SaraTonin

I don’t have a problem with the idea of a digital ID. I’ve been saying for years that it’s ridiculous that any time you want to do something even vaguely official you have to take a gas bill with you to prove your address.

What I worry about is the implementation. It seems like it’s going to be a government app that stores everything. What company is going to develop that? Where’s the data going to be stored and how? What vulnerabilities does it have, and how has this been tested? Is biometric data going to be stored anywhere? etc.

If they were to let me store my ID in my phone’s built-in wallet, then I’m happy. I know the security and I’m content that my data is safe and recoverable.

But it doesn’t seem like that’s something that will be possible. So I’m going to object strongly.

That’s why you call them weak

Thank God someone said it. I feel like I’m living in an alternative universe that this amazing series never even gets mentioned.

It feels like loving The Americans did back in the day -one of the best things on TV, and nobody seems to have even heard of it.

I dunno. I felt like series 1 was pretty much flawless, 2 was good with some missteps, and 3 had some good moments.

For example:

I’ll watch series 4, but I don’t have high hopes.

I know you’re joking, but Johnny Rotten is unironically a Trump supporter now

There must be some kaizo levels which require you to do this

She’s also been a firm advocate for Epstein’s victims and has repeatedly called for releasing the Epstein files.

She believes the worst conpiracy theories and she’s a terrible bigot, but the difference between her and her peers is that she actually believes the things she says she believes. She’s not just grifting for profit. She ran on a platform of being against child sexual abuse, and she’s still against child sexual abuse.

This is somewhat less notable, as it’s the usual Republican “but this affects ME now”, but she is actually different from the other Republicans in Congress because she has principles that she sticks to. Many of them are horrible principles, but they’re principles nonetheless.

If you like facts then you should know that “Autist” Is a rather controversial term in the autistic community, with many finding it dehumanising, and with a significant proportion of those who use it themselves doing so to “reclaim” it in an n-word-like “it’s okay when i say it, but not when you say it” way.

And if you really do have an autistic daughter, then you might want to do some internal reflection on why you think being “surrounded by […] autists” Is negative enough to use as an insult. Those kinds of attitudes can have negative impacts on children and can lead to internalised ableism. And if it’s not the kind of attitude you would show around her, then it’s worth asking yourself why not.

Outer Wilds. Easily the most profoundly moving experience I’ve ever had from playing a video game. And it does such a good job of starting off - and even remaining, to a degree - a fun, light-hearted story.

If there’s anybody reading this who’s interested in the game, let me say a couple of things.

1. Go in as spoiler-free as possible. The entire progression system is based on acquiring knowledge, and a lot of the power of the game comes from discovering everything for yourself, in your own way.

2. Don’t treat it like a game. Instead put yourselves in the shoes of your character. See something that you think looks cool? Go and look at it. Don’t think “well, I should probably finish this area first…” Explore. Learn. Decide for yourself what your priority is.

Loads of games call themselves open world, but are actually quite on rails. One trigger at the beginning of the game aside, Outer Wilds really is open world. One reason why watching other people play it is so much fun is that everybody really does have a completely different experience while playing it. One person will do something as the first thing they do, then someone else will do the same thing when they’re 80% of the way through. And the game is so well-designed that both ways is equally rewarding.

Sorry, I tend to evangelise for this game a lot because it is, as I said above, a genuinely profound and moving experience.

I think society has long established that we give inanimate objects and constructs gender. Bart Simpson is a he, despite being a cartoon voiced by a woman. He‘s often written by a woman, too, and the animation team will be mixed (although probably leaning male). Yet he remains a he in popular parlance.

Perhaps more akin to this situation, there’s a long tradition of referring to animated singers by the gender they present as. Gem & the Holograms are referred to as female, as are Josie & the Pussycats. Hatsune Miku - possibly the most direct comparison, being the first and most well-known “virtual singer” - is always a “she”. None of these are real people or based on real people.

The first AI band that I was aware of was The Velvet Sundown, which made the news for doing well on Spotify before people realised that they weren‘t real. They‘re very MOR AOR type stuff, at least from what I‘ve heard.

Okay. Note the quotation marks.