#Computer culture

[longsleevelaceration]

this is concerning. we're losing our

this can't be true can it

[tsevis]

When academics see the future better than futurists

okay so i have this weird hobby of reading old tech op-eds and essays (yes i know, very normal behavior) and i just found this 1999 piece that's basically a crystal ball

this guy thomas streeter wrote about how 60s counterculture was merging with libertarian economics and he NAILED what silicon valley would become. like, he predicted the whole "code is law" thing, the ahistorical entrepreneur myths, the way tech culture would serve corporate power while pretending to be revolutionary

the most chilling part is his diagnosis of tech culture's "fear of the political"—this desire to escape social complexity through technological solutions. he wrote this before social media, before crypto, before the metaverse, but he saw exactly where this romantic individualism would lead

it's wild how academics sitting in universities can sometimes see trends more clearly than all the venture capitalists and tech journalists combined. maybe because they're not invested in the hype?

anyway if you want to understand how we went from "question authority" to "trust the algorithm" this essay explains everything.

[zombiekitty33]

half life fanartist late to half life anniversary millions dead

[longsleevelaceration]

"you gotta be as gay as possible on the computer otherwise alan turing died for nothing"

Happy pride to the original owner of this PC specifically

[ranticore]

i did not do it right but the idea is like. floating planes that always face the viewer while if you get a different camera angle, it's just blank/unrendered. and i forgot to colour most of this

there were a few popular urban legends about what was "really" underneath his visual effect (at the tv show's heyday, one of the most common theories was that underneath, he was a human actor in a greenscreen suit). audiences of his show never saw the unrendered side of him because they only ever saw him on-screen in the studio. and he looked perfectly normal there, with video quality insufficient to show anything unusual

during The Incident, people entered his resonance chamber for the first time and got to be in the same room as him. seeing him from more than a single fixed camera angle was later described as viscerally upsetting

[ravings-of-a-mad-scientist]

Workaholics Anonymous 

Science Major: Man, I sure wish I had time to enjoy college but I have so much studying and homework to do. At least I'll get an easy high paying job after, right?

Physicist: I think I have a pretty good work life balance (does not, actually) and I think my grad students should have the same work life balance (which is not having that)

Astronomer: I work *about 40 hour weeks, but sometimes there are hours are in the middle of the night 'cause, y'know, stars. But who needs a consistent sleep schedule, really? Not me. I got Redbull.

Geologist: Sometimes I get to spend 15 hours a day wandering through the desert in severe weather conditions looking for cool rocks! also I have to like survey the land or whatever so I can get money

Chemist: Oh, you know, my PI only lets me see my family at night for dinner, then I have to come back and sleep in the lab, but overall I’d say I’m not too stressed.

Physician: Well, I had to work really hard, so why shouldn't everyone else have to work even harder? I'm sure the patients could only benefit from everyone being sleep deprived.

Biologist: I work so much I don’t even remember the last time I wasn’t working.

Science Major: huh?

Biologist: I MUST OBSERVE THE CRAB AT ALL TIMES. I OBSERVE THE CRAB EVEN AS WE SPEAK. IF I DO NOT PUBLISH 60 PAPERS ON CRAB BEHAVIOR BY NEXT YEAR MY COLLEAGUES WILL SENSE MY WEAKNESS AND DEVOUR ME ALIVE, LIKE A PACK OF STARVING CRABS

Computer Scientist: Um… I work from home for at most 8 hours a day then play video games

Biologist: *licks lips*

Computer Scientist (Game Dev): I would murder you if I wasn't so... oh there I go- *passes out from exhaustion (hasn't slept or touched grass in five years)*

[topaz-mutiny]

Tumblr's new gross layout is giving this vibe so strongly right now.

apps that use pop-ups to try to trick you into turning on certain settings by quickly clicking yes literally never work on me. a pop up stops me dead in my shit and confuses the hell outta me, now i'm mad and there is no way i'm turning that stupid setting back on

[alterhuman-culture-is]

computerkin culture is worrying way too much about whether the stuff you make is technically AI art or not (or maybe that's just me)

-

[warakami]

ghibli.os.gif

[longsleevelaceration]

“you gotta be as gay as possible on the computer otherwise alan turing died for nothing”

[sammitopl]

drug dealer / addict miku

jesse pinkman miku if you will 👀

[cleolinda]

Just for fun, here's five minutes of my very first time playing the Silent Hill 2 remake, having never played a video game before. (My voice only.) I grabbed my phone and turned on Voice Memo because I got stuck in the parking lot and felt like I needed to record struggles this dire for posterity. I recorded this a week ago, so all the issues I mention have since been fixed, including my (in)ability to move forward. (Nobody had explained the importance of the camera in doing anything to me.) If y'all are interested, I can also post a shorter clip of my most recent fight, which shows how far I've come. I have strategies now. I'm such a brave little toaster.

I originally posted this on Patreon with a transcript, so I'll include that below, long as it is. Volume advisory: I do yell a lot.

[Comments directed at James, my player character, are in parentheses.]

Okay. I don't know how much this is actually going to pick up, but I'm just gonna voice record this while I figure out what's going on. This is exactly as bad as I thought it would be. I've had to mute the sound because it's just [laughing] James making weird grunting sounds every 30 seconds—of impatience!—because I can't figure out how to make this man walk. 

And I'm on a laptop [rather than a console]. So we're just living our life here as best as we can. And I even have a touchpad mouse. I have an external mouse coming in tomorrow, maybe. 

Okay, okay, I'm trying to get him to go back into the bathroom because my understanding is that there's a whole bunch of graffiti in there that you would actually— (Why are you not turning left?! Why are you walking BACKWARDS? What are you DOING?) I've already been yelling at him for like two minutes now. (JAAAAMES. What are you DOING?)

Okay, achievement ["No Turning Back Now"]: I tried to leave. Good for me. All right. So— (BUDDY!) What—what's the Sprint command? I don't know, I don't know. Um—Escape. Settings: uh, Controls? No... Controls View? Here we go, here we go. L shift, how would I have known that? Quick Turn... oh, Rowing. I don't need rowing for like another 16 hours, we're fine. Okay, move camera on the touchpad mass—touchpad mOuSe. It's fine. We don't have a problem with that. Combat—I'm gonna have a problem with that, but not yet. Um... there are some mouse commands that I may end up remapping to some letter keys... depending on how the mouse does or doesn't work for me in terms of distance from my hand. We'll—we'll see. I'm used to—I've been using a touchpad mouse for years now, not gaming. It would be very strange to be using an external mouse. So I may just remap some stuff. [I did not. For the combat tutorial, I did use an external mouse.]

Okay, Interact, Extended Movement is “E.” Okay. Space is Zoom, escape: Main Menu, we learned that one REAL GOOD. Um... Map... Flashlight... Okay, we don't—we don't need that right yet. [Sigh.] W-S-D-A! Don't need Row, okay. Sprint. L shift is Sprint. That is what we need. [My obsession with “sprint” is because this man walks as slow as a turtle and “leisurely trot” is the only thing that’s going to get you anywhere.] Okay: Resume. 

Like, the music and sound effects are beautiful, I mean, sure, but right now this is—he's—he's very tired of me dealing with stuff. Come on, (WALK, buddy.) Shift? Can you—how do you SPRIIIIIIIINNNNNT??? 
[Unconvincingly:] All right, no, we're fine. We're fine. We're gonna be fine. So we're walking—oh, we gotta go to the car! Okay! I forgot we even have to do that! We're not getting anywhere without the map!

[Tiny voice:] Really... wanna go back into the bathroom... Maybe we try that when we… are further along... in our ability to move. 

This is a nightmare. I—I didn't think it was actually gonna be this hard for me to learn. I thought it would go a little faster. 

(Come on, buddy, what are you doing? What are you doing? E, can we interact? WHAT are you DOING?!) Oh my God. Okay, what's it—HE’S LOOKING AT IT!! [Which indicates he wants me to do something with it, but “interact” isn’t coming up.] HE’S LOOKING [tiny, despairing voice:] at it. He's looking at it. 

(Babe, what do I have to DO? What do I have to DO?!) 

[Sigh.] Maybe I do need my sister here to... tell me what to do on an extremely basic level. 


It says... does it mean lower shift? What does it mean? [It did mean left shift, like I was pressing, but nobody told me you had to hit “sprint” and “walk” at the same time.] Forward, back, right, left, sprint. Quick Turn... okay, forgot about that. E...? Yeah, and I think by Extended Movement, they mean like a traversal.

Oh... oh, my sweet lord Jesus. I didn't think it was gonna be this hArD!!! It's not hard. It's not hard at all. If you're a normal person, if you're a gamer, this is not hard at all. If you're me and you play Hello Kitty Island Adventure, it's hard. Okay. I am so glad I did not actually just start recording [video] cold. I know y'all would love to watch me just run James into a tree. I know you would love that, but we're not doing that for—half an hour, if I'm lucky. 

Okay, come on, buddy. What are we doing? E!! Oh thank God. Oh, thank God, we've got the map. Okay. Space: Zoom. Back. [Vehement mouse clicking sounds.] Back. Mouse. MOUSE. [Sigh.] I swear to the Lord Jesus Christ, come on—he has very nice nails. [James does. I don't know about Jesus.] He really does. He has very nice hands. I will say when I started the game—remember, this is something I have seen on a very large TV many times. Even I sat back and went, whoa, the graphics are really good. Like on a smaller laptop, even I went, holy shit, that's so good. 

(BUDDY?! GO BACK!! YOU HAVE!! THE MAP!!!)  

OKAY. No, no, this is FINE. This is FIIIIIIIIINE!!  

I'm alone in the house right now. My dog is not here, my dog would be barking his head off, going, what is—

OKAY!! OKAY. [Extremely tiny voice:] That was—that was fine. 

I was hitting the wrong part of the touchpad mouse... because I was thinking of it as an external mouse and I was hitting the top of it… [tiny, exasperated voice:] not the bottom of it… like I normally would. 

NO, IT’S FINE. IT’S FINE, OKAY? I know, he's looking around, he's like looking at his hands and he's like brushing something—he's like, “What are you DOING? What are you DOING?” 

(I'm sorry, that was the car door. I didn't mean to make you bump into that.)

We're doing good. We're doing fine. Come on, yeah, we're gonna walk backwards a little bit. How's the camera? We want it up a little bit, we want it down a little bit? Beautiful reflections, beautiful reflections. I had to work with the resolution because he looked very... WIDE, and boxy, and I had to get it set on my monitor's resolution, which is, I think... oh, I don't even remember what it is. This is a new computer. 

Okay, I'm gonna have to stop now. I can't scream anymore. But good luck to me.

[ms2253]

https://archive.org/details/secondself00sher

[mirandaindustries]

[stone-cold-groove]

Translating languages is just the beginning. The revolutionary Craig M100. Ad for the Craig M100 translator/microcomputer - 1980.