yuki2501

joined 1 year ago
[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (11 children)

following its acquisition from Sony

Has anything good EVER come from big company acquisitions AT ALL?

Geocities -> acquired by Yahoo -> crap -> death

Youtube -> acquired by Google -> ad crap

Blogger -> acquired by Google -> crap

Macromedia -> acquired by Adobe -> Monopoly crap

Washington Post -> acquired by Bezos -> political crap

MySQL -> Acquired by Oracle -> copyright crap

Github -> acquired by Microsoft -> crap

Reddit -> acquired by Conde Nast -> political crap

Twitter -> acquired by Musk -> utter crap

Every single time I see a cool startup get bought by a big player, all I can see is the service going to shit.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's one thing to be uncooperative with Linux development.

A very different thing is to introduce vulnerabilities into existing working code.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Okay, here's the full explanation for you:

VTubers are simply people using 2D or 3D avatars that move using face tracking technology.

The issue at hand is that many VTubers have skimpy outfits but many of them are classy, i.e. not overly sexual. Furthermore, the content they produce is SFW even if at times they talk or joke about NSFW topics. Most of the time VTubers just engage in chat, gaming or reaction videos. And the official with Twitch's new rules is that changing a VTuber model requires hiring a digital artist and a model animator aka "rigger". These are super expensive, many of those models can cost thousands of dollars to make. So when Twitch days "cover your hips or be banned", VTubers whose models have FROM THE BEGINNING shown hips, now have to pay artists and riggers a huge amount of cash simply to cover themselves up.

To make things worse, Twitch's rules are arbitrary and unpredictable. Who knows if tomorrow they'll have to cover their shoulders? Cover their cleavage? Skirts below the knee? You don't know, and every single time Twitch updates their TOS, VTubers have to spend money just to stay in the business. The least Twitch could do is state a fixed, immutable set of rules so VTubers can design their own outfits without fear of being targeted by Twitch's sharia police. But that doesn't happen. Twitch rules keep changing over and over, but mysteriously they never affect women wearing super tiny bikinis and showing off their sexy bodies in their pools and hot tubs section.

That's the issue. That Twitch's TOS are not only unpredictable, but inconsistently enforced. One could say managers don't like VTubers and engage in these practices to virtually kick them off their platform.

TL;DR: VTubers are NOT porn. And yet, Twitch is selectively enforcing these rules against VTubers while completely allowing exactly the same - or even much more sexualized - content for IRL streamers in their bath tubs and pools section.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 78 points 2 months ago

Intentional? Better use Negligent. It's hard to prove intent; knowledge of something going on is much easier to prove.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

When techbros said "you can type a question and the AI will answer", they seem to have forgotten that we expect the answers to be true and accurate.

And they seem to have forgotten that to do that, they actually need a database of facts.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Not necessarily. Corporate money has a hidden contract. Mainly, you will develop what we tell you to develop and you will stall what we tell you to stall.

Google money is ad money. It's DRM money, it's private silo money, not general development money.

If you believe corporations drive all good development in the world, look at how many projects have been bought and killed by Microsoft.

In fact, why would Firefox accept money from one of its competitors? That's SUPER fucked up.

Just think about the anti features that Google mmay want Firefox to implement: Unlockable ads, third party cookies, user tracking, and so on.

Is tha the development we want?

I say, let's open fundraisers and keep Firefox free of corporate influence.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 30 points 3 months ago (5 children)

It's a threat to the Mozilla CORPORATION, not the Mozilla Foundation nor the browser.

Nothing to be really scared about. Move along.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

My colleagues and I have developed an artificial intelligence system that helps buildings shift their energy use to times when the electric grid is cleaner.

Meanwhile, AI systems are getting trained while using the equivalent of several countries' use of electricity.

What a bullshit article. The headline itself is so deceptive it makes my blood boil. Now everyone will think AI is a net positive for reducing power usage while it's all the contrary.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

By any chance, were the clamps filled with styrofoam or something? 😁 (Tofu-dreg joke)

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago (11 children)

At this point, I'd like to ask: If a foreign company threatens democracy in a country, is it legal for the executive to ban business with that company?

No? Then that doesn't make sense. It's a FOREIGN company, the government should have the right to do whatever it needs to protect its citizens in that regard.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

says CEO

Since when do CEOs do things because they're actually useful and not because they want to cut costs at the expense of the workers and even the public?

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Oh no, I know where this story leads...

 

I've spent more than 7 years in Mastodon, and in my experience, new users always come in with a Twitter mindset, then getting a cultural shock because they come to Mastodon expecting a Twitter experience and end up finding something strange and bizarre.

To soften the blow, I'd like to explain the cultural differences between Mastodon and Twitter.

What Twitter was:

  • You could follow microcelebrities (or "influencers") to read interesting things
  • You didn't reach people unless you got lots of likes quickly, so it became a popularity contest
  • The algorithm decides what you read and how you engage, even if it's negative content or something bad for your mental health.
  • Toxic people drew others to quote posting, so it became a yelling competition. You didn't build community, you built followers by standing on a platform and holding a megaphone.
  • Unpopular users just yell to the void.

What Mastodon is:

  • A bunch of communities of people with diverse interests and real lives.
  • Mastodon servers (instances) are careful of who they federate with. Some servers just moderate poorly and there are too many assholes.
  • There are microcelebrities, but they're NOT looking to be popular. They just post the things they do; they're popular because their lives / hobbies are interesting.
  • In Mastodon, you reach people who are actually interested in your stuff. You don't need to game an algorithm. There is no algorithm, people ARE the algorithm.
  • If you don't want to engage with someone, you can block and report. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon admins do take reports seriously (unless it's one of the big instances; then good fucking luck). Reporting is encouraged on Mastodon, it keeps the community clean.
  • Because admins often maintain the server using their own money, it's in their best interest that the community is healthy. (Unless they're assholes, but their instances get blocked quickly)
  • There are no quote posts. You can paste a link to the other person's post, but it is discouraged because we know where that leads.

Longer explanation:

Mastodon has an entirely different culture compared to Twitter. Mastodon was founded and populated by people who believed Twitter was too toxic and corporate-driven. Mastodon is full of gays, transgender folks, sex workers, artists, furries, autistic people, etc.

These people were driven out of the big platforms (Facebook, Twitter) by hate and discrimination. These people have experienced sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, body shaming, etc. in their lives. It follows that the majority of Mastodon is left-leaning, anti-conservative, communist and anti-corporate.

Furthermore: Because it started (or quickly became) as a sort of safe haven for queer folks, they were more open to sincere posting. They post their problems, the discrimination they've experienced; their body dysphoria; depression; homophobia; transphobia and racism. And they give each other support, even economic. In my timeline I see posts asking for emergency money more than once per day.

If you wonder why this doesn't appear on Twitter, it's because the Algorithm filters them out. The public, the customers don't like hearing about people asking for money not to get evicted. They don't like to hear how people were harassed the other day by some karen who believes they're a man in disguise.

But Mastodon is different. People talk about their daily lives because they know their followers will receive 100% of their posts. This is how communities are built.

Mastodon is not, and never aimed to be a Twitter replacement. It was meant to be something different; a place where you could form communities and build connections without Big Brother examining you or deciding how you should behave online.

So the next time you look for "interesting people to follow", it could be possible that you're entering Mastodon with a Twitter mindset. No Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

Start following people you think are interesting in YOUR instance. Then start seeing their boosts and follow people you think are cool. Little by little, expand your network, prune your follows and block / mute people you think are obnoxious, and keep building and shaping your network like a beautiful bonsai tree.

The time you invest on building a network from scratch is worth it: You will meet many interesting people, and you will meet new friends; real friends, not just a series of followers whom you have to entertain.

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