Zarxrax

joined 2 years ago
[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

For all of the quality complaints about this anime, we have to remember that the technology is improving at a breakneck pace. What we are seeing there is the state of the technology from over a year ago. They used Stable Diffusion, which barely anyone even uses these days, because it's been left in the dust. It was also an image generation model, which is what caused most of the issues that the anime had--the model was never designed for use on video in the first place. But now we DO have video models, which can make things that look far better than this. Just the other day, what looks to be a new state of the art anime video model was released. A new anime starting production today would look a whole lot different than this. And if we look forward 5 years from now, things are again going to be on an entirely different level.

So what does this mean for anime? I think the technology will slowly start to get adopted more and more as it proves itself. The early days of the anime industry was basically born out of cost cutting measures to make it cheap to produce animated content. Decades ago, we saw studios start producing 3d CG anime because it was cheaper. Most 3d CG anime still looks like crap, but you can also see the technology being integrated into traditionally animated shows and looking really nice. You can also find things these days which I would say barely even qualify as animation. Something like "The Way of the Househusband" is literally just a sequence of still images strung together. Yet we have more anime being produced now than ever before, and are also seeing some of the most beautiful anime ever.

I think we will continue to see some studios take whatever measures they can to produce something at a low cost. AI will continue to get integrated into more and more productions. It will eventually let them start making things that look cool, rather than things that look bad. And then we are still always going to have some studios that go all in and produce a really quality product, because the people involved are passionate about it.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I do some programming as a hobby. I'm far from being an expert or even competent at it. You work on whatever you WANT to work on. Sometimes this can be born from necessity, you need your computer to do something, but you can't find any existing application that does the specific thing that you need. Sometimes maybe you just want to create something, just because it seems interesting to you, or just because.

So just for example, one of my hobbies involves working with video. Years ago, I was frustrated with the options available for encoding my videos into h264, so I ended up creating my own GUI around FFMPEG. It was easy enough and effective for what I needed, that the tool became quite popular among others in my hobby.

Recently, machine learning has made it possible to do cool stuff like remove the background from a video clip. A lot of this stuff is really difficult to even get working, let alone to use effectively. So a current project I'm working on is a GUI for such a tool to make it really easy to use.

So yeah... First I would say you need to figure out what you want to do. Why do you want to write a program? What do you want to accomplish?

Then you need to learn the basics of programming in whatever language you intend to use. And just gain a basic understanding of how programming works in general. Once you know enough to be dangerous, you can start working on something. Getting started is the hardest part, and involves really thinking about your problem, breaking it down into smaller parts, and considering how to solve each of those small parts. This can involve lots of research, lots of googling, and finding frameworks or libraries that might help you accomplish what you need.

LLMs like chatgpt have also been amazing in helping people like me to create something much more quickly than before. I can ask it for thoughts on how to accomplish a specific thing, or even have it write entire sections of code for me. Just yesterday, I had it create a script for me which I estimate would have taken me 10-20 hours to write on my own. However, they don't always give right answers, so it's really important to have a basic level of understanding of programming so that you can understand the code that it gives you. I don't use any code until I understand how it works. The LLM can also help explain the code to you!

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

So how does the 10% get chosen? Like if the first 10% were all the people desperately in need of it, that's an easy finger. But if there is a potential that only wealthy people could be effected by that, then the loss of the finger would be meaningless. If it's totally random each time, it's a harder choice since you really aren't helping 10% of the population each time, given that many will already have basic needs met.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Legend? I guess so.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I simply can't understand why the hell people advertise stuff like this before it's completed. You KNOW what's going to happen. Just work on it quietly until it's done, then put it out there, nothing can be done about it.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I would disagree. I think it really improved upon the gameplay that we saw in the first TMNT arcade game. You got combo attacks with the different characters, and you could pick up various items and weapons. It also had some really huge bosses that were kind of impressive at the time, and had some mini games between stages. There were also a lot of interesting things that happened within the stages.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I remember reading in a gaming magazine that Konami was bringing the Simpsons to the SNES. I just knew it was going to be the arcade game, and I was so hyped for months just waiting and waiting for it. And then I got Barts Nightmare.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Take the ai out of the main search results and I'm fine with it being there as a button. Oh wait, is that not what they are going to do?

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

I've always loved sweets but I'm eating them much less in recent years than I did when I was younger. I don't drink anything sweet, and I'll have 1 or 2 sweet snacks a day.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Probably every couple of weeks. Just washed them yesterday.

 

I guess I have just itched a lot for my entire life, so I just scratch and don't really think about it. But it was recently brought to my attention by someone, and I realized that I am scratching constantly. Like all over my body. I'll scratch my leg, then my head itches, then the back of my hand, then my cheek, then my arm, and so on and so on, every few seconds. I might scratch 10 or 20 spots within a minute. I think I might stop scratching if I'm really focused on something, but if I start thinking about my itching, then it just keeps happening. And like I said, I think this has been going on for my entire life, but I never really paid much attention to it. Is this normal?

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Google voice works fine for me. Requires a payment but the rates are very cheap.

 

I am about to try switching to Linux, and will start with a dual boot so I can still use Windows if necessary. I'm planning to buy a new M2 SSD for Linux.

But, I currently have 4 hard drives which are all formatted as NTFS for Windows. What considerations do I need to make regarding these existing drives, or for moving files between systems?

For instance, I assume Windows simply won't be able to see any of the files on my Linux drive. What about the other way around? Are there any downsides to accessing my files on NTFS drives through Linux? Am I able to move files around between my drives?

Do I need to convert any of my NTFS drives to a different format? (Or is that even possible without wiping the data?)

 

I've been using Windows since the days of 3.1, practically my entire life. So I'm really comfortable with how windows operates and how to do the things that I want to do.

I've dabbled around with Linux over the years, but am now considering trying to make a full switch to it.

What are some resources to "learn" Linux properly? Such as understanding the filesystem, basic security practices, essential tools or commands, etc?

 

A 12-year-old boy who died at a North Carolina wilderness camp was smothered, according to an autopsy that was released on Monday.

The autopsy shows the boy's death is now being reported as a homicide. The child was found dead at Trails Carolina on Feb. 3. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services revoked the facility's license in May, saying it failed to comply with state regulations. The department said the camp failed to follow state law regarding the rights for people living with mental illness, developmental disabilities or substance abuse.

An April report by the state found that the camp failed to check if the boy was breathing while requiring him to sleep in a "bivy," a small sleeping-bag-like tent, that was covered by a plastic sheet. At some point, staff determined "there was an issue" with the zipper, according to NBC News. An unidentified staff member assigned to sleep next to the boy heard someone "breathing heavily" at one point, but couldn't determine if it was the boy or another employee.

Staff members called 911 when the boy did not respond to attempts to wake him and emergency personnel were unable to revive him, the camp said at the time.

In the wake of the boy's death, Trails Carolina was barred from taking in new admissions and all existing children were removed from the facility. Amidst the investigation, a former student sued the program, claiming staff members dismissed her claims of sexual assault by another camper in 2016.

 

I would occasionally like to use (wired) headphones, but 90% of the time I am fine with just hearing the audio that comes out of the crappy monitor speakers. If I plug the 3.5mm cable into the monitor's headphone jack (even without headphones attached), then no audio will come out of the speaker anymore.

It is really cumbersome to plug and unplug the cable from the monitor, because I have to pull my desk away from the wall and bend upside down to even be able to see the port where I am supposed to plug it in.

Is there some simple solution to this problem, or am I just stuck using one or the other? I have a small desk and don't really have room for external speakers.

 

Me and my wife are in our 40s, and currently in good health. I get insurance through work, but it's a high deductible plan. I have enough in my health savings account to cover the out of pocket maximum for a few years.

Cancer does run in my family, so I was considering a cancer policy. My grandmother has one with Aflac, and she received a good payout when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have seen that she also only has to pay a few hundred dollars per year for her policy, which seems pretty reasonable.

However, I never really hear these policies discussed much online. Can it make financial sense to purchase? (And I guess I would keep paying it for the rest of my life) Or are these something that should be stayed away from?

 

Is this thing just broken, or what? They locked 3 achievements behind the mode, but I almost never see any tournaments being held. I saw one a while back but it was at some ungodly hour in my timezone, so I couldn't participate. Then they held another one today which I thought I would be able to play. I went into the battlehub shortly before the tournament, registered, and then... at the appointed time, it tells me I was removed from the tournament because I was not in the battle hub. Even though I was standing there the entire time!

 

So, the TMNT content came out of nowhere and was a nice surprise. But along with the Onitsuka Tiger thing, it's clear that Capcom is going to do a lot of sponsorships and product placement along these lines going forward.

As for myself, I generally don't care much about cosmetic items. I might spend a few bucks here or there if I think something is really cool, but I'm generally not going to engage in purchasing that type of content. It's still fun to walk around the battle hub and see other people using it though.

However, the prices on this content absolutely floored me. I figure a reasonable price for the entire bundle of content would be about $10 maybe. But just a single skin costs closer to $20 (and you can't straight up buy them, you have to purchase the coins which are only available in certain denominations, so you are left with leftover coins). These skins are almost replicas of each other, they just have different weapons and mask colors! But each one has to be bought separately? And if you want to buy just the mask, each color has to be bought separately?? What happened to the dyes that you can find in game?

I get that it's just cosmetic content, so no one NEEDS it. But it just seems like a dumbass move for them to try charging so much. What are your thoughts? Anyone purchased it?

 

I was not aware of this player before now, but I think it's really awesome that Street Fighter has such good audio and accessibility features to allow all types of people to enjoy the game.

 

When using Connect, I don't see all of the comments. I was just looking at a post where the counter showed over 40 comments, but I counted them and only saw about 16. Then I opened up the same post in my web browser and I was able to see all of the comments there.

 

It's looking really good! Major features include controlnet, support for SDXL, and a whole bunch of other cool things.

Download: https://github.com/invoke-ai/InvokeAI/releases/tag/v3.0.0

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