[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 13 points 10 months ago

In Australia, "blinking yelloe" means "drive with caution" - roadway may be used bey pedestrians, slower traffic may have merged to faster, the traffic lights normal function might be impeded. Just basically a catch all for "be careful".

Having acid that it's very rare that you'd find a blinking yellow on a turn across pedestrians - you'd get green arrow or light, pedestrians get green walk, and driver waits for pedestrians. It's not rocket science. You don't turn on red though.

Then again we still have thrse fellas so maybe dont listen to us : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 13 points 11 months ago

We lost our first good boy to this. One moment he was happy sprawled out on the floor, next howling in agony and dragging himself by his forelegs. Nothing the vet could do, described it as basically a major stroke for a cat. Just one of those freak things.

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

We truly live in the stupidest timeline.

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 32 points 11 months ago

I'm both impressed and concerned at the level of detail you supplied here, but...thank you? For some of the context

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

The maker of ChatGPT had made progress on Q* (pronounced Q-Star), which some internally believe could be a breakthrough in the startup's search for superintelligence, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems that are smarter than humans.

Definitely seems AGI related. Has to do with acing mathematical problems - I can see why a generative AI model that can learn, solve, and then extrapolate mathematical formulae could be a big breakthrough.

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

I strongly, strongly suggest you revisit some of the preconceptions that led you here. I was going to instinctually retort, but instead took 5 minutes to read the relevant Wikipedia article on the topic: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa#West_Africa. It is clear that the topic is more nuanced than I originally thought, so thank you for bringing that to my attention, but it's a crude and broad brush to imply that most slaves already existed in slavery prior to the Atlantic trade. There is also a significant difference between slaves in Africa who were exchanged between local groups in a wholly African context, versus slaves chained up and flung across the Atlantic with a 12% mortality rate and forced under a European slavery conception.

I suspect your response has rubbed others the wrong way, as it did myself, so consider this an attempt to find a common ground for dialogue - whatever the history of Africs prior to the Atlantic Slave Trade, I think we can agree that what happened was utterly grotesque and an atrocity upon the history of our common humanity.

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

I envisage a world where your browsing Netflix, and based on past preferences some of the title cards are generated on the fly for you. Then based on what you click, the AI engine warms us and generates the film for you in real-time. Essentially indistinguishable from the majority of Hollywood regurgitation.

And because the script is just a series of autogenerated prompts, its like a choose your own adventure book, you can steer the narrative the way you want if you elect to. Otherwise it'll be good enough to keep most monkey brains happy and you won't even be able to tell the difference most of the time.

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 year ago

It sounds like a cursed item in D&D or something.

The Book of Faces Wondrous Item, very rare

This enchanted tome magically records the likeness each humanoid slain in its vicinity, preserving a snapshot of their life and memories. The book can be read to glean superficial information about it's subjects. As an action, you can tear a page from the book to summon a ghostly spirit of its subject, which will be magically compelled to answer questions. The spirit knows nothing the owner did not know in life.

The Demon Lord Elgor Ithym is said to have a keen interest in this book...

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago

Ooh I know some of this!

Sauron was a Maia (lesser primordial spirit), who along with Morgoth (a fallen spirit formally known as Melkor) was at odds with essentially every other spirit and the general concepts of peace and tranquility that were sought by the creators of the universe. After Morgoth was defeated, Sauron inherited the role of the eponymous Dark Lord and sought to rule Middle-Earth in its entirety.

The Wizards were the Istar, a group of Maiar tasked by the Valar (greater spirits) and Manwe (the king of the Valar) to travel to Middle-Earth and aid the Free People in their fight against Sauron. They took the form of elderly men and roamed the lands to counter and subvert Saurons influence. Their mandate prevented them from open conflict, which is why they took on the role of advisors and supporters instead of just fighting Sauron head on or rallying armies to fight him. Their origins were unknown to any of the Free People, but the Elves for sure new that they weren't just Men - since they lived for thousands of years and had gifts that no mortal Men possessed.

Bombadil is likely another Valar, off in Middle Earth doing his own thing - in ancient ages many of the Valar visited or lived in Middle Earth, so it could be that he didn't return to Valinor and just hung around. His complete disinterest in intervening in the conflict is one clue, and the fact that he exceeds Sauron in raw power as the One Ring is completely mundane to him, whereas Gandalf fears that it will overpower him, is another.

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 78 points 1 year ago

Good catch, I think we've been bamboozled ladies and gentlemen. Well played OP

[-] Benj1B@sh.itjust.works 39 points 1 year ago

This is a good summary; as a reddit exile myself who exclusively used Sync, I think it's worth emphasising that Dawson has done an amazing job of making the transition from reddit to lemmy pretty seamless from an app design point of view. I can set my views and filters up identically as they were in the Reddit version of the app, and the lemmy experience becomes essentially identical to reddit.

There's definitely a conflict between "paid closed source app" and "FOSS fediverse", and there's arguments to be made about whether user revenue should be directed to server expenses to maintain communities or front end app development to attract more users, which I think will be interesting to see play out. But at the end of the day Sync makes lemmy "useable" in a way that replicates the reddit experience, which is what a lot of migrants were after - other apps (while arguably more feature rich in terms of the fediverse) just didn't quite hit the dopamine-feed the way Sync does.

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Benj1B

joined 1 year ago