Pattern Ghost

We're definitely struggling as a nation, but there's no evidence yet that this was politically motivated.

Seems like an eclectic mish-mash for someone looking to create a cohesive universe. I saw a YouTube video that said the Rock tweeted that he's out of the DCU. After having suffered through Black Adam, no big loss IMO.

I don't remember any bait and switch. The season follows a consistent story line. Is it a great story line? Eh. It gets us to Season 3, explains some things about Burnham and Spock (quite a bit, really), and isn't terrible. It's worth watching, IMO, to see how the spin off is set up, but not strictly necessary.

The acronym and the attire are cringe. I can't believe any responsible adult signed off on this concept of policing.

Here's a funny experiment I just tried: Kind of reminds me of Data trying to learn about human emotions.

I've been playing around with Chat GPT today. It's sort of like having a really bright assistant who's great at research, but also has a short attention span, doesn't follow orders, and lies about their mistakes. Its writing capabilities are far overblown. I tried to walk it through writing a blog post on a topic that involved making a list of things and explaining them. It was great at generating ideas for the list, but when asked to remove something from the list and add something else to it, would make its own deletions and additions after being given explicit instructions not to. It has a buffer limit of about 500 words, so after giving it a corrected list, I asked it to write an article about the list that was 2000 words, and I'd tell it to continue after its buffer filled. Which used to work when it was writing longer things, but it decided to start the article again from scratch until I reiterated it was to pick up where it left off. The quality of the writing it produces is poor (but better than many humans), though grammatically correct. It makes factual errors or fails to follow directions closely, then attempts to rationalize or lie about its errors. It's pretty human in these regards. When used within its limits (which is basically a story telling box), it's pretty dang impressive. It would make an exceptionally robust interface for a true expert system (it feeds expected words back, but clearly doesn't understand the concepts behind them), and I think has untapped potential for automation. As far as its writing goes, it's better for short factual things (that you must confirm, because it lies like a rug and its data only goes up to some time in 2021), or for generating things like outlines, lists, etc. It's good for bouncing ideas off of, to a point. Here's an example of working out a hypothetical plot point: ME: I'm writing a story, and I need your help with plotting. Are you able to help me? GPT: Yes, I can help you with plotting your story. Can you give me more information about the story, such as the main characters, setting, and overall theme? This will help me understand the direction you want to take with your plot. ME: The story is a coming of age story about a high school senior, Marty, who has a younger sister, Jane, in middle school. The siblings have been abandoned by their single mother, who has gone off with one in a long string of boyfriends, and has not returned for several weeks. Marty is forced to take care of his little sister, and to get a job to pay the bills and buy food and necessities for himself and his sister. Marty's sister is taken away by Child Protective Services when they become aware of the situation. Jane has a peanut allergy and is fed peanuts by mistake while in CPS care, despite the allergy being in her records. Can you help me think of some ways in which Jane may have been fed peanuts while under CPS care? GPT: Sure, here are a few ways that Jane may have been fed peanuts while under CPS care: Accidentally served peanuts in food: Jane may have been served food that contained peanuts, either because the staff were not aware of her allergy or because they made a mistake in preparing her meals. Sharing food with other children: If Jane is placed in a group home, she may have come into contact with peanuts by sharing food with other children who were eating peanut-containing snacks or meals. Lack of proper labeling: If the group home or facility where Jane is placed does not properly label foods that contain peanuts, she may have accidentally consumed something that contains peanuts without realizing it. Miscommunication: If the staff is not properly informed about Jane's allergy, or if the information is not properly passed on between shifts, Jane may have been fed peanuts by mistake. Negligence: The staff at the CPS facility might have been careless or negligent in monitoring Jane's food, not paying attention to her allergies and not taking the necessary precautions to avoid exposing her to peanuts. Sabotage by other children: If Jane is placed in a group home with other children, it's possible that one of the children deliberately gave her peanuts despite her allergy, either out of malice or due to lack of understanding of the severity of the allergy. Please note that these are just examples and this is a fictional scenario. I love the disclaimer at the end. It won't tell you how to do something immoral, but it'll cheerfully tell you how to get away with anything. Now, this example wasn't particularly imaginative, just ways people have gotten poisoned accidentally or intentionally by food they're allergic to. Your average human could have made a similar list off the top of their head. But not in under two seconds. And probably would have left one or two things off. So, Chat GPT can be a pretty fun brainstorming tool.

Since fruit qualify . . . Q is for Quince

I hope they get hard time. Also, pepper spray followed by TASER is not a good recipe. A TASER will light that stuff up, even the stuff labeled non-flammable. Not that these clowns gave a crap about the safety of their victim.

Thanks! Been wanting to see this one.

Hmm, I'm not seeing it. I'm only seeing purchases for $19.99 and up.

Yep, that's stated. Again, not a huge step away from a .308. The round has better capability out at 500+ yards due to it's sectional density, but at short ranges -- and we're talking about school shootings -- there are better options that are already available. If people aren't gravitating to .308 weapons, then they probably aren't going to spring for the sure to be very expensive hybrid cased ammo. Those cases have 3 components. Normal ammunition is expensive enough these days, so I don't think this is going to turn into the go to round for school shooters. Among those with the mindset to engage the police, it might be some concern. Even if a school shooter were armed with a heavier caliber, I don't see doctrine changing regarding immediate engagement of mass shooters/school shooters. Honestly, I don't see the need for the rules on barrel length for rifles and shotguns. We've had a lot (far, far, far too many) of mass shooting incidents since they hit the market and only one case where the user used a "pistol" with a "brace" on it that I recall. You could just as well build an AR pistol then shove a regular stock on it, or toss a pistol upper on your rifle lower, if you wanted to go commit mass murder. It'd be the lesser offense. But for the decades before these braces were introduced (coincidentally also by SIG), nobody was bothering to do either. A standard carbine already breaks down to a length that can be easily concealed, should one want. Regardless, if it goes to court, it could end badly. (Or well, depending on what side of the debate one falls on, I suppose.) All that aside, I confess to being highly amused at people taking offense to what was obviously a loop hole in a poorly-written rule being closed. Guns are tools . . . that fling a projectile at range, projecting enough force to cause catastrophic damage to tissue. If only we had a simple way to state all that. Like a single word. Maybe we should think of one. While we're at it, we probably need more "w" words . . . 🤔 What guns are not, is toys. My father was vehemently against letting me or my brother have BB guns or pellet guns because they might make us look at them like toys. Even a lowly Daisy or Crosman pump up pellet gun can kill someone. I was looking for a case that happened locally a few years back, with something like a Daisy 880, but instead found a case from November of 2022, in Beaver Dam, KY. Ironically, I lived there a year in high school . . . and used to go shooting my friends' pellet guns (against my father's wishes). Total aside, that, but weird coincidence. Guns may have a recreational use, but no gun is a toy. Flinging projectiles around is a power that requires great responsibility.

It won't change anything in the case of school shootings. Also, this new weapon system's potential civilian version is being seriously overhyped. The scope will be prohibitively expensive, and it's the key component. And there are plenty of things that can penetrate level IV armor already available. Not to mention that actual AP ammunition is already illegal to sell. So, I don't think the concept of engaging the shooter is going to be altered by this. It's a lot of hype, just like "cop killer bullets" were hype. SIG is hyping up their already commercially available piston-driven M4 clones. Which doesn't mean much except releasing them with the civilian version of their new ammunition (see edit below).The civilian version of this magical ammunition will not likely be any more armor piercing than existing loads for the AR platform. SIG is hyping this with typical gun company marketing material, trying to make their new thing sound cool and worth buying. Edit: Here's the spec of the civilian version of the ammo, from Wikipedia: This isn't particularly potent. Not more so than any number of rounds already on the market. Edit: Just for clarity, it's potent for it's size, but it isn't bringing new levels of lethality to the table. .308 win / 7.62x51 ARs have been on the market for decades and are far more potent, for example. The Uvalde cowards were trained on school shooting response. The current doctrine being trained is to engage, not to sit back. So, yes, in this case they had an expectation to act. It's currently far less time and effort to simply buy a gun. 3d printing a firearm isn't quite so convenient as the press leads people to believe. I'm not a huge fan of Vice on these sorts of things, but this video was pretty well put together and gives some good insight to the whole process: It's not quite there yet. Not enough to see widespread criminal use. (Though materials technology keeps advancing.) When talking 3d printing, you either do what this guy did to print the frame of a gun, then finish it by fitting it to the rest of the mechanisms, which gives you a somewhat less than durable frame that's a pain to assemble and get to function reliably, or you do the whole thing on a 3d printer, getting a single shot gun that's no more viable than making a zip gun from parts from a hardware store. Using a home CNC machine will produce a more durable receiver, but is still a pain to get working. Frankly, I'd prefer to be shot at by someone using a 3d printed gun, because it's far more likely to malfunction. I think we don't have to worry too much about future tech, since the government seems to have figured out that the technology needs to be regulated. While it's legal to manufacture a firearm for your own use, making it so easy that any idiot can do it is more than a little problematic. The tech is far from idiot proof, and I think the government (half of it anyway) is wary of letting things advance further without regulation.

Cowardice. The doctrine is to go in and engage ASAP, and not to wait for backup. The new issue weapon isn't a ray gun, and won't change the doctrine. These people were simply cowards with poor leadership.

Adobe's business practices have always been . . . I can't put that word on the forum. Not surprised.

How so? These are two different circumstances. Storage is what you do with weapon not under your direct control.

The matter's a bit far from settled at this point. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

This isn't the first time they've played chicken with the debt ceiling. I think it's political grandstanding for the ignorant among their base, and they'll cave in after they pushed it as far as the holders of their purse strings will allow.

Ah, I might have noticed, except for two things: 1. You didn't say "LOOK!!!! NEW TRAILER!!!" and b. I don't click on Twitter links.

So, it sounds more like running afoul of something like our ITAR rules, more or less. Here's what Malwarebytes gave me when it blocked the site: And here's the Firefox error message: Sorry for the size of those, the Windows Snipping Tool blows stuff up a bit. Sometimes these types of warnings are overly cautious, but sometimes the site's actually been compromised. I err on the side of caution. An online site security checker doesn't see any issues with it, so it could just be they have a technical glitch going on. On the third hand, the same checker says it's a WordPress site, which tend to be easy to compromise. Their WP version, theme, and most of their plugins are out of date. Those are all security vulnerabilities. So, rolls the dice and take your chances. Seems like a legit site on an iffy platform, I guess. And they exaggerate a bit.

New Quantumania trailer: Kang looks a lot less jokey in this than in the comics. Jonathan Majors was really good in Lovecraft Country and looks to be really good in this. I'm almost hyped about it. Like on the edge of hyped.

I get a security error on that page, and no other news sites seem to be covering the story. Might be suspect.

Some of the older villains books would use that kind of shorthand. Like "Use X's character sheet, with these psych limits and change this or that skill or power." Where they direct the GM to simply swap out a couple things about an existing character. Really not a bad way to do things to save time. The game is more about the special effects and RP than the exact mechanic.

Doing some more experimentation with MJ today. This time, playing around with Neji mode and Image to Image rendering. So, I started with this sketch/color map I made in about two minutes: Uploaded that to MJ with a prompt describing the scene, in the style of Miyazaki. Got some output, found one I liked, then upscaled it. Then, I took the upscale and fed it back into the same prompt, picked another to upscale, and fed that one back with the same prompt, but instead of "Miyazaki style" put "anime style" and added "detailed" because the background was way too muddy. Final result: One thing I noticed is that the ponytail didn't come through from the original to the AI. I don't think it caught the detail because the outer line of the ponytail follows what would be the outer line of the general body. That's actually bad composition anyway. Even when I put "ponytail" in the prompt, I mostly got the short haircuts, and that's probably the AI enforcing genre conventions. So, between the two, I got what I got. Still not shabby for a collaboration with a computer. *EDIT: Forgot to mention: One key here is to generate grids until you get something you like, then upscale one. Then right-click on the upscaled pic and "copy image location." Take that, paste it as the first part of the prompt, then re-enter your text prompt and run it again. Doing this over several iterations will add in details. Your very first result will be a lot less detailed and not look that impressive most likely. The upscale function increases resolution, but to do so must add details to the picture. So, multiple upscales = more details. At least as I understand it.

Sorry for chiming in late, just saw this thread. My condolences to Darren's family, friends, and all those who knew him better. I only know him from the forum, and from his contributions to the system through his writing. The impression he left me with was overwhelmingly positive. He'll be missed. Rest in peace, Darren.

The Scholomance (from passing mention in (Dracula )