Its only a matter of time before tech will be able to generate controlled/scripted moving images of full synthetic humans. No actors needed. Will it be shit and devoid of any emotion? Absolutely. Will the mass devour it like crazy because it is heavily marketed and promoted on social media and other channels as the next new big thing? Absolutely. They will love the 200th Marvel CU generated crapfest and with not a single frame recorded on physical media. Because they NEED to see deadpool giving a HJ to magneto while making an edgy remark about godzilla's sausage apparatus. And will it generate millions of revenue for the studio while also saving millions in actor fees, fx and other trades? You got it. The director is now a member of the board of directors.

Huh. Aspartame. I never thought of AI as aspartame but that is a really good comparison. They're not the real deal, you can taste the difference although most people wouldn't care, it's cheaper, and it is detrimental to the consumer (the effect of AI being the death of real creativity and wonder about what the human mind can come up with).

Dont blame developers. It's never developers that make decisions. It's the management, the shareholders, the project manager, the product owner, the whatever-mba-dipshit on top. But never the developers. They just execute and comply and if they refuse, they're let go. A developer is a fleshy code printer. A resource. They don't have real power. They're a factory worker. Remember that. Don't blame the worker, blame the boss.

Source: i'm a professional software developer.

I know Black Lotus is one of the most (the most) valuable MTG card, but why is that so?

It's a nice card, but not all that extremely powerful or special, is it? Was it just super rare? It's from one of the first series, I believe?

At this point, as a non american, i just cannot comprehend at all why people would doubt on who to vote. Trump fanatics have made up their mind and will never vote Harris, I get that. If you dont like trump, there's only one other option and that's Harris, right?

But is there really a big group of people that actually STILL need to compare candidates and think "not so fast, that trump guy may have a point". What makes them think he is a sane choice? Are these people that voted biden, are disappointed in his presidency and now think "it was better under trump"?

It's not like European countries where you need to choose between like 10 different parties. If you dont like trump, you vote harris; simple as that, right? (Obviously not, so I really want to understand the dynamic in play here)

Ask someone in the north of finland how hot is "very hot", and how cold is very cold. Then ask the same in middle Africa. Spoiler: it will vary alot.

Thanks! I didn't know that!

What's up with that wonky form? Is Phobos not a sphere? Has it let itself go since his wife left? Is it a "special" moon?

Shit like this doesn't deserve to remain anonymous. Just name the company.

Ask any professional senior software developer if they ever maintained an existing or new codebase and made the mistake of thinking "oh easy! it's just a matter of doing this or that and changing a couple of small things. Won't take longer than . " Then ask them how long it really took.

Post results here for our amusement :)

Absolutely my experience too. Every once in a while I give Linux a chance on my personal desktop, only to find it working great.. until it doesn't for whatever reason and I'm left losing minutes to hours figuring out what and how it broke, browsing forums etc etc; usually to great frustration.

I simply cannot afford that kind of nonsense for my work devices. I regularly do and have used macOS for work for the best part of the last two decades and have never, not once, found the system broken or in a state that I needed to fix things after updates. That OS just works. Always. Of course you'll find weird stuff happening in the Apple user forums as well, but in my personal experience Mac OS is rock solid out of the box whereas Linux can be rock solid if you want to invest a lot of time in it. And for work, I cannot.

Hey that's interesting! I have a degree in computer science and work as a software developer but also a masters in visual arts (photography). I never managed to break free from my developer gig, because of the financial stability it provides, but I already burned out, recovered and feel it's an endless cycle. Like you, doing art made me so happy and it bothers me every day I can't seem to get my life turned around in that direction.

Do you have any tips in that regard? How did you get started? Did you transition softly or just quit your job there and then? And what then? Did you have network? Can you live off your art?

I have so many questions, please point this fellow STEM in the right direction to break free :)