Open Thread

Open Thread #239

Aaron "Sleazy" Elias

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28 thoughts on “Open Thread #239”

    1. Aaron,
      “… she assured me that it has nothing to do with the vaxx.”
      Lol, it made me laugh. On a related note, you have democratic/lefties who actually believe that the hurricane that is currently happening in Florida was caused by the Republicans. The stupidity is out of control.

  2. Another programming/development question or thread for the devs on here.

    What does everyone think of copilot?

    Personally I was under the impression that using it is a bad thing, because it does all the work, and by me not doing the typing, I will forget everything I’ve learned.

    Well, I think I was proven wrong. I used it for many hours a day for all the months it was in beta… and when it became paid, I just didn’t buy it.

    I was expecting to be half illiterate after it stops working. Like hey I haven’t typed shit in months. But I’ve found the opposite. I think it strengthened my muscles. I come up with patterns/solutions faster.

    Reply

    1. Github Copilot can save a lot of time, but you still need to know what you are doing. For instance, due to how this AI was trained, it actually replicates common security flaws.

  3. There were some interesting news in gaming recently:

    1) Google will shut down “Stadia”, their online-only, streaming-only box, in Q1/2023. I wonder how much money they lost on that. This is interesting because it may signal that Google needs to watch their expenses a bit more in the current economic climate. They also mandated a hiring freeze recently.

    2) Related to the point above, some gamer managed to spend almost 6,000 hours in Red Dead Redemption 2 on Stadia, and is now begging Google to let him transfer his character to a different platform. When Klaus Schwab heard this, he chuckled and said, “Did I not tell you tat you vill own noffink and be happy?” Link:
    https://www.neogaf.com/threads/red-dead-redemption-2-fan-with-nearly-6-000-hours-on-stadia-begs-rockstar-for-character-transfer.1642313/
    On a more serious note, cloud gaming is not a bad proposition if you only want to play the occasional big release. Paying for one or two months of this service to plow through Cyberpunk 2077 (before it turned out what a turd this game was) is clearly more cost-effective than building a big rig that only collects dust, or buying a console for just one game. My pattern with big releases is that I play one every few years, GTA V in ca. 2014, The Witcher 3 in ca. 2016, and Dragon Quest XI in 2020.

    3) The new Callisto Protocol trailer looks great. I was surprised to learn that the game will come out already this winter. It is a bummer that it will not feature any women who are better than below-average looking, though. Trailer:

    Reply

    1. In regards to Google losing money, they’re also supposed to refund everyone’s hardware. I tried playing the RE:Village cloud demo for Switch recently and it wasn’t a very smooth experience. I don’t feel it’s worth it to upgrade internet speed for just a few games either.

    2. If Google also has to issue refunds for the hardware, the loss will be even higher. I could not find sales figures for Stadia, so I suppose they are quite low, perhaps just a few hundred thousands. Still, shipping and handling, and recycling those pieces of garbage, costs money, too. This is probably one of Google’s more expensive flops.

      Oh, look at this: I just did a bit of research, and Google is not just refunding the hardware but every purchase ever, including games. I also just recalled that Google and mainstream media hacks made a big brouhaha about hiring Jade Raymond, who has been surfing the diversity wave for basically her entire career. Ubisoft propped her up as the creator of the Assassin’s Creed series for PR purposes and kicked the actual creator, Patrice Désilets, to the curbs.

    3. I wasn’t aware you could purchase games on Stadia. I thought that was the appeal—a small monthly fee grants unlimited access to modern games. In hindsight, it seems as if they’d have been better off strictly as a streaming service.

      Is this cause for celebration? As in, should we be glad that Google failed out of gaming and that the cloud business model is, so far, a failure? Or, does this just free up resources for Google, and instead of just fucking off, they instead look for other ways to poison the well?

    4. Stadia was a typical example of corporate greed. You had to pay for the box, a monthly fee, and full price for the games. There were even instances of games that were more expensive on Stadia than anywhere else.

      Google was able to secure a market-dominating position initially due to having a superior search engine, and having access to Deep State money. Then they figured out how to monetize search, and the money kept flowing in. However, apart from that, they are remarkable unsuccessful, as the Google Graveyard website shows. Google got high on their own supply and aggressively pushed for hiring “diverse candidates”. Thus, I would argue that one of their biggest businesses failing is a net negative for them. Of course, those people will keep trying to poison the well but just like with our political elites, it seems that they are no longer competent enough to pull it off. For the last few years, they have been working hard at undermining YouTube, with TikTok now having a much higher market share in key demographics.

    5. Lmao, that graveyard list just keeps going. Some of these corps really are too big to fail, huh? It’s as if you’d literally have to play hangman to get rid of these people. So much for muh free markets.

      If that’s the case with Stadia then I don’t see the appeal at all. The only benefit that I can see, if you could call it that, is that you avoid having to drop that initial lump sum like you would a console. However, after a year or so of making monthly payments then you’d have just been better off having saved your money up for a console and owning it. Something tells me this is part of why they hate us owning things, because if they could just make everything subscription based then we’d literally have a dozen or more monthly payments. Music, gaming, kitchen appliances etc. Not only will you never own that modem that you need to use the internet you pay for every month, but you better prioritize which of the approved sites you wish to have access to without exceeding your carbon footprint for the year or whatever.

    6. Stadia had a sickening business model and I am glad that it failed. Speaking of subscription models, BMW is now charging you monthly for seat heating in your car. I had considered buying a (used) BMW once I am settled again, but I find such business practices so revulsive that I will abstain.

      Another issue with subscriptions is that content sometimes just disappears or gets modified. Disney does not even need to re-release The Little Mermaid in order to black-wash it. If you could only get this movie via streaming, they could just run it through the latest version of WokefAI and be done with it. It is like Orwell’s 1984 on steroids.

    1. Looks like it. There is also an enormous pressure on the tech sector, particularly on fintechs. A lot of tech business models only worked because of cheap money but this well has now run dry. The next one to two years are likely to get a lot uglier than people expected.

    2. Am I being dramatic? Maybe it’s just a really gnarly recession, but no flash crash like 2008?

    3. This could be like 2008 and 2000 rolled into one. Tech is pretty vulnerable at the moment.

  5. Deep fakes have advanced so much that actors can now license their appearance:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/deepfake-bruce-willis-return-movie-screens
    This has wide-ranging implications. Give it a few years, and small teams will be able to produce movies in their garage that may be able to compete with (non-Marvel) Hollywood. A similar development is happening in gaming where AI voices are replacing voice actors and environmental design is increasingly automated.

    Reply

    1. I can’t wait to see aesthetically enhanced versions of my favorite e-thots getting railed in first person with their accompanying voices and mannerisms. Speaking of AI generated stuff, I had recently stumbled upon a clip of a guitar player reacting to AI metal compositions. Though impressive, the execution still sounded rigid and ‘grid-locked’, though it’s certainly possible to program an AI for to adapt to a more humanized feel, resulting in a more natural sounding performance. There are drum samplers, for example, that already do this to the input (programmed midi) you provide to it.

    2. Computer-generated voices used to sound really robotic whereas the current state of the art is already much better than B-level acting, or your typical newscaster. A lot of money has flown into such research. Arguably, investments in AI sound generation have been much lower, as it is more of a niche, but in due time this will probably be figured out. On a related note, visual arts can already be replaced by an AI:
      https://uk.pcmag.com/news/142396/man-boasts-about-winning-art-competition-using-ai-created-image

    3. Speaking of AI generated voices, I remember when notjordanpeterson first hit the scene, and that was years ago already. Seeing as how alt media was able to either outcompete or at least keep up with the mainstream until they started canceling everybody for being racist, or for fear mongering and spreading misinfo, it’s no wonder why they are rushing to clamp everything down sooner rather than later. They simply don’t have the same level of talent as the general public, I believe. Most of their advantage lied in the fact that they had access to near infinite resources. The playing field is becoming more level with the advent of these emerging technologies. Imagine being able to download schematics for use with advanced 3D printers to essentially generate an arsenal for a private militia, or using AI generated waifus to promote right wing ideas readily accessible and algorithmically pushed on popular platforms. This shit is obviously a problem and needs to be regulated and/or out right banned. I don’t like it.

    4. You can already 3D print weapons, and there is at least one AI based waifu out there. It is no wonder that it gets shut down because the goyim just cannot handle it.

    1. What a perversion of justice: “Young is being held on $500,000 and is scheduled to be arraigned on Oct. 10. If convicted as charged, he faces a maximum sentence of 13 years in state prison.” I do not think that it is in any way noble to go around pepper-spraying women who dress like hookers, but you should contrast this with, er, others who steal, rob, kill, rape, and burn at will, with the mainstream media applauding them for it.

    3. The irony is that this guy could probably approach women with, “Hey, wanna fuck?” and get a few takers. Instead, we went around pepper-spraying sluts, i.e. the same kind of woman who would possibly have banged him.

    4. Supposedly him on the right here:
      https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/363/026/8da.jpg
      Source: https://heavy.com/news/2019/08/braxton-ryback-johnny-young/

      If that’s him then he’d definitely be able to get laid unless he’s really mentally messed up.

      But he might just be that messed up, considering the dumb crap he got arrested for according to the article.

      Aaron, I agree he shouldn’t get the maximum penalty. Some years would be appropriate in my opinion. For an assault at this level I doubt he’d get the maximum, unless they decide to make an example of him because of his criminal history.

  9. “The irony is that this guy could probably approach women with, “Hey, wanna fuck?” and get a few takers. Instead, we went around pepper-spraying sluts, i.e. the same kind of woman who would possibly have banged him.”

    He looks like a cross between an 1980’s dirty rocker and a football player !!!

    Also, really dumb is he filmed the altercation. If he nearly ran away he would be a free man !!!

    I almost think he was trying to be an influencer on youtube or reddit rather than and “incel” and it went horribly wrong !!!

    Reply

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