1bluepixel

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

the rest was just tooting China’s horn

Is that what we’re calling reporting on facts that don’t completely feed the “China bad” narrative, now?

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

“Meng did nothing wrong, let her go with a quiet whisper not to come back”

That was absolutely not my read on it here. It’s describing a realpolitik situation where Canada is on shaky legal grounds since they are not a signatory to a foreign embargo, and thus overreach their strict legal obligations to please an ally. The suggestion of letting Meng go isn’t about her being right or wrong; it’s about what’s the savviest move Canada could have made here that would have neither pissed off China nor the U.S.

Simply refusing to act on behest of the Trump Administration and giving plausible deniability why isn’t defying them. It’s a neutral political move. The consequence of not doing so is what we’ve since experienced: deteriorating relations with a major foreign power with no gains in return with the ally we tried to suck up to.

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

That counterpart, according to Ortis, briefed him about a “storefront” that was being created to attract criminal targets to an online encryption service. A storefront, said Ortis, is a fake business or entity, either online or bricks-and-mortar, set up by police or intelligence agencies.

The plan was to have criminals use the storefront — an online end-to-end encryption service called Tutanota — to allow authorities to collect intelligence about them.

Wait, WHAT?

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

We hate cars so much, we’ve come full circle to parroting fossil fuel industry propaganda against EVs, I see.

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

The state of public transport in Montreal makes me so angry. This city used to be an examplar of public transit.

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

Kind of a disingenuous title. Ubisoft is a publisher, yes, but this is specifically about it’s development studio in Montreal. Furthermore, these cuts are in IT, admin, and VFX, and not (so far) in development itself, and certainly not in Assassin’s Creed dev teams, which is clearly their cash cow.

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

“Battle not with penises lest you become a penis.”

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

Better to brush after getting up to remove any bacteria and plaque buildup. And then right before bed, floss+brush.

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

“How dare they show a titty in my murder simulator.”

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

The same happens to Chinese app stores on Android phones. Just companies trying to throw up obstacles for their competition.

Between this and antivirus software flagging cracked software, I wish security apps would focus on security instead of weaponizing consumer trust.

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

Sure. Disney’s main problem is streaming. It can’t possibly be the quality of what they produce. I mean, it’s not like they own half of the valuable entertainment IPs in the world, right?

1bluepixel, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

Romania is the most enthusiastic supporter of the EU and is on an economic growth spurt right now. But sure, keep treating them like second-class Europeans until they start waxing nostalgic about the days they had a friend in Russia. See how that works out.

Bulgaria is already well on that path.

1bluepixel, 7 months ago

It does explain why the EU doesn’t want to outright shut the door on China. The U.S. right now is acting like a bipolar person off their meds. One term they’re reasonable and rational, the next they’re throwing shit at the wall and talking about leaving their allies out to dry.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Major “are we the baddies?” vibes.

Better late than never, I guess.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

It also reminds me of crypto. Lots of people made money from it, but the reason why the technology persists has more to do with the perceived potential of it rather than its actual usefulness today.

There are a lot of challenges with AI (or, more accurately, LLMs) that may or may not be inherent to the technology. And if issues cannot be solved, we may end up with a flawed technology that, we are told, is just about to finally mature enough for mainstream use. Just like crypto.

To be fair, though, AI already has some very clear use cases, while crypto is still mostly looking for a problem to fix.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

“Fellas, is it gay to eat a salad?”

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Johnny Depp was a toxic boyfriend and a chronic substance abuser. So was Heard, but the fact she’s a dumpster fire of a human being doesn’t make Depp a saint despite what the internet tried to tell you.

Just two shitty human beings who made each other miserable.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Straight out of the Trump playbook. Big surprise.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

We gatekeeping liking the Fediverse now?

1bluepixel, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

This is exactly it.

I’m moving to China for work, so I’m interested in alternative points of view on Chinese society from the usual U.S. mainstream media CCP hate boner. I checked out hexbear, and… my goodness.

They cheer for a version of China that the Chinese themselves would be embarrassed by. It’s clearly driven by 14-year-old white boy edgelords who are enamored with a hardcore Marxist-Leninist vision of China that never existed, most likely in reaction to a dislike of modern Western capitalism. I mean, they referenced “struggle sessions” with nostalgia and cheer for Bashar al-Assad because China is being friendly to him.

Real-life China is quite different from the depictions you see on main Lemmy instances, but it sure as hell isn’t anything like what the tankies are jerking off to, either.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Hang on. You can get blocked by AI for asking what it deems are inappropriate questions?

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

I’ve been hearing a variant of this since I joined Slashdot in 1999. “Microsoft really messed up this time, mainstream Linux adoption is right around the corner!”

1bluepixel, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

And you’re vastly underestimating Reddit’s user base’s willingness to simp for porn stars and billionaires.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Article is pretty thin and alarmist. They quote someone from a pest control company saying they deal with bedbugs every day, but that doesn’t give any sense of the scale of the problem, only that this particular business is fully booked.

I think travelers still have a legit reason to be concerned about picking up bedbugs abroad since they probably don’t have them at home. It’s not like people sleep and bring clothes to other people’s homes all the time, so the risk of picking them up is certainly enhanced when traveling. Don’t think people need to lose their minds about traveling to Paris, but it’s something to be aware of and informed about.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

I enjoyed The Creator for its visuals but the bad script makes it impossible to recommend it. Might do well as a brainless Star Wars surrogate in streaming, and it might turn into a cult classic down the line, but I’m not surprised it’s bombing.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

What do you know, every sci-fi movie ever on the topic was right.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Made it possible to properly switch to Arm cyberware by cycling through weapons.

Oh, haha, I was wondering if I was crazy. The only way I could see to equip the Mantis Blades was to hold Y and select it there. Didn’t feel very intuitive.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

I’ve played it in January 2022 on PC (so about a year after release), going through a second playthrough on Steam Deck now.

Compared to two years ago, the game is not that different IMO. I enjoyed it immensely the first time, and I’m loving it enough now to just play it again. A lot of very noticeable changes with 2.0, with the entire perks system rebuilt and such. Not a major game changer IMHO but it’s all good stuff.

As for Steam Deck, it’s 100% compatible and looks great. I’ve noticed very few frame rate issues.

I wish people could let go of their resentment towards the game’s launch woes, because this game is a genuine banger with an amazing setting, great gameplay, and a kickass story.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Money. The answer is money.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

People eat bread and pick it up from their local bakery then walk home with it instead of stuffing it in the trunk of their SUV to drive two blocks. What do you expect.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Don’t know if this counts as an ending proper rather than a funny and very rare unintended effect. I doubt the devs planned for it or even realized it could happen.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

I think simply put:

Morality is an inherent classification of right and wrong behaviors, often the result of tradition, upbringing, and/or society.

Ethics is a moral system at which one may arrive through philosophy and rational thought.

Ethics tends to define right and wrong in terms of its impact on human well-being, and not just as a inherent sense of right and wrong. As such, it may arrive at conclusions that feel “morally wrong” but actually perpetuate a greater well-being. (One example being utilitarianism.) This is also its danger, as one may argue oneself into a behavior which is rationally ethical but inherently harmful (e.g. eugenics).

The power of ethics is that it can be used to derive moral guidelines for new circumstances, such as AI or global ecological considerations. Such considerations can be derived from morality, but they have a tendency to not truly appreciate new variables and instead attempt to reduce new systems to familiar circumstances, thus often missing nuance.

I’d argue that ultimately, a sound ethical system must be derived from rational ethical thought, gently guided by sound morality as a safeguard against dangerous fallacies.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

I think generalizing the good of human beings to all sentient beings is a great example of how a rigorous ethical discourse can expand traditional morality. The idea of giving rights to great apes is a wonderful example and I hope we can get there soon.

And likewise, a lot of traditionally “wrong” behaviors can be argued to be morally neutral if they don’t really diminish the well-being of human beings. Sex work is another example.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

The easy, low-cost solution is to build freight rail. But no, that’s communism and it doesn’t get a tech billionaire their extra billion.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

The news itself is great, but holy hell is this headline hyperbole. The medicine is a really great treatment and even preventive cure for kidney disease, which is a very common cause of death in old age for cats.

No, this isn’t some miraculous treatment that will give all cats a longer lifespan. It’s a great cure to a very common cause of death in cats. Not sure where the 30 years figure comes from.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

I’m pretty sure every physicist in existence knows that. It’s just a simple principle that’s really hard to test, so actually testing it is pretty cool. Like dropping a steel ball and a feather on the Moon.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Science advances by testing the limit cases. You do it and you do it until one day you get an unexpected result. That result, and the subsequent understanding of why it happens, is what leads to Nobel Prizes.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

My spouse and I lived in a bunch of countries over the years. We speak Quebec French, English, and Spanish, as well as a smattering of Chinese, Bulgarian, Korean, and a few odds and ends here and there.

We basically speak whatever we think people around us won’t understand. Very colloquial Quebec French in non-French-speaking countries, Chinese around white people, Bulgarian around non-white people, or even a cryptic mix of everything when we’re not completely sure.

We figure anyone who understands is probably someone we want to know… Hasn’t happened very often, but it does happen. So far we weren’t saying anything overly embarrassing when we got caught, but we sure as hell have no filter between us because of this!

1bluepixel, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

I wouldn’t say we speak in people’s faces, but we make comments to each other about random stuff. I would never say something rude about somebody in their faces, but my spouse might go, “Can we go back to the hotel, I really need to take a shit” or something silly and unfiltered like that.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

Haha, I’ve caught plenty of Chinese speakers having what they presume are private conversations in my presence, and sometimes even about me. People just automatically assume non-Asians can’t speak Chinese, even when these non-Asians live in China.

1bluepixel, 8 months ago

They’re doing this because they know the argument “China just builds cheap stuff” hasn’t been true for two decades now.

1bluepixel, 9 months ago

I was actually thinking just this morning that if there’s ONE area where AI could really make a difference, it’s in predictive text on keyboards. How many times do I have to type “Roman Empire,” say, before the keyboard suggests “Empire” the next time I type “Roman”? The keyboard doesn’t even recommend my own last name when I type my first name.

Except reading the article, this is anything BUT that. It’s some AI-generated art stuff so you can create custom stickers or some useless shit like that.

1bluepixel, 9 months ago

Still chasing the dream of mainstream Clippy acceptance.

1bluepixel, 9 months ago

I’d love that, but the celebrities are very much signaling Bluesky.

1bluepixel, 9 months ago

What truly annoys me about biopics is that Hollywood makes no attempt these days at these being true to the real-life characters they’re portraying. They’re 100% fiction using well-known public figures as the source of their verisimilitude. Movies like The Social Network and The Imitation Game, to name just these two, have barely any resemblance to their real-life counterparts. That’s also true of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Given that, I don’t even understand what’s the point of them.

1bluepixel, 9 months ago

The /all option is in the sidebar all the way at the bottom, below your subs. I agree it’s inconvenient.

1bluepixel, 9 months ago

Sean Penn sounds like he’s got his head so far up his own Hollywood ass he can watch himself emote through his own tonsils. These are the words of a man who articulates his entire reality through the prism of mainstream entertainment.

The dude even loaned his Oscar to Zelenskyy. Like, what is he trying to say?