@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Quite a few people do. It’s not even that hard, as you can fill them retroactively - there’s even tutorials, like this one: https://dev.to/codesandtags/how-to-generate-pixel-art-in-your-github-activity-2e6k

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci I’ve looked into it myself and funnily enough, the best take might have been some random comment, saying it’s only popular, because it’s invite only and people are having trouble getting in.

Further, as there are not many actual users, people seem to be projecting all of their hopes and dreams onto it, while waiting in the endless joining line, or falling for “pay for invite” scams. Yes, those somehow exist and cost anywhere from 20 to 100$ - no refunds.

Sure, it’s still not exactly ethical and probably not even legal, in some cases, but at the end of the day, it’s at the very least something.

Something, that makes me think, that there could have been a scenario, where it was a voluntary community project, developers would gladly contribute some of their code and advise to - like some of them are already doing elsewhere.
Even with “art generation”, if credit was properly given and the thing showed all the artists, the final peace was inspired by and where to find and support them, it might have had a way warmer welcome.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Hard to say when exactly the downfall started, but there were many strange moments, in the last few years. There was the new ownership, some developers jumping ship and starting Vivaldi Browser, the whole company getting caught, for offering predatory loans, to Android users in poorer countries, in 2020 (https://www.engadget.com/2020-01-19-opera-accused-of-predatory-loan-apps.html),...

But at last, they found some success, with their gimmicky Opera GX “gaming browser”, they still pay youtubers to promote and I guess the promoted content within.

They also came up with a free VPN integration, that they later monetized and started taking pretty much every partner, willing to pay them, to get integrated into their main browser - an offer most appealing to small crypto/web 3.0 projects, trying to appear more promising, by having a browser company on board.

Quite predictably, the introduction of Chat GPT, has led to even more browser bloat. 🎉

Also since I’m already bringing up opera - I have genuinely no idea, what their dev team is smoking, as all their additions this year, have been this desperate:

From some cashback scam and TikTok integration…

…all the way to some “lonely men bait” and adding NFTs - a full year, after everyone stopped caring.

@marado@tilde.pt That’s all true, but to play the devils advocate for a moment, how many people here, ever even heard about JPEG-XL until now, or used it in any way?

My twtxt fork will only include nicknames, profile pictures, a thing that livestreams you whenever you open it and the upvote and downvote buttons - under every stream.

I’ll call it “Yarn.Anti-social” or “Blog TV”, since we all remember, how great this idea, worked the first time around. 😅

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci I think it recording the outside of the car, was known for a long time. Likely since they came up with that not so great self-driving project, that led to the need for a lot more data to improve it.

Sadly, people in tech, talking shit about their customers, doesn’t surprise me either. Not saying it’s excusable, I’ve just seen it happen, at many places, in the past.

The one thing, that surprises me, is it recording the inside. Even I, with all me skepticism, would still expect some bare minimum of privacy, when it comes to the things I’m doing and conversations I’m having, inside my own car.

Can we get a folder, for all the new android Yarn App builds, or something like that, so most users don’t have to be stuck, on this ancient version please?

I still have great memories, of playing Club Penguin as a child, or even playing it on a few private servers, at times, as a nostalgia-filled adult, after Disney destroyed and took down the original. Sadly most of those servers were either too obscure, broken, or not obscure enough, to avoid Disneys lawyers.

I was mildly excited, when I heard about a 3D sequel, made by some of the people, behind the original game (before Disney bought it), but this is suspicious at best.

Even if you made the funny penguin game from my childhood, I will not give you my social security number, nor my credit card info, to play the new one and I hope not many others will either.

*The sequel is called “Party Parrot World” and requires a “verified Hideaway account”, if you want to play it, or try some other two game things, that they are currently working on.

I said, I don’t want to hear any more Trump news, but seeing he’s still seething in all caps and some invalid characters, on his isolated bootleg site, made me chuckle.

The only way, this could get more pathetic, is if he starts spamming 5 emojis, after every word. 😂

To my surprise, some AI companies, might have to face the consequences of their art theft afterall. While the legal and corporate world, still couldn’t give less of a shit about the small artists, stability ai made the critical mistake, of using the ever so precious bland and generic stock images. Those are owned by companies, who for obvious reasons, hate AI, have extremely deep pockets and access to the right kind of lawyers.

They also have one other key advantage, that could win them the case. By slapping their watermark on millions of images, in the exact same place, the AI will start putting distorted versions of it, onto some images. Therefore, they can argue damage to their reputation, with evidence, to back it up.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66788385/getty-images-us-inc-v-stability-ai-inc/

@prologic@twtxt.net Thank you, this is it’s april fools version - still it’s really nice to hear this, since the regular version, is now somewhat in danger, thanks to the unwillingness of Czech ISPs, to provide IPv6 addresses, to their clients.

If you mean the illustration here, I have to disappoint you and admit, that the bottle was generated by AI, before being edited by me.

I have some exciting news to share! Celebrate the 3000 days of Canine anniversary, with this limited time offer. The ore-orders will launch soon, so get your wallets ready everyone!

While waiting, you can also check the post-modern redesign of the Flist site, currently being tested on: https://flist.glitch.me

@prologic@twtxt.net Thank you. It’s the not so great game, the last pixelart was also referencing.

Another month, another pixelart! This time it’s actually not a canine, but a strange scenery, made using the PICO 8 color palette.

The only thing shared between this and the last art, is both being “slightly YIIK inspired”.

Microsoft really couldn’t stand their browser, for the first time ever, being ever so slightly better than Chrome, so they’re already working hard, to find new ways to ruin it.

@off_grid_living@twtxt.net Your reflective glass door, has turned your dog into a yoteyote.

This illustrations is by TheRoguez

My hot take, adding to the banks vs crypto debate, happening here:

While banks in most countries, can be trusted, what I find more alarming, is there being only two companies (MaserCard a Visa), who handle international money transfers - both having ToS, that allow them to blacklist you, without even giving you the reason, why that decision was made. They are also both ran out of the same country.

I’m not saying crypto is the solution, competition is! Anything even close to a monopoly, in any field, should make people worried. There should also be no second chances, for the companies, institutions, or governments, cough mishandling peoples money.

PayPal withheld funds for unreasonably long and charged illegal and unjustifiable random fines, that earned them a class action lawsuit. No-one should do business, with a company this scummy and I immediately demanded, that they delete my account, when I found out this was happening.

Lastly, say what you will, about the protests of Canadian truckers. I don’t fully endorse, what they did (both sides made mistakes, in this conflict), but if my government withheld money, from anyone, over protests, I’d definitely not feel safe, knowing people like that, can touch all my money.

Just days after @prologic@twtxt.net integrates ActivityPub into Yarn, Facebook comes out with plans to do the same (at least according to Twitter jurnos): https://www.platformer.news/p/meta-is-building-a-decentralized

There’s no escape Prologic, Facebook will find you in the end…
Don’t be sad, I know you will
But don’t give up until
Facebook will find you in the end

*Help, I can’t stop with the stupid lyrics gimmick, while posting here. 😅

@bender@twtxt.net Yeah, I fully understand Mastercards and Visas decision on this. I’m just saying, that the people invested in crypto, who want it to become mainstream, shouldn’t forget, that the main reason it got popular, was people wanting a financial system, that governments and big companies wouldn’t be able to monitor, rule over, manipulate or ban anyone from. So why do some of them cry, over these big companies like Visa or Mastercard, not wanting to be involved now?

There were even those, who tried pushing crypto, as one of the main currencies in their countries - and that just ain’t it either. Just look at what happen to El Salvador, after they tried doing this, with Bitcoin.

These things might sound nice on paper, to cryptobros and holders, but I think they go against, what crypto was meant to be.

@prologic@twtxt.net The people who wanted to rely on Visa, Mastercard or any other giant company with already too much control over peoples finances and ability to do business, completely missed the whole point of crypto, to begin with.

Or at least the point, that sadly became secondary, to “extracting money from gullible idiots, to overall benefit the already wealthy”.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I kinda like the glass look it adds to the site. I also still have no idea, how CPU demanding such a thing is, so now you’re making me wonder, if it’s worth it. 🤔

@prologic@twtxt.net Thank you. The reference is really obscure, to the point that no-one, in any of the places I posted it to, guessed it. Excluding the place, where I found about the thing from myself - but one can hardly count that as a guess. 😂

So I guess, I might as well say it. It’s Alex Eagleston, one of the most unlikable video-game protagonists, from the game “YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG”. A game, that most would agree, isn’t very good either.

Good news, for those who miss the cursed canine sticker collection - here’s a bonus one. As always, there’s a reference there, to be guessed. :)

@prologic@twtxt.net New app? What? Where? When??!

Give me!!!

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah, this is probably the best option, especially if the e-mail isn’t kept anywhere, after the verification.

@prologic@twtxt.net I’m pretty sure it’s still possible to mass-register accounts, through some tempmail services. - It just makes doing so harder.

In this case, despite hating captchas, they still seem like a best solution to this. Especially if there’s still ones, that’d work, while being well made, not too annoying and made with accessibility in mind. 🤔

The social media of old, are so desperate for money, they’re now copying Twitters widely mocked decision, to charge monthly, for a verification badge.
https://youtu.be/6t3eiNHL2Zo

In the days of old, jannies were widely mocked for moderating (often very profitable) sites, for free, just to feel some kind of power.

Now even more pathetic creatures emerge, willing to cough up a monthly payment, as well as a copy of their government ID, for this feeling.

@prologic@twtxt.net I got an ad, for this strange site, that claims to be the only way, to invest in parts of some famous paintings.

I decided, to check it out, because it presents more questions, than it does answers, like if and how do they even own them. It’s also been advertised for quite some time, yet it tries to look, like some hot new thing, you have to be invited to join.

Can’t really say, how much of a scam it is, but the fact some of the paintings listed have their image links broken now, doesn’t add much credibility - not like the site itself had any, to begin with.

I’m not an art investor myself, know a fair bit about it, but had no idea missing JPEGs, is where the money at.

@off_grid_living@twtxt.net Opera is on almost everything, I’m using it on Windows. There are probably way better options on Linux, Mac, phones and the rest of things.

Hmm… my background, now I’m obligated to make that joke - hope it’s not too far. Oh no, here comes the Big Bang Theory music.

♫ Our whole universe was just some shitty meme groups on Facebook, Then nearly ten whole years ago, expansion started, when Z** ***n slept with 5 game jurnos… Wait.
Discord, “chat for games” started,
A tone of stupid drama happened,
Then a server called Wolf Den was formed,
Went from a chipmunk, to wolf, to canine,
Drama and constant infighting, let to changes in many things,
But it all started with Gamergate! ♫

*Censored the name, not to spread stupid rumors, nor did I have anything to do with the mentioned movement, other than it changing a lot of things on the internet - most of them for worse, just by it happening simultaneously.

@bender@twtxt.net @abucci@anthony.buc.ci I’m not trying to be hostile, or spread misinformation. I was there, on the Fediverse, back when it happened. If anyone wants more information about this part of Fediverse history, they can watch this short video about it: https://youtu.be/yZoASOyfvGQ

Even this video is in favor of this kind of instance-based moderation and so am I - to some, but much lesser extent. There are instances, that unfortunately became the home of mostly pedophiles or animal abusers and I’m sure no-one else, wants to see that, unless “that” means seeing these kinds of people in jail.

What I have a problem with, is circulating blocklists, including many instances, because of some political ideology or offensive/dark sense of humor - or worst case scenario, the actions of only few of its members.

An ideal implementation of the Fediverse, would in my opinion, warn users, when they’re about to interact with one of these instances, but still give them the options, to accept the risks and go forward with it.

I think this decision being left purely to instance administrators, can in some cases further the divide, between groups and opinions and lead to more extreme versions of those opinions eventually.

We can argue about the other topics too, but that’s probably less important, as I’ll always be of the opinion, that when it comes to humor, anything (me included) can be a target - to the point where I even think it’s ok, to make fun of tragedies, as soon as they happened, even if I usually don’t do that myself.

The sanitization only applies to some sites, like YouTube - removing the dislike button and making their rules way stricter, when it comes to some topics. There are other examples, but I don’t want to make this textwall infinite, so I’ll let go of this, for now.

Lastly and probably most importantly, it was pretty stupid of me, to add these other frustrations of mine, onto this thread about transphobia. Even if we disagree about what is, or isn’t too far, when it comes to humor, I’m obviously in favor, of keeping this place free of any kind of discrimination.

It’s absolutely laughable, how some people see Russia as a free-speech utopia. I’m sure those thrown in jail, for as little as suggesting, that what Russia is doing to Ukraine, might be a war, are really glad, to live in such a free country.

Even when it comes to hosting, you get more restrictions, than you do in the US (or the before mentioned Ukraine), unless your controversial thing, is either convenient for their government, or you’re willing to play ball.

@off_grid_living@twtxt.net I use Opera. It comes with some basic ad blocker, built in. It’s far from a good browser, it’s just what I’ve always used and I’m too lazy to switch.

It’s probably the same with most browsers on Windows, unless you harden them through settings and extensions.

The Nostr protocol really is a cryptobros wet dream. On Amethyst (the Android client), every account automatically gets a pointless blue checkmark - before it even has a name. You get the promise of free speech, in the marketing, but in reality, that predictably translates to bots, spamming vague porn ads and other suspicious links, new users begging for followers for a follow in return and most prominent of all, the people utilizing the great feature, to beg for cryptocoin change, without doing anything else and not getting any.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci @movq@www.uninformativ.de I for ones was just silently confused, I’m not in the IRC, so whatever it was - therefore I didn’t see it. I also think it’s important to add, that no group, event or action, should be considered “protected from humor”.

It’s a feeling, hard to describe, but the Internet went for mostly toxic, with only a few sanitized places, to now almost fully sanitized. It ruined the fun.

The Fediverse fractured, mostly because some percentage of users, had to find a way to silence those offensive to them, for the entirety of their instance. I really don’t want this place, taking the same path.

@prologic@twtxt.net 24HourOps - obviously 😏

https://youtu.be/vxgdHgMPP3k

@off_grid_living@twtxt.net By more extreme measures, I meant the things, that Tor browser does. For all that is holy, or unholy, please don’t ever return to Internet Explorer - it has destroyed the sanity of enough web developers as is, we can’t risk it’s user numbers ever increasing - never!

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Even back when I still somewhat cared about the site, the API was lacking (and that’s putting it extremely nicely). In addition to lacking the support for many, if not all, new features, the alternative clients, relying on this not so great API, also had a very strict, hard limit of accounts, allowed to use them. That’s why these clients usually didn’t last long, or had a million different versions and charged their users to make those few user slots last.

Some might have had a better contract (don’t know if that was just a rumor, or not), but now with Elon taking over, none of it matters - they’ll all go away now. Sure, it might force people to use the ugly default app and see the ads, that it is full of, but I hope the users aren’t this brain-dead and that it’ll have a negative effect on the company, in the long-run.

Surely, there must have been a better solution, than shutting it all down. If the API was updated and ads included, in the alternative clients, or it had some other from of monetization, Elon could have removed the hard user limits instead and be seen as the good guy, like he was often in the past.

@prologic@twtxt.net “outsourcing” and “restructuring” are the hot new corpo buzzwords these days. The shirt economy and endless inflation we find ourselves in, probably isn’t helping it either.

@off_grid_living@twtxt.net There is a difference, between scraped data, used for AI training and the advertising companies, who track your behavior online, across sites, to better target you, with more relevant advertisements. These tools also give companies that use this technology, statistics about how people use their sites, so they can deduce, what needs to be changed, to increase their profits - but no AI is involved in any of that yet.

There might not be much one can do, to prevent what they publish online, from being scraped, to make some AI, but you can fight against targeted advertising and corporate analytic, by hardening your browser.
I think it’s best to combine things like: Using adblockers, scriptblockers/filters, incognito modes, settings that delete everything, when the browser is closed, not allowing unnecessary cookies, logging out of services, right after you’re done using them (unless you are sure, they don’t track you).

There are more extreme measures too, but those are a bit of an overkill, for normal web browsing, in my opinion.

@prologic@twtxt.net Google scanned all kind of books, to improve their search results - letting people find books and studies, based on any of the text in them, while not having the content of the books freely available, for obvious legal reasons.

Despite only doing that, it still resulted in a big lawsuit, that dragged on forever, then settled, only to be brought back to court again. Eventually Google won, more or less because their service did more good, than harm, for both book sales and people looking for books to do book things with.

This case was also recently brought up by many, when some artists filed a class-action lawsuit against Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, for their AI, trained, using copyrighted images.

This is just a “brief” and maybe not entirely accurate summary, mostly based on this stream, by Uncivil Law, who is a real lawyer and surely more qualified to talk about this, than I am: https://www.youtube.com/live/CwTWwvLRdeo

@akoizumi@social.kyoko-project.wer.ee So you’re now in favor of it?

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I guess unusual garbage in places, where one wouldn’t expect it, is a problem everywhere. Still find it hard to understand, as even if you don’t care about nature and animals living there, in any way, it still takes a lot of effort, to bring the furniture, car parts and heaps of other junk there.

I also doubt the average perso doing this, is carrying washing machines into forests by hand and when you’re already driving around with it, it’s probably simpler, to just dispose of it legally. In many cases it might also be closer, or get you a bit of money, for the scrap metal.

@off_grid_living@twtxt.net No problem. The dataset the site searches, is only comprised of images, with very detailed text descriptions attached to them, as that’s something all images used for AI training need. Therefore I think this site works more based on those descriptions, than it does recognizing the text on the images themselves. 🤔

@off_grid_living@twtxt.net There is not much one can do, other than avoid putting any of it on places, that get scraped frequently or engage in data harvesting, for some other purposes.

You can also check the site https://haveibeentrained.com . There you can see, if any of your images are already in the scraped datasets, used to train AI. If they are, you can request them, to be removed.

@jlj@twt.nfld.uk Just wait until you make it into one of those cursed forest-ish areas, that’s where the old furniture, electronics and car parts begin.

Or maybe that only happens here. 🤔

@prologic@twtxt.net I don’t think banning it, is the right solution, as it can be quite helpful, when used the right way. I just think the works produced, should never be able to get copyrighted or monetized in similar ways. The double standard between music and images should also be addressed and either every artist gets fair compensation, or none of them do.

Sites should also decide, if they want to be an image board, or a portfolio site for artists and approach the situation accordingly, rather than trying to play both sides and failing.

Lastly, the situation should be used, to bring awareness to user agreements and the things companies put in there. Many of them already include, giving the company the right to use your work (be it code or art) to train some proprietary AI (GitHub, everything Adobe, DeviantArt…).
This is where it comes full circle, back to the subscription based apps. They change their agreements all the time and always add these things, that let them monetize your data, so they get you to be the product, like the “free” ones, but they get to charge you for it too.