arquebus_x

The whole point of Jenny Nicholson’s epic video was that it did NOT, in fact, offer a “unique, interactive 48-hour movie-like adventure.”

That Screen Rant article was almost certainly planted by Disney PR. No actual employee who had to deal with all that bullshit would write something so sycophantic.

It also has a 1v1 mode (player vs computer or PvP) that is just fantastic. I actually spent most of my time playing the 1v1 mode way back in the day.

Huh. I thought for sure this was quietly canceled.

“I lost a brother once. I was lucky. I got him back.”

“I thought you said men like us don’t have families.”

“I was wrong.”

Wow, right up front, they’re being disingenuous:

“The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear.”

…No? Apple won’t bear that burden because they’re going to keep using WebKit. Firefox can keep using WebKit. Not using WebKit is a choice, with pros and cons.

I’ve been an Apple fanboy for years, too, and I still am. The alternatives aren’t exactly better. And anyone who is surprised that Apple is dragging its heels and trying to do the bare minimum to comply, well, get back to me when you’re no longer twelve. Companies aren’t your friends, even when they look like they are. Hell, Google’s sudden about-face regarding Right to Repair is 100% intended to fuck over Apple. It’s not about the consumer, it’s about the money. Always, with every company, every time.

Developers want alternate app stores because they want to make/keep more money. There’s no other reason. Every other reason given just comes back to more money. Is that a more valid argument simply because they’re smaller?

I’m in favor of Apple opening up iOS to alternate stores. I think it’s going to be a privacy and security nightmare, but the horse is pretty much already out of the barn and the barn is burning, so… whatever. But I’m not so naive to think Apple’s going to fully embrace the ideal concept of alternate stores unless somehow it’s a way to beat Google’s or Samsung’s face in, and take their money.

Do you not understand how unions work?

The contract would be a combination contract, for performance and AI training. That’s explicitly the thing that’s been agreed to here.

That’s correct, but it’s important to distinguish something explicitly here. The voices may not be copyrightable, but the dialogue is, as long as it’s not also generated by AI (i.e., dynamically generated). Also, the trained model that generates the voice is still proprietary: only its product (and only the sound itself, not the words if the speech is from a script) can be openly used.

It does, yes. And they can also choose to opt out of future uses of their voice in the AI trained model. Which essentially means that their contracts are on a per-project basis, rather than allowing the game developer to force them to contract for the current project and any future use of the model by that game dev.

That’s… what this agreement proposes.

This deal solves the problem you’re encountering, because it allows game companies to use real voices to generate dialogue. It will sound a hell of a lot better than the 100% AI generated voices you dislike.

And it will protect voice actors’ jobs because the deal effectively requires new contracts for each use out of scope of the previous contract (i.e., the “opt out” language), and it encourages game companies to continue to rely on voice actors rather than switch to 100% AI generated.

Without this deal, game devs will just go 100% AI (and the tech will improve dramatically), and within a year or two, game voice actors will have no jobs to contract.

This is especially important in light of the trend toward dynamically generated dialogue in RPGs, etc. Without allowing an AI to train on real voice actors, dynamically generated dialogue will have to be 100% AI generated (no human voice involvement).

Voice acting in all fields is already a diminishing market because of AI generated voices. One of my coworkers had to get a job where I work because his VA jobs basically dried up. This agreement stanches the bleeding by permitting the use of AI trained on VAs (but only allowing use on a per-contract basis). Without that permission, AI would just be trained on open source / freely available voice samples, and there would be no contracts, and VAs would just … not exist anymore.

Even if risks are under-reported (plausible, but unlikely, given the amount of scrutiny), it’s definitely the case that the risks from getting COVID are still not fully understood. Long COVID is a major issue that is still under investigation. So by your own metric - “highly reluctant to try the new possibly risky thing” - the vaccine is important. Because “the new possibly risky thing” in this case is getting COVID. You definitely don’t want to “try” that.

“What’s up” is that people are stupid and don’t know things. Popular vote awards (and national elections!) always suffer from lazy ignorance.

It’s about the same as everywhere else. The most fun I have on any social media platform these days is blocking assholes.

Ever try a hot cola?

I once drank a Coke that had been sitting in my car console for a day during the summer.

It was a revelation.

If Kbin defederates from Threads, I’ll just leave Kbin, and stay with Threads. Defederating over vibes is not how the fediverse is supposed to operate. And for everyone advocating for this dumb idea, I’m just using this thread as a honey pot.

Kbin defederating from Threads would be an own goal of hilarious proportions. The only entity that would be harmed is Kbin.

Threads presents a serious danger to the long-term viability of the fediverse if we become dependent on it for content, and our best bet at avoiding that is defederation.

If Threads federates… it’s part of the fediverse.

Even if you don’t accept that tautology, sure, maybe the fediverse (not including Threads, which is also fediverse at that point, but ok whatever) doesn’t do great, but kbin will definitely suffer if it defederates from Threads, once Threads becomes part of the fediverse federates does whatever you think it’ll be doing that’s not exactly the same thing as joining the fediverse and therefore becoming part of the thing that you think will become non-viable after the most viable piece of it joins. Kbin will become an also-ran within the fediverse, because most users will want to use tools that allow them to interact with the most people.

I guess what I’m saying is you can’t in one breath say that “Threads will join the fediverse” and then in the next breath say “the fediverse will become non-viable” as if Threads isn’t part of the fediverse in the second breath. Let’s not do “separate but equal” with social media, please. It’s silly.

If Kbin defederates from Threads, it’ll be Kbin that suffers.

What it comes down to there is whether the act of selection is an act of art. If there is no skill other than picking, I’m not sure I’d consider it an artistic act. (For similar reasons I’m very much on the fence about a lot of modern art.)