may (@maysuser.name)

maysuser.nameA Boymoder's Guide to Becoming a Confident WomanOr: How to transition backwards

12 June

no one wants unsolicited transition advice, but as a girl who had no idea where to start and needed years to feel confident enough to just be a woman, here's everything I wish I knew going in maysuser.name/posts/boymode

now

as much as i nitpick the presentation in most of Square's HD-2D games as an artstyle it's admittedly leagues better than what every other mid-budget JRPG is doing

oh god i still need to figure out an outfit for the olivia concert next weekend

anyway,

Picross S++ has been shut down

may@maysuser.name

Picross S++ will be going down within the hour

10m

i'm sorry for bringing all of you on this wild ride with me, and especially sorry to anyone who felt deceived or betrayed by this project. i hope i can make it up to you in the future

21m

Picross S++ will be going down within the hour

may@maysuser.name

Having slept on it, the current plan is that Picross S++ will be (at least temporarily) taken down on Friday

i do appreciate you all letting me be truly the most annoying woman in the world about this btw, i fully understand that writing a 3,000 word essay and posting through my guilt is the most annoying shit possible

Having slept on it, the current plan is that Picross S++ will be (at least temporarily) taken down on Friday

at some point I plan on releasing a new version of the game as an open source project, that comes with puzzles from the demo versions of each game by default and the ability to extract additional puzzle data from each game's ROM, but this will likely take some time and I have other projects first

if you've been enjoying the site, i'm sorry. but ultimately i want to release a version of the game that i'm not conflicted about, and one that the people who play the game aren't either.

11h

I do hope that my previous stances on AI don't come off as too hypocritical

12h

if i took down the picross game would you hate me

maysuser.nameHow AI Ruined Picross S++: A RetrospectiveMaking a game that cannot be unmade

12h

I promise that this will be the last thing I say about Picross S++ and AI, at least for now. I've learned a lot making this project, and here's how it all came together and where it fell apart: maysuser.name/posts/picros...

anyway, sorry

if you still enjoy the site after this, I'm happy you do! i still stand by the rest of the work put into it, and I'm glad that I couldn't ruin it for you. If you can't, I'm sorry and I totally understand it. Ultimately it's not my place to tell you how to feel about any of this

i do have more thoughts on this that i'll write up at some point in a larger retrospective on the whole project, but I wanted to get something out now instead of waiting

re:picross s++ using ai, apologies in advance for being self indulgent but i do think that trying to use these tools in specific ways has largely convinced me that they shouldn't be used at all

I'm ultimately still proud of what I've made and think that there was a lot more thought, care, and effort put into the project than the legions of AI slop recomps flooding the internet. But ultimately there will always be an asterisk next to it now, and I'm both deeply sorry and regretful about it

at least for now the site will continue to exist, and any updates going forward won't use any AI. I don't plan on using AI for any projects going forward. Ultimately, these tools are anti-human, and I hope this can serve as an example of why you should never use them

re:picross s++ using ai, apologies in advance for being self indulgent but i do think that trying to use these tools in specific ways has largely convinced me that they shouldn't be used at all

I don't like what AI has done to the software ecosystem and the incentive structures it creates, and had I intended on sharing Picross S++ from the start I would not have used it. had i made it again today, I wouldn't have regardless

all things considered, I'm honestly not sure what to do with the site. because it exists now, and I can't really make it unexist. Even if I take it down, the fact that it was ever up will have an impact on other projects attempting the same thing. Should I just remake it without AI? Maybe

re:picross s++ using ai, apologies in advance for being self indulgent but i do think that trying to use these tools in specific ways has largely convinced me that they shouldn't be used at all

for something like locating data in a ROM, it's relatively easy to verify that the data is what you were looking for. and on some level i do want to believe that there's value to be found in these models when used in those specific contexts, which is why I'd been okay with using them

but having done so—and having found results in doing so—that honestly still feels like a bit of a cop out! because the only way to draw a hard line in terms of what AI output can and can't be trusted is to not use it at all

re:picross s++ using ai, apologies in advance for being self indulgent but i do think that trying to use these tools in specific ways has largely convinced me that they shouldn't be used at all

i'm going to ignore the ethics question for a minute but if we try to look at these models as tools, the big issue is of course trust

so it turns out i'm really terrible at staying off the app

i forgot that bluesky literally overrides my phone's do not disturb because i thought it'd be funny

as much as i enjoy making browser-based games i can't say that i don't completely hate having to design interfaces that work on virtually any screen size and aspect ratio combination

i think i caught up on most of my notifs? anyway i really do have to call it now

picross grey screen issue should be fixed now! should work on a page reload

honestly the amount of attention that the picross site has been getting is really stressful and there's a part of me that just wants to pull it down

local models were also used to help with extracting puzzle data (mostly in terms of locating data) and writing test cases. meant to write up a proper disclosure, but absolutely did not expect this to blow up the way it has

anyway, once this fix is in that's it from me for now

honestly the amount of attention that the picross site has been getting is really stressful and there's a part of me that just wants to pull it down

at no point did i ever really expect that this would move beyond my immediate circles and i'm incredibly appreciative of the fact that it has but i'm also incredibly unprepared to handle it

looking into the grey screen issue and that's probably going to be it on the site for me today. quick AI disclosure: using a local AI model to identify the issue and likely will for debugging going forward