loobkoob

Speak for yourself!

I agree with the OP, but I do somewhat agree with you, too. A lot of the news articles we get now feel like "micro-updates" to the same story: Elon Musk does bad thing that is bad for Twitter, Russia says shitty thing and attacks Ukraine some more, the American right-wing tries to do something else to take away abortion rights, etc. They can sometimes be interesting developments, and I don't want to minimise the importance of any of them because they are important (well, not most of the Musk spam, but the others, certainly), but most of the commentary on topics like those has been played out over the last 12+ months and there's not necessarily much new content to analyse or discuss.

However, OP is right that comment sections here are often disappointing. I find myself commenting here a lot less often than I did on Reddit simply because there are fewer interesting comments to reply to, and because my own comments get fewer interesting replies. Part of that is just the nature of having a smaller userbase, but it doesn't stop it being a little demotivating when it feels like you're commenting into the void, or when no-one really wants to engage in an in-depth discussion.

I think that saga is probably an example of a level of misogyny that wasn't acceptable. There was absolute outrage about it at the time, it became a pretty huge scandal. I agree that misogyny was far too culturally acceptable and mainstream at the time (and still is in some areas) but that is one instance where it certainly wasn't brushed aside.

And it's on Game Pass. In my friend group, 80% of us are playing it via Game Pass rather than on Steam. Obviously that's anecdotal, and other groups of people won't have any Game Pass subscribers among them, but I have to imagine the number of Game Pass players of Starfield is pretty damn high.

Not releasing on PlayStation solely because Bethesda is owned by Microsoft, and MS want to sell more Xboxs, is anti consumer.

It's less that Microsoft wants to sell more Xboxes and more that they want to sell more Game Pass subscriptions. That's their primary model at this point. They even said a couple of years ago that their first-party games will be released on any platforms that support Game Pass. Basically, they were saying if Sony allowed Game Pass on PlayStation, Microsoft would release their first party games on PlayStation.

At least public transit is an ongoing service. I'm far less opposed to subscriptions when I'm actually being provided with something for them.

Car manufacturers trying to charge subscriptions for features in the car you own feels like racketeering. They're not providing an ongoing service, they're asking me to keep paying them to not remove a feature.

Personally, I'd like to see Tim Gurner's properties rise to a 40-50% vacancy rate to remind him that properties require people to be of any use or value.

I don't know how he thinks 40-50% unemployment rate would lead to a functional economy. If half the population can't afford to buy anything, does he really think that's going to be good for businesses? Unless he's an advocate for universal basic income, of course, but something tells me he's not...

"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned" and "I'm sorry, daddy, I've been very naughty" both have the same meaning, and yet...

I wouldn't call myself a "good artist" at all, and I've never released anything, I just make music for myself. Most of the music I make starts with my shamelessly lifting a melody, chord progression, rhythm, sound, or something else, from some song I've heard. Then I'll modify it slightly, add my own elements elsewhere, modify the thing I "stole" again, etc, and by the time I've finished, you probably wouldn't even be able to tell where I "stole" from because I've iterated on it so much.

AI models are exactly the same. And, personally, I'm pretty good at separating the creative process from the end result when it comes to consuming/appreciating art. There are songs, paintings, films, etc, where the creative process is fascinating to me but I don't enjoy the art itself. There are pieces of art made by sex offenders, criminals and generally terrible people - people who I refuse to support financially in any way - but that doesn't mean my appreciation for the art is lessened. I'll lose respect for an artist as a person if I find out their work is ghostwritten, but I won't lose my appreciation for the work. So if AI can create art I find evocative, I'll appreciate that, too.

But ultimately, I don't expect to see much art created solely by AI that I enjoy. AI is a fantastic tool, and it can lead to some amazing results when someone gives it the right prompts and edits/curates its output in the right way. And it can be used for inspiration, and to create a foundation that artists can jump off, much like I do with my "stealing" when I'm writing music. But if someone gives an AI a simple prompt, they tend to get a fairly derivative result - one that'll feel especially derivative as we see "raw output" from AIs more often and become more accustomed to their artistic voice. I'm not concerned at all about people telling an AI to "write me a song about love" replacing the complex prog musicians I enjoy, and I'm not worried about crappy AI-generated games replacing the lovingly crafted experiences I enjoy either.

Judges aren't elected in the UK. And we don't have the death penalty.

Two million rubles? Let me check down the back of the sofa

Andy Serkis is such a good audiobook narrator. I loved his version of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods!