Womp, and I cannot stress this next part enough, womp.

I’m back! Sort of. I spend way too much time on bsky these days, although it’s not looking so rosy anymore. Also, I’m trans and kobold now and it fucking rocks!

They have to keep pushing on this because they’re all invested up to their necks. The allure of AI is that it offers to replace all human labor for a fraction of the cost, but AI only knows what it scrapes, and the models are starting to poison each other because the net is increasingly flooded with AI bullshit. When it fails, I think the entire tech sector’s going to implode.

I imagine it’s indicating that it’ll start affordable and then skyrocket when it becomes a lynchpin of daily life after crowding out the alternatives?

Frankly I don’t see it being economically viable given shit’s only getting worse.

Yeah. I think there’s a problem with the modern development cycle that a fuckton of the budget goes into marketing and marketable assets (i.e. all them graphics that look great in the trailers but nobody’s computer can actually handle, and then the rest of the team’s on the hook to make a game on a shoestring that can actually use all of that content - The only way you can possibly accomplish that with a fraction of a fraction of the budget is if it’s super simplistic and repetitive gameplay that’s stretched over 40+ hours like a peasant on a torture rack.

Think about how many games you’ve played over the last decade, and how many of them were still fun to play after the first five hours, either because the primary gameplay loops were satisfying enough to keep you engaged, or because the game was keeping it fresh with new mechanics that didn’t bungle clumsily atop one another like a raspberry and beef trifle. Making great games is difficult and expensive, and most studios would rather put out something with a guaranteed return than anything that’s fun to play.

Juicero-ass headset.

The thought crossed my mind but I’ve had panic attacks like that before, some a lot more severe and in public, mostly about how “this is the best I can do and it sucks and it only gets worse from here.” Which, incidentally, ended up being mostly true due to external factors. Like I work a job I don’t hate and make decent money but it’s not enough because housing is unaffordable everywhere.

I think I’d be doing a lot better if the entire United States weren’t staring down the barrel of yet another once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis. Like when are we ever not in crisis at this point?

I don’t want everything I post here to be bad news. I’m a month and change in on HRT and my tits are already somewhere between D and F cups, and my hair’s growing back in on top thanks to the finasteride and minoxidil. I already look way more androgynous than I did before, except for the beard.

Had a panic attack Saturday night. I was deeply consumed by the fear that everyone in my life pretends to love me in order to receive my support and I will be dropped like a hot rock the minute I fall off the hamster wheel, which will probably be sooner rather than later given the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy.

I dunno though, it’s kind of… Comforting, in a way? I can see that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually a train but once it hits, nobody’s going to blame me for how I fell apart. Or, they will, but they’ll be wrong.

I spent three years miserable on the mechanical engineering track that was colloquially known as “pre-business” before I ended up with an MIS degree at 23 after a hard pivot and an extra year and change of classes. I’d be hard pressed to say I’m ‘happy’ today, but the degree has afforded me the ability to live quasi-comfortably on my own.

Hmm, I’m no historian but I seem to recall they closed it because it cost a gazillion dollars to boat everything the prisoners and staff needed on a remote island. So is DOGE gonna get on that, or…

No? I guess I should just keep praying for a hamberder-induced heart attack then.

Yeah, I would love to quit this bullshit job and do something worthwhile but then I’ve got maybe half a year before my insulin runs out because they never let you have all that much chain on your leash.

I mean this isn’t how government is supposed to work, but, here we are, with an unelected idiot handing pink slips to every government agency under the sun that doesn’t stroke his ego.

I feel for the remaining members of the NIH who have been told in no uncertain terms “Find or fabricate evidence that aligns with our anti-trans stance or start looking elsewhere for employment.”

Bad. The guarantee of a fifth major financial crisis in my lifetime tends not to be great for the old mental health.

Started HRT yesterday. I’m really, really hoping that I can end a decade-long plus dissociation and stop feeling like a walking ghost. Here’s hoping.

Guy who doesn’t know how to write software uses GenAI to make software that he then puts up for sale, and brags about not knowing how to write software.

People buy his software and, intentionally or not, start poking holes in it by using it in ways neither he nor the GenAI anticipated. Guy panics because he has no clue how to fix it.

To be fair, that is exactly what I do some days after work because this shit is needlessly exhausting. I think I need like a year of sickly Victorian style bedrest because I have been so burned out for so long that I don’t really have much of a sense of self at this point.

You know, the fucked up thing about it all is I was always told that the kind of delayed gratification that came from major accomplishments like a college degree, a steady career, a comfortable savings account, would all outweigh the fleeting pleasure of parties and stupid little trinkets and other such fun. I wish I had taken so much more time for myself because I burned out so hard achieving some of these things and failing to achieve others that I struggle deeply to imagine a future with me in it.

I hope whatever youth is left in the world spends their time having fun. I hope their lives are worth living now, and that mine will be someday too.

God if someone could get in and wipe out student loans, I would be so happy.