My only counter-argument is that Joss Whedon is part of why we have the superhero burnout. I would hazard that’s also the reason why you feel that way, given him doing the largest parts of both lol
WHEN PEOPLE ask Michael Moritz, a former journalist and prominent tech investor, what book they should read to understand Silicon Valley, he always recommends two. “They are not about Silicon Valley, but they have everything to do with Silicon Valley,” he says....
New mediums was exactly my thoughts as well. For example, think of a music magazine versus a tech magazine. The former can appeal to anyone while also delving into specific details, because there is an idea of inherent connection. Generally, music makes you feel something, even if you don’t understand it, and you can talk about that. The latter may have to focus more on specific details, making it more difficult for anyone to engage with it without having an understanding of the content, and then there’s also an almost inherent lack of connection, unless the reader already is “in it”.
From a readers point of view, “music go brr” and “big GPU go brr” can evoke similar reactions initially, but I would hazard to say that there’s more depth to the music aspect of it for the general population. They don’t need to know that the chord progression and the scale used with it are what make the atmosphere, the writer can just talk about how calming and serene the music is, then supplant that statement with details about music theory.
For the GPU and the average reader, it pretty much stops at “cool that GPU can play a game and be used for a specific task on a computer”. Then we start going into all the details about how the tensor cores used are reaching numbers and sizes of transistors suggested by Moore’s law for theory, or PCB and hardware design. Up until you get hands on with it, it’s almost entirely material desire.
The tech side has very little emotional relationship outside of the material object and the knowledge surrounding it, whereas the music side can have material objects (instruments), can have the knowledge surrounding it (music theory) but then it also connects those two things to an expressive outlet. While Gear Acquisition Syndrome is a thing, music doesn’t have as inherent of a material desire. So for as much as I do love to read tech magazines, everything you’re going to get from it is essentially “I liked this device because it makes doing this thing easier.”, which can be handy information. I like them for that reason. But I can certainly see how from a much broader perspective, books and essays, would be generally more difficult for the insider tech industry. You need someone well versed enough to understand what they are investigating, while being capable of making it readable to the average person. All while keeping the intellectual integrity of the work. Certainly can’t be easy lol
Been gaming less on my Steam Deck lately, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been using it less! Just different purposes!
That said, I miss it for gaming. There’s no reason I haven’t other than I just haven’t, lol. Helldivers 2 feels better on Mouse and Keyboard at my PC (plays fine on Deck + Controller) and by the end of the night I’ve just been going to bed instead of playing a game for a bit.
Another part of it is the games I’m into. I do like indie games but they’re more of a vibe to return to - Revita has been my Steam Deck go-to. Though, Hero’s Hour just got an update that looks really good.
I’m talking about a moment when a villain has the hero at their mercy and then does a move to really show what an utter bastard they are. There’s no shortage of them, but one that really sticks out to me is one line from “Se7en” at the climax from Kevin Spacey as John Doe....
The very final scene of WandaVision has her hearing the voices of her children. I took this as a sign that things were NOT okay for her, given the events of the entire show being due to her delusions. Right after she just went through everything searching for the real ones only to realize they had been manifestations from herself, not even her real children. And at the very end of the show she was still hearing them call out to her, IMO a clear indication of what the events of MoM would lead to. Wanda was not OK.
For some of the faults of MoM, Wanda was far from it. Despite the fact that the writers of the film had not seen the show, they work together quite well. The entire point of WandaVision is that she herself is a dishonest narrator, from each episode being thematically different to the reveal that she was “the big bad” all along. To continue that makes sense to me, and I don’t think it’s character assassination but just further development. Sometimes people want to be heroes and their desires crowd that potential, it’s all too common a tale.
Now, if they bring back Wanda, that will be character assassination. Finally giving up everything and becoming the hero she wanted to be by sacrificing herself? Only to be brought back because - whoopsie I survived! (I will allow her to appear in the Agatha show, but mainline Marvel movies she should be out.
I think AI replacing artists is going to be a good thing in the long run.
Right now, if you want custom artwork made without the use of AI you have to either criminally underpay an artist on Fiverr or pay an artist hundreds of dollars to make one piece which you may not like.
I think the cat is out of the bag on AI generated art pieces and there's no way to put it back in, and so future artists will use a combination of their actual art skills and their ability to work with an AI system to create entirely new and currently nearly impossible art pieces, and there is an entire field of unexplored possibilities waiting to be tapped by Future artists.
AI can't make new art.
All it can do is repurpose pieces of art other people have made, just like Auto-Tune can make you sing on pitch but it can't make you a good singer.
Like with many technologies, it creates as much as it destroys. It is a tool, tools change how things are used, some are adapted, some fade to obscurity.
I think there are merits to LLM’s, like for games and obviously translation. I also think for games there will be a script director who would work with the games LLM to make it work in the games universe (rather than spewing random things the player said in a playthrough).
I also think there are merits to AI generative tools, however I think they will be used in ways that differ minimally from something like procreate. Given that things like infill and nodes have developed so far as they have, it’s really just a few steps behind the “polish” of an adobe product. And mostly open source (depending on what you use).
Finally, I think something people tend to forget is that commissions are for people able to pay. If someone is creating free art because cost is an inhibiting factor then were they really going to be paying an artist for a commission?
That said, there are still downsides, and a vast number in our current state. Chances are high that copyright laws will go to protect corporations that use AI but prevent people from using local models. A far better approach would be for independent artists to be able to create, license, and sell their own checkpoint models, but that will never happen for so many reasons, primarily artists having shunned AI very quickly.
Another downside is that it’s just so damn resources expensive. Running AI on local hardware had gotten more resource efficient relatively quickly, but it’s still so much higher than it needs to be still. We can get the exact same results, better and faster even, with far lower power consumption by just using an analog computer to sift through the model and translate that analog data to digital data. So even if someone is just running it on a laptop with stable diffusion low beam settings it’s still quite a bit more intensive than it needs to be. Frankly, tensor cores and CPU’s are a brute force method.
Still, at the end of the day AI is a tool with a relatively low skill needed to get adequate results, with a very high skill ceiling for making something truly good with it. There is nothing wrong with a 2 job 60+ hour work week Sally wanting to use midjourney because it’s the only art she can currently make. She deserves that.
At the same time, if it’s true that Disney used AI for the Secret Invasion intro - what the fuck? If that’s replacing an actual artist, or an actual artist was trying to use Deforum and had that as finalized work that is a much different situation. As with all things, set, setting, and moderation.
I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can’t believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C’mon guys
I’m currently in the process of writing a song. I’ve got a tune and I’m putting the lyrics together but I’m always concerned that any tune I think of might just be another song I’ve heard somewhere randomly that I don’t remember hearing....
I use my Steam Deck for producing audiobooks, set up a little closet space and soundtreated it, set up a mic with a Focusrite and I use Reaper on the Steam Deck.
Works great, bit small but I’m not doing music production so I don’t need a larger screen for the moment.
Best part is, it’s all via USB-C Anker Dock, so I just unplug it and the whole set up is perfectly in place still. Sans Deck :D
I bought a PS2 about 6 months ago from a coworker and finally got around to getting it working at a good enough resolution on my monitor. I currently have:...
I definitely feel it, I’ve been using the Internet less overall for the same reason. Something important to remember too is that it’s an election year with a lot of stuff going on in the world, but it’s so much effort to block everything. I’ve been using Kbin less because the only way to really deal with spam is to block the endless bot accounts. I’m mostly just on Beehaw because I like the community, I’ve honestly found a large portion of the other Lemmy’s to be very inflammatory. It’s not worth having other people in your life, so why have it on the Internet?
Connect with real people, it’s more fun of a time waste, if not a little more effort. (Not that we aren’t real on the internet, just that the attitudes differ).
Lists, strong emotive music, niche interest rabbit holes (preferably new) and awful people (It’s always Sunny)… I also clean if I’m able, short bursts usually.
Yes. Many, many people. Latest “average stats” for 7 day primetime viewing in 2023 were a bit over 500,000 CNN viewers and 1.8mil Fox News viewers.
Of course, we have to guesstimate as these are likely Nielsen ratings, as well as including things like how many TV’s per airport.
If we take the ~5,000 public airports and divide that by CNN’s 550,000k viewers (over 7 days) that would be 110 TV’s per airport needed to be playing CNN. Given that I don’t think most airports have this many TV’s, specific playing CNN, I think it’s fair to assume that there are actual people watching the news.
This is a thing with every dishwasher I’ve had, some models seem better than other. You wash the dishes and when they dry, they have a musty odor I can only describe as “wet dog”. Other people often don’t seem to notice this, so maybe I am just sensitive to it. Though if I point it out, then they smell it....
I voted for Biden in 2020. This was despite the fact that he is one of the main architects of modern American slavery through his crime bill which made the US the nation with the highest proportion of its own citizens imprisoned by far, who are quite literally slaves according to our constitution. This was despite him...
: i am just not sympathetic to the idea that voting for Biden constitutes blood on your hands in a meaningful way. i think if you accept this line of argumentation, you would ultimately have to bite the bullet that this could also be said of paying taxes[1]–and i certainly don’t begrudge people for paying their taxes even as this lines the pocket of the war machine, so then why should judge them for voting?
This is such an important perspective that often seems ignored in these discussions. There is such a wide nuance to being an American and our participation, be it taxes or voting. It’s always seemed clear to me that at bare minimum voting for the lesser evil is the first step down the path of doing the right thing as a citizen. However I also would say that I do somewhat feel this to Trump voters, but I would say that’s more about the intent. I would hazard the assumption that if you’re voting for Trump again it’s likely because you have been pushed to have hate in your heart, not because his foreign policy is just so stellar. Whereas if you’re voting for Biden the intent is likely to not have the other guy.
OP’s post is a very good conversation of exactly this. “I won’t support a genocide, so I won’t vote!” That’s awesome, but by not participating you are inherently accepting to the default winner - your bare minimum participation of voting could have had an affect which you abstained from. In a hypothetical landslide of 1 vote for Trump, suddenly voting has a lot of power. By the way, some of our votes in the last 8 years have been down to barely triple digit breaks - legitimately 1 small town voting could have swayed the results in that towns favor. Voting matters quite a bit.
Given our current circumstances, in regards to deciding a vote for the lesser evil, I personally see a former president who placed as many restrictions as possible on specific citizens while relieving as many restrictions as possible on (mostly specific) corporations, and who had been all too happy to engage with the wrong sorts of International Relations, belligerently ignoring allies and goading more dangerous countries. I also see a current President who is historically known for not making the best decisions for the people, while also having a lot of policy that specifically is (or at least tries to… or at bare minimum says he’ll try to even if he won’t which should go without saying for sooo many Presidents).
Which by the way, yes, I would rather have a President who says he is for ____ rights but maybe doesn’t always have policies that fully align with that. As opposed to a president who says he is actively against those same rights, and actively promotes harm to certain demographics… Damn right. Send yourself back in time 10-15 years, try to remember the general public perception from 2008 to 2014. We were calmer citizens because we had a rational leader who wasn’t spewing hate speech at every turn. Of course other factors had an effect, media exacerbation and whatever else, but that wouldn’t have been the case had we had literally any other President.
And that’s the whole thing of it - if you don’t vote, the voter has no power (giving it to the rest of the voters). If you do vote, the voter has very little power. At. Bare. Minimum. If you are a voter who canvases in your area, you have made a much larger difference - you have gone above and beyond the bare minimum. And who knows, maybe you just happened to live in the town that changed your swing states results. The thing is, the bare minimum should be much more than just voting. Just voting is how we got here in the first place. Just voting isn’t ever going to change anything, because just voting alone doesn’t rally people together under a united ideal.
All this to say - I personally do not think that it is wrong to take what power you have to vote for “fascism in 50 years” as some have recently started to say about Democrats. It’s not wrong to vote this way when the alternative is fascism in 4 years. Futhermore, I think it’s also admitting that doing the absolute bare minimum just isn’t entirely effective.
As U.S. citizens, voting is what wehaveto do at the bare minimum. We should all be out actively campaigning in our local elections specifically to encourage, inform, and expand our collective understanding of politics. This works two-fold, because as we become more engaged @Kwakigra we become much more observant. As you say, if Dems are on a path to evil, isn’t the solution for all of us to get as possibly involved as we can? At a certain point, we would be the Dems playing the game.
I say this as someone who has written to my California representatives about many things and having gotten response letters basically calling me an idiot for me expressing my wishes for him to reconsider his position, and why the evil things he’s supporting are actually a good thing. It’s obviously not easy, we’re fighting against 2 generations of propaganda and a media mogul. Some say that we are too far gone, though I don’t believe in that sort of defeatism.
We have many steps that we need to take in order to be set on the right path again. It should start with revitalizing the nations public education system, with a stronger focus on a healthy life-work balance. The fact that basic things about the U.S. system aren’t taught anymore has been a huge setback. I’m young, I didn’t have any sort of homeroom or home ec, it took until my senior year in High School to even learn about how we do our taxes (and it did nothing). These classes were supplemented with “extra critical thinking”, which has clearly failed, something that can be seen by reading just about any comment about a piece of media online. Home Economics, Time Management, and Critical Thinking all meld to make life at home manageable and enjoyable. From working with schools it’s been clear to see what I went through growing up has gotten even worse, especially with Covid putting all of the students on screens and a significant portion of them hardly even learning during that time at all.
Catch up our nations students and we’ll be well on our way back to civility. Fighting against the anti-education crowd and having homeschooling be far, far, far more rigorous than it currently is - state dependent I’m certain but the 3 I’ve lived in, CA, OR, and WI, holy shit they are awful. Homeschoolings seems to have almost become co-opted by the anti- crowds, I’ve regrettably only had 1 good encounter over the last 10 years and it was because the school remained open during Covid, to which the parents said screw that we’re homeschooling. As opposed to homeschooling because they’d have to get a vaccine otherwise, or because the schools “agenda”…
Anyway, I’ve said far too much and gotten pretty off topic. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to say anything about this and it’s clearly been pent up, otherwise I’d have wrapped this up many paragraphs ago.
Sounds like we all just need to get more involved and hold our politicians accountable. Rather than not voting, I would argue that we should vote to be in a safe place so that we can vote to be in a safer place. By not voting, we don’t have any say. By voting Democratic this time around, we can vote Leftist next time around.
Otherwise I feel like we’re just repeating 2016, which was repeating 2004, which was repeating 1980, which was repeating 1969… That is to say, The U.S. tends to be in a good spot after a Democratic President and it seems to quickly get drawn down to the gutters with Republican ones, and the way in which Americans interact with the world around us seems heavily related to our current President.
And the social aspect is almost more important, as now we’re seeing the direct results of shameless narcissists. That’s exactly why their comment is relevant - just look at how people had been interacting after they chose a side, Ukraine or Russia (and politically, who tended side with which) only barely 2 years later to have almost the exact same situation in Isreal. We can’t say for certain, but I feel very confident that had Trump won 2020, we’d be in the exact same situation except he would be actively inciting harm towards Palestinians in the U.S.
I’m not them and I’m not going to give details, but I’d like to posit why I personally am against the idea of not voting. First though, this has nothing to do with you or how I feel about your stance here, I’m not trying to attack you or change your mind, I’m simply expressing my thoughts about how I participate as a U.S. citizen. To me, voting is pretty much the bare minimum - our roles as citizens of the United States pretty much designates us to do this one thing.
So you don’t vote. You say something about it and why, gives someone else an idea to do the same. Word gets out and your entire town decides to have solidarity with you. The rippling effect of you being an active non-voter is potentially harmful. At it’s core, that’s all it really is.
I could go on, but it would be redundant. You are still participating, something seen by others who then may decide to also do it that way, which completely strips your power as a citizen. I do believe it serves it up on a silver platter to something you don’t agree with ideologically. As you said, you don’t agree with Biden’s ideology, which I agree with. I’m glad he’s attempted student loan relief and puts pledges towards national hunger, further encouraged policies that give more $$ towards earnings up to $55k (under Obama, initially $47k, lowered to $35k under Trump), and surprisingly getting involved in the situation happening in Rwanda and not completely butchering it. He’s done some solid actions, even if there are just as many things (maybe more) than I could be disappointed by.
But you are still participating, regardless of whether you want to or not. That does leave you 2 alternatives, which is to abstain, or to vote with someone with an even greater ideological difference. As a U.S. citizen, there is no way for us to not participate.
I think it’s fairly circumstantial from there. You not voting for any ideology is making a choice that you are complacent with either one, when in reality you are abstaining specifically because you are against them. Whether you not voting actually affects something outside of your single vote is relative. As in - in that hypothetical where you saying you won’t vote gets someone else to do the same, it goes both ways where they could have voted D/R/ or 3rd party. We are a social creature and there is some inherent value to sharing. Again, whether this is the reality or not is strongly related to where you are and who/how you interact.
So for me personally, few of my values are supported by voting for Biden, however none of my values are supported by abstaining, none are supported by voting R, and, this is most important, none of my values are supported by me being silent. You aren’t being represented by abstaining either. That is to say - I am in the exact same position as you, yet I choose to vote for a lesser evil because as I do it I am also campaigning for proper humanitarian values, campaigning for a future that will actually serve me and our people. By involving myself in it I am having a conversation with other people participating in our situation. They inform me, I inform them, and we may or may not come to similar conclusions based off these interactions.
Abstaining never gives this conversation the light of day. It’s the equivalent to sticking your head in the sand, because the unfortunately sick reality is that the war machine will keep the meat grinder going regardless of whether you choose to participate, which is exactly the reason why we must participate. By abstaining not only are we acknowledging all of the shortcomings but we are explicitly saying, “I’m okay with this and I am choosing not to do anything about it.” I think this gets said so often specifically because you do have an alternative, which is participating politically. It should always be read as get involved locally, because obviously you or I have little actual impact on these candidates - that’s never been the point. The point is to engage with other people living under the same responsibility.
Finally, when posed with an impossible choice, abstaining is an attempt to remove oneself from responsibility. We have to face these challenges head on, in broad daylight, surrounded by our peers. Else we sweep it under the rug for the next generation to deal with.
I’m the generation that had climate change swept under the rug, that had the U.S. destabilization of the Middle East and Africa, and some thousand or so corporate secrets from gas and oil spills teflon and xenophobia. I’m at the point in my life where I would like to do my best to ensure the rug is cleaned out. Our wars are more public than ever, our knowledge of climate change is more prevalent than ever, and our awareness of corporate profits in name of human health is higher than ever. I would like to continue this transparency by actively electing a candidate that will acknowledge the shortcomings of our country so that it can become a better place.
No, Biden will not be the one to do this, but his Presidency is far more likely to pave the way for this than Trump is. And that is why we have to vote - not only so that we don’t get Trump, but so that we can put the nation on a path to having a chance of doing the right thing.
Anyway, again I’m not trying to chide your position or claim that you are serving Trump his presidency on a silver platter. That is dumb and a poor rhetoric to take with someone. There is also the whole fact that we have many different rounds of voting, it’s insinuated that it’s the general Presidency election but it may not be, so I wonder if people get defensive for local elections. To which of course I say -
State representatives 1) do have to be elected, 2) do have briefings on constituent requests, and 3) could be you! Jk (unless…?) no for real, 3) that there are other people like you who may not feel fully represented by the state reps, to which I say change is possible. We just… we actually have to do something about it, and usually that means fully informed voting.
The ruling class wants you to be literate enough to understand their written orders. And nothing more. True literacy is punk. True literacy is revolutionary....
I love this thing. Pick a key, it shows you where the scale is. One octave or whole fretboard, with notes or without. This makes learning scales and just picking a scale and composing in it so much easier!
‘Teen Titans’ Live-Action Movie a Go at DC Studios (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Why it’s hard to write a good book about the tech world (www.economist.com)
WHEN PEOPLE ask Michael Moritz, a former journalist and prominent tech investor, what book they should read to understand Silicon Valley, he always recommends two. “They are not about Silicon Valley, but they have everything to do with Silicon Valley,” he says....
Steam Deck had a strong end to 2023 and a great start for 2024 (www.gamingonlinux.com)
What is the cruelest "twist the knife" move or statement by a villain in a film for you?
I’m talking about a moment when a villain has the hero at their mercy and then does a move to really show what an utter bastard they are. There’s no shortage of them, but one that really sticks out to me is one line from “Se7en” at the climax from Kevin Spacey as John Doe....
311: Tiny Desk Concert (youtu.be)
Ah, nostalgia. Happy 311 Day all :)
196 Stands with Palestine, but those of you in the US should still vote in the general election.
I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-voting sentiment going around. Can’t believe I have to say this, but you need to vote. Not only is there more to the election than just the president. (State policy, Senate, house), but not voting is not an act of protest. C’mon guys
Republicans complain Joe Biden had too much energy at SOTU (www.newsweek.com)
I am avoiding linking to the Fox article so as to not send them traffic. Can’t make this stuff up.
When you're writing a song, how do you know it isn't just a song you've heard before but don't recognise?
I’m currently in the process of writing a song. I’ve got a tune and I’m putting the lyrics together but I’m always concerned that any tune I think of might just be another song I’ve heard somewhere randomly that I don’t remember hearing....
Outside of gaming, how do you guys use your Steam Deck? (jlai.lu)
I love my deck because...
Rooster Teeth Shut Down By Warner Bros. Discovery, The Roost Podcast Network To Continue (deadline.com)
Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (learn.microsoft.com)
cross-posted from !android...
Best PS2 games?
I bought a PS2 about 6 months ago from a coworker and finally got around to getting it working at a good enough resolution on my monitor. I currently have:...
deleted_by_author
Boiling tap water can remove 90 percent of microplastics (www.livescience.com)
How do you like to cheer yourself up when you're sad?
Feeling a bit down tonight. How do you guys like to lighten up?
Anderson Cooper Cuts Off CNN Guest Trying to Discuss Gaza and Michigan (newrepublic.com)
How do you get rid of "wet dog" smell in a dishwasher?
This is a thing with every dishwasher I’ve had, some models seem better than other. You wash the dishes and when they dry, they have a musty odor I can only describe as “wet dog”. Other people often don’t seem to notice this, so maybe I am just sensitive to it. Though if I point it out, then they smell it....
The Lesser of Two Genocides
I voted for Biden in 2020. This was despite the fact that he is one of the main architects of modern American slavery through his crime bill which made the US the nation with the highest proportion of its own citizens imprisoned by far, who are quite literally slaves according to our constitution. This was despite him...
you’ve been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress). (ismatu.substack.com)
The ruling class wants you to be literate enough to understand their written orders. And nothing more. True literacy is punk. True literacy is revolutionary....
Windows-as-a-nuisance: How I clean up a “clean install” of Windows 11 and Edge (arstechnica.com)
My New Favorite Site - Guitar Scales (www.guitarscale.org)
I love this thing. Pick a key, it shows you where the scale is. One octave or whole fretboard, with notes or without. This makes learning scales and just picking a scale and composing in it so much easier!