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Better yet, I could exercise my professional judgement and just not use it.

Not under one of those at present, and I would actively resist and refuse to comply with any efforts to impose one, to the point that I would bring unfair dismissal proceedings if a company tried to fire me over it.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 10h

Or I could just skip that last step, and save myself and/or my company money by assigning pointless busywork to the AI model.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11h

*weirdest *likely Me fail English? That's unpossible!

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

Wanna know the weirded thing? Thanks to the 12V-2x6 connector nVidia insisted on using in their GPUs, it's also the object most like to spontaneously catch fire or melt in a haze of toxic plastic fumes in my house.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

From a technical perspective the problem with that is cost, and context window sizes. For my own projects, I can't afford that. From a human perspective, that's one of the things I really enjoy doing when I need time away from some other problem I'm trying to solve or system I'm designing.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

As an analysis step, I suspect I could do something similar, feed in engine profiler data and have AI identify all the hotspots (obvious or otherwise) in the code. But actually fixing those is something I've yet to see AI be capable of.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

When a few milliseconds of execution time is the difference between a game consistently hitting a 30, 60, 120, or 240 frames per second target, and when every GC run causes frame pacing spikes because the CPU in my target hardware is busy, I can't afford to have code that takes that long to execute.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

Leaving aside the hallucinations of API calls that don't exist, or were deprecated 10+ years ago, which is still a recurring problem, I find that quality wise AI generated code is not that performant. It generates more garbage for the GC, and blows right though any frame time budget I might have.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

It's kinda interesting how your experiences not using it are the same as my experiences trying to use it. I find the quality and quantity suffer each time, to the point where AI generates code that occasionally fit known antipatterns in the games industry.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

In this case, all of my experiments have been in personal projects, following established best practices at the time of the test (as those have changed a fair amount each time). Whenever I've tried it, it's been for learning purposes and to see if it is the future of my industry or not.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

Yeah, I guess for a lot of industry areas there is a plethora of FOSS code that labs can injest for training purposes. Not so much for games, which are still primarily closed source endeavours.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12h

Mmm. Maybe it's different because I'm in the games industry but every single time I've tested using AI, I don't see any improvement in iteration times or output. The sheer amount of handholding any one model, or agent swarm, and then verifying the output actually solves the stated problem is absurd.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 13h

Easier said than done when many of the higher ups in your industry are pushing "you must use AI in your dev work" edicts on their staff. Or, as is the case Epic Games yesterday an "all your work must be done by AI" edict.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 13h

FML. The GPU in my desktop computer has now appreciated in value so much I need to declare *it* as a separate high value item on my home insurance. Not the computer. The god damned GPU.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 13h

What if I like writing code by hand? What if using AI is an exercise in frustration to me, raking the joy and fun out of what I do? What if I'm faster, better, more efficient, and cheaper at doing my job without it? Why do I suddenly have to use it, when it offers me no actual benefits for my job?

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Oooh, interesting! It's been a while since I've had to look at that type of code, and that was around the time LLVM stopped being an acronym and CUDA was really taking off, so I've not kept abreast of all the changes there. I remember it being a right PITA back then though.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I hate to ask this, but...won't you have to rewrite all those NEON intrinsics if you want to port your engine/game to x86-64? If writing NEON intrinsics and unsafe Rust is hating yourself, I'd argue writing x86-64 intrinsics are somewhere between a cry for help and mental health crisis.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

End of a thread on Epic's move to generative AI use at all stages of their dev cycle. If I'm ever in the position where I'm founding my own studio, I think I will have one policy at the forefront; no generative AI allowed. I make games because I enjoy making them, gen AI sucks the enjoyment out.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

If that is the future of the games industry, the tech industry, film and TV production, if these things become intrenched, that is not a future I want to be involved with. For me, any time I've tried to use them they take the joy out of the creative endeavour.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

And that's before you get into the very real human cost of using these things. I have seen smart people, people I've known for years, have their minds turn to mush and skills atrophy because they have outsourced their thinking to an LLM. They breed an reliance in a manner no other tool does.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

These "tools" are being sold as a panacea to problems they were fundamentally not designed to solve, and no amount of improvement in training, or larger context windows, or order of magnitude more parameters, or agent swarms and code harnesses can change that fact.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I know for myself, this would be a deal breaker. Every. Single. Time. I've tried to use these tools, whenever some AI bro says "they're so much better than they were 6 months ago", they have made the same types of mistakes, and frustrate the hell out of me as a result.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

But, dear god am I fucking tired boss. This is not a healthy way to run any sort of creative endeavour and I can see it driving a lot of talented people out of the industry who frankly do not want to babysit an algorithm through massaging prompts to do the job they were trained to do and love doing.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

So like, when viewed through that lens, this sure isn't a surprise. Arguably if there is one positive that could come out of this, it's clear that Epic are dogfooding where they want their engine to go, and will run into the same pitfalls and follies that anyone else trying to do this will run into.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

When they announced Verse as a Blueprint replacement in UE6, it was clear from what they were saying that Epic see the future of their engine and content made on it being built with generative AI. Both Claude and Codex were prominently mentioned in the announcement as playing a "central role".

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I wish I could say this was a surprise, but it became clear a while ago that Tim Sweeney drunk the Kool-aid and has become an AI true believer. There was also a huge neon sign that something like this was incoming with the announcement 3 months ago that UE6 is pivoting away from Blueprint to Verse.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I've only ever had one die on me, a 2010 Kindle Keyboard, and that was a problem where the screen got cracked by airport security. Every other Kindle I've had has lasted long past the date Amazon stop guaranteeing security updates.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

The hardware is usually pretty reliable. The only reason I stopped using my 2011 Kindle Touch was because the battery stopped holding a charge 2/3 years ago, when I replaced it in 2023 with the then current Kindle Paperwhite.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Your 2019 model should keep working as it does now after the end of December, any hardware faults it may develop in the future notwithstanding. I imagine it'll be the mid-to-late 2030s before they do the same thing to the 2019 and older models that they've just done to the 2012 and older models.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

This is different from what happened to the 2012 and earlier models that were discontinued earlier in the year. Those ones were hard cut-off, as I believe they needed an update to keep working with the store, but they entered the "no longer guaranteeing software updates" phase no later than 2015/16.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Aaah, I've seen that list before and they're going by an FAQ article on Amazon's US website. But, the dates listed there aren't when they're killing the hardware. They're just the dates for when they're no longer guaranteeing software updates, but they likely will still release them if needed.

amazon.com

Kindle E-Reader Device Software Security Updates - Amazon Customer Service

This page provides information about software security updates for Kindle E-Readers, made by Amazon.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I thought they were only killing support for the 2012 and older Kindles? Last I heard the 2019 Kindles are still supported. Did they expand that recently to killing more recent models?

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

"One of the accounts used to siphon off the data was reportedly secured with a password of '123456,' " That's amazing, I've got the same combination on my luggage!

youtube.com

Spaceballs Luggage Password

YouTube video by Kevin McClure

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The other main characters of the series do have their own arcs, each interesting in their own right, but none go through as large an amount of character growth as McKay.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

From then on, he does get more brave. He's still brash and arrogant, he does destroy 5/6 of a solar system in his arrogance, but he does become more heroic and more competent in combat. Not quite to Daniel Jackson's level, who went from bookworm to basically special forces, but still he improves.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

He does have one moment, right at the start of season 2, where he faces down a pair of Wraith after his escorts were stunned and taken out of the fight. Unfortunately he fumbles that, and when he pulls the trigger on his gun the magazine falls out.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

For pretty much the entire first series, he continues to be the same brilliant but arrogant and acerbic character from SG-1. He has his save the day moments, typically under the threat of impending death, but he still comes across as a cowardly asshole while doing this.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I say more or less because the first couple of episodes were written where McKay's role was played by another character. As a result in those early episodes, his characterisation is a little off, but we can chalk that up to early instalment weirdness.

slashfilm.com

Stargate SG-1's Rodney McKay Was A Last-Minute Character Replacement In Atlantis - SlashFilm

Stargate: SG-1 actor David Hewlett reprised his role as Dr. Rodney McKay for Stargate: Atlantis, but he almost wasn't in the spinoff series at all.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I'm rewatching Stargate Atlantis, approaching the end of season 3 now. Of all the characters in the series, I think McKay has one of the best character arcs. He starts the series more or less as the McKay you knew from SG1; a brilliant but arrogant and cowardly scientist.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I wonder if this will be like the C&C/Red Alert remaster a few years back, and include any recovered behind the scenes and B-roll footage, and alternate takes.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

WC3 only ever had its multi-CD release, and the FMV quality was severely limited by both the technology of the time and the extensive use of chroma keying, with very few if any physical props and set dressing. This has the potential to make the game look a lot better on modern systems.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

This is so cool! I played so many hours of WC3, 4 and Prophecy as a kid. It makes sense to do this for WC3, as 4 had an official though limited DVD release and holds up well, and the folks at WCCIC have been hosting a DVD quality upgrade patch for Prophecy since 2006.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

SpongeBob Narrator: A few hours later. Lady Justice McBride: "This is an important case, and I do believe there is some urgency, but it's not an emergency." Case has been adjourned until Monday for a full hearing, and the Order's legal team has been set some homework to file a full brief.

bbc.co.uk

Drumcree: Judge says legal appeal on parade ban not an 'emergency'

The Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant banned the contentious Orange Order parade at Drumcree saying the decision "was in the best interests of peace".

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Honestly, if this GPU, memory, and storage shortage keeps up beyond 2028, I don't know how we're going to keep making games. Sooner or later hardware is either going to become obsolete or start dying, and right now it looks like there might not be feasible replacements in the pipeline.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Does your average consumer need a xx90 class GPU? Hell no. But as a gamedev my only other options with comparable performance are the RTX Pro lineup, and they're all in the £10,000+ range, assuming you can even find them. A 5090 was a huge investment as a solo indie dev, a RTX Pro is unobtainable.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

And by time saving, I really mean time saving. A lightmap that would take the 3090 I had before about an hour to render, my laptop's 4080 could do in 45-50 mins. My 5090 can do the same render in 10 minutes or less. If you're iterating on scene lighting that's a huge amount of time you gain.

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Zoë H @zoeswipe.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Seriously. I paid ~£2600 for mine in April last year. Yes that was expensive, but the time saving in lightmapping was too hard to pass over. The same card I bought then is now unavailable new, and selling for over £5000 preowned. Similar liquid cooled cards are selling for over £6000 new.

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Reposted by Zoë H

Peter Donaghy @peterdonaghy.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Belfast is wild because you can't get home by public transport after 9pm but the courts are open to adjudicate on parading disputes 24/7

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