Bird names are all either, “red-breasted blackbird,” or, “deep-throated cum-tit.” There’s no in-between.

I think the public domain would be fair game as well, and the fact that AI companies don’t limit themselves to those works really gives away the game. An LMM that can write in the style of Shakespeare or Dickens is impressive, but people will pay for an LLM that will write their White Lotus fan fiction for them.

Here’s the thing that’s really pissing me off; I already know the ending. Back when this movie would, “never see the light of day,” someone (the director I think, or maybe one of the leads) did an interview explaining how the movie was going to end. It sounded hilarious, but now that I know what the bit is, it’s going to be significantly less funny.

By the numbers, probably Mississippi. Lowest life expectancy, highest infant mortality rate, second highest poverty rate…being ranked 39th in education actually seems to be a bright spot for them.

I mean, that was gross, but I thought it did fit her character. She was a traumatized orphan with a dark past and sever attachment issues. It made sense to me that she would try replace D’Argo as quickly as possible rather than cope with or process that loss. I get why that put you off though, it was not a high point for her character.

Surprised I had to go this far for Farscape.

And God bless the French, they will burn Paris to the fucking ground for this. Meanwhile, in the U.S., congress just decimated what little public healthcare we have, and guys with Gadsden flag profile pics and handles like, “1776patriot,” actively cheered them on.

Shit, that’s a good one.

“Look how much variation there is when I compare 80 years if animation trends to 5 years of animation trends.”

Of course animation has trends. It’s not new. Just look at the Hanna-Barbara cartoons of this 60s, when cheaper animation designed for television replaced the Golden Age animation styles. Look how many of these characters are, “blockey-torsoed animals with a superfluous neck accessory that allows us to animate the head and body independently, which saves us time and money.”

It’s not limited to this one studio either. Look at the Rocky and Bullwinkle characters. Tell me, do these blocky, simplistic character designs have more in common with the Hanna-Barbara characters above or the rounded, more fluid designs of the Disney/Warner Brothers/MGM characters of the 40s?

the only way to Democrats made their way back to the whitehouse was with an entirely new generation/brand of democratic politics under Bill Clinton, which embraced free trade and deregulation (i.e, the “third way”). So far, progressivism has not won in the way that this new brand of liberalism has.

This is a little too simplistic. First, it’s important to note how weird the 1992 election was. It was the first time in modern history that an independent candidate had a legitimate shot at winning; in fact, Perot was leading in the early polls, and very well could have taken the presidency if he hadn’t mismanaged his campaign, dropped out, and then re-entered the race. While he was somewhat centrist, he held a lot of populist and progressive positions like Medicare for all, assault weapons bans, opposition to NAFTA, and criticism of Reagonomics. Clinton ultimately won, but that probably had more to do with the 1990 recession than anything Clinton did, and, again, he very well could have lost to Perot’s platform had Perot been a more competent campaign manager.

As for the failures of the progressive message after that point, I don’t think that’s true, at least when looking at Presidential races. Obama governed as a centrist, but he campaigned as a progressive, promising Wall Street regulation, home owner bailouts, and universal healthcare. He abandoned all of those goals early on, but they are still what got elected, and he even made income inequality the focal point of his reelection campaign (which he again abandoned immediately upon reelection).

While Biden would never be called a leftists, he was a savvy campaigner, and he correctly read that the country wanted a progressive candidate in 2020. He leaned heavily on his strong pro-union history and had Sanders help him craft a highly progressive platform to run on. To his credit, I believe Biden did earnestly try to pass that platform, and it’s failure wasn’t do to a lack of desire. (He also funded a genocide and refused to step aside despite his advanced age, so fuck him, but the point is he got elected on a progressive platform).

Now let’s look at the presidential losers. Al Gore, a centrist technocrat, lost to Bush (sort of). John Kerry, a moderate war hero, lost to Bush. Hillary Clinton, who made the centrism of her husband’s presidency the cornerstone of her campaign, lost to Trump. And Harris (who, granted, was cobbling together a campaign at the 11th hour) ran a campaign of tepid centrist reforms and lost resoundingly to Trump.

So, tl;dr: Bill Clinton was the only candidate who won on an openly centrist campaign, and that was a very unusual election. The two other presidents, while also being centrists, won in progressive campaigns, while explicitly centrist Democrats lost.

I think if I don’t know anyone it’s happened to in decades of living in large cities means its probably not very common.

Yeah, I rode the Subway and T for years during rush hour, I used to work in Times Square, and I’ve of course been to tourist events in that time. In nearly 40 years of city living, I don’t know anyone who’s had their pocket picked, either in busy areas or, “Main st.”

I grew up in New York City and now live in Boston and I’ve never encountered a pickpocket. I’ve been mugged three times and had a mentally unbalanced homeless guy punch me in the face unprovoked, but I’ve never been pickpocketed.

My wife and I were Honeymooning in Paris, purchasing subway passes from an automated kiosk, when a guy who was pretending to be really interested in his phone started getting uncomfortably close to her. She felt him touch her, so she elbowed him real hard, knocking the phone out of his hand, and yelling, “Oh no, are you OK, I’m so sorry, I broke your phone!” real loud (which was true, she cracked his screen). I don’t think he was expecting a 5’2" woman to assault him, because he grabbed his broken phone and started booking it before I could react.

A very nice Parisian came over and told us we needed to be more careful and watch ouf for thieves. We thanked him, but my wife was laughing a few moments later because she just assumed he was a pervert. I thought maybe the phone screen had already been broken, and he was trying to run some sort of, “Hey, you broke my phone, give me money!” scam but chickened out when he saw how aggressively my wife reacted. We live in a major American city, so we’ve experienced crime before, but it never occurred to us that he was trying to pick her pocket. Felt almost quaint, like a Dickens novel.

I’ve read that they cancel most shows after two seasons because season 3 is usually when the cast renegotiates their salary and they’re too cheap to pay them what their worth.

Well, I wasn’t even thinking about that, but now I’ve got a whole new thing to be self-conscious about.

People are right in saying it’s context and consent, and it’s not completely gendered. Men’s swimsuits are basically just boxer shorts. Normally I’m not self-conscious about that, but a few months ago I signed up for a toddler swimming class with my son where I wound up being the only Dad, and suddenly I felt a bit exposed. I think the normalcy of walking around in nothing but a small pair of shorts kinda evaporated once I was the only man in the room.

True, although that bug is a lot easier to deal with. Instead of integrating hallucinated stories about Dorian into the transcript, you get a couple of extra lines of text now and then that read something like, “Daddy, where are you?” or, “I can’t see, Daddy. I’m scared.” It’s annoying, but it’s pretty easy to just CTR F the word, “Daddy,” and delete it.

This is actually a really common bug in transcription programs. It happens when one of the developers trains the AI model with video and audio of their dead child, Dorian. Just contact support and request that the developer tell the AI he’s sorry he trapped him between this world and the next, and while he’ll always love him, he knows it’s time to let go; head towards the light, Dorian…it’s ok…you’re free now, Dorian, you’re free. Then you’ll probably need to restart your PC.

Oh, I didn’t pick up that they were all Jeffrey Combs characters. At a distance, I thought that was Quark.