I disagree. I find teenage super hero stories the only enjoyable ones. I don’t want my heroes to have to deal with quotidian grownup issues like paying the mortgage, having to work overtime, or worrying about their octogenarian parents. I want the biggest issue in their universe - apart from saving Earth from total destruction by a comical villain - to be the history paper that is due next Monday or how mom reduced their pocket money. I prefer the simplicity of interpretational relationships in a school setting. There is the bully jock and the nerdy girl who when she takes her glasses off becomes instantly attractive. Give me all the tropes. And I don’t need or want an R rated version of all of that.

In closing I just want to take a moment and applaud your personal growth. In showerthought after showerthought you’ve struggled with people dating much older people. And in this one you’re quite open to and positive about a twenty-something dating somebody twice their age! Well done you.

Can? Sure. Should? No.

It’s worthwhile remembering though that the people who get it aren’t all saints. Although rape and sexual assault are particularly distasteful items to have on the resume, if the person repented and then contributed meaningfully to lasting world peace, they shouldn’t automatically be stricken off the list.

So those admittedly distastefully liberal guidelines should exclude any current resident of the White House then.

I think they should ignore any person who is so publicly thirsty for it. It’s a prize you get, not one you ask for.

It’s unnerving having to read that the US ally Norway feels like they need to prepare for retaliatory tariff action if the independent committee for the award, that only ended up in Oslo by a quirk of Scandinavian history, doesn’t award the prize to 47. Sad.

I don’t think there is a good reason. It’s an interesting ability for a model. I can see the appeal why people are interested in much the same way I can understand why people climb mountains. Wouldn’t wanna do it myself but I can see why you like it kind of way. For me this falls into the category of “the general public doesn’t need to have access to this.” I get mad when I hear people talk about it in terms of what is and isn’t allowed in it. “And then I tried to put a light saber in it and that was okay but I couldn’t make me into Super Mario.” You just created enough heat in a server farm that will kill a polar bear, that needs to be cooled with future drinking water we need to desalinate, and you have huffed some more air in the hyped up bubble economy surrounding so-called AI. All so you can see where the model draws the copyright line? And if you think that I was modest in my hyperbole, you’ll probably agree with me when I say in a similar spirit that we as a species deserve to eradicate ourselves off this planet.

The so-called AI peddlers have the same problem as news peddlers online. It’s fucking hard to turn users into paying subscribers. And they need to turn a profit at some point. It’s the merciless mechanics of capitalism that dumps all these models on an unprepared general public at dumping prices. A drive to increase shareholder value above any other consideration. It’s time to change that.

And I’m not opposed to this model existing. Research it, fine tune it, offer it for the actual cost you’re running in the background plus a bit of a profit margin. And when it costs $207.40 per month to make these brief videos, I’d be okay with that. It would price out enough users not to undo any of the insufficient climate saving measures we as a species have already implemented.

Can’t see anything.

What is your obsession with people fucking people, legally, as it stands, who are much older? It seems to me every other of your shower thoughts revolves around that. Who hurt you? Did they fuck a pensioner to cheat on you or something?

Really? I don’t think he’ll let anybody die just because there wasn’t a convenient phone booth around to get rapid changed in.

Back pay is not helping that much when your mortgage is on the line today/next month after you have exhausted all your savings. Of which I’m gonna guess post covid there aren’t that much. Your soldiers are going to suffer bad. Your go fund me idea is honorable; I don’t see it making enough of a dent. That would presuppose a level of knowledge among the general public, an awareness of these issues, and I don’t see that either. In a way, it’s that lack of awareness that gave the world Orange 2.0.

The Republicans have the stronger arm in this arm wrestle. I don’t like it either. Their people don’t care if you chop off their fingers if at the end they can say they owned the Dems. If education works here, go for it. I don’t think the time frame is long enough for this to work. They’ve already swallowed veterans getting less health care and that their favorite valet José has been sent to El Salvador. Are grocery price increases not outpacing inflation? They aren’t issue-based, they are vibe-based and the vibe is own the Dems.

In theory I agree with you. I’m not parroting anyone, I’m trying to look at this realistically. This is not the first shutdown rodeo. And it sucks if your team feels a certain level of responsibility to the country and all its people, which is more than I can see coming from the clown car load of people currently in charge. At some point the leadership of the Democrats will feel the damage to continue is going to hurt them more at the ballot box than to package a turd of a compromise in shiny wrapping paper. I want your vision of the Democrats but I think we’ll get mine unfortunately.

I don’t doubt that. My crystal ball tells me they will compromise at some point for the good of the workers, for the good of the country - whichever line works best at that moment. I wouldn’t want them to do that but I’m pretty sure it will pan out that way eventually.

There is a process called reconciliation that gets triggered in the senate in a budget impasse situation. I would say it typically involves a whole lot of horse trading but at the end is a bill that can pass with a simple majority. So I don’t think either party will be able to drag this out indefinitely or just to the midterms.

Dragging this out generally is a bad idea for Democrats. The cult following of stable genius is going to accept the negative consequences longer as long as they get fed a narrative along the lines of “we prevent immigrants from getting health care and drain the swamp of lizard people.” Or whatever. The Democrats will feel their feeble support dwindle when unpaid government workers are done with their savings, which will happen before the cult runs out of patience. The whole battle is mainly fought on the backs of people whose only fault was choosing a career in government. The Democrats will take pity on them and eventually agree to the least dehumanizing compromise you can negotiate at the “12th” hour.

YT and TT are platforms that breed weird quirk uniformity. They all grab your attention with the same phrases (“you’ll never believe …”, “what about [insert something outrageous]? Let me explain …” etc.) For a while, everybody had the same Ikea shelves behind them crammed with shit. Then I think we moved on to neon signs. It used to be fashionable to show off your expensive big microphone, probably much to the delight of its manufacturer. And that’s why I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the manufacturer paid some influencers to hold the tiny mike prominently in the shot like they would hold a dog poop bag filled with poop from a stranger’s dog. And then it was copied.

Don’t listen to the critics on the internet. If you’re not dying soon, watch it all. It’s Trek. It’s roughly 60% great, 30% mediocre to aged poorly, and 10% let’s never talk about it again.

I would go in rough order of release because they do like harkening back to stuff. Actually rewatching TOS will be good for SNW. And Disco S2 is its backdoor pilot.

Yes, you must have missed it. And so it begins.

Google is moving to make Android less open source. I’m not sure more devs following suit is going be good for them or their users. The G doesn’t give an F.

What we need is an OS fork that gets maintained. If not that, some other workaround that fools the Google servers. Because you can bet money that nobody made from flesh and blood is going to look at this inside Google.

Maybe devs can band together and form Middle Finger Corp. and designate one willing person as their contact to serve as registered dev for a gazillion apps. Follow the letter of the law, not the misguided spirit of it, in a manner of speaking.

If you are sitting on a mobile OS and you were afraid to fail like Windows, maybe now is the time to give it a go?

I fear you either misunderstand my comment or what martyrdom means. I’m no fan of the man who got shot. And for me he’ll never be a martyr. But those who did like him can now hail him as such, make him a hero - for all the other people who liked him. Martyrdom is in the eye of the beholder.

When and where did you go to school? That capital A that looks more like the lowercase one I’ve only ever seen from people from North America.

Whoever wrote this was probably still in school and I would guess in a North American one because of the cursive they wrote in. I think they also copied the text, badly, and that explains the mistakes.

I fear it will the shooter’s legacy that we will all remember the name. He may have otherwise continued his life as a weird, argumentative footnote in history. Now he will be a vessel of martyrdom that will fill itself with content poured in by those who instrumentalize his unfortunate death.

Is this happening even for their premium subscribers?

There is no simple answer to this. It’s like at least three factors interacting. How much empathy do you feel towards the other person? How close is your relationship on the scale of strangers bumping into each other on the street to best friends forever? How big an issue has any of this been objectively (or as close as you can get there)? So that’s three sliding scales to adjust to get an outcome. The closer a relationship is, the harder this can be because there is history and people (I’m including myself in this) can be very petty.

Just judging by the hints you dropped you should probably reconsider your approach to your coworkers. And I don’t mean you need to be submissively apologetic all the time and share everything from your private life, even your hemorrhoid problems, with the crew. You’ll probably make your life easier just on a human level plus improve odds of promotion if you do more of that, even if it feels more line cosplay to you. I share your “grow the eff up”/no bullshit stance but that only works in a group of like minded people.

Not defending Google but I have a but (no typo - although I’m the proud owner of a double t version as well. But I digress.)

Google is not getting rid of sideloading. They are implementing a registration process for devs and then do a check if they have the info on record before allowing an app to be installed. It is possible for you to download an APK from wantsomalware dot com and install it as long as the developer registered with Google - as all the malware dipshits will manage to do on burner accounts, which will not curb the spread of malware, which is their stated aim. Technically, your bank could distribute its app on its website as long as they registered with the Goog. But it will render abandoned projects uninstallable and that’s the rub.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like this either. Twisting their words though isn’t helping either.

Corey Doctorow pointed out that it is mad that we call it sideloading. Installing an APK is the same, whether it’s coming from Play, F-droid, or the dark web. There should not be this distinction. Lobby your politicians on this matter. G will not GAF about this petition - it’s PR for the cause at best. Only the tag team of legislature and judiciary can set this right.

We can all agree kids shouldn’t be watching porn. We do not agree on how to achieve this.