In the country I live the alt-right has a very strong hold over one of the biggest online communities of the country. The thing is that this forum is a business that lives out of advertisement, so I think there is a weakness there if they were to lose advertisement money.

Do you know or have any successful stories about collective action being done to take the platform down or enforce heavy moderation changes so the alt-right gets deplatformed there?

I think it might be, there's no way Anakin would be able to buy proprietary hardware or software. So either he stole it, which his mother probably would not have allowed. Or he was able to scrap all the parts together because there is a template for humanoid protocol droids that we have also seen round Star Wars. And then the software itself either Anakin programed entirely himself, (which I know he's very smart, but even that seems a stretch) or he forked it. So it would make more sense that there was an open source catalog of protocol droid software. It also would make more sense due to the fact that a lot of people have droids, but they are not all created equal. I would think many of the droids on Coruscant were proprietary, while many of the droids in the outer rim are open source.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting we do what I’m about to propose, I just think it’s an interesting ethical/moral thought experiment.

If we could find a lot of people who want to unalive themselves, and say to them: there’s been a disaster and there are a lot of people who are stuck (e.g. a mine collapse, or 9/11 or something like that) and it’s a dangerous situation for rescue workers to go into, since you don’t care if you die we’re gonna send you in… would it be an ethical or moral thing to do? To ask or make people who don’t care if they live or not, to go into a situation that there’s a known high risk that they won’t survive?

(Also, I not asking wether it is a good idea to send such people in or wether it would be effective — I’m only interested in the ethics/morality of such an idea)

I usually don't even understand the lingo they use. "Open-weighted" is the most recent one, then it usually goes down to specific "models" that everybody is supposed to know about.

These are my thoughts (I will stick to the vague "it" for now, but of course therein lies another question: "and how does all this apply to various specialised AIs"):

• Is it really feasible to run it 100% locally? I know there's plenty of people with very powerful rigs indeed, but still. Or are 99% of these people really saying "it would, in theory, be possible to run that locally, therefore your concerns are invalid"?
• If yes to the previous: the software doesn't come from nowhere and ultimately still relies on gas-turbine-powered datacenters and stolen IP and stolen personal data, no?

If what I wrote above is true, what exactly are people arguing when they say it's still possible to use LLMs ethically or true to FOSS philosophy, because ... ???

edit

Thanks to all who answered.

I guess it's my fault for asking several questions in one, but this thread has attracted exactly the type of people I'm writing about; several even used the term "open-weighted models" without explaining it.

Asking to get arguments explained, I got more arguments instead.

Big inspiration for the question is the assertion I've seen on Lemmy a few times that this user base is as bad/misogynistic/hateful. But also just curious.

This past week, someone thought I was still in high school (sometimes known as secondary school), but I'm actually at least ten years older.

I don't care what they think since they are still in high school themselves, but I'm sure other people have thought I was that young (but didn't say it out loud).

Other than growing a beard, what else can I (and other men) do to make ourselves (at least facially) look older?

A while backed I figured that if I like eating from clean dishes my pets would too. So I got some cheap enamel metal bowls and use clean ones for my dog and cat.

Anybody else do this?

ETA: I’m not weird and I’m happy all your pets get clean dishes. It was weird for me growing up.

Given than nobody can seem to agree on what a ‘healthy diet’ looks like, what do you do? And why do you choose that diet?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/67815568

Storytime: a patient came into my unit with a controlled medication (I don’t remember what maybe oxy? Ativan?). Per policy, I was waiting for the pharmacy tech to come up, verify my count, and take it down to their safe. It might take a minute, so I got my count done and left the medication in its destined serial-numbered bag, visible on camera on the counter in the med room.

When I count pills, I fold a clean sheet of printer paper into a tray, with the sides folded up into lips. The four corners make little diagonal ears. I sort the pills into piles of five with a clean spoon to make them easier to count, then use one of those diagonal ears to funnel them back into the bottle. I got somewhere in the 50–100 range.

The pharmacy tech comes up. She has a specialized tray (they usually look something like this) with a cylindrical, prescription-bottle-sized funnel that snaps down over one side, and some other carefully designed features to facilitate this exact task. The equipment itself was interesting but not the really cool bit.

She pours the bottle out onto this specialized tray, but she doesn’t need to group the pills. She literally just eyeballs the 50–100 random splatter of pills that falls out onto her flat tray and immediately calls out my exact, carefully tallied count (which I had not yet told her).

She then, in one fluid motion, tips the tray just enough to slide them all down into the funnel side, slaps the funnel closed over them, and tips whole tray up and down so the contents of the funnel fall down into the bottle. We complete the sign-off and seal the bottle in its security envelope.

I’m frequently reminded that nurses are kind of the Swiss Army knives of the healthcare system. I can do 90% of the ancillary staff’s jobs in a pinch, but it’s WILD to watch the fluidity with which each of those tasks is done by someone who does that one specific task all day long.

What’s a super-specialized skill or talent you’ve seen that completely impressed you?

whats your thought on open relationship? if both living in different states

I have absolutely no clue how this stuff works, so forgive me if the question stands on a false premise.

Teacher numbers are falling, provisions and resources seem to be, widespread delinquent behaviour has been reported to be on the rise, and it seems like they’re refusing more and more to enforce the rules on such behaviour, but if you turn up with the wrong haircut or wearing trainers, all hell breaks loose. Obviously I can’t speak for every single individual school so some may not be like this, but I keep hearing about these issues. Are they real? If so, what is the cause? And what can be done to fix it?

I know it depends on the volume, but want to know at least aproximately. I have never used perfume on a daily basis and I am really curious about how often do people need to buy it, if using almost every day?

I know that there's people who are at least 100 years old or above in Japan, as their life expectancy is higher. The shortest answer is diet & portion sizes: since Japanese cuisine consists of seafood, rice, soybeans, and seasonal vegetables. Most portion sizes are controlled and turn out being smaller with a cultural practice of 腹八分 (はらはちぶん) or eat until about 80% full. (They opt for cold, green or hot tea rather than sodas).

There's universal health care coverage in Japan at least while in USA people stress about medical bills a lot. Exercise is incentivized in Japan via active movement (not as car dependent) from walking, cycling, and using stairs are built into everyday routines keeping people mobile into old age. That's the opposite of US since they're heavily dependent on "the car" as opposed to public transit, bicycles or walking on foot.

Crossposted from https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/48779421

I'm writing a program that can find info about a phone number. One problem appears to be that Google's phone number library doesn't provide enough info. For instance, take this number: +1 (613) 745-1576. My iPhone correctly says "Ottawa, Ontario, Canada", while Google's library doesn't return the city? How does my iPhone pick this up but not Google's own library? Is this provided by cell carriers? Is it something with the 745 block? If so, where can I find this info?

If you answer with New York, you're a basic bitch.

inspired by this post https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/48742321

I've heard that apparently, Japanese pronunciation is simpler to pick up (anime, games, etc). when you hear it spoken. As in, when foreigners learn it: they find that easier to listen to than spoken Mandarin since there's no tones in Japanese (rather pitch accent, but it's not the same as it could be understood based on context even if said wrong) while Mandarin places a huge emphasis on tones that change the definition completely.

Also, how does spoken Japanese sound to the ear when you either watch subtitled anime when you compare that to anime being dubbed in Mandarin? I know that one of my friends watches Asian dramas and prefers either Japanese or Korean audio over Mandarin for some reason (I'd assume it has to do with accent and how a language sounds when spoken). Is Mandarin dubbed anime even good or does it sound bad?

I (23M) had an abusive upbringing. In early childhood, my father beat me and told me I was weak when I cried out in pain and begged for mercy. Since then, I learned that I was unlovable because I expressed vulnerability and neediness instead of silently enduring the pain, and that others would expect me to be strong and take things "like a man."

As I grew up, I got better and better at hiding my pain. But because I so rarely experienced any kind of affection or positive attention, I never learned to hide pleasure.

I compared myself a lot to men in pornography. It seemed like nothing fazed them, even as women did things to them that could make me faint. These men had incredible endurance and could stay in control of themselves as they made manly grunts. I was a failure in comparison.

I do not make manly grunts. I sound like Mickey goddamn Mouse. I unlock 3 new octaves of vocal range and tremble and blush and hyperventilate like crazy. I'm so embarrassed about it. I see videos of men receiving oral and think "Holy shit, HOW is that guy still standing? He's not even shaking!?" And then I think there's no way in hell that women would put up with my effeminate whines if strong guys who can withstand a woman's attention with little more than a few grunts are everywhere.

I came up with all these sexist lies about women to reassure myself that there was no risk of being touched by them and I was in control. "Porn is just fiction and the actresses lie when they express pleasure or interest; in reality, women don't initiate or reciprocate touch in real life because they're sexually passive and men are the pursuers. Women don't want to touch men because they are wired to receive pleasure, not give it. Also, women have to constantly fear being stalked and harassed by men, so I am doing the right thing by staying as far away from them as possible. Besides, I'm too much of a sensitive crybaby to be attractive to women anyway. So I'm safe. Sure, I live in a touch-starved hellscape, but I'll never have to worry about a woman touching and exploring my body and having naughty thoughts about me, let alone acting on them."

But it's about time I drop the bullshit and be honest.

I'm terrified of being touched by women I'm attracted to because I fear that they would ruthlessly mock me when I inevitably lose my composure and melt into a flustered, needy, giggly, grateful puddle. After all, that's what happened the last time I was openly emotive, way back in childhood when I cried out for mercy. None of my generalizations about women are true, and my avoidance of women doesn't actually make the world better. I am not helping anyone or acting rationally by doing this; I am just avoiding the possibility of being seen when I'm an emotional mess.

I was hoping that no woman would ever sexually desire me because then I would never have to worry about being seen. There were a couple of incidents in school where someone groped me and ran off before I could see who they were, and I automatically assumed at the time that the perpetrator was a guy, because the possibility of them being a girl was far more dangerous to my psyche.

I have these pervasive fantasies that a woman would find my flustered collapse incredibly cute and sexy. Rather than chastising me, she would be really sweet and flirtatious and enjoy sensually melting me at my own pace so as not to overwhelm me. My fear tries to convince me that this outcome isn't possible. But every day, I gain just a little bit more hope that it actually is, and the fear and shame lose just a little bit more power.

I know that Lemmy isn't a substitute for professional help, which is why I have also been going to therapy, but I think it would help a lot if others could tell me what a partner's positive experience of my responses might look like or share how they dealt with similar insecurities and communicated about them with their partner.

What do you think?