Unfortunately for her, too. She might be successful, but she seems fucking miserable all the time.

I wouldn’t recommend ChatGPT for factual information at all (at least, not without validating for yourself afterwards), but I think it’s quite good for helping you mull over or develop ideas, and for finding “soft answers” to things.

I used it recently to suggest a font to use, for instance, and found it much, much better than trying to use a search engine. My font knowledge isn’t particularly high at all - I know what serif means but that’s about it as far as technical knowledge, and I wouldn’t recognise or categorise most fonts - but I was able to describe what I wanted to ChatGPT and narrow it down:

• “I want something more friendly than that”
• “less professional”
• “more wonky”
• “less rounded”
• “less uncomfortable”

And so on. I could be somewhat abstract with my requests and it still mostly seemed to understand what I meant. Eventually it suggested something that fit my requirements pretty well. Trying to find a similar suggestion via a search engine would have been very difficult, I think, and would basically have just relied on me stumbling on a “top 10 fonts for X” listicle that happened to cover my requirements.

ChatGPT is fantastic within its specific niche (assuming you know how to feed it prompts properly and how to interpret its outputs - it’s a tool thats usefulness very much depends on the operator) but I definitely wouldn’t want it to replace search engines.

I agree, I had the same thought. And not only is she very pretty, she’s also “believably pretty”; she doesn’t look like a movie star or an unrealistically attractive Instagram model, she looks like someone you could see walking down the street. She’d catch your eye, of course, and probably be the prettiest person you saw that day, but it’s not like some pictures/videos I’ve seen of people where I’ve thought “I’ve never seen someone look that attractive in real life” and there’s a bit of a disconnect because of it.

Using Olga’s likeness, I suspect a lot of people can be fooled into thinking she’s just a regular person who happens to be at the upper end of the attractiveness scale rather than a paid model, and I’m sure they very intentionally decided to steal her likeness for that reason.

You can just say “well they’re stupid that’s what you get” or you can ask yourself why aren’t we getting these people on board while some greasy billionaire can?

I don’t necessarily like to just dismiss people as stupid, but a lack of education and the ability to understand complex issues is both a big issue for these people and a reason why the greasy billionaires can get them on board. Convincing someone that them paying some of their money into a union will actually result in better working conditions and more money for them - rather than just being poorer - is a lot harder and takes more understanding on their part than someone convincing them there’s less money to go around because there are more immigrants, for instance.

On top of that, people like to be able to absolve themselves of personal responsibility if they are given the option to. That’s not exclusive to right-wing people, but when that’s coupled with people wanting simple “explanations” because they don’t understand more complex systems with all their consequences, knock-on effects, etc, it makes it easy for right-wing politicians and media to offer simple scapegoats and get people on board.

To use the immigrants example again: not only is it not your average right-wing voter’s fault in any way - it’s the immigrants’ fault - but also, they don’t personally need to do anything to fix the issue, they just need to let the right-wing politicians get into power and it’ll all be solved for them. It’s all very comforting for them - much more so than being told it’s going to take ten years and some work on their part to improve things.

I’m definitely a little confused about Tango - I’m hoping we’ll at least get more details come out about why Microsoft shuttered them. I mean, Ghostwire Tokyo was… whatever, and I could understand Microsoft not wanting to have them working on that kind of scale again any time soon. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it was fairly expensive and perhaps didn’t do as well as they hoped. But I’m surprised they didn’t want to just downsize the studio and aim for another HI-FI Rush-esque game (or sequel).

But Arkane Austin being closed definitely makes sense. Not only was Redfall a disaster, but by the time Redfall released, 70% of the people who’d worked on Prey had left the studio. (Largely because the studio’s president had left the studio just after Prey, I believe, rather than because of the Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda.) All that was really left was the name.

Those underlying issues are what left-wing people are trying to resolve already, though - wealth inequality, poor mental health, too much power in the hands of corporations and the mega-rich, removing outrage politics, etc.

I agree. As much as I agree with the idea of universal basic income - because I think supporting society while reducing the work necessary is something we should aim for, because it’s the best way to ensure everyone gets a fair lot in life and because I think it’s a necessity with the direction the labour market is heading - this isn’t really the kind of thing I want to see in this community, personally. Hell, UBI doesn’t really have much to do with the thought of “if X is Y% of Z then 1000X is Y% of 1000Z” - it’s just basic maths really (and OP seems to have got the maths wrong, too).

I don’t think the Steam Workshop is the issue here. I’m glad it exists, and direct downloads or snv links are still a reasonable alternative for mods that can’t be hosted on the Workshop for whatever reason.

Those are the best kinds of compliments in general, I think, whether it’s a parent complimenting their child, someone flirting, a platonic compliment, or whatever else! Compliment things that are within their control and that they can feel pride over and it feels a lot more meaningful.

It’s okay; I appreciate the apology! :)

I think it’s important to look for the nuance in situations and not treat everything as zero-sum. Both sides can have good points and be open to criticism at the same time (this isn’t an “enlightened centrist” take, I promise!). I think a lot of discussion online does tend to strip away nuance and take the position that if you show any empathy with one side then it means you must hate the other - I do my best to avoid that!

Is the fully casted radio version not the best version to listen to anyway?

these people SHOULD be putting this negative pressure on them. It’s deserved

Was it not implied I agree with that when I said:

The angry customers and the state of the game are problems.

and;

• customers being disappointed and/or wanting a refund is perfectly reasonable
• people wanting the game to be better is also reasonable

I’m not going to defend the poor quality of the game because it’s obviously bad (from what I gather, anyway - I’ve not played it myself) and should be improved.

?

I don’t see why that would make my opinion stupid. Yes, the studio/publisher should be held to account for the crappy release. But a big part of holding them to account should be not giving them money for it in the first place; not just handing over money and then complaining afterwards. Complaining afterwards is reasonable for the people who did hand over money, but they should also hold themselves accountable for financially rewarding a company that puts out a crappy product - they’re part of the problem.

The angry customers and the state of the game are problems.

• it’s hard to feel sorry for people who pre-ordered because they got exactly what they paid for - a game of unknown quality and quantity of content
• it’s hard to feel sorry for people who bought post-release because they also got exactly what they paid for - a game where reviews detailed poor quality and quantity of content
• customers being disappointed and/or wanting a refund is perfectly reasonable
• people wanting the game to be better is also reasonable
• people abusing the devs is not reasonable

I’m not going to defend the poor quality of the game because it’s obviously bad (from what I gather, anyway - I’ve not played it myself) and should be improved. But I do think gamers could learn to be a little more responsible with their purchases and inform themselves before buying a game.

I’m pretty over the whole cycle of games coming out and not meeting expectations, people buying them anyway (through pre-orders or day-one purchases), people being unnecessarily rude/hostile/sending death threats to developers as if they were forced to buy the game as gunpoint. Yes, developers should try to do better, yes publishers should often give developers more time to polish up games rather than announcing the release date two years in advance and refusing to delay, but also consumers could really take some responsibility for what they decide to give money to.

As someone who doesn’t care for card games or poker: yes, it’s really that good!

The police didn’t actually arrest him, and I think the headline is a little misleading. Falter had been walking directly against the protest (and not attempting to cross the road like he claimed). The police stopped him and offered to escort him to his destination via a route that avoided the march. Falter refused and tried to push through the police officers and cross the protest march. The officers prevented him and told him he was free to go in the opposite direction, or that they would escort him past the protest, but that if he tried to go the way he was they would have to arrest him. It was clear they didn’t want to arrest him, and the officer offered probably a dozen times over the course of the ~15-minute interaction to escort him via a different route.

I think the officer did a good job of de-escalating, personally, and was incredibly patient in the face of Falter’s obnoxious, disingenuous antagonism. It’s a shame that there’s a single soundbite that, when stripped of context, portrays the officer poorly, but I think it’s clear to anyone watching the full video that the officer had no anti-semitic intent and handled the situation well.

The officer mentioned in the full video that Falter had been walking directly against the protest and wasn’t just trying to cross the road like he claimed. Which, “openly Jewish” or not, is a good reason to stop him, I think - for his own safety and the safety of the people in the march. And coupled with the fact that he very visibly is Jewish, it makes his actions seem a lot like a counter-protest - something the police generally try to limit or contain regardless of the protest subject.

The police officer had the patience of a saint, honestly. He offered to escort Falter to the place he wanted to go via a different route - so as to avoid the protest - probably around a dozen times. It’s very clear Falter didn’t really have any intention of getting to his claimed destination.

I think the case would be more on the supplier that provides the cups to Cinemark though

That’s a matter for Cinemark and their supplier to sort out (either through discussion or another lawsuit). This man had a contract with the vendor (Cinemark) which is why he’s suing them.

I agree, but at the same time, I think a lot of people are still trying to build out their subscribed communities list here - especially because a lot of would-be communities are fragmented across multiple instances. Outside of just stumbling across communities you like because they’ve been mentioned in a comment section, or checking out communities that links have been crossposted to, looking at the all feed is the best way to discover things, I think - unfortunate though it is.

To be honest, I’d love to see a “weighted all” feed, if that’s even possible. So include everything, but let the user set custom weights for communities, so ones you weight highly show up more often (and nearer the top) and once you weight lower show up less often. There are some communities that I only really see if I look at my subscriptions because they don’t tend to show up in the all feed much. And there are some communities - a lot of meme ones, for instance - that I’ve blocked because they were clogging up the all feed; if I could just weight them lower so if still see them but far less often, I would do that instead of blocking them.

“It’s absurd that we live in a society where people feel the urge to tell me to greet them with ‘sallam alleykum’”.

There’s already a huge difference between what happened and your example here. Your example is “people saying you must do X” . What happens when it comes to gender is people asking, “please do not do X”.

They’re not saying you must refer to them as, for instance, she/her, but rather asking that you do not refer to them as he/him/they/them/whatever. You’re free to just not use pronouns to refer to them at all if that suits you better - you can refer to them by name instead. You’re left with plenty of options and only a handful of restrictions.

Your example, on the other hand, is completely restrictive; you must take this single course of action, and there are no alternatives.

For what it’s worth, I do think we’re in a fairly transitional stage (ha) of how we as society deal with transgenderism. I think people being made to change their pronouns in order to feel comfortable is silly. Not because those people are silly - they’re just doing what they can to feel comfortable with the restrictions society has placed on them - but because society and language are silly.

Why do we refer to people by gender at times when it’s completely irrelevant? Someone having a penis, or male hormones, or whatever other “masculine qualities”, is irrelevant 99% of the time when I refer to them as he/him. If I say, “Donald Trump? Yeah, he’s a corrupt idiot,” then why does him having a penis have any bearing on the language I use there?

And why do we have such gendered roles in society? Why can’t men just wear dresses and make-up and link the colour pink and still identify as men? Why can’t women cut their hair short and wear baggy clothes and like engineering projects and lifting weights at the gym and still identify as women? I guarantee that if we could remove all those kinds of gender associations, you’d see a lot less trans people.

People transition because who they are and what they like, and what society says they have to be (based on their gender) are at odds with each other, and it’s literally easier for them to change gender in order to be allowed to be themselves than to change society. Being trans isn’t some kind of personal failing; it’s a failure of society to accommodate people who deviate even slightly from its rigid roles and expectations.

The ideal future, such as I see it, is for there to be no trans people because no-one feels a need to transition - they can just feel comfortable and accepted as they are. But until then, you need to recognise that there’s a societal issue and stop being a part of it. It takes such a small amount of effort on your part to use the pronouns someone requests, or to avoid using pronouns at all, and it makes such a huge difference to them to be gendered properly. So just be a decent, respectful person and accommodate their wishes and stop making their life worse.

The Expanse is the first thing that came to mind for me as a counter-example when I read your first comment so I’m glad to see you mention it! It even plays on the exceptionalism idea in book/season 3 and 4 where Holden seems special because >!Miller is appearing to him!< and because >!he isn’t affected by the eye parasites!< only to explain those things away with reasoning stemming from events that already happened in previous books. And any exceptionalism that comes after that is largely due to the reputation or skills characters have built for themselves rather than because they’re “chosen ones”.

If you haven’t read the books, I really recommend them!