Voroxpete

@Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Voroxpete,

Yeah, there was zero miscommunication here. They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and now they’re trying to bullshit their way out.

Voroxpete,

pro-palestine

Weird way to spell “people who aren’t totally cool with genocide”, but OK

Voroxpete,

Art skills can be far more easily taught and to a wider variety of people regardless of their inherent talent than software engineering and game design at the required level.

What an absolutely batshit insane thing to say.

Voroxpete,

So, the big problem right now with AI art is that there’s no real way to modify it without basically completely redoing it.

You can alter the prompts, but due to the intentionally chaotic nature of the models, what you’ll get out is a completely different image. You can’t just be like “I want her head tilted a little more to the left, and give her a bigger smile, but keep everything else the same.” When you’re working on professional art, generally what happens is the artist presents you with each version, from rough sketches to finished line art, to rough paint work, and you request changes as you go. There’s a collaboration as you guide them towards the result you want. But with AI you’re just shotgunning outputs and hoping that one of them lands close enough. That’s fine for your bedroom wall, but not for a professional environment.

And if you want to have a human artist go in and make those changes to the finished image, they have to contend with the fact that they only have a finished image, not any of the layers from sketch through to brush work to lighting and so on. So they’re basically stuck trying to seamlessly paint over the existing image. That’s harder than it sounds.

Can artists use AI as a tool? Absolutely. Generate like 50 versions of a scene, use them as references. Or ask it for a sketch, then paint over that in your style. You can correct mistakes and make adjustments along the way. But the idea that humans can just “touch up” AI art to fix the mistakes doesn’t really work.

Voroxpete,

You’re offering a hypothetical where AI art can actually reproduce all of the capabilities of human art. Not just broad aesthetics, but emotion, intentionality, subtext, use of imagery, understanding of the human soul…

Is that ever going to be truly possible? Maybe if we create real, true AI. Something that’s actually sentient.

But putting that aside, if we accept your premise, then sure, I doubt anyone would care. Then again, once an AI is able to create truly human art, what would be the difference between an AI and a human?

AI is fucking cool. The idea of living in a fully automated post scarcity future where advanced learning machines take away all of the need for manual or intellectual labour sounds amazing. But the goal should be to make a world where humans are freed from drudgery and given more time to create and appreciate art and beauty. Instead we’re creating a world where humans toil away our lives while searching for brief sparks of joy in mass produced, corporate owned art that barely qualifies as art. Seems kind of fucked to me.

Instead of asking how far we can go in terms of automating away our ability to create beautiful things, shouldn’t we be asking how far we can go in terms of automating away the barriers to people creating beautiful things?

Voroxpete,

So is the US and Canada and the UK. Should I wish for those countries to be genocided too?

Voroxpete,

Because my basic humanity requires me to care about theirs, even if they don’t care about mine.

Voroxpete,

If I exit my bedroom through the window I fall to my death. Not sure how that helps me in a fire.

Voroxpete,

Sorry, but that’s just incorrect. You unknowingly downloaded a whole bunch of things just in the process of making this comment.

This is one of the issues that has confounded people since the invention of the world wide web; from a computer’s perspective, there is no such thing as “viewing” a file. Everything is a download. The only difference is what your computer does with the file after the fact.

If you load up a thread on a forum and someone posts a CSAM image to that thread, your compouter will download it. You don’t have to make any active choice, other than loading the thread itself, for that to happen. Same on Discord, WhatsApp, or anything else. All forms of access are downloads.

Edit to add: None of this is relevant to this particular case since the defendant allegedly viewed the video multiple times across a period of two years, which, y’know, is in absolutely no way accidental. But it’s still important to understand the distinction because there are a lot of situations where it absolutely does matter.

Voroxpete, (edited )

Download itself is also a network terminology, referring to incoming data, moving to you, also known as RX and TX in shorter form.

This is just about the only correct statement in this rambling mess of a comment. Yes, downloading means that data is moving to your system.

So, given that fact, how do you imagine that your web browser displays an image without downloading it? How does the data comprising the content of the image end up on your system in order for the web browser to render it without traveling to it from the server; ie, being “downloaded”?

Voroxpete,

OK, suppose the police find out that a CSAM image was posted on a forum. About an hour later it was deleted by the mods, but in that time it was unwittingly viewed a number of times by users of the forum who had no idea it was in that thread. Some users didn’t even scroll down far enough in the thread to actually see the image, but it still got grabbed by their web browser, because the browser loads the whole page, not just the part you’re looking at. Now suppose that you are one of those users.

Now the cops subpoena a list of every IP address that downloaded that image, tie those IP addresses back to specific users. Now you get your door kicked in by the cops looking for evidence of child porn stored on your computer. And depending on various other factors, they might even still find that image stored there in some form, without you having any idea about it.

This is why it’s important to understand that there is no technical difference between downloading and viewing. Your lawyer’s job is now going to be to prove that you never wittingly chose for that image to be delivered to your computer, even though it absolutely was delivered there as a direct result of actions you took. Your web browser made the request to the server to send that image to it, because you made the request to open that page. So there has to be more than just the technical action of “downloading.” There needs to be intent.

Now in this case, there clearly was intent, given that the image was viewed multiple times over two years. But that’s important context that is needed on top of just the fact that the image was downloaded.

Voroxpete,

likewise, i could just as easily argue that everything you “post” on the internet is actually an upload, and as a result, you upload every interaction you have on the internet

Yes. Again, that’s literally what is actually happening.

You keep throwing out these statements like “Oh, well if that’s true then we might as well also say this is true” and then “this” turns out to be just the most banal shit.

I genuinely don’t think you even know what it is you’re trying to argue here. You’re either so down in the weeds of some bizarre semantic sophistry that you’ve lost track of daylight, or you’re arguing points that no one else was disagreeing on while acting like you’ve just dropped the Pentagon Papers.

Either way, I really can’t be bothered anymore. I’ve tried my best, but it’s like trying to teach a pigeon to read.

Voroxpete,

More to the point, anything which displays an image from a remote source has to download the image in order to do so. Whether or not you choose to store that image somewhere permanently, it was still downloaded either way.

Voroxpete,

This is the giant gaping hole in the entire theory, yes.

The same when when they walk into a court and think that if they recite certain special magic phrases the judge just has to hand over authority to them. Like, buddy… Your premise here is that the court secretly know they’re refusing to follow the rules and if you just call them out on it they’ll throw their hands up and say “Ah, you got me!” Why? If this really is a giant conspiracy that the entire government is in on, then who is going to stop them? They can still just throw you in jail anyway, because they control all the levers of state power.

Arguably, it’s blessing they don’t see it this way, because if you buy into all the shit they’ve bought into, the only real logical response is violent revolution.

But it works on SovCits because a) they’re self-selected for gullibility, and b) their individualist, hardcore libertarian mindset makes them incapable of comprehending any problem that cannot be solved by individual action. Overthrowing a corrupt government is the kind of collective response that they simply cannot conceive of working.

So it must be possible to hack their way out of the system by cleverly reciting the special mantra that only they know because they’re so clever and special. It’s the only thing that fits with their individualist fantasy of simply opting out of every social contract / construct.

Voroxpete,

This will not be comforting to the vulnerable people who will inevitably be hurt by Pollievre’s government.

Voroxpete,

Yes. Of course you do. This is Minecraft. What kind of question even is this?

How a ballooning public sector is reshaping Canada’s economy (www.theglobeandmail.com)

Interesting article on growth in public sector jobs over the past decade. What I got from it: lots of people were hired during the pandemic to handle pandemic-related initiatives; aside from that, lots of people were hired in general; governments appear to hire in times of economic uncertainty (e.g. growth under Harper during...

Voroxpete,

Unfortunately way too many people don’t know that tax filing companies are now required to offer a free tier product for basic tax returns in Canada.

canada.ca/…/certified-software-netfile-program.ht…

And yes, I agree that’s its stupid we have to file at all. In the UK it’s only needed if you’re claiming itemized deductions.

Voroxpete,

Yeah, everything about this strongly suggests that Kotaku found something really damning. In the OP article it says the stated reason for the closure is that after learning what was about to come to light from Kotaku, the studio’s financial backer basically pulled out completely. Clearly they felt that this discovery was bound to tank the project regardless (or they were personally disgusted by it in some way). The whole “stepping away from the games industry to spend time with his family” part really clinches it. I mean, that is basically the universal term for “hide until people stop being mad about the terrible thing I did (approx 2-3 years).”

'Run, run, run': Chaos at a Sydney mall as 6 people stabbed to death, and the suspect fatally shot (apnews.com)

A man stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney shopping center Saturday before he was fatally shot, police said, with hundreds fleeing the chaotic scene, many weeping as they carried their children. Eight people, including a 9-month-old, were injured....

Voroxpete,

My wife is a reg-force infanteer. At the kind of distances you’re firing at inside of a shopping mall she could comfortably dump a ten round burst into a person’s torso and not miss a shot. Even an untrained shooter could easily land a lot of lethal hits if they were firing into a crowd. And yes, automatic fire is absolutely used in urban combat; at close ranges it is very easy to control a fully automatic weapon sufficiently for that. The standard strategy is to aim for the navel and let your fire carry up the torso; it’s known as “zippering”. When intentionally controlled by the shooter these weapons do not jump around anything like the way you’ve seen in video games.

Also, generally full auto is not that great for suppressing fire, unless you’re talking about a machine gun. With an assault rifle you’re better off maintaining steady suppression in semi-auto. It’s not so much the volume of fire that keeps a target’s head down as it is the consistency. Dumping a whole mag and then stopping to reload gives them plenty of time to set up and start laying hate on your position. There are exceptions like Aussie Peel Out, but they’re rare. For the part talking guns is the way it’s done.

That’s without even getting into the fact that saying “automatic weapon” doesn’t necessarily mean “fully automatic” (hence why the word “fully” is usually in there; if there wasn’t any ambiguity, why is it necessary to specify?). It’s much more likely that the previous commenter was referring to any form of self-loading weapon.

Voroxpete,

Hold up, let me just check with a professional soldier real quick…

Yeah, my wife says that in an urban combat situation like this (basically anything taking place in or around buildings, even a larger building like a mall), you almost certainly would be using full auto (if you have the option). At longer ranges however you would definitely switch to semi-automatic fire.

That’s assuming you’re up against armed resistance and know what you’re doing, of course. If you’re the kind of coward who goes and murders a bunch of innocent strangers, any self-loading weapon is going to be significantly more dangerous than not having one at all, be it semi-automatic or fully-automatic.

Voroxpete,

Actually the main reason they did it was because they were dealing with a problem of psychology that they were trying to solve with technology.

Basically you’ve got a bunch of terrified conscripts who you’ve dragged off the streets and flown out into the middle of a jungle to fight a pointless war that they in no way care about or believe in.

The lack of accuracy was a combination of piss poor training and blind screaming terror.

The US military looked at this and said “Clearly the guns are the problem.”

Voroxpete,

Yes, selfish and shortsighted. Far too often their selfishness manifests in behaviour that actually hurts them too. Even if they can’t be taught empathy, I’d settle for teaching them enlightened self interest.

What apps would you love to have open-source alternatives for?

It seems like the FOSS community is continuing to grow, and FOSS apps keep getting better (Immich reallh blew my mind recently), which is a big win 😎 but there are still many apps I use that I would kill for an open source alternative. I am curious what you guys think? Are there any apps you’d love alternatives for?

Voroxpete,

It’s the dumbest thing, but right now I just really want a better open source alternative to Advanced IP Scanner. Or I want someone to add a filter (especially by MAC) option to Angry IP Scanner. Whatever. I just want an IP scanner that can filter by MAC and works on Linux.

Voroxpete,

Would you by any chance mind sharing? I was going to make my own, but a good starting point never hurts.

(feel free to say no, I don’t want to impose)

Voroxpete,

I’m actually looking at doing a wrapper around NMap. Personally I’m fine with “Just use NMap” as a solution, but I need something that’s usable by people who know only a little about Linux and aren’t super comfortable in the command line. So I want to do stuff like enumerating the interfaces and just letting them pick one to scan instead of having to specify a network. I’ll probably work in a really basic UI using Dialog or something as well.

Voroxpete,

Officers get chatty. Soldiers hear things through the grapevine. But also, most rank and file are 18 year olds fresh out of high school, so they don’t always have the best judgement when it comes to understanding what they’re hearing, or separating fact from fiction.

Voroxpete,

You’re going to get real lonely real fast if you think that supporting Ukraine and being a leftist are mutually exclusive.

Ask yourself this: Does standing up for an imperialist, autocratic fascist really align with my progressive ideals?

Just because he hates America, doesn’t make Putin your friend. And Putin’s people have gotten very good at spreading their propaganda through far left spaces, because they know how desperate people are in these spaces to latch onto anything that smacks of American Imperialism.

And to be clear, America is an imperialist power. No one is questioning that. But you have to look at the facts of the situation, not just reflexively assign heroes and villains based on your pre-existing feelings.

Every country has a right to its sovereignty. The “NATO question” is a Russian lie (they never brought it up when they annexed Crimea, their recent actions have actually pushed more countries into joining NATO including ones on their border, and Ukraine actually did offer to make never joining NATO a condition of peace but the Russians refused because they had no real interest in that), but even if it wasn’t it still wouldn’t justify invasion. Ukraine has the right to negotiate whatever treaties they want, because that’s their right as a sovereign nation. By the exact same justification Russia could have invaded Canada to prevent us from joining NATO.

If the US (or Canada) invaded a country to stop them signing a treaty, would you feel that was fair and justified, or would you consider it another example of Western imperialism?

Voroxpete,

“Noncombat.” Its a training mission.

We’ve been running training missions with the Ukrainians since before the war started. The only question is whether to actually run those missions in Ukraine, or in a third party country like Poland or the UK. The army and the government are constantly assessing that based on the current state of the war. Running missions in Ukraine reduces the amount of time that Ukrainian soldiers have to spend away from the fighting (as well as imposing some logistical difficulties) but it also exposes our soldiers to somewhat more risk if the battle lines move suddenly, so they’re weighing those factors against each other.

Voroxpete,

Brit chiming in here, this is correct. Three syllables. And shire pronounced “sheer”, not “shy-er”.

Voroxpete,

More builds won’t solve anything until we get investors out of housing.

Voroxpete,

Their point was clearly that the total amount of genocide is less in that scenario. It takes an extremely uncharitable reading to imagine that they are saying that genocide doesn’t matter if it happens elsewhere (and one that ignores all of the surrounding context within the text itself).

Voroxpete,

That would be a great idea if there weren’t two supreme court seats ready to be replaced in the next four years.

Siezing control of the courts has already given the far right incredible control over life in the US, and they’re looking to cement that control as much as they can.

You’re not only talking about fucking over vulnerable people for the next four years, you’re actually talking about fucking over vulnerable people for decades.

Voroxpete,

Because their entire business model is just tricking investors into believing they’re an infinite growth engine.

Voroxpete,

Embracer massively fucked over a huge raft of studios. Bought them all up and then killed projects and laid off staff after not making the (entirely unrealistic) returns they expected.

Anything that means those studios are getting out from under Embracer is probably good.

Voroxpete,

Ah yes, just take a 3D modeller and reassign them to bug fixing. That’ll work out great. While we’re at it, your mechanic should start handling lung transplants since we’re short on doctors.

Voroxpete,

I mean, there’s obviously the stupid outrage of the “Why did they do this instead of fixing bugs?” variety (as if 3D artists can be reassigned to coding), but there’s also, I think, an absolutely justifiable resentment at being asked to pay $10 for an absolutely tiny handful of assets. Like, apparently this is something like ten buildings and four trees? That’s fucking weak. At around $3-$5 I think people would be fine with it, but $10 is just taking the piss.

Voroxpete,

New System Shock probably isn’t happening. Warren Spector was working on it a while back, but the project got canned and the rights are with TenCent now. Since it’s not exactly the sort of thing you can turn into a live service micro transaction generator I really don’t see it going anywhere any time soon.

Voroxpete,

Counterpoint, people love Overwatch, they hate what Blizzard did to it. There’s an audience out there hungry for this exact product if someone can do it right (or, at least, about 20% less wrong than Blizzard).

Voroxpete,

Oh, sure, there’s basically zero chance that this will actually be good. But that wasn’t my point. All I’m saying is that the idea of releasing an Overwatch style hero shooter right now isn’t inherently stupid.

Voroxpete,

I hope it was a bot, but only because I don’t want to believe that actual humans are that stupid. Like, assuming it was even true that fewer cops showed up… What exactly were they supposed to do? Shoot at the bridge for resisting arrest?

Voroxpete,

The only one they have. They make up a problem in their heads and then get mad about it.

Trump Might Be Too Broke for a $175 Million Bond, Too (newrepublic.com)

A New York appeals court on Monday reduced the $454 million that former President Donald Trump was required to put up while he appeals his civil fraud case. Now Trump must put up, by April 4, a mere $175 million. The trouble is, he may not get a bond for that amount, either. Should that happen, this act of judicial mercy will...

Voroxpete,

But the appeal is what establishes if that is actually the case.

Think of it this way; someone gets the electric chair for a crime, but the appeal proves they were actually innocent. Can’t exactly unkill them can you? So you hold off the execution until after the appeals are exhausted (corporal punishment shouldn’t exist at all, for the record, I’m just using this as an easy way to illustrate my point).

Voroxpete,

Or you end up with the version of this from the Coriolis RPG setting where humanity collapsed into a second dark age in the time you were traveling, so now you’re trying to bring it cultural enlightenment to the barbarians who have better tech but no idea how to properly build it maintain it.

It’s a weird game.

Voroxpete,

It’s an interesting setting. Got some science fantasy stuff going on, plus a dash of Babylon 5. It’s published by Free League and uses the same system as Tales From The Loop and their Alien RPG (which is very, very good, btw).

Voroxpete,

Yes, but he gets to decide which version he meant when it suits him to do so.

In this case, the ambiguity of his terrible wording works in his favour.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • fightinggames
  • All magazines