cerebralhawks

For some background, Blue Prince is a PC (Windows/Mac) and Xbox/PlayStation puzzle game in which you inherit a 45-room mansion from your late, eccentric uncle, but to earn it, you must reach the rumoured 46th room. The twist is, all the rooms reset every day (except a couple permanent rooms), so every time you come to a door, three blueprints (get it, Blue Prince) are drawn like cards from a deck, and you choose the one you want. Some are dead ends, some have goodies, and some have traps. (Sort of.)

Furthermore, a Souls-like game (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) was controversially stripped of its Game of the Year award by an indie publication, due to it using generative AI to make some of its art. (33 won dozens of other GOTY awards elsewhere.) After this disqualification, Blue Prince was awarded the title in its stead. Because of the controversy, some unknown parties (33 fans? Someone else? Article is not clear) started accusing Blue Prince of using genAI as well.

The truth is a bit more interesting. First of all, there's no genAI in Blue Prince. Second of all, it's made by one guy, who 8 years ago allegedly sequestered himself away from all other games — kind of the antithesis of how AI works, stealing content from artists — so he wouldn't be influenced by any other game. So any puzzle or Roguelike game, or any deck building game you might think Blue Prince is similar to, if it came out in the last 8 years, it's purely coincidental.

You should play Blue Prince for a handful of reasons. One, it's an awesome little digital puzzle box. Beautiful, hand-drawn graphics, lots of secrets to uncover, lots of red herrings, it's just so fun to try to unpack it. It's also fun to just run blindly through a run. Despite the time limit implied in the beginning, there is no time/date requirement for completing the game. You can make 500 runs and never be told you took too much time. Two, it's on Windows and Xbox and PlayStation, but it's also on the Mac. Support for Mac gaming is rare and should be rewarded. Three, it's made by one guy. Four, it's like $20 when it goes on sale (I think the full price is $30 — I only care about sales because I bought it twice, once for my Mac and once for my Xbox). Four, Roguelikes, when done right, are some of the best games out there. I wish we could get Noita on Mac or at least Xbox. And five... because it wasn't made with genAI.

Here's one that is truly mild — at least to most people. One, since most people aren't Mac users. And two, since most Windows users probably don't know about this Windows feature. But, onward.

One thing I like about the Mac is how it handles symbols. I'm a Mac user of about 2-3 years now, but I've been using Windows for over 30 years. On a Windows machine, I know if I hold ALT and strike 0151 on the number pad, it makes an em dash (—). But, on a Mac, just like on an iPhone or Android phone, you can get a lot of symbols just by holding a letter or number (on Windows, it just spams the letter or number). Making an em dash is a little different though, you hold Shift and Option and tap Dash/Hyphen.

I'm not sure if it's because ChatGPT/other LLMs (AIs) have made use of the em dash or if people are talking about it more, but either way, it's starting to make a comeback. (I've been using it all along — you can blame me for AIs using it.)

Anyway, Microsoft decided to copy the Mac shortcut using the exact same muscle memory shortcut. Shift is Shift on both keyboards, but where Option is on my Mac keyboard, is where the Windows key is on a Windows keyboard. I heard they were doing this, but I didn't believe it until it happened. In Office programs (such as Outlook), if you hold Shift and Windows (key) and hit Hyphen/Dash, it makes an em dash. But, it only does it in Office. It works in Word, but not in Notepad. And I do use Word at work, and Excel, but I also use Notepad and StickyNotes.

So, it's mildly infuriating that the shortcut I learned on my Macs works on Windows now — but only in some applications. Knowing which ones doesn't help.

That said, if Microsoft could get away with copying how Apple/macOS handles symbols, it would just be good for everyone. Like how do you make the º symbol? I used to know the alt code? 0186? Something like that. IIRC it's a hook or arc shape. On Mac it's just Option+0. Option+3 makes £ (it would be Shift+3 on an en_GB keyboard, or painted above the 3 on a keyboard sold in the UK) and Option+4 makes ¢. It's worth opening a text file and seeing what makes what and making note of what you might use. Or not, you could say degrees, pounds/GBP, or cents, and everyone knows what you mean. I just think it's nice to know how to make the proper symbols.

I was playing Cyberpunk yesterday, and best girl Judy asked me what I liked on my pizza. I passed a speech check (I think on Body/Strength) to say "A&A. Artichoke & Avocados." and some other text I forget.

Now I'm wondering if such a pizza exists, and would it be any good? And what else would go good on it?

I have had artichokes on pizza before. They work. I feel like avocado wouldn't, though. Like it would burn up or dry out or something.

Granted, it's Cyberpunk. They get their pizza from a place called Buck A Slice and everything is crappy in their world. And yet, that pizza sounds good. AND I had to pass a speech check to say it.

The game was made by the Polish so maybe that has something to do with it? The game is set in Southern California but it doesn't feel quite right. It's also not their (CD Projekt Red) world, it comes from the board/tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2013 which came out in the 1980s. Which was made by an American. So I don't think that matters.

Anyway: would you try this pizza?

I found an awesome 80s style cover of one of the Kpop Demon Hunters songs on YouTube. I still like it — but the channel has dozens of videos including 5-6 of any given song, they make more than one a day, and when people ask them to go on Spotify, they say they won’t — which is interesting because Spotify just banned AI generated music. So I’m 99% sure they’re an AI band. My point is, I can’t help liking the song, so I feel like we’re screwed because that could happen to anyone. (FWIW I’ve downloaded the song so I can play it offline. So they don’t make money from my plays.)

So my question is. How do we know? And what can we do?

So, this is me being kind of a smart ass. My main phone is an iPhone 16 Pro Max and I enjoy using it. I also have a Galaxy S10 I mainly use as a cosplay prop. Android customization lets me do a few things iOS can’t, and I don’t want the Animal Crossing case on the iPhone. Plus, the Galaxy was free. And it’s cool to have both.

I wanted to be romantic and have my phone tell me how many days I’ve been married. “Hey Siri,” I ask, followed by asking how many days since the date I got married. That isn’t important, privacy and all that, but I gave the date. Siri offered to Google it. Huh?

So for the hell of it, I powered on the Galaxy. “Hey Google,” I started. No dice. Then I remember this phone has a Bixby button. Bixby got no love when it was new, n but whatever. Permissions granted. “Hey Bixby,” I start, and ask it the same question. And it just tells me.

I still like the iPhone better. My next phone will be an iPhone. If I had to get a phone right now, it would be a green iPhone 17 — I don’t think I need Pro now. And I really don’t care that Siri is so incompetent. It used to be better. I used to like asking it what zero divided by zero was, before the Cookie Monster/“and you have no friends” quote was deemed politically incorrect. Other than that, it’s not a factor.

Still wild that the 2019 Samsung didn’t have to Google a day count though.

Kind of a rant — I drink water and flavored-water beverages, and I don't wanna buy 24-packs of water and trust my local municipality to recycle. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Either way, it's not recycle, it's "reduce, reuse, recycle." I'll drink a Gatorade (Zero) and reuse it a few times and then toss it.

But if I want a reusable bottle — there's one by Aladdin (Thermos) I like, and one by Zojirushi, I've bought two of each over the years. Just tossed the Zojirushi. Zojirushi is a Japanese brand, very high quality, but a bit over-engineered. It's got this rubber gasket and plug that, you can clean them daily, they get black spots. Not sure if it's mould or what, but it's kinda gross and I don't like it. The Aladdin/Thermos one is a bit better, didn't think there was any mould anywhere until I dropped it, the cap flew out, mould farm inside! Nowhere that touched the beverage so that was nice. But I'm kinda done with both of them. I would rather just waste plastic than risk drinking from a mouldy reusable cup.

Are there reusable bottles that aren't mould farms?