Works fine for me, so I really don’t know what to tell you.

I’ve been using it for years and this has never been an issue for me.

Babylon 5 is very much worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet, though I do recommend looking up a watch list. Much of season 1 is extremely skippable, and so is a fair bit of season 2. But the stuff that works really works, and later seasons become some of the most compelling TV you’ll ever watch. This show basically invented much of the format of modern prestige TV, and it had to sort of do it on the fly, which is why it takes a while to find its footing.

I don’t normally like to use “It gets good” as a defence of anything, but in the case of something like Babylon 5 I think it’s merited, because this is one of the shows that was redefining what “Good” actually meant.

Did they enshittify web search on purpose? Yes, absolutely. There are internal emails from Google proving this. I don’t have the links handy, but dig back through Ed Zitron’s newsletter and he has a very detailed breakdown (www.wheresyoured.at).

Edit - Found the article in question; https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Did they do it to boost AI? No, it was already happening. They did it to boost ad revenue. The more pages or searches it takes you to find what you’re looking for, the more ads they get to serve. And the more likely it is that you’ll just give up and take the sponsored links.

AI has further worsened the decline by aiding in the production of low grade content that fills up space, squeezing out the useful stuff you actually want. And driving more use of AI tools certainly gives major players like Microsoft and Google a new, additional incentive to destroy the effectiveness of their search engines. But AI was not the original culprit. The decline started years before ChatGPT.

You seem to be under the false impression that most Americans have ever seen a fruit or vegetable.

Reverse bullpup isn’t real, reverse bullpup can’t hurt me. Reverse bullpup isn’t real, reverse bullpup can’t hurt me…

Yes, Riven really improved on that aspect, by a lot. The puzzles feel incredibly natural and purposeful. Everything in Riven serves as world-building. Everything has a reason to exist. And the puzzles flow naturally together. It’s a game of discovery that rewards exploration. I’d absolutely recommend the recent remake.

But you didn’t say that. You said;

I hate to defend her but before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia (i.e. pre 2014), using Russian gas to soften the dependency on fascist-murica seemed like a good option.

At no point did I claim that America was a shining beacon of goodness and light in 2014. On that point we agree.

But you tried to present the claim there was a strong public opinion in 2014 - at least in Germany if not elsewhere - that nations needed to cut ties with “fascist America”, and that’s not even remotely accurate. While a lot of people were broadly concerned about the US’ behaviour, and the behaviour of their electorate, there was never any real public impetus towards cutting ties, or fear that they would badly mistreat their allies until the last few years. Sure, a lot of leftists might have been arguing for those things, but that’s not the same thing at all.

There were plenty of alarm bells, but that’s not the point in contention here. The person I replied to was trying to claim - effectively - that it was public policy in Germany to cut ties with “fascist America” in 2014 and that’s just not remotely true.

You don’t, and I didn’t say that. What I was pointing out was that the people throwing around the term “fascism” to describe America in Obama’s tenure were primarily racist weirdos who believed that FEMA was going to round them up into internment camps. That was kind of a major part of the right-wing discourse at that time.

America sucked in 2014, but broadly speaking the idea of the US being fascist, or being a threat to their allies (esp Europe and Canada) was not remotely a part of public discourse. Obama did a lot to repair the public image damage Bush had inflicted, despite how little he actually did to fix any of the bad stuff America was doing.

Trump was elected in 2016. Obama was still president in 2014. While the problems with American imperialism obviously go back a very, very long way, their overt slide into fascism had not begun in 2014. If you’d tried to talk about “American Fascism” pre-2016 people would have assumed you were a very specific kind of racist who is probably deeply concerned about FEMA for vague and implausible reasons.

Very cool. I’ll need to sit down and read the full spec, but I’ve got some FastAPI apps where I could see this being useful.

Surprising absolutely no one except the subset of Americans who somehow think that Russia is their friend. Unfortunately that subset still includes their idiot president.

Oh absolutely. It’s basically a spiritual successor. The only reason I didn’t bring up the comparison is because I don’t want people to dismiss it as just a Hotline Miami clone, because it’s a lot more than that. For one thing Hotline Miami doesn’t have Dark Souls style boss fights.

GRAB. THIS. GAME.

Otxo is really good. Pure hyper-violence oozing with style and pulsing to a demented soundtrack. Well worth your time to check out.

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Every time I see a picture of her I think it’s one of those attempts at humanoid robots, or a silicone sex doll or waxwork or something. She immediately triggers that uncanny valley “that’s not human” response in the brain. I don’t understand how anyone can find her attractive.

This is very definitely one of those problems where you really need to define, mostly for yourself, exactly what you mean by “without AI.”

What you’re describing is automation, and it is, by necessity, artificially intelligent automation. That’s because human beings don’t make the same sounds the same way every single time, and those sounds aren’t going to be made against the same background noise every single time. So there is no way that you can ever deterministically transcribe spoken word to text. It requires guesswork, and when you’re talking about computers and guesswork, you’re necessarily talking about technology that falls within the general purview of “artificial intelligence.” This has been true for as long as computer assisted transcription has been a thing.

So what exactly is it that you’re trying to avoid here? Is it specifically your data going to an AI company that concerns you (ie, would a local model be an acceptable solution)? Are you perhaps trying to avoid giving money to certain AI companies? These are the sort of issues that might be addressable. But just a broad “no AI” prescription will basically rule out any useful answers. I hope that makes sense.

Actually… pushes up glasses… the word shot is Middle English and describes the flinging of a projectile, including from a bow. It predates the use of gunpowder weaponry and derives from the Old English gesceot.

That’s because it was written at a time when nobles were considered the only natural choice of leadership class, so you’ve got military forces being lead by people with zero practical military knowledge. It’s literally meant to be babies first strategy and logistics guide. Sun Tzu is intentionally dumbing shit down for his audience.