Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have said any threat from the United States and Israel will be met with Tehran’s reciprocal response, Iranian state TV reported....
Back in 2021, indie developer Wolfire filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve that accused the gaming giant of anti-competitive business practices—including a long-standing habit of taking unfair cuts from game developers on its store. Valve’s 30% fees have come under criticism before—and they are notably high when compared to some other online platforms.
Ouch. I didn’t realize they took such a big cut. On the other hand, authors trying to publish to Amazon’s kindle get hit with commissions from 30%-65% before any other fees, so Steam seems downright reasonable for that particular comparison.
From where I’m sitting, though, I’ve plenty of complicated feelings. Steam might be the best option out there, but monopolies aren’t great for anybody—at the same time, business is business.
Steam’s absurd efficiency could be a product of merciless penny-pinching from indie devs, but it’s just as likely we’re watching a well-oiled machine continue to belch out cash in an expected fashion.
Is it really a monopoly with everyone from EA to GoG delivering games? I guess it is dominant enough to count. I have a hard time complaining when employees are getting good pay and I’ve continued to get good service from them. It might get scarey if/when Gabe steps down, but this all feels pretty fair for now.
Crawford said that legislators had heard from NASA, which expressed concern about the bill’s impact on programs to develop alternative proteins for astronauts. An amendment to the bill will address that problem, Crawford said, allowing an exemption for research purposes.
Opponents of the ban have said governments shouldn’t interfere with a nascent industry because of unfounded fears over safety concerns.
The carve-out for NASA doesn’t make this bill any better. The bill is obviously stifling.
That said, I really do want some extra checks that whatever agar-like substrate meat is grown in does not leech excessive quantities of hormones (think: rBST) or other chemicals into the packaged product. I would happily eat lab-grown meat, but I want to know that it is well tested for safety.
Recent big sites that closed down: Jezebel, Pitchfork, Vice, Popular Science, and my hopes for the Messenger were dashed when they announced their demise: thehill.com/…/4440773-news-startup-the-messenger-…
That said, there are always new sites, but gaining trust and reputation takes time.
Social sites seem doomed to crest and then fall. Digg? MySpace? Friendster? Who remembers the good old days of (moderated) UseNet? Do we want any of those back? Would any of them have remained were it not for spam/bad-actors?
Brin’s “We definitely messed up.”, at an AI “hackathon” event on 2 March, followed a slew of social media posts showing Gemini’s image generation tool depicting a variety of historical figures – including popes, founding fathers of the US and, most excruciatingly, German second world war soldiers – as people of...
I’m not the lego person, but I am not taking that selfie because: 1) I don’t want to clean the house to make it look all nice before judgey relatives critique the pic, 2) my phone is old and all its pics are kinda fish-eyed, 3) I don’t actually want to spend the time doing the task right now when AI can get me an image in seconds.
More pics and distinguishing features of each (note that these pages only give their range for just the state of California, but the rough-skinned ranges far beyond):
It might be because I block a bunch of stuff, but is all I see:
The United States is rapidly shedding historians—and the national security implications are dire. Even as it grapples with challenges and conflicts rooted in complicated regional histories, the United States continues a decade-and-a-half-long path of defunding history departments and deprioritizing history education. This threatens to produce a generation of policymakers and advisors whose view of the world is increasingly, and dangerously, shallow.
After that, it is just the author credit and end-page layout (and side bars and the like).
I appreciate that the “Gradient Canopy” roof is covered in solar cells and collects rainwater while also letting in natural light, so maybe the problem is they didn’t do enough by not adding in some shielding, too.
Why? Because – and while I applaud you paying someone to do the art – the art reminded me of Nazi Propaganda. I was saddened to see another idealized blonde haired, blue-eyed Jugend/baby getting elevated to special reigning status. Most of the world is dark haired and brown-eyed. Why give Nazis yet another piece of fiction to subtly push the zeitgeist into believing the abnormal caucus folk are better than the lower masses?
It is good to hear that there are some non-whites in your story. Since there was no detail in your initial post, the art of an Aryan Angel did not inspire me to ask any question except, “Yet another blonde hero?” I get very tired of “white man’s burden” stories featuring white men picking themselves up and solving problems that ‘others’ could not overcome.
It sounds like your hero strays from the archetype enough to be atypical, so hopefully s/he realizes some reliance on the vital contributions of ‘others’ along their journey, too. All I’m saying is that the initial art didn’t speak to of any of that. The only thing it said to me was ‘racist agitprop’ (though not of the historic/Russian variety).
If it is to your tastes, Cory Doctorow is currently giving an extra promotional effort for EFF by offering a bunch of his books at DRM-free downloads as a charitable Humble Bundle: pluralistic.net/2024/03/03/humbly-bundled/#eff-to…
NOTE: I just downloaded the game and on my first attempted launch, it complained that the port it wanted was not open. My only option was to close the game. I ran netstat and did not see the port listed, so I tried again. THAT time, it complained about my older video card :-/ The warning is clunky and there’s a typo, too (within -> withing). It says (if I transcribed accurately):
You are using an: NVIDIA GEOFORCE GTX 1080. This video card is currently not recognized withing the recommended specs. We only support a limited amount of NVIDIA GTX graphics cards, all NVIDIA RTX graphics cards or all AMD RX graphics cards since the local AI requires a lot of performance.
So please note that the game might not work properly. Refer to the Steam guide for more information.
NOTE: I just downloaded the game and on my first attempted launch, it complained that the port it wanted was not open. My only option was to close the game. I ran netstat and did not see the port listed, so I tried again. THAT time, it complained about my older video card :-/ The warning is clunky and there’s a typo, too (within -> withing). It says (if I transcribed accurately):
You are using an: NVIDIA GEOFORCE GTX 1080. This video card is currently not recognized withing the recommended specs. We only support a limited amount of NVIDIA GTX graphics cards, all NVIDIA RTX graphics cards or all AMD RX graphics cards since the local AI requires a lot of performance.
So please note that the game might not work properly. Refer to the Steam guide for more information.
It is probably easier. I used to run a program that ran its own mini server-like process to send input to other open programs. It used local ports. It didn’t need internet, but it did need ports. My first guess is that programmers already know a bunch of dev libraries that deal with ports so it is easier to use that than write something else from scratch.
Ooooh, I’d like that! Well, there’s 3 parts to the (random user input / scripted game output) conundrum:
I think it is fair that if you ask, ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ the NPC might either respond as if it is being accused of sabotage, answer the damn question, lie, or prefer not to talk about it (it’s personal).
I’d keep a short list of standard options – probably in a collapsed scroller kinda thing so you could either verbally say or type whatever you want, OR you could click an arrow to pick from a list. That way lazy or stuck players wou;dn’t have to think of all the options, and players interested in roleplaying could do as they please.
I’m OK with, “I’m not going to respond to that”. I’d hope each character had several variations of that, but I think it is legitimate for NPCs to dislike being pestered. Shopkeepers might have replies like, “Are you gonna buy something or are you just here to bend my ear?” or “I don’t see how that relates to my inventory.” Random townies might reply, “Do I even know you?” or “Would you PLEASE stop bothering me.” or “You’re harshing my mellow, man. Shhhh… Just chill.”
The warning message said the port was not open, but my guess is that the message was inexact. I doubt the port was ever restricted at all. In fact – and with no evidence one way or the other – it wouldn’t surprise me if the only issue was my old video card and the ‘port’ error was simply the first error message the game found on initial launch. For my theory to make sense, though, some initial setup piece must have completed on 1st launch such that the 2nd launch had a newly made config file or something and that extra piece let me proceed to a more accurate error.
Msnbc’s Alex Wagner pointed out on her show that, “After all, it took just 51 days from the time Trump was kicked off the ballot in Colorado on December 19th to when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for that case – the 14th Amendment case – on February 8th. Now on December 11th, 2023, Counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to quickly weigh in on Trump’s immunity appeal and to do so early , which the Court rejected! And now by the time we get to April 22nd, which is when the Court plans to hear arguments in this immunity case, it will have been 133 days since the Court was first asked to hear the appeal. So the pace is… curious? Around 50 days when it helps Donald Trump, and over 130 days when it doesn’t.”
In addition to the delay, the court asked for arguments to an over-broad question:
“Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”
Note that they COULD have asked something more like, “Were Donald Trump’s actions on and surrounding the January 6th incidents official acts of a President and is Trump therefore immune from criminal prosecution because the conduct was both within his tenure in office and within the scope of his duties?” Of course, that is not what was asked. The actual question asks for long and careful considered speculation on all possible contingencies where the relevant case is about a specific set of actions that could be quickly assessed.
As gun control advocate Shannon Watts writes, “Sen. Mitch McConnell’s legacy will be that he purposefully undermined America’s first Black president, he broke the Supreme Court, he helped elect a fascist President, and he abetted up an insurrection on American soil.”
(and)
Let’s not pretend his successor will be any better. He is likely to be a Trump toady who will bow before the pressure and screw this country even more.
Simply mention @aihorde with the text "draw for me " and then the text that you would like it to draw and I will draw you an image matching your prompt, post it in this community and then reply with a link to each image! Optionally you can provide a “style:” as well. Example: @aihorde@lemmy.dbzer0.com draw for me a beautiful...
Blasts heard above Israel after Iran launches drone attack – live (www.theguardian.com)
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have said any threat from the United States and Israel will be met with Tehran’s reciprocal response, Iranian state TV reported....
In 2018 a group of Valve staff tried to figure out just how efficient they were being—and found they were making more money per head than Apple, Facebook, and nearly every tech giant out there (www.pcgamer.com)
Some states are now trying to ban lab-grown meat (arstechnica.com)
The “conservative” war on reality finds new depths to sink to
“Can’t make it up”: Experts say transcript shows special counsel Robert Hur “lied” about Biden (www.salon.com)
This is too good.
Are We Watching The Internet Die? (www.wheresyoured.at)
‘We definitely messed up’: why did Google AI tool make offensive historical images? (www.theguardian.com)
Brin’s “We definitely messed up.”, at an AI “hackathon” event on 2 March, followed a slew of social media posts showing Gemini’s image generation tool depicting a variety of historical figures – including popes, founding fathers of the US and, most excruciatingly, German second world war soldiers – as people of...
Found a different critter on my walk tonight (beehaw.org)
Picture of a little brown and orange salamander on a pebbled sidewalk.
The history crisis is a national security problem (foreignpolicy.com)
Google’s self-designed office swallows Wi-Fi “like the Bermuda Triangle” (arstechnica.com)
My first commissioned art of my main character: Solemn, of The Solemn Dream (lemm.ee)
This is the art I received for my main character....
What are the best charities to donate to?
Oldest known sex chromosome emerged 248 million years ago in an octopus ancestor (www.livescience.com)
A Small Steam Game Shows How LLMs Could Kill the Dialogue Tree (re: Verbal Verdict demo) (www.404media.co)
cross-posted from: beehaw.org/post/12262087...
Supreme Court stalls Trump’s federal election trial while weighing his immunity bid (www.politico.com)
politico archive: ghostarchive.org/archive/PS7WH...
McConnell will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November after a record run in the job (apnews.com)
Mitch McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November.
You can now request Stable Diffusion generations from the AI Horde bot directly from anywhere in lemmy!
Simply mention @aihorde with the text "draw for me " and then the text that you would like it to draw and I will draw you an image matching your prompt, post it in this community and then reply with a link to each image! Optionally you can provide a “style:” as well. Example: @aihorde@lemmy.dbzer0.com draw for me a beautiful...