stray
@stray@pawb.social
- Comment on 🐙🐙🐙 5 days ago:
I feel like any linguist upset by non-prescriptive language needs to maybe reconsider their life choices. Imagine telling someone they’re painting incorrectly or being mad at the discovery of a new species.
- Comment on ARMADILL-NO 5 days ago:
You leave the stroller for a moment to grab your take-away order and come back to a crow repeatedly attempting to insert a still-living snail into the baby’s face. The snail is confused, but calm. The crow is frustrated. The baby won’t stop screaming, further frustrating the crow. Just eat the snail, idiot.
- Comment on Depart, men of education. 5 days ago:
You have to say that on Meta if you want them to read it.
- Comment on Jonathan Majors has addressed the rumors he'll return as Kang in the MCU and revealed that Kevin Feige didn't respond to the letter he sent him shortly after his trial 6 days ago:
I think you replied to the wrong post. This is supposed to be under the one about him defending himself, right?
I dunno though. Abuse is obviously easier in a physical sense from the statistically larger sex, but I’ve seen it go both ways, especially in the sense of both partners being abusive to each other simultaneously. When it comes to celebrities, I will just let the appropriate authorities decide what’s what instead of trying to have an opinion on people I’ve never met. I would feel better knowing that the authorities aren’t often biased by things like racism and sexism, but they’re still better than any zero evidence speculation on my part.
- Comment on Anon appreciates Chris Sawyer 1 week ago:
I know what Rollercoaster Tycoon is, I just can’t identify random game developers by their vacation photos.
- Comment on Christie's First-Ever AI Art Auction Earns $728,000, Plus Controversy 2 weeks ago:
It just seems like a lot of people don’t realize that, based on how they phrase their concerns. I wanted to put the idea out for consideration without calling out anyone specifically as I feel that’s needlessly hostile. I think the less direct approach allows people to decide for themselves whether I’m talking about them, without feeling they need to respond to an accusation.
- Comment on Christie's First-Ever AI Art Auction Earns $728,000, Plus Controversy 2 weeks ago:
I feel like everyone who’s against image/text generation on the grounds of artists’ financial wellbeing is actually against capitalism rather than AI.
- Comment on Anon is smarter than a genius 2 weeks ago:
Too much glucose is a great way to get diabetes.
- Comment on Pokémon games have become consistently ugly, and it's alright to wish they weren't 3 weeks ago:
“devs too focused on making a game pretty instead of fun” is talking about making the art photorealistic with fancy hair engines and such, when doing so doesn’t add meaningfully to the experience and only serves to needlessly complicate development and inflate the cost.
We can tell that making all these 3D models and animations is a problem for the devs because they’ve said so repeatedly. They’ve even said they can’t have every Pokemon in the same game as a result. Instead of the lovely pixel art of FRLG we have a mish-mash of dead-eyed, poorly-animated cartoons with PSP-quality “realistic” terrain that grate against each other. And for what? Why do 3D when you can only do 3D so poorly?
- Comment on fishies 3 weeks ago:
I know there are more, but I just watched a bunch of clown fish grab what appeared to be a coconut shell from rather far away and bring it to their anemone to lay eggs all over it, because I guess they need a hard surface. I was pretty impressed with how they were tossing it, and so cooperative, too.
- Comment on James Cameron will reportedly open Avatar 3 with a title card saying no generative AI was used to make the movie 4 weeks ago:
I’m not sure how humans go about creating ideas, and therefore cannot be sure that the resulting ideas aren’t a combination of learned things. There have been people in history who did things like guess that everything is made up of tiny particles long before we could ever test the idea, but probably they got the idea from observing various forms of matter, right? Like seeing how rocks can crumble into sand and grain can be ground to flour. I don’t think they would have been able to come up with the idea in a vacuum. I think anything we’re capable of creating must be based on things which we’ve already learned about, but I don’t know that I can prove that.
- Comment on James Cameron will reportedly open Avatar 3 with a title card saying no generative AI was used to make the movie 4 weeks ago:
I agree that humans are just flesh computers, but I don’t know whether we can say LLMs have overcome human creativity because I think the definition is open to interpretation.
Is the intentionality capable only with metacognition a requirement for something to be art? If no, then we and AI and spiders making webs are all doing the same “creativity” regardless of our abilities to consider ourselves and our actions.
If yes, then is the AI (or the spider) capable of metacognition? I know of no means to answer that except that ChatGPT can be observed engaging in what appears to be metacognition. And that leaves me with the additional question: What is the difference between pretending to think something and actually thinking it?
In terms of specifically “overcoming” creativity, I don’t think that kind of value judgement has any real meaning. How do you determine whether artist A or B is more creative? Is it more errors in reproduction leading to more original compositions?
- Comment on Peer Review 1 month ago:
Back in my day sugar was only C and H.
- Comment on Yes biologists use tiny tiny tweezers to change DNA 1 month ago:
This reminds me of the ASMR video I watched where this person removed my cranial nerves for cleaning and I was so immersed that I was kind of weirded out and upset by their sudden theft.
- Comment on brain blowing orgasms 1 month ago:
Everything about biology is a random effect. Even a mutation that’s selected for wasn’t planned; it just happened by chance. Like if you’re an aquatic species maybe you’ll end up being a strong swimmer over generations, but the water doesn’t pressure you towards that on its own. You have to coincidentally develop flukes that make you a stronger swimmer before those traits can be selected for.
Sometimes traits that get passed down aren’t beneficial at all because they don’t make an impact on reproduction. Think of an animal that comes in many colors like a house cat or certain fish species. In such cases it’s clear that the color of the animal doesn’t have any bearing on its ability to reproduce, so a variety of colors are passed down for no particular reason.
- Comment on Do you allow transphobic mods? 1 month ago:
I would like to understand what you’re saying better. I assume the original OP was a thread about sports (though honestly I have no idea). Given that context, how should someone in OP’s position behave/respond (if at all) to the posts about trans women in sports?
- Comment on Do you allow transphobic mods? 1 month ago:
Why are you making it one thing or the other? We can have more than one conversation. Do you think we should shut up about trans rights altogether because all this bickering over such an insignificant number of people is distracting from larger human rights issues?
If it’s the case that the conversation itself upsets you because it hurts and you’re sick of seeing it, I totally get that; it’s valid.
- Comment on Do you allow transphobic mods? 1 month ago:
It depends on where the kids are in their development. AFAB and AMAB kids are functionally identical until puberty starts. A trans child should, imo, be allowed puberty-prevention treatments so that they can choose what kind of puberty they’d like to have when they’re older. And that’s sure as heck not doing anyone favors in the athletics department.
- Comment on Do you allow transphobic mods? 1 month ago:
I think the trans women who are passionate about their sport disagree with you. Why would you just be okay with letting someone literally lose their hobby or even career over their gender? It’s dehumanizing.
I don’t see what harm this conversation has. People who aren’t terrible will be better educated and people who are terrible weren’t trans allies in the first place. What have we lost?
- Comment on Do you allow transphobic mods? 1 month ago:
Assuming you’re genuinely uninformed and confused, trans women do not have any advantages over cis women if they’ve been on HRT. The lack of testosterone affects the body dramatically. You can see evidence of this in the fact that trans women aren’t dominating any of the competitions which have allowed them.
Furthermore, sports were never fair in the first place. Some people are more naturally gifted in various areas than others. There are actually cis female athletes who have been forced to medically lower their natural testosterone levels in the name of fairness, and that’s some Harrison Bergeron shit.
- Comment on 🎵 🎶 🎵 1 month ago:
I’ve just read An Immense World by Ed Yong and learned that what seems to matter in birdsong is the way the notes change, like mid-note.
- Comment on Anon tries to sleep 1 month ago:
Is that still the case if you’re only microdosing?
- Comment on Anon tries to sleep 1 month ago:
That’s such an apt description.
- Comment on New No Man's Sky update adds walkable gas giants among "trillions" of new planets, just in case you were running out 1 month ago:
Doesn’t it matter though? Isn’t delivering the promised product the correct reparations for failing to deliver a product? Pretty sure it was easy to get a refund back then, too.
- Comment on Crocodile Dundee | New 'Encore Cut' removes footage from original film 1 month ago:
How is it dystopian?
- Comment on Typical from my so called imaginary friend 2 months ago:
“I understand your mental health problems and your efforts to be your best self. The pros of spending time with you outweigh the cons; you have not lost my affection.”
vs
“This topic brings my discomfort with you to the fore. Join me in a mutual lie so that we can continue our suffering and never make progress.”