Don’t worry, you’ll just import volunteers from Australia at great expense when you do have massive fires

Many naval vessels have been sunk by their own crew rather than be captured by the enemy. It’s called scuttling.

I mean, radioactive isotopes are formed in supernovae, so it’s really just solar power from a different sun, right?

Can we not celebrate the people who have made sacrifices for their country and for ideals like freedom, and support those people because they have inadequate support from the government who ordered their sacrifices, while also decrying the actions and behaviours which we see as morally wrong?

Ibuprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID). It will reduce inflammation and the associated pain. If your pain is not caused by inflammation then you should talk to a pharmacist about what the best analgesic is for you.

People getting brake and break mixed up annoys me, but I get it. If this is you, your car has brakes and you take a break from work after breaking your arm.

Mitch Hedberg jokes while high is a pretty smart move. Either that or you’re the only person who finds them funny and end up looking like an idiot.

Almost certainly not. It’s common in some communities for people to write their own image transcriptions.

All of these things are only valuable if you do not have the technical expertise required to analyse the validity of the conclusions the authors draw from the methods.

None of them, they all grow it in their backyards or harvest it in the wild

No, it’s make everyone’s quality of life better! /j

The yellow and black flag is the ancap (anarcho-capitalist) flag. The rattlesnake is a libertarian icon and says “don’t step on me”. Bitcoin was built out of a libertarian idea that the government was to blame for the 2008 GFC because they somehow regulated the banks too much, so a decentralized digital currency was the best way to get around that regulation. ETA: the black and white US flag with the blue stripe is the “thin blue line” flag, flown by supporters of the police, typically a symbol used by the right wing of America. The three interlocking triangles form the valknut, a symbol used by ancient Germanic people’s, and currently used by people who identify with Germany and the Vikings; white supremacists make up a large group who fit this description.

The red and black flag is an anarchist flag, a combination of two older anarchist flags: the black flag and the red flag. The ancap flag is descended from this one, replacing the red with gold (because gold is a very old and widely used form of currency, and money good, government bad). The purple and black one is the anarcha-feminst flag, and they also use the pink and black flag, but it’s primarily seen as the queer anarchist flag. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the LGBT+ flag. All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB) is a popular slogan amongst anarchists because cops are the strong arm of the state, and as such Black Lives Matter is a movement that a lot of anarchists strongly identify with and support.

Translation:

I am very lucky that my partner has similar ideas and interests about urban transport infrastructure and policy as I do.

Spot on!

Worse still is the pronunciation of “bologna”. How. Just how. None of you seppos have the right to tell me about how I pronounce “herbs” or “pecans”. Then again, our pronunciation of “lieutenant” is messed up.

Copyright gives the copyright holder exclusive rights to modify the work, to use the work for commercial purposes, and attribution rights. The use of a work as training data constitutes using a work for commercial purposes since the companies building these models are distributing licencing them for profit. I think it would be a marginal argument to say that the output of these models constitutes copyright infringement on the basis of modification, but worth arguing nonetheless. Copyright does only protect a work up to a certain, indefinable amount of modification, but some of the outputs would certainly constitute infringement in any other situation. And these AI companies would probably find it nigh impossible to disclose specifically who the data came from.

Nobody has been able to make a convincing argument in favour of generative AI. Sure, it’s a tool for creating art. It abstracts the art making process away so that the barrier to entry is low enough that anyone can use it regardless of skill. A lot of people have used these arguments to argue for these tools, and some artists argue that because it takes no skill it is bad. I think that’s beside the point. These models have been trained on data that is, in my opinion, both unethical and unlawful. They have not been able to conclusively demonstrate that the data was acquired and used in line with copyright law. That leads to the second, more powerful argument: they are using the labour of artists without any form of compensation, recognition, permission, or credit.

If, somehow, the tools could come up with their own styles and ideas then it should be perfectly fine to use them. But until that happens (it won’t, nobody will see unintended changes in AI as anything other than mistakes because it has no demonstrable intent) use of a generative AI should be seen as plagiarism or copyright infringement.

This time it isn’t (I think)

I feel like Australia did this to the field hockey world. North-western European countries like Norway and Denmark seem to love the sport, but we had the top spot for quite a few years. Barely anyone in Australia gave a single shit. Because everyone plays soccer, rugby, cricket or Aussie rules. Kinda sucked as a hockey player.