Not before it “became” “islamic”, according to idiots who buy what Bibi’s selling. Pakistan definitely came a lot closer to meeting his bullshit criteria “first”.

So is Pakistan not a Republic or … ? Seriously though, was he already senile in 1998?

Yeah, the article’s agenda is pretty overt. End of the day, I don’t care about a corporations “rights” being violated, but this judge had the opportunity to do right by the public and set a precedent, and instead opted to shit all over it.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s actually unhappy with the jury’s verdict, seeing as he’s playing the “anti-corpo big-government over-reach” character to a tee.

You uh … ever heard of the school-to-prison pipeline? Judges throughout the country have repeatedly been caught literally selling kids to private prisons. Look at what Britney Spears went through and tell me the US judiciary knows-best.

The judge could have turned the matter to experts. He didn’t.

They don’t have to publish false numbers. Just keep vague which numbers they are posting. “Total active licenses” was what I referenced earlier.

I own 6 Windows Professional licenses. I am presently using two. You really think Microsoft are the ones to trust?

Having numbers others don’t doesn’t make those numbers useful or true in every context.

three on the right use the same face-shape almost line-for-line: differences only in the hair, ears, eyebrows, skin-tone and attire. Middle has a squared-off jaw, maybe vertically stretched, and the top’s jaw-line stop’s shorter, but completely different?

The three on the left use basically the same tricks and started from a different outline, but between those three, top has a single cheek wrinkle in a different spot, bottom has additional forehead wrinkles, and the middle is stretche horizontally as well as vertically, mayb with some skew-tool use so its more exaggerated to the right, but damn, bro, have you ever even touched illustrator or photoshop? I could do the same in Gimp, Inkscape, Krita, Clipstudio, or so many others, and honestly it would be quicker for me than coming up with an Ai prompt, if that last were even part of my skillset.

Not even a hint of complex shading, and if you think “less complex or generic= Ai”, you must have missed the meme-train days completely.

Three on the left have the same shoulders, and the three on the right have their shoulders cropped at different heights to hide their similarities there too.

Not a damn thing about this necessitates or would even reward the use of Ai.

Three on the right use the same face-shape almost line-for-line: differences only in the hair, ears, eyebrows, skin-tone and attire. Middle has a squared-off jaw, maybe vertically stretched, and the top’s jaw-line stops shorter, but completely different?

The three on the left use basically the same tricks and started from a different outline, but between those three, top has a single cheek wrinkle in a different spot, bottom has additional forehead wrinkles, and the middle is stretche horizontally as well as vertically, mayb with some skew-tool use so its more exaggerated to the right, but damn, bro, have you ever even touched illustrator or photoshop? I could do the same in Gimp, Inkscape, Krita, Clipstudio, or so many others, and honestly it would be quicker for me than coming up with an Ai prompt, if that last were even part of my skillset.

Not even a hint of complex shading, and if you think “less complex or generic= Ai”, you must have missed the meme-train days completely.

Three on the left have the same shoulders, and the three on the right have their shoulders cropped at different heights to hide their similarities there too.

Not a damn thing about this implies Ai.

Oh no, someone used copy/paste on their outlines, and it came out looking like the paper “dolls” you used to be able to dress-up and accessorize with other cut-outs! Must be slop!

JFC sheeple.

EDIT for the uninitiated for some reason can’t see themselves capable of making this with, frankly, stupid-simple tools:

three on the right use the same face-shape almost line-for-line: differences only in the hair, ears, eyebrows, skin-tone and attire. Middle has a squared-off jaw, maybe vertically stretched, and the top’s jaw-line stop’s shorter, but completely different?

The three on the left use basically the same tricks and started from a different outline, but between those three, top has a single cheek wrinkle in a different spot, bottom has additional forehead wrinkles, and the middle is stretche horizontally as well as vertically, mayb with some skew-tool use so its more exaggerated to the right, but damn, bro, have you ever even touched illustrator or photoshop? I could do the same in Gimp, Inkscape, Krita, Clipstudio, or so many others, and honestly it would be quicker for me than coming up with an Ai prompt, if that last were even part of my skillset.

Not even a hint of complex shading, and if you think “less complex or generic= Ai”, you must have missed the meme-train days completely.

Three on the left have the same shoulders, and the three on the right have their shoulders cropped at different heights to hide their similarities there too.

Not a damn thing about this implies Ai.

The same people selling the clearnet will be the same people who will never let the existing stuff die, so they can sell the problems, the “solutions”, child-porn, and most stupidly, considering they seem to honestly believe they want to force this on the rest of us, to feel they are “above the law”, and not confined to the bounds of their own machinations.

I’m not convinced more than maybe 5 or 10% of people will ever actually use the clear-net, or even be able to afford to either. The same idiots trying to force it are populating their new “walled-garden for the rest of them” with, basically, AI spoofs of the rest of the population. They are already huffing their own farts the the point they won’t be able to tell the difference, like an artificial resurgence of The Bicameral Mind for “the ruling class”.

EVs actually tend to use fewer ECU modules than IC vehicles - even Hybrids are driving a trend towards mechanical and electrical simplicity.

The IC manufacturers are fighting repairability tooth and nail, but the only ones who can afford their new shit are the last people who would embrace being locked-in to dealer repairs.

All that, and the dealerships/service-centers will always require mechanics, as the manufacturers themselves will always prefer to be able to fix and re-sell used cars.

The only seperate bathrooms needed are stalls, urinals, handi-capped/“family” stalls, and sinks. Gendered labelling is a solution looking for a problem; A relic of racial segregation and the times before women could vote.

If I’m talking to the skirt next to me at the urinal, its for wardrobe tips, where to get high heels and dresses that fit, and also to put other chatty dudes in their place. Because seriously, who actually wants to hold a conversation at a urinal? Old perverts like me, only worse.

Do I care if they have a dick or are using a funnel? Also no, because I realize none of it is my business until they tell me otherwise.

All that said, I’m fully aware that trying to use a urinal in women’s wear is a pain. If you’re encountering them and they bother you, ya done fucked-up by going out of your way to find it in the first place. Going out of one’s way to cast shade at unicorns…

I mean, community-sourced is what I would want anyways, so …

Sure it did. Tiles on Windows Phone were a big hit for a time. If anything, the problem on that side of things was that they didn’t commit and make sure the things that worked on the phone also worked on the “tablet” version.

Instead, they took the approach that "the developers will thank us for charging them an arm and a leg to learn and use the new APIs, like they always have, forgetting that developers often follow users, and almost every user was verbal about hating what MS had done, including Windows phone users who understood what had been promised then effectively bait-and-switched.

Microsoft’s way has just always been so inspiring, you know?

I never got into gnome. Was more of an XFCE guy for a time, enough-so to realize Gnome had “deprecated” anything I liked about GTK. I was more looking for a classic start menu style with minimal overhead, and XFCE gave me that, while most other DE’s wouldn’t let me do stuff that Windows 95 had been cool with.

Windows 8 had a “reason”(TabletPCs, and the success of Tiles on Windows Phone) for the changes made. The old UX was still there if you knew where to look and what settings to change; Some searching online could mostly have you back to what you wanted in under an hour. It was coded by humans, tested by humans, and consistently worked as intended.

Windows 11’s changes have no such saving-graces or anything resembling rational justification. They let their AI re-code a bunch of fundamental features, and particularly the UI/UX, from a low-level programming language to frameworks intended for fucking websites, just so they could say it was capable of doing-so. Along the way, they used AI to test the results and skimped on or ignored the results from testing done by humans.

How many times before has Microsoft publicly admitted one of their products is broken and promised to fix it? What does being technically solid have to do with UX? EVERYTHING.

… Windows 11 is far worse. 8 was solid compared to 11. 8 was a pain in the ass, but it mostly did what it was supposed-to.

Its all pattern-recognition. Your side of the debate is arguing that training on patterns is theft of said patterns, the same way industries are fighting reverse-engineering and right-to-repair in the legal sphere. I may not spend most of my time working and playing out-doors, but I woud wager I have always spent more time doing-so, and still-do, compared to yourself.

Spent most of my life being told I’m un-motivated and un-serious for prioritizing life over work, work in physical mediums over digital, and avoiding the “defense” or marketting industries, just to be told I’m un-informed or “clearly agitated” when I engage with those who took the opposite route.

Look in the mirror; Did I say you should feel guilt or be unable to sleep at night? Yes, I’m fully aware the people who think as I described “you” are few and far between among those who can even do what you do, but you described me as one of them first.

You also never engaged with my statements on the origins of modern code, even and especially pattern recognition and neural networks, so here we are.

Everyone on all sides is so quick to rule out anyone they engage with as un-informed, a vested-interest with an agenda, or “lacking standing” - that’s how we got to a state where almost every elected official started from a degree in politics or law. Meanwhile, I repeat, taxpayers payed for all of it, the same ones who have also been paying the creator-“class” all-along.

Why would you let keeping-up with AI code cut-into the amount of time you spend writting code? Your conflating Torvalds being okay with/allowing programmers using a tool PROPERLY with Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft and their ilk shoving it down everyone’s throats, proper usage be damned.

Fresh Air

Heard of it?