Would you trust HP to make any kind of consumer hardware which is supposed to run networked and has their own OS variant?

One would expect it would at the very least come pre-enshittified, possibly with some sort of subscription service to enable certain hardware features.

This ain’t the pre-Carly Fiorina HP.

I use MullvadVPN and I almost always encounter this issue.

It probably depends on which server(s) you’re using.

Good luck getting the Trumpettes to understand that…

It’s a tax increase which can be (and is being) mis-portrayed as something that the seller pays, when in fact it’s the buyer that pays it.

In practice what Trump did was institute the equivalent of an additional 25% sales tax for all Americans when they buy goods manufactured in Canada or Mexico, but because this tax is usually payed by companies (which do most of the importing) and most people aren’t at all familiar with how Import/Export works, he seems to be getting away with portraying it as a tax on Canada and Mexico.

(The concern of those countries is not that they pay more - which they don’t - it’s that a selective “sales tax” that only applies to products they export to the US makes their products less competitive on price when sold in the US, hence they will sell less which is bad for their companies)

I’ve seen some theories around that the purpose of this significant increase in tax is to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy that the Republicans are passing.

I’ve seen a similar thing happen overtime for Aliexpress shipping to Europe - it used to take 2 months to were I am (Portugal), now it takes a bit over a week.

I think they set-up some kind of consolidated shipping operation so that the sellers on their site can ship things via Aliexpress’ own system, which is way faster (and invariably involves air-shipping via The Netherlands) and often is listed as Free Shipping.

I’ve bought once or twice from sellers there that don’t use it and those packages still take 2 months to get here.

I mention this because it makes sense that Aliexpress has set up a similar system for the US given that it’s a market which is almost as big as the EU.

This is probably why the EU itself recently changed the rules and VAT (the EU’s version of Sales Tax) is payable on all purchases from outside the EU, no matter how small the value, but import tax remains only payable on purchases above €150.

They also set up a system so that non-EU retail sellers can collect VAT directly on payment - just like EU ones do - so for example a buyer from the EU buying stuff via AliExpress will have the VAT added to the price during checkout.

The 180€ Mini PC I have as torrenting server, NAS and TV Box (and it’s overkill for just that) says otherwise.

$300 will buy you a lot of Desktop PC nowadays if all you want is to browse the web and read emails (in fact that approx. $200 mini-PC of mine is more than enough if you’re running Linux on it as I do and if you add a simple monitor, keyboard and mouse you’re about $40 shy of $300).

A $300 PC is only shit if you’re trying to run things like AAA games on it or use Windows 11.

There used to be a point back in the day when you did need a good PC for things like document edition or watching videos, but now we’re well past the point where you needed anything more than the most basic PC for everyday stuff.

As a side note, if you use Lutris it has install scripts for pretty much all GoG games, which will take care of adding the necessary libraries via winetricks and you can use them for game installation even when not using Lutris’ support for direct dowload from GoG and instead installing from a local copy of the GoG offline installer for that game.

Those specific propaganda elements are widespread in the West and widelly repeated in the mass media even outside the US, so it’s useful to deconstruct all that for others when I am in a position to do so since that deconstruction of it will also alter their perception of other instances they saw which at the time they did not really spotted for what it really is.

Hopefully the pointing out the mechanisms used here to construct a highly biased image will even make the readers of the deconstructions of it such as mine be more resilient to other instances of the same techniques being used.

Further, how can we be sure that this poster is a propagandist sock-puppet and not just a normal person who got deceived by the modern (that relies on framing, qualifying and implying) style of propaganda and hence repeated it?

I think that all in all, it’s better to have these things and then just deconstructing them for all to see, than silencing them. Also on principle I’m very wary of Censorship.

I went to all the trouble of pointing out the obvious hypocrisy and propaganda not for “these people” but for everybody else.

That shit starts by straight out quoting Zionist propaganda.

First the double standard:

Either they’re both Terrorist organisations for “attacking and murdering civilians” or one is a Resistance Movement and the other a Nation State. Claiming that the murdering of civilians to terrify the rest into complying with one’s political and economical goals is only Terrorism if some do it but not if others do it is absolutely taking a side and doing it quite extremely since “Terrorist” is a heavily loaded word.

Second:

The ever repeated Zionist propaganda that being against Israel is being against Jews hence it’s antisemitism. Is Hamas anti-semite (I.e. against Jews for being Jews) or is it against an occupier oppressor nation that takes their land and murders their children and is controlled by a subset of Jews? So far all indications are that it’s mainly the latter.

Also the double standard raises its face once again here as the Israelis aren’t being said to be anti-Islamic, which is funny give that even the Israeli press is extremely racist nowadays - curious that the alleged Racism of one side just had to be mentioned but not of the other side.

Third point:

That Israel responded as if there had been nothing else before. This is pure Zionist framing of this stage of a long ongoing conflict between a colonialist occupier and the native resistance. Israel started this shit, way back when the Zionist colonialists started stealing the land of Palestinians and expelling them or murdering the (the first peak of it being the Nakba).

If Israel was given the exact same treatment as Hamas in that text, it would have been described as “the Terrorist anti-Islamic colonialist invader”

Now, I’d like to think you’re just naively repeating the Zionist framing and propaganda that they so carefully spread in the West, in which case you might want to actually think about what you read before repeating it, as you’re parroting outright propaganda.

One can make the exact same argument by saying Open Source and it would be just as incorrect.

Ultimately, the actual time and effort of the artist is not being used when a Gen AI trained on his or her work generates an output, just like when an Open Source library is used in a program the time and effort of the programmers who made that library is not being used.

(As for the rest, that grand statement that users of Gen AI are “taking the energy the artist spent honing their craft” is just laughably exaggerated and detached from objective reality)

The problem with Gen AI as it’s being used now and the main difference to Open Source, is that with Open Source the programmer is in control of how works derived from their own freely distributed code are used, by means of which license they release their Open Source code under (so, for example, some licenses do not allow that code to be part of a commercially used or sold program, no matter how small a part that is, whilst others do), whilst the will of individual artists when it comes to their works being or not part of the training of Gen AI, and what kind of limits and uses are acceptable with the derived-via-Gen AI works based on their own art, is not taken into account much less respected.

It makes absolute sense that, like for programmers, some artists decide that none of their work or works works derived from it if free to distribute (so, no Gen AI), others decide that works can be derived from their own works but only for non-commercial use (i.e. can be used to train Gen AI as long as the output of that Gen AI is not used for commercial purposes) and yet others are ok with totally free use of automated derivations of their works.

That it isn’t so, is not a problem of Gen AI as a technology (though if the training inputs are hundreds of thousands of works, the equivalent of Free With Attribution licenses might be hard to pull off) but a problem of how Intellectual Property Law is either lacking or being misused.

To a large extent that ship has long sailed in the programming world with Open Source and I even vaguely remember from back in the 90s some people claiming that Open Source would cause programmers to lose their jobs (it didn’t - software users just started to expect even more complex programs with more features and ultimately that resulted in even more programmers being necessary than before), which is eerily similar to the arguments many are making here about AI Gen.

Basically, most of the code in everyday software is already out there and freely available to all in the form of Open Source libraries (which in most projects add up to most of the code in the final executable) and there are even code generators for a number of things, since AI Gen isn’t needed for generating code (because code is a totally artificial thing not something that has to be designed so that the human perception sees it as real or appealing and in fact AI Gen is actually worse at code generation than procedural algorithms) so one can just craft normal code that generates code.

In coding the requirement for using humans has mostly moved from the making of the base parts in a program into the figuring out of how to put the freely available parts together to make a desired greater whole, tough granted the art creation part in game making (some of which I do, since I had to learn 3D modelling for my project and spend a lot of time in it, and the same for Graphical Design which I do for things like icons and UI elements) seems to still rely on a lot of grunt work in low-level shitty shit (and, curiously, the artists in the bigger game-companies are now using expensive AI tools to speed that up).

Let me turn the tables around too: would it be fair if artists and musicians weren’t allowed to use any software which is in full, contains or relies on Open Source code (for example, in the form of libraries), basically the tech level of the 1980s and earlier since almost every software now relies on Open Source code in some way?

Even better, would it be fair for artists who are trying to make it on their own and aren’t superstars?

“By using software which has not been lovingly crafted as whole by a programmer, you’re taking jobs away from programmers.”

(PS: I don’t really want that limitation for anybody)

That said, as I wrote elsewhere, just like programmers are empowered to chose what can be done with the code they make free for everybody as Open Source by choosing the License they ship with it (so, for example, if a programmer wants to force people who make software that contains some of their Open Source code to also release that new software as Open Source, they chose the GPL license, but if they want to give others more freedom to do what they want with it except just sell that freely available code as if it was theirs, the programmer chooses a different license such as the LGPL), so should artists be fully empowered to decide if what they put out there available for all can be used or not in training Generative AI and if they allow it also restrict it to only Generative AI with certain kinds of licensing (say, not for profit, or whose output carries a license that forbids commercial use).

Whilst I would like to use Gen AI for some things in my project, I don’t want to be even indirectly using the works of artists who do not want their stuff used to train Gen AI whose output can be used comercially in any way (so, even as a small part of a greater work).

I don’t want to directly or indirectly take the work of others, I only want to use directly or indirectly the work of willing artists and if there is none, then, well, though luck for me.

In the ideal I would be able to use artwork derived only from the art of artists who would be ok with me using it so, same as you can only use Open Source code (including the tiniest most obscure piece of a library) in the way the programmers are willing for you to use it (so, for example, I cannot distribute commercially a program containing Open Source code - no matter how small - which has been made freely available by the creator under a GPL license, but I can if the license was the Apache one).

Whilst for my project AI Gen was only ever an idea for a nice to have which is not important for game-play, I’m pretty sure that there will be projects out there being done by tiny Indies which aren’t financially feasible without AI Gen because those operations are not well funded and can’t afford to pay for lots of manpower.

In game-making, generation tools (not necessarily AI) even the field between Indies and AAA game makers (which is why so many Indie titles in this latest blossoming of Indie Game-Making have procedurally generated worlds/levels whilst the AAA titles almost invariably have massive hand-crafted worlds/levels) but until AI Gen the unassailable advantage in favor of the AAA makers was in the finishing touches - for example, it has long been possible to use procedural voice generation, it just doesn’t sound as good as the stuff done with ML (unless you’re making a game about robots were a robotic voice does sound great) - since one can only go so far with procedural generation so in more real-world-related domains (voice being a great example) procedural generation is usually shy of “good enough” whilst both AI Gen and professional human crafted content is beyond it even if the former is IMHO generally not as good as the latter.

In gatekeeping a certain level of quality to only things that can be done by those who can afford to hire large teams, because you refuse to accept games made with the kind of tools that most benefit the smaller game makers, you’re basically supporting what’s best for the bigger companies, unless the only kind of games you buy are “text-only dialog and limited art assets” games made by Indies with small budgets (in which case I’ll take my hat off to you for being Principled in a consistent way) and not the more glitzy stuff that only bigger operations can afford to make without AI Gen.

Merely being against the kind of tools that most benefit small operations and then turning around and mostly buying the work from the most massive of operations because it has a better quality (since they have the economies of scale and revenues to afford real human craftsmanship) wouldn’t actually be a consistent principled stand IMHO.

In the game making world, gatekeeping AI Gen use outright “just because” is a great way to keep the playing field tilted in favor of the likes of EA.

The whole thing sounds a lot like the discussion around Open Source for software back in the 90s, between those who favoured the GPL (i.e an Open Source license where not only was the code being distributed Open Source, but also all other code it was used with must be made Open Source with the same license if distributed) vs the LGPL (were the code was Open Source but if used as a library it could be part of something that was distributed in any other model, including for Profit).

(I vaguelly remember very similar arguments back then about how programmers would end up unemployed because of Open Source software)

Ultimatelly the outcome of that was that pretty much every single Open Source library out there nowadays uses LGPL or even less restrictive licenses such as BSD - turns out nobody wants to work in making stuff for free for the community which in the end nobody else uses because it comes with too many strings attached.

The individual programmers who were making their code freely available, chose how it was made available and ultimatelly most chose to do it in a way that let others use it with maximum freedom to enhance their own work but not to be able to just outright monetise that free software whilst adding little to it.

I think that for generative AI a similar solution is for the artists to get to chose if their work is used to train Gen AI or not and similarly that Generative AI can’t just be an indirect way to monetise free work, either by monetising the Gen AI directly or by pretty much just monetising the products of it with little or no added value.

(In other words, until we get our ideal copyright free world, there needs to be some kind of license around authorizing or not that works are used in Gen AI training, discriminating between for-Profit and “open source” Gen AI and also defining how the product of that Gen AI can be used)

None the less even with maximum empowerement of artists to decide if their work is part of it or not, I recognize that there is a risk that the outcome for artists from Gen AI might not be similar to the outcome for programmers from Open Source - ultimatelly the choice of if and how they participate in all this must be down to individual artists.

I shall extend to you the same “courtesy”. It’s only fair.

Oh, I would totally be happy for a property-free world in all senses (so, one were I could just occupy a piece of land, were I would make my own house and grow my own food), what I’m not happy with is the idea that I still have to obbey all the rules on the side were I have to work within the system to make money in order to survive but on the other side what’s mine is everybody’s. Your ideal world is not one we can transition into by starting with making the tool users have to pay for all their tools but everything else “we’ll solve later”.

Further, I don’t think Gen AI should be monetised - if it was trained on public works then what comes out of it are public works.

I play by the rules of the system because I have no choice: I was born in a World were everything is owned and wasn’t born in the Owner Class - for me it was always play by other people’s rules or go live under a bridge.

Your specific formulation in the last post was similar to saying that use of Open Source tools should make the product of one’s work Open Source: if the Gen AI was trained with works that authors made freely available for any use as public works, then the resulting generative tool is akin to an open source piece of software (Edit: specifically, tools and libraries for software development) only instead of being something that creates or enhances very complex control code for a processing unit it’s something that creates images or audio clips and when those images and audio clips are used as part of a much greater work, they’re just as small a fraction of the work as, say, open source libraries are in software applications.

However, “what will happen to artists” is indeed a valid concern. If the same happens as it did with Open Source software in the Programming world, such a tool being freely available just means that people will expect even more complex works to be done - so in the case of games, for them to have more and nicer visuals - or in other words, for the amount of work that needs to be done to grow and pretty much nullify the gains from having the new tools. If that is not what happens, then we indeed have a problem.

Given the way things are, that formulation you defended will de facto result in Gen AI that is entirelly trained on paid for works, hence is paid for, hence only those who can afford it get to use it - which in the game making world means you’re basically defending an option that helps the big for profit publishers and screws the small indies trying to make a living, which I suspect is the very opposite of the World you seem to want.

I totally agree that the things I make with Gen AI are public property.

What doesn’t make sense is that all of my work must also become public merelly because it’s alongside public works.

What I’m doing is years worth of my work, not just tic-tac-toe.

I mean, I wouldn’t mind making free for everybody games all day (I have a TON of ideas) if I could live were I wanted and all my own living costs were taken care of, but that’s not the World we live in so, not having been born to wealthy parents, I have to get paid for my work in order to survive.

If Copyright for you is an ideology (rather than a shittily implemented area of property legislation), then fell free to have your spin of it for the product of your time and effort, including having Contagion for public resources, just don’t expect that others in the World we live in must go along with such an hyper-simplifying take on property of the intellectual kind.

I suspect that your take is deep down still anchored on an idea of “corporation” and making profits for the sake of further enriching already wealthy individuals, whilst I as a non-wealthy individual have to actually make a living of my work to survive and you’re pretty much telling me that I can’t use a specific kind of free shit to do my work better without all of my work having to be free for everybody (and I go live under a bridge and starve).

Don’t take this badly but you’re pretty much making the case that the worker can’t have any free tools to earn their livelihood, which is just a way of making the case for “those who can afford it buy and own the tools, those who can’t work for those who own the tools”.

Whether you realise it or not you’re defending something that just makes sure than only those who have enough money to afford paying for artisan work can make great things whilst the rest have to work for them and maybe do tiny things on their spare time.

I’m a one man Indie making a game. It’s a management/strategy game and I want to add some depth to some of the pawns you control in the game by having a portrait for each and actual voices saying things and there are quite a lot of possible such pawns so that means quite lot of portraits and voices saying lines.

If I use generative AI I can do it at the cost of my time and some electricity for my PC, if I don’t it would cost $$$ so wouldn’t be able to have those elements because that’s not just one or two portraits and voices.

Apparently if I use AI for it that makes me and my micro-company a big bad corporation.

Same here.

In my transition from Windows to Linux on my main machine, one of the more funny discoveries I made was that for many older Windows games, Linux with Wine has better backwards compatibility than Windows.