How to best learn from AI in the game of Go.

AI is an extraordinary tool for game analysis because you can set it to analyze every move in ever game you play, and it's stronger than any human teacher. It also overturned a lot of old school opening sequences and ushered in a new meta.

But there are limitations to it. AI can tell you that a move is bad and where it should be played, but it can't explain why. AI plays on a razor's edge, if it can find one specific line of play that works to live in an area, then it won't bother trying to strengthen it, while a human player couldn't read that far ahead. Human play depends on heuristics, like, "It's generally a good idea to place your stones into this shape" but the AI doesn't think in those terms at all, it tirelessly reads out a ton of variations every time.

Once, I was in a room at an event where a professional had flown in from Asia (I forget which country) to give reviews. One of the players getting a review started arguing about something he said, saying, "I ran this through AI and it said my move was good." People have a lot of opinions on that sort of thing, some people would say that the AI is the ultimate judge of whether a move is good or not and that the student was in the right to challenge the pro saying something wrong, while others might say that student should be more respectful and consider multiple perspectives, like, "If you just want to go off AI, then why even bring it to the pro?"

Some people try to focus on playing the "top engine move," seeing that as the best practice to reach optimal play. But others feel like that makes games too "same-y," and leaves gaps in your knowledge against unconventional play, along with the problem that humans can't match it's computational power which that style of play depends on. But, everyone uses it to some degree, it's just too useful.

Also, different online servers have implemented AI tools. The most controversial is Tygem, which introduced a feature where you can pay money to use AI analysis during a game, below a certain (relatively high) rank. Pretty much everyone hates this. Like, you could just run an AI locally, but that's called "cheating" and it doesn't stop being cheating just because you decided to pay microtransactions in a 4000 year old game.

Honestly, I could go on longer than anyone's interested in talking about go controversies, like not too long ago there was a controversy between a Chinese and Korean player where the Chinese player was penalized for not keeping his captures visible, which was a new and kind of obscure rule.

I'm into bicycles and there are plenty. This one seems mostly settled now but "disc brakes vs rim brakes" gets some people worked up. Rim brake fans see disc brakes as needlessly expensive and complex. Disc brake fans will point out the better stopping power, especially in wet weather. And it doesn't slowly wear out your wheel rim.

Even a lot of the disc brake fans get heated at the mention of hydraulic disc brakes compared to cable-actuated. They see hydraulic brake-bleeding as the pinnacle of complexity. I used to do my own car maintenance. In that world, bleeding your brakes is considered a very beginner-friendly maintenance activity. I think cyclists are way too resistant to change.

Do Balrogs have wings according to JRR Tolkein?

This one is starting to sway one direction more than the other but: Using AI for indie game development. (For music, voice work, art, code, writing, gameplay, etc)

You've probably seen many arguments for and against AI at this point so I won't harp on that too much. It is interesting/frustrating to see where some devs focuses are, and why this has contributed to an insane amount of AI art in games lately.

In Magic: the Gathering people are discussing "universe beyond" sets. Those are foreign IPs like Doctor Who, LoTR, Marvel, Fallout, Sonic etc injected into magic, which already had fucking good setting and lore.

It brings them lots of money, at least short term, while destroying the game we love.

So in rhythm games, chart reuse and "piracy" is... a surprisingly big issue that is related to copyright. This warrants a bit more explanation

For example, the IP of Dance Dance Revolution/DDR is owned solely by Bemani and Konami; both are Japanese companies which are not known for being generous with copyright, mind you. The DDR series produces lots of original music which are owned by the IP holders, and just about every chart (the thing you actually play) created for each piece of music in the game is also technically copyright protected

Problem is, DDR got wayyy too popular so there are a lot of clones out there; in fact most arcades in the US would have a "DDR" cabinet when it is actually a clone. Usually something like Stepmania (which is FOSS btw). Would it be considered piracy if someone else uses the official chart even though they are not running one of the officially licensed DDR cabs?

I don't know the details as to how it ended up like this, but it seems like a lot of games strictly ban such "piracy", whereas DDR is a bit of an outlier. Case in point, Beatmania series (one of the oldest rhythm game series) treats such acts as piracy, and the simulation community is onboard with this so all of the ripped official charts would be referred to as "illegal BMS"... but this is compensated by having a massive collection of community charts that have no affiliation with the IP holders of Beatmania whatsoever. DDR... seems to allow all of their charts to be released as simfiles, case in point.

There's also the funny case for Sound Voltex (SDVX). This game was also created by Konami, with lots of official songs/charts and a dedicated simulation community. Problem is that SDVX released a PC version of the game (don't buy their official controllers they are ass), and all of the official charts were reuploaded and became available to anyone playing the simulators. These charts are in a very weird legal limbo as far as I'm aware... but everyone knows that simulator users play the official charts

Is a tab four spaces or two?

Mine is interest in retro gaming which oh boy, there's a lot:

• CRT vs Line-doubler device like OSSC and RetroTINK
• HDMI Mods/Adapters
• Native hardware vs Emulation
• Grading mint game and the price for it (I still see it as snake-oils)
• If [Insert old game] hasn't aged well or is that person simply not good at it.

Bonus points if that person happens to be Gen-Z and comments selection bitching about Gen-Z. I hate the weird elitism retro-gaming community have which as a Zoomer, it does put me off wanting to play older games if I be judge for being too stupid to not get it straight away.

LEGO enthusiasts ( !lego@piefed.social ) are usually split on the "non-LEGO" compatible sets, especially since the basic LEGO patent went to the free domain. Some people think they're "fake", some other people think it's a way to still afford the hobby when the prices have skyrocketed

After diving in and learning it this year, I fully believe learning Vim makes you a better developer and it should be commonly taught to developers. It has done far more for my dev skills than any single AI tool ever has, and I dont have to worry about it hallucinating.

Personally, I think Vim should be made into standard knowledge for anyone who consistently uses a keyboard for their work. A lot more software than I expected supports it, and it makes any form of text editting tremendously better.

Mechanical keyboards have several (clicky/thocky/tactile/linear/etc switches, Cherry MX Browns, etc), but if I had to choose one, maybe ortholinear vs staggered.

A picture will probably illustrate it best:

Ortholinear evangelists contend that the staggered layout was invented for mechanical typewriters exclusively to reduce the incidence of typebar collisions and is detrimental to optimal ergonomics. I, as someone who prefers staggered keyboards, just don't want to be ruined for the majority of keyboards out there. (If my muscle memory "learns" that "m" is "here" because I use an ortholinear keyboard at home, I'm worried it'll be awkward to use a standard keyboard on a laptop or whatever and I'll be fat-fingering keys all over the place.) I might switch sides someday. Who knows. But for now, I'll stick with staggered.

One of my hobbies is the sport of weightlifting (the snatch and the clean & jerk). There is a rule called the Pressout Rule that keeps lifters from pressing the weight out overhead - basically you can't catch a weight overhead and then muscle it out to full extension. This rule is pretty unpopular with a lot of folks because the judges judging the lift may see your arm shake a bit and decide it was a pressout. I'm not a big fan of the rule.