The random thoughts of Stephen Herfst

Simulated Intelligence

2026-06-17T09:54:20.099-07:00

Goddamn, do I hate AI as it is presently defined. The best I could describe it as being is simulated intelligence. Perhaps, to your ear, it sounds like the same thing - but it isn't. The key distinction is that the present systems are simulating intelligence rather than any form of actual intelligence. Perhaps, sometimes, it gets close to a coherent response but that is purely accidental.

At best, the system can regurgitate the content it ~~stole~~ trained upon, but then, what value is AI providing? It's an insult to intelligence that these trillion dollar companies somehow think that this horse and pony show is anything but smoke and mirrors. No one who actually knows how these models works would say they're intelligent. Zero context and zero comprehension is made when it comes to forming their response. Let that sink in:

How the ''''AI'''' system actually works

All that the present AI system does is this: you have a question and then you have a 'golden' response. And then you keep training the model until the system spits out something closely resembling the golden response. For example, you have a question of what's 1 + 1? Then initially the system may spit out dog or Adolf Hitler and slowly it will eventually move towards a number. Maybe it will spit out 3 then 45 then 11 then, finally, it will mostly respond with 2.

Note that I used the word 'mostly' - that's because all that happens is a number of weighted gates are calculated so that you will mostly get 2 but sometimes you may get 'go kill yourself.' Because all those weights are just probabilities rather than guarantees. You cannot guarantee that 2 will be presented for all situations. It has no understanding of what 1 is or what adding 1 to another number is. All it has is its weighted trees and zero comprehension of what it's actually doing. If you want the results from addition to be guaranteed, just use a calculator.

I honestly don't know how all the tech magnates don't realise how fallible the current 'AI solution' is. When the general public is staunchly against AI and those in the know (ahem) know how weak the current solution is, the level of financial collapse caused by these glue-eating CEO's will be catastrophic. It's only the financial circle jerk between the AI leaders which keeps these transparent clothes from falling apart. This all amounts to another Ponzi scheme (cough, crypto, cough) where the rich get richer while the poor somehow still end up paying for it.

No one cares

2026-06-04T06:48:59.287-07:00

When it comes to established franchises, it is becoming increasingly clear that

Whether we're talking about Marvel, X-Men, Fant-four-stick, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Halo, Call of Duty and so on. No one cares. Perhaps each of these franchises has metaphorically been milked to a point of the well running dry - or that complacency has set in. The result is that their consumption numbers are a shadow of their highest peaks.

The new Mandrake and Grok is poised to possibly break even if they're lucky (NOTE: to break even, it's (budget + marketing) * 2 ... although it should be closer to 2.5 if we're being honest). Whereas low-budget upstarts like The Backrooms, Obsession, and Iron Lung have made back (at minimum) 10 times their money back.

It's heartening to see brand new worlds being embraced by audiences while they show a palpable apathy towards established franchises. To add to this, these new films are being sourced from YouTube talents, much to the chagrin of the old guard of Hollywood. I, personally, welcome this. I have watched many movies over many decades and I have had zero desires to see anything from Hollywood in a very long time. Perhaps aspiring YouTube filmmakers are the catalyst for a new era of Hollywood, where demographics and focus groups give way to people who simply want to tell a compelling story.

I feel like it's obvious that the audience for modern filmmaking is dying. They're far too focused on agendas, representation, PG ratings and PC sensibilities that they've lost sight of what cinema is all about. We do not need to be preached to. We need to be told a story that doesn't play it safe; nor spoonfeed their plot points many times (AKA the Netflix formula) just because we're living through the ADD generation. If the film respects the viewer, those who actually wish to be entertained will respond positively.

And so they have. I would never have thought that YouTube would be the savior of (Western) Cinema but they do look like they're poised to do just that. Now, all we need is, perish the thought, for Steezy Grossman to make his Hollywood debut as the next Jackass. I kid, I kid; he is such a talentless hack. If he makes it in Hollywood, then he is the four horsemen and end times are nigh.

Humanity is circling around the drain

2025-12-17T05:47:00.000-08:00

Good god, is the world taking the fun out of existing. Everything is getting enshittified and (apparently) we can't do anything about it. Whether it's AI getting force-fed down our throats, to the anonymity of the internet being threatened, to stupid articles being pay-walled (perhaps they see the irony), I'm getting tired of being forced to find ways to get what was promised to me when the internet first began.

Back in the halcyon days of 28.8bps modems and venerated search engines going by the name of Yahoo (which kids would nowadays say ya who?), we had the altruistic view that information would always be free and search engines would, shock horror, actually aim to improve their technology to find the best results. And all was good in the world. We had people writing blogs (how old-fashioned), we had geocities, we had myspace, we even had murmerings of a new upstart going by the name of google which was promising an even better experience than the much vaunted Yahoo. And so, we accepted this new upstart and we accepted The Facebook and we accepted Instagram and we accepted ... and so on.

Flash-forward to today, and everything is commoditised, every internet activity is tracked, and every single ad is tailored. All our activities have become opaque to the data pillaging from corporate and, seemingly, we're unable to do anything about it. Firefox just announced that it's going to become an AI browser, Microsoft also announced that Windows is going to become agentic, and I have just announced that I would have to be catatonic if I were to accept that.

I have taken a few steps to sidestepping this. I am Technology, so I do have choices. The first choice is operating systems.

I have installed Linux Mint

All my hardware was automatically detected and works flawlessly
It also came preinstalled with Libre Office (Microsoft Office facsimile)
I installed Lutris / Steam / Heroic for my gaming needs
I installed gitcola for my git repo needs
I installed Unreal Engine for my game dev needs
I installed Winboat (alongside a fully neutered and containered Win11 VM) that handles any must-have Windows needs
Prior to Mozilla's announcement, I was using Firefox - now, I'm leaning towards LibreWolf (a forked privacy-focussed Firefox)
I also installed Waterfox on my android, which is (surprise, surprise) a privacy-focussed fork of Firefox

I will also install a Pi-hole internet proxy which will block even my TV from presenting ads to me
I am vengeance

Now, this may seem quite daunting for the average user but, outside of Winboat having a few challenges, I would say the switch was pretty easy. Most linux distros (i.e. variants of linux) come with a package manager. Think of it like Steam, where you pick and choose what software you want to install ... and it just installs ... and it's also free.

If this isn't the (pending) year of Linux, I don't know when it could possibly be as, for me, I've had a far better and easier experience than anything Windows is doing right now. I have always wanted an alternative to Microsoft's stranglehold and, thankfully, Microsoft has bitten my hand one too many times for me to let it slide. I've now taken this metaphorical mangey mutt out the back and finally put it to rest.

Although, perhaps not all is lost. There is still at least one plucky billion-dollar company which seemingly still fights for the people. Valve (the people behind Steam) have also announced a new Steam box and VR system which will all run native linux and provide a console/VR experience that even Grandma can use. And the best part is these systems will just be PC's so you can even install Windows if you like. You own the hardware. We may be at the end times for corporate, but Valve may have provided a glimmer of a future worth sticking around for.

When I became a man, I put away childish things

2025-10-09T04:41:00.000-07:00

Oh, what it is to be an adult. We are expected to be responsible, we're expected to be predictable, we're expected to be ... boring. I don't understand this mindset. Why is playful and unadulterated enjoyment something limited to being a child? When was using your imagination to create a fort out of towels and clothes pegs deemed unfit for adult consumption? I would argue that it isn't - even if you may come across a little Peter Pan in the process.

Perhaps there are limits to how childish you can be but there's something to be said about unnecessarily gatekeeping what you allow yourself to do. Heck, billionaires are living out their childhoods while plundering undersea treasures, building rockets, building penis rockets, and making cars do rocket jumps. Perhaps, only once you've got a few billion in your pocket, can you be allowed to be a child once more ... but I digress.

Which brings me to my latest point. I am bored of adult movies (not that kind, you dirty, dirty person.) Perhaps I should qualify: I'm bored of Western media, as it's usually padded with healthy smatterings of pandering, representation, agendas, spectacle ... oh, and, perhaps a competent story (once you've jumped through all the mandatory hoops enforced by minority groups.) It tires me. Which is why I have turned to non-western media and, shock horror, children's programs for my entertainment. I should qualify that children's programs don't get a carte blanche - you do still need to thin the herd.

To list a few recent children's shows which were far more enjoyable than they had any right to be: Sonic 2, KPop Demon Hunters ... and Blue's Clues: the movie.

Goddamn it, Blue's Clues. How you be so goddamn entertaining?

I hate musicals, I didn't watch old Blue (too old); and yet, this was a damn good time. It was fast, it was bright, it had energy and, even if the story was less than highbrow, I was entertained. There were member berries but they were added tastefully. I know that KPop Demon Hunters is the darling of the moment (and also a musical) but I would also say that Blues Clues surpasses it. It was a breath of fresh air to simply have a show simply be fun. After watching these films I came to the realisation that modern cinema has fallen. Very hard. It has lost what made it great. It has focused far too much on spectacle and messaging and forgotten about the whole purpose of its existence: to entertain.

And, yes, I was entertained - just not by modern western adult cinema.

AI slop till you drop

2025-08-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

It may come as a small surprise to some of you that I, an Information Technology savant (perhaps), would be unwilling to accept teh new hotness which is AI.

How is it that you work in IT, and yet, you're unwilling to accept the inevitability of AI being force-fed into every aspect of your life? Don't you know AI can emulate your voice, likeness, and show you the sex life you wish you were having (via deep fakes)?

No, I do not want AI to paint me like one its French girls; nor do I want it to create a movie based upon a one-sentence prompt; nor do I want it to generate a track of Michael Jackson doing Gangster Rap; nor do I want it to write a track in the style of Eminem; nor do I want a chatbot in the style of Marilyn Monroe.

I do not want it to be creative.

And yet, that is, perhaps, its biggest draw card. It is only as good as the resources at its disposal, and that, my friends, is where things get a little sticky. For we are the resource. Everything which is accessible on the internet has either been legally or illegally scraped for their AI models. Even this blog could easily be used to generate a surly and apathetic perspective of humanity ... but I digress.

Perhaps, if the breadth of its current uses were limited to generating things I despise, perhaps the rest of the world could live with that. But, no, its use is far more nefarious than merely exuming and forcing dead creatives to do the latest in tiktok dances on a whim. The amount of energy used by AI dwarfs the comparative toe-dip of crypto - especially as every glue-eating CEO wants to get in on the latest in tech bubble schtick and is pushing AI into every crevice of your devices.

At this point, I'm through caring about society. They're such complete and utter sociopathic morons that I have given up hope of any of them taking a moment to think, let alone care, about anyone else. Perhaps there are others in this world who feel like me - but not in the seats which matter. The cost to house all the data required by AI has moved into the ExaBytes (billion GigaBytes); the energy required to train these models requires Terawatts (more than 1.21 gigawatts) and, as usage increases, signficantly more than before the 'AI age.'

To make matters worse, AI is not particularly intelligent. It's just a heuristic model which uses weighted gates to determine its next choice. It really is very stupid. The fact that you get anything coherent out of it at all is probably the more impressive aspect of it all. But, as they say, if you throw enough monkeys at the problem, eventually you get Shakespeare. Or at least some kind of facsimile.

A game derived of questions

2025-05-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

So, I just played through Deliver At All Costs and I'm not a fan. But, first, the premise: the game is based in an alternate reality world set in the 50's where the main protagonist is some kind of a genius but is unable to make rent, and so, he becomes a delivery man for We Deliver. Oh, and, the environment is highly destructible.

Perhaps not the strangest of premises ... but, I do have a few questions.

Who is this for?

I would think that the skibidi generation wouldn't be particularly interested in reliving the 50's so this small misstep would probably be enough to swipe left. And then the 50's survivors would all be in their eighties at this stage and I doubt they're still gaming. Especially when they've got important things to do like trying to remember their wives' names.

Why is the tone so inconsistent?

Almost everything in this world can be destroyed and demolished - including buildings. This, combined with 'hilarious' ads on the radio gives that aspect of the game a lighthearted tone. Then you have the cutscenes which are played straight. Then you have the UFO's ... and then you have the time travel + macguffin subplot which makes no sense at all. The game starts with almost no fanfare - and plenty of cutscenes. When we finally do get control, it begins with walking around your apartment, getting dressed and reading plans. As introductions go, this is probably the worst. Only my memory of the trailer kept me from quitting right there. Also, whenever you destroy a cash box, the guy shouts out cha-ching! or Dollar Bills! which is jarring, considering the era this is set in.

Why does it have no tension?

It's super weird that there was absolutely no penalty for dying, failing a mission, or being arrested by cops. Nothing. Zero. Nada. We didn't lose one peso in any of these exchanges and, outside of a small amount of backtracking, it makes all missions merely a mild inconvenience.

In summary, I think the game did have a kernel of good but far too many strange decisions to actually be deemed good. Now, if I were to design this game, I would

Change it to a modern setting (for monetary reasons)
Build the game around showcasing this destruction and keep the filler (i.e. plot) in the background.
Lose the forced isometric camera and employ a better layout with better navigation markers.
Make the story (if any) play out in an irreverent tone which could simply be used to facilitate this playground of destruction. To that point, I'd lean on the design choices in Saints Row series as the blueprint. That is, there would be main story missions but plenty of pointless and fun mini games just played out for laughs.
Focus on delivery as the games' subsystem. It seems strange to say this, but the delivery aspect in this game took kind of a backseat. Yes, you're delivering things but most of those things are ridiculous like e.g. atomic bombs but if you had a more nuanced delivery management system, it would provide greater depth to the game

And that's about it. As it currently stands, this game is heavily flawed and gets lost in the cutscenes. In the end, I was skipping most of them just because they were poorly written, animated and did little for my enjoyment of the game.

The general public is wrong*

2025-05-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

So, I recently watched Deadpool and Wolverine ... alongside Spider-man home #3 (AKA No way home) and neither one impressed me. Off topic: I can't be the only one who has to google the 'home name' each time since I can never remember which one Homecoming, No Way Home or Far from Home is in the sequence of the Spider-man movies.

But, to get back to the point of this post, the reason that I'm singling out those two movies is because both of them made over a billion (gross) at the cinema and both of them are terrible movies *in my opinion. Both leaned into member berries and cameos and both had a pointless plot and characters I did not care one iota about. Maybe I'm getting too old for this ish but I was bored in both of these movies and the constant quips made any stakes in the plot seem more like a mild inconvenience than any actual threat.

In Deadpool 3 I have more of a bitter taste watching this - especially once you understand the context around one of his (ugh) multiverse Deadpools: Nice Pool. Apparently, the inspiration behind Nice Pool was Justin Baldoni and was due to the ugly goings on in the (never been a particularly good actor) wife's project: It Ends With Us. For context, the director-actor, Justin Baldoni, had been shopping his script around hollywood for many years without much success. And then he had a break, with the ancillary fame of Ryan Reynolds' wife (AKA Blake Lively), he finally got it off the ground.

But it came with a catch.

Blake had somehow weasled out producer credits on the film and begun by redesigning her characters style (dress design credits), attempting to rewrite the story (writing credits), and attempting to master the final cut (editing credits). Naturally, Baldoni did not like this and pushed back in a number of areas during the production - and only when they had an 'edit off' (i.e. both her and the director submitted a final edited version of the film), which the Director won, did things calm down. But then the real drama came, as the mutton-dressed-as-lamb Blake Lively claimed improper behaviour by Baldoni and played the #metoo card to get her way. This caused problems for Baldoni, with his talent agency dropping him but, fortunately (or possibly intelligently), the Director (and crew) had kept detailed records of all the conversations, emails and videos corroborating his story and also painting old Lively in a much less favourable light. They're currently in the process of a lawsuit which Baldoni will more than likely win ... but even with a victory, I don't think either party will come out of this smelling like roses.

That's all to say that when it came time to create Wolverine, Reynolds was still holding a grudge, so he created a vegan Deadpool which was used to ridicule and insult (albeit indirectly) Baldoni. Perhaps if the writing was funny and tightly edited, I'd give it a pass - but it wasn't. This was just mean spirited (once you understand the context) and even old Canada boy came out of it looking less than the stereotypical picture of niceness. I have a feeling that the general public will very soon turn on Reynolds and Lively and I don't think I'll feel particularly sad when they do. Honestly, I'm surprised in the success of both movies although I'm also not surprised in the success. These movies are the kind of swill that pigs love but, for me, I prefer to have a little nuance, thought, and pacing to what is forced down my throat.

Who am I kidding? You ain't doing it right unless you're sloppin' the joe.

Knowing when to fold em: Rocket League edition

2025-01-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

I have never enjoyed watching or playing football (i.e. the one with the round ball that you mostly use your feet to hit) - and yet I was determined to endure the steep learning curve and torment from my teammates to git gud. The game in question? Rocket League: a game where you control a rocket-propelled car to hit an oversized football.

And all was good in the game for many years under the watchful gaze of Psyonix. That was, until, the siren call of Epic drew in this drunken sailor to its inevitable slumber under the sea. The cracks weren't immediately apparent, but we all knew where it was going. Fast-forward to today and the community has hemorrhaged to a husk of what it was, with the only one's left either being trolls, smurfs (i.e. good players playing with new accounts against lower ranks), or boosted (high-ranked accounts sold to bad players).

After over two thousand hours, I'm done. Yes, there are still good games from time-to-time but, most of the time, there aren't. Because I solo queue (i.e. don't team up), I'm at the mercy of the players Rocket League chooses to assign me. Most of the time I get players who don't know how to rotate (i.e. if you're done, you get back into a defensive position), score goals (I keep centering balls with no one in position) or instantly troll because they don't understand that it was their fault that the goal went in our net in the first place.

Perhaps most of what I just wrote won't mean a lick of sense to most of you but the points remain. Epic does not care about Rocket League. I think they were simply bought with the intent of farming new players into Fortnite and not to actually try to make Rocket League better. When that ploy failed to work, they're cutting their losses and letting it die. And so, I say adieu to you, Rocket League. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Realizing your dreams (while saving a few pennies)

2024-12-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

For those who of you who know me, you will know that I've always appreciated quality over quantity. But that doesn't mean that I am willing to chase the dragon on diminishing returns. To that end, I've decided to dip my toes back into the world of audiophilic sound systems. Earlier in my life I had a very nice (and expensive) system that was definitely overkill ... but I loved it. Unfortunately, I had to let it go when I moved to the US.

Now, almost 13 years later, I'm in a position to plant roots, and so, I decided to upgrade from a compromised soundbar to something far more substantial. The best part of this was that I could build the perfect sound system by frankensteining a relatively understated array of parts into something rivaling the upper-most tiers for audio nirvana. Not even 5 years ago, I would have to have spent well over 2000 (USD equivalent) to get something which would not even be on parity with the system I have now. It is astounding how much hardware and software has evolved.

Here is the build:

WiiM Ultra - a multi-source streamer with HDMI eArc and a vast array of inputs, including phono!
SMSL SU-9N - this is a DAC (digital to analog convertor) which has astounding sound floors, clarity, voice separation, and staging and can support up to 32bit/768KHz playback
Aiyima A70 - this has a 116dB SNR and can output 300 watts @ 0.0015% distortion ... per channel!
Wharfdale Evo 4.2 - 87dB sensitivity @ 4 Ohms and 45Hz-22KHz range

This is audio nirvana and I can categorically state that there is no integrated amp that has better specs - at any price. Now, even though the cost of these components end up totalling a little more than your standard midrange soundbar, if you were to budget the cost over 10 years the difference would be negligible. I would challenge every household to invest in a quality soundsystem - especially one as versatile as this one, as the enjoyment you will get from this well outweighs the additional cost.

With these four components, I'm able to chromecast, play tidal/pandora/amazon music/spotify, auto-switch inputs automatically, have integrated Alexa, control all these elements through my phone, remote, and touchscreen (built into the WiiM) - and have room correction, preamp, integrated EQ. The end result is a system that has (I have to admit) brought a few tears to my eye, as it surpassed my expectations with its soundstage, power, accuracy, and clarity. If you appreciate good audio then these components should be something to be considered. The beauty of this is you can inch towards audio nirvana as the WiiM also is a fully fledged amplifier in itself.

Side note: I was one of the first to purchase the WiiM Ultra when it was released (about a month ago) and, as with any new hardware, it had a few teething problems. Audio playback was perfect but the HDMI eArc had issues. I reported this issue to WiiM and they sent out a replacement model (with the revised hardware fix) free of charge. Now, *that* is customer service.

Thank goodness for men's intuition

2024-11-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

I would like to preface that I'm attempting to popularise Men's intuition, much to the chagrin of my partner, as I believe that women shouldn't be the only purveyors of intuition ... but I digress. Just over a year ago we migrated to France, as I felt like America wasn't progressing the way I wanted things to be moving. And, given today's sad news, it has reinforced the correctness of our choice.

You would think that in a time when common sense things like women's rights, gay rights and such had been sorted out many years ago, certain people wouldn't be looking to revoke those hard-fought wins once again. Well, apparently, many states in the US did not think so. Would you believe that not that long ago, Iraq was once a far more egalitarian society with women allowed to wear things other than full-length burkas? Fast forward a few years and societies such as that quickly moved to a draconian religion-lead existence where things such as robots had more of a right to drive than any woman.

Iraq, Baghdad in the 60's

It's funny to think what war and opposing fundamentalist religions can do to a country - and it looks like a similar approach may be taking place in the US right now. Perhaps, for the powers that be, this allows a better means of controlling the masses by returning them to an age where if you're not with us you're against us. Nothing ever is as clear-cut but a women's right to sufficient medical support should be something that no one could possibly object to, right? Apparently not.

And you would think that having a comparatively young, intelligent, felon-free, educated and well-spoken woman representing the American people would be an excellent choice in comparison to the felony-indicted cesspool of humanity who already incited one coup. Apparently I'm the one taking crazy pills, as the American people said, You know what? I like the cut of that senile oompa loompa's jib. He's got my vote.

This disappoints me - but at least we got out before it completes the inevitable transition into a banana republic. Although, perhaps, an orange republic is more fitting given the shade of his skin.

In the pursuit of diminishing returns

2024-05-14T03:32:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing. We all want the best but, to reach that pinnacle, you need to push every envelope to its limit to even come within spitting distance of that unreachable goal. Case in point: the present top-of-the-line graphics card from Nvidia, the 4090, costs a baseline retail price of USD 1600, with the next in line being a paltry USD 1200. I built my whole computer for less than the price of one of those graphics cards. Alongside this, the 4090 ends up drawing over 400W and taking three slots on your computer. That's also about the power draw of my whole system. That is truly insane - but apparently people are still willing to buy it. But I will never be one of those people - let me explain.

My general rule is that if the next tier of 'thing' is 20% better but 50% more expensive, I'll generally pass on taking up that offer. This holds true for everything I've bought in my life. I purchased a very good 55" HDR Variable-refresh rate 4K LCD for $600. I could buy an OLED or Quantum dot TV - but that would be over 70% more expensive while being only subjectively better (or perhaps objectively better, with OLED black levels). This is the same thing for the set of headphones I purchased. They're wired and bluetooth enabled and only cost $35. They're sealed cans, look pretty spiffy, have excellent staging and clarity and, I would argue, that between this and 'studio' headphones, the difference is perhaps no more than 20% while being a small fraction of the cost of one of them (they're generally well over $500).

If you follow that one simple rule of diminishing returns, you can save yourself a lot of money and be content in experiencing 80% of the best while only spending 20% of the fare. Every generation of technology is pushing the needle higher so why not benefit? I used to drive a Fiat Abarth which I bought for $8K - a conservatively fast car by today's standards. Now, those same performance numbers if you pushed back to the 1980's results in you driving the equivalent of Magnum PI's Ferrari. Now, that is progress I can get behind, my friends.

double whammy: the boys and invincible

2024-04-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

Now that most of you have finally come to the realisation that Super hero movies aren't all that, you look to fill the void left by not watching the next Marvel movie. And this is where The Boys and Invincible fit in, as they are super hero movies but they subvert expectation - except I don't feel like this solves the problem.

The main problem with both of these TV Series is that they end up asking the exact same question:

What if you had Superman - but he was bad?

Now, this conundrum is all well and good to mull over for a few minutes but when it comes time to draw out a multi-hour, multi-season runtime, I'm not sure we really care about the answer. In both series we ramp up the gore and show the results from unbridled super powers. That may be fun for a moment but then we need filler to pad out the runtime until the next sadistic expression of bad taste is realised.

I would say that both TV series are best watched solely for the first season. Whereas The Boys focuses their time on following a rebellion against 'Supes', Invincible focuses on what possible reason 'Superman' would kill all the other super heroes in the first episode. Both make for compelling watching, as we know that the rebellion will need to use their wits to get through their battles whereas Invincible focuses on the lengths Omni-man (AKA Superman) will take to avoid being discovered.

And then, due to the success, Season 2 (etc.) was made

This is when both series fall down. You cannot continue a story once the novelty of the question has worn off. This is when they are inevitably forced to start padding out the story with more characters, more less-compelling questions and *snore* relationships and double-crosses. I would argue that both stories would be significantly better if they had concluded by the end of the first season, although, I would say that The Boys fared slightly better than Invincible, as they did have better writing and performances. I'm pretty sure JK Simmons read his lines while driving to the supermarket whereas Karl Urban maintained his intensity - but both subsequent seasons were incredibly pointless.

The Boys just leans into shock value with puerile examples like:

Mini dude kills his boyfriend by sneezing on cocaine while inside his colon
Mini chick needs to puke (i.e. bulimia) to get small and then plays with her boyfriends' (now) giant dong
Superman has a mommy fetish
Some bad dude has a tentacle porn extendo dick

Invincible just bores you to death with stupid conundrums like:

Can't maintain superhero persona and school life (snoooorrrre)
Can't maintain superhero persona and girlfriend (uggggghhhh)
Invincible kills a bad dude who was trying to kill his family - and then feels really bad
(move over, mini chick)
90% of the season does not actually progress the plot

The Boys does at least have an underlying plot for each season but still has plenty of padding - especially with can't-be-killed Kimiko and pansy-ass French dude - but at least they curtail their padding to a mere 70% of the runtime.

In conclusion, I don't have a satisfactory conclusion which doesn't end up leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Both series would have been better as a one-page answer to the initial question than something which should be scrutinised over multiple seasons. The one thing I can say is that we perhaps need to move back to a world where story is front-and-center. We have exhausted all things super at this point - subversion or naught - we cannot continue forwards with this futile effort just because in prior years we had found success. Spectacle means nothing if we all know that it's not real. Jackie Chan falling off a building has far more gravitas than knocking a superhero through a planet. We have all become desensitised when it comes to the fantastical whereas good storytelling remains as compelling as the day it was first invented.