AFKBRBChocolate

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Yet another refugee who washed up on the shore after the great Reddit disaster of 2023

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AFKBRBChocolate ,

Bill is a treasure, and Martin Short is so fast.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Jesus Christ, the astronauts aren't stranded. The first manned flight of a new vehicle and there were some issues on the part that gets jettisoned and burned up, so they can't inspect it afterwards. They're trying to analyze it while they have it, and even with the leak they could be to there a month with no issue.

Boeing deserves the bad press they're getting on the planes lately, but this is crap.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Ha! I didn't even notice that.

Starlink, Starship, Starliner... who can keep them straight?

/s

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Apparently he wants everything written in COBOL

AFKBRBChocolate ,

We do a lot of real-time control software, and just yesterday we were taking about how the newer folks are really good at using available tools and libraries, but they have less understanding of what's happening underneath and they have problems when those tools don't/can't do what we need.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Yep, you get it. And it's really hard to get people to understand the value in learning to do that stuff without the tools.

How does generative AI create convincing lighting in images?

I believe lighting plays a very important part in making a scene realistic when it comes to creating one artificially, like in 3D modelling. That is why I also think the lighting of these AI generated images is the prime source of what impresses people about these images since no matter how unrealistic or distorted the subject...

AFKBRBChocolate ,

First, sometimes the lighting is terrible if you look. Like shadows going one way for some objects, another way for others.

But generative AI is generally extrapolating from its training data. It gets lighting right (when it does) because it's processed a giant number of images, and when you tell it you want a picture of a puppy on the beach at sunset, it's got a million pictures of puppies, and a million pictures of things on the beach at sunset. It doesn't know if it's right or not, but it's mimicking those things.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Jesus, is every single Republican lawmaker a complete piece of shit these days? I've often felt like the party that is all about tax cuts for the rich and making sure no one gets a handout attracts a disproportionate number of terrible human beings, but once upon a time I felt like a lot of them were decent, wrong-headed people. Now I'm not sure I can name a single Republican who seems like a decent human being. Maybe Liz Chaney is mostly there? So many are like cartoon villains.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

It's not at all a surprise that some of the earliest MAGA alarmists were Holocaust survivors

AFKBRBChocolate ,

I didn't know what they were and had to look it up

The Bell Riots were an event that took place in San Francisco on Earth in September 2024. They led to the end of the Sanctuary Districts and marked the real beginning of Humans working to find a lasting solution that would resolve social problems. This would set humanity on the path to founding the United Federation of Planets.

Hey, the date is coming up.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

I'm old - there's just so much that has and hasn't happened...

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Seems pretty reasonable to me. It's not 5 comments, it's 5 posts. I'm guessing they're trying to limit spammers and people with an agenda. As I recall, some Lemmy instances either implemented or considered limits on total posts across communities because of spamming.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

At my last upgrade, the new phone asked if I wanted to get stuff from my old phone, then walked me through it. Was a pretty decent amount of data and it didn't take all that long. As i recall, it was Bluetooth, but there was an option to use a cable.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

If what I've read is true, the saddest things about the Shrek movie is that they changed what Fiona was. What I read was that she originally was some other sort of monster, not another ogre - one that Shrek thought was physically unattractive at first. The whole message about a person's insides being what's important loses a lot of impact when Fiona is an attractive version of Shrek's same race/species.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

What's funny is that it literally made my saliva glands go

AFKBRBChocolate ,

I like lemons a lot (we have a huge tree), but don't think I'd eat one like that. But looking at the picture really makes my mouth water because my brain knows how sour biting into that would be.

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

I only know one of the songs in the first and the last one, but Wicked Wedding is great!

AFKBRBChocolate OP , (edited )

That's a good one. There's also an All I Want For Christmas/Welcome to the Black Parade one that works surprisingly well.

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

Excellent!

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

I hadn't heard The Sickness, but can still tell that's a good one.

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

Good one!

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

Almost as good as The Wiggles one!

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

Don't know it. That's a whole album?

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

That's a lot of mashups!

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

Almost 4 hours!

AFKBRBChocolate ,

That's actually really good. More than just those three in there. Of course starts with the B-52s. Towards the end I heard Ça Plane Pour Moi by Plastic Bertrand .

4ish years ago when I bought a house I was convinced not to get a house inspection, would it be crazy to get one now just to make sure it's all good?

Was 25 and super nervous, so when the realtor was like "oh yeah they just check for basic stuff, but I looked around and it looks great" I was like "Oh okay, this is so astronomically expensive every penny saved is good..."...

AFKBRBChocolate ,

When you buy a used car through a private party, you have a mechanic check it over for two reasons:

  1. You want to make sure you aren't overpaying (because repairs are needed)
  2. You want to make sure it's safe and doesn't need immediate maintenance

It's the same for a house. The first one is moot: you already bought it and can't go back. But the second one still applies - it would be good to get it looked over.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Old guy checking in. When ad blockers first became a thing, my then-teenaged boys started using one and were trying to talk me into it. I was pretty dubious. I said my concern was that the model most of the web was built on was ad-supported. That is, people created content on the web to try and get visitors, and made money by selling ads on their site, or used monetized links. If everyone started using ad blockers, I said, that model would break down and either people would stop creating content or they'd go to a new model, like subscriptions. I figured few people would take time equivalent to a full time job to create content for free.

I think that largely came to pass. A lot of great online publications have closed their doors, and the are lots of paywalls now. The things is, the sites are just as much to blame. Most people wouldn't have been driven to use ad blockers if the ads hadn't gotten so untenable. A banner or a box here or there is one thing, but when there are a giant number of pop-up windows, autoplay videos, windows you can't back out of, and all the other hellish stuff, people are going to be highly motivated to find a way to stop it.

That whole arms race was one of the things that ruined the internet, in my opinion.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Eh, I'm not sure it's much improved. In the ad model, the content creator owned the site and got money from selling ads. The more traffic they got, the more they could charge. In the new model, a corporation owns the site and takes a cut of whatever the creator generates.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

The evidence also doesn’t entirely support your argument, since plenty of places that you pay for still try to show ads.

Where was it ever said that a site could only use one model? The same is/was true of newspapers that cost you a subscription but also sold ads. Without the ads, the subscription would be much more expensive.

I personally am unlikely to pay for a huge variety of news sites and other publications, but I really appreciated having access to all that content for free. Sure, I might pay for one or two especially valuable sites, but my personal opinion is that it was better when the sites were making enough money to make it worthwhile for them by selling a reasonable amount of advertising, and the content was free to the users.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Worth pointing out that ad blockers don't work for ads that are inserted into a video stream, so there was no need to change that model there. Also, YouTube is an example of a site that's not owned by the content creator. YouTube makes the money from the ads, then gives the significant creators a cut.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

42% is a fraction, but it's a huge fraction. Higher in some demographics, lower in others.

If your claim were accurate, they wouldn’t have to resort to putting ads on websites that are subscription based.

How do you figure? Most business ventures will ask themselves how much a customer would pay for their product. If the answer is lower than enough to make product, they either won't enter the market or they'll figure out a way to lower the price. Selling ads is a way to lower the price. Also worth noting that ads used to generate a lot more revenue than they do now.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Yeah, and that's what I mean when I say that the sites brought it on themselves. If the ads started reasonable, like what you'd see on the old Sunday newspaper, three wouldn't have been much reason to block them.

You also have to add on the privacy issues with all the tracking, that also drove people to use them.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

As a software and data guy, having my search results tainted by paid content is pretty infuriating. I wouldn't care if there were ads to the side or something, but I find things like Amazon's search results almost completely unusable. And early on I used to point out to people how amazing Amazon's search engine really was. It was a marvel at getting you to exactly what you were looking to buy. Now it's optimized for showing you what they want to sell.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

That actually is a major facet of the military arms race. Side A develops a missile. Side B develops an anti-missile missile. So side A develops a missile with multiple warheads or builds more missiles so they won't all be shot down, etc. The defensive systems spawn the development of more or more-devastating offensive systems.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

As I said elsewhere, for most products, the makers ask how much they think people would be willing to pay for it. If that price is lower than an amount that would generate reasonable profit, they'll either no go to market or they'll look for ways to reduce or offset costs. Ads are a common way of keeping the price within what people are willing to pay.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

I've noticed a huge influx of anti-Biden posts and comments, to the extent that I honestly think we're finally getting the reddit treatment. I remember there, when the Russian Internet connection went down, and for like a day all those kinds of posts nearly evaporated. And it seems like those accounts don't just do the overtly political things, they also engage in other areas, usually with a conservative slant.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

I remember, after being on the internet for a while, when the www standard was being adopted and all the web pages started popping up. It was so cool to see the kinds of content people were using it for. Then we got search engines like altavista, and it honestly seemed magical. It was like this egalitarian utopia, where all this knowledge was available to everyone; it was hard not to feel like it was the start of an amazing new phase for society.

So it was just soul crushing to me when we first started seeing intentional manipulation and misinformation. Search results that were skewed by paid advertisements or google bombing, propaganda being pushed into discussion forums, and all the fake news... it all represented the end of that amazing new phase. Heartbreaking.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Yeah, for sure. And before that time I used to wonder how much truth there was in the idea of the Russian troll farms - it seemed a bit like a conspiracy theory, even though it was pretty well documented in the Mueller report. But that day was such a dramatic demonstration. The whole site suddenly shifted so much to the left, and the toxicity dropped so much lower.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Just like with Reddit, there are a lot of people who use the downvote button if they just disagree, which isn't really the intent. So you're likely to get downvotes for any unpopular subjective opinion.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Yeah, there's for sure a lot of that

AFKBRBChocolate ,

Buster Keaton did a lot of this kind of thing with perspective and stuff, but he was also a badass who did some incredible stunts.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/e9KKZpTw7hBVJLExVTtr9W-320-80.png

AFKBRBChocolate ,

sigismund dijkstra from the Witcher

AFKBRBChocolate ,

I literally just stuck my foot out from the covers as I was clicking this link. And it didn't even sink in that I had done that until I clicked "next." When I realized, I had to come back and post this - you're welcome.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

That's an amazing video

Notes from a year of reading science fiction and fantasy [potentially minor spoilers]

Below are books I've read over the last year, with notes about on what I thought of them. I started this list just to remind me what the books were about and if I thought they were worth reading. As the year went on, my notes became a little more substantial. The list was for me, but I thought I'd share in case it's useful to...

AFKBRBChocolate OP ,

Off hand, the only Stephenson novels I can think of that I've read are Snow crash, Seveneves, and Fall. All of them are excellent, but they're very different from each other, so it's hard to think of another author that's similar.

All that being said, you might try Project Hail Mary, by Weir, and maybe Saturn's Children by Stross.

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