But what are they filtering for?

That wrist angle looks uncomfortable as all hell.

So you are at about an A1 and want to get up to around a B1? I don’t like saying impossible but a month is not long at all. If you can already read it you might do better, just focus on the reading and writing skills, get some sample papers if you can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages?wprov=sfla1

You are probably going to want a tutor that offers an intensive class, that can be done in a month, but you are still going to be looking at 50+ hours.

Do you know what level the exam is expecting?

Good on you for checking in with all those people, it must have taken a while.

Lifting the whole world off of fossil fuels is going to be hard, especially if we want to do it quickly. This isn’t however a problem the capitalist and nation-state models are well equipped to solve. It should not be a question of can a given people afford the technology or if someone can turn a profit on it.

We need to do this as a species, for the species. It should be given not as charity, not because wealthy countries owe it to poor ones, but because it is right that everyone should benefit from this.

The difficulty is how to convince the politicians and their masters of this, and I don’t think throwing paint on things is going to be sufficient.

Generally I find the wait times aren’t really longer. The perceived time maybe, as I can ring ahead and then go pick it up, but for me it’s just the usual calculus of what could I alternatively spend the time doing and is it worth the added cost. It’s the same as do I call a tradesperson or fix something myself. Replace a washer on a tap? Sure I will do that. Install a new toilet? Nah, get a plumber.

If money is tight and I’ve got the time then I’m going to cook myself. If both are tight then there’s always ramen.

So it looks like it’s already been formatted to allow you to just get the whole thing in one go (the megamanga). It would be just a case of making sure everything is saved in some meaningful order. Are the alternate universe things ever more than one link deep or are they more of a bonus panel?

It’s a bit left-field for this community but you might actually get some reasonable milage out of contacting the artist and asking for their help in archiving it. This isn’t corporate art-product as far as I can tell so something might be arranged that is more efficient than just sending a scraper out to lift it.

A plastic ice scraper will help get the bulk off, then you can get a variety of solvents for removing any residue. If it is metal then it should be fine with most solvents but check the instructions and do a test patch somewhere discreet to be sure.

The specifics can be argued, (and have been, and will be). The Buddha said that evil action is rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion. He said he understood this when he saw the true nature of reality.

Kant said “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” And says this is evident if you reason through things.

Moses had a great big list of rules that he said the creator of the universe told to him.

Governments establish laws based on the interests of those in power, they say to obey the law is right and to disobey is wrong and they will use violence to punish those that disobey.

These are just some examples, there are loads more including utilitarianism, virtue ethics, various other religions and customary systems.

Are there any banks that don’t support the fossil fuel industry?

If it’s sending information to Microsoft then it has clearly been hacked. Likely by Microsoft. It was very nice of that young man to break protocol and blow the whistle on this whole thing. You should send him an itunes gift card as a thank you.

I think I the difference is that I find ‘human’ to be too narrow a term, I want to extend basic rights to all things that can experience suffering. I worry that such an experience is part and parcel with general intelligence and that we will end up hurting something that can feel because we consider it a tool rather than a being. Furthermore I think the onus must be on the creators to show that their AGI is actually a p-zombie. I appreciate that this might be an impossible standard, after all, you can only really take it on faith that I am not one myself, but I think I’d rather see a p-zombie go free than accidently cause undue suffering to something that can feel it.

Hypotheticals are pretty important right now I think. This kind of tech is very rapidly going from science fiction to real and I think we should try and stay ahead of it conceptually.

I’m not sure that AGI is necessary to achieve post-labour, a suite of narrow-ai empowered tools would be preferable.

By way of analogy, you could take a human child and fit them with electrodes to trigger certain pleasure responses and connect that to a machine that sends the reward signal when they perfectly pick an Amazon order. I think we would both find this pretty horrific. The question is, is it only wrong because the child is human? And if so, what is special about humans?

I think it is short sighted not to at least investigate if we should.

If an AGI is operating on a human level, and we have reason to believe it is a sentient entity which experiences reality then we should. I also think it is in our interest to treat them well, and I worry that we are going to create a sentient lifeform and do a lot of evil to it before we realise that we have.

As others have mentioned, we are already kind of there. I can fully understand how someone could fall in love with such an entity, plenty of people have fallen in love with people in chat rooms after all, and not all of those people have been real.

As for how I feel about it, it is going to depend on the nature of the AI. A childish AI or an especially subservient one is going to be creepy. One that can present as an adult of sufficient intelligence, less of a problem. Probably the equivalent of paid for dates? Not ideal but I can understand why someone might choose to do it. Therapy would likely be a better use of their time and money.

If we get actual human scale AGI then I think the point is moot, unless the AI is somehow compelled to face the relationship. At that point however we are talking about things like slavery.

People have gone over the ptw mechanics for Diablo in some depth. It’s not exactly a kids game, but it has all the things. Kids are kind of a bad choice for the real predatory stuff, you might get them to give you a couple of grand once, but if you can hook an adult you get to hit them every month.

If it must be kid focused, have a look at those cutesy merge games. Or just hit a popular game and look at the ads it’s running.

Thing is, most of these games are kind of bad unless those little pleasure hits really work for you, so you might not find them ‘fun’. These aren’t supposed to work on everyone, rather they are designed to really work on a minority of people.

Pretty much. I have seen a few services pop up recently that will do this for you, but that costs money, and is of course including a third party. This is why prevention is largely better than cure.

Depending on where you live (and therefore what legal protections you have) you can demand your details. In the UK this is the right of access and is exerted by making a subject access request (SAR).

Nah, worst is palindrome interpolated ymdyydmy

You can achieve the appearance of motion at lower frame rates, but when things are moving quickly the distance they move between frames can get quite high. You can cover this up with motion blur effects but it’s just not quite the same, and not so easy a process as when you are capturing real video.

Think of the difference between when a camera does a fast pan and when you turn your head quickly. I think if you really focus in on what you are seeing you will be able to notice some difference.

There is also a bit of that audiophile effect where lo-fi is good enough until you have got used to something better.