cerebralhawks

@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If a girl asks you if you're big, are you supposed to lie or not?⁩ ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I would say I’ve never had any complaints. Then, depending on context I might add — but let’s be honest, probably not — “only one way to find out.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does Coke Zero taste different in the UK vs. the USA?⁩ ⁨⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I was confused by the wording of the question. Wasn’t trying to weasel around the comment as much as I was trying to make sense of it.

  I read it again. You seem to think that Coke Zero in the US is made to taste like HFCS because that’s what the US puts in regular soda? Because that’s not the case. Sucralose doesn’t emulate the flavour of HFCS or cane sugar.

  Here’s a Wikipedia article on it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose

  As to whether it tastes different, I suppose it might. Coca-Cola prides itself on a “secret recipe” known only to a few, but like a few other products that claim the same, this is mostly marketing. The “secret” to Coca-Cola is that, in the US, the company has the exclusive right to import the coca plant and extract from it. This process can be used to make the narcotic cocaine, and in fact Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine. It doesn’t now, but it does still contain coca extract, which no other soda from another company can do. I do not know how the United Kingdom regulates the coca plant. If they don’t grant Coca-Cola the right to use it, they cannot make US Coca-Cola in the UK, and they probably can’t import the safe, cocaine-free extract from the US, either. It depends.

  So, I think your question should have less to do with how the beverage is sweetened or if the UK lets them make it the same way the US does. I assume the UK is your country, since Coke is made in the US (was invented there, in/near Atlanta, Georgia) so it’s kind of the baseline.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does Coke Zero taste different in the UK vs. the USA?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Coke Zero is sweetened with sucralose, not HFCS or cane sugar. It’s a diabetic friendly alternative. It might taste closer to Coke made with cane sugar, but I’m not sure. I don’t drink soda anymore, but I do drink Gatorade Zero.

  I recommend sucralose sweetened beverages over HFCS and cane sugar ones.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there video media (e.g TV shows, Movies, anime, video games, youtube videos, etc...) with a majority of the dialogue in an fictional language?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You covered all kinds of media but music, but Enya sings in a made-up language, but not exclusively. Just five songs are in Loxian, a language her songwriter made up for her after she did the song from Lord of the Rings (with some lyrics in Elvish or whatever the Tolkien language is). So she wanted a language that would suit her style and her songwriter made one for her.

  The cool thing is, they wrote this whole sci-fi backstory for it about how the Irish go to space, to the moon, and they jump to a faraway galaxy. Also, Enya only sings the water dialect of Loxian — they have a dialect for each of the four natural elements.

  The Enya songs in Loxian are:

  • Less Than a Pearl
  • The River Sings
  • Water Shows the Hidden Heart
  • The Forge of the Angels
  • The Loxian Gate

  The first three are on the album Amarantine; the last two are on Dark Sky Island. IMO Loxian Gate is the best of the lot, followed by The River Sings. If you listen on Apple Music or something that, you can watch the lyrics go by as she sings them, but it will not translate them. There are translations online, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for verified adults, OpenAI boss says⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you asking how to make em dashes? Hold dash on a phone, Shift+Option+Dash on a Mac, Alt+0151 on Windows.

  Shit, you might be able to blame me for LLMs using em dashes. Been using them forever. Maybe even longer than you’ve been alive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI couldn't create an image of a woman like me - until now⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s what the article said. I would opt-out as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for verified adults, OpenAI boss says⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Well no shit. You could also maybe stop a tank if you stand in front of it, but maybe it’ll just keep going.

  I mention King because he did a similar thing before. He wrote two books, one as himself and one as his alter ego Richard Bachman, and the two books — Desperation and The Regulators — mirrored one another. He also was one of the first nationally/internationally published authors to support ebook (he released a book online only).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for verified adults, OpenAI boss says⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, Ao3 has existed for years, and literotica for years longer, but okay, if someone wants something personalised. Vague concerns of plagiarism aside, it’s interesting. The problem I see is that people will take it back to those sites and upload it as their own and not declare it as AI.

  We already have AI generated music that has fooled some people. I think AI generated stories will be harder to track. And it’s going to be divisive. One thing I’d like to see is someone prolific like Stephen King do it as an experiment. So King — or, more likely, a young intern working for him — prompts an AI to write a book in the style of Stephen King. And they prompt it to include certain things. Then, Stephen King himself actually writes the book, and the two are packaged together for the cost of the one book. You get the Stephen King version, and you get the AI version which has some ridiculous name. And it’s going to tell the same story, but it’s going to do it slightly differently. So you can read King’s version — I think most readers would either read this one first, or this one only — and then, if you’re up to it, you can read the AI version. This would do two things. One, it would (possibly) prove that AI cannot fully replace human writers. Two (and not mutually exclusive to the previous point), it would give you an alternate-reality version of the first story, and that could be interesting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI couldn't create an image of a woman like me - until now⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  TL;DR: Woman missing an arm couldn’t get AI image generators to generate an amputee. It apparently didn’t know how. Now it does and the woman says the representation is important. </tldr>

  I guess it couldn’t find enough art to steal of amputees for it to form enough of a basis to draw them? And so in reaction to the backlash (such as it was), they gave it more data?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨(Spoiler Thread) Your top 10 video game protagonist deaths⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The first three, so much.

  Also, I’m gesturing wildly and vaguely at the whole Life is Strange series. The one death in the first one I’m thinking of is just part of it. I feel like the whole thing is heart wrenchingly sad.

  Oh yeah. Johnny Silverhand. And in case you missed it, most of his memories are false. Morgan Blackhand did most of what Johnny is known for. And a couple of his friends sold him out. He wasn’t really killed per se, his mind was trapped in a digital hell and then he woke up in a crazy chick’s head who wanted him out and that’s basically the game. You play the chick. Johnny starts out as the bad guy but by the end you’re rolling to die for him. Because he’s basically Keanu Reeves.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | Official Trailer | Paramount+ (NYCC 2025)⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Looks good, but too soon to tell. They threw a lot of good stuff at us quickly, but what holds it all together?

  Two questions I have: Is Federation HQ a starship saucer section now? WTF was that? And did they just put River Tam from Firefly in Star Trek? Because it kind of looks like they did. Might not be Summer Glau, but that girl definitely had River Tam energy.

  Will definitely give this a chance — I’ve been saying they should make a Starfleet Academy series for decades. Now we’re getting one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Day 451 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  0451 was a door code in the first level. It’s become iconic since then.

  The first game is pretty dated. Most people didn’t like the graphics. I did, but I’m weird. I still think Unreal Engine 1 is beautiful. Just… jagged. The remaster will not be much better. The remaster is just important because we’ll be able to play DX1 on Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch. I can play the original PC version on my Mac, but I’m hoping for a native Mac port since it’s Aspyr and that’s what they were doing before, but to be fair, they were doing Mac ports of Xbox 360 games when both Mac and Xbox 360 used IBM PowerPC chips (in other words, half the work was done for them already since they had the same CPU architecture). But that’s true again since the Mac has the same ARM64 CPU architecture as the Switch and Switch 2, so in theory anything that can run on the Switch can also run on the Mac (and, point of fact, Switch emulators generally work better on Macs because they only have to emulate the code, not the chipset).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Day 451 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Day 451 and the screenshot isn’t entering 0451 in Deus Ex? Now I feel old. Oh well, the remaster is coming, some younger gamers will probably play it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  OP, you’ve been at this for weeks (longer?) and you’re the only one, ever, in the comments who cares that people use the word ‘chav’. Because it’s the best and only viable answer to the question.

  If you actually do want to change things, try to come up with a better word and then try to get people to use it. It can even be an existing word. Language is always changing, and people repurpose words all the time, either because they don’t like the original meaning, or they think the new meaning fits the word better. You can potentially do the same, but it takes a lot more effort than complaining about the original word/meaning.

  If you’re serious about the effort, consider asking ChatGPT — or better yet, some linguists — what a better, less-offensive word could be, and try to use it in conversation. We’ve moved away from words not thought to be offensive at the time which are now considered offensive because we’ve found better words. Like when I was a kid, “retard” was a mean thing to say but it wasn’t really a bad word. Now it is. You still do see the word in science and industry; as a verb, it means to slow or to restrict something (like a valve). As a noun though, as a word to describe a person, it’s bad. The original meaning of “mental retardation” was scientifically and medically accurate, but because it became a noun and a slur we’ve moved to “developmentally disabled.” There are even more liberal words and phrases though, the forefront (to my knowledge) being “person with disability” or “differently abled.”

  So, it can happen, because it has happened. But complaining will ensure that it doesn’t.

  The next time I see a post about this from you in my feed, I’m blocking. I’m just tired of seeing it every few days. That said, if you want to try to change things the right way, I’ll back your play. Up to you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not people like OP. It’s just the one person tilting at windmills.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  On a Windows machine, the GOG version of Fallout 3 works right out of the box in Windows 10. Not sure about 11, but no reason to believe it would be different.

  The issue was, Fallout 3 had DRM that was shut down ages ago. Games for Windows Live. Xbox Live for Windows. Bethesda refused to remove the DRM and it was actually illegal to do so in the US. GOG had it without DRM first. Like a decade later Bethesda officially removed it from the Steam version.

  There’s like one other thing you have to do and it has to do with memory and I’m not sure how necessary it is, but again, the GOG version does it automatically.

  But screw Windows and its bullshit. I can run the GOG version of Fallout 4 on my Mac, albeit with a few hacks. I have to disable gore because something about the gore animation fucks up the translation layer. There are a couple others but the biggest change is, no gore. I mean the exploding heads. I think it still has blood. It’s not censored. Anyway, the flying eyeballs were a bit much, it got old quick. So no issues there. I’ve also run Deus Ex, but that’s Unreal Engine 1 and not really relevant. Haven’t tried running Fallout 3 yet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can Mac apps be emulated and run on Windows?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  No, but there’s next to nothing on Mac that isn’t on Windows, or has some equivalent on Windows.

  I run Macs. I don’t like Windows. I’ve used Windows for years, and still use it at work. For 99% of my usage, there’s nothing that stops me from using the other platform. It’s just a preference. In fact, there are free apps on Windows that cost money on macOS. And I’ve paid for some of them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 continues to break US launch sales records, selling more in its first three months than PS4 | VGC⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  “Too expensive” means "beyond what the market will bear. Objectively, the Switch 2 didn’t cost enough — there was some other higher price that would have given Nintendo numbers such that while it might not have sold quite as well, what it would have sold would have made up for it. Would the market bear a $500 Switch 2? Maybe. $600? That, I doubt. $450 was a bit high for my liking, but the market bore it just fine and now it’s thriving.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why doesn't anybody get notified about warrants for their arrest?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  In a vacuum, that is a fact; however, for most of the things people get warrants out on them for, they know what they did. If they don’t know it was wrong/a crime, I would say that’s more on them than on the system.

  You can get warrants for unpaid moving violations. For stuff like that, I think notification by mail would be more efficient. Like “you haven’t paid this so now there is a warrant out for your arrest,” just to inform the person. Yes, going against the reason for not notifying, they may still commit several more moving violations (like speeding) before being caught, but tons of people do this, sometimes right in front of cops, and a lot of cops look the other way. Now if someone has done something violent, left a victim, no, you wouldn’t want to notify them because of the chance that they’d either go do more harm to the victim (and now the police/the system is liable) or they will do more crime that will result in more victims, and again, liability.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can a person who is a convicted felon/ rapist even get nominated for the Nobel Peace Price? Extra points if you can ELI5 that.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I lost what little faith I had in the Nobel Peace Prize when Obama won it — and I liked Barack Obama, I voted for him both times, but I didn’t think “up and coming politician”/“first Black president” really qualified him, and the general feeling around the time was “well we hope he does good for peace in the world.” So… you give him a prize that is probably better suited to someone else, hoping he does what you want in the future?

  Regarding Trump being a felon, I’m more concerned that we don’t let felons vote, but we’ll let a felon be president. Make that make sense.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Switch 2 continues to break US launch sales records, selling more in its first three months than PS4 | VGC⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m still laughing at those who said the Switch 2 was too expensive (on Reddit). The numbers prove otherwise.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why doesn't anybody get notified about warrants for their arrest?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
  1. Because if there’s a warrant out for your arrest, you’ve deliberately done something, so you know you’re being looked into. It’s not a lottery. They don’t just issue warrants to random people who have no idea whatsoever that a warrant could be issued for their arrest. A warrant is just a court order to bring you in to face charges. Those charges are based on criminal law. You don’t get warrants for speeding or blowing a red light or a stop sign or, since we’re on the computer, downloading music or movies. You do get notified via the mail (or email) for those kinds of things.

  Anyway, a warrant has to be served, and you can’t be charged for evading arrest if they can’t find you. It’s once the warrant has been served — which legally has to be done in person — that if you flee, you are guilty of another crime. Once you are notified, you would typically be arrested right then and there. Depending on the nature of the crime, they may not even restrain you, if you’re willing to get in the back of the car and come quietly. The violent arrests you see are either because of the violent nature of the crime or the criminal (yes, or the cop). But they aren’t the norm.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mary Wiseman’s Tilly Will Be In ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,’ But Not As Much As Expected⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Who?

  Oh… you mean Captain Killy!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What flavor are marshmallows?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s sugar.

  And yes, it might be vanilla. Tons of things have vanilla in them that aren’t “vanilla.” Like chocolate chip cookies. Like frosting. It’s not enough to give it a “vanilla” flavour, just enough to give it something. That’s why vanilla is considered boring/default, because in baking, it is.

  Now if you’re talking roasted marshmallows, you’re applying heat to sugar — you’re caramelising it. Before you say “I know what fucking caramel tastes like,” I’m just describing the process for what is happening to the sugar, and yes, that is actually how caramel is made. It’s also how a lot of hard candy is made, too, like those little white and red peppermint discs. Those just use mint extract rather than vanilla. Same concept. Heated more (hard ball stage rather than soft ball).

  Look at the ingredients though. If vanilla is listed, it’s vanilla. If it’s not, you’re just tasting sugar. If you’re roasting them, you’re tasting caramlised sugar (possibly with some vanilla).

  It’s not a secret ingredient. They have to disclose all ingredients. There are no true mystery flavours out there. White/clear Lifesavers? Those are pineapple. Same with white jellybeans. It’s only a mystery to kids, and to those who don’t research.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Updates that don't tell me what is being updated⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The first one is cute one time. When it starts to become a pattern, it’s laziness. Especially when it’s copypasta, which it usually is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How Long is Too Long for a Reply?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The search thing is less relevant to Google as Google pretty much relies on Reddit for that, but still a good point.

  I will help where I can, for the same reason.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How realistic is it for me to learn Japanese so that I can experience Anime better? How long would it take to learn? Has anyone attempted this?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Japanese is considered to be the most alien of languages to native English speakers, and vice versa. That said, it has been done, and it doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to learn Japanese as a native English speaker. What it takes is time and dedication.

  I actually know a few dozen words in Japanese, but I don’t know Japanese.

  As for dubs, I prefer some anime dubbed in Japanese and some anime dubbed in English. Generally English is more accessible in that I don’t have to read as well as listen, but there are some animes I don’t want to be distracted by subtitles.

  Anyway, it’s a common misconception in anime that “the language I don’t understand has better voice acting.” It’s because you don’t understand it. If you understood it, you’d likely come to the conclusion that some actors are just better than others, in either dub. The difference is, English dubs pay more and they have a wider pool of talent. But as you learn Japanese, you’ll find the same is true in Japanese dubbing, some of the actors are actually good, and others are just phoning it in, same as anywhere.

  I do feel like if you’re familiar with Chinese languages, you probably know that Japanese evolved from Chinese (I’m not sure on the specifics here), like how they have the same numbers. So it’s a good starting point. You can probably read the symbols, or at least know what they sound like. I can read romaji passably enough. But the symbols? Haha nope.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RUMOR: 'The Future of Xbox is Software Publishing' as Next Console Generation Faces Doubts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  So you also like it? You disagree with everything I said… including the part where I said I don’t like it? It sounds like you just want to be antagonistic. I’m not the future — being mean to me on social media won’t stop the future from happening. It just makes you slightly less of a good person.

  The reason streaming boxes are the future in gaming is the same reason they are in movies and music. In movies and music, the common players don’t support physical media anymore — they’re too small. How do you get a tape, CD, or vinyl record into an iPhone? You stream it. Same with games. Even now, vs 20 years ago, physical releases are getting rarer and rarer. This generation, Xbox and PlayStation have digital-only models, and a lot of games are digital-only.

  The compression is a trade-off and it exists in movie and music streaming as well. Latency will be mitigated by more servers.

  And it’s actually already here. There are “Smart” TVs out there that play Xbox games. Via Cloud Gaming. I know guys out in the sticks who do cloud gaming. The myth that it’s only going to work in NYC, LA, and Chicago hasn’t ever been true. Seems like every town has servers now. And the fiber and cable running everywhere is good enough to solve most of the latency. Of course, there will always be latency… hell, I can’t catch fish in Animal Crossing if I’m using a wired controller, I have to take the damn Switch out of the dock and play handheld, but if I do that, I can catch the 5-star rarity fish every time, first try.

  You don’t have to like it. I sure don’t. But, how’s refusing to accept things you don’t like working out for you? You wish us a good president yet, or do you actually like the one we have (in the US)? Your wishes in tech are about as effective… same as mine.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RUMOR: 'The Future of Xbox is Software Publishing' as Next Console Generation Faces Doubts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This would be fine if Xbox Cloud Gaming were available on Switch and PlayStation.

  Honestly the future is dumb streaming boxes. I don’t like it but there it is.

  Sony is behind the curve. If Nintendo is their only competition, PlayStation 5 will see another price increase and PlayStation 6, if it happens, will price itself out of the market. Nintendo gamers don’t care.

  Sony should have made their own GamePass years ago, and as a peace offering, Microsoft and Sony should have offered each other’s streaming service. That would extend hardware out another year or two as people have access to more games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would I sound taller if I gave my height as 6'-4"?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You would be lying, and I think honesty is more important.

  5’8" is above average for a woman where I live. 6’4" is gargantuan. Like unusually tall.

  I see your gender identity tag as including they… if you were AMAB, you might be considered short for your birth-assigned gender, but if you truly are AMAB and trying to present as female, being 5’8" would be helpful; being 6’4" would be a hindrance in addition to being a falsehood. (Apologies if I’ve misread the situation.)