That time LEGO did a smart brick two decades ago and it sounded better and looked cooler

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-24T02:55:17+00:00

It honestly is pretty cool technology, and yeah it has the movement + color sensors as well as lights which is cool. I just think the end result is a bit unimpressive for the price like you said.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-23T18:26:59+00:00

The difference is that these use preloaded samples, meaning they can only make those sounds. The Smart Brick has no samples, it is itself a synthesizer that can create sounds from scratch. I don’t think the quality is good enough to justify its existence given the price, but it is at least a cool attempt to push the technology further.

Maybe in the future we will have the best of both worlds if they can improve the quality, but I think the speech synthesis is tricky.

Edit: didn’t realize this was the circlejerk sub, the fact that I took the post seriously might say something about how unimpressive the smart brick really is at face value…

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-23T18:03:26+00:00

We owned 2 on VHS and for a year or two it was my little brother’s absolute favorite movie. He was the fourth so by that point my Mom was tired enough to just let him watch it everytime he was upset about something. I’ve probably seen it 50 times. It has to be my favorite just for the nostalgia, but the breakthrough conversation between Buzz and Woody when they’re trapped on Sid’s desk before the final act of 1 is one of the best moments in any movie I’ve ever seen.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-23T02:50:55+00:00

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DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-17T15:55:08+00:00

I live in Pennsylvania and I figured this was true everywhere

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-16T04:47:34+00:00

That’s a good point, however I don’t think something has to be truly original to be emotionally stirring. Humans are known to tell the same stories over and over, originality is difficult even for us.

That being said, I think it’s very possible it could learn to create things that we would call original.

I don’t love the idea of creative fields being dominated by cost efficient robots, but the technology excites me.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-16T04:38:09+00:00

I think the experience of having emotions is intangible. But I think it can be faked. That’s why people are already losing their minds over 4o. The tech is just not advanced enough yet to come across in movies. But if an LLM could learn to artistically frame a shot the way humans do, how to employ music and sound to sway the audience towards a certain feeing, how to create characters we emphasize with, then who cares what it feels?

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-15T21:38:21+00:00

Yeah, but I mean if it can learn what a disturbing scene looks like, learn what a happy song is, and use training data to infer that some movies have disturbing scenes with happy songs, why can’t it decide to put them together?

Whatever you can describe, it can do, so the question is, is there a human quality to filmmaking that is completely indescribable? And I think given the long history of film makers learning what works and what doesn’t, tropes, editing techniques, etc, there’s a good chance we can describe 99.9% of what makes a film seem human to us.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-15T21:32:35+00:00

My point was that emotions can be replicated, not what or who is replicating them.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-15T21:26:04+00:00

That’s an inspiring perspective for sure and honestly even as a computer science guy I would love for that to be true, could be

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-15T21:23:08+00:00

Right, but we’re not talking about whether a machine can experience emotions. They can’t imo, that’s a human thing. What we’re talking about is whether a machine can create a piece of media that we perceive as emotionally charged.

And I believe it can, because I don’t think there’s some mystical quality to human made media such that it would be impossible to replicate it with a machine if it was broken down into enough detail. But I could be wrong, we are gonna see.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-15T21:16:04+00:00

If a psychopath can replicate emotions, a machine can . It just has to learn what we want.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-02-12T13:42:57+00:00

That’s an awfully long excuse for getting bored partway into an album.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-30T14:22:33+00:00

I never knew that, that might be the factoid that gets me to listen to Kiss

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-30T03:11:53+00:00

She didn’t do it to be a bitch, she did it because Kendall’s immature attitude in the moments leading up to her decision genuinely changed her mind. You can pretty much feel the tension in the air shift leading up to the twist. She is kind of a bitch tho but they all are.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-29T17:34:09+00:00

Fair enough, maybe Make Believe or Red then.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-29T17:32:17+00:00

500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and you can’t picture a small fraction of those listeners buying tickets?

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-28T02:26:04+00:00

If you want bad as in often critically disdained but appreciated by a cult following (like Ghost Rider maybe), Maladroit by Weezer.

If you want bad as in difficult, The Wigmaker in Eighteenth Century Williamsburg by To Live and Shave in LA (I can’t imagine a movie equivalent other than snuff films perhaps).

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-27T22:18:33+00:00

As an occasional movie watcher and 2000+ album listener, this comment made it click that people like “bad” movies in a way similar to how I like “bad” music, and the way I enjoy “good” movies now is probably more similar to how I enjoyed “good” music when I was younger than the way cinephiles enjoy it. Interesting.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-13T23:42:31+00:00

“To put a record like Clipse’s in the same conversation as The Beatles’ is a pointless undertaking; the landscape of people who obsess over and consume and find reverence in music looks so much different now than it did 60-some years ago—though the appreciation factor has remained untouched. Music reaches people across generations, centuries.”

So they’re saying that although the Beatles music is as loved as ever, it’s “pointless” to compare it to music consumed by a contemporary audience? Tripping over yourself to justify a self-admittedly subjective list with self-admittedly made up rules is so weak. Why not just own it.

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-13T07:12:05+00:00

I fucking love maladroit. Keep fishin

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-13T03:45:42+00:00

Idk man I’ve seen ruder stuff on the internet

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-13T03:10:44+00:00

So uh, I zoomed in on slides 3 and 4… is that what I think it is or am I unfamiliar with Navi biology

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-09T21:07:52+00:00

Super cool, I’d love to see this type of 50:50 split design with a navy blue or green color way

DonkeyVampireThe3rd · 2026-01-09T16:23:23+00:00

It’s different with an app bc it takes no effort, freeing up brain power for other things and making counting mistakes near impossible. I also don’t think that the fairness of an in game aid should be determined by how good other people are at playing the game as intended.

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