I like a lot of stuff Aaron Sorkin does (The West Wing, for example, but also The Newsroom) but damn, his dialogue is too perfect. Nobody talks that way IRL.

When I was a “kid,” I didn’t have a smartphone. My mother wouldn’t know how to go through it anyway. I’ve had a computer since I was 12 or 13, and while I don’t think it had any security on it (first one was an Amiga 1000), I could have hid something so a normal person wouldn’t be able to find it. That computer couldn’t get online anyway. I wasn’t online at home until I was an adult.

I don’t recall ever being searched, but I had no night life and few friends. And my parents were old school hippies. So, basically never?

It’s normal in that your parents are responsible for your well-being, and if they overlook something in the name of privacy, it’s an abdication of responsibility; a failing, on their part. They cannot say they tried if they did not actually, you know, try.

As an aside, entirely unrelated to the topic at hand, I want to thank you for starting engaging conversations on Lemmy. A lot of people post just to post and nobody really comments. Your posts generate conversation, and even if, such as here with a generational gap, I don’t feel I have the kind of insight you’re looking for, it makes me want to comment. And I think that is commendable, and should be called out as such. So, thank you for what you’re doing on this community/service/app.

I’d hate to be a judge in Manhattan. His defence is as simple as, he was not legally arrested, nor did he commit a crime in the lawful jurisdiction of the United States. Maduro may be a complete piece of shit (I don’t know) but how does the US claim jurisdiction over Venezuela? It makes no sense.

But hey, if it’s lawful for the US to kidnap a foreign head of state and prosecute them according to their laws, which country is going to step up and decide it’s unlawful in their country for the US president to have messed with underage girls? Or to stage an insurrection? Take your pick.

Real fire or the dumpster fire that is what JK Rowling said about trans people? (Sorry to anyone who was affected, I know what she said had longer lasting repercussions. Also apologies to anyone who was hurt in the fire, don’t mean to be insensitive to that, burns suck, but also, fuck JK Rowling.)

I would say “stop making up terms,” but they’re never going to catch on.

Mexicans and Canadians do not want to be called Americans even though they are on the North American continent. And USA stands for United States of America, so American is the correct and logical term.

No one in South America identifies as an American, either.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Nolan (another theater advocate) should come to a rural town and watch a third-run movie on a screen that feels barely bigger than your living room TV. Sure, it’s like 10 times bigger, but between that, the Coke stuck to the ground, the popcorn stuck to the Coke, and the sticky stuff on your seat you hope is Coke… I think they’d agree that most Americans are just fine watching movies at home. They go to these exclusive, high class theaters with the best of everything and they think we can all get an experience like that. We can’t.

I don’t care about artsy-fartsy movies or Marvel/superhero movies (or Avatar). I mean both are okay, I don’t hate them or anything, but I’m not generally going out of my way to see them. (I did see last year’s Superman on IMAX. Even though I don’t like Superman, I knew that would be a unique experience, and I was right.) I like indie movies that fit a certain niche, and I like Japanese movies (especially anime movies, like stuff from Shinkai and Hosoda). I try to support these movies, but usually we get like, the worst screen. It’s fine, we used to have to drive for hours to get the worst screen. Now we can get the worst screen just up the road. I support the films marketed to me and my niche. I’m not gonna spring for every DiCaprio or Nolan movie, they usually make a billion dollars anyway. I have no sympathy for the occasional one that doesn’t.

Sinon.

Asada Shino (or Shino-non to her closest friends) is the real-life person (who is afraid of guns). And has black hair. And wouldn’t be caught dead showing any skin. Her game character is a sort of therapy for her. While most gamer characters have a different persona in the game from real life to some degree, Asada’s disconnect from her character is probably the furthest (aside from An Shoji/Tsukasa in .hack//SIGN, which inspired SAO) due to a childhood trauma (also the case with Tsukasa, but different trauma) causing her to create a character which is vastly different from who she is IRL. The deadly sniper vs the gun-fearing schoolgirl. Tsukasa only tops that by An Shoji convincing herself she was a boy in the game (though, to be fair, her IRL persona was separated from her character by the rogue AI Morganna).

Source: book reader, and fan of the franchise(s) since 2001-2002.

So yes, Congress (the Legislative branch of the US government) authorises war in the United States, but a couple factors are also in play. One, all three parties (also the Executive, i.e. the president; and the Judicial, the Supreme Court) are all in the president’s party, which means they all keep each other’s secrets and whatnot (e.g. Epstein Island but there are others). They all kind of have an unspoken pact protecting each other from mutually assured destruction. It’s almost like loyalty but based on implied blackmail. Two, the president (not just this one, any American president) is considered the Commander in Chief, which is a civilian position but it does hold rank and authority above anyone else in the military (sometimes referred to as a five or six star general, or General of the Armies, or something like that). General disposition of the average soldier who does not lean politically toward the president or outright does not like him is along the lines of “I do not like the man but I respect the rank” and so they will do what he says.

It’s also not direct from the president. The president did not go to all the barracks and rouse the soldiers. The decision would have been made in council with the Joint Chiefs who would pass the orders down through the chain of command.

(I watched a lot of shows like 24 and The West Wing, and read Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan books. Not the ones people wrote in his name after he died, just to be clear. But, most of that stuff tends to be pretty accurate, minus a couple key details where national security comes before accuracy.)

Fair.

Maybe it would be better to have a Mistborn game that takes place in the Mistborn universe than a retelling of Vin’s story, or Kelsier’s. Maybe another attempted coup on the Lord Ruler, or something set after the events of the first book but before the end of the third one. Trying to avoid spoilers but if you’ve read them, you know the events I’m speaking of. Sanderson kind of boxed in when a game could reasonably take place. No one seriously attempted to take on the Lord Ruler before Kelsier (the first time, when he was thrown in the mines) and after the third book… why, you might as well just go the Wax & Wayne era (which might be better, have kind of a Dishonoured kind of setting). Maybe an original story in the W&W era.

Okay, that I did not know. That’s awesome. Explains the dated lyrics though.

They got popular because the camera sensors were rectangular (i.e. the shape of the phone) and people just held their phones naturally. Vertical videos came about organically.

The new iPhone (17 series) has square camera sensors. It’ll determine whether you shoot vertical or horizontal depending on the subjects. Vertical if it’s just you. Horizontal if a few people flank you.

For me it’s like people posting m. links. They force desktop (/laptop) users into viewing the mobile site, while mobile users will just default to the mobile site. Why it doesn’t work the other way (desktop users being forced to the desktop site) is beyond me. But the sites just share the m. version by default, so users are acting maliciously without intending to.

It’s just mobile devices making things worse. They don’t have to. Vertical videos and m. links only look good on mobile. Horizontal videos and normal sites look fine on mobile and always have.

Not sure if I want this. Like others are saying, you have to have great freedom of movement, and it can’t be sloppy. Think about the allomancer rail systems Kelsier and the others used. Metal spires that go from city to city that they can hop along. You would have to be able to do this effortlessly for it to work. Our girl (I forget her name, sorry) had to learn how to do all that, but that would be the worst part of the game. The game needs to assume you know what you’re doing and err on the side of caution. Basically seamless hand holding.

I’d much rather it be a series (on HBO or the like). The actual metal jumping and whatnot is not the most interesting thing about this world.

It seems like we just need to look at games that have fantastical and parkour based movement — Mirror’s Edge, Assassin’s Creed series, Cyberpunk, Hogwarts Legacy, the recent Jedi games with that guy from Shameless — to see how this could work. And others. But for a lot of those games, the movement becomes one of the most important things. You focus on how cool it is to get around. Oh and all those games have a sense or scan feature, so you get all that, and it’s not really what you want to play.

Better to watch it as a series IMO.

Washington is more or less centrally located given the scope of the original colonies. Not given the current scope of the United States.

I mean, yeah, but my point is, a computer would know the difference and not have the emotional attachment to it. That it can associate a person with a wrong thing (even if they are morally equivalent), then it can associate a person with a wrong thing that is not morally equivalent. And that’s the problem.

This should show people how unreliable AI is.

Okay, yes, Donald Trump is some kind of pervert and predator, and he made a comment about a ten-year-old girl one time (joking “I might be dating her in 10 years”), but he mostly preys upon teenage girls. So, not a pedophile — the word for that is ephebephile. Now, I might be splitting a hair here. Both types prefer underage partners. One is clearly more inflammatory. But the fact that the other is more accurate, and that a computer should know the difference, should tell you that AI can leverage the court of public opinion.

Also, shaming a woman by calling her a man in drag is just ugly, I don’t care who she is. I may be just a bit left of centre, but I think even if you’re a lot further left than I am, you can understand that if you don’t want the sword of sexism swung at you, maybe you shouldn’t swing it at others. But in any case, a computer is jumping to this conclusion because these are unpopular figures.

I don’t like these people either.

But what happens when it’s you? Or someone you love? Or the fact that Grok has been used to create CSAM of a ten-year-old girl and a teenage girl? This was in the news the other day, someone got it to take a photo of a grade-school girl in a nice, conservative dress, and swap it for a skimpy bikini. Then they got a photo of a teenage girl (I think someone from Stranger Things?) and had it render her fully nude.

So yeah, it’s funny when AI attacks fascist dictators and their supporters, but it’s also attacking children. It doesn’t know the difference, it doesn’t care, and it can’t be made to do either. It’s just a tool that is used by whoever wields it against whomever they do not like or want to see harmed.

Boiling frog syndrome or something like that. Same reason people have put up with the enshittification of Facebook (which to me was always shit, but whatever). They just keep making it worse over time and people say they were fine with it before and they’ll continue to be fine with it.

I do hope this convinces artists to pull out of the platform, though. Many of them insist on staying for the networking.

There’s also people who use Google/Alphabet and Facebook/Meta stuff despite knowing how much spying they’re doing and personal information they’re selling and just say “well I’m not interesting enough to harvest data from/spy on.” Yes you fucking are and that’s why these companies are worth billions (or trillions) now. Because they sold you false pride and modesty, depending on the case.

I care about maybe 2-3 of them? The Spielberg one will probably be fun. Scream 7 just because it’s the franchise. And Odyssey is Christopher Nolan so it’s kind of a given.

My most anticipated film is Scarlet, from Mamoru Hosoda. His movies since Wolf Children haven’t been quite as good, but his name will still get me into theaters, and Belle was wonderful on the big screen.

My favourite Japanese filmmaker, Makoto Shinkai, is roughly due another one, as he released in 2016, 2019, and I think 2022 or 2023. His last few movies were a loose fitting trilogy, and all he’s said about his next movie is that he’s working on it, and we’re almost sure it won’t be another natural disaster movie. It will most likely be another romantic comedy about mostly attractive people pining over each other over a great distance, trains, and some kind of magic or supernatural element.

Also because they most likely are not the truth…?

My wife is an artist; I cannot ethically support any genAI anyway.

They didn’t give me this option when my upgrade came due, so I just cancelled. It may be a new thing that every user has the option, or it may be an A/B test, but I definitely looked around and there was no way to do it. One solution said to cancel and you’d be offered the lower tier. That didn’t work, either. They just let me leave.

We don’t get Publisher on Mac, so that was annoying (I love using it at work), but otherwise Office was real good on macOS. So was OneDrive, in fact. I didn’t have much complaint other than not being able to use Publisher.

I’m using iWork now, which is not great coming from Office (I think it has all the options, it’s just laid out differently). LibreOffice looks better than ever, but iWork is good enough for my use (and it’s free with whatever Apple product it’s compatible with). It’s always been there since I switched to Mac, but I have a couple decades of experience with Excel and closer to 30 years with Word, so I hung on for familiarity.