iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

lextorias @lextorias.me · 09/02/2026

#JustFinished A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms E4 I almost stopped believing it was possible to make a show like this. Not only does it perfectly recapture the magic of early Game of Thrones, it adds a style so fun and a cast so lovable that it may stand even taller Must Watch

Poster for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, featuring the protagonists Dunk and Egg standing next to an Elm tree

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 21/09/2025

I'm not normally a completionist, and I missed an achievement and some other stuff, so I I'm not gonna 100% it. But the fact that this game could keep me interested enough to do nearly 90% is pretty impressive

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 21/09/2025

*I'm an advocate for intended difficulty, but since it does seem to be causing a lot of people genuine issues, I'd say if it is too hard to enjoy, maybe consider modding it They're very easy to install, and the ones I played around with do a good job making it easier, but still somewhat balanced

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 21/09/2025

#JustFinished Hollow Knight: Silksong Managing to take a very good first game and upgrade it in nearly every way is an achievement for anyone, let alone a small studio It has balance and pacing issues, but the story, world, and gameplay are all so good I just couldn't put it down Must Play*

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 14/09/2025

I… kinda agree with this? I’ve talked about difficulty and praised hard games a ton, but a lot of design decisions in Silksong seem made purely to fuck with the player I just couldn’t stop imagining how much fun I’d be having if the game didn’t have a grudge against me

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 09/09/2025

It’s certainly been happening for a while. This is from one of my favorite articles on the topic, all the way back in 2015 www.engadget.com/2015-12-02-p...

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

It does seem strange that it’s around the same time YouTube began implementing this new AI restriction overhaul that many big creators started noticing an immediate dip in views, seemingly correlated to what videos are hidden in Restricted Mode

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

If this is not literally just Restricted Mode, it is certainly using the exact same AI filtering model. And now that YouTube is forcefully “protecting” accounts that don’t pass age-verification, I wonder if they aren’t opting them in to some of these content settings

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

See, part of the buffs to those supervised teen accounts I mentioned earlier are these conspicuous “content settings” that filter videos separately to YouTube Kids These various age range options will completely remove even non age-restricted videos from view Sound familiar?

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

Now comes the recent censorship drama, during which YouTube stated that they will use AI to verify a user’s age, and then automatically restrict their account if under 18 They explicitly say this will reduce recommendations. But what I’m curious about are those other layers

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

They have a whole vague post about how chill their manipulation of the algorithm is, and how it’s only an “additional layer of protection.” (the extent of the other layers, I do not know) “Portrays delinquency” is my favorite though. Sounds straight out of the Hays Code

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

Starting in 2019 (most likely due to SESTA-FOSTA, watch my latest vid for context) YouTube then posted a LOT about its features to protect kids This includes buffs to YouTube Kids and supervised teen accounts, but also, notably, using AI to “reduce recommendations”

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

Per another post about this controversy in March, YouTube did say that only 1.5% of viewership came from Restricted Mode, though I have not seen any updates to this statistic since then If true, and nothing changed since 2017, then it doesn’t sound like a major issue. However…

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

From this blog post all the way back in April of 2017 you can see people had problems with their videos being unnecessarily restricted (especially LGBTQ creators), and YouTube had to step in to tweak the automated system and clarify how it worked

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

So, to clear things up, Restricted Mode has existed since 2010. It’s turned off by default on user accounts, but it is controlled by network admins. Meaning most public wifi & computers probably have it on With it on, certain videos are hidden and you can’t see comments

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 07/09/2025

Did a bit of bored phone research into Restricted Mode, YouTube’s recent AI age-verification censorship, and any reason why they might be causing views to go down across the platform For anyone who’s interested, here’s a thread 🧵

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 03/09/2025

#JustFinished Max Payne 3 The quintessential action movie reboot, complete with a protagonist who’s clearly too old to still be doing this, and a bold attempt to change direction into something flashy and modern Thank god it’s the last one Should Play

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 01/09/2025

#JustFinished Max Payne 2 If the first game was a fresh new action movie, this is the late sequel that’s more technically impressive, but loses the charm and struggles to do something new They sure do put Max in some wacky situations as an excuse for fun action scenes though Must Play

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 31/08/2025

#JustFinished Max Payne It’s just so fun. Goofy melodramatic story. Unbeatable high adrenaline gunplay. A metric ton of B-grade charm That being said, while I love Remedy’s future endeavors into surrealism, the dream sequence levels were kind of the worst part Must Play

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28/08/2025

sometimes I spend too much time online and start overestimating people’s knowledge of anime, but then I’m forced to remember how many people think it just means “animation that’s weird and maybe Asian”

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 29/07/2025

For any UK friends curious about VPNs: Use Mullvad I’ve been sponsored by several others, but I consistently use Mullvad, who has a policy to never sponsor anyone They accept crypto or literally just cash in an unmarked envelope, and they were raided by the police yet never gave up any data

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 27/07/2025

Interesting that itchio had to add “sex trafficking implications” to its list of payment processor enforced restrictions. As I cover in my video, SESTA-FOSTA vaguely criminalizes “supporting” sex trafficking. Makes it seem like VISA/MC are actually scared of being sued over fictional content

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 26/07/2025

This Mastercard’s current list of bannable items. Many of these (including the games purged from Steam) are federally legal to depict in most countries, and according to this list anything from Death Stranding to legitimate sex education could be banned next

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 25/07/2025

A lot of NSFW content has been removed from places like Steam and itchio recently, but you might not know this is actually the result of a campaign that has been going on for decades. Here's how anti-porn groups got the power to censor the internet. youtu.be/SmHHnPLllUk

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 20/07/2025

how it feels to drop a large project to work on something else

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 11/07/2025

heard a lot about this “breadtube” drama. no idea why anybody would have a problem with this??

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 11/07/2025

>go home to visit family >”come watch TV with us” >they watch nothing but AI generated videos on YouTube >I ask to put on a movie >Amazon Prime plays 12 minutes of ads >only other service they have is some shit called “Gloobee” >their smart TV freezes every time you open the menu and plays an ad

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 30/06/2025

Found out today that Jun Masami's blog has been shut down, and their other blog is scheduled to lose support this year. Their websites catalog a large chunk of anime history, some of it belonging to lost media. If anyone knows how to crawl webpages, or just has free time, I'd appreciate your help

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28/05/2025

TLOU and the Minecraft Movie could very well signal the jump into the next phase, but it remains to be seen. A quick look on Wikipedia shows just how hard they're trying though I'd wager within the next 5 years stuff like the upcoming Elden Ring movie will be the majority of blockbusters/miniseries

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28/05/2025

I'd say we've been stuck in the X-Men phase of adaptations for a while, where all but a rare few are bad, and the good ones do well in spite of their cheesiness. Soon we're going to cross into the Iron Man/MCU phase of video game adaptations, and you are NOT ready for what they're going to become

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 28/05/2025

With video games quickly replacing comic books as hot properties to adapt we're gonna be seeing a lot more people like Adi Shankar coming in to "save" games they played once as a kid by making them into "prestige entertainment" (i.e. not games) and claim all the credit for their success

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 22/05/2025

the most interesting difference to me between the upcoming recession and those prior is that business people have lost their minds every VCpilled tech bro is going to come up with an app or cryptocurrency or AI or some shit they actually think will perfect parry the economic downturn. just watch

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 18/05/2025

when you like an artist but they only draw stuff for a fetish you don’t have

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 16/05/2025

has anyone else noticed the shift that’s happened over the last decade, where edgelords and trolls just became complete crybabies? people used to send vile shit online and revel in how much it made people mad. now they all constantly complain about nobody liking them

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 16/05/2025

after the MangaDex DMCA’s I’m just gonna remake my video game piracy video but replace every mention of “video games” with “manga”

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 11/05/2025

it's been like this for a while. every company now wants to move from sales to some sort of recurring revenue stream. so it's either ads, selling data, subscriptions, or all of the above. selling the device to you for cheap is only getting their foot in the door. they usually lose money on that

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 11/05/2025

every “cheap” TV right now is a smart TV for a reason. they can show you mandatory ads, track what you watch, and sell your information the price is so low because you’re the product.

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 11/05/2025

“big TVs are so cheap” has gotta be the saddest example people still use about why things aren’t so bad nowadays. it’s such a silly talking point like, no. everything is more expensive *but* televisions, and TVs are only so cheap because they show you ads and sell your information

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 09/05/2025

never thought about it like that

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 05/05/2025

I'd say this confirms that "hentai" is an okay word to use, but I think it still depends on how prude the YouTube censor that looks at the video is. Apparently this one was scared of ancient Japanese martial arts

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 05/05/2025

YouTube has upheld the demonetization. The parts they deemed "too adult" being: - the sponsored segment, where I bleep every single word as a joke - a historical martial arts document showing clothed prisoners being restrained - artwork of bondage that is pixelated beyond recognition

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lextorias @lextorias.me · 04/05/2025

Return YouTube Dislike is very strange if you think about it all it does is record the dislikes from the people with the extension, then extrapolate that to the viewcount. but the extension is only downloaded by people who want to see dislikes, and are therefore more likely to dislike a video...

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