So… if Duolingo is just AI now, why would anyone pay for Duolingo? Just ask the AI for language lessons yourself.

No paint? Sure. No touchscreen? Good.

…No radio? That’s going to absolutely murder their sales.

What is this shady, unsubstantiated, posted yesterday ass random github repo trying to encourage people to compromise their email security and why is it worth posting?

GIMP is honestly fantastic. My workflow goes draw in GIMP, import to Inkscape to convert pieces to vector, then bring them into Godot where shaders get applied. I would rather draw in GIMP than any other program. I find drawing in Inkscape super awkward in comparison. GIMP is pretty no-frills, but it does the job. I prefer it over Photoshop. With Darktsble I’ve found it useful for importing high res raw images for textures too.

I don’t know why people hate on it so much. It’s all about using the tools you’re comfortable with.

This headline is bullshit. The correct headline would be “Americans now face 245% Trump tariff on Chinese goods”. No need to spread misinformation about how tariffs work.

Too low. I should not be able to personally afford a whole ass ton of excess greenhouse gasses for the same price as my car insurance.

I’m sorry, but who the hell quotes stuttering verbatim?

That’s what I was thinking. Maybe they’re just Community fans.

… Should we be pinching our nipples at their AI?

I’m not sure that checks out. I mean, fair, I do think that someone being habitually cruel toward AI might not be the greatest indicator of their disposition in general, though I’d hesitate to make a hasty judgement on that. But if we take AI’s presentation as a person as fictional, does that extend to other fictional contexts? Would you consider an evil play-through in a video game to indicate an issue? Playing a hostile character in a roleplay setting? Writing horror fiction?

It seems to me that there are many contexts where exhibiting or creating simulated behavior in a fictional environment isn’t really equivalent to doing so with genuine individuals in non-imaginary circumstances. AI isn’t quite the same as a fictional setting, but it’s potentially closer to that than it is to dealing with a real person.

By the same token, if not being polite to an AI is problematic, is it equally problematic to repeatedly say things like “human” and “operator” to an automated phone system until you get a response? Both mimic human speech, while neither ostensibly have a legitimate understanding of what’s being said by either party.

Where does the line get drawn? Is it wrong to curse at fully inanimate objects that don’t even pretend to be people? Is verbally condemning a malfunctioning phone, refrigerator, or toaster equivalent to berating a hallucinating AI?

I know that when I’m playing cards in a dress that’s melted into my skin, with my favorite half-bracelet draped over my wrist, I love to intimidate my opponent by flashing them two face cards. Who wouldn’t be shaken by the Kinmb of Back of Card and the Quing of 21s? Especially when I’ve already played my oversized red card.

This is what happened with plastic bags in some stores in the US. We passed plastic bag bans and while in a lot of cases the result was a combination of low-quality paper bags and legitimately reusable plastic totes, in the past couple of years some places have started giving out plastic bags that are way thicker than the ones we used to have and just calling them reusable. Like, yeah, they’re strong enough to be reused, but that definitely doesn’t seem to be the norm. We just ended up with single-use plastic bags that literally use more plastic.

Mozilla seems to be doing fine to me. Most of the people complaining about them don’t give any indication that they themselves are doing anything particularly helpful either.

In my experience discord literally feels like I’m in the room with someone. I use it constantly and it’s been great for me. Phones on the other hand are kinda garbage. The signal is consistently unreliable. Sometimes I literally get calls where one of us can’t hear the other. Sometimes several calls in a row. Occasionally calls just don’t even go through.

It depends on whether the server you’re on is boosted, also. But even a standard voice server is better quality than a phone. Phones may technically be able to play audio with a higher bitrate, but that’s limited by both cell service and speaker quality.

More reliable too, honestly. Plus the video streaming is indispensable. Honestly, discord voice chat is a big part of the reason I haven’t made a serious attempt to use Matrix for much if anything. The lack of push to talk is a deal breaker. Also like, none of my friends are there.

I would never engage in marketing… except for my own indie projects.

Being relatively a relatively unknown outlet that forces extra steps on anyone who wants to read their articles probably sets the bar pretty low. Especially when a lot of people will just share archive links.

Heyyy, it’s chanology style anonymous. Nice.

I’m pretty sure people thought Trump would be good at economics literally just because of the Apprentice. Manny more people in the US watch reality TV than have any real understanding of politics. Look at all the Trump voters who literally seemed to have no idea he would do any of the things he very loudly said he was going to do. They just remember him being the boss guy who was supposedly good at business from that one show they watched about business.

In what world does it take two people to “make” a piece of malformed AI schlock?