The article is 5 paragraphs long. Is it really that hard to read it and answer your question?

What Sony is specifically trying to do is see if any AI song can be traced to specific songs- e.g., if someone prompted “make me a song in the style of Lady Gaga”, would Sony be able to conclusively determine this based on the outputting song?

I am a bit skeptical of this working, but then again, there were some image generators spitting out gettysburg watermarks.

I think you misread it - 71% said drive. 29% is still pretty bad, but it is kind of a “who is buried in grants tomb” question.

I think it’s true that folks increasingly want progressive candidates, but I’m not sure a focus group of 13 people is really a definitive look at public opinion. Focus groups are good at getting at underlying reasons for why people might prefer A over B, but they aren’t good for determining the number of people who prefer A over B.

But the headline did get me to click and read more, so there’s that.

The fact that the negligent discharges often involve experienced officers should be a wake up call that ICEs recent behavior isn’t new or just because of Trump - the incompetence is baked in.

I think it’s fair to expect students to use computers in a programming class. I don’t know if there’s a need for students to be using computers for the entire school day

I’m torn on this - Christianity (particularly evangelical christianity) has had an extremely negative effect on democracy in our country and has caused physical harm to others.

However, I think most people with a conscience subscribe to some form of philosophy or religion (even if atheists aren’t “loyal” to any particular perspective and may not even use titles/categories to describe their value system) and I think it’s fine for your morals/conscience to influence decision making. Even a purely scientific decision making process could be considered a form of philosophy.

That being said, most organized religion is about obedience to the tenets of said religion, not a method of asking questions about the world to try to find the most just way to proceed.

Strangely, I find old Star Trek more comforting in times like these. Though perhaps that’s the nostalgia talking

Gameplay - quick time events weren’t super annoying (I wasn’t a fan of telltale batman quick time events), I personally liked the hacking minigame (though not everyone did), and the actual “dispatch” segments were tons of fun.

The story was excellent - I kept expecting a “twist” like we’ve seen in a lot of superhero media recently, and there weren’t any big twists. I think this was a good thing, it’s nice to see more of a “reconstruction” of good guy vs bad guy.

Spoilers -

Steam’s business model does prevent it from pricing its consoles like Sony, Xbox, Nintendo, etc. since they need the console itself to be profitable, not just a means of bringing in games sales.

It’s plausible that they’re taking into account an uptick in overall game sales from this console - at least for me, I’ve been purchasing new games mostly off of steam rather than playstation/nintendo ever since I got a steamdeck - but you’re right that they aren’t going to sell at a loss.

Regardless of the price (and whether or not I even buy one), I think it’s healthy to have another “big” player in the console market.

I suppose the use case would be for journalists, distributing banned books, and so on - pure text-based information. However, video footage is extremely useful in today’s media environment - how many current events do we see first from some tiktok or twitter video, rather than nightly news?

I think it’s important to consider other points of view thoughtfully, and question your base assumptions. Sometimes, constructive and argumentative discussion can help with that, assuming both parties are informed and respectful.

Now, how often have you seen a disagreement in the comments section where both parties are informed, respectful, and working constructively to really understand the underlying issues?

Sometimes, it’s best to just walk away, and blocklists are an excellent way to do so.

“Staying peaceful” and “fighting back” aren’t mutually exclusive. Anyone who thinks nonviolent tactics don’t work hasn’t read up on their history (East Timor, Philippines, etc.). Every time ICE shows up to pepper spray cops and shoot at priests, local police gets more pissed, and they drive a wedge between local and federal law enforcement, weakening the administration’s ability to project power. Don’t underestimate that opportunity.

That being said, current actions are far more symbolic than transformative. No kings protests don’t do anything on their own, but could easily be leveraged into an enabler of things like boycotts and general strikes which will have a strong impact.

Maybe Marginalia could work for you? I’ve tried using it, but it’s a lot more focused on academic stuff (rather than figuring out song lyrics or which episode some TV quote came from). It’s an “old school” search engine, though, so a bit less convenient than google, duckduckgo, etc. if you weren’t around in 90s/early 00s for that.

When google shoves their ai to the top of search results, its hard not to read it. I’ve been spoiled by ublock and I am no longer used to ignoring the first few things that come up.

The tricky part about a general strike is that you dont have much room for do-overs if it turns out you don’t have the numbers you need. Protests are largely symbolic, but are also a good way for organizers to gauge how willing/able folks are to engage in more drastic action.

If a general strike is what you think the movement should go towards, I recommend your next steps be strengthening community support systems - food banks, free clinics, shelters, etc - since these things will be needed to support a general strike (folks will choose feeding their children over political action, so make sure they can accomplish both). In the mean time, it also helps out folks who have been hit the hardest by republican and trump cuts to services.

I highly recommend folks read up on some of ICNC’s stuff, since they focus on the practical side of nonviolent conflict.

That is the tricky thing about basing predictions on historic trends. IIRC, is was Arab spring in some countries that broke the rule (and that “rule” was calculated based on data from 1900-2006). I’m also curious how Nepal and Madagascar stack up compared to historic trends.

Other aspects of Chenoweths research (such as the importance of “converting” certain factions such as police or military - or at least getting them to be neutral) are important as well but don’t get as much traction as the clickbaity 3.5% number does

ETA: Nepal’s discord had about 100k members, and it’s population is 29 million. So that was well below 3.5%. Like No Kings, Nepals protests were decentralized, which is potentially a factor compared to historic protests which tend to be focused on a single location or march

Ah, but they were wearing a bright yellow vest! Be honest - would you think twice if you saw someone wearing a safety yellow vest and carrying a drill? Apparently there was construction going on nearby as well, so the basket lift didn’t really stand out.

I suppose you could do it a la “The Dispossesed” where you spend one day/week doing community service

Has the concept of UBI been around long enough to fulfill your requirements? A 20-year study across a large population would of course be superior, but shorter-length studies with less people are necessary to prove/disprove whether those large scale studies should be funded. Not to mention the ethical implications of forcing someone into a large scale study like that before any results have been shown at all.

I think it’s fine to be skeptical of anyone considering UBI to be “case closed”, but small studies being done before large studies is standard practice. You can’t give that kind of grand scale funding to every hypothesis that pops into someone’s head, so it’s a reasonable way of determining what shows promise and should be looked into more.

It is a good point, though I suppose the argument would be that it’s easier for a bridge builder to find paying work than an artist