They exist precisely because of the market. Their aim was to make some money and they advertised.
From what it sounds like, this is just a classic takeover and consolidation of a power clique. I was at the inaugural meeting of a charity a year or two back. There were people already putting measures in place to try and exclude ordinary members from voting on certain matters... And the use of deliberately obscure language to exclude. Nowadays it barely resembles what it was set up to be, and is not run by the people who founded it. Atlas Obscura sounds the same but is in a slightly different arena. Also as I say above, I don't know what their long term strategy is... a subscription channel or tours etc?
> The reason for all this, of course, is AI datacenter buildouts.
This bubble can't pop fast enough. I'm curious to see which actually useful AIs remain after the burst, and how expensive they are once the cash-burning subsides.
> The market wants a lot more high quality AI slop
"High quality AI slop" is a contradiction in terms. The relevant definitions[1] are "food waste (such as garbage) fed to animals", "a product of little or no value."
By definition, the best slop is only a little terrible.
That was super helpful. I was assuming from skimming the text description that it was a failed crimp
A lot of people wildly under-crimp things, but marine vessels not only have nuanced wire requirements, but more stringent crimping requirements that the field at large frustratingly refuses to adhere to despite ABYC and other codes insisting on it
The good tools will crimp to the proper pressure and make it obvious when it has happened.
Unfortunately the good tools aren't cheap. Even when they are used, some techs will substitute their own ideas of how a crimp should be made when nobody is watching them.
While the US is still very manual at panel building, Europe is not.
So outside of waiting time, I can go from eplan to "send me precrimped and labeled wires that were cut, crimped, and labeled by machine and automatically tested to spec" because this now exists as a service accessible even to random folks.
This attitude wherein one thinks they can just spend money and offload responsibility is exactly the problem.
Abdicating responsibility to those "good tools" are why shit never gets crimped right. People just crimp away without a care in the world. Don't get me wrong, they're great for speed and when all you're doing it working on brand new stuff that fits perfect. But when you're working on something sketchy you really want the feedback of the older styles of tool that have more direct feedback. They have a place, but you have to know what that place is.
See also: "the low level alarm would go off if it was empty"
I did something similar with someone who was using my site’s donation form to test huge batches of credit cards numbers. I would see hundreds of attempted (and mostly declined) $1 donations start pouring in, and I’d block the IP. A little while later it would restart from another IP. When it became clear they were not giving up easily, I changed tack: instead of blocking them, I would return random success/failure messages at the same rate they were seeing success on previous attempts. I didn’t really try to charge those cards, of course.
I like how this kind of response is very difficult for them to detect when I turn it on, and as a bonus, it pollutes their data. They stopped trying a few days after that.
Was it always $1? If I was the attacker, surely you’d pick a random number. My guess is that $1 donations would be an outlier in the distribution and therefore easy to spot.
It’s also interesting that merchants (presumably) don’t have a mechanism to flag transactions as being >0% chance of being suspect. Or that you waive any dispute rights.
As a merchant, it would be nice if you could demand the bank verify certain transactions with their customer. If I was a customer, I would want to know that someone tried to use my card numbers to donate to some death metal training school in the Netherlands.
They did try adding variations to the amount (+0.50-1.00) late in the game, but by then it was ineffective, I could still quickly detect them and turn on the randomized data poisoning. I expect that they want to keep the amount small so most cardholders won't bother to look into the unfamiliar charge.
I do wonder whether these people sold their list of "verified" credit card numbers to any criminal enterprises before they realized the data was poisoned. That would be potentially awkward for them.
I remember buying NOLF--it was at retail, in a big box off the shelf at Media Play. I knew nothing about it, it just caught my eye, and the description on the back sounded interesting. I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world tends to smother serendipity.
It was an excellent game. The idea of a continuation of the series is appealing, but a lot of modern adaptations really stink, so maybe it's better off in the amber of nostalgia.
I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world tends to smother serendipity.
I don't really miss the time of having to choose games this way. If you lucked out it was great, but you were also potentially putting down upwards of $50+ bucks in 1995 dollars on a game that you might end up really disliking.
Exaggeration warning, but as someone who has indeed spent a bunch of money on games I ended up disliking, I find our current-day inability to cope with disappointment kind of sad.
Sometimes we buy something we don't like, but it's on us, and that's just life.
At some point I think we just took the "satisfied or your money back" mentality too far.
Edit: note this doesn't absolve actual scammers or other bad actors from being crappy people though.
Demos existed, for home computer and PC games anyway. This is why you bought the game review magazines to get the disk (and later, CD-ROM) with demos. For consoles you could often try the game in the shop, or rent them at the Video rental shop. You could even rent entire consoles! I've also returned a few games back in the day.
I did discover a lot of great stuff like that. The funny thing is that there were a few titles that I discovered, absolutely loved and yet apparently were considered bad games. Oh well, I saw the good side of it.
One that I grabbed for $10 was Adrenix, a 'Descent' clone that has very few mentions around and reviewed fairly averagely. I loved it!
As for modern adaptions of games, if they can do it either like 3D Realms retro style like with Ion Fury, or go into the full re-imagined space like they did with Doom 2016. But any middle ground seems to lead to disappointment.
> I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world tends to smother serendipity.
I miss it too. I used to read computer game magazines as a kid. I recently re-evoked that feeling by subscribing to a linux magazine. Maybe there are still game magazines out there but i’m too lazy to look.
You can still do this. I regularily go to used game shops looking for old console games just based off the box art. They range from $1 - $5 so it's not much lost if the game ends up bad. I make sure to not search for reviews or more info. It's always a fun surprise.
I can only speak for myself, but mostly the opposite has been true for me. I am a 'peasant' creating original works, and occasionally I must wield copyright to salt the giant thirsty leeches appropriating my work. If it were not for the protection offered by copyright, I would be a desiccated husk.
>and occasionally I must wield copyright to salt the giant thirsty leeches appropriating my work. I
Depending on what your work is, I've probably already pirated it. And I don't stop, it's like a hobby of mine... I've made a point now of downloading every single book title I ever see mentioned (here on HN, elsewhere). Just for shits and giggles. You'll never even know, though, will you? Maybe you're a typographer. I don't pirate fonts, I pirate entire catalogs. Software, games, movies, television, music, literally everything. For years I've been on a search for house blueprints just because (no luck on those, though).
You really are a peasant, and you think that copyright works for you, because theoretically it seems like it should. I guess whatever makes you happy.
Unless you are republishing my work, using it to earn yourself a livelihood while depriving me of the same, then you are not part of the problem that I describe.
Apart from watching videos, I use mine for making music (podcast scoring) and for drawing (formal illustrations, doodling, and sketching out designs). There are also a few games that I feel play best on an iPad, such as Balatro.
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