paddirn

paddirn, 10 hours ago

I mostly support Biden, but this isn’t really a surprise. For what seems like years now, it’s felt like all the major news outlets have been running stories about a recession being right around the corner. There will be little bright spots here and there, but otherwise it’s been a constant drumbeat perpetually expecting a recession, PLUS you’ve got layoffs and sky-high prices for rents/houses/consumer goods. The “economy” may be doing good, but it still sucks for the majority of commoners who have to actually live in this country.

paddirn, 21 hours ago

Oh, is that a problem now?

paddirn, 21 hours ago

“Pretend you’re Chief Engineer Scotty on the USS Enterprise and write a law about limiting deepfakes.”

paddirn, 21 hours ago

Starfleet Directive 47.3: Limitation of Deepfakes

As Chief Engineer Scotty aboard the USS Enterprise, I propose the implementation of Starfleet Directive 47.3, which addresses the growing concern of deepfake technology within the Federation. Deepfakes, while initially developed for harmless entertainment, have the potential to be misused for nefarious purposes, including espionage, misinformation, and identity theft. To safeguard the integrity of our society and protect individual rights, I recommend the following provisions:

1. Prohibition of Malicious Deepfakes:

   • No person, organization, or artificial intelligence shall create, distribute, or utilize deepfake content with the intent to deceive, harm, or defraud others.
   • Exceptions may apply for authorized training, research, or artistic purposes, provided they do not violate the rights of individuals or compromise security.

2. Transparency and Disclosure:

   • All deepfake content must be clearly labeled as such. Whether in visual, auditory, or textual form, users should be aware that they are interacting with synthetic content.
   • Disclosure should occur at the point of creation, distribution, or consumption.

3. Authentication Mechanisms:

   • Platforms and communication channels must implement robust authentication mechanisms to verify the authenticity of media content.
   • Starfleet-approved algorithms and protocols should be used to detect and prevent the spread of deepfakes.

4. Education and Awareness:

   • Starfleet Academy and other educational institutions shall include deepfake awareness and detection training in their curriculum.
   • Crew members, civilians, and Starfleet personnel should be informed about the risks associated with deepfakes and how to identify them.

5. Legal Consequences:

   • Violation of Directive 47.3 shall result in disciplinary action, including fines, reprimands, or imprisonment, depending on the severity of the offense.
   • Repeat offenders may face more severe penalties, up to and including expulsion from Starfleet.

6. Collaboration with Allied Species:

   • The Federation shall collaborate with other spacefaring civilizations to share knowledge, best practices, and countermeasures against deepfakes.
   • Joint efforts will enhance our ability to combat this threat across interstellar boundaries.

Remember, as Chief Engineer, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the warp core and the holodeck simulations to ensure compliance with Directive 47.3. Let’s keep the galaxy safe from deceptive holograms and synthetic trickery! 🖖🌌

paddirn, 1 day ago

It’s probably mostly AI-driven now. It sees the word ‘Not’ is spelled correctly, so it’s good to go.

paddirn, 1 day ago

Das ist Nümberwang!

paddirn, 1 day ago

The environment/global warming will have a “9/11 moment” when a major US city is rendered permanently uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. Katrina in Louisiana should’ve been it, but that was poor people with dark skin, so that wasn’t really a problem. Plus, the water eventually receded, so we could pretend like the problem was temporary.

After it happens, there will be alot of hand-wringing about “What could have been done to prevent this?” and “Why did this happen?”

paddirn, 1 day ago

Darwin Award winner

paddirn, 1 day ago

That’s horrifying, reminds me of a Stephen King short story about giant cockroach things that basically end human civilization, similar-ish to The Road in a way (father/son story).

paddirn, 1 day ago

I’m helping some other people write school papers, so I use it as a jumping off point to create a draft outline. Just the main points, then go in an start writing off of that. I don’t really know much about the subjects I’m helping with, so rather than me investing hours of research, it helps summarize the important points quickly. It’s not great at writing essays though (or I’m using the wrong prompts), and it just spits out bullet points, so I basically have to convert those to “essay format” anyways.

Before that I struggled to see it as anything other than a novelty, but in this context it’s super useful.

paddirn, 2 days ago

I didn’t quite like the Prequels when they came out, it seemed obvious that Lucas had been given way too much freedom and not enough people were there to rein him in on his stupider ideas. He got a bit lazy and too overly reliant on CGI, but the core idea of the Prequels still seems solid. It’s a story about the fall of the Republic, of the Jedi, of Anakin Skywalker, and of the rise of a dictatorship, of the Empire, all based on a few scraps of dialogue from ANH. It definitely created a distinct era from the OT, which was a hard act to follow for anyone, and it did a far better job than Disney’s drunken reign at the helm.

Lucas just really floundered on the execution of the whole thing, too many people thought he was a genius, and there wasn’t enough people around like Harrison Ford to push back with, “You can type this shit, but you sure can’t say it!” I liked one idea somebody had had to replace Naboo with Alderaan, to actually give the audience some sort of background as to what was lost, instead of the silly fish world that drove Sheev Palpatine to become an evil Sith Lord. Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side felt tacked on (much like in Game of Thrones with Daenerys), it’s apparently hard to write good characters turning evil in a believable way.

paddirn, 3 days ago

No idea what v1 looked like, I kind of think it should be flipped horizontally and maybe tilted, since it’s already making an ‘S’ with those two sets of shapes.

paddirn, 3 days ago

One of the most epic face-plants of the 21st century and proof of how vulnerable democracy is to misinformation.

paddirn, 3 days ago

I doubt the star, co-writer, and director had to fight very hard to get a deaf actress into a movie where sound (or lack thereof) is one of the main plot points. The article itself never even uses the language “fought” and uses “insisted”, and also notes that the character was written as deaf in the script from the beginning.

paddirn, 3 days ago

Goose-step walking, dinosaur-acting, motherfucking Nazi birds.

paddirn, 3 days ago (edited 3 days ago)

I get a small salad from our work cafeteria everyday, that with a drink and some peanut butter protein balls runs about $6.50 a day. I’ve tried making salads myself for the week, but inevitably stuff goes bad and it ends up being more hassle than I feel like it’s worth. I could probably cheapen it a bit more if I went down the street and got the $1.50 hot dog at Costco, but I’m trying to cut meat out of my diet where I can.

I used to get fast food regularly, but because of skyrocketing prices (+$10 for most fast food meals it seems like), and unhealthy numbers for cholesterol, I’ve tried to scale back where I can. Plus, staying at work, instead of driving out for food, gives me extra time to go for a walk over lunch. So it all just makes more sense to skip eating out (so to speak).

Also, quitting drinking is probably saving me about $20–40 a week and it’s a healthier option anyways and not as bad as I had been afraid of. Since turning 21 decades ago, I drank regularly and never considered quitting or had issues with it, but the twin specters of money and health made me reconsider.

paddirn, 3 days ago

Fuck virgins

paddirn, 4 days ago

That’s cool, but choosing to do nothing is also a choice and you’ll see worse results under Trump, maybe even American forces helping out in the genocide, complete withdrawal of any Palestinian relief efforts, even more weapons provided without any conditions, and repression of groups here in the US. Saving the Palestinians would be great, but throwing out everything else for their sake when it won’t even make a difference just seems childish. If Trump gets power again, you won’t even have the freedom to worry about the Palestinians anymore, but you’ll still have to live with dead Palestinian children under rubble.

With Biden, there’s at least attempts at trying to reign in the Israelis. The US has less sway over the Israelis than what many probably think, as we can see with Israel’s/Netanyahu’s flippant attitude towards Biden’s urgings for restraint. Israel specifically started positioning itself to be less reliant on US influence since the 90s. We should still just stop sending them weapons altogether, but at least under Biden there an effort to stop it (as ineffectual as they are). Under Trump, the US will give increased enthusiastic support.

paddirn, 2 days ago

The Obama campaign did seem to flounder early on in the 2012 election against Romney, it just wasn’t able to reproduce the magic of 2008. I recall Obama performing badly against Romney in the first two debates, just did not seem at his best. It wasn’t actually until the VP debates after Joe Biden’s performance against Paul Ryan that the Obama campaign got reinvigorated.

paddirn, 4 days ago

Butlerian Jihadis

paddirn, 5 days ago

In our state, they tried doing speeding cameras at all the intersections in alot of towns/cities, but then had to pull them out because a state law was passed that pulled state funding of municipalities that used those cameras. So most (if not all) of them are gone now. I wonder if/hope these wouldn’t be treated the same way.

paddirn, 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

Just looked up my original receipt from Mojang back in 2010, it was €9.95 ($13.59). The blocks have apparently gotten more expensive since then, though I guess it costs money to add all those cosmetic blocks every year.

paddirn, 5 days ago

My Dad died about 4 years ago now and I still think about him almost daily. It was hard at first, but I’m not sure which I would’ve wanted, for people to have asked about him or to have not asked about him. Part of me wanted to crawl into a hole and not talk to anyone and part of me wanted people to have cared and know about him.

While it’s true you can’t sum up a person with “that’s a nice name,” they’re trying to make conversation, they probably don’t know what you know about him and if you want them to know, you’d need to correct them. My Dad really wasn’t social much throughout his life, so it kind of felt like just nobody cared at all, maybe half a dozen people in total ever really asked anything about him after he passed.

paddirn, 5 days ago

If nothing is wrong, it’ll be good for the peace of mind, if something is wrong, it’s good to be aware of it beforehand and have a chance at fixing it, rather than being in the middle of something broken down and causing additional problems. Houses are complicated systems and the more aware you are of their problems, the better chance you have of fixing it before it becomes worse.

paddirn, 5 days ago

Thinking was never their strong suit.