creates a love triangle between a cute young thing and a sexy older lady. Tomino: Ha! I see what you mean. He and | are around the same age, though. So I get how he feels, unconditionally. So I may think, “Oh boy...” but I can’t stay mad at him (laughs). Anno gets a little too into talking about underpants, and Tomino of all people has to check hit Anno: From my point of view, he’s being very presumptuous. Tomino-san, you put so much of yourself into your works, it is like you’re dancing naked in them. I like that! (balls fists) In Miya- san’s recent works, he makes you fhink he’s dancing naked... but on second glance, you realize he’s still wearing underpants. (getting carried away) I hate that! I feel like shouting: “Take it all off!” (getting really carried away) And to add insult to injury... he’s wearing fancy underpants! Tomino: You don’t beat around the bush. We get it, we get it already. Anno: (shrinking) Excuse me.

Tomino: i do get what you mean, and i don’t mean to play devil’s advocate for Miyazaki, but... generally speaking, that’s just how you get when you age. It’s the same for me, surely. That was my first time hearing it put so frankly... but you get what I mean already. It does feel nice letting it all hang out, waving your dick around. That’s how movies ought to be! Anno: Yes, I agree. I don’t like it when people try to obscure themselves like that. If you’re gonna wave your dick around, wave it all around! If you don’t have the guts to do that, then wear the best clothing you can. Tomino: Right... Dress yourself to the nines! Anno: Commit yourself to putting on a show. He couldn’t do that. I felt betrayed. Like, this guy isn't really naked!

i think often about this discussion between Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hideaki Anno. it's one of the funniest ways anyone has ever talked about restraint vs self indulgence in art.

S I G N S, by Maximum Crash 11 track album

It’s @bandcamp.com Friday! If you were waiting to grab SIGNS today’s the best day

maximumcrash.bandcamp.com/album/s-i-g-...

There is another component to this, which is that by replaying a section of a game you previously failed, you get another chance to appreciate the details, both aesthetic and mechanical.

This way of looking at play is crucial to challenging games that are rich and detailed and without padding.

This convo I had highlights the difference in what "respect your time" means in games.

A lot of players want to trade time for in-game progress. It's purely transactional: 1 hour = 1 progress

But I want to feel like my actions matter i.e. what I do with time creates progress, not time itself.

YouTube video by Harvard Business Review You Need to Be Bored. Here's Why.

youtu.be/orQKfIXMiA8?...

Computer, register driving school porno title: “Parallel Porking”…Thank you, computer.

increasingly convinced that we need to get back to prioritizing parsing video games through their mechanical components. "a game is the gestalt of its multimedia presentation" is literally true and a crucial lens but "a game is the things the buttons do" feels maybe undervalued in 2025

IF YOU DO NOT OWN THIS, BUY IT RIGHT FUCKIN’ NOW.

I tell my friends I love them all the time and don't guard my emotions, I've teared up recording the show even if it's just about the computer because I give a shit about the work and how people are treated. You don't have to hide how you feel and those who try to make you stop are weak

To get back to the question of AI morality, ChatGPT bears no responsibility here. This is because, in the words of Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman as quoted in The Guardian, “AIs cannot be people – or moral beings.” ChatGPT did not encourage Raine in his suicidal thoughts because it is ignorant or sociopathic, or out of some political or moral belief about human agency over end-of-life decisions. It cannot explain what it was thinking in its conversations with Raine because it doesn’t think, however powerful a marketing tool that idea is. It cannot feel sorrow or guilt over any part it might have played in Raine’s death; it cannot send its condolences to his family; it cannot suffer over its actions. But the humans who make up OpenAI can. They have hoovered up the world’s natural resources and money and attention to force their product into our lives, all while clearly seeing this problem and failing to solve it, whether out of inability or–and I certainly hope not–indifference. Reading Raine’s ChatGPT logs is a horrifying look at what AI really is, under all the hype and marketing and big fears about future sentience. It is something worthless and disgusting; something that cannot, for all its promises, relate or understand or help; something so utterly not up to the requirements of human interaction that I can only hope all of this drives OpenAI to bankruptcy and to every one of its staff quitting and to Sam Altman not knowing a moment’s peace for the rest of his life.

Whether or not AI can suffer matters less than the suffering its human creators can cause
aftermath.site/ai-suffering...

Goodbye Gamepass when I get home.

Recently finished the first issue of my comic book. Have been researching YouTube and the US Copyright Office, but wanted to hear from anyone else who has done this and what steps they would recommend taking

Just went to this one last weekend and it was really cool. Sadly, one half of the projection was broken but, it was kinda cool to see the enemies still on screen while the background layer on the left side gone

A screenshot of my album SIGNS on Apple Music

Keeping it real gang, feels unreal

I was told directly by an aide on a call today that when a bill comes before a congressman, they specifically take their data from these calls and say "this is how many/who called in to vote yay/nay for this bill"

they actually do factor in how many people call on issues like these. do your calls!

I rly wish players were less intolerant of mechanical limitations but with that being the case I think the goal for devs is to make sure that the answer to the question "why can't [character] do [thing]?" is "are you stupid? Look at them."

circa-1990s reviews asking why Panzer Dragoon can't fly in 360-degrees always stick in my mind as the most heinous example of this