So… if Duolingo is just AI now, why would anyone pay for Duolingo? Just ask the AI for language lessons yourself.

I’m just hoping there’s eventually some form of private server similar to FiveM so I can have my Dune roleplay.

Personally? The vast bulk of my interactions with people online. Voice chat, DMs, servers for pretty much everything. Being involved in roleplaying communities in DayZ and Conan, the vast majority of the behind-the-scenes stuff is taking place on discord. Servers for particular game servers as well as groups make up a pretty big portion of my list, along with smaller private discord servers of networks of players from various other servers. It’s how I stay connected with dozens of people I’ve known for years.

I’m also in quite a few discords related to modding and game development. Nearly every modder has their own discord, which is extremely useful if you’re running your own game servers and need to be in contact with them or if you make mods yourself and want to seek advice or information for compatibility. The same is true of a lot of other non-gaming software, with many developers having their own servers where they post updates and where you can find advice or post suggestions.

I’ve got a few queer community servers on my list, which were particularly helpful when I was early in my transition before I really had gotten around to rebuilding my social network and finding accepting people. There’s even a discord for a group of animators I used to spend a lot of time with back in the mid 00s; back then we were using forums and IRC mostly, and a little bit of Skype, but these days it’s been a good way to keep in touch.

If I’m home and on my computer, I’m almost always in a discord voice chat. It’s basically the modern equivalent of AIM or ICQ or Facebook, but with loads of added features and without Meta being involved. I even use it for note taking and storing images and screencaps.

Even something like Matrix, at the moment, doesn’t really cover all the voice and video chat features that Discord does. It’s close, but it’s missing essential components like push-to-talk, and it requires workarounds to enable things like screen sharing.

Discord turning to shit would be a real pain in the ass.

No paint? Sure. No touchscreen? Good.

…No radio? That’s going to absolutely murder their sales.

Do those have push to talk?

What is this shady, unsubstantiated, posted yesterday ass random github repo trying to encourage people to compromise their email security and why is it worth posting?

I’m sorry, but who the hell quotes stuttering verbatim?

That’s what I was thinking. Maybe they’re just Community fans.

… Should we be pinching our nipples at their AI?

I’m not sure that checks out. I mean, fair, I do think that someone being habitually cruel toward AI might not be the greatest indicator of their disposition in general, though I’d hesitate to make a hasty judgement on that. But if we take AI’s presentation as a person as fictional, does that extend to other fictional contexts? Would you consider an evil play-through in a video game to indicate an issue? Playing a hostile character in a roleplay setting? Writing horror fiction?

It seems to me that there are many contexts where exhibiting or creating simulated behavior in a fictional environment isn’t really equivalent to doing so with genuine individuals in non-imaginary circumstances. AI isn’t quite the same as a fictional setting, but it’s potentially closer to that than it is to dealing with a real person.

By the same token, if not being polite to an AI is problematic, is it equally problematic to repeatedly say things like “human” and “operator” to an automated phone system until you get a response? Both mimic human speech, while neither ostensibly have a legitimate understanding of what’s being said by either party.

Where does the line get drawn? Is it wrong to curse at fully inanimate objects that don’t even pretend to be people? Is verbally condemning a malfunctioning phone, refrigerator, or toaster equivalent to berating a hallucinating AI?

I know that when I’m playing cards in a dress that’s melted into my skin, with my favorite half-bracelet draped over my wrist, I love to intimidate my opponent by flashing them two face cards. Who wouldn’t be shaken by the Kinmb of Back of Card and the Quing of 21s? Especially when I’ve already played my oversized red card.

This is what happened with plastic bags in some stores in the US. We passed plastic bag bans and while in a lot of cases the result was a combination of low-quality paper bags and legitimately reusable plastic totes, in the past couple of years some places have started giving out plastic bags that are way thicker than the ones we used to have and just calling them reusable. Like, yeah, they’re strong enough to be reused, but that definitely doesn’t seem to be the norm. We just ended up with single-use plastic bags that literally use more plastic.

I picked up a projector on sale for $50 on Newegg, usually I think they’re like $80 or something. Only problem is, I don’t know how to get the dust out of the inside of the projector lens. I’ve tried spraying canned air into the cracks around it, but it didn’t work. I even took the thing apart intending to wipe it down myself, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to the back of the lens.

Still, for $50 it’s not too bad. The little bits of dust are kind of annoying, but they’re not in focus and it’s pretty alright for watching movies.

Considering that it also extends to charging stations, that some of the Teslas are privately owned, and that people have been doing things like shooting at dealerships? I’m thinking not.

Quite the pattern. Notice how once something happens a few times, it becomes a normalized course of action. In a month or two we went from not hearing about this at all to seemingly many people across the world jumping in specifically on lighting things on fire. There have been some other approaches too, but burning things down seems to be an increasingly common response.

It’s interesting to see how specific kinds of resistance become sort of a behavioral trend. A few people lead by example and suddenly it starts to snowball. I wonder what other kinds of similar situations we’ll see play out over the next few months.

I’ve honestly had the same thought, but then I look at the attitudes of the people involved and their implementation of what they’re doing and it’s hard to assume anything other than stupidity and malice. I don’t think Trump or Elon are capable of that sort of strategy, and if they are they’re two of the best actors on the planet. I really don’t think they’re nearly that intelligent or talented at actual deception. They’re certainly reckless enough, but I don’t buy that they’re anything other than dangerously stupid.

I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if that’s been the motivation for some of their supporters, though. There may well be people in the world who feel that pulling the pendulum as far into a shitstorm as it will go will create enough of a counter-swing to be worth the immediate results, and that may well have affected their voting. It seems like a pretty foolish gambit for anyone who has to live through it, though, and pretty heartless to boot.

If, on the other hand, the acceleration and counterbalancing is just a natural occurrence? A way to get from point A to point B with the least possible action? That doesn’t sound totally crazy to me at all.

But, like, there doesn’t need to be someone sneakily manipulating politics and capitalism for that to happen. Hopefully we do learn from what’s happening and what’s already happened enough to make some of the same sort of societal improvements much of Western Europe and the United States saw after WWII, preferably sooner than they did with a lot less damage in the mean time.

We do seem to be in a similar situation and have a similar opportunity to change things as a result once people actually get the ball moving. Assuming we do actually get the ball moving.

Mozilla seems to be doing fine to me. Most of the people complaining about them don’t give any indication that they themselves are doing anything particularly helpful either.

In my experience discord literally feels like I’m in the room with someone. I use it constantly and it’s been great for me. Phones on the other hand are kinda garbage. The signal is consistently unreliable. Sometimes I literally get calls where one of us can’t hear the other. Sometimes several calls in a row. Occasionally calls just don’t even go through.

Gimme push to talk.

It depends on whether the server you’re on is boosted, also. But even a standard voice server is better quality than a phone. Phones may technically be able to play audio with a higher bitrate, but that’s limited by both cell service and speaker quality.

More reliable too, honestly. Plus the video streaming is indispensable. Honestly, discord voice chat is a big part of the reason I haven’t made a serious attempt to use Matrix for much if anything. The lack of push to talk is a deal breaker. Also like, none of my friends are there.