Makes sense, thanks.

I’m going to take a wide definition of the word ‘art’ here and apply it to all artistic methods.

Its not art. Art, almost by definition, partly reflects an emotional state the artist was in when creating the work. AI merely apes the output, not the necessary emotional connection. Its like the shitty music that used to play in lifts (elevators) in that it uses the output but is utterly soulless.

Its ethically way worse than piracy. If you pirate (for example) an ebook or music its more than likely because you want to escape DRM or some other type of controlling software designed to prevent you from actually having control over what you would otherwise have bought. LLM’s steal not just that but the whole creative process. Its more than pirating a movie or track or book, its more akin to stealing the thought process from an artists mind and trying to replicate the process automatically.

It is, to me, just another example of making the whole of our international artistic culture a bland homogenized cesspit of crapness. Its capitalism’s best way to profit from art as there’s no one to pay. But we end of with ever decreasing quality. AI based art becomes like humanity in the matrix - used then liquidised to feed the next iteration.

And then there’s also the environmental impact. The last thing the word needs right now is something else gobbling resources - especially when the end result is utter shit.

I promise this is genuine curiosity, not snark, but what’s the benefit/point to tracking ones pet?

They’ll vote Reform.

I’m not sure that I was, which is even more depressing to realise.

Not to worry, Rachel Reeves fantastic plan to decimate the welfare state will take care of this issue - and as an added bonus vastly inflate the value of funeral businesses across the country! Win-win!

I’d recommend a Kobo Clara. They do do a colour variant but the next part of my recommendation might not be able to cope with it, I don’t know.

That next part is KOReader - you can install it ‘over the top’ of the standard Clara software so it becomes the working environment. Its got so many pluses I don’t have time to list them all but it plays nice with Calibre, you can SSH to it, FTP to it, even access it from some cloud services. I can’t say if it supports colour or not though as I don’t use a colour Clara.

Transferring your current collection is probably a non-starter due to the recent limitations Amazon have put on downloading files. Getting new ebooks is up to you, there’s loads of both legal and not so legal places to source books from, depending on how you feel about DRM.

In terms of transferring books - as well as the ways I mentioned above it also supports OPDS and of course standard USB cabled transfers too.

I’ll miss the ability to buy using cash-bought gift vouchers as that seems the only straightforward way to preserve privacy.

There was a post on some Lemmy community or other yesterday which stated that most Americnas support ideas like universal healthcare (55%) and getting rid of guns from private ownership (mid 60% IIRC).

In that thread someone said it was awful that even amongst progressives the support for universal healthcare was so low and the very few responses to that were basically - :shrug: we’ve been lied to what are we gonna do about it?

The responses to the gun ownership stat were numerous and declared support for ‘second amendment rights’.

When even US progressives are passionately defending the biggest cause of child death in the USA in 2022 but are apathetic about universal healthcare, that’s a uniquely US problem that speaks very much to the level of thinking power available.

Meta will definitely not be collecting and selling on any more data about users of the ad-free version. We know this because of their spotless track record in privacy and safely implementing algorithms which has, in turn, made them one of the most trusted and trustable companies in the world.

Its the greatest form of entertainment IMO. Movies and theatre last a couple of hours, emphasis is on ‘the look’, story is usually (but not always) pretty shallow. TV is more episodic and therefore there’s more time to explore the story but, again,its still pretty surface level most of the time. As streamers replace production companies and gain even more power, TV and movies are getting increasingly crapper. I read an interview with someone who worked for a streamer (wasn’t Neflix but can;t recall which one it was and I can;t find the link now) who said the direction from bosses is producing content that is easy enough to follow if you’re only half-watching. Sounds fucking awful.

Books, on the other hand, engage whole parts of your brain and quite literally take you into a different world. They can be quite short or very, very long - the edit is to fit the story, not making the story fit a prescribed length. Unlike movies or TV the only two people involved are you and the author - which is why I personally struggle with audiobooks as I feel like there’s a third party (the narrator) involved who might interpret things differently than me. I’ve seen lots of great TV shows, plays and movies but I have never had as immersive an experience as I do with reading a book. I’ve never experienced an emotional response to a TV show or movie like I have from so many books. The feeling of knowing a character to their bones and loving (or hating) them is just impossible for me in movies/TV shows most of the time.

1. Find the casual communities.
2. Curate your feed
3. Stick to non US communities?
4. Realise that the world is not in great shape right now, people are angry and scared - of course online spaces are going to reflect that.

Davx5 yep. Its very easy. I can’t be arsed to search for it but if you look through my comment history you’ll see a comment I made in the last couple if weeks on how to set it up. Its incredibly easy.

No, no, I’m saying it should have been reported there and I don’t get why they didn’t share it.

On the face of it, that is a massive own goal. TOR project surely has a fediverse account or a blog or something to announce these things. This should be common knowledge.

For a book that contains zero likeable characters, its an absorbing read. I chose to interpret it as a study on how the lower/middle classes are desperate to emulate the upper class, despite their obvious lack of morality.

Felix plus some vinegar?

There’s a difference between being a populist and actually representing your constituents, which is after all the job they’re paid to do.

Like @icerunner_origin@startrek.website I speak from experience when I say this is nothing to do with whats best for kids and all about cutting costs. Forcing kids who need an EHCP into mainstream schools and/or denying them specialist support will help no one - not the pupils, not the staff and not the school.

But its SOP for this red tory government - they’ve already said they’re going to target disabled people claiming PIP and now they’re going to target disabled people in education.

You might think this is because the disabled population have an outlandishly large amount of money allocated to them and its fair that they are targeted. They don’t. The reason the disabled are always the first targeted by any ruler is because that ruler knows that the general population don;t give two shits what happens to disabled people.

There’ll be no protests from society about this in the way we would see if this was an environmental issue or a race issue or a gender issue so for a politician this is a win-win.

How? Either way I lose.

Because when you vote against a fascist you’re considering wider society, not just your self.

If I voted for harris and harris won, I still lost. If I voted for harris and trump won, I still lost. if I voted for trump and trump won, I still lost.

The correct statement is 'if Harris gets in, I lost. If Trump gets in everyone loses. Its about more than just you.

You’re naive enough to believe that harris winning is the same as you winning, and that’s just proving my point. You’ve been conditioned to think that a slow loss is the same as a win

I’m not American. What I am though is able to see that fascism is worse than conservatism. The fact that conservatism is still bad is irrelevant when the only other choice is an actual fascist because the fascist will probably remove your power to vote in the future.

Gonna block you now. Good luck in life.

Yeah, some truths are too uncomfortable to be lived with aren’t they?