Every article tag can be clicked to get a list of all articles in that category. Every article tag also has an RSS feed! You can customize an RSS feed too!
Latest Comments by pleasereadthemanual
Valve announces new rules for games with AI Content on Steam
10 January 2024 at 12:59 pm UTC Likes: 1

This is almost exactly the same thing Amazon's KDP rules say. You need to disclose AI-generated content, and say whether you "enhanced" it with AI or whether you edited something that was generated by AI to begin with.

Quoting: EhvisI'm all for the disclosure part that Valve has always done on the Steam store (I don't think any other store requires the publishers to specify their DRM restrictions).
Unfortunately, this doesn't include the DRM wrapper Valve offers, which is something you need to test yourself. Makes it harder to tag games on VNDB

But since you're asking, DLsite does a great job of this. The DRM is labeled front-and-center, in a big green box, at the top of the store page. It includes information about the DRM, screenshots of how it works and how to use it, and the DRM name. They also require their own PlayDRM implementation to be mentioned (which does work in Wine). If the store page doesn't have any mention of DRM, it's DRM-free. You can also sort by DRM-free games.

DMM does similar but hides it right at the bottom (near the "Specs" section), isn't as clear about what exactly it is, and sometimes doesn't seem to mention it at all.

OpenAI say it would be 'impossible' to train AI without pinching copyrighted works
9 January 2024 at 11:02 pm UTC Likes: 2

I agree with the sentiment that our public domain is not as valuable as it should be. As ever, OpenAI representatives write with the assumption that they are entitled to do whatever they want, regardless of the laws. Why do they feel the need to phrase it like that?

Quoting: EagleDeltaLLMs aren't going around storing articles, code, pictures, art, etc in its model. It is simply learning from those.... and all the benefits AND drawbacks that come with that.
Sure, but that doesn't mean OpenAI employees are now allowed to download millions of copyrighted works that have been distributed on trackers/DDL sites without permission from the copyright holder. If ChatGPT were only using Common Crawl, that's one thing, but we know they're not.

Supposedly ChatGPT's training content is carefully curated, FWIW.

As of January 2024 - 75 of the Top 100 most played Steam games work on Steam Deck
8 January 2024 at 2:30 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: BadCo
Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47Anti-cheat can get a lot worse. If you want to see how, take a look at Android.

A lot of Android games don't bother directly detecting cheating: instead they just try to detect rooting. If you have root access, they assume you're cheating. If you don't, they assume you're not cheating. Worse still, it isn't just multiplayer games that use "anti-cheat:" publishers of single player games with in-app-purchases don't want you to cheat, because then you are less likely to buy in-game stuff with real money.

It may just be a matter of time before a big PC game publisher decides the solution to cheating is to require you to be in "S Mode" (i.e. only have software from the Microsoft Store). That wouldn't just mean the end of WINE: It would mean the end of Steam and all other stores as distribution platforms for AAA games.

I really hope I'm wrong.

I wouldn't be surpirsed if Valve were working on some sort of Anti-cheat product to sell or provide to developers to avoid scenarios like this.
They already have one. VAC.

The Caribbean Sail adds Steamboat Willie as a playable character
6 January 2024 at 5:31 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: PenglingThis is the first interesting use of the now-public-domain character that I've seen so far*. The actual first ones I saw were relatively lazy "cartoons turned twisted" horror efforts, as seems to be the norm these days.
Here's another one: https://mousetrappedcomic.blog/

Quote"Mousetrapped" is a webcomic that uses the public domain cartoon, "Steamboat Willie," as basis and inspiration. No claims to any active copyrights or trademarks owned by the Walt Disney Company are made.

The comic is drawn by Randy Milholland, who also draws the comic Something*Positive and the Sunday strips for Popeye.
Randy actually directly addresses the cheap "classic character but horror" trope in a comment on his second strip, saying he's not going to do that here.

There's not much yet, but it's kinda neat.

Quoting: PenglingIncidentally, I hope that this momentous event will draw further attention to the fact that the 1933 Mickey short, The Mad Doctor, was already in the public domain due to them burying it after an outcry at it being too scary (it spoofed the horror films of the era quite well) and thus having forgotten to renew the copyright when they had the chance.
Thanks for bringing this up! I didn't know anything about this. Very cool trivia, and I wonder how this 1933 depiction of Mickey Mouse impacts what you can do with him. He's wearing gloves in the short. Pluto is in this short too.

I gave it a watch, and I have to say...that was bizarre, haha. I laughed at points, but it's definitely suitable for Halloween.

As of January 2024 - 75 of the Top 100 most played Steam games work on Steam Deck
6 January 2024 at 1:39 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoteand Rocket League even though you can no longer get it on Steam
This is my most-played game. Probably 200 hours this year... Supposedly they're going to add anti-cheat in addition to killing the Linux version a few years back.

Despite playing this game a lot, I don't like it very much anymore. I kinda play it mainly because I can't be bothered to boot into my Windows partition...

I'm really not sure what that says about me but it can't be anything good.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyShows that most of the problem is Anti-cheat, and it's a significant problem.
I agree with this based on my small sample size. The really popular multiplayer games fall into this category.

Linux hits nearly 4% desktop user share on Statcounter
6 January 2024 at 1:27 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: azuredusk10
Quoting: pleasereadthemanual
Quoting: slaapliedjeConspiracy Mode; Have you ever wondered if one of the main reasons Office and it's ilk are moving to cloud based systems is due to Linux finally getting to the point where it can run stand alone Office? I'm pretty sure the latest version runs fine there now... (I still don't know why macOS got a port of Office, and Linux never did. You'd think MS would want Office on all the platforms they could to make more money... but then again, they figure they can force people to also buy Windows... greedy Mofos).
Funny you should mention that. Microsoft Word has had an official version for Macintosh since initial release in 1983. It predates even Windows; it was MS-DOS back then. Microsoft Excel was released for Macintosh two years before a Windows version appeared. So you could say one of the reasons is Linux didn't actually exist back then.

This was a few years after Microsoft abandoned their UNIX OS, XENIX.

I've gotten Microsoft Office to work under CrossOver but Word was the only one that worked decently. Powerpoint was very crash-happy. Excel was fine, but I didn't use it much. I wonder if the Affinity Suite will be usable and stable in Wine before Microsoft Office is...

I use Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo for my web design and development work on Linux. It's very complicated to set up, but as of recently, it works fantastically. Instructions: https://codeberg.org/Wanesty/affinity-wine-docs

For my rather simple usage of it (basic photo adjustments and cropping images en masse), it's been very stable and everything is working as expected.
Oh, that's awesome to know! Thanks for pointing this out to me, but I've actually known about this repo and the forum posts for over a year now. I've just been putting off actually building the custom version of Wine, haha. I hadn't heard great things from the posts about how stable it was so I was wondering if it was worth the effort. I resolved to do it this week while I had some free time.

Might as well give it a shot! Cheers for the reminder. Affinity Photo is the only one I use (still need AE and iD now and again) but it should keep more of my workflow on Linux!

Steam Deck officially hits over 13,000 games Playable and Verified
6 January 2024 at 1:23 am UTC

Quoting: benstor214
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualHalo: MCC (supposedly has EAC support, I've never gotten it to work on Arch or Fedora)
I managed to play co-op with a friend who is on Windows. You need to be sent 2 DLLs from someone's Windows installation (preferably someone you trust, of course.)

The game is looking for these DLLs to establish a co-op session, but in the game's prefix these are only softlinked.
I was able to play co-op with a friend until I reached the first checkpoint. It kicked me four times in the same spot just as I got the checkpoint before I gave up and just played it on Windows.

But since I've played the entire suite of campaigns with two friends already (one friend three times), we mainly only play matchmaking now anyway. I don't suppose the DLLs would help with that..? I can just nab them from my own Windows install.

The Caribbean Sail adds Steamboat Willie as a playable character
5 January 2024 at 4:21 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIn your face, Three-Circle Empire!

(That said, these days I think they use the mouse almost entirely as a trademark, which is still totally intact. But still)
They do, but it doesn't impact usage of the public domain character as much as popular opinion might have led you to believe. Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a great write-up on Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse, the copyrights and the trademarks and what you can do with him: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

Fair warning that this is only interesting to a vanishingly small audience.

Steam Deck officially hits over 13,000 games Playable and Verified
5 January 2024 at 1:59 pm UTC Likes: 1

QuoteWhat games are you waiting and hoping will move from Unsupported to Verified one day?
Most of the Steam games I play (by playtime) are still not playable on Linux. It's a short list, to be honest, but they are:

  • Rainbow Six Siege

  • Halo: MCC (supposedly has EAC support, I've never gotten it to work on Arch or Fedora)

  • I tried to play Back 4 Blood a few times, I guess

I play them with friends. On Windows...

I also have a friend that wants me to play Fortnite. Note that this game is not in my "wished for" list.