This is problematic; and a perfect example why end users should not be trusting Windows 11, 12 or later, or any software that Microsoft outputs from now on.

AI CAN’T WRITE SOFTWARE, ONLY HUMANS CAN CREATE AT HIGH LEVELS NEEDED TO CREATE NEW SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS At Best, AI can tell you maybe what libraries might help you get 50% the way there; but it cannot, and should not ever be used to do all the work of a human.

I disagree wholly; but I understand what I see to be the underlying concern; which is a cat and mouse game of ‘who can generate a harder hash to fake?’ versus ‘who can sling the best fake hashes?’.

Alpha channels are critical. The ability to have images have transparency in them is much more useful than you believe it is. Many end users have a need for it, more than they know they do; so this argument really isn’t doing much for your stance supporting PNG. Similarly PNG has supported alpha channels for quite a while.

This seems like a potentially clever defense against scrapers…which probably spoof the referrer field to be the base domain anyways.

I also think it’s important to point out separately that this software can be modified down into an easy to use software package that allows one to input relevant taxable financial data into it; and then when it comes time to file your taxes; you print out a long report; take it to your tax professional, who is now easily able to read that report, and use the information to appropriately file taxes.

Heck; that report might even make it drop dead simple to fill out your own tax forms; should you decide that’s what you’d like to do; and you could feed the software the relevant tax forms in and it would fill them out to the best of it’s ability using the data provided to it.

I don’t see the problem. This can be forked, enhanced, updated, and modified and that version released with an appropriate copyleft license.

Sure; some companies will do the same with utterly horrific copyright licenses. That’s fine; as it’s in the public domain. We just need some group to work to provide an appropriate copyleft licensed version.

Ideally we should be getting on this fast; but we all know FOSS work isn’t going to be fast if it’s done by volunteers. Some funds might need raising.

In essence; CC0 is an ultimate copyleft license; as it does not even preclude the use of copyrighting improvements on variant works.

It doesn’t have to be sinister to be wrong, or, to violate the ethos standards that the FOSS community at large is supposed to stand for.

When it’s explained simply; it seems to make more sense to emotive thinking.

An example:

“[Manufacturer] is [telling you that/acting like] you cannot choose apps outside of their [store/collection/catalog]; even if you, as an adult, would trust that app or need it to save your own sanity, health or life.”

When I tell an Apple user that; they suck their teeth and try to make [noises/excuses] but in the end they do relent and admit that does suck. Not only can they not refute it logically, they cannot refute it emotionally.

When I show them how I’ve riced out the experience of my Android Smartphone and how I can use my phone rapidly without encumbrance because I have everything at my fingertips in a workflow that comes native to me…they get jealous!

Sadly where I lose them, is where I tell them all the work I put in to achieve it. I have to break the news to them that going to the store and buying a phone with freedoms just like mine isn’t possible. Perhaps that’s where we need to attack these things.

Basically; we need to make freedom look sexy. There will invariably be things we can do with our freed devices and software systems that they cannot hope to achieve. We have to endeavor to make that difference as pronounced and noticeable as possible. When we do; that’s when FLOSS communities swell and grow. When Linux got good at gaming with Proton; the numbers swelled. Linux became “sexy” because it could game. If we give users something they can have over their peers who don’t seek freedom respecting software, they will flock to it in droves…and the companies will be driven into the poorhouse for failing to meet the user demands.

When comparing it to X11; it absolutely isn’t. That isn’t me being unfair; just objectively comparing the two to each other. Literally nothing else exists that are quite like X11 and Wayland…so it makes sense to grade one against the other.

That isn’t saying it does not work as well or even better than X11 does; it just hasn’t existed for long enough yet to be nearly as widely adopted as X11 is. Gnome’s decision to adopt a Wayland only stance is fairly new and I’m waiting to see how that goes for them. With luck it will go well and increase the adoption of Wayland. I’m aware that plenty of Distros do include Wayland; and plenty have taken the plunge similar to Gnome; which is why they probably felt it was wise to follow suit, after observing Wayland succeeding in those Distros fairly well.

I don’t really have a horse in the argument per-se; I think both X11 and Wayland are both great; if you’re using them like the developers intended you to use them.

I do think the video makes a pretty good point about how people who attack others for continuing X11 is very much violating the ethos of FOSS communities in general; and I have no doubts that if the claims made in the video are true; I think folks like Stallman would be kind of upset with people behaving that way because it only harms the FOSS community as a whole.

You may not agree with people who want to use X11 for their very niche use cases. That’s fine. But I do question any motives behind any kind of behavior that is not only ceasing all development on X11, but actively blocking and sabotaging others who want to work on X11 from doing so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy#History

Hell. To. The. No.

This is no different than the electroshock ‘therapies’ that were pioneered from 1930 and onward through the 1990s used to treat people who were “Mentally ill”. This is based in medical quackery and this is highly problematic that it once again is being suggested.

This is some strange stuff.

I thought it was odd that there were distros pushing forth into Wayland-Only territory; given that Wayland isn’t yet mature.

Now it seems like something more odd and sinister is going on…

Feel free to discuss and reply civilly.

In a perfectly reasonable, civilized and rational world; this would be seen as an additional feature in “Bad taste”.

There is no rational reason for the company to permit any kind of detailed filtering; the longer you’re swiping through photos, the longer you use the app and the chance that you potentially give them money for services remains.

There is no rational reason to discriminate against people based on their height either. While it’s quite natural to have preferences, generally speaking, you know when you find someone attractive. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone genuinely only attracted to specifically only tall or short people; there’s usually something else there behind the reason. That reason could be any number of things from feelings to experiences and more.

Attraction, much like people, is a complicated and not so straightforward thing. It’s reason for being isn’t based on rationality always, we don’t always size up our mates the way a computer would. In general it’s oftentimes emotional, and attractiveness can be something that happens when someone manages to emotionally convey an appearance or vibe that matches something the one feeling the attraction might be looking for.

This is a good a start as any to market Linux to the common end-user. It’s not about the software being better; it’s about the software offering the user some advantage, like not needing to buy new hardware.

Linux is, far from perfect still. It has a metric ton of “foot guns” that cannot be pointed anywhere away from the feet; the user MUST move their feet away to avoid these “foot guns”. It has a lot of pain points and still lacks polish in some ways. Most things mostly just work; but may the gods and goddesses help you if something for some reason does not work, or does not work as expected for any reason. Coaxing it to work exactly as expected might seem impossible for average users.

Then there’s the issue of Linux having only volunteer support in most cases. Getting help from an overworked and under-interested FLOSS developer is like pulling teeth; even when they’re literally the only person on the planet who can solve your problem

That being said; Linux is free and mostly usable. 9/10 times it does work and can save you a lot of hassle and headache if all your computing needs are basic and predictable.

The solution to this is subtle and gentle amounts of 2D Perlin Noise, as well as a touch of Gaussian noise on and around the watermark as well.

The more you can cloak the area around the watermark with subtly increasing amounts of noise; the harder it is for AI to manipulate it without mangling the image in general. (or leaving the watermark behind)

Similarly; leaving smaller artifacts like small signatures or wordmarks embedded in the image also makes sense, particularly small signatures hugging things like lineart in inconspicuous places or hidden in places with intricate detail.

Tools like Glaze and Nightshade also exist to “Poison” images at creation-time such that, if they go viral and get re-shared and AI remixed heavily, they won’t be as easily usable by AI models to knock off your works. Yes, this technique is ineffective for existing works, as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. These tools use many different techniques beyond just subtly masking the entire image with multiple layers of imperceptible perlin noise. Which is a task that could take you several hours to get to looking right in your favorite image editing suite, as you’ll be poking and prodding and tweaking that slider to maximize protection while minimizing it’s visual perturbations.

https://archive.ph/J2kMS

• Kamala Harris

[X] I refuse to rank or vote for any other candidates.

I’m suspecting these companies are trying to use Data Caps to “Deter Piracy” without saying as much.

Unfortunately; the reality now is that these Data Caps do not just affect rampant pirates or people who download a lot of things. They are trying to justify an outdated policy that no longer works as intended; and hoping customers won’t notice them taking a bit more profit off the top.

They’ve been more than caught now and the practice must stop or customers will get federal regulators involved

I think not.

We’ve been bathing in private for the past 200 or so years hereabouts. It is difficult, if not improbable, to reverse such a trend in society and culture so quickly.

While I may actually feel this is a thing that society might benefit from; I don’t see this happening outside of nations with a lower societal taboo, and more robust cultural norms and practices on the subject of nudity. It works in Japan simply because that’s how their entire society has been structured from the start, and their society largely agreed that communal bathhouses made much more sense logistically and economically; largely due to the fact that it is an island nation, and land space is more precious there.

Furthermore; I personally also prefer privacy. As a trans individual; that privacy is strongly necessary to me for many valid reasons concerning my own safety and health; and for ensuring others do not feel unsafe; regardless of their reasons for feeling that way.

Society is not ready for this kind of thing anymore and has mostly chosen to abandon the practice to antiquity.

I don’t think this app is problematic. I think it’s attempting something interesting. Whether that will work or not will remain to be seen.

As with many “untested” dating app concepts; “May the user(/buyer) beware.” My advice to people who doubt the app is to ‘avoid it’. There’s plenty of valid reasons why you may feel that it won’t work. I’m not going to invalidate those feelings nor those experiences.

Enough people will vote with their feet; either by using it, using and quitting it, or not using it at all; that we will probably see within a few years if it works or if it quickly dies and languishes in obscurity.

I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing how well things performed in 5 years from now for this concept. I do feel it could help, especially if the boilerplate rejection text is designed intelligently enough. I certainly feel like enough people struggle with mental health that what they are trying to do could be beneficial to encouraging people not to act impulsively. I think providing mental health resources right there in the app may allow rejectees to seek help they need; instead of pinning their hopes on finding a potential mate to address their issues, then lashing out at, or stalking, those potential mates when they’re rejected.

To be clear; I do understand that many kinds of scary or bad experiences are a thing for some dating app users. I simply feel that, for those people who have not had such an experience and might feel safe or safer with such a messaging mechanic in a dating app; I do not see the harm in it.

At no point do I recommend this app anyone who feels that it’s unsafe to do anything but ‘ghost’ a bad match-up.

^{Please, do not try to change my mind.}