Spyke

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boston

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Matt Damon wants to put statue of Robin Williams in Boston Public Garden

The catch: Municipal red tape might stop the statue even before it can be cast.

  • The city has a moratorium in place for all new memorials in the Public Garden or on Boston Common, according to Lynn Page Flaherty from the Friends of the Public Garden, the nonprofit group that advocates for the city's oldest green spaces.
  • The bench is also already dedicated in memory to another person, which presents a problem for the effort to honor Williams.

via Axios' brief article covering this.

fuck_ai

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I'm sure this has been posted here before, but it's too good not to repost.

This is such a weird take.

Oh poor baby, you need a wittle spell check to make sure you don't mess up the words in your important email?

Oh little loser, you gotta have an automatic transmission to make the car go vroom vroom?

Oh Mr. has-a-life, you have to pull out Shazam instead of knowing 8 million songs by heart?

All of us use technology to make our lives easier, to supplement skills we don't want to sink perfectionist-level time into, to enjoy "good enough" results in one area or another.

This kind of holier-than-thou hyperbolic snobbery does nothing to generate actual thoughtful reflection of where to draw the line with technology dependence and only distracts and detracts from actually good critiques of generative AI's ethics and other negative effects. I wish this sub didn't allow low-effort meme posts because it's such a brain rot circle-jerk.

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Valve says the Steam Machine is better than what 70% of PC gamers have at home

I wonder how much of that is from people playing games on their laptops though. Budget or mid-range laptops are much less likely to have a dedicated GPU (or in mid-range at least not a powerful one), or much RAM.

For people who buy laptop PCs and can only afford one computer purchase every X years, it won't really matter if the Steam Box has better specs. If it's not a laptop it's not an option for them.

books

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Why We Need Public Libraries Now More than Ever

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Copyright protects small creators. If it weren't for copyright and trademark laws, any new and trending song / story / media would be instantly ripped off by corporations that would exist solely to throw budget at reproducing and popularizing their own soul-less versions of peoples' work, without any compensation for the original creators. Artists and photographers would never see a dime from the countless t-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc. other corporations would create and sell using their pictures.

I know there are many frustrating issues with how copyright law has been abused by large corporations who have gotten it extended way past the point of its original intent, but remember not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Copyright as as a basic legal concept is the only thing that gives many creators a chance to make a living from their work.

rpg

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The Seven Part Pact: the First Actual GM-Full Game

I love the sound of this. The article itself I found to be a bit of a rambling mess, too full of references and insiderism, but skimming around to get the gist of the game itself it sounds incredible. High-level "God" gaming with grand strategy simulation, that manages to not go totally off the rails because it's so big and detailed you have to work together to keep the system in balance.

And (I think; the article went on a tangent about the game designer's theoretical relationship with their reputation instead of detailing how this actually works) some kind of mechanics that challenges such high power players to reflect on their relationship to that power?

Given the common headaches of finding ~5 people with the schedule compatibility and emotional maturity to make a more standard RPG campaign last, finding a group to play this with feels challenging. But I'd watch the hell out of a well-produced Actual Play of it.

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Do you know of a dating app which caters primarily to heterosexuals, respects your privacy, doesn't use analytics and doesn't require G00g13 services to function properly?

You're not going to find an app that doesn't use analytics. It's unreasonable to expect someone to build / run a service for users with no idea how it's actually functioning for them. To any app using Google Analytics, you are only one of hundreds of thousands of anonymous data points; get over yourself or buy a burner phone if you're that concerned about some upstream data broker knowing that ::gasp, shudder, horror:: you were on a dating app and ::shriek, cower, cry:: maybe targeting a romance-related ad to you.

If you can get past that, I'd suggest https://datefirefly.com/ - it's independent and trying to rebuild the old OkCupid kind of experience before Match Group bought OkC and drove it into the ground.

Or if you're in / near a city, try speed dating groups or see if there are matchmaking services with a good reputation.

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‘Scrubs’ Revival | Official Trailer | February 25 on ABC

I'm looking forward to this. It's not like there's a shortage of other medical dramas if you're looking for something original / different.

Scrubs had an extremely good 8 season run, and it offered a unique mix of oddball humor and empathetic feels other shows haven't matched. The cast remains great and the producing team has made a run of hits. I'm happy for them to take a shot at a revival.

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‘Scrubs’ Reboot Gets Series Order at ABC; Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke to Return

Lovely! I'm excited to keep my fingers crossed for this.

I see some people have anxiety about what if it doesn't live up to the old series, but the way I see it, if Season 9 didn't impact my love for all that came before it, why would this? I'll take the chance it might be great, and will be happy regardless to see some of the gang getting paid to have the chance to make something together again.

books

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Information retention after reading non-fiction

No need to beat yourself up, just make simple changes to improve. Write a one paragraph summary for yourself after each chapter, or list key points you want to remember. The next day, review it and take 10 minutes to think about how that chapter applies to your life or other things you've read.

Once you've finished the book, rewrite & combine your notes into one or two pages and flip back through the book to find a quote or two that stands out to you. Then set a reminder on your calendar one month in the future to review your summary page.

Note-taking, rewriting notes, and spaced repetition are all proven study techniques. It's a little extra time, but it's nothing compared to the time you're spending reading, and it'll make a big difference in how well you remember your takeaways from it.

fuck_ai

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I'm sure this has been posted here before, but it's too good not to repost.

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We all use technology everyday to make our lives easier, but does it?

🙄 Yes. If you disagree with something this obvious, please write me a lengthy letter explaining why and send it by horse & buggy mail carrier. I promise, I'll read and respond just as soon as I'm able.

Do you want people writing books and creating art that have no business writing books or creating art?

🤮🤮🤮 Maybe we should require an intelligence test before allowing people to post their opinions on the internet too? Or have children?

If you actually think that disallowing some people to create art because they aren't "good enough," then you aren't really defending art or artists at all.