Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 1h

Just like numerous examples with guns, you can turn the tools against the oppressor, but what you can't do is put the genie back into the bottle. You figure out how to turn it to your own ends or someone else will.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 1h

Once guns were invented, you lived in a gun world. Doesn't mean guns are good or bad but SOMEBODY was gonna use them and you did, in fact, have to adapt to the fact that you lived in a world with guns. And, you know, we know something about those dynamics from history.

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 2h

This also indicates the essential dishonesty of saying “it’s just a tool.” A hammer is a tool. Nobody writes about the “inevitability” of hammers. Nobody has ever studied the harmful effects of hammers on learning and concluded that teachers must all hit their students with hammers “responsibly.”

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 4h

"She had a garden hose but she did not drink from it and did not allow her kids to drink from it and this was the difference, less in lost things than in knowledge become suspicious and alert." - Don DeLillo, Underworld

Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 18h

There are meaningful discussions to be had about what kind of thing Gen AI is good for in games (textures on background objects 50 pixels wide) and what it should never be used for (narrative and character design). But it can't start with the premise that it's all evil.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 18h

Honestly using Gen AI for backgrounds and textures seems like an obvious method for smaller teams to make bigger and better worlds. Making this some kind of litmus test is asking for 3D games to be more expensive to make, which in turn means more centralization at the likes of EA.

Gene Park @gene.meme · 18h

A programmer for Expedition 33 did indeed use generative AI art early as placeholder textures that they missed removing at launch.

This isn’t in my piece, as it wasn’t a good fit and isn’t new information. but it’s worth clarifying

www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

‘Expedition 33’ will get a free update as French studio takes victory lap

After selling 5 million copies, breakout hit “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” is getting new content and a music tour, its small team of developers says.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 18h

Yeah, this was great.

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 19h

If you are looking for an unusual, tense, and oddly beautiful horror movie this Halloween, I highly recommend A Dark Song, should it have escaped your notice before.

Woman facing a doorway with arcane symbols with title A Dark Song and accolades including Outstanding abd An Utterly Unique Film.

Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 19h

Not the main thing but holy shit that White House website is obnoxious. There are bad parodies of Geocities that have more taste and subtlety.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 1d

Seemed likely these parts of the country would hollow out to be replaced by robot-operated farms owned by 2-3 global Ag "Majors" eventually anyway, but there was hope for alternative models, and it would take time to wreck it all. The Trump era turned all the knobs to maximum.

Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 1d

The big new potential sources of income for farmers are renewable energy and various manufacturing projects that depend on immigration and overseas investment. Y'all know about the tariff impact ; and the logic of Capital + Technology was already brutal for "family farms".

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 1d

I'm convinced one of the historical verdicts on the Trump era will be the permanent decline of rural America as we know it. You've got the US Taliban crushing women's health across rural america and MAGA budgets wrecking the clinics and hospitals, and those clinics won't come back once they're gone.

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Reposted by Attract Mode

Xun-ling Au 歐迅灵 🏴 @xunlingau.bsky.social · 2d

Seriously fuck the Myanmar Junta, attacking a vigil during a festival (and not for the 1st time) in Bon To Village, killing 32 & injuring 50.

The Junta needs to be removed root & branch from Myanmar & the people's of Myanmar desperately need help as the attacks escalate & even more get displaced.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 2d

My best advice for those Mad Online is to get yourself a good DRPG (or even a Persona/SMT), put something like this on, and thank me later.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Af...

slowerpace 音楽 – GUILT 罪悪感

YouTube video by slowerpace 音楽

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Attract Mode

Jacob Oller @jacoboller.bsky.social · 3d

the words every girl wants to hear

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 2d

Played Crow Country(2024) as a kind of Halloween appetizer and enjoyed it - it does manage a lovely echo of the classic survival horror subgenre, gets a creepy vibe across despite the lo-fi aesthetic, and the gameplay was just challenging enough - much like Alan Wake 2 in that sense.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 2d

Sometimes, when Bluesky is forcing you to go touch grass they are doing you a favor ...

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 5d

Yes - it's very clear there's some frustration that more folks aren't doing their own infra using the protocol and are instead expecting bluesky to do all the x/Twitter stuff for them.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 5d

One of my idle thoughts is that we're halfway to the future where some enormous percentage of internet traffic is routinely routed through VPNs to avoid geoblocks, with a tiny subset of jurisdictions bearing all that traffic. Need more philanthropic focus on network privacy and geoblocking.

Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 5d

I thought the whole "signing up for demonstrations" discourse was wildly overwrought, but if anyone thinks the revolution is gonna run through the fucking Google App store, we're probably doomed.

Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 5d

There's this cool technology called a "web page" that can perform all the functions of an "app", and does not force all of its users through the funnel of corporate decision-making. You can even access them through privacy-enhancing network technologies!

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 5d

New from 404 Media: Google removed an ICE-spotting app too. Called Red Dot, an immigration support group on the ground in Chicago told me it was using it. Google now removed, just like Apple did with ICEBlock after DOJ pressure. Google calls ICE vulnerable group
www.404media.co/google-calls...

Google Calls ICE Agents a Vulnerable Group, Removes ICE-Spotting App ‘Red Dot’

The move comes as Apple removed ICEBlock after direct pressure from U.S. Department of Justice officials and signals a broader crackdown on ICE-spotting apps.

www.404media.co

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 5d

That's the most obvious evidence of insecurity I've seen since "rolling coal".

Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 5d

Alan Wake 2 is a brilliant work that feels like a sequel to both Control and AW1, in spirit and story. It really uses the medium that it's in for narrative and emotional effect, something that is surprisingly rare in games - and Remedy have clearly learned and improved at overall game design.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 5d

Gonna start measuring my tenure on this site by "number of silly anti-bsky-mod flamewars". I think I'm a relative newcomer with only 3-4 that I can clearly delineate.

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 6d

Betcha it's an internalized "debate culture" meme convincing her it's cowardly to turn off replies. I think they mostly get the technical decisions right, but sometimes you are doing official communication and replies are counterproductive!

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Attract Mode @theetceteras.bsky.social · 6d

If we were just talking about the legislature I would agree with you, but at this point there won't even be votes on anything that Trump isn't involved in at least enough to say he approves. Very hard to see the House rejecting a deal Trump agrees to.

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Reposted by Attract Mode

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 6d

PSA:

You can always enjoy Assad's suffering
it's always morally correct
STRYCHNINE
POISON

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