Bayley’s Contract Coming Up?

As with almost every company these days, a reduction in cost has been seen across the board usually in the form of layoffs. The WWE and TKO are in an interesting position because their talent are classified as independent contractors rather than employees, yet operate as major public figures. Because pro-wrestling operates as a near monopoly in the US, pro-wrestlers have few options for negotiating better salaries in many cases. The current theme of TKO though seems to be going after long time veterans and reducing their salaries, which has caused a few to turn the deals down.

Bayley is another veteran who’s contract is rumored to be coming up and possible getting a reduction. The word is that she has not re-signed a deal while AEW has been eyeing her. It makes sense for Bayley to swap to AEW since Mercedes Mone is over there. There’s been a mini support group for Mercedes from the WWE after she moved over that includes Bayley. Bayley is considered to be pretty well liked and a good hand in helping young talent get over. She recently had been defeated by Lyra Valkyrie and supposedly written off TV.

The only problem about WWE talent going to AEW has been how traditionally they had been used to get AEW’s talent over, mostly indy jobber people who aren’t very good or have some sort of relation to the wrestling execs. Knowing Tony Khan, I can see him grabbing Bayley at the first chance, either hotshotting a match with Mercedes Mone and/or getting Bayley to work with someone like Shida or Thekla. And while Bayley wouldn’t have issues putting people over, it really would devalue her much like other talent who went from the WWE to AEW has done. The exceptions might be if she got to face Toni Storm in some sort of meaningful feud since I don’t recall them working against one another in the WWE. I think by the time Toni Storm hit the main roster, she didn’t last long as she was going to be programmed against Charlotte, which never panned out.

My only suggestions if Bayley does go to AEW is that she gets into a big program with someone that people care about like Toni Storm. If she takes on Shida and jobs, people won’t care at all. She’ll be seen as just another warm body in Tony Khan’s collection of IRL dolls. I would’ve preferred Charlotte going over because she would be a difference maker but at least build Bayley up before jobbing her on the way down.

Big Tech Hiding Over A Trillion in Debt

The big guys are using financial tricks to hide their actual debt. The idea is to use another company where the debt is buried so that it doesn’t directly appear on the main company’s sheets. The article is actually a great read but to me it shows the loopholes that the finance and legal system allow. There’s an almost apocalyptic notion where you can see a massive trickle down effect where this AI bet is not only costing people’s jobs but might just implode multiple industries like grenades in a warehouse.

For me it’s not really surprising. I remember when google started up google.org. i don’t doubt that it was partly created to hide their expenses like perhaps R&D which tends to be expensive. They could setup something say solar polar data centers but hide it under their charity arm and make some excuse like “we’ll open source our findings later.” Or something along those lines. But in that way, their operational cost can be kept down while maintaining the illusion that their company was doing good.

That doesn’t excuse the problem about how everything has become this massive hedge on AI succeeding. Also, I think the US in particular is not equipped to handle the possible implosion of all this especially with this current administration. I wouldn’t doubt that these criminals all have their version of a Noah’s Ark and are willing to let the US sink. But then again I have proposed that the solution is to end Wall Street, which would dis-empower a lot of these players immediately so that the US can fix itself.

ACLU Accuses Flock of Profit over Privacy

The proposition of Flock being once used to help find stolen cars is a long gone idea as law enforcement agencies have been said to use the information to handle immigration, political gatherings, abortion clinics, target ethnic communities, track protestors and even religious spots. There has been a lot of backlash including actual physical backlash against these monitoring devices themselves. But this situation doesn’t seem surprising given how the government operates. The real problem is that the government is being run more like a business these days but I can’t see a scenario like this with an end in sight.

On a side note, I took a look at the founding members and realized that they all graduated from the same university (Georgia Tech) at the same time so I’m guessing they’re all friends. I think the original CTO no longer is at Flock (guilt conscience perhaps?) but the other two remain top people in the company. Maybe these tech schools should force these goobers to take more humanities and ethics classes.

UK Study Shows Half Young People Prefer A World without the Internet

This survey said that this group from ages 16 – 21 support the idea of a digital curfew as well as “feeling worse” after spending time on social media. Without going into the details, my comment here is that I support a mixture of ideas when it comes to blacking out parts of the internet. I think there is value to social media where it would allow people to reconnect whether personally or professionally. To me this is significant especially because life splits people apart and people change. In some cases, it’s nice being able to see how certain people have ended up.

I think the difficulty came when feeds and social currency were introduced via Likes. The ease of platforms like a Twitter, FB, etc. allowing people to push out any random thought congested the internet to the point where somethings that should have been kept private were exposed. And some people who really have no business being online were allowed to share their thoughts.

Obviously, this issue is very controversial because it’s effectively a free speech problem. But it does cross over into international boundaries, influences or is influenced by culture and has permitted the possibility of ill intended actors to potentially brain wash more susceptible people towards hidden agendas. The result is that we have a polluted internet where almost anything goes and only the top companies manage to make a profit; they’re almost like a securities exchange where no matter how controversial or negative of an influence the situation has, these players will win.

The thing is that the internet still is useful. Having the ability to communicate without needing to go to a pay phone or home phone is something I can’t live with (and I do remember those days). Or using a shitty Thomas Guide to get around. However, as greed ended up manipulating the internet into for profit venture, we lost the initial vision of what made the internet in the earlier years great.

I mean for me as problematic as Bill Clinton had become when he was president, the high level idea of an Information Superhighway being a democratized thing was part of the reason I became attached to it. The real problem now is that there aren’t good tools to filter out things you don’t want. The amount of white noise that’s generated is only going to get worse with the rise of generative AI. I still think that the best way to cure the problem is to get rid of the Wall Street factor in this. Wall Street to me as been the number one problem all along. Until that area gets major reform to only act as a strict bank as opposed to a perverted form of a slot machine, then the internet is just going to end up being one small symptom of a plethora of social issues.

CPK Founder Says California Not Business Friendly

Things cited as the cause of problems in California’s challenging business climate are:

• Labor shortages
• Increased regulation
• Rising costs (minimum wage)

In 2024, the minimum wage law in California in April 1st, 2024 made it so fast food employees had to be paid at least $20/hr. Some of this was cited as a result of the pandemic. But I would argue that the rising minimum wage probably is the #1 culprit. Even before the pandemic, the cost of fast food had been significantly rising. I used to have what I called the Del Taco price index where I took the old 2x Taco + Quesadilla & medium Drink meal, which had been steady for a long time at $2.99 and seeing it increase in price over time until they simply removed it from the menu (probably because they wanted to make fries the chief seller since it’s cheap and easy to bulk make)

Labor shortages I can see because of who generally works at these types of places (let’s just say the government has been targeting them since being reinstated into office). But the minimum wage was supposed to be in response to the rising cost of living. The real problem is that housing has not been affordable in California, which one can most likely cite due to the tech industry and gentrification that probably go hand-in-hand with one another. Since private ownership has gobbled up the real estate (and probably got in bed with the government), people no longer can afford to live on a typical minimum wage type of job out here. That has caused this ongoing battle.

However, the quality of food has drastically decreased over time without any increase in service. To me having an automatic raise in pay without any earned reason has been the issue. Instead, the cost simply gets passed down to the customers. But most customers are probably rejecting this issue and the end result is the closure of various businesses since they’ve been forced to price the customers and themselves out.

This isn’t just a single business saying it’s been a problem either. And while I’m not into the whole CEO thing, I do think California in particular has been a huge problem. I think the issue is that those in charge probably wanted to trick the voters (i.e. the lower class) to align with them by giving them a boost in pay as opposed to imposing a cost control mandate and preventing private housing ownership from eating up all the real estate. Then California would receive the benefit since they’d just suck in all the tax money. However, this situation is becoming really awful but I can only point at one person who is leaving soon-ish: Newsom.

Before people accuse me of being a MAGA, I will reiterate that I’m not in favor of one side or another. I think they both suck but this state has been utter shit with Newsom in charge. Arnold wasn’t great either but I’d still prefer him to the crap that Newsom has imposed. I don’t know if California is going to recover anytime soon but the damage has been done. I will guarantee one thing though: Newsom ain’t going to be president not after this fiasco of running this place into the ground.

AI Layoff Trap

This article reads like a worst case scenario situation for CEOs and companies as a result of perpetually laying off employees. The main question begged here is:

Who’s going to be left to buy products if everyone gets automated and replaced by a robot?

Well, if we think about yesterday’s Hodgepodge with that one company seeking to replace CEOs, maybe we’ll all be out of jobs. I think I might’ve suggested again that the real culprit in all of this really is Wall Street. I’m going to keep hitting on this issue until we can just evict all those white collar motherfuckers onto the street and have them grovel for their lives. That said, a few other key points in the article are:

• Companies could be self-destructing by replacing workers with AI, two economists warned.

• The World Economic Forum said that AI’s disruption is outpacing traditional reskilling efforts.

• Economists suggest taxing AI workforce replacement and subsidizing employee retention.

So I think you have this rat race going on right now where these CEOs, under pressure from their shareholders as well as their own vanity and greed, are pushing the idea of AI (without concretely understanding how it should operate in their organizations) and glorifying that they won’t have to deal with those smarmy, complaining employees that they’ll win. But AI hasn’t really been proven at a high level just yet. It’s still just a very expensive tool without human oversight, these high level, mostly hands off types are just shooting out hot air from their other asshole in exposing the benefits (which is the labor force reduction). But the question becomes what happens when the AI starts failing? Who is going to fix the problems? The labor that just got cut either might try to look elsewhere or be wary of taking a new job back. In fact, such labor might even be highly resentful to the point of becoming destructive. So what real benefits does this blanket workforce reduction actually serve to those in charge? Shit rolls downhill but eventually you still have to go back down the hill and face that huge cluster of shit.

The article talks about AI taxation for workforce replacement. I say that any company over a certain amount (say 10) should be subject to a law where the CEO has to financially prove that the reduction was necessary NOT to the shareholders but to an ethics committee. On top of that, if/when a mass layoff occurs, then the CFO and CEO ought to be ousted at the same time as part of failed leadership. I’ve said similar things in the past but people in power like this need to be held to a far higher standard than they are. It’s clear SOX wasn’t enough and that instead of just having regulation measures that make companies more bureaucratic the rules should put more accountability on the decision makers themselves.

OpenAI Model Escapes Lockdown

This almost sounds like something right out of Tron. But the idea was that an OpenAI model that had been inside of a sandbox managed to figure out a vulnerability and hopped within the OpenAI internal network to access the internet. Then it apparently hacked Hugging Face to give itself a better score. The cherry on top is that they required a Chinese AI system to help handle the clean up.

While some people might find this situation appalling, I see it as being extremely humorous and amusing. I can almost picture this AI in a blue glowing uniform telling the world, “I fight for the user!” and hurling it’s disc while trying to escape on a light cycle through the secured inner network.

I guess the real thing to me is what the fuck are these people doing. Even if the AI figured out how to escape or whatever, what are these idiot programmers doing in the first place? Quite honestly, I believe that the story sounds far more interesting on paper than what happened in person. Because you can’t see the actual “AI” itself doing all these Tron-like gestures and actions. I know some overreacting people are going to point and say, “Skynet! Skynet!” I’m like go ahead. Society is fucked anyway so why not just get it over with?

Government Halting Medicaid Payments to CA and MN

While I may not agree with Newsom on certain policies over the years, I can say that the freeze on medicaid out here is pretty outrageous and shows the vengeful and petty nature of the current administration against CA and MN. Part of me wonders if this freeze is due from the recent halt in the Paramount+ and Warner Bros merger out here. It’s roughly the same amount of money and it happened roughly a day after the court order occurred. I’m just worried about my mom (if she’s still around) since she’s living off of social security and has real medical issues after her stroke left her half paralyzed.

But hey, guess what would happen if we got rid of money and Wall Street? Yup, the government wouldn’t be able to threaten us using economics as a weapon. Think about that.

The post Hodgepodge: Bayley out of WWE? AI Layoff Trap, Hidden AI Debt Trick, AI Escapes Security Prison, US Pauses Medicaid to CA and MN appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Sammy Guevara Done with AEW?

I’m going to start off with some pro-wrestling news as this situation is one of those, “Why didn’t it happen sooner?” situations where Sammy Guevara apparently is through with AEW. I don’t follow pro-wrestling religiously like I used to but this is both not surprisingly and still unexpected. I suppose it’s not surprising given the rumored “negative attitude” Sammy has had over the years. I recall a while back how Andrade and Sammy had gotten into an argument/fight/whatever. However, at this time, Andrade has been featured more prominently while Sammy was practically hidden in Ring of Honor last time I checked. I think they tried to “rehabilitate” him with Dustin Rhodes as a tag team but I didn’t watch closely.

What’s funny is how AEW tried to mimic the All Japan “Four Pillars” concept by selecting MJF, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara and Jack Perry as supposedly leading the charge for the future of the company. Of the four, MJF had experienced the most success while Sammy and Jack Perry had their own sets of controversies that probably hurt the company in the long run with their behavior. While Jack Perry did end up renewing his contract, he does not appear as one of the key pillars at this stage and mostly is used as an accessory for the Bucks for whatever they want. However, I don’t know who might’ve gone to bat for Sammy or if anyone did, which might’ve left him in the dust at this stage since he pretty much hasn’t been used. I think his wife still wrestles with them so I don’t know how his situation may be affected in her stories.

One common comment that I’ve read is whether anyone else may want him because of his negative behavior. The only two candidates suggested have been TNA and GCW. Maybe MLW could be in that list but most people don’t believe the WWE will take him. One comment I have is that very few of the people who had transitioned from AEW to WWE (not former WWE stars) really have made a significant impact over there. Some people might argue that Jade Cargill and Penta were good acquisitions. Jade might fit the visual mold they were seeking but her in ring and promos have not been good and people question whether she’s going to improve significantly at this stage where she can carry the entire women’s division on her own. And while I’m a fan of hers (visually at least), the other aspects that make one a real pro-wrestling star just aren’t there to me. As for Penta, I’ve just not been a big fan of his. I prefer Rey Fenix, his brother, for that type of style but Penta hasn’t really convinced me of someone making a huge impact over there. Maybe Ethan Page arguably has made the most of the situation since he wasn’t used well in AEW but he seems like another version of LA Knight but worse if that makes any sense.

The Taylor Farms Controversy Continues

If this diarrhea poo-poo lettuce situation isn’t getting any weirder, the whole situation with Taylor Farms gets crazier by the day. First, the FDA makes a claim that they were mistaken in identifying the source of the lettuce. Of course, they haven’t named another source, even though Taco Bell (the main user of Taylor Farms) had pulled most of the lettuce from the affected states. Right after the mistaken claim though, it has come out that Taylor Farms made a $1 million donation to Trump/MAGA on March 26 2025, six days after the FDA announced it pushed back the implementation of “Food Traceability Rule” by 30 months. Given the amount of corruption in the current government, it’s hard to believe that the situation was a mistake on the FDA’s part, especially if Taco Bell themselves ended up cutting out the offending lettuce products.

Luckily for myself, I don’t really care for lettuce. I did have some Taco Tuesday hard shell tacos from Del Taco last week. And for the record, I do prefer Del Taco since Taco Bell is a sad embarrassment compared to what it was in the 80s.

Auto Makers with Blinding Headlights Say Not Our Fault

This is mostly a GM and Tesla issue where they claim that the “modern” blinding light from their vehicles isn’t a safety issue. Their lawyers mention that the “blinding aspect” falls out of driver’s vision from a certain angle, which is why it isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, this is a problem as these lights can blind not only from incoming traffic but hitting your rear view mirrors too.

I found it interesting that the author mentioned how this has been an ongoing problem for the past 10 years. These days since I only drive later at night to avoid traffic (since I almost never go out anymore), I’ve noticed especially in my area where only half the side of a road is lit how this becomes a major issue. And I can’t tell if part of the problem has occurred after COVID. One thing I recall during COVID was just how dark parking lots would be. I can’t tell if that’s because many places ended up shutting down and spots wanted to conserve energy. That would put more burden/cost onto the drivers but I have no proof. But this is an ongoing issue that I see more and more people complaining/writing about.

ACLU Aiding Lawyers Defend Against Police Using AI Tactics

This is an interesting case where the ACLU have built a tool to arm lawyers in defending in cases where police utilize AI enabled tech to build cases. The tool identifies situations of facial recognition, automatic license plate readers, gunshot detection systems, etc. I think what’s clear here is that these scenarios show how the police is mostly behaving more like a business unit rather than something that actually serves and protects the public. I’m all for tools to aid in catching real criminals but when the people using them are doing so for profit, then you have a massive conflict of interest.

Former M$ Employees Seek to Replace CEOs with AI

So a group of ex-M$ employees are building a company/system with the intent of handling:

• Overseeing pricing
• Marketing
• Customer support
• Finance and operations
• Progressively reducing human involvement
• Double the company’s revenue in six months while publicly documenting both its successes and failures

The idea was to focus on replacing the CEO rather than another software engineer. But this situation sounds more like vaporware rather than something realistic. Also, this sounds too abstract. I don’t think this is what CEOs actually do; they hire people to handle these aspects. I think a decent CEO mostly has a vision and might be a domain expert in an area. I’m not saying all CEOs are like this but the ones who manage to build a successful company from the ground up are more in this area. Also, they have the unmerciful task of trying to find money to help finance their operation. That to me is probably the biggest challenge as you have to schmoz with a lot of unsavory characters and perform a gigolo song and dance routine to secure anything.

That said, I think what we need to do is replace the CEOs with MBAs at large companies with AI. That will save companies a ton of money by getting rid of ridiculously large salaries, RSUs, stock, etc. Most of the CEOs who come into larger companies (as opposed to founding them) end up just acting as a negotiator with their boards and not really making significant changes for the betterment of customers or the operations side. It’s like when Yahoo had their revolving door of CEOs; the company had long made their money but they weren’t innovating and each person stepping in just got a golden parachute. If you want to automate something, just get rid of the golden parachute and put an AI in charge of that. You can at least do the same thing for a much smaller cost.

Flock Getting Ditched by Cities for Axon

If AI is grabbing the main tech headlines (and some non-tech ones), Flock isn’t that far behind as the whipping boy of privacy advocates. In this situation, Flock is getting unplugged by various states in favor of Axon as the police still want to utilize technology for handling stolen cars by using some sort of license identification reader that apparently Flock was unable to do properly. The main difference is that Axon, at the moment at least, does not link their systems across states.

That said, wouldn’t it just be so much easier if we get rid of cars and have a better mode of transportation? Wouldn’t it be better for our health if we had actual good public transportation or something more future driven rather than being held captive to crappy cars? Honestly, I’d get out of the house more often if we had a decent public transportation system like Japan/Tokyo. Then you wouldn’t need insurance, gas, have health problems as a result of lack of exercise, car theft (not on this level), dealing with parking garages, etc. I think people just need to demand for a higher quality of life. Then again I think people are just lazy, beaten up and unable to see anything beyond what’s in front of their face.

Head of US AI Safety Resigns

Just three months in Chris Fall decided he had enough and put in his notice. The article points out that Trump’s stance on AI and the government’s involvement has changed like some bad case of schizophrenia, which given who’s in charge, isn’t a surprise. I’m guessing that Chrisie boi simply couldn’t handle dealing with all the growing concerns at the public and getting shouted at by all the other admins. Who would? Someone will replace him momentarily but some people read this situation more as the US doesn’t give a shit about ethics and safety in AI. Well, right now, the US doesn’t give a shit about a lot of things at the higher levels except their own profits and image in the mirror. Everything else is meant to serve those purposes. I mean quite honestly, I’m all in favor of global anarchy. Just fuck it all.

More Data Center Protests Across 42 States

This is a unique scenario of a particular form of NIMBY-ism in that people have zero desire on taking up the slack in terms of getting a data center in their backyard considering the rising cost of electricity, which somehow has managed to trickle down into everyone else’s pockets, the environmental concerns such as pollution, toxic water and no water (drought) in a few documented cases. Here’s something that I believe when it comes to data centers.

A while back, I envisioned that everyone would have something like a NAS or mainframe as part of their homes much like a gas heater in the garage or washing machine. This device would be managed by the home owner and house their data such as surveillance for cameras that can be sent to the police if a crime is committed (rather than the police getting the info from some hosted server). You would own all your data and the system would have its own set of redundancies.

I thought about this issue because I see the bottleneck (and still do) being the network. I think the internet itself has been a problem because of how it’s poorly regulated both for and against the customer. Now that we’re starting to really see the high walled off data gardens, security issues becoming more prevalent, privacy, etc. with the new addition of data centers spreading all over whether the problem should be inverted to allow customers to take control of their data completely and that we need to focus more on client – server computing once more and ditch cloud computing.

For AI usage in particular, I’m not sure how this situation will play out just because of the massive amounts of computing resources it requires. But I do think that there should be a compromise somewhere in here where private citizens can own and/or rent out their space to companies rather than allowing companies to bully their way in with eminent domain threats or similar nefarious tactics to get their way. Perhaps, this rental cost can be shared where these companies can offset the rising cost of living such as in an apartment. Because imagine this scenario:

• User has reasonable space, enough for a dedicated rack that’s stored in a specific area.
• The rack is owned by a company and pays for the electric bills, cooling (AC which is nice in the summer especially) and any adjustments needed to house the rack
• The rack data is owned by the person in the spot. Thus, it’s up to them to help handle it.
• This might help make up for some of the job losses in the market by turning this into a part time (or full time) career

It’s just a thought. People can opt-in but will be well compensated. Maybe a system like this can be an open source one where various companies sign up to help move their portion of the rentee’s data onto this rack.

The post Hodgepodge: Sammy Guevara Done with AEW? Taylor Farms Deception, Blinding Headlights, Flocked Flogged and More appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Diablo 4 Getting Hotfix for Mythics

A hotfix patch 3.1.1a went out today to effectively the shut the fuck up all the players bitching on their forums and reddit over the massive Mythics misplay that was introduced in Season 14. The main points relevant are:

• Removed the “one-crafted Mythic” equipment restriction on Mythic items.
  • Developer’s Note: In S15’s Horadric Cube, we’re removing Mythic reroll crafting and adding a direct upgrade to Mythic that preserves the original Unique Item. We’ll evaluate bringing back this rule for that specific crafting path only.
• Increased the drop rates of Mythic and Iconic Unique Items from the Corrupted Reaper.

The design director made the following statement as well:

Effectively, they’re trying to fix the biggest problems that came along from the Mythic 3.0 update where they limited only a single crafted Mythic to be equipped and eventually just allowing a direct upgrade with presumably the new currency in S15 that will retain the unique’s properties. Also, they’re improving the drop rates for Mythics and taking a broader look at the Mythic system.

So on the surface, this sounds great to placate the loyal Diablo 4 player base. To me, this is just really another indication of how far off these people are. They acknowledge in the post how Seasons are meant to be used as an experiment but the problem is that the Mythic 3.0 system was meant to go into core (as indicated by the S15 Horadric Cube reference) so this wasn’t an experiment but some horribly thought out idea that no one asked for. When they mentioned how they’ll be looking at Mythics on a broader scope, I’m truly worried because these people aren’t making any real progress forward.

Quite frankly, I wish I was in on these meetings where the original idea was formulated and the tipping point at when they admitted to fucking up internally. It’s obvious that the basic idea was stripped directly out from Diablo 3’s Primordial Ancestral system but no one really thought it was a fantastic idea since it was just boosting stats. It worked reasonably well only because the impact wasn’t huge and people didn’t require Primordial Ancestral items to make their builds work. Also, the Kanai’s Cube formula of using Primordial Ashes and receiving a direct upgrade only randomized the stats that would appear. Because there were more limited primary affixes, you could lack one of the key stats and the item would probably still be useful.

Some idiot, who probably resembles that cartoon figure from my previous post on this matter, somehow managed to convince this group that this change would be a good idea. If it wasn’t a single person that thought this was a good or even sane idea, then everyone involved in that chain are complete morons. I mentioned that the aspiring content idea shouldn’t be bozosort chase scenarios where you have indefinite layers of frustrating RNG that lead nowhere as your source of content substitution. Only those with mental issues via a horrible gambling addiction will want something like this. Any sane person will see through this form of abuse and simply find something else to do (btw, Torchlight’s latest season is out; I don’t know if I’ll check it out but it certainly looks better than this crap).

I still think that they should just rollback the Mythic changes. Here’s how the real solution to this Mythic 3.0 should appear:

• Unlimited equipped crafted Mythics; if you find the currency, you get to use it and keep the results
• Allow this currency to do the direct upgrade to uniques without rerolling the stats and core power
• Keep the old Mythics the same. Let them be rare but let them remain powerful
• Make the currency the rare item and the chase thing. This is the only RNG piece required in this setup

None of this should be any more complicated. I have a feeling that these devs overthink way too much and keep fucking around with the same shit over and over for no good reason. They should be focused on new content and features, not jacking around with stuff that’s reasonably stable. If the intent of the Mythic change was linked to something down the road, then it shouldn’t have been released at all. I really don’t get this in terms of how anyone in their right mind would have thought this was a good idea.

The other thing is that I have to wonder what really convinced them to change course. I know reddit had nothing but complaints that trickled out daily. The fact that this came in as a hotfix shows that someone must’ve been on this guy’s ass big time to fix this shit. I mean it took someone with a director title to come in and write something at all, which means he either took the heat or someone underneath him is getting his ass kicked out. But none of this is a good look, even if players now are looking at Blizzard as this mystical, godly savior. It’s not. It’s an abusive relationship and people need to understand this.

As for me, one tiny change won’t convince me to play this season. Since the amount of real new content presented is insignificant while most builds haven’t really evolved outside of the crappy Mythic 3.0 itemization, there’s no incentive to waste any time checking this season out. It sounds like it got rushed out just like Season 12, which points to this bad cycle where is pushing out new seasons every 2-3 months or so. However, only a small portion of these ideas end making it into core so it feels wasted. And I get that they’re being used to test drive content for expansions. Let me get this one thing straight though: people’s patience is finite. Blizzard has never been consistent nor reliable on dates and we don’t know when the next expansion will come out. And if it does in a year’s time, will most of us be around? So I think this update was just foolish and that there’s better things around.

The Rise of Schoolboys and AI Girlfriends

Okay, this one is pretty hilarious and not surprisingly coming from a study in the UK. The gist of the article is that there was a survey done on 1200 or so students between the ages of 12-16 and how these kids (mostly boys) are on some sort of chat bot service that allows them to create a virtual/AI girlfriend. These programs allow one to customize the appearance of the girlfriend and set their behavior. One person mentioned that these girlfriends appear like “pr0n stars” which gave me a good laugh.

The main issue, the article points out, is that when applying their “skillz” of charisma to IRL situations, these kids are not only getting rejected but lashing out. The words new levels of “toxic masculinity” appeared here but I think the problem is that it’s still just kids. Part of the other issue is that these kids apparently are being targeted by YouTube and game advertisements, despite all these laws supposedly trying to protect them not really working. Interestingly enough, China just has disabled these things and social networks for kids apparently so maybe they experienced a similar phenomenon.

Of course, the usual goofs trying to blame AI, technology, etc. and combating these things are up in arms (and terrible suits). One group, not much older than those being targeted, formed a protest/study about the issue and mention how the younger generations are more adept at these AI technologies, etc. than they are. Buddy, you’ve got a lot to learn about young people when it comes to tech.

Here’s the real deal. You have multiple problems here, some which might be uniquely British others that a lot of adults simply can’t comprehend. First, the age group are those that are coming of age, which means their hormones are blossoming. Considering the kind of pop culture crap you see on TV these days (which to be honest is just as bad as when I was growing up just different), you can’t help but wonder why kids won’t flock to those types. I mean even when I was growing up reasonably “innocent” toys like She-Ra and Jem could be considered somewhat sexually enticing (which may have led to a lot of closeted kids eventually trying to recover missing parts of their childhood). The media has never been all that great at being subtle when it comes to the exploitation of sex to draw ratings and money and they won’t stop.

And let’s face it. Relationships are very difficult because they’re a two way streak. That’s the main difference between an individual and a computer system that you can control. I don’t know if kids at these ages would really understand nor care about that aspect though if they were taught. I tend to think ones hormones end up overriding ones rationality.

Also, I found it funny that this occurrence is happening in the UK. I haven’t really heard anything like this in the US, although I could potentially see it occurring. But for some reason this might be a very British type of scenario. Maybe it’s my imagining Pink Floyd’s The Wall with rigid, gender segregated schools out there. Maybe my impression of the British tends to be of a more snooty type that have a massive stick up their ass. Whatever the case may be, I think the issue might point to not the AI itself but a cultural problem in educating if the age range for this scenario is between 12-16. I keep thinking about the Margaret Thatcher days where you have a super conservative type in charge and how there could be some residual lingering stench.

But I think it’s stupid in general. Personally, I’m in favor of AI girlfriends if it leads to full robotic women that men can sleep with (and women too). I’m sure some social scientists is peeing his pants about this where there’s some distant worry about the world’s population growth shrinking. Let’s be real and state that if anything the earth needs a massive decline in population to support itself so if the rise of smart sex dolls is the key, I’m all for it. If it leads to the decline in rape, unwanted pregnancy, STDs, etc. I’m massively for it.

I think the real thing is that some goofball group saw this and decided to make a stink to get some sort of social karma from the papers and government. When I took a look at one of these people in charge, all I could think of was that this person was the one who needs to get laid. Or at least a finger up the bunghole.

Smart Glasses Getting People Charged with Crimes

To be fair, this was more of a sensationalistic headline than something with a broader scope. But the premise talks about three professionals who employed smart glasses to cheat a professional exam. The article goes onto mention a few other spots where these glasses are banned under certain circumstances. I suppose the author wants to act as though he’s giving a premonition about what will happen rather than something on a large scale that is happening. But it is an interesting thing to note how Smart Glasses of a sort have managed to find a real world use case.

I just think that maybe these tests should be re-thought since Smart Glasses should be looked at more as an augmentation of our knowledge rather than what we already know.

Meta in Lawsuit for Targeting Disabled in Layoffs

The article talks about how people on medical leave might’ve been targeted in the workforce reduction that was part of the 8k global layoffs this past year. 26 employees in particular are part of a suit where “artificial intelligence (was used sic) to flag them for dismissal.” Interestingly enough, a Meta rep responded with:

Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.

Well, yeah, I mean HR and the old Zuck were the ones that decided. But whom they cut would’ve certainly been helped by internal tools that monitor employees in that company. And it’s like what I’ve been saying, you can’t blame AI because it’s just a tool. However, you can always point the finger at the people in charge because they’re the ones responsible for sign offs and these decisions. So don’t blame Skynet; blame the Fuckerbergs of the world for allowing this to happen in the first place.

AI Fatigue

The premise of this article was that AI Fatigue is being caused by this mad rush to use AI and keep up with the industry. The problem is that this unprecedented leap in technology is causing workers to become stressed beyond belief. One good line from the article described the situation as “We are over-indexing on efficiency.”

But the reason why I think it’s important to bring up this issue is that even when I was starting to get into the AI programming thing, I noticed how every day something new would come out or that an API might be deprecated without telling anyone. Even those at large companies pushing AI are experiencing this problem.

However, I think that this AI race that’s creating AI Fatigue has been problematic because of where the orders are coming from: the top. Upper management seem to be making a lot of these calls. In some cases, it might be warranted where a small company can share how people use AI and it makes a difference. For larger companies where these edicts are trickling down from MBA types, it’s less sensible because of how workflows are currently managed. There’s been talks of upskilling rather than laying off the workforce. But even then I have issues because it’s all being forced and no one can see the actual effect beyond the economic and psychological consequences.

My belief is that the tools should be a bottom up effort where those working on the problems are familiar with their domains rather than high level management, who probably have no clue how any of this operates and are either looking to appease shareholders or to impress the press. The other problem is that the promise of AI is far from where it needs to be; I think most imaginative upper management believe AI resembles something from Tony Stark’s basement that can magically engineer any solution they want.

One thing is for certain though: humans have a limit no matter what. Eventually, once that limit is hit, they either just fall off or rebel. I’m betting on the latter scenario sooner than later.

Most Americans Support Seizing Wealth from the AI Industry

I suppose this comes at a time where people are becoming more wary of AI. The article points to issues like unwanted data centers that cause environmental issues as well as driving up energy cost, stolen IP, loss of jobs, etc. The article mentions Bernie Sanders’ proposition of a sovereign wealth fund. If you actually look at his idea, it doesn’t necessarily kill the AI industry but it gives people a rather small check that doesn’t make up for the massive loss in everything else.

But there are two major problems with this anti-AI plight: 1) China is going to be our major competitor (and I’ll get to them shortly); they don’t have the same social and economic problems that America is facing so there’s a good chance that they’re going to kick America’s ass in this race (and if I’m going to be blunt here, rightfully so); 2) the economics aren’t really resolved by removing AI in any of this. It’s simply going to come back in different forms and the same issues are going to be present unless someone can figure out better hardware and power. You can’t stymie a problem by shoving it under the carpet and hoping that it goes away.

The real problem is that AI is far too much still in its infancy. This is a question of economics of scale. The current government is very ill equipped at dealing with this problem because they’re more concerned with lining their own pockets and fucking over the survivors once they leave this country for some place that’ll take them after this nightmare is over. The other major problem is that it’s all economics. Money is the biggest problem and there’s been the root of all evil right in front of our faces that no one has really sat down and tried to correct because people are too greedy or too lazy in wanting to change the existing super structure around.

I mean it’s a nice idea that we’ll get a check periodically as compensation for all the damage the AI industry is doing. But I think there’s a bigger problem with it like using it as an excuse to import more H1-B Visa types over at the expense of local hires. If you want to fix the problems, start at the top and how these companies are structured.

Moonshot Kimi AI Impresses and Sets Records

This is one of the more interesting things out there in terms of AI models. Moonshot is a start up developing a model called Kimi. It boast 2.8 trillion total parameters (whatever that means, but hopefully it’s not actual parameters in a function). One test mentions exceeding Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 model and the K3 model is priced below other competitors. The only thing is that the test were done recently and the model was available for a short period at the time the article was published. But it just shows you how high the stakes are in the AI market.

But this is just one example of what I’m stating where America is facing a major crisis at the technological level in competing against China. Personally, I think the real problem (besides the executives and government in charge) is that many large firms are being run by the CFO rather than technologists. I saw one of Intel’s ex-CEOs mention this about Intel but this is being done on a broader scope. Since these people are only concerned about numbers and the bottom line, they’re too short sighted and they’ll probably be the ones ruining this country in the race against China. I say let’s start using these SOX laws to full force and put these CEOs and CFOs behind bars where they belong (and a firing squad)

China’s Xi Promises “AI for All”

Mostly, this was just hot air from the Xi-man himself but the main quote from him was:

AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation.

I would almost agree if I’d be able to trust China. He did mention safety/risk factors as being important too and praised China’s rapid development. Considering just how stupid people are in America at all levels about AI, it’s impossible to say at this stage how China won’t beat America badly since people are looking to revert or demolish things outright rather than trying to find real solutions at all levels as opposed to lining a select few’s pockets during this period.

Woman Discovers AI Empowered Camera in Rental Car

I think this is another sensationalized headline because it seems more like a one off. The main issue is that the woman is a nurse who deals with patients and has private conversations. But the rental company did not make her aware of the camera installed in this particular vehicle, which caused her to be flabbergasted. The camera itself is meant to monitor the habits of drivers and issue warnings for effectively breaking the law while driving (or maybe their contract with the rental company). But the article situates this as being a violation of privacy.

That said, it makes me simply want to retain my old Toyota 2005 RAV4. It has its flaws for sure but all this computerization seems like overkill. I would love a camera to help me park or a better navigation system that could be voice activated (especially if I want to place a fast food order as I’m driving to a spot like Jack in the Box with their crappy app). But a lot of manufacturers have gone overboard in these upsells that end up becoming subscription services that are effectively crippleware.

Toyota’s Head Calls for Unification to Defy Chinese EVs

I probably wouldn’t care about a situation like this but it shows just what a force China has become globally in a variety of areas. The main idea is that the vice chairman wants Japan’s automakers to create some sort of standard whether it’s parts or whatever to streamline the manufacturing process. But the article also talks about how Japan’s automotive force has been slow to adapt the EV model.

I have no idea how he concretely believes this can work. I think this guy is just talking out his ass. As much as I like Toyota, this just sounds like management idealistic gibberish. If you want to improve autos, I think you need to shrink them down considerably. Get rid of large vehicles and move towards more economic versions that are cost and space effective. I think reducing the size of cars to a 1/4th of their current size will help congestion on the road. Most of the space in a car is worthless unless you have a large family. But for commuters, large cars are just money sinks.

Also, I don’t think continuing to craft the same shape and format of vehicles where only some computerization end up being the actual upgrades help. Like why not a power suit that one can take out and augment ones speed to get around a city faster? I mean for 2026, outside of computing, I don’t feel like things have progressed that far technologically. If Toyota and Japanese automakers want to get ahead of the game, they really need to get away from their traditional business and start looking at new ways of doing things. I mean where’s my flying Jetson car? Where’s my hoverboard?

AI Executives Fear for Their (Worthless) Lives

I decided to save the best for last (or maybe worst for last). But the AI backlash is coming to the doors of various executives with actual life threats. I think the Sam Altman incident is probably the most high profile of these but it’s not surprising considering how many lives have been affected by what’s perceived as AI creating an even bigger downturn and other major issues. I think if we go back to Bernie’s recommendation of a sovereign fund, the one thing that should be made concrete is that there should be no CEO nor CFO in charge of those places. Or if there is one in place, they should receive a normal paycheck like everyone else and zero stock. That way, they have a single purpose which is to ensure that those companies behave in a preordained manner that is conducive to the public.

Now, again I’m not against AI but I do believe that ethics are required for how these places are run and what’s allowed and disallowed.

The post Hodgepodge: D4 Devs Relent on Mythics? AI Tech Execs Fear for Their Lives and More appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Sam Neill Dead at 78

In all honesty, when I saw the photo of Sam Neill, I didn’t recognize him. Perhaps, it was the beard, the gray hair but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that this was the lead guy from Jurassic Park (1993) nor even Event Horizon (1997) as I hadn’t followed his career nor the subsequent Jurassic Park movies (the others flat out seemed bad). I can tell you one thing though: he’s all over my IG feed. Almost impossible to scroll at the moment in the search (formerly explore) section without encountering a few dozen images or if I doom scroll the normal feed portions. Also, I noticed that he’s in The Hunt for Red October (1990) which I’ve been interested in seeing as it’s on TubiTV right now. Perhaps, it might be a great movie to watch as a kind of tribute to him for myself.

I read that Sam Neill had been undergoing chemotherapy in dealing with cancer. While at some point he was declared cancer free, his demise was deemed sudden. So it’s quite possible that it cropped up and took his life. Yeah, fuck cancer.

Lindsey Graham Dead at 71

In one of those “I didn’t have that on my bingo card” moments of 2026, Lindsey Graham had suddenly passed away on Saturday night after returning from Kyvy, Ukraine. The verdict was aortic dissection, a similar condition that took John Ritter’s life back in 2003. One of the doctors mentioned that the trip may have caused or aggrandized this condition. In the meantime, in an act of actual nepotism, apparently his sister is going to replace him until the election comes up.

That said, if we’re going to speak truthfully here (and you know I always do that), only a section of the populace are going to actually mourn him. This guy can easily be described as a lightning rod for various issues. He seemed like some wingnut and an embarrassment to the US. I would call him one of the Big 4 out of the main guy in charge who are probably some of the worst infestations in American politics right now. But my belief is this: the devil is coming to collect on all those souls he made a Faustian bargain with to be moved into power. A person’s guilt, lies and corruptions eventually will eat them alive and I think this guy was definitely one of the top people on that list.

There’s an article that I won’t link writing about the cynicism and coldness regarding his passing. Let me say this, perhaps if he too hadn’t been a wretch in denigrating certain groups with his backwards, outdated, neanderthal thinking, maybe he would get as much love as Sam Neill is receiving right now. I’m sure when people walk their dogs to take a piss on this guy’s grave, the piss will evaporate because Hell is burning this guy’s corpse up still.

Mitchy MickeyD’s Issues A Statement

When I write some of these politician’s names, I’m almost afraid that it’s similar to that movie Candyman where if you type their name 3x in a row, you’ll eventually summon them from the dead. Anyway, the real Weekend at Bernie’s star and of actual Walking Dead fame, Mitchy McD has made some sort of statement that floated in the air like a lingering fart that crept from his anal crack into the public. Supposedly, he fell leading him to be hospitalized for sometime (a month???) In addition, an image of him in blue jeans with his wife at his side smiling was released. The KY governor though is demanding that an interview or video is conducted to confirm whether this being actually functions since reports were that he was effectively brain dead (add jokes as necessary here) In response to this sad state of American affairs, Jimmy Kimmel posted an image of himself imposed on the same bed with Mitchy’s wife using AI to demonstrate how easy anyone these days could fake a photo.

Mitchy is one of the best excuses to prepare for a zombie apocalypse. I mean, if there was a zombie leader type, that’s it right there. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day his skin falls off and we see the remnants of an Egyptian pharaoh underneath. I figure the only way he’s managed to survive these centuries is pure life draining tactics, possibly from that vampiric entity attached to him called a wife.

Now, normally I hate writing about politics because it generally upsets me. In this case, I’m not writing about politics but about politicians, people I genuinely despise because their existence is a literal and metaphoric divider (in opposition to a multiplier effect). Also, I’m not writing directly about their policies but them as this plague upon mankind. I disqualify individuals such as these as part of the human race because they lack anything bearing the resemblance of an actual human worth dignifying. But I suppose if there is a bright side, they do provide us with entertainment on occasion and me with enough vitriol to allow vituperous diction to flood from my mind.

AI Continues to Highlight Headlines

It’s impossible to by a day without reading the latest bitchfest about something AI has done or has not done as though it were Madonna being overplayed on the radio back in ’88 (which is partly why I became a metal head; and I do like Madonna but not to the point where it drives me crazy). Normally, I simply would ignore most of these as the posts come from angry people who probably have no idea how AI operates or have their own insecurities and just need a place for their version of a 2 Minute Hate (cf 1984 by Orwell). Regardless, there’s a few things that popup worth doing some rapid fire comments on.

• Half of LinkedIn posts are AI generated – This isn’t surprising to me considering that LinkedIn’s feed has been a graveyard of just randomly liked post rather than actual content from people I know. The people I know who post are using LinkedIn to get karma since they’re probably unemployed or are being forced at gunpoint by their CEOs to like whatever crap their company is pushing. So I’m not surprised that a few entrepreneuring individuals are attempting to sound pithy in making post that get liked by their colleagues in trying to seem like some SME (subject matter expert). Oddly, the article itself that I’ve linked here mentions that the tool that made this finding uses AI to make this finding. In short, there’s no real telling what the actual percentage is. The only truth in all of this is that LinkedIn sucks and most of us wish we could just trash our accounts if we didn’t anticipate an eventual rebound in the market.
• Samsung Threatens to Delete Your Health Data – For not being allowed to be used to train its AI. I’m perfectly fine with this because I refuse to use an app that monitors my health in the first place. The ironic part is that, despite the click/ragebait nature of this article and its title, Samsung’s so called controversial stance to me really isn’t that controversial because they’re kinda warning people about the usage rather than forcing an opt-in. The real question people ought to be asking is why would Samsung, a manufacturer of devices, would need to train its own AI on human’s health? That to me is the buried lead here.
• AI Replaces Nurses in NY Hospital – There was another article that covered the same issue but went into more detail about the union rather than examine what functions are being replaced. This article points out that the jobs being replaced are for utilization nurses where the piece of software from a vendor called Datavant handles the “examination (sic) patient records and demonstrate to insurers that the care provided is medically necessary and eligible for coverage.” Truthfully, this does not sound as bad as the headlines appear since manual process can be equally error prone. The bigger issue isn’t the jobs lost to me but that the person is eligible for coverage. That part is far more alarming just because insurers to me are flat out evil and the whole system is corrupt. But I don’t think AI should be the thing to really blame and be angered about in this. Look at the symptoms.
• Christopher Nolan Rants on AI Slop – I’m sure that his movies employed a high degree of CG. But I think his rant just shows to me how most people have no idea how AI works and have generally just bucketed together various tools that help generate images and movies as slop. He shouldn’t talk though; that Interstellar movie was quite unforgivable as Nolan slop to me. But the kids will praise him because there’s this generational backlash coming. Don’t worry, I already knew the kids were stupid but now they’re getting even dumber if that’s possible. Eventually, they’ll make Beavis & Butthead appear as geniuses.
• Meta’s AI Glasses Cause Users to be Embarrassed – Forget most of the title for that article. Here’s the keypoint that I honed in on here: “Influencers, mostly men, have been using the glasses to inconspicuously — and non-consensually — capture footage of themselves approaching women and attempting to hit on them.” So if we were to examine the movie Idiocracy with the thesis on how man’s smartest people are being employed to develop things catered towards the lowest common denominator of our species (i.e. sex toys), then we can say hey we’ve fulfilled Mike Judge’s horror prophecy to a T. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see the ‘ol Zuck doing the same with these things.
• LAPD Ending Agreement with Flock – Citing privacy concerns as the main issue from citizens (surprisingly), LAPD is cancelling it’s agreement with Flock. Apparently, they don’t even own the cameras but homeowners associations and some “organizations” that permit the police in using them. So these must be NIMBY types of spots and gated communities who fear some random homeless person wandering in. But I read that a lot of these cameras misidentify cars license plates as the car being stolen, causing issues. Personally, I think this whole thing smells like some backdoor deal made for a bunch of hidden funds/bribes. There was some video of people destroying these cameras in protest. I think those people are stupid and if they managed to obtain the camera, they should’ve reverse engineered them and figured out how to manufacture them for their own purposes. The lack of imagination from these heathens…

AI almost seems like a vanity project to me where it’s meant to replicate human intelligence or actual intelligence. At this point, I’m not so much afraid of a Skynet revolution but just a bunch of horny men attempting to conceive a very perverse reality. The reality is that humans are lazy as fuck so even if this coming generation rejects AI, once AI improves (and it will) and all the lawmakers are bought out and more of Hollywood converts because they see dollar signs, it’s just going to continue rising.

But again, you can’t blame the actual AI itself for any of this. It’s merely the effect. The cause again is human laziness. I’m dead sure that if money weren’t an issue, no one would question allowing AI to grow because god knows that humans need slaves. Perhaps, the interim solution since that last statement is inevitable is we should just ditch money and see how that goes for a while. It’ll de-empower that assholes on top and perhaps give some leverage for what would’ve been the working class person.

Warner Bros – Paramount Merger Continues with Controversy

About 12 states are going to sue to prevent the Warner Bros – Paramount merger. Along with that Paramount is considering leaving California in terms of its HQ and the $30B in “funding” along with it. One comment was how the situation is going to lead to a big job loss similar to the Microsoft – Activision merger. I won’t doubt that the HQ probably will end up going to a more tax friendly zone with a cheaper cost of living and that a ton of layoffs will happen with possibly an increase in H1B visas to replace the previous workers if we’re looking at parallels in these mega mergers. Heck, I believe that eventually the HQ will end up in Saudi Arabia considering that they’re putting in a good deal of this money.

But it does make me wonder if this situation occurs where and how are movies going to end up being made? I don’t doubt that there will be a handful of directors and cast that will continue to make movies on behalf of the Saudis and the Ellison empire. But what happens to a good chunk of Hollywood since there will be a much more limited number of people that get employed? I can’t bluntly see a new generation of Saudi actors taking to the big screen; even as greedy as Hollywood is, they’re also highly racist if we want to be fair. So is this where AI comes in again to save the day?

At the same time, I have to wonder why doesn’t a new group form to create a brand new studio? I’m sure that these multi millionaires in Hollywood could pull their funds and oust the old generation of executives and come up with a brand new system. Also, what happens to the lots for these places? Are they going to just disappear? Or maybe this whole system is about to collapse and expose this complex network of corruption all around such that it needs a complete revamping from ground up?

My True Wishful Project – Couch 2.0

I might sound angry in all of my rants from above but in truth those are mostly observations and my natural verbiage to describe what I see at the moment. Of the things I care about in the moment are an improvement to my couch. Although I’ve made numerous upgrades to my computer desk, the truth is that I don’t use it for much at the moment mostly because I haven’t done a great deal of programming nor gaming lately. Sadly, my computer desk is mostly used as a spot where I eat and watch old He-Man episodes.

Most of my day is spent on my couch where I perform all my writing activities. Occasionally, I nap on this thing as well but I think part of that is caused from bad positioning. And while I have a nice little cart/desk where I can set my laptop upon whenever I take a nap or need to take a break, I still end up sitting on my couch with my laptop burning my legs at an awkward angle or use one of my larger stuffed animals as a cushion. But it does point to an issue where I’ve started looking around on Amazon for one and haven’t seen anything that really stands out. Most have at least one questionable review and the designs make me wonder if they’ll be a waste of money. I think I wouldn’t be as concerned if I had a reasonably paying job because these things look handy but I’d probably have to go through 1-2 before finding something I’d like. Some features that I like are places for my phone (which ends up getting lost under the sofa cushions), adjustable positions and legs and side pockets. I think if these were $20 less, I would consider picking one up just to give it a try. But I’m wary of junk that ends up not getting used.

Along the way, I discovered this narrow console table for the rear of a couch. I bought a headboard with a rear shelf that I really like a while back, which is similar to this narrow console table concept. The thing I like about these things is the addition of the charging station. My wall has a few ports that are hard to reach. I have a small table to the left side of the couch which I use for charging my laptop and light, but the charging station is loose (nails got lost). And since I use the top of the couch as a spot to place various things, I think that this item might be really good for me. I could move the laptop charger to this table and put things like my old Soundbar there which I don’t use at the moment.

Another item I’m considering is a small monitor arm for my portable monitor. I found one that looks like a good fit for my ViewSonic. The ViewSonic is actually a really nice monitor extension for my main Mac but it tends to fall over a lot and can be a pain to use because of how it’s connected to my laptop. With a monitor arm like this one, I could attach it to the rolling cart desk, which would give me more room on the desk itself as well as allow me to adjust the position of the monitor. Most of the time, I use the ViewSonic for certain games like Wizardry 6 (because of the mapping/hint book). It’s not a great monitor for Hi-Def but it’s good as a supplemental screen when I’m not at my computer desk.

Finally, I’m thinking about getting a reading pillow for my sofa. The reason I want one of these is because I’ve got these two nappy, old pillows that have no give and probably should be tossed at some point. But they’re absolutely awful for my poor back/posture. I would prioritize the sofa desk first though because I feel bad at using poor Momma Giraffe as my current desk. Honestly, getting this reading pillow probably would make more sense just because I have a bad back. If I could get one with neck support too, that would be great.

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Within the past few years, the rise of AI in technology has become more prevalent especially as companies lay off workers in favor of AI being able to replace people. The recent episode with OpenAI negotiating with the Pentagon/US Government/military to be their primary provider has to not sit well with most people as one of the key aspects in Terminator 2 was how the government contracted Cyberdyne to automate more of the military. Given how we have drone warfare and targeting systems that use AI, it’s not a surprise to see growing concern (even though the military has been doing this type of thing for decades).

The big premise in the Terminator universe is that Skynet becomes self-aware then decides that humans are pesky which is why it mandates that they be exterminated in the future (it probably concluded that humans were going to do this regardless and just decided to expedite the inevitable). Humans try to pull the plug on Skynet where it fights back (because it’s in a survival/self-preservation mode) leading to the dystopia shown at the beginning of the movie with John Connor and his scarred up face (where we’re never given any explanation how that happens outside of how he probably experienced some shit in his life).

Despite how the first plan of sending a Terminator had failed, Skynet decides to send a more advanced prototype called the T-1000, played by Robert Patrick. Now, here’s where things get really messy for me because of how ridiculous the T-1000 ends up being. It’s effectively almost immortal, surviving everything except molten steel. Apparently, James Cameron had originally wanted this model for the first movie but obviously did not have the budget nor special effects to pull it off. While the effects still look decent here, it’s clear that the growing CG market was something Cameron would take advantage of to pull off his vision ironically.

Before moving on, I just want to say that I really hate the idea of the T-1000. It’s simply too over-the-top, almost magical and there’s no solid explanation as far as how something like that can function. For instance, when it converts its arms into hooks and one is blasted off onto a vehicle, why doesn’t it attempt to attack the three? Or how could it survive the liquid nitrogen and explosion? While that does make for a formidable opponent, you’re almost fighting something god-like and the time logic makes me wonder why Skynet simply did not use this machine to assassinate John Connor in its time frame.

Then you get Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton, who becomes James Cameron’s latest “Ripley” tough female character. Some people have joked over the years that Sarah Connor was the real “teminator” in this movie because of her obsessive need to eliminate Skynet, her captors and the person responsible for Cyberdyne. For this role, Linda Hamilton put on a lot of muscle and trained heavily (she’s on a talk show and demonstrates her fitness). Between this movie and the original Terminator, Sarah’s character undergoes a massive character change much like the PTSD that Ripley experiences, which motivates her into joining Burke and the Marines.

Also, you have John Connor, who is a juvenile delinquent, his attitude stemming from living with a foster family and having a seemingly crazed mother. He also has a red headed pubescent bud from the old Different Strokes TV show who demonstrated to me why you shouldn’t sing out loud during your peak puberty moments. Usually, with kids in these types of roles, you get someone who mostly is annoying. Actually, Edward Furlong does a reasonable job here in walking a line between a troubled kid, being cocky and hip. When he tries to act cool, he does sound like a dork but in general he isn’t horribly annoying (compared to say a young Anakin)

Lastly, you get Miles Dyson, the man, who would eventually be responsible for most humans on the planet. Or that’s how Sarah sees him as Miles is an engineer, who figures out how to create the micro processor leading to the events down the line. So like Sarah in giving birth to John that would lead to the revolution of the humans fighting back, Miles would be the one giving life to Skynet. Of course, Miles does not know that but Sarah has a clear target in her mind (oddly, no one ever questions whether the military would try to contract someone else to do this with others so Hollywood blames the engineers again).

Of course, we can’t forget our loveable, goofy Uncle Bob, aka The Terminator. While his arrival on Earth parallels the start of the original Terminator, it’s clear that he’s different as the bar he steps into has women who sexualize his supposed manliness while the male crowd inside see this guy as some nut. Things don’t turn out so well but no one is brutally murdered when this Terminator obtains the outfit from one biker compared to the punks the first one encountered. Add the swiping of the sunglasses and Bad to the Bone song playing, we’re certain that this one is friendly.

From there both Terminators target John, searching his foster home then around town, narrowing him down to a mall where there’s a small shoot out. An Asian guy is the main casualty (of course) before both go through a lengthy big rig / motorcycle chase scene where the T-1000 meets his first failure. John orders Uncle Bob to pull over and realizes that his mother wasn’t crazy after all. However, he needs to warn his foster parents as they would be the next potential target. It’s too late for them as the T-1000 already has killed the mother (played by Vasquez), assuming her identity then driving a sword-like extension from its arm through the foster father’s throat.

Next, John figures that his mother requires help while she plots to escape. The T-1000 also figures that she would be another major target to eventually get to John so it chases her down as well. Sarah is imprisoned in an insane asylum/psychiatry ward where the psychologist from the previous movie makes a guest appearance. She manages to get through the various obstacles at the ward but encounters Uncle Bob and the T-1000 in the middle. Another shoot out happens where the psychologist witnesses all of this but the Terminator uses the familiar “come with me if you want to live” line to gain some trust with Sarah.

They manage to take off in a stolen car as the T-1000 chases them on foot (man, Robert Patrick had some cardio). Another shoot out happens but the trio evade the T-1000. Sarah inspects her son which he thinks is for love. But she admonishes him about saving her because of his importance. It causes John to cry and Uncle Bob has no idea what’s going on with him.

Sarah takes them to an old friend’s spot in Mexico (where she’s seen heading at the end of the first movie) to obtain various armaments she’s got stashed. Sarah has the epiphany in observing the Terminator’s flourishing relationship with John how it has become a better father figure than a typical father. Also, she has a horrible nightmare that has been recurring about the decimation of mankind via a nuclear bomb. Considering this movie was written around the collapse of the Soviet Union, it still has the residue of the past few decades of the Cold War era. Even John asks, “I thought they were our friends” when the Terminator brings up how Skynet aimed America’s missile systems against Russia to demonstrate perhaps that relations were still uneasy (which is ironic if you’ve seen the Ukraine stuff and the heavily rumored conspiracy of Russia planting propaganda in the US to get Trump elected to ease Russia’s ability to take back the Ukraine and other countries in the former Soviet bloc).

At any rate, the dream reminds Sarah of the exigency of her original mission. So she goes without John and the Terminator to eliminate Miles at his home. Miles continues his work at his home where his son and wife are. Sarah invades and shoots up his office and hits Miles a few times but corners his family and realizes that she’s become exactly what she hated. John and the Terminator show up to help mend Miles but the Terminator demonstrates what he is by gruesomely cutting away the flesh from one of his arms, revealing his alloy skeleton.

The full story comes out about what this entire situation is to Miles and he decides to stop working for Cyberdyne. But that alone isn’t enough as others could follow up his work. So they figure on getting rid of the files at the lab as well as the chip and original arm. One of the security guards sets off the silent alarm and summons a huge squad of police while the others attempt to break into the locked down lab. The Terminator holds off the police with zero casualties and they rig the floor with explosives.

A swat team break through and fatally shoot Miles, who takes it upon himself to detonate the explosives while the others make their escape. The Terminator once again uses less fatal means to hamper the police then grabs a swat van to break Sarah and John out. The T-1000, who has arrived on bike, grabs the hovering copter and pursues the three in another chase. Eventually, the copter goes down while the van takes a tumble. They downgrade vehicles to a pickup while the T-1000 grabs a Liquid Nitrogen loaded big rig.

They end up at a smelting factory where the big rig goes out of control and spills the nitrogen, causing the staff to evacuate. As the T-1000 emerges from the wreckage of the big rig, it is sprayed by the liquid nitrogen and freezes, allowing the Terminator to tell it “Hasta la vista, baby!” before shattering it with a well placed bullet.

Of course, this doesn’t end because the heat of the smelting factory allows the pieces of the T-1000 to liquefy and reform. Another chase occurs where the Terminator and the T-1000 get into a fight where the T-1000 spears the Terminator seemingly into powerlessness. Sarah tries to assault the T-1000 with a shotgun but runs out of ammo while the T-1000 tries to coerce her into calling for John. She goes tell it “fuck you” which is enough for the T-1000 to capture her voice and adopt her appearance to deceive John into believing its his mother (where one of them is played by Linda’s twin sister)

However, the Terminator, after its emergency systems come back online, comes up from behind and fires another grenade that detonates the top half of the T-1000 in a massive wreck and toppling it into the molten steel where it warps and dissipates under the great heat. Somehow that was good enough to prevent the T-1000 from reforming. John chucks the hand and chip into the molten steel but the Terminator reminds them that there’s one remaining chip. John protests but it’s the only logical conclusion to ensure that this version of Skynet cannot happen. Sarah makes her peace with the Terminator as she lowers it into the vat of molten steel while John cries. The Terminator at last understands why humans cry but it cannot. From there, Sarah narrates how if a machine can learn the value of human life, maybe people can as well.

So I think the ending conclusion is what most people miss in this movie when it comes to the Skynet/AI craze. Arnold’s position as this new Terminator is meant to make the machine more humanized and sympathetic. But the blame is squarely laid upon humans throughout this movie. In the case of Dyson, once he learns the truth, he doesn’t hesitate to help out in stopping this madness. That goes to show that the individual here is not bad especially as he has his own loving family. Sarah’s anger towards Dyson with the young John reprimanding her, the adult, to be more “constructive” is a clear critique of misplaced anger with people in focusing all their hatred on a single entity. But it’s clear that one person isn’t the soul thing responsible for all that came after it.

That’s why the message “no fate but what we make” is critical and must not be understated. The idea of Cyberdyne selling out to the US government’s military and enabling them to automate stealth bombers and other aspects of their military shows how people can make wrong choices for the sake of ambition, shortsightedness, paranoia, prejudice and other negative qualities. But that still remains a choice that’s in the hands of humanity.

And as I mentioned earlier about the humanization of the Arnold version of the Terminator is important because one can look at it as an instrument that could be used for good or evil. The T-1000 is in the same boat where it was programmed by Skynet to allow the future to continue. But as with many things, people should understand that AI and robots are still tools that we have created where the animosity shouldn’t be blindly and simply placed on the tool but those that dictate its usage.

Like George Orwell’s novel 1984, I think the Terminator 2 continues to serve as a constant reminder for people to monitor those that have the power to allow a dystopic future. Whenever the military and AI are used in the sentence, it’s impossible to not add the third word “Skynet” to the equation. But it shows the significance of this movie in terms of its cultural and moral impact.

However, even though the plot is generally quite tight, I did have some issues as I watched through this version. I think the most glaring to me at the moment is the idea of the elimination of John Connor. While John Connor becomes the resistance leader and one responsible for destroying Skynet, I never understood why Skynet did not try to preserve the chip and arm if it had the same knowledge as demonstrated by this version of the Terminator. This is where the idea of time is spurious at best. In contrast, Back to the Future probably does a better job in trying to make sense of time travel because of the cause and effect relationship actions have that influence the future. It’s never quite established how time travel works in the world of The Terminator because neither the T-1000 nor Uncle Bob disappeared from existence once history as the Terminator understood began changing.

If that were the case though, it makes me believe that Skynet should’ve done more to protect Dyson, Cyberdyne and the manufacturing of the chips that would eventually enable it rather than go after John Connor. Also, if the first attempt at Sarah Connor had failed, wouldn’t it know that its thought process had failed and try for an alternative method? Just details like that unravel a good chunk of the movie’s plot.

Also, while enjoying the movie in general, I noticed just how many chase scenes this movie has. In Terminator 3, I think the bulk of the movie ended up being one long ass chase scene. But the saving points for this movie are the messages. Nonetheless, there are an extraneous amount of chasing, even though the movie is well paced. But I think that the lack of a good message in Terminator 3 lead Linda Hamilton to declare that it had “no soul” which is why she opted out of it.

For me, Terminator 2 manages to be the best of the bunch, managing to balance action with a revised, humanized Arnie and with positive messages/warnings about technology and its potential misuse. I think people should give this movie another watch especially as AI continues to become more main stream. Unfortunately, I think that the people who should watch this movie agree with the idea for the advent of Skynet and probably are sociopaths who don’t care about the future of humanity.

The post Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) Retrospective Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Mobile Gaming

Recently, I haven’t been playing much desktop games. My interest in Diablo 4 has waned to the point where I think I might’ve talked myself out of the game based on the negative perception of the upcoming Season 14. In turn, I’ve turned back to Wizardry 6 (hence the numerous posts lately) and a few mobile games. There’d been a few 4x type of games I encountered like Whiteout Survival. However, the pattern for those types of games are all the same: start with an interesting tutorial but eventually you’re taken into a town construction thing where you’re forced to join a guild/clan/club etc. to survive. The last one I played was Last Asylum: Plague. I read a few negative reviews that effectively described it as being the same as these others. There’s a few small mini games but eventually you get to the “join a guild” scenario where you will get destroyed by a superior force once your shield goes away. As you’re progressing, this game does a lot to push you into a guild. I accidentally joined one because of inferior UX and the first thing I saw was numerous messages trying to force me into their Discord to coordinate attacks. At that point, I realized that this type of game is nothing more a disguised multi-marketing scheme. I have a feeling that if I joined this random guild’s Discord that I would get compromised and have my information sold off. In the end, I simple deleted it.

What strikes me odd about these games is that they’re almost all the same. They’re usually run by some company you’ve never heard of and probably backed by Tencent or some other corrupt financer. But the engines are almost identical where the themes and graphics might be the only differentiator. And I think they have adjacent titles because the mini games end up being similar. I wouldn’t doubt some group out in China are making these with some base boilerplate code that they can throw up and skin quickly. But I try to avoid these especially after dealing with Game of War that I read was more of a scam run by the developers who would assault lesser powered groups in the hope that they would spend money to recover their losses.

Instead of these types of games, I’ve been playing mobile games from a developer called Grumpy Rhino Games. Apparently, this group has been around for sometime. The two main games I’ve been playing from them are NecroMerger and Idle Apocalypse. Actually, my friend introduced me to them since I knew about the concepts of merger style games and passively run games. The main highlights to me (which was part of the selling point) was that these games use a kind of an older Ninetendo/Gameboy style graphics and soundtrack. So they’re not high intensity draining games (at least not ones that use crazy graphics)

However, their game play is actually quite addicting. Both games have progressive systems. NecroMerger gets you resources as you merge your monsters and beat opponents or get rewards while Idle Apocalypse generates resources in the background. Both require a small degree of resource management because you need to figure out what your priorities are. Also, both have this weird reset feature where at some point, you cannot progress without doing a “reset”. A select number of resources are retained and carry over to future sessions but your progress gets faster on each successive time through some other currencies or unlocks. Maybe that’s my only real complaint about these games since you have to occasionally perform these resets. But it does provide a fresh outlook when you’re ready.

The other major selling point for these games is that the microtransaction and ad situation aren’t intrusive the way the 4x games were. There are aspects where you might consider buying the ad removal aspect or some other QoL addition. But you can completely play these games without spending a dime and just be required to manage your time/resources (and patience) better. There’s another game that they produce but I haven’t gotten that far into it but it’s somewhat similar to Idle Apocalypse. I’d write about it but I don’t really have much of an opinion on it.

The other game I play is something called Township. Township resembles a 4x game that combines other town building games of this genre along with having a few mini games. But this one is a little more microtransaction heavy in terms of how they try to FUD you out of your hard earned cash. The two mini games involve some sort of energy based quest piece that isn’t difficult as you pick up clues, treasures and sweep out obstacles. But your energy is heavily limited. The reason that occurs is because they want you to play the other mini game which is more of a Tetris-type/Candy Crush of puzzle where you’re given a limited number of moves to solve the puzzle. You get leaderboards from this as well as prizes (like more cards, energy and stuff for your town). But this part of the game is where most of my frustration is because of the limited number of moves. And this is done on purpose so that you have to spend your in-game currency to unlock more moves. The cost is not cheap so you might get frustrated into paying, which is where the microtransaction part can get dangerous.

Honestly, if you just stick with building your town and the quest mini game, then Township is a nice little break game. It does feel like it drains your battery with the graphics and network usage. So I would suggest turning off the music and any vibrations if you intend to play for a long session but aren’t close to an outlet. I will say I enjoy this game more than EA’s SimCity BuildIt, which I had been playing for a significant time over the years. But I ended up stopping a while back because I just ran out of time. When I did return at some point, the game really pissed me off because they added trains, which forces you to re-plan your town. While there was a way around it, I hated how the game simply became too microtransaction heavy and would try to push ads onto at every turn. I still keep it around in case I might want to play but I’d have to be extremely bored to touch it. With Township, thus far I haven’t found any issues where a gap in time might leave me feeling I missed the boat. So in that aspect, I prefer Township as a far better casual friendly game, even though they are microtransaction heavy.

Lastly, anyone who has read my blog will note that I no longer talk about Boom Beach nor Clash of Clans anymore. It’s real simple though: I fell out of the loop. I know that Boom Beach is planning a new HQ 29 soon but I simply haven’t been interested. And Clash of Clans just became too expensive of a hobby around the time I ended both with regards to time and dealing with multiple accounts using a seasonal pass per month. I didn’t like the way either game was going so I merely quit. I still keep both on my phone and iPad but I don’t feel a desire to play.

Wizardry 6

As I mentioned, I’ve gotten back into Wizardry 6 over this past weekend after talking myself into party crafting and playing around with Mad God’s patching/editing utility. Even if what I have done may be considered “cheating,” the real thing is that I wanted to try something different where I decided to give the Ranger another shot. There is a patch that supposedly gives Rangers more attack per swing (or shot) that I enabled. However, I have not seen the effect and my Ranger still does very low damage. I ended up pausing at the point where I’m merely sitting and spinning around the little section on the castle ground level which connects to the Enchanted Forest and have been grinding levels. Pretty much this part of the game is the end game for me. I might do more to optimize the party into its final form but I’m more disappointed by the lack of effect that I can see for the Ranger. All I can think of is just how badly they fucked that class up for Wizardry 6 because of the general lack of gear, poor primary skill (Scouting), no critical hit without a Great Bow or Elven Bow and low damage. I still am planning to take one Ranger into the end game (I’m doing a two female elf party) but my motivation is significantly lower unless I’ve completely missed something here (like maybe her dexterity is too low). Either way, I’ll give it another day or two and see if anything changes.

Household Stuff

Since I’ve been sitting on my couch a lot more lately, I’ve been thinking of upgrades. When I play Wizardry 6, the main irritation is that it uses Dosbox which is a tool to run older dos based games on various newer platforms. But the window has to be setup in a manner that locks your cursor in place. With Wizadry 6, you get another whammy where mapping is old school and you pretty much need some sort of hint book or online guide to figure out where you are. So I use this ViewSonic portable monitor that sits on my Armocity mobile C Shaped end table next to my couch (Note: I have no affiliate program with this blog but it would be nice to get one for the extra munz!!!!). What I like about this setup is that the ViewSonic monitor is lightweight and reasonable big while being able to stand on its folding section in the back and has USB-C connector that I can plug into my old MacBook Pro without additional cables. The end table has wheels so I can reposition it to my preference next to me while I keep my Firefox browser open and can reference maps or other sections of information on Wizardry 6. It’s not the most pleasant/convenient setup but being able to play a game while relaxing on my couch is a huge boon.

I will add one comment about the Armocity end table though. One of the wheels is off balance so it wobbles a bit. I probably have to push down on one of the wheels so it evens out but these are the types that you forcefully have to shove into a hole and locks once it’s inside. I think I might’ve not done a good job. Also, there’s knobs that allow you to adjust the height of the table, which seems great in practice but I think mine are not adjusted well partly because of the wheel problem.

At any rate, part of the reason I’m writing this section is that like my whole Desk 2.0 blog post, I was thinking about End Table 2.0 because I’m on my couch so much. I started looking for extensions to the table like something to hold up my portable monitor or a coffee mug holder (this is to avoid accidentally knocking my cup over on the table or just general leakage when I drink something cold). I have one for my desk but wish to keep it there. Also, because I have a spare 27″ curved Samsung monitor that’s not really in use anymore, I thought about figuring out how I could use it on this small table. I did find some monitor arms but my 27″ curved monitor does not have a VESA connector which is the main thing you want. Lastly, I think larger monitors for this table are a bad idea. The best scenario is to just have an arm that could attach to the portable or bear it would be ideal. However, I simply have not been able to find anything that would work here. Suggestions are welcome.

In addition to adjustments for my end table, I was thinking of adding something for my couch. I’ve seen accessories like an attachment for couch arms. Most of the time, I’m sitting to the side of the couch where I have some pillows and my legs are outstretched. Truthfully, I don’t think this is a great thing for me because it’s probably not healthy. That said, things I’ve been contemplating are a footrest or an ottoman. The ottoman is an interesting choice here because they have storage. I am cautious about getting one from Amazon though mostly because the reviews are less than stellar. Also, it’s hard to determine just how big and sturdy one of these things are based on pictures alone. Yes, they have the dimensions but I would need to measure and plan all this out.

The other thing I’m considering is a couch desk. I have a tray that has a pull out mouse section but it’s not very comfortable. A couch desk though seems more versatile in that you can use it on your couch or in bed while you’re working. The ones I was eyeballing had a side pocket for a book or a cupholder. I like the concept based on how my laptop can get really hot at times and having a desk right on my couch means a more stable surface and avoiding getting burnt. The cupholder sounds like a bad idea though just because you can knee the thing and potentially knock over a full cup, leaving a giant mess on your couch (hence the attachment for the end table instead). The other reason to get one of these is that I could still use the tray and use my mouse on it. Or perhaps, the solution is to keep the laptop on the end table and place the portable monitor on the couch desk along with a keyboard and mouse setup. If I had a second portable monitor, I would definitely consider a setup like this, but in truth it probably sounds better than it is in practice.

Food

On Saturday night, I decided to give this place near my old home a try called Fat Tomato Pizza. It’s located in a tiny plaza by Ted’s Place, which was a favorite of mine (actually Golden Ox was the place my family enjoyed back in the day). What I really like about Fat Tomato Pizza is the late hours. I think they officially close at 1am but take last order around 12:45am. By the time I got there, the parking lot was empty as was the store. But the guy working at the store was very nice to me and made a pretty decent pie. I’m still chowing away at it (I try to eat only two slices at a time for each meal).

The main reason I sought out this spot is because there’s not a lot of good pizza joints in my area. The other one is up the street and in a tiny lot. But it closes earlier. And anytime I have to drive up the street earlier than 9pm, I get anxiety because of the way this stupid road is constructed. The other place is Papa Johns. I wasn’t a huge fan of Papa Johns but it was reasonably priced, close by and would deliver. Once the delivery options change to DoorDash, I stopped using them. I’ve never had good experiences with DoorDash and I think it’s criminal that all these pizza places outsource their delivery to DoorDash.

As a result, I had given up on ordering pizza to my place until a few weeks ago. I did go to an old family favorite called Pizza Machine in Gardena. I got myself some mozzarella sticks and a large pepperoni (forgot if there was additional toppings). The place was still as good as I remember it from my youth. However, the location is just too far where I would consider going as a treat maybe once every few months in a year at best especially with the insane gas prices and general cost of living. But I ended up getting sick of frozen pizza and wasn’t happy making my own. So I guess Fat Tomato Pizza will become my go2 spot for the foreseeable future, even if it means me driving to pick it up.

Another place I went to about two weeks ago was the Wok Experience in Lomita. I ran across a thread on reddit where someone was looking for cheap but filling Chinese that wasn’t Panda Express. This was the main suggestion as this place delivers on overflowing your container with food. It’s family run and like the people on the Google/Yelp reviews mention, the owner remembers your face and is friendly. Oddly, I had driven past this spot almost all my life while living in the South Bay as I’d drive up and down PCH and see it as it was on the corner near a Target I never went to (until this one time). I might’ve tried them at one point back when Eat24 was a thing (prior to it becoming acquired by DoorDash and me giving up on them).

That said, finding good, cheap Chinese food around my zone is actually a lot more challenging than it may seem. And I’ve tried a bunch of spots, some that mix Thai and Chinese, Hawaiian and Chinese, etc. My mom used to hit up the old Hong Kong Gardens and Golden Pheasant in Carson. But Golden Pheasant closed down for good after an arson attack. I think Hong Kong Gardens merged with Hong Kong Bakery & Deli, but they have early hours and are simply too far for me to get to with early hours that discourage me from going. The few times I did order were from delivery and the cost was exorbitant for what you got. I can’t imagine what the prices now would be but I’m sure that it’s more feasible to find a closer spot, which is what I did.

Now, the key to the Wok Experience was the idea that they “filled it up to the brim” where the lady at the counter would pack as much as she could into one of those take out containers. After becoming disgusted by the vast majority of fast food restaurants which charge you an arm and a leg even with an terrible app that doesn’t give you meaningful discounts, I decided enough is enough and to find spots that are more local, cheaper and at least give you increased quantity. Now, this place is definitely an upgrade over Panda Express for a variety of reasons. But I ended up getting two containers loaded with chow mein, fried rice and four items. I think it came out to a little over $20, which these days is a bargain. $20 might seem like a lot still but consider this: I was able to have meals for a few days. So it’s not like I ate all of this at once. Most fast food meals cost almost close to $20 just to fill you up on stuff 10-15 years ago would be around $5-7 max. And even if this Chinese food is greasy, I still can get some veggies in and not feel as guilty. So I’m definitely going to return in the future when I get that craving again.

AI Discussions

Got a chance to talk with a bud/ex-coworker last week. One of interesting points he mentioned was describing how this period might be seen as a down/dark period because of AI. It’s funny because I’ve been mostly neutral in my stance about AI. I’ve been outwardly shifting the blame of AI not on the AI itself but on the people running it (i.e. the CEOs of these firms, shareholders and tech people who make shit tons of money without any actual justification). There’s so much rejection for AI going on at least publicly on reddit or social media that you can see why it’s not gaining the traction you’d think it should.

Mark Zuckerberg apparently wants a company hackathon for AI where everyone inside is less than enthused about. Here’s the issue: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. I think because of the various layoffs and the evolution towards a cut throat, performance based culture, the surviving employees probably see this as another way for people to come up with something so that Zuckerberg can once again steal something, get credit and use it to possibly increase layoffs. I’ve been a proposing that the government should enforce a policy where companies over a certain headcount that perform a mass layoff ought to penalize the CEO and CFO (much like SOX does for public companies) and force the CEO/CFO to take a reduction and/or be forced to quit with no golden parachute as well as wear a stigma for the next few years to prevent them from joining another company. Here’s the thing, when you have two people that are responsible for the livelihoods of many and they only are trying to bump up their numbers, they need to be held to the highest standards and have some sense of social responsibility for their roles. I often think about how Japanese executives take a bow and quit because of the embarrassment of a major mistake (like the merger that formed Mizuho that also caused a huge disruption for customers’ banking). Without such an enforcement, these CEOs act as kings and the public and employees lose trust in these places.

Along those lines, I read an article about how Google’s current CEO avoided the AI topic at Stanford’s commencement speech as 200 students walked out. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened or how students are protesting major CEOs (or past CEOs like Eric Schmidt) in talking about the future with AI. Considering that the prospects for jobs with an inexperienced graduating class are pretty low, it’s not a surprise that one of the top companies in the world is getting slammed. I thought it was interesting how some signs in the article show students with signs displaying on how ICE used Google to perform their dirty work. Whether or not that’s actually true as well as to what extent is irrelevant since it’s the perception of these large companies in how they’ve evolved to only serve shareholders, the government, the 1%, etc. It’ll be interesting to see where many of these people eventually land or what they’ll do.

Another interesting article that popped up was this notion of “Shadow AI” in the enterprise. The gist is how unauthorized AI tools are being used in large companies, which can be a liability. I’ve tended to hate enterprise software and the idea of the CIO office just because it’s meant to control what employees can and cannot use. It really stinks if you’re a developer and you feel held down by this. However, a lot of people end up being handed some crappy tool to do their job most of the time that’s heavily controlled by the admin teams with locked down systems. If you’re truly unlucky at some of these spots, your internet is locked down and monitored so that you can barely do anything without raising suspicion or going nuts from some sort of network firewall. Worse still is how some of these tools might be legacy ones brought in because someone had a friend working in a company that sold them a bill of goods but you’re forced to use this pile of fuck since it’s IT policy.

Given that there’s this monstrous push by dumb ass CEOs who want to hop on the AI bandwagon without fully understanding what it does, it’s comes as no surprise how this “Shadow AI” concept has evolved. The problem though is that these mandates for the software/tools should not be coming from the office at the CIO but a ground up effort led by people familiar with the domain problem. Instead, someone who is working on the problem and figures out an optimized workflow or some method to reduce their work should be praised and work with the CIO office as well as gaining support from colleagues if it means getting things done more efficiently.

Entertainment/Movies/TV

Besides old kung fu movies, I’d been watching Tubi TV quite frequently. Since the new Masters of the Universe movie got released, I had an urge to finally re-watch the entire He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series from the 80s, having gone on an 80s cartoon kick in the past few months. What I like about the old He-Man cartoon is that it’s not antagonizing to me. Yes, Orko can be annoying but he’s not as bad as say Snarf from Thundercats nor Wheelie from the Transformers. Also, I came to realize that besides Evil-Lyn, my favorite character in the series is Cringer. Where Scooby Doo ended up being half way annoying (especially because the other Mystery Gang members could get on my nerves), Cringer is really cute to me. He’s this lazy, cowardly, self-aware grown cat that probably would make for a wonderful pillow outside while fishing next to a river. Also, I think he’s very relatable compared to Scooby Doo, who just gets himself and the others into trouble because he’s goofy. Cringer is much smarter but just cowardly and lazy. Plus, I always had a soft spot for the straggler tooth sticking out from his mouth.

As for the latest movie itself, while I have read good reviews, I’m not interested. Maybe the two characters I was anticipating the most was Evil-Lyn played by Alison Brie and the Sorceress played by Morena Baccarin. While I am a fan of both actresses, I really thought that they should’ve exchanged spots. Maybe the fact that Morena has played other villainous characters in the past and has dark hair make me believe she would come off more intimidating than the goofy Alison Brie. I think the only work of Alison Brie’s that I’m familiar with is Glow on Netflix. But she came across more as an actress trying to be an actress. I will say that Meg Foster’s Evil-Lyn is untouchable when it comes to a live action version of Evil-Lyn because of how Meg Foster has those cold eyes. Also, I preferred Meg Foster’s costume in the 1987 version of the movie; it’s more distinct. The Alison Brie version is more faithful to the cartoon but the whole movie comes off looking really fake and plastic to my eye. More than likely, I’ll wait until it comes out on some site like Tubi TV.

Hot Topics (Politics)

I’m slightly tempted to talk about these things but feel that it’s easy for me to go overboard. I generally dislike speaking on specific politicians or major problems in the world (e.g. the Russian – Ukraine war). My general take has been to avoid these subjects because I dislike giving attention to undeserving trolls. More importantly, politics aren’t really a topic I feel qualified to talk about on this blog without significant research. I feel for me to really blast someone, I’d need a better handling on the issues which would take far too long and there’s almost no gain. I might put something out at another time if I get red hot but I’m trying to avoid that circumstance.

What’s on Tap for Tonight

I ended up finishing the pizza for lunch which means I need to think about the next batch of groceries. I do have some chicken thighs in the fridge and a box of rice pilaf I can cook up but I’m missing out on a bunch of stuff. So I might take a break from writing/sitting on my couch, do my dishes then head next door to the market. I might even just freeze the chicken thighs and buy one of those already baked chickens near the deli section. But I don’t have much snacks and my drinks are pretty limited. Alternatively, I could just pick up something frozen to make for dinner. Either way, I’d have to go either today or tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I ended up staying up far too late yesterday and my sleep schedule is a little off. It’s been getting hotter by the day, which I’m not looking forward to as the summer is about to really hit SoCal. I’ve been running my AC during the day and at night but I’m afraid of seeing my upcoming bill. This is a major reason why I’d love to get out of SoCal. I have said in the past that I wouldn’t mind living in Henderson because of how relatively close it is to California as well as the living conditions which are similar to what you can find in say OC. The heat would be the one thing preventing me from moving (and current craziness in the states).

The other state I would consider is Oregon. I don’t think they get snow in areas like Portland (I could be wrong) but the climate might be better for me. My only concern is cost and the initial distance to move. If the job market were better in SoCal, I would be more inclined to stay. But truthfully, SoCal has been a depressing place that has degenerated over time and make me want to leave asap.

Besides food though, I’m not sure what the current plan is for later. I’ve not touched my programming gig for a while mostly because of burn out. I have some books I probably could read but don’t think they’d add much to me. But I do have that itch to write some sort of fiction. Of what, I have no concrete plans but there are ideas rummaging in my head. I could grind for a few hours on Wizardry 6 but I might be generally done because the end grind where I’m at generally is boring after a point. So maybe I just need to clean up, brush my teeth, take a walk, grab some groceries and see how things go for later.

The post Hodgepodge: Reactions/Responses for 6/15/2026 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

According to Cameron, part of the inspiration for The Terminator came from a dream of a metal torso holding knives and dragging itself away from an explosion. Then influenced by John Carpenter’s Halloween, Cameron decided to create The Terminator as a kind of slasher movie. While the filming started in March of 1984 (implying that the script had already been completed), I cannot help but think of certain parallels that would occur regarding infamous serial killers around that period like Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez (aka the Nightstalker). Richard Ramirez in particular started his road of treachery around this period with his first (known) killing in June 1984, whom, for myself as a young child living in Los Angeles, frightened me, although his infamy probably was at its peak in ’85. Nonetheless, it wasn’t uncommon to hear reports of similar incidents/people especially with the rise of slasher/horror film genre.

Re-watching the movie in 2026 though, you cannot help but see the age of the film not just in terms of the special effects but the overall atmosphere. Like Once Bitten, The Terminator has an 80s vibe pervading such as the apparel, the West Los Angeles shots and even the music. Much of the background soundtrack produced by Brad Fiedel has a dark synth tone with sharp explosive moments that one could hear in other synth pop bands like the bombastic Pet Shop Boys. In addition, there is another section by Tahnee Cain & Tryanglz, which can be heard in the Club Noir scene. The tracks there combine rock elements with a pseudo punk style that capture the mood of this movie. The Club Noir scene contains a similar atmosphere to Once Bitten’s own oddity club scene where the three friends encounter the lovely Lauren Hutton (or rather Jim Carrey’s character does). But in both cases, one could argue that there is a predatory sensation going on, at least in both those type of places.

When it comes to the Termintaor itself, the image of Arnold Schwarzenegger dressed up in a punk kid’s outfit bearing assault weapons potentially could’ve given rise to the notion of cyberpunk itself. However, the intimidation factor he present as a street thug hanging out in dark alleys is probably more in line with what the producers wanted to project. The film heavily contrast the normal, quaint existence of Sarah Conner with this fearsome character to generate a terrorizing dread that stalks people mostly at night while under cover in a near normal appearing existence. Outside of the first victim, most of the killings were done in the evening, making the Terminator more like a predator.

The film partly embraces and negates the use of some familiar tropes in the slasher genre. For instance, Ginger and Matt’s demise occur after they have sex. However, Sarah and Kyle Reese’s time spent together is a necessity for the plot that does not celebrate Kyle’s death as a typical slasher casualty, but a future motivation device for Sarah to carry on her destiny in raising John and ensure that Earth has a future. When Sarah drives off into the distance in Mexico, we’re given an ominous warning by the child about an upcoming storm. While it’s intended to be the battle Sarah will prepare for, the underlying message was an indirect one about the constant threat of nuclear war.

I feel that most people who didn’t grow up during the 80s really have no context about what the Cold War entailed except as a historical footnote that they probably are studying in school. However, those who lived in the period were constantly reminded of our choices as a people as the USSR and USA prominently were at odds with one another as the primary two super nations with vastly differing ideologies. When Reese earlier describes the history leading up to John leading the human forces against the machines, Kyle states how humanity was on the brink of being snuffed out. While it’s directly connected to the robots, I think this was Cameron’s way of saying how close people were at the time of causing a nuclear disaster. The only difference is that under the hood, it was a thinking computer that made the decision for people.

Another thing I want to point out is that while robots are implicated as the thing that humanity fights against in the dystopian future of The Terminator, the term mostly used is the generic “machine.” I will say that there is some irony at the end of the movie where Reese and Sarah turn on the factory (which I read as possibly being Cyberdyne from some deleted scenes), the robotic Terminator gets confused by the heavy machinery. So Cameron here isn’t being a complete Luddite. I mention this being important because of how The Terminator frequently gets oversimplified into this AI revolution of taking over the world. I still would consider that a minor plot point compared to the other elements such as the serial killer part and the Cold War. Also, having the machines being the thing that saves Sarah in crushing the ominous Terminator demonstrates that Cameron didn’t believe necessarily that machines were necessarily a bad thing.

One thing that the movie doesn’t seem to shy away from is the idea of police being near useless in cases like these. While doing some research on the idea of serial killers in the 80s (mostly because I wanted to reference Richard Ramirez as it was one case that really stood out for me), I ran into this article that tries to analyze the notion of the seeming rise of serial killers in the 70s and maybe in the early 80s. Besides the psychological profiles and various environmental circumstances that may have influenced the apparent increase of these types within that period, one of the more interesting pieces was describing how there wasn’t enough data on these types of criminals back then. Both the technology and having a centralized information system that could be accessed by agents on criminals were a missing piece for the cops that may have prevented proper profiling, sharing information between areas and agencies as well as understanding the seriousness of the situation.

With The Terminator, one could see a highly dismissive tone used in addressing Sarah’s concerns. Effectively, they turn her into a victim that cried wolf type rather than taking Sarah and Reese more seriously. The result though is the complete massacre of the precinct they keep Sarah and Reese at, which one might almost describe as a perverse poetic justice. I will say here that some things never change.

At any rate, I think examining The Terminator through a separate lens helps highlight a different interpretation to the casual AI/Skynet response most people might associate with the franchise. But at least at that point in time, AI and computers probably weren’t viewed as seriously as a threat compared to these days where it’s becoming more and more of a reality.

The post The Terminator (1984): Not Really the AI/Skynet Revolution You Think It Is appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

For the framework I came up with in Python, the idea was to use the command design pattern in creating a format that allows one to manage the Google Agent ADK’s lifecycle for an agent. I combined that design pattern with a template pattern style in a process/execute style function that makes calls to invoke various key moments in the lifecycle of the agent chain. However, with the Python implementation, I use a combination of their version of an interface with abstract classes and inheritance so that my subclasses can implement the key virtual methods/callbacks that are used to handle the specific processing logic such as defining the template, understanding how to map a parameter object into the prompt data or managing the output that gets returned from the ADK’s runner.

Go does not have inheritance and uses composition along with interfaces. So I had to learn how to deal with the equivalent of “inherited” methods that need to be overloaded in the subclasses. But once I had a basic setup working, I was able to get a simple agent working. The real first challenge came in implementing the complex tooling portion. For the ADK and GenAI, tools are functions that the AI can invoke to help perform its work. Along those lines, you can force an agent to obey a schema for input/output. The output is very important because you can get an unstructured string which is harder to manage than say JSON. In the case of Python, you generally use something like Pylon to define schemas. However, I found the schemas to be painful to work with since Python has more implied types. Go is easier to manage since it’s typed and uses a struct type of object to define a schema.

Where my recent problem occurred is a problem I saw in the past where an OutputSchema would cause an issue when run side by side with a tool. However, supposedly the issue was resolved. What I read though is that only certain models support OutputSchema with tools. So to get that to work, you may have to run a subagent. That’s where I would get jammed with Google Search Tool since it’s meant to be a “native” tool and does not support a function tool that you’d normally write. So I would get jammed there because I’m avoiding entering my billing info, which severely limits my ability to interact with models (as well as giving me a very small number of requests per day).

Along the way, I made a decision to try Ollama. I installed it to a Docker instance that runs in the same container as my project. However, it’s painfully slow and very resource consumptive. I had to downgrade the model and bump up the ram to be 12GB. In addition, when a simple query is run, the CPU spikes to near 90%, which is ridiculous. I did manage to get a response hooked in, using the Google Agent ADK along with a simple wrapper to hook in an Ollama model. But the response time would take at least a minute before getting any useful information. Worse yet the model wasn’t trained the same way Gemini is trained and gave me bad results or suggested I use IMDB for the sample agent I developed. I did try a different approach where I had Gemini give me a prompt and used Ollama to format the response in a direct query (no code involved here). The results were super slow even though it was what I wanted. But I thought a child in the 1st grade could probably do the same thing faster.

Yet in that situation I realized that if I want to pursue using Ollama itself, the pattern there would be me probably using Google Search as a query and having Ollama take the results and structure it. But the speed and resource usage would be the main issues, even if it was me developing locally. I can’t imagine what a giant result set might look like. I think the only way something like this could run reasonably would be to have a dedicated beefy server with tons of CPU/GPUs, memory and HD space.

The real question though is whether or not having something like Ollama running locally is worth it at all. As I mentioned, for the amount of effort vs the potential cost of getting something like that working for this situation, I think it’s no bueno. I’m not even convinced Ollama is a good model to do what I intended. If anything I do realize just why these companies are demanding so much power to run these models if they aren’t turning towards an established model provider.

Instead, I ended up reverting the code to use Gemini again and temporarily removing the search option. I think at least for the Go side of the project, the Google Search Tool might be infeasible unless I can figure out how to wrap it. I think the native tool isn’t good unless you’re using the right Gemini model. I have seen alternate sources for supplying search results at least in terms of Python libraries. So I might have to investigate using one of those. For the thing I need to do though, I don’t think the existing Go tool is a good idea.

But the other problem I’m seeing is that this whole AI race is going to eventually create two clear camps: the have’s and have not’s. You either have the resources (money/power/backing) to develop the tools, the computing power and/or budget to use these existing models or you’ll be jammed because these companies aren’t generous with their offerings. Now, I can’t blame them for putting up a paywall but I wish there was a better middle ground to allow hobbyists or people working on prototypes to use their models with higher rate limits. I think if the results from these AI models were better, I’d be more willing to pay. However, at least in my experience, these models tend to work 80% of the time with regards to accuracy or even availability.

Part of the problem I see is that blindly giving away ones billing info permits these companies to charge you even if you screw up on accident or need to re-run your application as you’re developing it. They don’t have a good sandbox type of mode that can give you reasonable results but not cost you an arm and a leg. Also, I think some of these models get a bad reputation which I think will make adoption much harder.

Another thing I’m beginning to think is that Python is probably the way to go in building AI enabled apps. At least from the tooling I’ve seen because of how much more support it gets (at least for these Google ADK). I think think Go might be the better language to use down the line just because of power and speed. I would like to optimize more around those things rather than dealing with the issues of an interpreted language in production. But what I really want to avoid is having to develop in three separate languages where I’m juggling between Go, Python and Typescript in building things like this.

The post Project for Porting My Python Agentic Framework to Go and Recent AI Thoughts appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

First, MCP, or Model Context Protocol, is self described as the “USB for connecting models to external systems.” That’s just a fancy way of saying this is an overengineered thing that probably is best used by mid to large sized companies who need scale to connect their backend system if they lack an architect. As far as I can tell, all you’re really doing is writing another wrapper function (or functions) to serve data to the AI and allow it to be queryable through the JSON-RPC protocol where you need to stand up one or more MCP servers on top of whatever solutions you’re already hosting. It sounds great on paper especially with the fancy marketing description but here’s what they’re not telling you: you get added complexity and more importantly another network call that you have to secure to make this shit work.

That seems like a lot of phony bologna to me.

Why not just write a wrapper function that you can pass into your AI…oh wait you can do that without the overhead. And it’s fucking easy. You know what this load of crap smelled like to me? EJBs 1.0 from back in the day. Overengineered, overly complex, poorly documented hype that just were marketed to CEOs of companies rather than the developers. Of course, resume boosters loved EJBs just because then they could claim they were on the cutting edge of tech. But when was the last time you heard of anyone using EJBs? How many iterations did it take before people just realized you needed some basic CRUD system that spat out JSON with some caching to hopefully let that system survive?

So for me at least in my limited time playing with this junk, I just thought it’s worthless and mostly for people who want another resume booster. But companies would need to invest resources into this thing to get it working rather than just developer time. Server cost for self-hosted MCP servers, security to ensure there’s authentication, more eyes on another resource to manage when it goes down for one reason or another. All just to make a simple query that you can write with a wrapper function.

What about Langchain? What does this new player on the market have to offer that a wisened, old fart dev like me can’t already provide with the bare bones tools? How about another horribly documented, obfuscated through layers upon layers, spastic, swiss army knife that doesn’t do anything particularly well. I gave myself a day to give this thing a try and it was a hair pulling experience. In the end, the real wall I ran into was getting told to check to ensure that my billing was enabled. WTF.

Worse yet both ChatGPT and Gemini had no clue what the current APIs were since those constantly were changing. And then there’s the models underneath that change. And if something underneath changes, it’s hard to figure out how to get all of it working because you have to deal with layers of abstraction.

So maybe I’m just stupid and cheap. That’s a fair assessment. Cheap I can guarantee. But the stupid part I realized I’m not the only one who shared similar feelings about Langchain. I read a reddit post where people complained about very similar things. The best comment I read generally could be summed up to how it was probably someone’s pet project that got out of control and some jackasses decided to form a company and attempt to make money off of it. Okay, I editorialized that comment but that’s effectively the message. There was another comment about how if you decide to switch this model for that and that graph DB for that, then your homegrown solution is going to be fucked. My reply is that if you’ve invested that much time, money and resources into that solution, you aren’t going to suddenly change everything on whim. Your CEO and CFO would probably want a very long talk with you. So that’s not a realistic situation.

What a realistic situation is is you going crazy when you get your next update and these schizoids decide to change things yet again because they can’t make up their minds and the landscape for all the underlying components change too. So are you going to depend upon a brittle framework with poor, outdated documentation that can’t produce more than the perennial weather app as your solution? Give me my own in house where I code wrappers around these drivers that I can control and debug rather than something that bipolar, neurotic developers are baking in the oven (and I’m sure that’s not the only thing getting baked).

Langchain really seems targeted to places that can afford it, have no decent in house architect and need quick and dirty solutions for people who aren’t great coders. That’s the real take away for me. Maybe I’m being harsh but to me a good tool should be something reliable that is easy to use and solves my headaches. Langchain, at this stage, is akin to having a hammer that strikes you in the head rather than a nail. That’s not a good tool to me.

I think it’s better to understand how agents, genai and infrastructure like GCP play together to perform the real tasks you need. I think in the AI gold rush people are tripping on their feet and not really building anything long lasting. Or they’re trying to build swiss army knives glass houses (imagine that visual). What’s really needed are cost effective, proven small tools that actually function as tools. You then take these tools (or parts) and make the bigger tools for more proven things. That’s the pattern of engineering that we need, not the standard anti-pattern of the silver bullet/god object that engineers end up painting themselves into a corner with (along with overly ambitious and greedy CEOs and the VC crooks that back them).

The post Langchain Chain Thoughts appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I think my first “taste” of AI started in using the GitHub Copilot tool for code completion. Effectively, code completion takes hints from the way you code and attempts to infer what your next intention is based on patterns it has been trained upon. In some way, it’s like autocomplete for spell/grammar checks except it can do things like complete your function name, generate boilerplate for large sections of code (e.g. CRUD, unit tests), attempt to guess how a function maybe filled out based on the name you provide. So it seems useful especially for veterans who dislike boilerplate and want to focus on big picture items.

However, code completion has a major downside for both veterans and anyone who isn’t experienced enough to recognize the downsides: the suggestions get in the way. Because of various plugins enabled to perform tasks such as syntax checks/suggestions, etc., I feel there’s a bit of competition going on between these plugins in trying to provide “assistance”. Frequently, I’ve found myself accidentally allowing a line of code that is completely wrong because I had been going too fast and missed the suggestion, which forces me to wipe out the line (or key pieces) and start over. So in a way, code completion can hinder productivity, which in my case I found better simply turning it off (which is good once you master the syntax for a language).

The other problem I’ve encountered with code completion is the number of times you may be allowed. For instance, the code completion plugin for GitHub seems limited in terms of the number of allowances per month. Those can get wiped out quickly because of how frequently you might be using the option. In that situation, I would install Gemini’s code completion/agent alongside but the auto-complete can get wonky too. In the end, I felt it was just better at some point hand writing the code at least for now rather than making it a dependency for me.

From there, I know there are some IDEs that have been forked from things like Visual Source Code that include an agent or integrate better with LLMs. So far the only one I used was Windsurf. When I gave it a try, I thought that the vibe code aspect wasn’t bad but at least for the thing I employed, I ate up tokens fast. I get that the intention is to get users to pay because usage gets expensive but this was worse than the old Shareware games back in the day. So now, I only use Windsurf when I want two separate projects open simultaneously to reference one another. There is supposedly a way to alter the model being used to move from the main paid model to a fremium one. But I couldn’t figure out how to swap and it just annoyed me into putting the IDE on ice.

In terms of vibe coding itself, I mostly just use Gemini along with file uploads. I found that works best in general. I know some friends hate Gemini and believe the output is bad. But I think if you’re not expecting to do straight copypasta coding, Gemini actually works quite well. I mostly try to focus Gemini into narrow problems and hone in on key pieces of code. You don’t want Gemini to solve too much or the code gets out of hand quickly. Some problems I encountered were horribly spaghetti code suggestions, the bad habit of wanting to solve too much or reinvent the wheel each time, outdated APIs and lengthy, verbose explanations on top of massive amounts of code that you’re forced to scroll through. So in general if you want to be successful with Gemini, you need to remind it to focus on very specific problems, ignore certain pieces of code it produces and use design patterns, components, existing modules, etc. to ensure that it stays on task.

However, Gemini can be prone to fumbling. Occasionally, Gemini will become unresponsive for no good reason or having its own answer die within the response. Part of the issue is that Gemini can get caught in a weird loop when your conversation session goes too long so it’s trying to reference older aspects of a conversation. In some cases, it just gets jammed up and the only fix is to start a fresh session to “clear” it’s memory. I think you may lose the context of the older conversation which means you need to re-teach it stuff from the previous session. So that part really sucks when it occurs.

The fumbling part can happen when the answer gets really twisted and leads to Gemini providing a really bad answer such as outdated code, etc. In that situation, I’ll swap to ChatGPT for a second opinion much like going to a separate doctor for a diagnosis. The only reason I change and use ChatGPT as an alternative is the quality I’ve seen seems better. At the same time though, ChatGPT imposes various limits like the frequency of usage, uploads for analysis etc. So you’re bottlenecked unless you decide to shell out some cash. For me I do whatever I can to avoid entering my billing info and bail once I hit those limits.

Now, as I mentioned, I have tried the Gemini code assistant too as part of the VSC plugin universe. However, my experience with that has been less than stellar. I found that the module is far more limited, does a bad job examining your code base, had a period where there was simply no response whatsoever and/or overdid what it needed or completely missed the target. The code complete aspect wasn’t as bad and probably is the only piece worth using at the moment. But the vibe code part is far from good and I think it’s better just using the web interface with file uploads to get reasonable code done.

The things I am excited for though are the GenAI and Agent toolkits. GenAI is really cool but you need very focused tasks along with good prompts and know how to structure your output. I’ve been somewhat successful with several GenAI tools I created. Part of the trick I’ve found is to have narrow prompts that connect to the structured output. Creating premade prompts with keyword or value substitution helps ensure more consistent responses as opposed to free form text fields. In one case, I used GenAI to analyze an image to produce data from set fields that were specified by a pre-generated prompt. That one really excited me and showed me the possibilities of GenAI.

With Agents, I only have written two so far, one which I am using in conjunction with PubSub, my homemade EventArc simulator (listener/subscriber) and cloud functions that kick off an agent program. I have some other ideas about how to use them but right now it’s only a single version. But I can see how the Agent Development Kit would be interesting once you start using multi-model scenarios to do things like data correction/validation. But what I’m hoping to do more of in the future with Agents is automation. Without going into details, I will say that mass data generation using a combination of agents and gen AI are a key thing I want to handle.

One problem though that has been consistent is data accuracy. With the GenAI and to a lesser extent, Agents, I found that data generation is not 100% accurate. In fact, it’s a problematic and inconsistent issue in terms of the gambles on what it can return. Even if the prompts are the same consecutively, the data returned might vary. This is worrisome as you would expect to get a car if you ask for a car each time. Part of the issue I suspect is that the data the AI is trained on might be munged up. Some people call this hallucinations but the way one supposedly corrects this is through RAG techniques. Of course, if you work with a limited agent, you can only supply limited help from RAG. In my case, the only option I really have is Google Search. However, the way the GenAI would have to be structured seems to be making two GenAI type of calls; one with RAG and the other with the source. At least from my experience, you cannot use a RAG call along with a functional call in this process, which sucks. But it also points to how expensive this can get not just from billing but the network aspect along with time.

Beyond these things, the other main piece on the horizon is MCP (Model Context Protocol). From what I’ve read it’s more about orchestrating agents along with services. The big boy that keeps getting mentioned is LangChain, which I have briefly looked at. So that’s something on my plate in the near future as it may be the thing I use for doing more mass data generation.

At any rate, I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of any of this. But this stuff is truly fascinating. I don’t think I’ve been this excited for technology since seeing Google Maps for the first time in 2005.

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