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Eric Ravenscraft

@lordravenscraft.bsky.social

1.6K followers 700 following 1.2K posts

Clearly fake name. Freelance writer. Video essayist on YouTube. Formerly Lifehacker. Will shitpost for cash. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/lordravenscraft

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 21d

NEW VIDEO! FINALLY! Beast Wars Is Shakespeare: The Value of Garbage Media

I truly hope this one was worth the wait, because I've never made something so huge. Massive thanks to Dr. Drew Lichtenberg for sitting down with me for this one. youtu.be/8y_KsFaHRQk?...

Beast Wars Is Shakespeare: The Value of Garbage Media

YouTube video by Lord Ravenscraft

youtu.be

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1h

damn, looks great!

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 9h

"oh that's a little cringey but whatever, ah yeah that's silly but okaEXCUSETHEFUCKOUTTAME"

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 10h

there was a small startup that had a novel approach to music curation: humans do it

the novel tech component was that it would present appropriate playlists for moods or time of day, but humans chose the music

it was called Songza, Google bought it, then retired the feature

now we get this shit

TechCrunch @techcrunch.com · 13h

You can now connect your Spotify account in ChatGPT and it will perform tasks for you, such as creating personalized playlists.

You can now connect your Spotify account to ChatGPT. Here’s how to do it | TechCrunch

You can now connect your Spotify account in ChatGPT and it will perform tasks for you, such as creating personalized playlists.

techcrunch.com

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 11h

At this point, most of my conflicting feelings about it are so old that I need to finish my rewatch before I decide, but already there's so much cool shit here....but also so many weird choices? I dunnnoooo

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 12h

they do eventually introduce a few bad guy characters but (skipping the part where they end up being old characters again) they're not all that interesting. one is a quiet brooding type and one is a dumb, one-word sentences type

they fit their designs but they're just not...interesting

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 12h

in Beast Wars, both factions had a minimum of five, distinct characters with vibrant personalities

by the beginning of Beast Machines, the Maximals are down to four, and Megatron has...himself

there's just not as much room for dynamic character interactions

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 12h

I think a big part of the reason Beast Machines struggles to land as hard as its predecessor is how absolutely paltry the cast is compared to Beast Wars

in the first few episodes, not only are many characters removed, but no new characters are introduced until...this guy. a diagnostic drone

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 13h

Meta employees have also been instructed to reduce baby production speed to a single month by getting as many as 9 women pregnant

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 13h

Meta executives are telling their workers they must use AI to "go 5x faster" and expect a "5x leap in productivity"

www.404media.co/meta-tells-w...

Meta Tells Workers Building Metaverse to Use AI to ‘Go 5x Faster’

Meta says that its coders should be working five times faster and that it expects "a 5x leap in productivity."

www.404media.co

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

You're great 💙 Take care of yourself

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

I suppose listening to anyone who actually knows what they're doing is right out?

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

This is a great way to think of it

Every team I've ever been on that succeeds inevitably has some spreadsheet cruncher come in and say "I like this number, we should have more of this number"

And that changes why we were so good at that number in the first place
bsky.app/profile/ryst...

Robin-Yann Storm @rystorm.com · 1d

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

...yet we are seeing more and more things measured, exactly because they are intended as targets.

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

when I worked at Frye's, their metrics were based on how many Norton subs they sold. to the point they had us essentially giving them away. conning customers into adding Norton they didn't want to purchases that made us no money

anyway, time is a flat circle

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

Andrew Garfield has the opportunity to do the funniest thing

Culture Crave 🍿 @culturecrave.co · 1d

Andrew Garfield on if he’s returning as Spider-Man in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’

“No, unequivocally, fucking no"

(via GQ Magazine)

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

your #3 source for absurdist true crime 🔨 @davidgerard.co.uk · 4d

youtube comment

> Lol the timing; I work in IT for a large publishing company - and my god the meetings with microsoft sales team is all AI AI AI COPILOT COPILOT COPILOT.
> I had to flat out tell their VP we're not buying any fucking copilot - whereupon she revealed that the only thing she is being measured on for Q4 is sales of copilot, so if that's off the table the conversation is not interesting. LMAO

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

The funny thing is, in the show they mostly refer to Transmutate as "it", which is still gender neutral

I used "they" because I felt "it" wasn't clear for what I was saying and...that's it

but to these guys, words themselves are inherently Woke (which is bad)

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

anyway, Transmutate is a character that explicitly doesn't conform to typical notions of Transformer aesthetics, and is consistently referred to using genderless pronouns

so if you're crashing out over "they", it's a skill issue my friend

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 1d

it is so easy and fun to piss off these weirdo crybabies

just crying and shitting themselves as soon as they encounter a pronoun they don't like

40:00 dude, eew. you're calling Transmutate a 'they'? Ugh. Not sure what I expected from this video, but not that.

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

honestly it's crazy how many suits think people need to be lectured into doing their jobs easier and faster

if your dumb AI products actually made your employees' work easier, they'd be begging you to let them use it, not the other way around

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

(and of course, machine learning has been in use in filmmaking for years, and that's never what these guys mean

if the type of generative AI they're talking about is actually useful, artists will rush to use it, they don't need to be scolded into it)

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

every available indicator shows that audiences of every kind are overwhelmed with low effort content and sick of it

they're desperate for high effort work, and that's an area where films have a huge advantage because they're all miracles

automating the process more would not increase their appeal

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

when CGI systems created new possibilities for storytelling, artists absolutely rushed to use it. if anything, people had to be reminded the old ways still had value

the fact executives get defensive and insist "AI is here to stay" just telegraphs how much it isn't

Culture Crave 🍿 @culturecrave.co · 2d

Jason Blum says Hollywood should 'embrace AI' and viewers 'don't care if what they’re looking at is AI"

"it’s here to stay. It’s very important to use it ethically and legally, and for studios and guilds to protect the copyright of the artists"

(via Variety)

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

(I am not committing for sure to a Beast Machines video, but it might be fun to post some research here as I explore this)

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

okay, research phase on Beast Machines has begun, and right off the bat, it's SO clear that this show has a ton more flexibility in its animation. scenes with background elements! experimenting with visual style! very cool shit going on here!

these episodes came out the SAME year as Beast Wars S3

Beast Machines screengrab, showing the three Vehicon generals in a kind of airport, with large structures, and rows of planes nearby.

Jetstorm on an anime lines background, with a PIP frame showing an angle of the Maximals he's pursuing

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

nebula hmu

Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

anyway, subscribe to my Patreon patreon.com/LordRavenscr...

creating videos, video essays, and assorted words

patreon.com

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Eric Ravenscraft @lordravenscraft.bsky.social · 2d

I wish I could write something else. I do my best to do the most meaningful version I can, but the truth is, no company will pay for writing unless you at least sometimes do deal posts

it wasn't this way even 10 years ago, but this market has become fully captured

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 2d

twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross

photo of Google News search results for Amazon Prime Day (the second this year)

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