I went from a cheap mp3 player that I could just plug in to my computer and drag in music to an iPod which forced me to download the iTunes bloatware create an account and then took 100x longer to transfer music because of the pointless conversion each file had to undergo. This was my first and last experience with a personal Apple device. Ended up putting some old pop music onto it and giving it to my grandmother after 2 days. Uninstalled iTunes and went back to using my cheap mp3 player until I replaced it with a smartphone.

Coming in as a close second place, an all-in-one Sony Vaoi computer that cost a fortune and had shit performance. Took daily nags to Sony before they took it back and gave me a refund. I find that Sony’s hit and miss though. My favourite smartphone (Xperia Play) was Sony, and I love my Sony Bluetooth earbuds. The Sony Smartwatch was shit.

Rather than having my All feed spammed with walled gardens I’d rather mods who don’t want outside participation to be able to stop their communities from showing in All.

there’s this really cool alternative to streaming, called you buy their shit directly.

Wow, mind blown! I had no idea money could be used to buy things directly! /s

Seriously though, buying music from artists you already know is easy for artists that actually provide this as an option, but it doesn’t help when trying to find new artists and songs to listen to. Spotify is brilliant for discovering new content and can’t be replaced by ‘buying shit directly’.

Ahhhh!!!

I literally, just purchased a subscription to Joplin Cloud! I already pay for Proton Unlimited and was tossing up between Joplin and Standard Notes.

What a bummer… I bet Proton adds this as an additional service to Proton Unlimited.

Spotify.

An open source music streaming service where I can financially support artists but where I’m not forced to put up with annoying advertisements (even when paying membership fees!), and which allows me to use whatever app I want to play the music I listen to. It is annoying AF that I need to switch between apps to listen to music because Spotify’s shitty native app is inferior in every possible way with the single exception of offering more content.

My sister got a job with a primarily LLM-written cover letter. When trying to sway someone to your side, how you say something can matter more than what you say.

For people who aren’t good at articulating themselves, noting down key dot points about their skills and job history alongside a job description, then asking a LLM to write out a cover letter can be very helpful, even if only to get a rough draft.

As an aside, out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT 3.5 to rewrite my comment above and got the following, not sure which is better TBH.

My sister landed a job using a cover letter mostly written by a language model. When persuading someone, the tone and style of your message can outweigh its content.

For individuals who find it challenging to articulate themselves, outlining key skills and job experiences alongside a job description, and then seeking assistance from a language model to compose a cover letter, can prove highly beneficial, even if only as a starting point.

I’m looking forward to games that really do take advantage of AI effectively. Having almost infinite variations of characters and plots would make each play through a new experience. I reckon some interesting games will be coming out in the next few years.

Was he happy the next episode?

Edit: Sorry, that wasn’t really called for… Go Zoidberg!

Please keep responding to my comments everyone. I’ve decided to take this as an opportunity to block as many of you annoying mosquitoes as possible so I don’t have to deal with you in the future.

Did you even read the comment chain you’re responding to? You know, the one where I said it is ‘good to show genuine scepticism’? Or the one after that, where I linked the ‘unnamed’ individual’s alleged GitHub?

I am not the one being overly trusting here. I think it is ‘likely’ that this story is true. I researched it, looked at the significant amount of evidence, and I am still not 100% convinced. That is far more than what I can say for you people replying to me en masse who all assume the story must be an American plot with absolutely no evidence to back up this claim.

Ugh, I need to figure out a way to unsubscribe from replies to a post. You people are bonkers.

Hmm… To debate with a conspiracy theorist or not… Such a difficult choice.

You know what, let me try something different…

You win this debate! I concede! Although I am not an American and don’t live in America, I am a stooge of the American imperialists! And yes, like the other 8.1 billion people on the planet (sans you, of course), I live on stolen land! Have mercy!

Ah, you’re one of those. Nuf sed.

That’s hardly the original source. The second paragraph of that article links to another source again.

It’s good to show genuine scepticism to what you read, but I can’t help but think yours is not particularly honest.

It is extremely clear via auditing the trail of this report that the ‘crypto shill site’ is negligible to the story. You would have had to go back one step in the chain, stick your fingers in your ears, then ignore everything else from that point onwards to think Coin Telegraph was actually relevant to the reporting of this story.

True or not, here you can find a clear summary, along with screenshots stamped with the seal of the Chengde PD. These screenshots, contrary to your claim, are not at all blurry, and have minimal redaction (to protect the person’s privacy).

Given fairly credible and detailed screenshots of a police report, numerous reporting across a number of different websites in both Chinese and English, even a reported GitHub profile of the person in question, I think there’s sufficient evidence to believe this is likely a true story.

But you do you.