memfree
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- Comment on Donors 1 month ago:
It sounds like the donor had requirements. From The Tribune:
The University of Chicago has received a $100 million gift from an anonymous donor to support free expression, marking what may be the largest-ever single donation to support such values in higher education, the university announced Thursday.
And:
Discussions surrounding the donation have been ongoing for over a year, according to a university spokesperson.
From …suntimes.com/…/university-chicago-donation-free-… :
The gift was ridiculed by advocates involved in the encampment that highlighted abuses against Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas War and torn down by the university in the spring.
“It’s truly a slap in the face,” said Yousseff Hasweh, a U of C grad who’s diploma was withheld by the university for two months, allegedly for his involvement in the protest.
- Comment on Audubon 2 months ago:
I’m fine with removing the Audubon name from any group – not because of John Audubon himself, but because the current Audubon Society seems to be an unscrupulous, anti-union, money-grubbing, greenwashing mess.
- Comment on A nightly Waymo robotaxi parking lot honkfest is waking San Francisco neighbors 3 months ago:
Reminds me of the incident in February where a waymo tried to get through a bunch of street revelers, and their response was to set it on fire. From the old pcmag story :
San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson noted that it had tallied 55 incidents where self-driving vehicles had interfered with rescue operations in the city.
In some cases, residents have put orange cones on the hoods of cars, which makes them temporarily immobile.
(see also the autopian story it references)
- Comment on Palantir partners with Microsoft to sell AI to the government 3 months ago:
Reminder that Palantir is the same company whose bosses are deep in bed with AmericaPAC – which got big write-ups (link is to one comment, but you can read more there and lots of places) because Elon Musk is gathering voter data seemingly for that PAC to target swing state voters with canvassing efforts.
- Comment on Booper 2 Pooper 3 months ago:
I’m also not an expert, but that was my thought, too.
More than that, even if a tail is undamaged, including it is not giving useful imformation because tail size can vary out of proportion to the main body and is pretty standard for other animals as well. For example, no one is measuring a horse to include the tail length, nor a dog, cat, and generally not a bird, either.
That said, I expect an news story about alligators on the golf course or catching invasive snakes to measure the whole body for the NEWS story and let the experts worry about the booper2pooper length in their own space.
- Comment on US senators claim car makers sold driver data for pennies 3 months ago:
I knew about the police getting access, but I missed that home insurance companies were checking properties with drones. I guess I don’t mind them spending their own money to send their own drones to verify properties they insure, but I agree that using MY camera that I bought to get info or sell MY data is at least unethical and ought to be illegal. It should be required that they get my explicit consent to that sort of thing for each instance of data collection or sale.
- Comment on US senators claim car makers sold driver data for pennies 3 months ago:
Who? The Senators? I think they’re genuinely interested in stopping the practice (obviously it also gets them good press, possibly even votes, but they coulda probably got cash if they did nothing).
I think the car companies are just trying to make money anywhere they can.
- Submitted 3 months ago to technology@beehaw.org | 18 comments
- Comment on [Request] Retro Recommendations 3 months ago:
Myst can be a bit esoteric, especially the older versions.
Did they rewrite it in later ports? Also curious as to where you stand on Zork.
- Comment on At the Olympics, AI is watching you 3 months ago:
I can’t argue with you on that.
- Submitted 3 months ago to technology@beehaw.org | 6 comments
- Google says it never collected users’ personal information / Asks for summary judgementwww.courthousenews.com ↗Submitted 3 months ago to technology@beehaw.org | 5 comments
- Comment on Pluralistic: Holy CRAP the UN Cybercrime Treaty is a nightmare 3 months ago:
I actually DO have some hope it will be rewritten, but I figure we know about it and maybe contact someone? usun.usmission.gov/mission/ ?
- Submitted 3 months ago to technology@beehaw.org | 3 comments
- Comment on Bethesda Game Studios has unionized! 3 months ago:
Yay!!!
I can’t get myself to click a twitter link, so in case others feel the same, here’s an alternate piece that basically says the same thing (I can’t yet find an article with detailed info): ign.com/…/bethesda-game-studios-microsoft-game-st…
- Comment on Caption this. 4 months ago:
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 14th 4 months ago:
i’m chilling slo mo to Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator. No adrenaline needed.
- Comment on First-known TikTok mob attack led by middle schoolers tormenting teachers 4 months ago:
I heard a strange take on this story. I know someone whose spouse worked at that very school and has heard the gossip about the incident. While the hen clutch has been gossiping in private conversations rather than internet posts for the world to see, their speculations about the Principal are almost as slanderous – and have been for years.
Long story short: the hens felt this wouldn’t have happened if the Principal didn’t let the kids run amok and instead provided consistent disciple.
- Comment on Long Dark dev criticises Manor Lords for lack of updates, Hooded Horse CEO replies that not every game needs to be "some live-service boom or bust" 4 months ago:
I misunderstood regarding those games, sorry.
- Comment on Long Dark dev criticises Manor Lords for lack of updates, Hooded Horse CEO replies that not every game needs to be "some live-service boom or bust" 4 months ago:
See? That’s the thing. I don’t want to support future in-app purchases that get tacked on after they got me to PAY THEM for the ‘privilege’ of doing their beta testing for them. That seems like a special kind of evil that must not be encouraged.
- Comment on Long Dark dev criticises Manor Lords for lack of updates, Hooded Horse CEO replies that not every game needs to be "some live-service boom or bust" 4 months ago:
I don’t understand how anyone buys Early Access games. Yes, I understand that the creators need to make a living before the game launches, but big companies should have the reserves and small companies may just take the money and run.
A couple days ago I looked at pcgamer’s summer steam deals list, and since Manor Lords topped the list I went over to Steam to check it out. Early Access. Nevermind.
I forgot about it entirely until looking at this article. Went to Steam and: Oh. Right. Early Access. Nevermind.
I do agree that it is too early to expect more updates. It only became available in April. I don’t expect it to have improvements worth integrating yet. That said, I’m not spending $30 (regular price $40) on something that may or may not end up being any good – that might always be too buggy to play, or too cringe-y to enjoy, or go so far from the initial demo that it isn’t the same game (I will never forgive you, Spore, and I will never buy you).
- Comment on Technical quality of life advice 4 months ago:
I agree! And I’m thankful that lots of games build that in.
- Comment on Technical quality of life advice 4 months ago:
I hate using AWSD as direction keys. I don’t understand why some games refuse to map the arrow keys to the same commands, but some don’t and it becomes up to me to manually set that right before playing anything.
It irritates me so much to me that if a game doesn’t let me change the key mappings, I’m probably going for a refund rather than play at all.
- Comment on Are We Watching The Internet Die? 8 months ago:
Recent big sites that closed down: Jezebel, Pitchfork, Vice, Popular Science, and my hopes for the Messenger were dashed when they announced their demise: thehill.com/…/4440773-news-startup-the-messenger-…
LA Times and the like are hit with layoffs and – worse – Sinclair heavyweight added the Balitmore Sun to the list of ‘compromised’ media outlets: washingtonpost.com/…/baltimore-sun-sold-david-smi…
That said, there are always new sites, but gaining trust and reputation takes time.
Social sites seem doomed to crest and then fall. Digg? MySpace? Friendster? Who remembers the good old days of (moderated) UseNet? Do we want any of those back? Would any of them have remained were it not for spam/bad-actors?
- Comment on Google’s self-designed office swallows Wi-Fi “like the Bermuda Triangle” 8 months ago:
I appreciate that the “Gradient Canopy” roof is covered in solar cells and collects rainwater while also letting in natural light, so maybe the problem is they didn’t do enough by not adding in some shielding, too.
- Comment on A Small Steam Game Shows How LLMs Could Kill the Dialogue Tree (re: Verbal Verdict demo) 8 months ago:
Ooooh, I’d like that! Well, there’s 3 parts to the (random user input / scripted game output) conundrum:
- I think it is fair that if you ask, ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ the NPC might either respond as if it is being accused of sabotage, answer the damn question, lie, or prefer not to talk about it (it’s personal).
- I’d keep a short list of standard options – probably in a collapsed scroller kinda thing so you could either verbally say or type whatever you want, OR you could click an arrow to pick from a list. That way lazy or stuck players wou;dn’t have to think of all the options, and players interested in roleplaying could do as they please.
- I’m OK with, “I’m not going to respond to that”. I’d hope each character had several variations of that, but I think it is legitimate for NPCs to dislike being pestered. Shopkeepers might have replies like, “Are you gonna buy something or are you just here to bend my ear?” or “I don’t see how that relates to my inventory.” Random townies might reply, “Do I even know you?” or “Would you PLEASE stop bothering me.” or “You’re harshing my mellow, man. Shhhh… Just chill.”
- Comment on A Small Steam Game Shows How LLMs Could Kill the Dialogue Tree (re: Verbal Verdict demo) 8 months ago:
NOTE: I just downloaded the game and on my first attempted launch, it complained that the port it wanted was not open. My only option was to close the game. I ran netstat and did not see the port listed, so I tried again. THAT time, it complained about my older video card :-/ The warning is clunky and there’s a typo, too (within -> withing). It says (if I transcribed accurately):
You are using an: NVIDIA GEOFORCE GTX 1080. This video card is currently not recognized withing the recommended specs. We only support a limited amount of NVIDIA GTX graphics cards, all NVIDIA RTX graphics cards or all AMD RX graphics cards since the local AI requires a lot of performance.
So please note that the game might not work properly. Refer to the Steam guide for more information.
When I closed that warning, the game loaded.
- A Small Steam Game Shows How LLMs Could Kill the Dialogue Tree (re: Verbal Verdict demo)www.404media.co ↗Submitted 8 months ago to gaming@beehaw.org | 10 comments
