plenipotentprotogod

@plenipotentprotogod@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You're Not Imagining It: Google Search Results Are Getting Worse, Study Finds⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Searx is a search aggregator. It masks your identity from the search providers, but under the hood it’s still just a middle man for google/bing results. I don’t see how this helps if the results themselves are getting worse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨WB’s ‘Ready Player One’ Blockchain, VR, AR, AI ‘Readyverse’ Will Of Course Be A Disaster⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, this is definitely going to be a disaster but I think the title and article here are a little misleading. The author implies that Warner Brothers is spearheading (and paying for) this venture, but I just read through the buzzword salad of a press release and it barely mentions them. The project is driven by an independent company that licensed the ready player one IP from WB. The whole thing very carefully avoids any details about money changing hands, but my guess is either that WB is getting paid, or they’ve negotiated a cut of any theoretical future profits. Of course, the chances of there ever being profits are slim to none, but I’d say at worst they’re net $0 on the deal, and at best they actually made some money by getting paid up front. They might suffer some reputation damage if it becomes a real catastrophe, but as the author of the article mentioned they are billions in debt, so its probably a risk they’re happy to take.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨And this is why I no longer have cable.⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Youtube in has done a remarkably good job carrying the torch of high quality documentaries and educational content beyond the realm of traditional media. Science, art, technology, history. It’s all there, and much of it meets or exceeds the quality of anything the old guard of cable TV channels ever managed to produce.

  I’m actually only now realizing that some of the most established channels have been reaching a wide audience with consistent and high quality content for the better part of a decade, and yet I can’t think of any who have successfully broken into more “traditional” media such as television or or even streaming services. That seems exceptionally strange to me. I mean, last month there were headlines about Netflix giving $55 million to an unproven director who proceeded to blow it all on expensive cars instead of filming the show he was hired to make. Who decides to hire that guy over any number of youtube creators who have spent the last ten years cranking out a short video a week along with occasional longer form projects, all with a small crew on a shoestring budget. I can imagine three possible reasons for this. No idea which one(s) could be the real reason, or if there’s something else entirely going on.

  1. Hollywood^1^ is so insular that they don’t even realize these people exist.
  2. Hollywood is so stuck in its ways that they refuse to believe these people could be successful running a larger production.
  3. Offers have been made, but those offers have been so restrictive that any number of youtubers have turned them down despite, one would assume, a large amount of money being on the table if they go along with it.

  That last one in particular seems unlikely, but I do recall that the popular Primitive Technology channel went quiet for a year or more before abruptly coming back to life. Rumors swirled that he had been hired to turn the concept into a TV show, but the production company kept trying to change things and he eventually gave up and went back to doing it his way on youtube.

  ^1^ used here as shorthand for the more corporate and structured entertainment industry at large.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Etsy lays off 225 workers after ‘essentially flat’ sales, says CEO | Business⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Are there any viable alternative sites you’re aware of?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Could we not bring that to Lemmy, please?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember reading a comment a while ago (on Reddit, ironically) which pointed out that SFW subreddits naming themselves [subject]porn are borrowing the wrong part from the word “pornography”. “Porn” is from greek pornē meaning “prostitute”, but the suffix -graphy means “to write” and is often used to indicate “the study of” the thing it’s attached to (e.g. geography, cryptography, demography, etc.)

  It would be more accurate, and perhaps less controversial, if these communities named themselves earthography, spaceography, unixograpy, etc. As an added bonus, the -grapy suffix is also prominent in “photography” which is appropriate considering that many of these communities are places where people share photos of the subject matter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The History Channel, now in the fantasy section.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I read something a while ago that really put all these “ancient mysteries” into perspective: Modern humans with modern brains have existed in our current form for at least tens of thousands of years. During that time we’ve seen huge advancement as a society thanks to the accumulation and sharing of scientific knowledge, but any individual human today has no brainpower than one living 10,000 years ago.

  In other words, if we can sit around today and brainstorm a dozen different ways to build a pyramid with nothing but ramps and levers, there’s absolutely no reason to think that the smartest builders in ancient egypt couldn’t have come up withl the same ideas or better.

  Attributing these achievements to aliens, or divine intervention, or anything other than raw human ingenuity is a disservice to our ancestors.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x04 "Something Borrowed, Something Green"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree that Mariner’s role in the episode was nothing but a running gag, but I have to point out what an exceptionally well written running gag it was, both in terms of her character and her character development over the course of the series.

  Mariner’s behavior in this episode tells us two things about her. First, she’s the type of person who can get stabbed three times in a single day and (mostly) shrug it off. This isn’t really a surprise. She’s has always been both tough and resourceful, but she’s also impulsive and emotional which too often results in her messing things up. Not this time though, and that’s the second thing the episode tells us. Mariner is maturing. In past seasons a knife in her shoulder would have resulted in either a fight or a great deal of grandstanding about what a badass she is for not caring that she got stabbed, but not this time. This time Mariner knows that she’s only here to support her friend.

  Mariner is the running gag in this episode because now, perhaps for the first time, she can handle being the running gag. She knows that this adventure is about Tendi, and she’s not going to derail it over a little thing like getting stabbed three times.