Technically, it can and has been done already. The problem is that AI is very bad at creating new ideas and even worse at understanding what it has created (as is required for plots or jokes). As a result, any writting created with heavy AI influence tends to sound like a child’s stream of thought with an adult’s vocabulary, and any jokes rely purely on randomness or on repeating an existing well-known joke. Similarly with art and animation, because the AI doesn’t understand what it is creating, it struggles to keep animation of elements consistant and often can’t figure out how elements should be included in the scene. Voices are probably the strongest part, but even then, it can be buggy and won’t change correctly to match the context of what is being said.

None of this is to say AI is useless. Its very good at creating a “good enough” quick-fix, or to be used to fill unimportant or trivial work. If used to help clean up scripts or fill in backgrounds, it can speed up the process greatly at minimal cost. It’s a tool to be used by someone who knows the field, not to replace them.

In general, I agree, but I think you underestimate the benifits it provides. While ray-tracing doesn’t add much to more static or simple scenes, it can make a huge difference with more complex or dynamic scenes. Half Life 2 is honestly probably the ideal game to demonstrate this due to its heavy reliance on physics. Current lighting and reflection systems, for all their advancements and advantages, struggle to convincingly handle objects moving in the scene and interacting with each other. Add in a flickering torch or similar and things tend to go even further off the rails. This is why in a lot of games, interactive objects end up standing out in an otherwise well-rendered enviroment. Good raytracing fixes this and can go a really long way to creating a unified, but dynamic look to an enviroment. All that is just on the player’s side too, theres even more boons for developers.

That said, I still don’t plan to be playing many RTX or ray-traced games any time soon. As you said, its still a nightmare performance wise, and I personally start getting motion sick at the framerates it runs at. Once hardware catches up more seriously, I think it will be a really useful tool.

A couple of major factors:

Users who expect low prices - This partly because of the history of mobile games being smaller and/or ad-funded but also because the vast majority of people playing games on their phone are looking for a low barrier to entry, time waster, not specifically a game.

Lack of regulation or enforcement - other gambling heavy fields tend to be at least somewhat regulated, but mobile games are very light on regulation, and even lighter on enforcement. This allows them to falsely advertise their games and how they function (both in terms of misleading ads, and lying about chance based events and purchases in-game).

Monopolistic middlemen - On other platforms, theres more direct competition (IE, Sony and Microsoft’s generally more direct competition) or companies that prioritize long-term growth and stability (IE Steam or Itch.io). Apple and Google, on the other hand, largely compete on brand perception and hardware specs. These means that their app stores, where they make most of their money, have zero competitors. Seeing as they have no reason to make the stores better, they can instead promote whatever makes them the most money; that being exactly these manipulate, sketchy, virtual slot machines.

I think it is technically possible - with the Valve Index you can read the camera input like a webcam, and I’m sure theres some way to do it with the Quests (although probably not easily). That said, as others have noted, between the bulkyness of the headset, the lower quality of the cameras, the risk of losing tracking, and the natural shakyness of people’s heads, it likely wouldn’t be an improvement. Try watching VR footage from someone who doesn’t stream/video it regularly and you can get an idea of how hard the footage can be to follow, even before the lower camera quality.

It would be anywhere between 2 and 5.

Either physical or digital. And I have access to a PC (with a bunch of emulators) or mobile phones.

I left it out because its something that can (theoretically) be left for a more convenient time such as a weekend, so its a less one-to-one comparison. That said, thats still additional work compared to buying food.

Relative to cooking a similar meal, absolutely. Getting McDonalds takes like 5 mins and almost no effort. Less if ordering for delivery or pickup. If I want to cook myself a burger its probably going to take me like 40 minutes to makes and fry the burger, and prepare toppings. Im sure a good chef could do it much faster, but thats not me, and esspecially not after a full work day.

Edit: Plus, less directly measurable and comparable, but the time and work for planning, shopping, and dishes afterwards.

Its not really about the taste - its about the speed and convenience. If you want good food, you make your own. If you just finished a shift in a back-breaking job, and hate cooking, then its a chance to relax and free up some time.

Unfortunately, Lemmy is the only one with content that appeals to me so far (at least to my knowledge, given the near-unsearchable nature of the fediverseso far). The platforms just aren’t large enough.

People don’t want to date those who don’t value or respect them, their lives, their family, or their country? Im shocked! Shocked, I say!

Its just been my personal experience browsing, sorting by new. Generally, anything that could potentially be viewed as an ad (nonetheless a paywall) gets downvoted. For example, I used to see more art shared, and often users who included watermarks (even non-disruptive ones), or links to a patreon would be immediately downvoted. I’ve also seen YouTube creators criticized here for simply selling merch. Even just a couple days ago, I commented on the same trend, and another user quickly replied to tell me its a good thing nothing here can be monitized because money ruins everything. There are exceptions, esspecially with open source software, but these seem more the exception than the norm, in my experience.

They also often rely on commissions or supporter pages to cover costs or make a living, which Lemmy is often hostile to.

Unfortunately, while it only takes one user to make these communities, there is rarely enough to maintain activity and esspecially not discussion on them. Even fairly large niches, such as Dota, rarely get more than a post or two a month, and no meaningful discussion despite it being a game that emphasizes theorycrafting so heavily.

It absolutely can, but doesn’t always. For example, Gamer’s Nexus is well respected for their thorough and unbiased research and journalism. It would be extremely difficult for them to do so without ads and merch sales, as any products reviewed must be purchased, testing equipment needs to bought, and experts need to be hired to use said equipment. Until capitalism ceases to exist, most people who make stuff will need to find a way to fund their work, from paint brushes to high-end testing equipment. If we can’t accept this, we will rarely get creators willing to provide quality content, and what we do get will be biased towards those with the money to burn.

The the infamous Weimar Republic mark was only one 4.2 trillionth of a dollar. This is a quadrillion x quadrillion dollars.

Like:

• Decentralized system that limits abuse

• Great customizaion

• It works (unlike much of the competition)

Dislike:

• Lack of even remotely niche content (aside from Linux and infosec content)

• Generally very pessimistic userbase

• Lacks polish and features in many areas

• Currently trends towards extremist echo chambers - the fact that .ml (an instance known for banning criticism of violent, racist, authoritarian governments) is one of the biggest instances, is a good example of this.

• tends to be extremely hostile to any sort of monitization, regardless of the quality or cost to produce content

I definately care some, although not enough that I want to sit through a photo slideshow or that. That said, if its just daily photos to a family group chat, or listening to them talk about a particular trip highlight, then I certainly enjoy it.

Personally, I wouldn’t enjoy playing with a bunch of other people who are tryharding or are toxic, and theres no way I can convince 5 friends to play regularly, so there’s no way I would enjoy ranked. Its bad enough as it is.

Can you confirm that this setup still works? At least with Kodi, all the apps had been discontinued, and that link is three years old.