Exactly, they aren't good at creating new material. But many discussions in comment section are simply regurgitations of existing material, which they are good at rearranging. New novel discussions in places like this are actually a very rare thing, as many comment sections are simply people who already know informing those who don't. I'm doing that right now, funnily enough.
No, they aren't even good at rearranging existing material. They produce bad writing that only superficially looks good in a lowest-common-denominator sense, and falls apart under any close examination. Everything is wrong with it, from the sentence structure to the rhetorical forms to the substance. AI 'writing' is a loose collection of cheap tricks that score well on A/B.
Texture resolution and shadow resolution do a lot to make a game look better. The big difference between the PlayStation 2 and 3 was the massive jump in texture resolution, shadow resolution and model polygon count. Play Gran Turismo 5 and go look at one of the cars imported from Gran Turismo 4 for a good example. However the PlayStation 2 was capable of some very high polygon count models, as evidenced by Lulu's cutscene model from Final Fantasy X that rivals most PlayStation 3 player models in detail. Those resolution upgrades, the number of objects and not just polygons displayable on screen, and the increase in distance required for low-poly LOD models all made that giant leap possible and very visible. Since then it's mostly been adding camera effects such as depth of field and ambient occlusion that are much less noticeable. Though for those with keen eyes, only in the current generation are there textures without noticeable anti-aliasing effects which came as a result of being able to split the UVs thanks to a higher resolution making small UV faces possible.
Look at Nissan. Their CVTs are known to have an effective life of about 60,000 miles. Anything beyond that is betting against the reaper. Because of the way the transmission is mated to the engine (in order to reduce the overall size) most times the cost to replace it costs more than the car is worth. Many times insurance will total a seven or eight year old Rogue or Altima if the CVT needs replaced. This is because Nissans depreciate in value so quickly, and it's somewhat of an ouroboros in that they depreciate in value so quickly because of the short lifetimes of the CVTs.
Meanwhile Mitsubishi has been suffering issues with their AWD systems failing, and because the Eclipse Cross and Outlander Sport are sold primarily as AWD that affects a majority of their sales.
Ford's had the issue with the dual-clutch automatics failing on the Focus, Fiesta, and Escape.
Dodge has... Well, really only the Durango currently that's reliable. The Charger PHEV is having all sorts off issues, from the battery packs overheating to random software glitches to the engine refusing to disengage from the electric portion of the drivetrain. The Hornet's been getting the shit kicked out of it by Kelley Blue Book and Consumer Reports because the transmissions are ripping themselves apart and the BCMs are bricking themselves.
Jeep's had issues with the Cherokee, Wrangler, Gladiator, and Compass because of the Pentastar engine nuking itself before 100,000 miles either by losing too much oil or the water jackets cracking. Meanwhile the differentials in the Wrangler and Gladiator have had problems that Stellantis denies.
Back before about... I'd say 2016? 2017? You had a lot less issues with new cars. Most issues were simple recalls like transmissions slipping out of gear or premature wear on the cams, not something that would entirely junk the car.
The valvetrain and fuel injection systems of any given internal combustion engine vehicle made since the 1980s are far more complex than the voltage controller of an EV drivetrain. The difference is that those mechanical components are in a system that can have multiple minor fail states before ceasing to function and contain far less energy than what's coursing through the voltage controller. The reason EVs are more dangerous currently is because they haven't gone through the decades of regulations and testing needed to provide multiple diagnostics and failsafes the way mechanical components have. That's easily fixed by just giving them a few years and letting people develop folk knowledge they way they did with internal combustion engines. Even now hobbyists are developing new ways to test for unbalanced cells, impedance hotspots, and integrating new monitoring systems that don't require costly proprietary sensors.
Most of this limitation from Ford and GM about their EV drivetrains is because they want control over deployment for monitoring, and so they can cover their asses legally if something like a manufacturing defect becomes widespread.
When you do that you're supposed to classify the vehicle as an OHV, or off-highway vehicle. Problem is a lot of states don't actually do emissions testing, others don't do vehicle status inspection, and some don't do either. You ever wonder why Indiana has such a huge number of drag racing cars in the Prostock and Superstock classes? There's no emissions testing outside the capitol.
Having grown up in Indiana, and having watched a lot of drag racing, and even crewed for a friend drag racing motorcycles, I have not once wondered that, either. I, of course, just assumed it was that way everywhere. “What, your small nowhere town doesn’t have its own drag strip or dirt oval? How odd…”
(And when I say “nowhere”, I mean go look up Bunker Hill, IN as a go-to example. It’s a fine town as far as small towns go, but a long way from any major metro.)
Back when people still watched cable Street Outlaws was Discovery's biggest show for a while. It is an oddly specific thing, but a question I heard a lot about ten years ago. The two places where drag racing are biggest are Oklahoma and Indiana.
Of course, the emissions testing is a state issue. Even the federal regulations say that federal government vehicles have to be tested in the state they are stationed in.
One thing I do not understand is the sheer ridiculousness of the participation rate within the military. As you stated, many of these people in positions of command know exactly what they're violating, be it domestic law, international law, standards of decency, or their own morals. Enough of them seem to disagree with the current directions being given that they could refuse orders and draw down, effectively paralyzing the military with a sizable non-compliant command structure. And if they're all removed from their posts the ensuing chaos would ensure the implosion of the current operation and likely cripple the military for decades. There's a very powerful position these people are in, and they know as much. What's even more important from this entire interaction is that they stand to lose more than they would gain from continuing the war, while they would gain nothing but lose very little if they just stopped and refused. The continuation is actively detrimental to the military because it increases fear of petty or capricious reprisal, reduces trust, makes international cooperation during crises less likely, and pushes foreign militaries away from buying U.S. equipment.
So why continue listening to the order to punch the brick wall and break their knuckles? There's some deeper cultural issue at play here, likely that's been there since Vietnam and only grown over the last sixty years, where refusal of orders even if clearly detrimental is a betrayal of your country and fellow servicemen rather than an exercise in judgement and consideration of consequences.
Runescape as well. Gold farming for membership bonds severely stratified the game's economy and pushed people towards Oldschool Runescape. From the introduction of bonds until 2017 the number of bots raised at a rate unseen since the switchover to the new skilling menu in 2002.
Where I live peaches are rare. It's all pears, oranges, and fruit cocktail. Not joking, there's five different variants of pears on the shelf at the grocery store, from sugar free to light syrup, and from three different brands. Canned plums? Nope. Apples? Nope. Strawberries? Nope. Cherries? Only around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
At the very least I can get all of those fresh and not canned, but honestly I'd prefer having canned versions as well because of all of the import uncertainty that ended up affecting things this past winter.
On the freelance side it's not much better. People who used to hire me back on project after project as a contractor aren't doing that anymore. I don't get replies stating what gaps in my skillset they're concerned about despite them asking me to tell them, I don't get information sent as to what the project entails, most of the time nobody even gets past the bidding process because they never update any contractors bidding on it.
It's been about a year since I've had a big project, and my attempts to slide out of freelancer work and into the mines are all getting shafted. The longer I go without a big project, the more toxic my work history appears. At the same time, I can't find any big projects because either the ones who sent out the contract don't know the skillset needed or just don't post anything externally anymore.
I'm on the very tiny side where projects pay $200 to $300 on completion and take a day or two from acceptance to submission, not triple digit salaries for months long rewrites. The smaller you go the worse it gets.
That's the biggest reason why I stayed on Windows 7 for so long. I could run Blender for two or three days and not give a shit. Meanwhile my friends couldn't even play a game of Factorio without Windows hijacking the computer and rebooting. There was an infamous incident years ago, early in the life of Windows 10, where members of Achievement Hunter lost half of an episode because one of the computers that recorded the audio tracks decided it had to update while they were recording. This has been going on for a decade now and shows no signs of being stopped.
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