I think people know, they just don’t give a shit because they think they’re entitled to have art and artists are arseholes for not giving them exactly what they want

When you put something out there, you allow for the possibility that people will see your work and incorporate it into their mental catalog of art and artistic process

…except when a person is doing it, they’re doing their own thing to it. They take an idea or two and filter it through their own lens and stylise it

Think about it like this - when you do data scraping, you’re still interpreting the results. You’re looking at the data and going ‘ok from this I can draw X and Y conclusions based on this and that’. AI art is like if we removed you from the process - we just shoved all the data into a black box and it goes ding “X is Y”. If you asked it why that’s so, it wouldn’t be able to tell you. You can’t see how it works so you have no idea if it’s reasoning makes scientific sense. It would not be admissible in a paper.

If you pirate shit then you have no ground to stand on for complaining about AI training.

…don’t most people kinda agree you don’t pirate from small artists where piracy is actually hurting them? There’s like, honour along thieves when it comes to piracy, and this is stepping all over the little guy who’s actually hurt by this just to get your grubby little hands on something you think you’re entitled to

I mean if you tend to plug things in at the same computer a lot it’s pretty easy to always plug things in right the first time, even when not looking because you just kinda know what way it’s meant to be. And laptops usually have all theirs pointing the same way so you know one you know them all. If something has text on it, it’s usually oriented in such a way that when plugged in you can read it. Or they have a little face and you know which way the face is meant to be facing

I have a similar “power” and while I’m not flawless, it’s only really new or unfamiliar devices/computers that trip me up. Or plugs that don’t actually have any identifying features and/or unusual ones

Wordpress even has activitypub integration now! Hooray! Here’s hoping automattic do good on their word and bring it to their other projects like Tumblr

Also as much as I like gimp, it is unfortunately not that widely used due to super specialised and hard to use compared to the industry standard juggernaut that is adobe’s creative suite. You’re probably going to get laughed at in any professional industry if you suggest seriously using it.

Congratulations you’re now a snake

A cheap fountain pen like a Lamy safari. Maybe some brightly coloured ink too.

Growing up I loved pens and my dad had some vintage Watermans he used all the time which were unquestionably Cool Pens but also really “fancy” so I wasn’t allowed to touch them, and we just didn’t know that way cheaper and less fiddly fountain pens existed because all of his came from the op shop with ink from borders and not an actual pen store. 8 year old me would’ve been estatic that not only do easier to use cheaper options exist, they’re bright yellow and also you can put any colour in them, not just boring black.

…I feel like everyone answering “Powerball numbers” or “apple stocks” is completely missing the spirit of the question

I know plastic is scary but guys, you don’t need to replace your entire plastic container selection - you could just, decant your food into a different container before microwaving it? The microwave is what’s doing this, not the fridge.

I’d recommend getting a small borosilicate/Pyrex dish like This. I’ve been using two of them my entire life (did none of you get taught that microwaving plastic with food make it go funny as a kid?) And they last a good while. Provided you don’t drop them. I think IKEA sells them and I’ve seen them around in my local kitchen store in non-pyrex brands. Also they’re oven and dishwasher safe too!

Also I don’t reccomend hunting for vintage Pyrex here - old pyrex chips super easily and constant use and slamming the lid on will chip the edges to hell and back. The European formula isn’t actually the same as the old one so it’s fine but unless you like glass chips in your cupboard and super sharp edges, don’t go for it.

Pyrex/borosilicate dishes work pretty well here. Both Pyrex and IKEA do little single serving casserole dishes with a lid that work fantastic. Been using them for decades now

Alternatively you could upend a plate on-top of your bowl

Then don’t - get a small glass/Pyrex casserole dish with a glass lid and decant your leftovers into that every time you go to heat something up. I think IKEA sell some nice sized ones.

If you don’t drop it they last for decades and that’s what I’ve been doing. I do not reccomend looking for vintage stuff though - the reason why they stopped using the original original glass formula is because it chips easily and yeah, something that gets used on a very regular basis with its lid constantly going on and off is going to start chipping something awful over time

Take up knitting and knit yourself some washcloths and dusting cloths! Pretty common here in Scandinavia (you can actually just get cotton machine knit ones in the supermarket but I’m not sure those are a thing elsewhere) and they’re pretty much baby’s first knitting project because it’s just, a square

Where I live sous vide are pretty common in the readymade dinner section - wonder if they’re better for you than microwaving and if we should maybe be doing that instead

Looks good! Are those potato pancakes like made from grated potato or mashed potato?

…in what world does Greek yoghurt taste like sour cream? Completely different taste, texture, and purpose

On the complete opposite end, people are joking about how if they want uniforms they should be wearing powdered wigs and breeches, but like, that’s already a thing across the pond in the UK? The courts and house of Lords and a few other bodies have uniforms like that and yeah, there’s a layer of outdated tradition, but it’s also to sort of standardise how everyone looks, so that you still look like a barrister and someone to be taken seriously, regardless of age, race, gender, or looks. An equal footing sort of thing

Nearly - a single bacteria is a bacterium. There’s some Latin rule going on here but I’m not sure I’d reccomend going into those weeds

I think a more interesting (and less dubious) example of this would be Vocaloid and to a greater extent, cevio AI

Vocaloid is a synth bank where instead of the notes being musical instruments, they’re phonemes which have been recorded and then packaged into a product which you pay for, which means royalties are involved (I think there might also be a thing with royalties for big performances and whatnot?) Cevio AI takes this a step further by using AI to better smooth together the phonemes and make pitching sound more natural (or not - it’s an instrument, you can break it in interesting ways if you try hard enough). And obviously, they consented to that specific thing and get paid for it. They gave Yamaha/Sony/the general public a specific character voice and permission to use that specific voice.

(There’s a FOSS voicebanks but that adds a different layer of complication to things like I think a lot of them were recorded before the idea of an “AI bank” was even a possibility. And like, while a paid voice bank is a proprietary thing, the open source alternatives are literally just a big file of .WAVs so it’s much easier to go outside their intended purposes)

That’s because it’s actual cult propaganda. As in “it’s literally made by the church of Scientology, based on the founding literature of Scientology as written by Scientologist leader L Ron Hubbard, by Scientologist actors”

In a vacuum? Yeah it’s cheesy sci fi. With context? Hoo boy…

Like consistently? Or just one or two days a year? Because I feel like bringing out the electric heaters a few times a year is way better than just giving up and using fossil fuel all the time

Also I’d mention that heat pumps are super common over here in Scandinavia so I have my doubts that it’s an issue with the medium and not something else. Maybe you guys have like, heat pumps that are more designed for the heat rather than the cold?

I’d also add that like, for a lot of Scandinavia heat pumps work just fine? Like does America just have some really bad heat pumps or something?

I think the only reason why you wouldn’t install one here (aside from obvious cost issues) would be if you already have a robust heating system built into your home, like a hot water system. And if that’s the case, you can use the heatpump of the earth - geothermal! Use the power of the earth’s molten core to heat and cool your home!

(… geothermal isn’t as ubiquitous as I make it sound it’s just, really fucking cool)

Ok using your Google analogy - there’s a reason why “librarian” is a job and “Googler” isn’t. One requires years of skill and practice to interpret a request and find the right information and do all sorts of things, and the other is someone kinda bashing keys to make Google give them what they want. You wouldn’t put them in remotely the same class