It's Hot And Random

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I’m in the middle of a random heatwave right now in California, so the topics this month are going to be random as well for the heck of it! As always, the videos below are going to be mostly via YouTube so if you have trouble watching it from your region of the world; please look into a VPN on accessing the content. I have no sponsorships from anyone so use whatever works.

I made a vow and promise in 2023 that I wasn’t going to bitch much about YouTube this year. I’m upholding that rule, so let’s make this brief. YouTube sent me another cryptic notice about community standards WITHOUT specifically stating any particular rule I broke or have broken. This is a running theme with YouTube and folks who tow the line like myself but don’t go out of their way to break the rules. In essence, YouTube is trying to muscle me off the platform but taking away my ability to do certain things piece by piece. Even more questionable is that they want me to “verify” my identity to re-enable or grant special features, which seems like a super passive-aggressive way of trying to blackmail me with my own personal information. If someone really didn’t like me right now for example, worst case scenario they would be directed to my website. If I “verified” myself to YouTube, there would be a lot more private information they have. To close this out, I want to remind everyone that I have never intended to make or have made a single cent from my YouTube channel (and at this point probably never will). I hope the few folks that read this remember the Kickstarer I attempted last year in November moving forward, and why I would really like this site to explode in content and ability if possible.

Final Fantasy is one of the most known jRPG franchises across the entire planet. So it’s no surprise that a lot of folks have different opinions on which one is the best, the most memorable, and the most deserving of praise. But did you know all the little details about the game(s) and its fandom? Probably not, so the above 6 hour video will deep dive you into some of the most iconic games of the series to date. For the boomers out there, it will probably invoke some good nostalgia while the younger generation might be inspired to check out what all the fuss is about.

During my physical rehab the last 2 months, I had a lot of time on my hands to revisit some of my older hobbies I had back when I was in college. One of these hobbies was making miniatures and associated themed scenery. Back then DIY kits were really cheap, and the materials you needed were strictly up to you. Kits were basically a set of detailed instructions on “what to do” with suggestions on what materials you could use and how to create certain effects. Nowadays things have become a lot easier (but still challenging) to make these little miniature sets, so I thought I would link you some relaxing videos of folks who are really good at building these things. The BJD bunny girls are extra cool and related to miniatures, since they adhere to the 1/12 scale standard. I’ll probably deep dive into this topic one day when I have the time or the platform to do so, but in any case I hope you find it somewhat interesting nonetheless.

Going to give a well deserved throwback to my boy EmpLemon and his thought provoking videos. I don’t want to add too many words to explain this video because I think it explains itself. If you typically skim by most of my content (or are new to the site), I highly recommend you watch this video above all else in this month’s update because it hits home the most for me and possibly you as well. It’s the type of pop-culture philosophy that I try to spread on my toast every morning.

Starfield technically releases in September, but because it’s one of the biggest game announcements for the entire year I think it’s worth mentioning now a month away. I’m a long time Bethesda fan due to the open world nature of their games and the modding communities that always form around them. Once modding becomes mature for a certain game, you can literally gets hundreds of hours of additional content. In any case I look forward to a ton of bugs and user frustration on Day 1 launch of Starfield alongside everyone else. It wouldn’t be a Bethesda game after all if I didn’t have a ton of glitches at launch, but that adds to the charm in my opinion!

I know that a lot of my long time followers from YouTube are always looking for new games to play. I just want to throw it out there that times are changing rapidly, and that some new games (that would of been on mobile normally) are now coming out on the PC platform first before going over to mobile. There are always new things to test, and you don’t have to wait for me to try them out. Especially if they’re the “free to play” variety and often times in a different language. Although the game above “White Clothes” is not a dedicated lewd game (what I usually look for), it is obviously booba focused enough where I gave it a shot. And although I had no idea what was going on, the fact that the entire game is free (literally - it’s not a gacha) on Steam is quite amazing.

Artist is coa (u6u612)

Artist of the month is coa (u6u612)! A tribute to one of the characters from Destiny Child which announced its closure date for September 2023. You can read more details about in the Mini News section on my site. Moving forward from this point on, make a habit of bookmarking the Mini News section as I might be a lot more active there because of the recent YouTube debacle. If I see the visitors go up, I’ll probably start being a lot more active. Better yet, I have (almost) complete creative control, so you’ll know it’ll be good. See you next month, stay safe!

Back To Normal

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It’s MURICA’s birthday month, so starting off with some patriotic cheesecake is the order of the day! Also feels good to be back to my normal topics again after a long couple of weeks dealing with various personal health issues. Upward and onward with July’s update and a quick reminder to check out my mini news section for those of you who visit the site infrequently. (Video credit to DivideByeZer0)

Artist is makinosaka

So we’re going to start things off a little differently this month by talking about all the gaming news first than the “normie” stuff afterward. Thanks to a YouTube follower of mine @henriq1166, he let me know that Brown Dust 2 went into official release recently and that the game is available to play globally. I personally find the game to be of excellent production qualities but unfortunately not my particular cup of tea. But I want to strictly point out that this is my personal opinion and not a demerit to the quality of the game itself. I feel folks looking for a jrpg / srpg game will have a lot to like about BD2 so I advise you check it out. The above video by IWinToLose Gaming does a pretty good job summarizing BD2 and should allow you to make a decision whether or not the game is something you might like.

I’m a long time Yakuza fanboy, so my ears perked up quite a bit when it was announced that a new game in the series would be releasing this year on November 9th. On top of that another game will come out afterward early next year, date to be determined. You can jump into the series right now if you haven’t done so already since there are so many sales and promotions for the remastered releases as well as the newer titles. If you have Xbox game pass, you can play all of it for “free”, while the rest of you can snag the entire collection cheapy from other places like GoG.

Let’s slide right back into the normie stuff now with a video that is 18 hours long! I came across Plainly Difficult during my rehabilitation period recently. I had a lot of time on my hands and didn’t have a lot of things to watch, so I was lucky enough to find his channel chock full of interesting stories throughout the world that involved the usual expectation of mankind. Although I don’t like adding negative stuff on my blog for the sake of it (cause there’s so much of it already out there), I do find these videos to be done in a tasteful and non-sensationalized manner. I hope you like the content as much as I did, especially since I don’t want any of us to suffer from the “Ostrich Effect” by avoiding negative news on purpose.

Take it from someone who has been in physical rehabilitation for the last couple of weeks; it sucks being trapped indoors all day long. Unless you found 2020 to be the most exciting year of your life, chances are going outside to do stuff is probably a lot better. Even as a middle-aged gamer and internet nerd, I tend to yearn for some fresh air and some really bad food from time to time. So, I just wanted to remind all of you that summer (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) is upon us soon. Get your butt out of the chair and go do something while the weather is good and your health allows you to!

Artist is Mirco Cabbia (Sciamano240)

Artist of the month is Mirco Cabbia! If you didn’t read last month's blog (shame on you!) basically, Mirco is the type of artist that most AI algorithms will base their designs off of to some degree. If you look though his portfolio of work, you’ll notice the dynamic nature of the poses of the characters is still a lot better than most “static” poses that AI tends to favor (at least for now). In any case, check him out if you want a lot of eye candy and exceptionally well done art. And that wraps up July 2023! Hope you’re all doing well, and don’t forget to enjoy summer now that it’s here.

AI Won't Save My Vision

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Just a warning that this month’s blog is going to be really weird and rambly. It will be a heavy op-ed on AI as well a deep dive into my personal life as of late. I’ll try my best to weave the two subjects into something interesting so that it doesn’t come off in any way to be self serving or boring as a whole. And of course, we’ll end the blog with some lewd stuff cause it’s me after all and a clear sign a bot didn’t write everything!

In the last couple of months, I’ve done my best to dodge the topic of AI on every website and news post I’ve come across. It’s not that I have no interest in the subject, but the conversation has not been really in depth on the material except sensational headlines and short audio clips. This is worsened by the fact that the people who speak loudest on the subject have absolutely no clue how it works. The above video from Mentour Now! is a rare level headed view on AI “in general” and what it really is in its current state and implementation. In my interest circles (namely pop culture and video games), AI has been “downgraded” to nothing more than a tool used to make “copy cat” art. It also has the time to write strange articles mimicking objectively horrible mainstream video game aggregator pages. It’s a shitty narrow view of what AI really is, but it’s the rhetoric of Discord and social media; hence my avoidance on the subject as much as possible until now.

Artist is FaeJunkie

I implore you to listen to the audio portion of the blog to fully get all the nuance I’m about to drop about AI as it stands in the art world. In this written portion, I’m going to grossly oversimplify my points as much as possible. AI art generation as it stands is doing its best to use pre-established inputs to make an amalgamation of outputs that suit a criteria base. In essence, AI art at the moment is like a human cosplayer. AI is doing its best to resemble a particular character / subject with whatever conditions its restrained to and resources (inputs) available. Human cosplayers are no different in the same context, as they work within the boundaries of what they have available to them (resources and talent) in order to mimic someone (or something) from a fictitious environment. Basically nothing is created from nothing, but something is created from something else. I hope this extremely limited example makes sense and that AI isn’t stealing anyone’s art; it’s human beings telling it to mimic (or steal) something else because it’s already there (the concept). The above two pictures are what people consider to be generated “normally”, as the Gardevoir drawn by Faejunkie is a heavily anthromorphized Pokemon wearing skimpy armor. The cosplayer (source unknown since it’s public domain on pixabay) is an actual photo taken of an actual human being.

From Twitter User @ryyyyyyyo

The picture above is recent and is entirely generated by an AI. The AI was told to draw an “Otaku Circle Princess”, a concept so foreign and meme like that any non-Japanese English speaker in the world would have absolutely no reference about. Neither did the AI that was asked to draw it too. So using what information it could gather about Otakus, Circles, Princesses, and similar group photos of actual people; it did its best. Naturally you have a bunch of errors right off the bat that is typical of AI drawings. The lighting (and cast shadows) are all wrong or off. The lighting intensity is different across the individuals in the scene as well as the background. Background shapes and figures are obviously off (check out the car in the backdrop). And of course the additional digits on any hands in the photo are pretty evident. But all of that really isn’t the point I’m trying to convey. What I am trying to convey is that the AI is doing its best to draw something “we” like and is familiar to other reference points. I’ll list what the AI did that you probably didn’t know

• Everyone is drawn to be blemish free

• Everyone is relatively attractive and youthful

• All standing positions are modeled after real photos of people standing for a picture

• The background is a 1:1 copy of a photo that exists, but is not in itself a real place

• There are thousands of photos of 6 people standing like this; AI just copied the positions

• Otaku is a Japanese term. AI uses models that mostly look Korean because K-pop is popular

• Otaku personality is not taken into consideration for the fashion choices used for clothing

• AI always uses metrics to make its decisions on what people like rather that what is accurate

• Dozens if not hundreds of people critiqued previous attempts to do the very same thing

• After enough people giving feedback, AI will eventually “accurately” draw an OCP by the standards given by people

• AI is only as accurate is what is people say it is. If everyone said the color of a strawberry is neon purple, it would only draw strawberries as neon purple

Artist is Kaki Man

At the end of the day, AI is extremely dependent on the feedback we give it. And the most important thing to note is that many of us who appreciate art (in whatever form it comes in) are not ourselves artists. So there’s a clear distinction to be made that the end product is often times “good enough” for those who don’t have a critical eye or have reference points to draw upon. What I’m getting at is that we like what we like, and there are numerous things out there we didn’t realize the source material to (nor care of) its roots. AI itself is no different, in it cares not what it draws for accuracy. It draws because people want it to draw something they like. And it will only be as creative as the people who it references.

This next portion of the blog is completely skippable if you don’t care, as it’s a personal update on my overall health as of late. I highly advise you all listen to the accompanying separate audio blog in regards to this as I explain in great detail what I’ve been going through the last couple of months. For the written portion of course, I’ll be as brief and drama free as possible. My eyesight is failing me, particularly in my right eye in which I have been diagnosed with Retinal Vein Occlusion (RVO). My right eye has non-diabetic macular edema and has a high chance of being permanent for the rest of my life. Treatment (that I’m on) is really meant to stop any further degradation and “stabilize” what good vision I have. The picture above is a mini-example of what my vision looks like in my right eye. The center panel is my current state, while the right panel is what may happen if I didn’t pursue treatment as I did.

I want to make clear I do not want my condition to be some sort of excuse for pity or attention. My condition is really just an example I want to use to help motivate others (like yourself) not to procrastinate in life. The above video is a good academic presentation about the harm of putting things off. I can’t stress enough that life can change at any time with any warning to anyone. It is why I try my best to avoid drama whenever possible on my blogs because the little time I have every day can be afforded to things I enjoy. I can’t fathom the notion that anyone would dedicate any of their time to negativity and wallowing in it, when the clock is ticking down for all of us the moment we’re born. So I’m encouraging you from this point forward for the rest of your days; start living life and doing the things you’ve been putting off. Take it from someone who has 90% of their vision left now, you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow for good or ill. So the present is no better time to get things done.

Artist is Cho!Cho!

That ends this month’s rather strange (but hopefully interesting) update! The artist of the month is Cho!Cho! and the lovely Eternity from Last Origin. Also a reminder that June marks the beginning of the warmer months here in the northern hemisphere; so get out there and start enjoying some sunlight!

A Good Time To Get Weird

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I was worried at the end of last month’s update that I wouldn’t have any new content to bring you in this one. Well not only did I dig up some pretty interesting stuff, I found so much of it in fact that I think it might be a bit overwhelming all at once. Although there isn’t a lot of topics to cover, the ones that are featured go deep into the spectrum. So I hope you enjoy this shortstack update for May!

So let me take care of some business right from the get go on this particular topic. It doesn’t matter what I believe or what you believe in context of watching this video. What matters is that this is an extremely detailed catalogue of very strange topics for various strange people. I encourage all of you to watch this as more of an exploration of what people are talking about, rather than any type of reference point on finding out what is “true” or “untrue”. Think of it more as a huge detailed reference point of various weird topics out there that you can even further dive into if you are so inclined. But the best part about it is that it’s just fun to see what people have come up with over the years across various cultures and spaces. Feel free to check out the rest of Wendigoon’s channel as he is a great laid back story teller and I highly appreciate him and his work.

You ever wonder how those pesky influencers on your platform of choice come up with such interesting things to talk about? Well it turns out they have hired help that scours the internet for such stuff, and they happen to use one of the sites I’m recommending you this month above. It’s called “All that’s interesting” a collection of recent news articles and factoids about the stranger world around us. What’s unique about ATI is that it’s a little more focused on bringing up events that have mainstream news coverage (for vetting purposes) rather than direct you over to content that reports on second hand accounts as a source (typical of most paranormal blogs for example). So the next time you see an extremely attractive narrator talking about plastic eating fungus - you know where they got the story!

Want an entire YouTube channel dedicated to bakeries around the world? Probably not on the top of your list of search results on Google, but also probably something you didn’t know you needed in your life. I feature a lot of “chill and observe” content on my website throughout the updates, and this is added onto the pile of such things. I’m trying my best to diversify the cultures around the world that have these environments to show. Content tends to be heavily focused on Asia for the last couple of years, but thankfully the world has opened up a bit more recently to bring videos like the one above for us to see and enjoy. So hop on over to Reiya Watanabe’s channel for a ton of bread through the camera lens.

Previously I’ve mentioned the emotional and physical benefits of just traveling and touching grass. But I recently stumbled upon some navigation apps (not sponsored at all by the way) that not only kick a lot of ass, but they respect your privacy as well. Because I’m becoming an increasingly older fart as the days go by, I remember when I had to rely on paper / book maps to navigate my daily life. If you’ve ever actually gone off the beaten path in any city or road in the world, you’ll quickly start to realize the fragility of a cellular signal. Now thankfully we have a thing called “offline maps” for Google & Apple devices, but problem is… they kind of suck. It’s not that they don’t work well, but they’re kind of limited in how much information you can store at any given time. And worse yet, the maps expire over time and have to be redownloaded. With Organic Maps and Magic Earth, you can literally download maps of the entire planet. And you can use them offline anytime and all the time. They only rely on a GPS signal for navigation and do not require a cellular signal. They also work faster since they natively just try to get you to where you need to go and NOT CONSTANTLY SEND analytical data about your habits or location. So if you’re about to touch some serious grass again and go off the beaten paths, perhaps it’s time to check out some alternatives.

Artist is Viejillox

Artist is 4riasensei

I promised myself I wouldn’t bitch about YouTube this year so I’ll be brief. My community posts are randomly being deleted (banned) again for no reason, even though I made sure the artwork before was “in good taste”. So the two artists I’m featuring this month had works I had used for the posts (not the one you see above of course) that got removed. They are Viejillox and 4riasensei. Feel free to visit and support them if you like the portfolios they have!