December 2023 – Page 2 – "At Half Past France… "

Hanging by a Thread

Meta has made their little darling, Threads, able to inter-connect to the Fediverse. That is, Threads will now connect with services such as Mastodon or Pixelfed. Why does this matter? Well, read and weep. I’ll provide links below, the pictures tell the main story, but basically it is as follows:

Once the Threads Service has been integrated with the Protocol:
you will be able to access, upload, share, and/or interact with content and information, to and from the broader community of individuals using Third Party Services;
Meta will share your content and information with Third Party Users via Third Party Services when: (1) you follow, or are followed by, a Third Party User, (2) you interact with content from or accounts/profiles of a Third Party User, or (3) a Third Party User interacts with your content or profile.
Meta is not responsible for the operation of this Protocol.

https://help.instagram.com/769983657850450

In addition, you agree to let Meta use your content.

“you hereby grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of your Threads Content (consistent with your privacy and application settings) for the purpose of making the Threads Service available, including, as applicable, sharing your Threads Content to and with Third Party Users and on Third Party Services that are also integrated with the Protocol.”
… and —

Please do not share your content to me via Threads. I will be blocking any content coming from a Threads server.

Sorry/Not Sorry.

These days…

@Antara —

https://youtu.be/7IX4gWkFqvU?si=tw_sJP75Yy0VZbcq

“Peace on Earth and good will towards men.”

Right.

Already? Well, juste parce que…

Another week, creeping towards the end of 2023. Some things remain —

https://youtu.be/mGgMZpGYiy8?si=DI1pA1HqdDO_E9UV

… @Antara toujours pour Tu.

C’est Vendredi!

… and so, juste parce que:

https://youtu.be/mGgMZpGYiy8?si=l7-JfVoj8vy8we9h

… that is all.

“Seasons greetings, y’all!”

For tonight is “Krampusnacht!” Check out this great story about The Holiday and some of the other older Yuletide celebrations from The Guardian.

Shock of the old

I love sharing these stories with my foreign students who often have this idea that it has ALWAYS been the overly-commercialized consumer-fest that so many of us from the US know so well.

The More It Changes…

Well, it’s great to see what those Good Ole Boys in The Great State have decided… it’s OKAY to fraternize with Nazis! Imagine my reactions on reading this little nugget from the foreign press this evening —

“Members of Texas’s Republican party are free to associate with Nazi sympathizers without worries of violating internal policy after they held a vote Saturday.” ~~ courtesy of The Guardian: Members of Texas Republican party free to associate with Nazi sympathizers

Yeehaw and Heil to all!

Honestly, I swear Texas is trying to out-bizarre Florida…

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Elsewhere, no apologies for yesterday’s post… it’s been a weird month and this next one is promising more of the same. I wasn’t kidding when I commented about the radiotherapy — it appears that I really was experiencing the side effects of being zapped with highly-focused beams of energy. And there’s more of it to come. The fun just never stops around here.

But I did manage to work on some new music, so there will be some treats ahead, I promise. After last months disastrous event where multiple updates all fell on the same hour/day, the new configuration is providing some very nice sounds. Even the cheapo Squier is sounding good!

And THIS is finally working correctly (speaking of music, etc.,)… do feel free to check it out (there’s a music video, of sorts).

Advent… First World Problems (but what are we waiting for?)

“Advent”
~~ a noun: “an arrival or coming, esp one which is awaited”
~~ First recorded in 1125–75; Middle English, from Latin adventus “arrival, approach,” equivalent to ad- “toward” + ven- (stem of venīre “to come”) + -tus suffix of verbal action; see ad-

(from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/advent )

Just weird thoughts (been having vivid, peculiar dreams of late… probably the radiotherapy)

One hopes that this is NOT what you’re waiting for. This was the twister for me as I read through:

“…how do you deal with the loss of someone who never existed in the first place?”

AI is bringing all manner of new problems with which to deal, with no guidelines or experience to show us the way. And yet, for me it begs the question, why did you enter in to this (relationship with an AI companion)in the first place? We have, of course, joked about the blow-up dolls and their more evolved forms, the companion robot market (an equal gender provider with both make and female versions now available). And if you’re not sure about how to make them work well,
“… She can be programmed using a small screen on the back of her head.”

I wonder if “she” uses a USB-C plug or a proprietary one? Pretty sure the EU regs would require USB-C for charging.

One supposes that the difference between these companion dolls and the AI girlfriends is that the dolls are at least tangible, whereas the AIs are not. Of course, one can imagine a scenario where you have programmed a high degree of independent action in your Real Doll companion and they break up and take the dog with them (which also raises the question, “Was it a real dog or a robotic one?”)

I’ll leave you with that last thought and a bit of non-robotically created visuals —