๐ฅ๐๐๐, ๐ถ ๐ป๐๐พ๐๐๐น
@joeljohnson
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I have a crazy conspiracy theory about Apple, virtual reality, and avatars that I don't actually think is true but is too weird not to share.
It starts with how Apple's corporate and AppleTV content...looks.
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So here's my conspiracy theory: What if Apple has been preparing its audience for virtual reality by making video that looks fake?
Because they know that for headsets to take off they need humans to respond to virtual avatars on the same emotional level as video or real life?
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IGN, a "competitor" of Kotaku, has dozens of staffers dedicated to producing guides alone, a type of content that takes hundreds of hours of play and indexing for most AAA titles. To ask seven staffers to do "50 a week" is not just cruel, it's impossible.
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It's probably just a funny coincidence. But the core "Why?" is still legit: for the first time Apple has to build experiences around simulated humans, which for a brand that has always made real humans and human experiences at the fore of design must be quite a valley to cross.
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went to a Porsche meet this weekend. this was the coolest car there
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Even the Apple TV content has a similar look. Ted Lasso is probably the most glaring, where post-S1 the amount of fill and bounce made the actors look plasticine. It even made shots with few (zero?) FX elements look like they were on virtual sets.
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I've stayed quiet in the G/O Media era of Gawker sites for personal reasons. (I was never granted equity in GMG, etc. fwiw.)
But as a person who helped launch and sometimes managed Kotaku among other sites, I am aghast at the lack of understanding not only of editorial realities
g/o media is effectively forcing kotaku to pivot away from news and demanding that its staff of seven writers churn out an impossible number of guides per week. not what writers signed up for and not why people visit kotaku in the first place. stupid and cruel
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It's not just the simple arm movements and gestures of presenters, or never shooting the side of someone's head. Or the light. It's also the tone of voice. The affable, just-a-bit-slower cadence of presenters. The way an avatar would speak. Like Siri speaks.
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Like... this is a real problem. It's already weird enough to get fired or deal with real problems via teleconference.
So the avatars have to be able to be perfect emulations of humans or....
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Severence arguably used the same lighting technique to add a sinister air. But the lack of deep, lossy shadow is Apple-affiliated content is everywhere once you look for it.
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Apple's house style is hyperrealism, or nearly. The people + clothing is real, but their speech (sound quality, cadence), their hand gestures, the blocking is all diffusely lit in a way that makes everyone look unreal. And backdropsโsome real, some virtualโ always look virtual.
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Do I actually believe this?
No.
They're rich enough to afford the best everything, including lighting and cinematographers and rendering. And modern production equipment is so good it's easy to make things surreal. And Apple house style is "unoffensive" first and foremost.
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I wish all my friends who idolize kei trucks would drive one
An imported kei truck costs like $10,000 and can fit in any parking spot.
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But why shift?
If Apple truly thinks the future of computing is virtual reality, they have to convince customers that simulated representations of humans are as good as videoโsocially and emotionally.
Because you can't wear a headset and also show your face on Zoom.
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Apple also introduced a new feature yesterday that lets you record your voice to be turned into a simulacrum of your speech called "Personal Voice." It's an accessibility feature for people losing their own ability to speak.
But this would also work in an avatar...with your face
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...you have to make real humans look simulated for a few years to blur perceptions...
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Although the keynote and house content style hasn't changed dramatically in the last decade, ever since the pandemic forced Apple events to go fully virtual, they've all been pre-recorded. I believe even now there's no real-life executives (Tim) live on stage throwing to video.
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Iโd rather see this from time to time than machines never being used to their fullest.
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They also showed a new thing called Live Voicemail, which converts in real time voice into text on your iPhone screen. They're thinking about switching between voice and text a lot.
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And Calling Card will let you send over an image you choose to someone else's phone.
Not a big leap to think your text messages could also someday include a text-to-speech option through Siri, but in...your voice.
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...so that soon people accept your avatar, in real-time or recorded, with your real voice...or maybe not...to be just as "real" as a video or audio recording of you.
Which is why for years they've been making everything they make look just a little *too* real.
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...but of business modeling. The management of G/O has shown zero understanding of basic audience growth or realistic editorial workloads, especially with the enthusiast properties, each of which have their own domain-specific realities.
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So like Tim here is 5โ9โ and canโt make a kei truck work.
My fellow weebs: you donโt want kei trucks. You want the idea of kei trucks.
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folks it's just this simple
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Does anyone know an artist, ideally from gaming land, who can create Starcraft/RTS-style isometric art? With frame animation as well, ideally? (Would be paid, of course.)
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On Monday, a kid driving a box truck on I-90 in Washington state fell asleep and crashed into the
@Ford
F-150 Raptor R that Krystal and I were borrowing for the weekend. It could have been way worse.
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I deeply regret my participation in these actions. I never intended to harm Jimmy John's. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite this franchise.
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new york's thinner crust wins again
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Apple has sherlocked Being Italian
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Looks like the answer is yes! Give me some time to reach out...
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someday I'm going to become the richest person in the world and not be a huge bitch
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PB Blasterโฆmy only friend
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Okay I have to stay in the mid-century union lodge in Michigan someday
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I was right
I have a crazy conspiracy theory about Apple, virtual reality, and avatars that I don't actually think is true but is too weird not to share.
It starts with how Apple's corporate and AppleTV content...looks.
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Genuinely starting to worry that the rapid increase of prices, the good deals I got on my still-working vehicles five years, and my parsimonious nature means I will never get to enjoy my favorite hobby again: buying a car for no reason
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From my brief survey of pals I think Honda is going to sell several million of these (including me)
This is the Honda Motocompacto. It looks like a futuristic briefcase that folds out into an electric scooter that can go 12 miles at about 15 mph. I think I'm going to buy one. Pricing will be under $1,000.
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TRENTON SHAKES, THE WORLD TAKES
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I only have one good business idea and it's buying a cabin in a remote wood, putting 12 LAN gaming machines (no internet) in it and putting it on airbnb as "Gamer Cabin" for $1,200 a night
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@theRealTavarish
I'm so tired of P1 owners not taking their cars through the ocean when they were clearly built for it.
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@AdamSinger
Spoke to him a few weeks ago about some work. He was really grounded and direct, friendly and humble. Awful to hear.
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สoฦ วส,I สษษฅส สouส I
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When the company that made the bulletproof, air-purifying, bear-spray-spraying adventure trailer called the Mammoth Overland โExtinction Level Eventโ offers you the chance to be the first person outside the company to take it outโฆI tend to say yes.
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when your firefighter wife texts to say โI locked myself in the basement but donโt worry I found your chainsawโ ๐ฅฐ๐ซก
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Iโm never going to financially recover from this (Krystal painted her first warhammer mini and then said to me โwow thereโs a lot of lore!โ)
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@Papapishu
@kenklippenstein
you're not really looking at "a lot of cars" until like 370...380,000 cars FYI
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Payload isnโt even a factor here. Tires should be fine. Did Tesla just not bother configuring or testing an off road mode? I canโt think of any obvious reason why these trucks should struggle in low traction situations.
BREAKING: Ford rescues Tesla Cybertruck after it struggles to carry small payload up a snowy hill
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I call this piece โOptimismโ
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Who do I write at Disney to explain that Andor may not be the future of every new Star Wars thing but needs to inform every new Star Wars thing from here on out
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Thankful to the folks at Ford, Mammoth Overland, and The Autopian for being fast to respond and offer any help we needed. I know they're just machines, but they were in my care, and I keep wishing there was something we could have done. But there wasn't.
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I hope it's not too late to say that anything I ever said on here that you thought was stupid or bad was actually cool and good
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Absolutely nailed keeping the summers on until the exact first day of snow.
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@johnbiggs
@Bernstein
I think the reaction was that a thousand M&R people went to every college bar and just signed whoever was playing.
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If you've got time to lean you've got time to clean
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@TheSmokingTire
@BriannaWu
@Awkwardfails
I drive a Porsche and hate Andrew Tate as much as I love huge wedges of cheddar
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Mecha pilot before final CFS sortie (Date Unknown)
Intelligence suggested he secured some sort of steak but its preparation is unclear.
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If I were a gambling man, I'd bet on Buc-ee's as the future of EV charging in the United States.
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GM tried for a decade to get engineers to move to Michigan for less pay. Tried selling โa better lifestyleโ instead. The Detroit Distortion Zone has held back innovation in the Big 3 for years, by building cars and cultures that serve MI execs but not their customers๏ฟฝ๏ฟฝ๏ฟฝ demands
I note GM opened a technology center in Silicon Valley this week, per CEO Mary Barra, who said it will go "where the talent is" for vehicle software.
This comes just ... checks notes ... 26 years after BMW did the same, quickly followed by the other Germans + then more makers.
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Will I spend hundreds of dollars to custom organize 50 bucks worth of stuff? You bet your ass
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Was going for (tritely, I know) a โclassy sci-fiโ theme for my home office and was lucky enough to find this Japanese market poster for Verhoevenโs cyberpunk masterpiece.
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Hired the worst UX/UI person I've ever found for a new project (me)
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My new identity is the guy at the delta lounge who is constantly saying out loud โso nobody else wants to eat all this whitefish?โ
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this was what iOS used to look like. this is what they took from you
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Using a rare technique, but a powerful one: looking at cars I donโt need and canโt afford so that the car I donโt need but can afford looks like a bargain.
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Iโm richโฆdeal with it
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If there arenโt six to eight biscuits on this table in the next 30 seconds I will be driving directly to the honey stand and when I come back you can explain the biscuit delay to a few thousand of my colleagues
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Can I just have this? I just want this. I'd pay the Chicken Tax. That's fine.
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@nkulw
and yet none of them wear darn tough socks, the only wool sock with a lifetime warranty
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"As with many Google searches these days, the first page of results is effectively a pop-up ad that needs to be dismissed."
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Hardly the first to notice this, but struck howโwhen looking at all the Chinese EVsโthey no longer scan as knock-offs of American or Euro designs, but simply...futuristic.
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this shit isn't shutting down tonight there is absolutely a few news cycles for people to screenshot bad tweets PLEASE remain normal embarrassing
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Cars and trucks are getting so expensive I am being forced to look at motorcycles again. Forced!
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Nothing has threatened to turn me into a freakish owner of multiple 3D printers like starting to print organizer systems like Gridfinity and the DDD Wall Control system. I need more containers for my containers.
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well at least some people got rich
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@BooDooPerson
no I don't think it does. I made up the concept of that valley just now. I haven't decided what to call it yet. probably Johnson's Original Simulacrum Valley
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Found the guest book
I only have one good business idea and it's buying a cabin in a remote wood, putting 12 LAN gaming machines (no internet) in it and putting it on airbnb as "Gamer Cabin" for $1,200 a night
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Man I woke up feeling like I smoked 5-6 cigarettes last night (cool, wistful)
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wow this rules (Aztec is on my list of cars I would absolutely love to restomod someday)
GM sent
@adrianfclarke
never-before-seen sketches of the Pontiac Aztec that show what it should have been
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love the guy but this is not top-heavy this is a lean media business lol
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I need a truck. But in a way, isn't a used LC 500 a truck? My grandpa always said: if it has a red interior it's a truck.
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@barry
Evangelion has the look of cartoon but with the lore from the DSM IV and the fandom arc of a something awful subforum
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In March I started working on this neglected slope on the south side of our house. (I forgot to take a proper before pic, but it was grown over with invasive vines and small trees of heaven. A mess.) Now itโs mid-June and to my horror Iโve discoveredโฆ
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