An Angry Rant About Algorithmically Generated Images and Media

Every time I see someone posting photos of themselves that they’re run through the latest in algorithmic art theft and image editing, I find myself screaming in my head “did these people learn NOTHING from the stupid facebook quizzes of the 2010s???” History is cyclical and it is frustrating to watch so many people I know repeatedly make the same mistakes about their digital footprints. It is difficult to fault them, at times, since the entire internet aparatus these days is set up to scrape as much of your personal information as it can, but given that all they have to do is read a EULA or keep up with all the art theft, copyright infringement, and actual damage to the artistic professions that these media-generating algorithms are doing these days, I find myself losing respect rather than feeling a desire to educate.

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The Reassuring Failure of Spotify’s Discover Weekly

First: a follow-up. I wrote yesterday about struggling to obtain an item in Skyward Sword that I need for gear upgrades. During that evening’s video game time, I played Skyward Sword again and killed three enemies that dropped this item and every single one dropped it. Three in a row, right there, staring at me. And completely inaccessible. No way to get them, even a little bit. 100% impossible. Absolutely devastating.

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