And you can share your cat memes with them!

And for no charge.

However, having had a voice chat for an hour this weekend with someone 200 miles away, I can tell you that 30 years ago it worked so much better it's not even funny; it was just expensive.

My phone provider (Fi) gave me an internet connected call rather than use the cell voice network (proudly telling me it was encrypted). It was full of dropouts and there was a serious latency that really inhibited conversation. I switched to a few other options like WhatsApp and the audio quality improved but the latency did not, and even got worse. Young people may be barely aware that a 200 mile phone call had tiny latency - you would not know there was any - because there was a literal wire connection between each end and communication was at the speed of light. Even transatlantic calls had minimal latency unless it went by satellite.

Sure today we can do it with video, but frankly, for a chat, I don't even see much benefit. I'd certainly choose voice-only if it meant zero latency, and sadly I seem to have chosen a mobile provider that does its best to prevent that.

He's being sarcastic because only rich people can afford four blueberries with the money left over after paying rent. The rest of us pay 90% of our paycheck for rent then starve because we don't have enough money left to buy four blueberries.

I live near Austin, and home prices have tripled since 2019, driving more people to apartments while cities ban new apartment complexes.

I've been fortunate enough to get a few promotions and double my pay in the last 18 months, but with the increases in rent and other expenses I actually end up having about the same amount of disposable income as when I made half as much money, and rent is a higher percentage of my expenses than it was before my raises.

And I haven't moved into a more expensive place. I've lived in the same place for a decade now.

My rent is $1500/month. I make about $1900 before taxes.

Yeah, but I unironically believe that being alive in the 21st century is great and fantastic. I'm not sure people here feel that.

It also represents the first. Chance the common person has ever had to make their visions come to life.

If you look at art as an elitist tradition largely fuelled by the wealthy and supporting only a very, very small number of living artists, requiring a kind of professional leap of of faith that anyone who isn't blood related to a wealthy person would be called stupid for making, then AI art doesn't seem so scary anymore.

If everyone has the ability to create compelling images, audio, movies even, then we don't need people to spend 4 years in art school and potentially the rest of their life breaking their backs trying to get someone else to notice their art, while contributing to society only as much as whatever job they're forced to work while trying to make it contributes.

Few people who aren't wealthy buy art. And most of the art they buy is from established artists. It's an oppressive and classist status quo that were all worse off with, that will survive AI nonetheless as the rich place an even greater value on "authentic" art.

Who AI art is really going to hurt are the people who draw furries, sell prints at farmers markets of copyrighted characters, and create bland soulless corporate visual bullshit for a living. I guess that's most artists, and yeah. It sucks for them, but stopping this train because Microsoft wants a photorealistic dog dick for their next logo ain't happening.

oh I'm aware how it's pronounced 😉👍