“This is Florida! The whole goddamn state is shaped like a gun! You can’t walk to your mailbox without tripping over three of them. God forbid you sell one to a cop!”

Fair point.

I dunno man … assume a model trained on the complete corpus of arts leading up to the Renaissance. What kind of randomness lands you at Hieronymus Bosch? Would AI be able to come up with Gonzo Journalism or modal music?

A brief glance at the history of human ingenuity in the arts really puts generative AI in perspective.

I think AI in this case is doing exactly what it’s best at: Automating unbelievably boring chores on the basis of past “experiences”. In this case the boring chore was “Draw me [insert character name] just how I know him/her”.

Too many people mistakenly assume generative AI is originative or imaginative. It’s not. It certainly can seem that way because it can transform human ideas and words into a picture that has ideally never before existed and that notion is very powerful. But we have to accept that, until now, human creativity is unique to us, the humans. As far as I can tell, the authors were not trying to prove generative AI is unimaginative, they were showing just how blatant copyright infringement in the context of generative AI is happening. No more, no less.

Although this surely does not completely explain the situation, I also have a feeling these sorts of hires surely account for a substantial number of layoffs.

Yeah try searching for “star trek socialism” on YT or wherever, you’d be surprised.

But apart from the series specifically there is at least some theorizing that space exploration is only possible after capitalism has been abolished since the energy and cooperation alone required to make it work on a meaningful scale is not possible under capitalism. We need the unleashing of productive forces that only communism can provide.

Aaaaaaand of course there are the Posadists. Google them for a good chuckle!

Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions!

It’s not like I’m a scholar on the subject or anything, but to my mind the key thing you said is “changing the system”. That’s the prerequisite for achieving a more just society. You can hate on the owner class all you want, simply getting rid of them will not necessarily overthrow societal power relations. New billionaires will rise, capitalism will not die along with the last rich white dude.

I would even go so far as to say that hating on the owning class kind of deflects from analyzing the contradictions and ideologies produced by capitalist societies themselves. This especially shows in certain sorts of reactionary political movements, who have no problem with capitalism as long as it feeds their nationalist ambitions instead of some globalist billionaire jet-set often described as Jewish.

My comment wasn’t really aimed at humanizing him, I only wanted to poke fun at him although I can see where you’re coming from.

I’m more on the side of Marx’s character mask argument on people like Bill. That’s why I can make shitpost comments like mine even without liking him all too much.

I love that this headline let’s ole Bill sound like a zoned out stoner college freshman.

This hits way too close to home.

OMG I guess my age is getting to me LOL. Then add SNL to my list as well!

In Living Color. Man, the talent on that show was unbelievable: Almost the complete family Wayans, Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey … they all started with that show. And Jennifer Lopez was on the dance crew! Look up the skits on Youtube or Piped. The comedy I saw on that show was transformative. It’s 30 years later and I’m still quoting Hans & Franz, Men on film, or Calhoun Tubbs regularly.

Gird your loins, people running Friendica instances!

Have you taken a look at your instance’s FAQ here? Other than that, there are numerous guides to getting set up with Lemmy and how to subscribe to communities on other instances. It’s slightly different than Reddit, but apart from some technical details, everything works like Reddit once you’re set up.

Because of the decentralized structure, there can be communities on the same topic on different instances (with different subscribers, moderation guidelines, etc.). Use the search to find communities you’re interested in and post questions e.g. on the FAQ thread of your instance. Or right here of course.

Wow I gotta stop hanging out exclusively in Rust communities. When I read the headline I was expecting much more drama.

Riding on the sidewalk endangers pedestrians (especially children and people with disabilities). Crossing an intersection that has cars coming from the right is also unsafer because you enter drivers’ the field of view much later (than if you’re on the street) and at a higher velocity (than a pedestrian). If you are riding a car please accept that in the most places in the industrialized part of the world, bicyclists have exactly the same right to use the street (according to local regulations of course).

This is the correct answer.

We bought a couple of plants that have a smell that allegedly repels cats and other animals and had good results planting them around our patches. But we also left the dog in the garden more often which might have helped even more. The plants are called plectranthus ornatus … but there are others which might also work: https://horticulture.co.uk/cat-deterrent-plants/

Klick on those links with caution, especially the collection is most definitely NSFL.