Quest complete.

"What makes you say that?" and "we're not testing you, we're testing the game".

This is what we mean when we say the AI tools currently permeating our everyday lives are unethical and that it is not possible to make them ethical unless you re-build them from scratch. It's not just the stealing, it's the human cost.

The Handmaiden remains my favourite so far in Park's filmography, but I haven't seen them all and now Decision to Leave is next on my list.

The cinematography was gorgeous, the whole cast knocked it out of the park with their appropriate over-the-top performances, and the web of circumstances trapping all the characters in this cycle of absurd mutually-assured destruction is palpable even in the silliest or most heart-warming moments.

2026 is the year I start returning more consistently to the cinema, and No Other Choice was great one to start with. Park Chan-wook delivered something phenomenal again. Loved the fever-dream-like editing and Lee Byung-Hun's wonderfully versatile performance.

me: i'm a researcher by trade, i know how to use my brain my brain: completely forgets my address when the pharmacist asks me where i live to verify my identity

Only way to make them ethical is to tear them down and rebuild them in a way that is so fundamentally different it will be a different tech entirely.

I assume they are talking about AI like ChatGPT, Sora, Midjourney etc (not AI used for enemy behaviour, proc gen etc) - except those models are, by nature, fundamentally unethical. You cannot train them on your own data due to the sheer amount needed. Exploitation is literally baked into them.

London cinemas, are you okay. (granted this is the Curzon and Everyman but still)

I'll be honest, tiny UI text aside, I was not expecting Elden Ring to run this well on Steam Deck.

The biggest realisation I've had as a gamer since I started working as a user researcher is how much I enjoy crafting mechanics and grinding like crazy for resources to do so. Extraction shooters still elude me but maybe one day I will evolve again (pls don't say "Arc Raiders" I KNOW)

When the post-apocalyptic horrors of My Time at Sandrock kick in with Gordana's journals.

Update: the first 90min have been a delight and I hope the delight continues.

Me: I do not need more games. Other me: What about a cosy kind of game, you don't have one of those right now. Me: I still need to spend more time in Stardew Valley Other me: [slips My Time at Sandrock into my Steam cart]

Severely procrastinating on life admin but mini cheese and ham croissants will carry me through January, right.

Oh heck yes.

🚨⚠️ Release Date Disclosure! ⚠️🚨 TRAILER: VIDEO EVIDENCE, see below. Please watch, assimilate and share. DESIGNATION: TR-49 GENRE: NARRATIVE DEDUCTION / AUDIO_DRAMA DATE: 21st JANUARY PLATFORMS: iOS / PC / Mac / Deck This is what we know, so far.

Update: I have finished Ghost of Tsushima, and it is now one of my all-time favourites. Ghost of Yotei on PC soon pretty please. Now onwards to Silksong and giving Elden Ring another try.

The true test with my roommate will be whether or not she hates me for the (delicious) cheese I just got for Christmas. She said she liked cheese and the smell of it, but does she. Is she truly ready for the Mont d'Or experience. (It's not that bad just stronger than your odorless british cheese)

10min to process my passport renewal request and less than a workday to accept my online registration as a French citizen abroad. What on earth happened to French administration. When did we become efficient with paperwork. What alternate reality have I stepped into.

I have two missions over Christmas vacations, and it's finishing Ghost of Tsushima and finally crafting that one weapon in Warframe I apparently need to progress through The New War, the mats for which I've been farming for an ungodly amount of time. Please I just need that FISH.........

And they are definitely not the tools sold to execs to cut down on production time, creativity time, and human labour (and costs) either.

Accudentally deleted my own post because I'm dumb. I initially wanted to add that there are cool things in genAI (that my more competent academic colleagues can talk aboit better than me) but they are not the tools sold to us as "the inevitable march of progress" quanticfoundry.com/2025/12/18/g...

Living with a roommate in your 30s is underrated, because who doesn't love having another human being in the flat texting you "I'll be ready in 15, I've been slacking on being alive" from their room when it's time to decorate the fake Christmas tree.

I was pretty sure that the Frankenstein story would be in good hands with Del Toro, but wow. You really can't go wrong with Guillermo Del Toro and a monster story about vain, ambitious, arrogant men and the consequences of their actions. Also, what did they feed Jacob Elordi for this movie.

Delightful Warframe community moment is when, when waiting for a new teammate to figure out how to vote on a mission, other teammate whips out a shawzin (a... space guitar?) and starts playing the Beverly Hills Cops soundtrack while my character does a little dance. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmyS...

Windows periodically tries to blackmail me into doing updates by slowly cutting off very random things. First, Netflix refuses to work. Then, Youtube stops being able to play videos. Next, sound just stops working entirely! And eventually I cave and do the update and everything is fine again.

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I love living with another game dev because it means going out to get bubble tea and when we come home she goes to play the new Pokemon and I start Ghost of Tsushima and we can exchange impressions later. And plan to play Split Fiction together over Christmas.

Our team are running user research concerning games accessibility. This is a paid research session open to UK residents. Please register your interest below if you are interested in taking part. @researchi.bsky.social www.researchi.co.uk/projects/RI9...

I finally finished Expedition 33, and I need 33 hugs. And to see if I can replay just that final sequence to make the *other* choice and get that ending.

Research into humans fails when humans are removed from the research. Gee. Who could have seen that one coming.

People say "autism never used to exist" and then you go to the Natural History Museum and the exhibit has a caption like "Born in 1762, The Revd [name] was famously irascible, steadfast in his routine, and dedicated his life to collecting 25,000 rare beetle specimens".

If this isn't the single coolest job title in the world.

I did get a PhD this year, but this accomplishment just got supplanted by the fact that the adjudicator ruled in my and my roommates' favour in a dispute, and our former landlord who tried to con us out of around £1700 worth of deposit lost. She's not getting a single dime of it. Ha.

We're shortstaffed on RPS and need some rad PC-minded freelancers for urgent review work. Specifically: - Borderlands 4 (yes I know it's out already) - Dying Light: The Beast - Silent Hill f Standard rate is £200 GBP per review, make yourselves known at [email protected]

My state of mind before I hop back into the game this weekend: I dreamt that I ran into Cornifer and that he was humming to the tune of The Wellerman. How are your Silksong adventures going.

I've had Hornet for 45min and I'm already in love. But also I need a map, where is my man Cornifer -

I finally caught the culprit and it's a guy riding around the neighbourhood on his mobility scooter with a massive sound system attached to the back of the scooter (with led lights and everything) blasting the music at full volume.

TW: suicide and self-harm. The chat logs are chilling. How this tech is still allowed to be rolled out before the necessary safeguards are in place is beyond me. If despite the waterfall of red flags you still decide to use ChatGPT, please be safe while doing so, because it isn't.

I just finished Act II of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and its epilogue(s). What. WHAT. (if you know, you know)

Thank goodness we have a three days weekend ahead so I can finish Clair Obscur before Silksong monopolises my one braincell.

Sorry Sam but a PhD is not a sign of superior intelligence, it's just a sign that you are obsessive enough to nitpick at a problem for three or four years in the weirdest ways you can think of. A very stubborn duck could get a PhD. Maybe all academia is a whole bunch of very stubborn ducks.

The only thing PhD-like about ChatGPT is that it can probably regurgitate most of the papers it has pirated and plagiarised. ChatGPT will never think critically about research methods, or wake up in the middle of the night and go 'but wHAT IF...' at a weird problem no one else is thinking about.

All I heard was Silksong this year and my heart is FULL.

Revised thesis publication shenanigans continue: 2 weeks wait to get the formatting checked and approved, had to email them to get things moving... and be told to delete two words and change the order of name and title on the title page. Academia you are ever so silly.

if you watch the tech industry long enough you learn the promised benefits never materialize but the unforeseen harms continue to be perpetuated long after the companies move on to the next big thing yet governments are too worried about scaring away investment to do anything

Can we just burn these systems to the ground, and only release them again once they 1. are fit for purpose (whatever their purpose is, because nobody seems to agree on that), 2. are sustainable, 3. don't deeply harm anyone who isn't a white cishet able-bodied man in areas like healthcare?