Squids

@Squids@sopuli.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean if you tend to plug things in at the same computer a lot it’s pretty easy to always plug things in right the first time, even when not looking because you just kinda know what way it’s meant to be. And laptops usually have all theirs pointing the same way so you know one you know them all. If something has text on it, it’s usually oriented in such a way that when plugged in you can read it.

  I have a similar “power” and while I’m not flawless, it’s only really new or unfamiliar devices/computers that trip me up. Or plugs that don’t actually have any identifying features and/or unusual ones

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Striking actor Stephen Fry says his voice was stolen from the Harry Potter audiobooks and replicated by AI⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I think a more interesting (and less dubious) example of this would be Vocaloid and to a greater extent, cevio AI

  Vocaloid is a synth bank where instead of the notes being musical instruments, they’re phonemes which have been recorded and then packaged into a product which you pay for, which means royalties are involved (I think there might also be a thing with royalties for big performances and whatnot?) Cevio AI takes this a step further by using AI to better smooth together the phonemes and make pitching sound more natural (or not - it’s an instrument, you can break it in interesting ways if you try hard enough). And obviously, they consented to that specific thing and get paid for it. I mean obviously that consent doesn’t go beyond the voice bank (a lot of voice providers are established VAs and singers), but that shouldn’t be too hard to understand, right?

  (There’s also FOSS voicebanks but that adds a different layer of complication to things like I think a lot of them were recorded before the idea of an “AI bank” was even a possibility)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US rejects AI copyright for famous state fair-winning Midjourney art⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok using your Google analogy - there’s a reason why “librarian” is a job and “Googler” isn’t. One requires years of skill and practice to interpret a request and find the right information and do all sorts of things, and the other is someone kinda bashing keys to make Google give them what they want. You wouldn’t put them in remotely the same class

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US rejects AI copyright for famous state fair-winning Midjourney art⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  There is a very real chance they spent more time on this piece than other artists they were up against spent on theirs. I generate thousands of images a month

  … you’ve never actually made art, have you? The sort of stuff that you enter into contests takes months to make, from the actual painting to rough sketches to reference gathering, and that’s just the basics

  Clicking a button a thousand times isn’t really comparable

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Not quite star trek, but I do know that in The Man From UNCLE Illya Kuryakin, the Russian/USSR operative working for UNCLE was so popular that in the second season he got promoted from side character to full on protangonist and that aired a year or two before star trek. So if an explicitly USSR aligned spy could get that popular to the point the producers felt comfortable making him a main character, I imagine one from the far off future where Russia is more of a off hand mention in comparison would be even less controversial

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Call for UK ban on single-use vapes as more than 5m discarded each week⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve never heard a British person call a vape a fag, because that very specifically refers to a cigarette. Like you wouldn’t call a cigar or a blunt a fag either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Some of Starfield’s planets are meant to be empty by design - but that’s not boring, Bethesda insists⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  That did actually get fixed later on (like in 2018) - there’s now undiscovered systems that you can stumble across, along with abandoned systems. Can kinda see why it took a while to get added - undiscovered systems are kinda…boring.

  The sentinels are there, but that’s because they’re basically semi-divine beings and seperate from everything

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows after 28 years⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Or if you’re using for purely notes, OneNote is like, right there. In your system tray. For free.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hexbear federation megathread⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Kinda cheeky I know but the instance I’m commenting from (sopuli.xyz) is a nice one imo. It’s Finnish (so there’s a similar “home” culture to here) and hosts the Ukraine war report communities so any instance trying hexbear’s shenanigans gets defederated from super quickly without much drama just to avoid them from flooding the comments section with emojis and “lib cuck NATO should die” nonsense, but beyond that (and the other usual suspects) it’s pretty open with who it federates with

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨List of eminent accounts that moved to the Fediverse⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Neil Gaiman is also on mastodon (and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the other authors in his cohort are too) though his main social media is still Tumblr

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It always gets me⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Also in art apps, because it’s not uncommon to want to undo and redo the same action over and over to see the difference something makes

  …except gimp and krita. Seriously get your damn act together youse two

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Looking for games with strong female leads for my daughter (even just to watch as I play). Came across this link, but they're a bit old. Any suggestions from the community?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Idk if this counts as it’s not visually obvious, but Amaterasu from Ōkami is a fun female protangonist, on account of her being straight up Amaterasu Ōmikami, the sun goddess (and all around top dog) from Japanese mythology. Graceful and elegant and also she’s a big ol’ wolf who does doggy things, which I imagine would delight a 5 year old.

  The game’s artstyle is really stylised and pretty, the story is based on Japanese mythology and legends which I’d think would also interest a kid, it’s kinda zelda-like with puzzles and whatnot, and there’s a dedicated woof button. It came out way back in 2006 but at the same time it’s been remastered pretty recently (it’s in capcom’s summer steam sale if you’re going down that route) so you’ve got some choice about which route to go down trying to find it. Try and stick to European versions if you can because apparently the American localisations removed most of the mentions of the fact that Ammy is a girl which imo is a really weird choice because like, that’s a whole ass mythological figure?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm looking for games that make me feel small and insignificant⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah, must be client side then. Well, tbh the spoiler isn’t even something from the game - it’s something we only learnt about way back in the Waking Titan ARG

  It’s very much a game that’s built around finding other people and building a community - that’s why the various player made factions are given the official thumbs up and everything. Just a big ol’ sandbox.

  If you want something with more character and story, I’d go to the expeditions - they’re unfortunately time limited (though HG usually reruns all of them at the end of the year), but they all offer a self contained story outside of the main plot that takes place in a smaller space and usually contain more characters and give your character a role that’s actually integrated with the larger world (like for example, in one of them we were explorers with the cartography guild out to document a worm cult). Also they’re usually full of interesting gameplay restrictions to use and abuse which is fun. Imo it’s the most interesting thing the game has to offer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm looking for games that make me feel small and insignificant⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Tbf…>!it literally was. It’s just gone completely tits up!<