Probably right wing populists are the majority there now. Intelligent people abandoned the dumpster fire. Just like Twitter. It’s just a far-right cesspool of hate now.
I cancelled cable a few years ago and now use YouTube TV. I love it because I can record everything, never run out of DVR space. I can run 5 tvs with different shows on each. I can watch TV anywhere on my phone and laptop. I can stop on one device and pick back up on another. Well over 100 channels now (but I only really watch a handful). Every channel also has an on-demand section. Like TCM has what’s live but also a huge library to stream from.
I have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Peacock, Max…but if I had to just use one service, it would be YouTube TV. It follows me, and is not tied to my house. If I go visit another state, it will even switch to the local news wherever I am. It has, by far, the most content in one spot for one price.
Well I think I pay something like $95 for YouTube TV +Max. Netflix is like 12? I’m on a sweet Spotify+Hulu for 9.99 promo for years, but I think it’s going up to $10.99. Disney is like $9. It may seem like a lot, but that’s all I spend on entertainment. I don’t eat outside the home regularly. I don’t go see movies at theaters. I don’t buy things like DVDs and stuff.
And to be fair, it’s for the household. We’re poly so there’s a variety of interests. And if you divide that by 5 adults, it’s cheap.
Not everyone watches US politics, or Fox News. I live in the US and don’t know her. I am sure there are famous faces you don’t know because it’s not your field of interest. Can you identify famous contemporary painters by face? Physicists? Composers? Game designers? Belittling someone’s education because they don’t know something you do is pathetic and says a lot more about you than it does the person you were mocking.
To be fair, no user “owns” their account. Everything about your Twitter account, from the user name to the data you tweet belongs to Twitter. I hesitate to call it a dick move. It’s more of an Elon move.
Modern billionaires are the manifestation of the rampant consumerism of the masses. Want to do your part against the billionaires? Start with consuming less. Buy less. Move toward minimal.
Roiland, whose exit from the Adult Swim series was announced in January in light of domestic abuse charges, had voiced the title characters since its 2013 launch.
I had a discussion about weird vs. norm with a friend the other day. We decided neither type of person is good or bad inherently because they are weird or normal. Different things comfort them. A weird person feels safe surrounded by people that “get them” who are weird like they are. Their personal identity is often centered on the fact that they are not “normal”. They take pride in it.
But the predictability of a more structured “normal” life is just as comforting to those who are “normal”. There are no rights or wrongs here, only the need for each type to recognize and respect the other. I don’t really like derogatory terms like “normie”, which I have more than one friend who uses (I don’t say anything to them about it, I can personally not like it without making demands on my friends to feel the same as I do). It’s like when I was in school, there were mostly right handed people, but every now and then there was a “leftie” or “southpaw”. They were different. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone bullied over being left-handed, but we all knew who they were. Humans and many animals focus on differences. It’s probably a residual primal thing. Wolves will kill deformed or sickly pups, for example.
Normal is boring to some, and weird is chaotic to some. Both are acceptable stances and shouldn’t be seen as adversarial by either group.
My friend and I collect old video games. But all my physical media just sits on my shelves and collects dust. Why do I even collect them? I literally just emulate everything. Is there a purpose to what I do? People ask me why I collect and I never have a real answer because I don’t even know. If I never play my stuff, is it...
Collections add a little something real to an interest. You are into baseball? Collect baseball cards and baseball memorabilia. Some find a tactile connection improves their enjoyment. For some people, it may be old video games, for others it may be coins, stamps, achievements in video games. Yes they are digital, but you can see them in your achievement/trophy list. I think some people are drawn to collections more than others because they favor a certain learning style over another. I’m not educated in behavior in any way so I am qualified to share my opinion on the Internet. There’s nothing abnormal about that. The collecting part. Not the part where I have no real knowledge on a topic but I feel my opinion is worthy of being heard. That’s actually normal, too, probably. But it shouldn’t be.
For me, sugars and processed foods (grains especially) were an addiction. I see a lot of advice about allowing yourself a “cheat” day now and then but I would advise against it. It’s like telling a drug addict it’s ok to shoot up now and then, or it’s ok for the alcoholic to have a drink on special occasions. Processed foods are harmful to us over time. So while it won’t kill you when you are 20 or even 30, it will catch up with you.
You can’t tell anyone this, but I have a friend who is deep inside the insurance industry. Some of the big guys have invested heavy into LEDs. So to maximize the LED investments, they give manufacturers safety discounts for every LED they can attach to their shit. Big guys make some extra zeros for their accounts, and sharpie and 3M get some splash, too.
When I try to login today with Chrome, it says logged in, but then just shows the login link at the top right instead of my account name. I have been using Chrome with no problems. I have not added anything new to it. I did go in and clear the browser cache and there was no change....
I looked up a list of Lemmy World instances and signed up for a bunch, but how do I see everything at once in one app instead of downloading one for each instance? I am new to what the kids call “federation.” Thank you.
I don’t need to sign up with every instance that isn’t federated with my home instance. I only need to sign up on one of those instances if they have a community I want to follow and participate in.
I love seeing pictures of the world from other people’s perspective. Urban shots. Nature shots. Any old boring shots like just a side road you walk down, or a tree you like to sit under. I like being able to see the quiet places in the world as well as the loud ones.
Usually when someone is venting at me, I feel like I should respond somehow and say something, but I have no idea what that something could/should be. Is it better to just listen or try to comfort them in some way?
I think listening behaviors are quite culturally based as well. For example:
Here in the Appalachian mountains, suppose two guys are talking to each other, perhaps both leaning on a fence. The guy who is listening doesn’t watch the speaker the entire time. They don’t make occasional noises either.
My buddy asks if I want to hear a story about some trouble he had recently with a neighbor. I nod and look at him “Yea”. He then proceeds to look forward, out across the field and I do the same. Buddy says something that I support, like what he did that started the trouble. I nod, quietly, or even make that “this is ok” face. If I make that face, it’s like saying “That makes sense to me, nothing unreasonable about that”. Unless he says something that you know he expects support for, then you just motionlessly stare into the foreground.
If he tells me something the neighbor did that angered him, I will look at him and make the astonished face, he will look at me and nod, then he verbally confirms it as we go back to staring at the field. He will go on about it some, and I will quietly lower my head a little and shake it back forth to show my disbelief in how crappy his neighbor is.
Then whatever conclusion he comes up with, I’ll either say, “hell yeah, that’s what I’d do” or “whoa I dunno about all that now” or something similar. The cues for listening and the correct responses to them will vary probably within subcultures.
I hear a problem and I want to offer solutions. But I gotta fight that instinct.
I’m curious how much of that is instinct vs. cultural programming. I used to be the same way. My partner would tell me about something that has aggravated her during her day and my first instinct was to think of ways to fix whatever it was and not just listen and be supportive. But that’s the exact opposite as the conversations I might have with my buddy would go. When he tells me about a problem, I just listen and if he pauses for a verbal response, I ask him how he handled it, not give him advice on how I would handle it.
So is that a primal bias or a cultural one? Does it come from some sort of deep genetic behavioral coding that we much protect our female mate? I’m certainly not able to answer that with any authority, but my gut says it’s learned behavior. I’ve since let go of that desire to fix. And for me, it’s much more satisfying to always listen as support and learning without seeing it as a task. That’s the default. I don’t even think about a solution unless I’m specifically asked.
Nothing in it leads me to believe it could fully replace a human DM in its current state, but if it was trained specifically on every dnd module, rulebook, fan content, fantasy books and movie scripts, then possibly.
In my opinion that’s what we do. Every homebrew adventure is the product of our combined knowledge of the system and the genre. We use some things designed by others (if you use a creature from a monster manual for example, or run a module), we create our own things. But the things we create still depend on things we have learned. We’re just organic AIs with a slower and less reliable training process lol
I used it to run an impromptu one-shot for some friends. It created the outline, the story hook, NPCs, encounters, traps, treasures and the big boss at the end. I had to tweak stuff and all the combat rolls were made with real dice, but overall it was fun and I said I co-DM’d that night.
It also creates and runs interactive fiction stories. I told it I wanted to play a game like zork with it lol and it wasn’t exactly zork, but it was actually more fun and flexible than zork could have been.
I totally agree. But I know I had a folder of bookmarks with all sorts of tools for making NPCs, locations, enemies, names for stuff, treasures, and so on. Now ChatGPT does all that for me. I found ChatGPT is a great tool to inspire personal creativity, too. When I tell it to invent puzzles, they are kinda meh by themselves but inspires me to put something more cohesive together.
Eventually, sooner than you might think, I can see an AI with cameras around the room, so it can see the players’ faces. It will be able to identify common emotional faces and can improvise accordingly. Honestly, I predict there will be live streams of a bunch of humans sitting around a table that is being run by the AI dungeon master.
The tabletop is one of those big digital screen ones, and the the fights are animated as they play. I would totally watch that haha. Maybe at some point it can generate movies based on the game session. I know we’ve all had some epic game moments that would be awesome movie scenes.
I have not used it enough to tell. I asked it to make a one-shot for me. It set up the entire plot, created the stat blocks for the monsters, set up the encounters. Created the traps and the puzzles. It even made the magic items, along with detailed descriptions and lore. I’ve had it help with making a custom setting, including custom races and classes. It’s not copy/paste perfect of course, but good enough of a framework that I can easily go in and tweak stuff. Definitely saves hours of work.
The things I upvote and downvote are in line with my personal values and I am not ashamed of that. I have no issues with anyone knowing my reaction to a post. On Discord anyone can see who leaves reactions on a message. Same with Facebook. It will show you who added what reaction.
No, I keep some things private. But some things, like reactions and upvotes, are just as public to me as the posts I make is my point. It just isn’t a concern for me personally.
I do not believe upvotes and down votes are enough information to reveal the identity of anyone. If this was truly such a risk, where has the concern for this been on Facebook, where you can see who leaves reactions by name. Or Discord where every account that clicks a reaction is available?
Here that info is not available to the public at large. On Facebook it’s available to anyone who sees a post. Why haven’t security voices been pressuring Facebook to not track social reactions if it’s so dangerous?
This is a feature of social media for the most part. What I write as posts and comments is available to everyone as is vastly more useful info for someone to collect.
Maybe I shouldn’t be as pissed as I am but, for me, I like using my Apple card for autopay because I get 3% back with T-Mobile charges. What I like to do is use my CCs to max my rewards / cash back and then pay off my card each month....
Check out Google Fi. It uses the T-Mobile network here (US), and I get unlimited data, no rate limits. I have three phone numbers on my account and it costs me $85 a month total. Also the phones from the Fi store are super cheap if you stay on Google Fi. My pixel 7 got $300 off at purchase and $100 for my old phone. They are unlocked, too. Something I hate when buying from other providers. One of my phones had a Verizon sim and a Google Fi e-sim, so I can switch services with easy. Here in the mountains, service can be spotty in places with TMobile. Wifi calling is also available though, so that helps, too. I abandoned US Cellular entirely.
I agree with that logic. But for me personally, I don’t feel “locked” into google. There are no contracts, no penalties for moving to some other service if I need. I never use customer support from any of these services because I find it’s easier to just look for the answers myself. I have no loyalty to any company, I simply use what best serves me at the time. All corps are interested in profit over people, so there’s really no company I have found to be fully ethical and transparent while offering a competing service that is as reliable.
I have the free 15 GB of cloud storage with them, but I don’t use it. I keep my data on my own cloud storage box. Yes, I have a gmail account, but I also have a proton.me account that I use more than gmail. Also, pretty much every big service out there is powered by Google and/or Amazon (see Twitter lol), so looking at the big picture, right now, we are dependent on Google in ways we are not even aware.
This is also why I am excited to see the shift to open source and self-hosting. I think a time is coming, too, where big companies are going to have to pay us for access to our data. I’ve made almost $200 just casually answering questions for the Google Rewards app. Sometimes it’s a dime, sometimes fifty cents, occasionally a question nets more. Those credits can be used to pay for any google services or purchases. I usually buy movies I can’t find on streaming services with my Google Rewards credits (my pirate days are long gone, it’s just not as convenient for me anymore and if I can’t watch it through a service or buy it, I just don’t need to watch it lol).
I really want to self-host a lemmy server sometime in the next year, I have a Core i5 desktop that’s not dead, just sits in a closet. My wish is to have all my personal social media self-hosted and I can choose who I want to federate with and who I don’t. But I’m not a pioneer. I’m waiting til this all settles a little to see if it’s worth the work.
I still use Google news to follow some topics and it gathers articles from my local news sites, too. But any time if shows an article that prompts me to register to see it, I just go back to the Google news page and tell it to block that source.
I find this more mildlyhumorous than infuriating. I’m looking forward to a new era where every news article no longer includes a string of embedded tweets. :) As a non-twitter user, this certainly doesn’t encourage me to bother making an account.
But Meta doesn’t own social media. They have some social media platforms that are finding direct, open-source alternatives to their service…for FREE. The days of uncontested, corporate-controlled, AI-manipulated social media have come to an end.
I dislike this idea because it creates "tiers" of users. Communities might not allow comments from anyone without at least the basic donation badge. Donations incentivized with perceived perks are made with selfish intent. The capitalist system has trained us that in order for people to do something, they must be given a sufficient reward.
This is not true. Using rewards as incentives to motivate people will create division among individuals. When rewards are introduced, the focus shifts from intrinsic motivation and personal satisfaction to the external reward itself. This leads to a competitive mindset where individuals start comparing themselves to others solely based on the rewards they receive.
For example, I've seen something as simple as a user tag being used to restrict and divide a community. (r/conservative comes to mind first).
I get you, I just don't like tying social status to badges and icons that denote financial contribution. That's Elon Musk style. Another solution is you could sell merch for example. And creators on the server could donate artwork they make to be sold on merch like t-shirts, hats, handbags, etc. instead of donating cash.
But, if the intrinsic value of helping keep an instance going isn't enough motivation, there're many other successful methods to implement before resorting to awarding visible badges. Here are a few strategies to increase financial engagement:
Transparency: Provide clear and transparent information about how donations are utilized and the specific projects or initiatives they support. When users understand how their contributions make a difference, they may be more motivated to donate.
Collaboration: Foster a sense of collective ownership and involvement by actively involving users in decision-making processes. Allow them to suggest and vote on some decisions, creating a sense of shared responsibility.
Gamification: Instead of special badges, incorporate gamification elements that track collective progress toward a shared donation goal. Create visual representations or progress meters that show how close the community is to reaching a specific target, encouraging users to contribute and help achieve the goal together.
Impact Reporting: Regularly update users on the impact of their donations. Provide reports or updates that detail how the funds have been utilized and the outcomes achieved. Demonstrating the tangible results of their contributions can strengthen user trust and encourage continued support.
Basically, any way that a person can feel or see their contributions (and importantly the support of the greater community along with them) for the instance will increase engagement.
I have a theory that there is a impossible trinity (like in economics), where a food cannot be delicious, cheap and healthy at the same time. At maximum 2 of the 3 can be achieved....
Today I learned that what I consider healthy is very different from what others consider healthy. Fried chicken would not be in my top 10 healthy choices for example. Not criticizing the other guy, but just noting that what is considered to be healthy is sooo wildly distorted by corporate indoctrination that there are likely people who think KFC has some healthy food.
I love this. I especially love the “play at level 1 until it’s not fun”. Progression is secondary to a good story. Back when I was playing 1st and 2nd editions, new players would start as zero level characters, where we roleplayed short adventures around them being apprentices for organizations such as a thieves guild, a church, a fighter’s guild or for some wizard or going to an academy. The characters might end up meeting each other by having similar quests given to them and they become friends who evolve into adventurers.
Reddit Is Fun was the only way I browsed Reddit on mobile. The mobile app is crap and doesn’t actually properly load posts. I get down a few scrolls and it ends like there isn’t anything else to view.
Let’s be honest, this price change was all about being able to charge the big corps mega money for access to their data in order to train new generations of AI. The price is absurd, yes, but the owners of reddit know that Google and Microsoft have deep pockets (among other global corps wanting the massive amount of data reddit has saved).
They never expected the third party apps to be able to pay this much and frankly, they don’t care. It’s HUGE profit from AI corps, and the losses, at least short term, will be overshadowed by the gains. Long term? I don’t know, this isn’t my area of expertise, but, like I did with Twitter, I have moved on so at this point, it’s no longer relevant to me.
The new system to replace Reddit coins and awards is here. You got out at the right time. (www.reddit.com)
Read all about it at the above link. There’s way too much to process here. This is going to be wild.
Youtube Premium (lemmy.ml)
She's baaaaack... (lemmy.world)
Elon Musk and company take @x handle from its original user. He got zero dollars for it. (mashable.com)
‘Rick and Morty’ Team Gives Update on Recasting Process Following Justin Roiland’s Dismissal (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Roiland, whose exit from the Adult Swim series was announced in January in light of domestic abuse charges, had voiced the title characters since its 2013 launch.
Twitter’s rebrand to X may actually be happening soon (www.theverge.com)
gender rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
The transphobia stops now
This community is housed on an instance run by two trans women, focused on the needs of the queer and gender diverse community....
My friend sold his Video Game Collection, it just made me have a midlife crisis at 29. Is this normal?
My friend and I collect old video games. But all my physical media just sits on my shelves and collects dust. Why do I even collect them? I literally just emulate everything. Is there a purpose to what I do? People ask me why I collect and I never have a real answer because I don’t even know. If I never play my stuff, is it...
Reddit brings back r/place - tomorrow, July 20 (www.reddit.com)
Totally not suspicious timing at all....
Is jellyfish vegan?
They don’t have a brain really and kinda just float there. Do they even feel pain?
The struggle is real (lemmy.world)
Everything has LEDs now and they drive me nuts
Why does every small appliance or useful home electronics item have the BRIGHTEST LEDs in them?...
Need Help with a Browser Issue
When I try to login today with Chrome, it says logged in, but then just shows the login link at the top right instead of my account name. I have been using Chrome with no problems. I have not added anything new to it. I did go in and clear the browser cache and there was no change....
I don't understand.
I looked up a list of Lemmy World instances and signed up for a bunch, but how do I see everything at once in one app instead of downloading one for each instance? I am new to what the kids call “federation.” Thank you.
YSK: Pixelfed replaced Instagram for me, the same way Lemmy replaced reddit.
Guys check out pixelfed. Its better than Instagram.Same concept of fediverse as Lemmy and Mastodon....
When someone is venting, am I supposed to say something?
Usually when someone is venting at me, I feel like I should respond somehow and say something, but I have no idea what that something could/should be. Is it better to just listen or try to comfort them in some way?
I asked ChatGPT if it would DM a Temple of Elemental Evil campaign for me (lemmy.world)
I was just testing to see if it could be fun. Yes, I think so. In fact, I find that ChatGPT is a Dungeon Master’s dream toolbox for homebrew stuff.
YSK: Your Lemmy activities (e.g. downvotes) are far from private (i.imgur.com)
Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)…...
T-Mobile Starting to Really Grind My Gears (vlemmy.net)
Maybe I shouldn’t be as pissed as I am but, for me, I like using my Apple card for autopay because I get 3% back with T-Mobile charges. What I like to do is use my CCs to max my rewards / cash back and then pay off my card each month....
Ironic (midwest.social)
Musk is undeniably just trying to run twitter into the ground at this point. (lemmy.world)
How are lemmy and other fediverse platforms profitable?
Reddit migrator here (shocking, I know)...
Is there a food that is cheap, delicious and healthy at the same time?
I have a theory that there is a impossible trinity (like in economics), where a food cannot be delicious, cheap and healthy at the same time. At maximum 2 of the 3 can be achieved....
My Table: Old School, Young Crowd
This kind of post seems like a good way for new folks to get acquainted and more settled in to Lemmy....
Maddening. Fuck you Reddit! (lemmy.world)
Reddit Is Fun was the only way I browsed Reddit on mobile. The mobile app is crap and doesn’t actually properly load posts. I get down a few scrolls and it ends like there isn’t anything else to view.