Something something sharks?

All things in moderation. The world is a spinning plate and extremes are to be avoided. Instead, the correct course is an ephemeral point somewhere around the middle which we must continually chase as it moves in response to the world. We all do our best to balance the world a little closer to what we want it to be.

Assuming I am even making sense of what you’re asking, because this is pretty unclear.

Do you have the connections to run a dryer in your bathroom? In the US, you’d need 240v electric or a gas supply which aren’t commonly found in a bathroom. Also an exterior vent.

I suggest a combo washer/dryer which runs on 120v and uses a heat pump for drying. They are quite expensive in comparison to just a dryer, but can be used anywhere you have water and a drain and the total cost would likely be less than having 240v run to the bathroom.

Or maybe you live somewhere where this isn’t so, in which case disregard this.

It sounds like you are describing a blog. If you want to stay in the fediverse, there is WriteFreely. I have an account on paper.wf, but I haven’t used it yet tbh.

You made a lot of points here. Many I agree with, some I don’t, but I specifically want to address this because it seems to be such a common misconception.

It does and it doesn’t discard the original. It isn’t impossible to recreate the original (since all the data it gobbled up gets stored somewhere in some shape or form and can be truthfully recreated, at least judging by a few comments bellow and news reports). So AI can and does recreate (duplicate or distribute, perhaps) copyrighted works.

AI stores original works like a dictionary does. All the words are there, but the order and meaning is completely gone. An original work is possible to recreate by randomly selecting words from the dictionary, but it’s unlikely.

The thing that makes AI useful is that it understands the patterns words are typically used in. It orders words in the right way far more often than random chance. It knows “It was the best of” has a lot of likely options for the next word, but if it selects “times” as the next word, it’s far more likely to continue with, “it was the worst of times.” Because that sequence of words is so ubiquitous due to references to the classic story. But over the course of following these word patterns, it will quickly glom onto a different pattern and create a wholly new work from the original “prompt.”

There are only two cases in which an original work should be duplicated: either the training data is far too small and the model is overtrained on that particular work, or the work is the most derivative text imaginable lacking any flair or originality.

Adding more training data makes it less likely to recreate any original works.

I am aware of examples where it was claimed an LLM reproduced entirely code functions including original comments. That is either a case of overtraining, or far too many people were already copying that code verbatim into their own, thus making that work very over represented in the training data (same thing, but it was infringing developers who poisoned the data, not researchers using bad training data).

Bottom line: when created with enough data, no original works are stored in any way that allows faithful reproduction other than by chance so random that it’s similar to rolling dice over a dictionary.

None of this means AI can do no wrong, I just don’t find the copyright claim compelling.

I agree with a decent chunk of that, not all, and even what I disagree with, it’s more like lukewarm agreement because I think it would cause as many problems as it fixes. I was just trying to respond to your frustration. Not aggravate you further.

Kamala isn’t everything anyone would want, but the things you want to see are more likely during or following a Harris administration. I know none of this mollifies you. There are urgent matters that are hurting us to do slowly and in half measures. But Harris moves us closer than Trump and for most of us that’s all we can do.

Of course I have a Midwest, swing state perspective. And I have the perspective of watching things change over 50 years. I know many of the policies you and I want would lose Kamala the race. I don’t want her to lose either because the far left stays home or because she’s forced to adopt policies that lose the states that the election hinges on.

If you ask me, gerrymandering is the root cause of much of the polarization and extremism in this country and I think it is urgent to end it or at least let democrats draw the lines. And we need to look at the judiciary. That all takes a lot of time, unfortunately.

I could go on and on with how much I agree with you and why. But we have two choices, and one moves this country in a better direction whether a little or a lot, and the other makes us all a hell of a lot worse off. I can’t endorse any statement that says they are basically the same.

But, friend, keep fighting. You are right about a great many things. I just implore you to do it strategically and not let “great” be the enemy of “better.”

I haven’t downvoted you myself. My habit is if I’m responding to someone I don’t downvote because that must mean I think it’s a worthwhile conversation. I know not everyone does that. I didn’t reply right away because I have a family and shit to do in the morning.

That said, this is a bit of moving the goalposts, right? You said nothing that would benefit lower and middle class. I can’t say what you would easily support. I don’t really have a response to this for that reason.

AT LEAST SHES NOT TRRRRRUMP!!!

Good enough for now. When we’ve accomplished your list (which I agree with), maybe we can all vote in a more nuanced way than which of the two will be better.

anti-anything that would materially improve the conditions of the low and middle classes in the US

This bit is just hyperbole, though. I get your frustration, but it’s objectively untrue and even if it was, doing nothing would still be better than actively sabotaging us.

I haven’t had shingles, and my appendix lasted until I could get it out, but I am with you on the kidney stones.

I’ve had 5 or 6 kidney stones and “the big one” has been harmlessly hiding in my kidneys for a few years. Every time, I think I’m going to power through the pain because the ER only gives you like one or two doses of Toradol and sends you on your way with FlowMax and useless NSAIDs which I can just get off the shelf. I’ve never powered through the pain. Every time I wind up paying like $250 for 4-6 hours of relief.

To this, I’ll add I’ve had migraines that made me want to drill holes in my skull. They’ve been bad enough that if I’d had a gun, I’d have used it. I’m not saying they hurt more or less than kidney stones, but I can’t tolerate headache pain like that. It’s the difference between “my back is in agony” and “existing is agony.”

Getting a handjob in a bookstore as/after closing. I had no idea but they must’ve seen and left us alone to finish. On our way out I saw the security feed on a monitor trained on where we’d been and someone headed back to that corner of the store. I was 14 or 15 at the time so privacy for fooling around was hard to find, and I was such a horny little fucker.

I think Lemmy is better about this. Certainly better than Reddit or 4chan. I think because of the small community. There are people itching for a fight or to troll, but by and large I’ve had way more positive interactions here than negative. I think when a community gets sufficiently large, it gets exhausting dealing with so many bitter, damaged people that civility is forgotten or civil members remove themselves as self-care.

I definitely agree with your last point. Everyone is uplifted by positivity.

I don’t see anyone open for no cost right now (at least not in English). Might see about self-hosting if it’ll run on a raspberry pi.

Do you have any opinions on or comparison of the two?

You’re not going to out-compete the sociopaths if you’re a saint. That’s a reality.

I’m not a fan of Hitler Steve Jobs, but I am a big fan of the guy who killed Hitler Steve Jobs.

You ever have alcohol just hit harder than expected? I was out at a work party. I can’t remember what it was for. It was a small office. Less than 10 total people including the three owners.

I only had two drinks but I must not have eaten anything that day because I was fucking wasted. The office manager had to drive me home in the middle of it. So we fucked at my place. Nothing was ever said after. I worked there another few years. Eventually had a 3-way with the office manager and my future wife.

10/10 would do again.

I guess in his defense, he knew damn well if he stopped coming to work the day after $30k went missing, they’d know it was him.

I mean obviously the smart thing to do is not to fucking touch the money, but I’ll give the guy showing up to work the next day. It’s not like $30k is flee-to-Argentina-and-start-a-new-life money.

This is the way to go. I tried pihole using Samsung smart features, but if you block the telemetry eventually your apps stop working and you can’t get them working again without doing a factory reset with blocking down. It’s prohibitively a pain in the ass, taking hours every time YouTube stops working.

Never had any issues with Roku on pihole.

Hackers in this case likely means someone who can read a url and increment a number and is curious. Which ought to be everyone over the age of about 7.

Congratulations! Everyone is now a hacker!