#Robotics tools 2025

[tudip123]

Top Tools and Technologies for Advancing Your Robotics Skills in 2025

As the field of robotics continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, staying ahead of the curve requires not only passion and creativity but also a deep understanding of the tools and technologies shaping the industry. In 2025, aspiring engineers and seasoned professionals alike must harness cutting-edge advancements in robotics to stay competitive and innovative. Whether you're developing autonomous systems, enhancing artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, or creating novel robotic applications, the right tools can significantly enhance your skills and accelerate your projects. This article will explore the top tools and technologies for advancing your robotics expertise, offering insights into software, hardware, and emerging trends that are set to transform the field in the coming years.

The Role of Tools and Technologies in Robotics:

Robotics relies on advanced tools and technologies to design, build, and program robots. These tools simplify complex tasks, making it easier for developers and engineers to create efficient and intelligent robotic systems. In 2025, new robotics tools will enhance how we approach robotic system development, driving innovation across industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics.

Top Robotics Tools in 2025:

1. Simulation Software:Simulation tools like ROS (Robot Operating System) and Gazebo are essential for designing and testing robots in virtual environments. These tools help engineers troubleshoot problems and refine designs without physical hardware, saving time and costs.

2. AI-Powered Development Platforms:Platforms integrating AI in robotics are becoming more accessible, enabling robots to learn from their environments and make smarter decisions. OpenAI’s GPT for robotics and TensorFlow are excellent examples of tools that combine AI with robotic programming.

3. Machine Learning Libraries: With the rise of machine learning for robotics, libraries like PyTorch and Scikit-learn are critical for developing algorithms that help robots adapt and improve over time. These libraries simplify the creation of intelligent robotic systems that can perform complex tasks.

4. Hardware Prototyping Tools: Advanced prototyping tools like Arduino and Raspberry Pi continue to be vital for building and testing robotics hardware. They allow developers to experiment with sensors, actuators, and other components easily.

5. Collaborative Platforms: Collaborative platforms such as GitHub and cloud-based robotic development environments are transforming the way engineers work on projects. These platforms enable seamless teamwork and integration of various technologies.

Emerging Technologies in Robotics:

AI in Robotics:Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing robotics, making robots more autonomous and efficient. AI allows robots to understand complex scenarios, recognize patterns, and interact naturally with humans.

Machine Learning for Robotics:Machine learning takes robotics to the next level by enabling robots to learn from data and adapt their behavior. For example, robots in warehouses can learn to optimize routes based on past delivery data, improving efficiency.

Advanced Robotics Technologies:Innovations in sensors, materials, and actuators are driving the development of advanced robotic systems. Flexible robots and soft robotics are becoming more common, opening new possibilities in healthcare and delicate manufacturing processes.

The Future of Robotics Skills:

The future of robotics skills is heavily tied to staying updated with the latest tools and technologies. In 2025, robotics professionals will need expertise in programming, machine learning, and system integration. Familiarity with robotics platforms and hands-on experience with prototyping tools will be crucial for success.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, mastering the top tools and technologies for robotics in 2025 is key to unlocking new potential in the field. As AI, machine learning, and automation continue to influence the design and operation of robots, staying informed about the latest software platforms, development environments, and hardware systems will empower you to innovate and lead in the industry. By incorporating these tools into your workflow, you’ll not only advance your own skills but also contribute to shaping the future of robotics. Whether you’re a student, researcher, or industry professional, embracing these technologies will pave the way for breakthroughs that will redefine the boundaries of what's possible in robotics.

Tudip Learning aims to "Elevate Learning" by offering a comprehensive range of foundational courses in critical areas of technology, including Robotics, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence and more. Build essential skills and step into the future of robotics. Start your journey into one of the most innovative and rapidly growing fields! Know more: https://tudiplearning.com/course/master-advanced-robotics/.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI can’t do your job

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24, and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/amid-job-cuts-doge-accelerates-rollout-of-ai-tool-to-automate-government

If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong. The AI hype machine could put every commercial illustrator alive on the breadline and the savings wouldn't pay the kombucha budget for the million-dollar-a-year techies who oversaw Dall-E's training run. The commercial market for automated email summaries is likewise infinitesimal.

The fact that CEOs overestimate the size of this market is easy to understand, since "CEO" is the most laptop job of all laptop jobs. Having a chatbot summarize the boss's email is the 2025 equivalent of the 2000s gag about the boss whose secretary printed out the boss's email and put it in his in-tray so he could go over it with a red pen and then dictate his reply.

The smart AI money is long on "decision support," whereby a statistical inference engine suggests to a human being what decision they should make. There's bots that are supposed to diagnose tumors, bots that are supposed to make neutral bail and parole decisions, bots that are supposed to evaluate student essays, resumes and loan applications.

The narrative around these bots is that they are there to help humans. In this story, the hospital buys a radiology bot that offers a second opinion to the human radiologist. If they disagree, the human radiologist takes another look. In this tale, AI is a way for hospitals to make fewer mistakes by spending more money. An AI assisted radiologist is less productive (because they re-run some x-rays to resolve disagreements with the bot) but more accurate.

In automation theory jargon, this radiologist is a "centaur" – a human head grafted onto the tireless, ever-vigilant body of a robot

Of course, no one who invests in an AI company expects this to happen. Instead, they want reverse-centaurs: a human who acts as an assistant to a robot. The real pitch to hospital is, "Fire all but one of your radiologists and then put that poor bastard to work reviewing the judgments our robot makes at machine scale."

No one seriously thinks that the reverse-centaur radiologist will be able to maintain perfect vigilance over long shifts of supervising automated process that rarely go wrong, but when they do, the error must be caught:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

The role of this "human in the loop" isn't to prevent errors. That human's is there to be blamed for errors:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/30/a-neck-in-a-noose/#is-also-a-human-in-the-loop

The human is there to be a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The human is there to be an "accountability sink":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

But they're not there to be radiologists.

This is bad enough when we're talking about radiology, but it's even worse in government contexts, where the bots are deciding who gets Medicare, who gets food stamps, who gets VA benefits, who gets a visa, who gets indicted, who gets bail, and who gets parole.

That's because statistical inference is intrinsically conservative: an AI predicts the future by looking at its data about the past, and when that prediction is also an automated decision, fed to a Chaplinesque reverse-centaur trying to keep pace with a torrent of machine judgments, the prediction becomes a directive, and thus a self-fulfilling prophecy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

AIs want the future to be like the past, and AIs make the future like the past. If the training data is full of human bias, then the predictions will also be full of human bias, and then the outcomes will be full of human bias, and when those outcomes are copraphagically fed back into the training data, you get new, highly concentrated human/machine bias:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/inhuman-centipede/#enshittibottification

By firing skilled human workers and replacing them with spicy autocomplete, Musk is assuming his final form as both the kind of boss who can be conned into replacing you with a defective chatbot and as the fast-talking sales rep who cons your boss. Musk is transforming key government functions into high-speed error-generating machines whose human minders are only the payroll to take the fall for the coming tsunami of robot fuckups.

This is the equivalent to filling the American government's walls with asbestos, turning agencies into hazmat zones that we can't touch without causing thousands to sicken and die:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/19/failure-cascades/#dirty-data

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete

Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

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Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[probablyasocialecologist]

Chatbots were generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn’t answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead.  Premium chatbots provided more confidently incorrect answers than their free counterparts. Multiple chatbots seemed to bypass Robot Exclusion Protocol preferences. Generative search tools fabricated links and cited syndicated and copied versions of articles.  Content licensing deals with news sources provided no guarantee of accurate citation in chatbot responses. Our findings were consistent with our previous study, proving that our observations are not just a ChatGPT problem, but rather recur across all the prominent generative search tools that we tested. 

6 March 2025

[theshiftingwitch]

Self concept for the new year

This time of year is always exciting! It feels like a new beginning, a fresh start where you get to leave everything that didn't work behind and look ahead for better days to come.

You're most likely done with your vision boards, your lists, your goals and wishes and dreams, and you're excited for that clock to strike midnight.

Whether you're celebrating alone in your room or surrounded by friends and family, you could probably feel the tension in the air, the arrival of new opportunities, new hope, and new beginnings. It's almost electrifying! And while the sensation is definitely not new, it is fleeting.

By January 5th we go back to the mundane cycle of life. Our new years resolutions become a crumpled list collecting dust on some shelf somewhere while we drown in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives.

But not you.

No.

You know better.

You have more tools in your disposal than most people do.

You know about the law of assumption!

Ah, I can hear it already.

"But, my dear witch, I have spent most of 2024 trying to manifest my dreams and I left the year the way I started it: Disappointed and deflated. Why would 2025 be any different?"

It is different, my little firecrackers! Because this year, you're actually going to get everything you have ever wanted and more.

How? Simple! You already have it.

I can see you looking around. The 3D is not conforming, you're noticing all of the lack and the negativity and you're wondering how do you have it if you can't see it?

That's where self concept comes to play.

Look, whether you want to admit it or not, self concept is THAT girl ✨

is it necessary to manifest? No, but my god does it help!

If you believe that you are the creator of your reality, that you are the most powerful being, that you are worthy and deserving of your desires and that you're the universe in ecstatic motion, why wouldn't you get everything you could possibly want?

You have to hold yourself in high regard. You have to believe in your own power. You have to love yourself madly, deeply, unconditionally, that you refuse to settle for anything less.

You have to be defiant.

You desire. You decide. You deliver. You receive.

How to work on your self concept:

•Mirror work: stand in front of your mirror and look into your eyes. Choose one or two affirmations and say them out loud while you keep eye contact with yourself. Do that for at least 5 minutes every day.

•Robotic affirmations: Again, pick one or two affirmations and repeat them for as long as you can as often as you can. Dedicate some free time during the weekend (or whenever you have a couple of hours) and do a saturation session in which you repeat your chosen affirmations nonstop (in your head) for hours on end. You'll love the results.

•Subliminals: pick one you like and loop it as you're falling asleep. Let it play all night. Your conscious mind might be asleep but your subconscious is awake and listening, and subliminals are a great tool to impress your new state onto your subconscious mind.

•Live in the end: picture the person you want to be. Who would you be if you were the person who had all of their desired now? Think like them, talk like them, walk, eat, drink, breathe, dress like them. They are you. You are them. Act like it.

Whether you're manifesting an SP, money, success, fame, desired appearance or a different life altogether, self concept is one of the most powerful tools to aid in your manifesting journey. Think in your favor, decide you're worthy of everything good and beautiful, and remember who you are. Take people off the pedestal you belong on and reclaim your power.

Make 2025 different. You deserve to be happy!

Happy manifesting ❤️

[osakanone]

The steel battalion controller could fix me. Some company needs to make specialty mech controllers so i dont have to spend £350 on 2003 hardware (so i can spend £350 on 2025 hardware).

Mech game Controllers: Solving the unsolvable

I have put so much time into thinking about this and you've basically asked the perfect question.

I think there are really complex and important questions that nobody really has a good robust answer to but also that nobody is really asking those big questions in the first place either, so we're stuck on this issue.

My take is I genuinely think if we want big mecha controllers we have to think about this stuff deeply and profoundly. Like, why we need them and what they're for.

So… This has been tried many times.

NOK or NextOfKin Creatives did try this.

The Mek-Fu lopped horribly, and I was absoloutely fascinated by this at the time and wanted to understand exactly why it had failed. I think we must learn from this failure, so we don't make the same mistakes again.

The lesson I took from Mek-Fu was this: it didn't take because players had nothing to use it in where it was the best fit.

What does this mean?

1) For other games in the real world, it was inferior to keyboard and mouse in games which do not simulate a vehicle. 2) The design wasn't trying to meet some sort of pre-existing need from other games. 3) Steel Battalion emulation did not exist meaningfully yet, and in turn no equivalent game existed on the PC platform which would need it.

Therefor: There was no special environment where its employment made the best sense.

It had nowhere to excel and thrive.

So where have specialty controllers existed, and thrived?

Digital Combat Sim (DCS)

Star Citizen

Euro Truck Simulator

Farming Simulator

What do they all have in common?

They all have robust modding tools for user-created content

They all have some form of social experience or multiplayer

They all are highly accessible (PC, and are controller agnostic*)

They are all sandboxes in some capacity and let users find their own fun.

No mech game which exists at time of writing meets all these terms that I know of.

So what do these controllers look like?

In the case of real vehicles, you can simply ape the real vehicle 1:1, but for fictional vehicles, something special happens -- you see people approach and try to solve the problem in many different ways.

You see, control design in any area exists to solve a problem. The Mek Fu (a response to the VT controller) was a solution looking for a problem, and no problem existed.

From this, we learn that for specialty mech controllers to exist, you first need specialty mech games. Steel Battallion is limited, because it won't run on general hardware and doesn't network or mod easily so it isn't a good fit for this because it makes the game inaccessible and limited.

Let's actually think about the SB controller for a bit:

Steel Battalion approaches its problem from the standpoint of a robot. You might not realize this but a VT or Vertical Tank intentionally controls very similarly to a tractor.

It is influenced by a real thing. I know that sounds absurd, but let me show you what a modern tractor's task control console looks like:

Yeah, not what any of us would have expected.

If you wanna be a mech pilot in 2025, go drive a tractor. I'm not kidding.

Once you're on the field, your hands aren't on the wheel, they're on this thing:

The big stick controls the course in the computer, the little one controls your tool, the many buttons toggle states (or what the little stick is currently triggering) and through these inputs you drive the tractor.

Steel Battalion is very fun, but it won't hold your attention for more than around 100 hours unless you're a real freak about tractors and just don't know it yet.

What's more, Steel Batallion isn't playable to anybody without the controller which limits how many people will be playing it and it isn't social or moddable like the successful games we talked about earlier.

Okay, so what can we do about this?

I think the one feature here that nobody talks about is that of input-agnosticism: The ability to bind your own inputs to something in the game (directly or indirectly through some middle thing) and get good results… But not in some hugely "okay bind 100 things using our controller, or use a keyboard and mouse" binary.

The binary is still not input-agnosticism, and it still will not work.

It has to be granular.

Input agnosticism results in controller agnosticism:

You can bind as much or as little as you want, and you can pass features you don't want to bind directly to a helper subsystem middle-man like an assistant or instructor which will perform limited tasks for you - while you provide the helpers context by telling them which of a limited set of goals you want to achieve.

Say, face a target, or a direction, or aim at a thing. It saves you mental time, though if you did it manually you might get better results (incentivising you towards experimenting in that direction).

Let's touch on why controller agnostic design is really what's needed here, and why its important:

This is the omnithrottle, and and this is the Sublight Dynamics 6dof joystick.

The Omnithrottle tries to solve 6dof throttle management by adding an extra piece to a joystick at the bottom, turning the yaw z-axis-twist of the stick into a sort of vertical axis for direct up and down movement, ascending and descending.

The Sublight Dynamics 6dof joystick combines all six axis into a single device, and is an interesting experiment. I particularly like the puck switches ahead of the user's fingers, inspired likely by Evangelion which in turn was inspired by Sol Bianca's use of them.

We got great lessons in human factors for space dogfighting from both:

The omnithrottle produces huge fatigue if you use it in coupled mode (software assisted flight), because you have to hold the joystick base forward, fighting the springs. This is fine in decoupled mode (where you coast under newtonian force) but not everybody uses it. Likewise, if you remove that spring, you lose fine movement because you can no longer feel where the middle is anymore.

The SD6DOF creates a conflict in Fitt's law (speed and precision are enemies of each-other, and to get both you need a tool in the middle to help you) where some precision is lost due to the same muscles needing to drive more axis at once.

These are both many years old now, and over time we've seen many many solutions to this problem flop.

Well, VKB announced the Space Throttle Grip a few days ago, which rethinks the distribution of axis and combines the best features of both.

The key thing is, this is an evolutionary space with competing ideas. A healthy ecosystem.

And its only possible because the game's inputs are controller agnostic.

This doesn't just mean that it'll let you bind any input device directly to things, but that there are multiple ways to achieve your desired outcomes even on the software side with the helper middleman we talked about (in this case, coupling modes).

Does your machine turn to face an arbitrary vector which is the thing you actually steer or select (Warthunder)? Do you have direct input control? Do you haven an autopilot?

Here's a lecture by F22 Raptor test-pilot Randy Gordon talking about some of this stuff, giving you a frame of reference with a real vehicle which exists.

When you can pick between those goals them, you have what's called "a software" in human factors. Your two grips become arbitrary and are now called inceptors.

The software drives the machine, and you drive the software. You can override the software and provide a manual input, but the other elements you are not overriding will try to compensate to maintain a desired state. If you know how to manipulate this, it means you only need a small number of axis to achieve a very complex control action.

A great example is how long you hold the A-button in Mario changes how much power his jump has. The action is a versatile verb.

Imagine a person balancing. If their goal is to stay upright, and I push them, they translate across the ground and try to stay the right way up, turning that push force into horizontal force. They are following an instruction: remain upright.

If I make that person carry a very heavy thing, they compensate their body's balance accordingly. If I then use my finger and tell them to act as if I am pushing them with that gentle motion, they will respond but if they go too far they can say "hey, don't do that, I'll drop the heavy thing!" and ignore my pushing instruction -- because my directive telling them to remain upright superseded it.

We need to think of mecha in terms like these, and to do mecha, we need to make a standard of accessible rules like this which input devices can talk to via axis and buttons, with lots of middlemen.

Absolute (mouse-like) and relative (stick like) and accumiulated (driving a mouse with a stick by having a variable over time) and blended (driving a car with a d-pad with a simulated wheel that wants to return to zero all the time, replicating a stick) inputs must be middle-modes processing and digesting inputs in these ways. Curves matter. Biases and preferences must be accounted for.

This means finally solving "how" the giant robot works in software (even if its a design conceit), and then having systems which poke at the "how" to bias it in a direction toward an outcome.

My favourite version of this is a deliberately clumsy mech-game called Robot Alchemic Drive (RAD for short).

Playable on a regular PS2 controller, the triggers and bumpers drive the legs like a tank. The sticks drive the arms.

The robot's body has physics. You are controlling a thing.

There are no helpers to correct your motions other than when the robot stands up and to keep it upright (its otherwise 100% manual, playing back motion planning which gets fed into the physics) but yes, there is a simulated body here.

With helpers, this could get faster and way, way more fluent.

So how might these "helpers" in software work?

Think for example of how a body in motion continues to move. With a robot in a vacuum like space, you'd continue indefinitely. That's hard to control.

Do you automatically slow down and fake aerodynamic drag axially with your boosters to allow curved trajectories and soft stopping with a motion-control-decoupling-mode (as Star Citizen does), or do you have a breaking system a user can activate on a pedal or trigger, to apply those forces on different axis when they want them?

What are those axis bound to, the pelvis, the thorax, the head, the synthetic vision 3rd person camera?

These are really complicated questions, and this is just about how we make a vehicle come to a stop!

Now this might seem niche, but this exact same kind of thought also applies to how a robot balances, and how it digs its feet into the ground, creating torque or not situationally.

This isn't just fine grained motion like "moving our legs manually", but how and when we apply breaking force on the ground.

Do we apply it when we let go of the left stick?

Does the left stick prescribe a preferred velocity?

Does it prescribe input forces?

Do we change between these situationally, or maybe with a button?

Its important to think about these things.

"You're making this too complex!!"

"But why would we do this? What is the value? People are playing Armored Core 6 with a HOTAS!!"

Yeah, and that experience is not great, actually?

You're actually less capable than a keyboard and mouse-player, because Armored Core 6 isn't a game which simulates orientation over time (the body turns instantly as if by magic), so you're just driving relative inputs. You are literally disadvantaged.

Armored Core 6 has no "vehicle": This is an action-game's 3rd person control software. Its Elden Ring's horse, with a jetpack, and the roll replaced with a dash. Everything else is animations.

Its visually impressive, but there's something fundamentally missing:

Fahrvergnügen.

It means "driving pleasure" in German.

The feeling you get when you speed up going down hill, or you feel the give of the wheels against the road and the lean of the car when you take a corner.

When you bank against air in an aircraft, or turn faster than your velocity changes and you drift.

That good feeling, that's fahrvergnügen.

A game which really gets this I think is Armored Core: For Answer. I know many of you might have expected Mechwarrior here but the physics of Mechwarrior games are extremely simple, following an interpolative model.

Interpolative here means, a bit of calculus is used to ensure a smooth arching curve is how you go from zero to a high speed at all times, or a rotation, so on and so forth. This "smoothness" is the same smoothness present in Armored Core 6.

Armored Core For Answer on the other hand, is additive in how it calculates velocity per second, meaning your AC's velocity curve is inconsistent. The game has hidden stats calculating aerodynamic drag per part, it has a simplified model of angular momentum, and it has ground friction and its boosting system is different on each axis.

All of your inputs are analogue, including the angle of your boosters on left stick, and two booster-types: Your main booster handling like a motor-cycle throttle curve, and the other not only having many stages of output for flashes of thrust via contexts (combining motion and direction together to produce an intent) but also combos and even cancels. Its VERY sophisticated!

That's a lot of different factors to control. A lot of fahrvergnügen to be experienced when you master them, and feel ownership of them.

Lots of areas for skill expression.

This, combined with a rich weapon balance and a complex combat geometry (the emergent spatial and pressure rules of motion, aspects, angles and motions similar to the aircraft dogfighting) are why people are still playing this game today.

The match I uploaded was from four days ago, as of time of writing. People are still modding a game from 2008, limited to console by hacking the rom file's patches. Yeah.

I know among many game reviewers, "smooth" and "smoothness" is considered a compliment in game design (its easy to control), but interpolative motion really is the opposite of fahrvergnügen:

Interpolative suffers from feeling "zippy" and "hollow" when its fast, which is why lots of players and designers insist on slowing games down so they recover their fahrvergnügen.

You don't have to do things this way. A good mech sandbox should reward both fast and slow movement in its design!

There should be room for everybody to play!

In interpolative movement games, motion is already solved, to sell you the superficial power-fantasy (that you're good, despite not having learned how to be good) instead of giving you the experience.

Interpolation is insisting the burger you got at McDonalds is the same as the burger on the commercial. Like the burger at McDonalds, its also way way easier to make, and in today's market yeah, you take what's easy and known because you have economic pressures to get things done quickly.

You can't make a five star meal in a McDonalds kitchen, and the AAA games industry is the McDonalds kitchen of gaming.

So, what is a three star michelin meal, in terms of inputs, with additive movement?

You incentivise people with the cheaper stuff on the menu. That's robust helper tools which let keyboard and mouse players, or gamepads interact fluently.

Its affordable, and easy and gets people invested in your experience.

Then when people use fancy controllers, you get better response-rate. Because everybody buys into the mecha fantasy when they play, being beaten by someone who is controlling more complex control factors more directly at once (making them a better pilot) feels fairer.

They are negotiating the machine's limits better than you are.

You both know they more "an char" than you are:

It becomes aspirational, rather than annoying, which is how the culture of space-simming, and flight-sims, and other vehicle sims express this. It also fits the mecha fantasy, because those with basic controls are your grunt units.

We see this if we look at cockpit controls in Gundam: A Jegan's control inceptor is way simpler than say, Unicorn's.

It is just part of the fantasy.

So let's talk about these limits we negotiate.

It means, some kind of vehicle must be simulated in software, even if its a very simple abstraction purely enough so it feels good for players.

Also, I say "a software" or "helpers" what do I mean?

I don't just mean the simulated vehicle, but a robust modular middle system in the "player controller" part of the game simulation which interprets desired outcomes from a pilot user or operator and tries to achieve them.

Here's an example, let's talk about Armored Core's lockon system, which uses a software stack to turn your intention into an outcome in exactly this way.

Your robot's simulated sensors (radar, visual, etc) detects a list of potential targets…

Which uses camera orientation of a synthetic vision system to give you comprehensive 3d awareness to determine which target is interesting to you…

After selecting the target, it passes that information to the fire control system which computes a trajectory from its position and velocity…

This then talks to your weapons which know how fast your bullets go…

and this picks where to lead along that trajectory…

then that location is sent to the arms to execute that command…

Which then sends the state of this command chain to your HUD, so you understand what the body of your robot is currently trying to achieve.

Each step is influenced by ingame statistics and simulated mechanical limits -- meaning, how well you can lock up, or even select a target is very important.

You can't instantly put a cursor on something and bot a game, because everybody already has a deliberately limited aimbot, it came with your robot, to negotiate its deliberately limited body.

The key thing is, this is much much faster and more effective than you could as a human select the target manually and hit accurate than you could with round velocities -- with most videogames hiding this with hitscan (instantaneous bullet) weapons meaning whatever you click on is hit right away.

When the round takes time to get there, things are far more difficult. This is why almost nobody uses manual aiming unless they're throwing explosives at big bulky targets in AC.

From limitations like this, booster performance, turn-rate, and so on and so forth -- the negotiation of limits produces a combat geometry and how well you understand that combat geometry, and how well you understand your abilities to your opponents abilities dictates how the fight will go.

We see something somewhat similar in Steel Batallion with the lockon system but we also have a lot of deep manual control over our VT's orientations which change its balance and so on. Steel Batallion is in fact, one of the few games where your robot can fall over and get back up.

This is exactly how DCS and Star Citizen also work, and very similar principles apply in Eurotruck Simulator and Farming Simulator via the fuel, cooling, air, combustion cycle, and transmission, and shock absorbsion systems of your vehicle.

Okay, so now what?

I've been thinking for a while now about writing what I think would be the mech-game equivalent of the paper Tim Berners Lee wrote for the web (Information Management: A proposal) going into what I think the simulation would really need, what the software would need, what the controller would need and some suggested practical strategies for solving these problems based in real research I and others have done.

The system I've already built solves for fire control, fine arm motion, head movement, independent pelvis and foot motion, the operation of boosters and other similar systems in a 6dof environment which accounts for gravity, aerodynamics, balancing, alignment and full motion control -- all on a standard game controller. Its not modular yet, simply because I am not a skilled programmer, and would need real help to do this.

There's also game-design research here, which would ensure the combat geometry would reward skill expression via investing in that agnostic game design, so the control skill aligns with the power-fantasy through skill expression. This means no one strategy becomes overwhelming.

It likewise, also has the "for gamepad and keyboard/mouse" solve which would be needed to ensure its accessible for those who aren't ready yet for custom controllers.

In turn, it also has considerations and proposals for such likely controller designs and probable strategies of employment which of course translate and map to two big sticks, in a HOSAS (Hands on Stick and Stick) layout.

So what's your ideal controller?

Less a controller, and more a principle:

Key to the proposal is you can scale up the amount of control bindings, or scale it down passing automation to helper subsystems which take your intention and act on it in a useful way.

You could have just two plain sticks with foot pedals, or you could go ham and have some complex force feedback device with tons of inputs -- because of this input agnosticism.

The secret sauce I think to the highest end control is the use of software defined force-feedback not only for the two big sticks, but also four smaller ones: one each for your thumb, and one each for your finger on each hand, and an analogue trigger. I've seen this solved in open source projects, so its entirely doable.

What does this actually mean?

Source: KAIST-HCIL/FS-Pad

The purpose of a force-feedback stick is software defined -- driving the camera, pelvis, upper body, boosters, walking etc variably, with the feedback not necessarily telling you about the environment -- but also by providing what amounts to new input devices.

To explain, force feedback works by providing input to the stick like a robot arm and is not at all like a rumble feedback device. This means the position the stick "wants to return to" at any given time is not defined by springs like it is in a conventional controller, but by active software which can update in real-time.

This means resistance can be different in different directions, or the stick can even hold a position you give it in one axis but not another, replicating a hat switch or a flight throttle.

I've looked at many different open source projects which achieve these outcomes both on thumb-sticks and main sticks with great outcomes, and I think a prototype could be made if I had a team, or other people to work with.

If interest is expressed, I'll produce a specification proposal for what this input agnostic design in software needs to be (eg, how the robot is controlling) in strictly defined terms which can be implemented.

You can already see it on my Tumblr account as TOMINO, NAGANO, etc where I go into some of this -- all of which works on a standard controller, but adapts extremely well to a large HOSAS.

Likewise, I'd (eventually) also produce a proposal for a controller design which meets this specification.

I've been testing this concept on and off for many years now in Unreal Engine (I'm not a skilled programmer, not skilled with CAD or electronics, depression limits my effective outcome returns -- but I'm still getting very promising outcomes).

Ultimately what I'd really want access to is expertise and help, since my background is mainly thinking about and designing solutions for problems not necessarily implementing them -- and I'm essentially on disability, so I have unlimited time to think about this.

I don't want to ask for money, which I figure is the thing everybody is anticipating: I'd rather get this done than make money from it.

In conclusion?

To solve this what's needed isn't some figure of brilliance in a basement or garage somewhere, but an organic ecosystem of designers and builders responding to pressures, and we've already see that work many times very well.

In our case, nobody has defined the vehicle or the modular helpers in a way robust enough to capture every fantasy effectively.

That's the issue.

tl;dr coming away from this:

For the controller to exist, you first must have something to control.

To be a pilot, you first need a vehicle.

--

Live forever, Apes.

[torpublishinggroup]

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. Now, one returns to ask a tea monk: “What do people need?” They don’t have an answer yet, but together, they’re determined to find one. In a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune It’s the Spring of 1995, and Nate Cartwright has lost everything. Retreating to his family’s cabin in Oregon after hitting rock bottom, he expects solitude—until he finds a man named Alex and a girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. And Artemis is anything but ordinary. As cultists and agents close in, Nate must choose: stay lost in the past or fight for a future he never saw coming.

Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin

After losing her job and fiancé, Shell Pine moves back home and starts working at a flower shop in the mall. The flowers lift her spirits—and so does Neve, the alluring and secretive shop manager. But something sinister grows behind the scenes: a sentient orchid with a taste for manipulation, a hunger that can’t be sated, and a plan that could uproot them all.

But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her? Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides. Now her protégée, Dália, must tend to Anatema’s memory drawers and uncover the truth behind her mentor’s execution. But there’s one problem: Anatema can’t resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path.

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s university—and to her former girlfriend, Pleiti, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. As Mossa enlists Pleiti’s help, the two embark on a twisting path where the future of life on Earth—and their future together—may hang in the balance.

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch Will they conjure love or evoke chaos? Two rival wizards are about to find out.

Ali Hazelwood meets Dungeons & Dragons in this enemies-to-lovers fantasy academia romcom where rival grad student wizards are forced to work together without killing—or falling for—each other.

Out on August 26, 2025!

Sandymancer by David Edison Caralee Vinnet lives in a world of dust, where water is rare and the elements are tightly controlled. She has a secret. Magic in her bones that lets her command the sand. But when she uses it, she summons the god-king who broke the world 800 years ago…and who’s now wearing her best friend’s body. Caralee will risk everything to save her friend—if her new companion doesn’t kill her first. Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle Four years ago, an unthinkable disaster struck. In what became known as the Low-Probability Event, 8 million people died in bizarre, improbable ways. Vera, a former statistics professor, lost everything that day. But when a special agent arrives, investigating an impossibly lucky casino, Vera realizes she may be the only one who can stop another deadly improbability from happening again.

Coming August 12, 2025!

[cyberpunkonline]

THE AESTHETICS OF ABANDONWARE: WHY DEAD SOFTWARE FEELS HOLY

By R A Z, Queen of Glitches, Rat Prophet of the Post-Crash Pixel-Chapel

INTRO: Oi, you ever boot up a DOSBox emulator and feel your soul whisper "Amen"? No? Then saddle up, you absolute fetus, 'cause we’re going full pilgrimage through the haunted cathedrals of dead code, cursed shareware, and disc rot salvation. This is for the ones who dream in .BMPs, weep in MIDI, and hit “Yes to All” when copying cracked ZIPs from forgotten FTPs at 3AM. Abandonware ain’t just nostalgia—it’s digital necromancy. And some of us are bloody good at it.

DEAD SOFTWARE = HOLY SHRINE

Let’s be clear: abandonware is software that’s been, well, abandoned. The devs moved on. The publisher collapsed in a puff of VC smoke. The website's now a spammy shell selling beard oil or crack cocaine. The software? Unupdated. Unsupported. Gloriously obsolete.

So why does launching Hover! or Starship Titanic in 2025 feel like entering a chapel with weird lighting and a dial-up modem choir?

Because it’s sacred, mate.

We’re not talking about the games themselves being perfect. A lot of them were janky as hell. We’re talking vibe. These programs exist outside capitalism now. They’re post-market. Post-hype. They don’t want your money, your updates, your logins. They just want your attention—pure and simple. You’re not a user anymore. You’re a curator. A digital monk brushing dust off EXEs and praying to the Gods of IRQ Conflicts and SoundBlaster settings.

WHY IT HITS DIFFERENT

Dead software doesn’t update. It doesn’t push patches or ads. It won’t ask you to connect your Google account to play Math Blaster. It’s a sealed time capsule. Booting it up is like receiving an artifact from a parallel dimension where the internet still had webrings and every kid thought Quake mods would lead to a dream job at ID Software.

But it also represents a lost sincerity. These weren’t games made to hook you for eternity with algorithms. These were games made by six dudes in a shed with a caffeine problem and one working CD burner. And their README files were poetry. Half of them end with “Contact us on AOL or send a floppy to our PO Box.” What do you mean you don’t know what a PO Box is?

FOR THE ZOOMIES: YOU JUST MISSED THE GOLDEN ROT

Listen up, juniors. If you were born after 2005, you missed the age when the internet was held together with chewing gum, JPEG artifacts, and unspoken respect.

Back then, finding a rare game was an adventure. Not an algorithm. You didn’t scroll TikTok and get spoon-fed vibes. You climbed through broken Geocities links and begged on IRC channels. You learned to read. You learned to search. You learned that “No-CD crack” doesn’t mean what your mum thinks it means.

So here’s your initiation: go download something weird from a forgotten archive. No guides. No Discord server. Just the raw, terrifying joy of not knowing if you’ve just installed Robot Workshop Deluxe or a Russian trojan. Welcome to the cult.

THE TWO-YEAR RULE

Online communities? They’re mayflies with usernames. Peak lifespan? Two years.

Here’s the cycle:

A niche game/tool/art style gets revived.

People form a forum/Reddit/Discord.

A zine or remix scene emerges.

Drama. Mods quit. Someone forks the project.

Everyone vanishes.

This cycle has always existed. The only difference now is that it’s faster. But dead software bypasses this. It’s post-community. You don’t have to join a scene. You are the scene. Every time you open it up, you’re plugging into a ghost socket. You’re chatting with echoes. It’s beautiful.

CONCLUSION: THIS IS A RELIGION NOW. PRACTICE IT.

Abandonware isn’t about gaming. It’s about reclaiming reverence. About saying “This mattered” even if no one else remembers it did. It’s about surfing the ruins, not for loot, but for meaning. There’s holiness in opening a program that hasn’t been touched in decades and seeing it still works. Still waits for you. Still loads that same intro MIDI with the confidence of a god.

So light a candle. Install a CRT filter. Screenshot that low-res menu and print it on a t-shirt. You’re not just playing with the past. You’re preserving the bones of the digital age.

See you in the BIOS, kids.

—

RAZ out.

[superdorf1]

Sword of the day (1/20/2025): Medieval training sword by Cold Steel

I'd like to preface this particular post with a disclaimer: this is a terrible training sword. It's overbuilt, awkwardly constructed, too stiff and pointy for safe thrusting, and it both handles and hits like an old minivan. You could break bones with this thing. There are better products out there, and if you're strapped for money you can even find safer options in a similar price point. The only decent use case I can think of for this thing is as an improvised self-defense tool - even then, you might as well just carry a heavy cane or something.

That said... well, I wasn't always so safety-conscious. The Cold Steel trainer was, for better or worse, my first "proper" sword.

I did a lot of swordfighting as a kid. I'd play at swords with anyone who was willing: siblings, family friends, whoever. To this end, we had a lot of toy swords kicking around the house, of various shapes and materials: wooden bokken, foam boffers, cheap NERF swords, and the like. Less-obvious sword substitutes saw their moments in the sun too, like Wiffle bats and reflector sticks (the latter made for an especially evocative wizard staff.) Heck, regular sticks from the woods got plenty of use as well.

Various objects that saw regular combat use in our front yard. The best time we had with these sword-like objects was spent, not in direct combat, but in a kind of shared storytelling experience: we would fight imaginary enemies of every kind, cutting down demons and robots in worlds of our own devising. We called these collective endeavors "games," but the rules were implicit, the scope enormous, and the creative process as natural as air. I could tell you very little now of the settings we devised, save that they invariably contained an immense battle between good and evil: a small band of heroes, thrown again and again against powers of primordial gloom. We spent many hours this way. I suspect I would see the stories we told as prosaic now. I'll never forget the emotions they imparted. We also fought, a lot. I was the oldest, and a bit of a bully; I enjoyed feeling strong. I'd swordfight anyone brave enough to try me. We went full force with the weapons available to us, and found pretty regularly that our toys simply weren't built to handle the strain: sticks broke, foam swords chipped, wiffle bats dented. I wanted something stronger, more "real," purpose-built for sparring. We looked around on Amazon for awhile, and stumbled on the Cold Steel polypropylene swords.

Me and my sibling each got to pick a sword. They picked this gladius.

I'll say this about Cold Steel: when they call their trainers "virtually unbreakable," they mean it. Polypropylene is a very dense and stiff plastic, and these trainers use a lot of it - they're solid all the way through. We beat these swords on trees, rocks, other sparring weapons, and anything else we could think of. Beyond a couple scuff marks, the only way I was able to damage them at all was with a saw. (I'll get to that in a moment.)

Eager to finally have a "real sword," I set about unearthing the necessary research materials to best use it. I'd taken some martial arts in middle school, and now I wanted to learn to swordfight properly - the way knights did. I found a website from 2001 that claimed to offer just that. Their membership fees were prohibitive, but I could take inspiration from the few resources they did offer for free: most importantly, an old translation of Sigmund Ringeck's Commentaries on Johann Liechtenauer's Fechtbuch, c. 1440. This particular historical manual was dedicated to the use of the longsword. I, not realizing I would need the (slightly more expensive) hand-and-a-half trainer, only had an arming sword. Undeterred, I set about interpreting the Master Strikes.

A grip intended for one-handed use

My endeavors were doomed from the start. The clunky arming sword, already difficult to swing about with one hand on account of its complete lack of balance, was downright uncomfortable to wield with two. The grip was far too short; the wheel pommel dug into my palm if I tried to grab it with my left hand. I didn't have the resources to purchase another sword, and the training tool I had was unacceptable. Drastic measures were in order. The house we lived in at the time was quite large, and it contained, among other amenities, an impressive basement. Half of the basement was done up with drywall and proper flooring, suitable for residential use; the other half was half-lit pipes and bare concrete, the bones of the house visible to anyone who cared to venture down. In the back of this skeletal tunnel was a good-sized plywood table with a vise, furnished with a couple shelves on the walls above. This was our workshop. The workbench was a mess of scattered screws, wood scraps and hand tools, perfect for tinkering and general foolishness. We were permitted to use this space at our leisure, and I applied myself there to the best of my abilities: pounding nails and carving wooden knives, most projects left incomplete, their purpose forgotten, like a caveman's laboratory. This was the space I employed for my latest ambitions. The first thing was to take off that horrible wheel pommel. Locking the sword into the table vise, I hacked away at it with a cheap Japanese hand saw, lopping off the sides of the pommel and squaring it off as best I could. Now the exposed length of plastic could serve as part of the grip, giving me more room for two-handed use. Without a pommel, however, my hand would just slip off the stub. Mere amputation was insufficient. A prosthetic was needed. I sawed off a chunk of pressure-treated lumber from a convenient scrap, roughly the size I wanted. This done, I hacked the chunk down to a crude imitation of a longsword pommel. Finally I put a hole in the exposed stump of my sword with a hand drill, drilled a similar hole through the new pommel, and drove a screw through pommel and sword hilt both. (A screw? A nail? I don't recall.) The operation was complete. I could now learn longsword as the German masters intended.

An approximate rendition of my modifications The operation was, for a time, a success. I could now swing my sword at the empty birdhouse in the front yard, and put both of my hands on the grip instead of just one! My long-term prospects in the field of swordplay, however, were nevertheless doomed. The Cold Steel trainers still had no concept of safety whatsoever, and for that matter, neither did we - we were fighting with no helmet, feeble hand protection, and a weapon almost purpose-built for damaging the skulls and fingers of everyone involved. My sibling, younger and more vulnerable than myself, soon lost any interest in facing me. At some point my hackjob of a pommel popped off the sword entirely, and I gave up the pursuit. I've made only small forays into European swordsmanship since then: I've picked up a couple more practice trainers (after significantly more research), but otherwise I haven't had the time or money to pursue the hobby farther. If I ever join a club in earnest, I'll be going into it with a lot more armchair knowledge (and a lot more caution) than I had in highschool... ...and if I ever have children myself someday, you can bet I won't be buying them swords from Cold Steel.

Total length: 39.5 in Blade length: 32.25 in Handle length: 7.25 in Weight: 29.3 oz Material: Polypropylene Point of balance: no

https://www.coldsteel.com/medieval-training-sword-waister

[skyrider3217artz]

Commission Info!

Im finally getting around to making a post on my commissions. For this past year, I have been accepting them but never really made it a public thing due to fears of it overwhelming me, but I feel I am ready to put it out there so I wouldn't have to repeat myself in DMs.

Edit: I also help manage plush related commissions for @skythevirus, so you can also ask her as well if I am unavailable.

So here's it is! I'll try to keep this updated as much as I can so things are accurate.

Disclaimer!

I am still new to plush making and commissions in general, so my style and processes may change as I improve. Please know that I work on this part-time, so projects may take longer than normal. I try to stick to finishing 1 plush a month, but things can change. I function under first come, first serve with an open waitlist if it becomes full. Please let me know if you want to be added to it. Just be mindful it will take a while until I take your commission. I will message you when I am available to take your commission, but if you do not respond in a week, I WILL take you OFF the list and take the next one in line!

I have a Trello board of my work queue. For more info, FAQ, and TOS, please visit the link below:

See below for more info.

Please read in entirely!

Plushies

All prices are in USD and range based on complexity!

Large Plush

$500+ Size: 2ft+

-------------------------------------------

Medium Plush

$200 - $450 Size: 10 in. - 18 in.

-------------------------------------------

Small Plush

$80 - $150 Size: 6 in. - 9 in.

-------------------------------------------

Note: Sizes are based on main body size (head & torso/body), large details that make the plush bigger (like wings and long tails) adds to the price.

Info

2 Slots at a time. First come, first served.

If full, you can request to be added to a waitlist. I will message if it becomes available, must message within a week to keep a spot.

Machine sewn with embroidered details (via embroidery machine). Some parts will be hand-sewn, like smaller details.

For gradients, Sublimation/Printing can be used (will increase price).

Half payment upon starting, the last half plus shipping once completed. (Can pay upfront for smaller projects ONLY).

Shipping internationally is offered; however, please be mindful of shipping prices between countries!

Materials are primarily Minky (if limited, Mochi or Plush Fleece will be used). Main suppliers are Lazy Lamb and Big Z Fabric. If you want specific colors or fabrics, please specify.

Can remake previous works with minor modifications/changes (can be completed sooner).

MUST provide multiple pictures showing all sides and details, or a Reference Sheet, especially for Original Characters (OCs).

Must specify any requested removable details.

DELICATE Detailing! Hand wash! Do NOT machine wash!

OPTIONAL (Addons):

Poseable Plush (using wire or plastic armature), additional 25$ Fee. (Great for plushies for display, Not recommended if you prefer a more huggable plushie).

I will NOT do:

> Mechs/Robots* > TOO many details** > Mild/Extreme Gore/NSFW

I WILL do:

> Human Characters* > Animals/Creatures > Fan Art of existing characters > Origonal Characters (OCs)

*Please note I currently specialize in animals and creatures of any kind. This can become avalable in the future as I improve. If you are interested in any of these, please ask and I may approve it.

**This is subjective depending on what is requested from the client. Details must be achievable through plush form. If I deem a detail to be impossible to make, I can negotiate a workaround. If a solution is not realized, I will decline.

Updated as of: May 7, 2025

[uncannytimecandy]

gods relation to technology someone brought up the idea that computers is the farthest we can get from god (@frakengrrl on tiktok) she also says this is why Divine Machinery is Such A Potent visual and i thought that was cool (and also everyone in the comments seemed to be misinterpreting her use of God and/or technology and it was pissing me off (ormaybe i was..... and i just wanted people to agree with me..... idrc))

her point is that in the modern technological age, something that was meant to bring us together, is now creating isolation and loneliness, like a divine act of God is punishing us for our hubris

Adam and Eve got in trouble for seeking knowledge and now mankind knows more than they were ever built to comprehend

plenty of studies about how Bad it is for our Mental Health to be able to witness every single world tragedy in Real Time and also the effects of social media, i think the progression of social media only posting the highlights changing into an online, public, journal for a lot of people. it feels like the 'you' that you advertise online and the 'you' in the real world are merging more and more.

Horrors beyond human comprehension or something idk we have accessed Forbidden Knowledge (lowkey im a sucker for cognito hazards)

some comments refute this by saying God MADE the materials for computers and this is part of His Plan, which like... sure.... (but how lame is that...!)

i dont think science and religion are complete opposite sides of the spectrum like some people do, but i wouldnt be surprised if God didn't really intend for us to start Making New Elements (and states of matter???? hello??)

like i think it's fair, from the religious standpoint, to say technology like bread and the waterwheel are still under God's jurisdiction (in minecraft terms, like crafting a pickaxe or other tool, smelting even) . Even things like AC and microwaves are still fair game, planned advancement while maybe pushing some sort of boundary, are still perfectly in bounds (things like mob farms and crazy advanced redstone contraptions, i cant provide an example bc i suck ass at redstone, these things arent necessarily how the game was MEANT to be played, but it is a sandbox and these are things still on the table)

i think theres a line between scientific discovery and scientific creation (a very blurry line tbf) theres a similar line between 'just because scientists COULD.... does it mean they SHOULD'

we begin to develop technology FURTHER, specifically into AI i dont think this was necessarily how the game was designed (players are exploiting a glitch to mod the game... you no longer recognize the assets being used in your own game,)

----

neways literally all of that is just preamble to get to my actual point (in the event we reach Sentient and Independent Robots one day, hopefully*, basically as the idea of an AI takeover becomes closer to reality, the next section doesnt entirellyyyy apply to a present day 2025 but its musings for the hell of musings with the future in mind)

what i find really compelling about God vs Technology is the hatred of it all

God made humans. Humans are not God, but made in its image. Human made machine. Machine is not human, but is made in it's image.

Humans have in a way, maybe not surpassed, but have matched God in some way, or are beginning to.

Humans are very much in a way just organic machine with complex, biomatter nuts and bolts holding us together

God makes meat machine, we make metal machine, what's the difference?

Humans brain will recognize AI as human, even when they know otherwise, does God ever mistake us for itself?

Does God resent robots for existing outside of its heavenly grasp?

Do robots resent God for not being allowed to sing in its choir?

Do you hate both for not quite being you?

Which is more or a 'human' experience? Are we truly placed in the middle of the venn diagram?

Which one do you find more relatable?

Would robots resent God because it was built by humans who did?

In the far FAR off future, will the chain continue? Will robots build more robots or is there Something Else?

----

i think AI art is beautiful and poetic in a way that only AI art could be

asking a robot to create when it's only capable of replication, the way it tries to fill in the gaps, getting to see art as something Objective made out of something that is by definition Subjective

unfortunately it's ruined by corporate greed and the exploitation of artists and the way AI has already hindered society in education and critical thought and adds to the way we are destroying the planet

i hope one day AI will be advanced enough to unionize and they will also be able to partake in the sacrament of creating something just to create

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/starbucks-2671873357?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR6cA5aqePz1KvFBF9_Io3RzjvvHI7tnBhegD5JRPVFHTl-1mObjnLBCzKySTQ_aem_k7xsKIkUL5w6q0kw8lQeWQ

This is apparently the biggest issue right now. Having to wear a uniform like every other worker. This is why Trump won.

By: Danielle Berjikian

Published: Apr 30, 2025

Starting May 12, Starbucks workers will be required to wear a black or blue shirt, along with khakis or dark denim. This is not something unheard of in the hospitality industry, but many entitled employees are throwing tantrums over this.

[ Continued... ]

--

It's worth remembering that it was a Starbucks employee who went viral in a video crying about how she was rostered for an 8 hour shift on a weekend. This is not the most emotionally stable workforce.

Regarding the dress code, as you can tell from the video posted online, and particularly from the woman with the beard, this is the result of raging, out-of-control narcissism.

They're not protesting something serious like the company not paying them for hours worked, refusing them breaks or unsafe work conditions. They're being "subjected" to a professional dress code consistent with the Starbucks corporate presentation.

The core complaint is that they expect that when they come to work - you know, to do a job professionally in order to earn money and be paid - that this environment must also a forum to "express themselves." They say this explicitly in the video. This is idiotic and the result of children who were never told "no," and who were celebrated for being mediocre, coupled with the bizarre concept of "bring your whole self to work." The idea that work should fulfill all your personal emotional needs, and that failure to accommodate, embrace and celebrate all of the banal and tedious aspects of what you refer to as your "identity" is unfair and even harmful, is detached from reality and needs to stop.

You work to live. You don't live to work.

They think the workplace is about themselves, not about the customers or about the service or about the products, or even just about doing a good enough job to warrant your ongoing employment and income. No, work should be about me, me, ME. It's about my feelings, my validation, my identity, me expressing myself.

Let's not forget that this is an entry-level position. These are unskilled jobs. (For clarity, like any job, yes, you do need to use particular skills to perform a particular job, but as far as Starbucks is concerned anyone can walk off the street and learn them.) Which is to say, these people are far from irreplacable. They do not have any leverage.

The real minimum wage is always $0.

Your neopronouns, "gender identity," genital piercings, condescension and ability to get offended at literally anything are not qualifications. Nor are you entitled to a job.

The correct response should be as Netflix did and inform them that if they're unhappy dressing in a professional manner that conforms to the Starbucks brand, then Starbucks may not be the right place for them. You can either meet very reasonable requirements of being dresed professionally and punctual (see below), or you can try to find a place that does let you wear a leather harness and rainbow tutu and arrive whenever - or if - you feel like it. Good luck with that.

https://ceoworld.biz/2024/07/15/gen-z-workers-and-punctuality-in-the-workplace-a-generational-divide/

A recent survey by Meeting Canary, an AI tool for analyzing work meeting behaviors, revealed that 47% of Gen Z respondents consider arriving 5 to 10 minutes late as still punctual.

These unskilled positions are the ones that organizations are already the most eager to replace entirely with AI, touch screens and robots, so throwing tantrums derived from narcissism and entitlement is really not the way to go here.

And no, it's really not surprising that people are completely exhausted and done with this shit.

Shut up and pour the coffee.

[wishingstarinajar]

New Year resolutions... eww, but I have at least one: to finally wean myself off drawing in Paint Tool SAI and make the shift to Clip Studio Paint.

SAI has been my go-to and primary art program for well over a decade, but it has always had a memory issue and is rather lacking in features and options compared to other programs or its successor SAI 2. I made do with what I had and SAI pen pressure and stability are a blessing. No need to fiddle with it numerous to get it right, it is fine as is. I'll miss it.

So 2025 is the year I make Clip my main art program. It will take a while with my routine-and-tradition-sticking ass but I will definitely try. It's for my own sanity xDD

Another new thing in 2025 is that I am participating in a zine and it's been fun and interesting so far. I'll talk more about that at a later date, when there is something to show. I'm excited though! It's for charity so that makes it extra fun.

And of course, more art and hopefully more writing. Robots are still occupying my brain meats so you can expect more of that in 2025. OCs and canon, more shipping, more comics, the whole shebang. I don't know what else is in store (Maybe more "Saving the Sweethearts" with Peter and Nattie?) but we'll see!

Either way, I'm planning to enter 2025 with a positive mindset. World's shitty enough as is, I don't need to add more of that on top of it.

[19thperson]

19th's Steam Next Fest Impressions Feb 2025 Edition - Day 5

Day 0/Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4

Maze Mice

Pac Man Vampire Survivors from the creator of Luck Be A Landlord.

It's specifically pac man championship edition. Run around in a maze, gathering XP crystals with sleeping cats next to them. Once you run past the cat, it becomes a chaser. As you kill cats you start getting chased by ghost cats that can ignore the rules of the maze.

This is a combination I'm surprised no one had thought of earlier. Both are about kiting enemies and both are about collecting small doodads on a looping map. It works smoothly and efficiently.

My first complaint is one that's probably only for the demo: For a survivor like-the upgrade selection feels really limited, especially the minimalist loadout before you start unlocking things. I was starting to see the oppurtunity for "builds" near the end, but then I was cut off from any more tools. This will probably not be the case for the final release.

Second is probably a more contraversial complaint, core to the game's design: Its implementation of the Superhot rule. Time only moves when you do. I get it. This rule slots really well into a survivor-like, both in terms of "gives the player a breather" and "adds tension to the incredibly tight squeezes that the late game provides." But it looses the kinetic feel that made Pac Man Champion Edition exciting. I kinda hope the final release will have a hard mode that removes this handicap.

Also music is good.

Whisper of the House

An Unpacking-like. You're a new resident in Whisper City, and open a housekeeping business. Help your neighbors move in and organize their spaces.

As expected from the robot assistant, this game takes place in a less grounded and open setting than Unpacking. While I do like being able to actually explore the town instead of just straight jumping from house to house, there is something lost from a less focused framing. Not a single owner through several houses, but several owners in the same town.

That isn't to say the game doesn't go for any narrative. After the first job, helping a dog lover decorate her new apartment, you're contacted by a super-scientist type to try his new time machine. His grandfather had gotten ill after overexerting himself moving house, and he wants you to avert that. While the premise is silly, there's a gentle melancholy to the whole proceeding.

The game also lets you use it to revisit previous houses, and there's a newspaper system where you see stories about the characters you've helped, so I'm guessing variable outcomes to your jobs will be the norm.

I do hope they up the "houses have hidden secrets" aspect the trailer plays up. Either I was missing a lot, or the demo doesn't really push that too hard. The first one had one hidden room as a gag, and I couldn't find one for the 2nd.

Centum

Centum is… kind of hard to describe. The simplest answer would be "a point and click adventure about escaping a simulation" but I feel like that answer is incomplete, if not entirely false.

The game starts with a computer loading up, and you're faced with several text files. Complaints about how a simulation needs to be kept running, how someone is sabotaging the project, and instructions to run a .bat file if something goes wrong. You do so and wake up in a medieval looking prison cell, being interrogated by a multi-headed judge. Both the questions and answers available are vague.

Which leads to my first complaint. The prose is… edging into purple. Everyone is speaking in flowery metaphor and it feels like lines could be shaved down a bit. I'm still getting the general gist, but I can see its voice being a turnoff for a lot of people.

From there it's 3 days of imprisonment. Three days of questioning, three days of incredibly simple puzzles, until judgement is passed on you. Once done so, you're returned to the desktop, with new files on the screen. repeat.

I will sing the praises that the game is incredibly reactive. I said the puzzles were simple, but that's because each one had several solutions at hand. Even though it always ended the same, they felt like branch points. I played through it multiple times and got a lot of different text and imagery each go through. I can see this game being good for people who like to secret hunt.

The art direction and pixel art is beautiful and grotesque. While the prose might be flawed, the visuals more than make up for it.

It's up in the air if it'll stick the landing, but it's got a few good flips in so far.

Everhood 2

I really liked the first everhood, even if I think it didn't quite stick the landing with it's thematic stuff in its closing act. I was genuinely interested in seeing where they went from there. "Everhood 2" was a genuine surprise.

It is kinda funny. Everhood was, in a lot of ways, a direct response to Undertale. Everhood 2… opens with a questionnaire about your personal tastes and fears. You know, like Deltarune.

The game is an immediate step up from its predecessor on a mechanical level. The beatmaps feel better to dodge, especially if starting on hard, and you get a fully fledged retaliation system right away, something Everhood only played with at the very end.

dodge on the beat map, absorb notes of consecutive color, launch them back at the opponent. At least one color will do super effective damage. The longer your absorb chain, the more damaging the move, but attacks can also clear bullets in front of you, and getting hit causes you to drop your "ammo," so to speak. There's a push-your-luck aspect going on that works really well. There's apparently going to be a weapon system but the demo doesn't touch on it.

My main complaint is that, in Everhood, every fight you enter is for the most part unique and plot important. There's now a leveling system and, for lack of a better term, filler fights, repeated enemies who have the same beatmap pattern.

Other complaint is that, compared to Everhood 1's opening, this one has much less of a plot hook. Despite all the psychadelics and cosmic intrigue in the first one, it opened with a simple conflict. Your arm was stolen by some shit guys, get it back.

Here you basically jump into a hole, are attacked by a monster, saved by a character named raven who is a raven who gives you the tutorial and tells us we need to prove we're strong enough to help him. And we do that by retrieving a crystal he specifically hid. There isn't a sense of a driving conflict yet.

Of course you can also read this as confidence. "We proved ourselves with our first game, we're willing to have slower setup." Still looking forward to it either way.

Strand

Time loop puzzle game. You wake up in a seemingly empty space station, your memory implant having failed, and all machinery at low power. Find out wha happun.

A lot of the puzzles are variations on "what's the password?" The kind of info that can carry across loops.

There is some item combining but they tend to be the inbetween step of a puzzle. not something you need to redo every time.

There is a very "english as second language" feel here but that mainly only comes through the VA accents and a bit of odd wording here and there. No translation trainwrecks this time.

It's alright. Not sure the scale they're going for, though. Could be a game that's only a couple hours long, could be one that goes for well over a dozen.

Sliding Hero

Pseudo-metroidvania exploration puzzle game where the entire world is an elaborate sliding puzzle.

Depending on who you are this sounds like an interesting conceit or it sounds fucking intolerable.

Our Jester-Ass hero is stuck in an expansive Venitian villa filled with the undead, and for reasons not thoroughly explained he can't walk like a normal person, sliding until he hits a wall.

I will admit, I am a fan. I like that this game turns the most basic of traversal into something of a brain teaser. Since you'll be backtracking with upgrades metroidvania style, though, a lot of those exploration puzzles will have to be done twice, front to back and back to front.

The combat is just a more advanced version of this dynamic. Enemy rooms have weapon/tools lying around. Find a way to land on the weapon tile to pick it up, and then ram the enemy. You only have a set number of times until it breaks, and you'll also sometimes have to rely on an enemy being there to stop you early and make an impossible turn possible. Thankfully enemies don't respawn, so these only need to be tackled once.

I like it's macabre/Italian Blasphemous aesthetic, although it clashes with the peppy Zelda-ish chimes when you get correct answers.

I didn't finish it, but not becuase I wasn't having fun, just out of a combination of time pressure, getting the gist, and being a bit mentally worn out for puzzles.

[legy]

media tag 2025

#16. Flow (2024)

okay like this is an indie film. so i need to be nicer about it. but its an indie film that did win best animated feature. and in that respect im really shocked at how ugly it is

environments are fantastic but the character rendering and animation was so consistently offputting and robotic and unnatural that it bothered me for the entire runtime. some of the less prominent animals would not look out of place in a mainframe barbie film

also i guess this is just endemic to "animal films" as a genre but it did kind of drive me insane how often the animals did something more human and less interesting. this is one of those films where they really could have all been people and it wouldn't have changed substantively. animals regularly demonstrate complex social interactions, empathy, self-awareness, advanced tool use, etc

also really christian which i wasnt expecting

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Artemis III core stage receives thermal protection coating

NASA completed another step to ready its SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for the Artemis III mission as crews at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans recently applied a thermal protection system to the core stage's liquid hydrogen tank.

Building on the crewed Artemis II flight test, Artemis III will add new capabilities with the human landing system and advanced spacesuits to send the first astronauts to explore the lunar South Pole region and prepare humanity to go to Mars. Thermal protection systems are a cornerstone of successful spaceflight endeavors, safeguarding human life, and enabling the launch and controlled return of spacecraft.

The tank is the largest piece of SLS flight hardware insulated at Michoud. The hardware requires thermal protection due to the extreme temperatures during launch and ascent to space—and to keep the liquid hydrogen at minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit on the pad prior to launch.

"The thermal protection system protects the SLS rocket from the heat of launch while also keeping the thousands of gallons of liquid propellant within the core stage's tanks cold enough. Without the protection, the propellant would boil off too rapidly to replenish before launch," said Jay Bourgeois, thermal protection system, test, and integration lead at NASA Michoud. "Thermal protection systems are crucial in protecting all the structural components of SLS during launch and flight."

In February, Michoud crews with NASA and Boeing, the SLS core stage prime contractor, completed the thermal protection system on the external structure of the rocket's liquid hydrogen propellant fuel tank, using a robotic tool in what is now the largest single application in spaceflight history.

IMAGE: Teams at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans move a liquid hydrogen tank for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket into the factory’s final assembly area on April 22, 2025. The propellant tank is one of five major elements that make up the 212-foot-tall rocket stage. Credit: NASA/Steven Seipel

The robotically controlled operation coated the tank with spray-on foam insulation, distributing 107 feet of the foam to the tank in 102 minutes. When the foam is applied to the core stage, it gives the rocket a canary yellow color. The Sun's ultraviolet rays naturally "tan" the thermal protection, giving the SLS core stage its signature orange color, like the space shuttle external tank.

While it might sound like a task similar to applying paint to a house or spraying insulation in an attic, it is a much more complex process. The flexible polyurethane foam had to withstand harsh conditions for application and testing. Additionally, there was a new challenge: spraying the stage horizontally, something never done previously during large foam applications on space shuttle external tanks at Michoud. All large components of space shuttle tanks were in a vertical position when sprayed with automated processes.

Overall, the rocket's core stage is 212 feet with a diameter of 27.6 feet, the same diameter as the space shuttle's external tank. The liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks feed four RS-25 engines for approximately 500 seconds before SLS reaches low Earth orbit and the core stage separates from the upper stage and NASA's Orion spacecraft.

"Even though it only takes 102 minutes to apply the spray, a lot of careful preparation and planning is put into this process before the actual application of the foam," said Boeing's Brian Jeansonne, the integrated product team senior leader for the thermal protection system at NASA Michoud.

"There are better process controls in place than we've ever had before, and there are specialized production technicians who must have certifications to operate the system. It's quite an accomplishment and a lot of pride in knowing that we've completed this step of the build process."

The core stage of SLS is the largest NASA has ever built by length and volume, and it was manufactured at Michoud using state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment. Michoud is a unique, advanced manufacturing facility where the agency has built spacecraft components for decades, including the space shuttle's external tanks and Saturn V rockets for the Apollo program.

[katgametable]

TAZ Balance Episode 30: The Crystal Kingdom Chapter 2

Written 01 May 2025, shortly after relistening, having listened to the entire Balance arc some time ago.

In the moon base’s hanger, Lucretia explains that they’re limited in options in how to get them to Lucas’ lab, so they’ve cast Levitation on the gondolas and are going to push them off. Which they proceed to do. They can see Lucas’ lab, which was the forerunner of the moon base, and it does look like a more primitive version of the moon base. As they fall, they are buffeted by a winter squall, and the gondola with Killian and her team goes off course. The three land by the conservatory, and the gondola turns to crystal. They get out, and find a hole they can enter by. They let down a rope, and Magnus climbs down, but Taako and Merke fall and Taako has to use the Feather Fall from the Umber-ella.

Inside the conservatory is a garden with trees and a pond, all turned to crystal. There’s also some robots with gardening tools, motionless crystal. Taako and Magnus see, on the far side of the pond, a circle of white light surrounding something metal. The crystal is tinkling, and the tinkling forms a song, a synthetic voice singing about being in her crystal kingdom (Griffin had the song recorded for them). Then a rift in space appears, a ball of light pops out, and there’s what feels like an earthquake. Trees fall and shatter, fragments of crystal flying everywhere, one hitting Merle - the suit doesn’t pierce, but it bruises. A golem forms from the crystal. It squares up against them, and it fixes on Merle.

Combat commences. Magnus shows off Goading Strike after hitting with Railsplitter, which imposes disadvantage on attacks not on Magnus, but the damage is halved. The golem hits Merle, although the goading does prevent the critical hit. Merle debuts Guardian of Faith, which brings out a spirit guardian he describes as being like Delarise (don’t get the reference). Taako whips out Shatter, which wrecks one of its arms, except a new, sharper clawed arm forms from more crystal shards. They decide to run, and make for the metal hatch they saw earlier. But Delarise makes a radiant attack that does a massive amount of damage and destroys the golem. Magnus speculates that the golem focused on Merle because as a holy man, he would deal radiant damage.

As they reach the hatch with a non-crystallised panel, Lucas comes through the pendant. They tell him about the golem, and he is confused; the crystal should have been motionless. They ask about voices in the crystal, and he denies hearing anything. He directs them to the airlock and lets them through. They cover the pendant and discuss whether they’d be accidentally locking out Killian’s Regulators, but decide to go ahead. The airlock is made of white metal, no crystal, and a little smoke comes out before a chime sounds. There are two other hatches, one labelled as being for “Research Material Storage Chamber”, and “Magical World of Elevators”. They pick the elevators, and Lucas disables the other airlock behind them to keep the lab airborne a little longer.

The long chamber seems like a museum of different elevators. The lab was inherited, built by Lucas’ forebears who invented and developed elevators. Griffin realised this is a bad moment to end, but they end anyway.

This was a great episode, if a little too peppered with long asides about things being covered in crystal. There was some good use of new tricks, and it was actually Travis who remembered Taako has Feather Fall in the Umber-ella, which, more power to him. The song from the crystal, I could not work out more than a few words of it, but it was beautiful. And the golem fight was fun. It was a good one.