I have multiple magazines and news publications with lengthy articles in my news feeds that I want to make a habit of reading, but unfortunately I usually end up skimming them and don’t even think about them once I finish. I aim to change that today.
So here’s is my summary and thoughts on everything I read today that I want to remember:
Level up: exploring the artistic side of video game design
3+ billion gamers is a lot, though I actually expected a bit more. Same goes for the 1.39 billion dollars the Mario movie made.
Indie games use a lot of different and unique art styles, inspired by many sources. From Escher to rubber-hose animation to fine linework to embroidery to classic cinema to the works of Moebius and Studio Ghibli. The idea of video-games as art has fully entered the mainstream.
Video games are apparently shown at the Tribeca film festival. I have never heard of this festival before, but then I’m not a film guy. Tribeca is one of the most important events for independent cinema, according to Google. Checked out its website and I saw it hosted a talk about Alan Wake 2 between filmmaker Mike Flanagan and Sam Lake from Remedy last year. Now that interests me, I’m going to check if there’s a recording of it I can watch.
I am a pixel art and low-poly guy myself. The more stylized the media, the better.
Music is also needed to draw out the full “potential” of a game’s visual, so to speak. And a game’s soundtrack is sculpted to fit the world, leading to more experimental and daring sounds.
These independent indie games also put emphasis on tangible material collections, such as physical copies, design work, and vinyls. According to Dalton, some guy I have never heard of before, the same people who appreciate craftsmanship and rigorously designed objects are the same people drawn to rigorously and beautifully designed video-games.
Another guy, Jon Doyle, stated that people under 40/Gen Z are the largest growing demographics when it comes to buying vinyls. Being on the late end of Gen Z myself, I can understand. I grew up having almost only digital media, with CDs and DVDs as hazy childhood memories. I don’t think I have touched a DVD in over 5 years. Buying a “cool” piece of physical media I can hold, display, and listen to, like a vinyl record, certainly feels appealing due to the novelty of it.
There’s a good mix of games in this article, some I have heard of, some I haven’t, and the only one here I have played is Monument Valley. The only types of game I find I enjoy are turn-based and racing, and as far as I can tell, none of them here fits these two categories.
A philosopher’s introduction to the nature of time. One can stretch in space, but not in time. Unlike space, time passes. We think we understand time until we try to describe what it is.
Time has moments that can be represented. Your birth is a moment. This present is a moment. But putting dots on a timeline misses the change, the whatever-it-is required for time to pass.
Early 20th century philosopher J M E McTaggart argued that change could not be mere temporal variation. Change is also contradictory.
How does God see time? Does He see time the way we see space, all moments laid out in front of Him? Or does He experience the passage of time like everyone else?
Einstein’s theory of relativity shows that there is no such thing as objective change in time.
Our lives and emotions are rooted in change. We regret the past and hope for the future. We have no choice but to deal with change. We have an embedded perspective of time. Do we have distant grandchildren waiting for us in the future in the same way we have a distant cousin in Singapore? We don’t know.
Just remember that we are always surrounded by plans, possibilities and unforeseeable events. Do not get stuck thinking of time as a sequence of events on a timeline.
I thought this essay would be more interesting and informative than it ended up being. Time is a darn mysterious thing I idly ponder on a lot, especially as I’m getting older and have to plan things out more and more. This guide comes off as basic and dry to me, despite me never having read anything philosophical about time before. It’s basic thoughts and questions on the nature of time without answers, but I do appreciate the little nuggets on how to think about time. The conclusion couldn’t have stuck without the rest of the pondering and questioning.
How much we want AI to be involved in farming is a topic that needs discussion and limits to be set now before things inevitably progress further.
Currently, AI is used to monitor sensors placed on animal parts to track animal health and activities. Operate smart ear tags to track animals. Analyze gathered data to determine animal health. Monitor and control the farm environment, like carbon dioxide levels. AIs are used to predict and optimize animal behaviors.
Arguments from techno optimists: an AI is more vigilant than a human and allows for personalized care for each animal. Smarter sensors will allow for less-intrusive health interventions and freer grazing without a tether.
The problem is that personalized care doesn’t matter very much for, say, broiler chickens, which are slaughtered by their 6th week, or pigs, which are usually slaughtered at the age of 5 or 6 months.
What this kind of monitoring AI can do is make the already bad environment of factory farming become even more effective. So inhumane farming will be able to generate even more money. Not great.
Regulations like the kind that prevent inhumane treatment in the European Union helps, but the rest of the world doesn’t have these kinds of regulations as far as I can tell.
Automation also poses a risk to farmers. For example, putting control of parameters like temperature into the hands of managers who run the risk of not being as connected to on the ground conditions as the farmer. As a worker myself, more workers’ rights and protections is better for everyone.
AI automation also meant that people have less need to interact with animals in-person. This runs the risk of making it easier to treat livestock as things, not living creatures.
The more I think of this, the more everything comes off as vague hypotheticals. I thought this article was nicely informative at first, but now thinking back on it, it feels almost vapid and I don’t know why.
The part that asks whether or not the care and bond between farmer and animal is good and valuable in and of itself has gotten too abstract for me. I know it isn’t fair and this is a valid line of questioning, but it certainly puts the image of “ivory tower” into my head.
My main takeaway from this is that industrial insect farming is a thing and is getting the AI automation treatment, which is neat as I think insect protein is the future. I like eating it, at least, and I wish it was a bit more convenient to buy.
Notes
I was not expecting to be mentally exhausted after only 3 articles. On the other hand, as part of my quest to perfect my meatball-cooking skills, I have found a chickpea meatballs recipe on YouTube that I’m excited to try out.
Tech, Writing, and Culture 