asklemmy Ask Lemmy What stupid injury left a long lasting impact on you?
Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 8 months ago 100%

    Just to give some slight optimism in opposition to your friends, I am soon to turn 41. Its harder, but it's not impossible. Whatever you pursue, form is everything. Poor form cannot exist post 40. Technically, I am stronger than I have ever been, and yet I'm still falling apart. Don't consider the number, just do the work, and do it well. Good luck to you!

    4
  • fleabs fleabs 8 months ago 41%

    You're being downvoted, but I just wanted to let you know you're not alone in noticing what you have. There is indeed a significant difference in the approach of classic Trek vs. what we have now. In the past, the story was the focus, and the wokeness was an addition to it. Now, the woke seems to be the focus, and it's at the expense of the storytelling.

    I actually hate the word "woke." I'm about the most left leaning person I know and agree with the liberal messages in all Trek. But it really has destroyed the storytelling in the new stuff. It should primarily be a science fiction show, not a morality lecture.

    I'm not going to argue with anyone who disagrees, I'll just accept the downvotes, I just wanted to show a little support.

    -4
  • asklemmy Ask Lemmy Who doesn't use an adblocker and why?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 9 months ago 92%

    You say you'll disable the ad blocker for sites that don't push malicious ads? I've reported half a dozen deepfake "investment" ads on YouTube in the last couple of months, and they have done nothing about it. The ads YouTube pushes are horrible!

    12
  • general General Discussion I realized why I like friendships with lesbians
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 10 months ago 94%

    Thank you for putting this into words. I have come to realise the same thing over the years but have never been able to properly verbalise it!

    I'm a heterosexual male. My sister is a lesbian, and through her, I was introduced to many lesbian (and gay) friends from a young age. And since then, I've often had lesbisn friends or acquaintances, and I've always found that I get on so much better with lesbians than straight women.

    I feel with most lesbian women that I'm in the company of another man. It's so much easier to talk to them, without the background hum of sexuality that seems to come from interactions with straight women. I'm not blaming women for this, btw. I think it's just a male brain thing for me, but there is certainly some extra element when interacting with straight women that is absent around lesbians and that absence allows me to relax more and just be myself.

    34
  • asklemmy Asklemmy What's the most derogatory term someone has used for you?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 10 months ago 100%

    Got to admit, I had to check the map for Eppleby! It looks tiny, I can imagine that feeling very isolating! I'm still not sure I could refer to the residents of Darlo as "real" people, j/k 😆 I hope your subsequent years in the UK have been more pleasant :)

    1
  • asklemmy Asklemmy What's the most derogatory term someone has used for you?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 10 months ago 100%

    Oof! Darlington, or Mordor, as I used to call it, was measurably worse than Newcastle for this! I lived in Ferryhill for a couple of years, so I'm familiar with that area. Definitely low on the list of places I'd recommend moving to in the UK!

    Having met one or two people from New Zealand, you guys strike me as a tough and hardy bunch. If anyone could survive there, yous would have a good shot!

    1
  • asklemmy Asklemmy What's the most derogatory term someone has used for you?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 10 months ago 100%

    As a born and bred Geordie, I apologise on behalf of the northerners. The early 2000s were a pretty shit time around those parts for intolerance. I used to dress "alternatively", black fingernails, spikey died hair etc. And would get similar slurs thrown my way despite being heterosexual. I no longer live in Newcastle, but it seems a LOT better these days when I visit.

    5
  • asklemmy Asklemmy What's the most derogatory term someone has used for you?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 10 months ago 100%

    How very Christian of them... sickening 🤢

    20
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 10 months ago 100%

    Ah well, this might explain things. See, I was 21 in 2004, still young with a head full of dreams, and a belief that I could change the world... If I found Linux now, at 40, then yes, I doubt I would have had a single year of advocacy in me!

    1
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 10 months ago 100%

    I find that mighty impressive! I'd blame the folly of youth for myself, but I assume you were also quite young all the way back then. It's entirely possible that I was/am simply an idiot 🤔

    2
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 83%

    Not to alarm you, but you may have a period of 5-10 years where you really can't shut up about it... it'll pass, though, honest :)

    4
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 80%

    Oh, hush now, of course I care! I'm just agreeing with OP that there is probably a little too much of it or, more precisely, not enough "other" topics of conversation yet. It'll come.

    3
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 100%

    Believe me, I get it. 20+ years of advocacy, though, have earned me exactly 1 convert, and that's my old man. Who is arguably already a bigger geek than I am, and spending his retirement teaching himself x86-64 assembly "for fun" whilst doing a much better job of de-googling himself than I ever have.

    All I'm saying here is that I can see where the OP is coming from. There is an awful lot of Linux talk (and Star Trek talk!) here on Lemmy. I can see how it might feel a little alienating to those who are from outside of that world.

    That said, I agree with a lot of other commentors here that have pointed out that any new platform typically attracts the geeks firstly (reddit was no different). In time, I hope to see a much greater variety of peoples on Lemmy!

    11
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 100%

    Hahaha, that's very kind of you to say! I might have even pulled it off 20 years ago... Never say never, eh! ;)

    3
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 100%

    Are you referring to those stripey sock wearers? Because I'm far too old to actually understand any of that. Plus, I wouldn't even look very good in stripey socks anyway

    13
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 100%

    Touche

    11
  • fediverse Fediverse *Permanently Deleted*
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 86%

    I've exclusively used Linux on my computers since about 2001. At this point, I don't care to see this much talk about it either.

    It's an operating system, it's free (in both senses), it's very powerful and ,frankly, it's all I know how to use these days. However, I just don't see the appeal of harping on about all the time. I use it exclusively, and I spend zero minutes per day actually thinking about it, the way a good operating system should be IMHO.

    27
  • stable_diffusion Stable Diffusion Ai generated Ai Generated artwork
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 100%

    " I chose this scene because I wanted to create an image that blends elements of nature, the cosmos, and a personal touch with the ebike, which I gathered from your profile might be of interest to you. The goal was to create a serene setting that might resonate with someone who appreciates astronomy and the tranquility of nighttime landscapes.

    See, this right here is incredible to me! That's a genuinely insane level of detail in the response. I don't understand what sort of access it has to your "profile" but that is exactly the sort of thing I want to recreate locally. I've been implementing things like vector stores for "long term" memory but I haven't managed to get anything like that level of understanding out of a LLM yet.

    Really, that is pretty damn amazing!

    3
  • stable_diffusion Stable Diffusion Ai generated Ai Generated artwork
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 100%

    What a simply wonderful idea! I love how people are finding inventive ways to get around copyright issues. Basically, describe it without naming it, clever!

    I've never actually tried DALL-E, but that is some damn impressive work! I'm incredibly tempted to give it a bash! And your daughter must love this stuff, mines all grown up now, but she would have adored this stuff when she was younger, kinda makes me wish she was 10 again 😂

    One of the things I love about running locally, though, is that I just don't have to even consider copyright and all that. I mean, it's not like I'm going to make any money off this!

    And believe me, every single day, I consider chucking in the towel with running everything locally. Especially when I use gpt to test the code I've been fighting all day, and it just... works! 😣

    Thank you for the suggestion, though. I might have a play with DALL-E. And keep up the good work!

    5
  • world World News Homelessness in England is up 6.8% on the previous year - with thousands in temporary housing
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 11 months ago 88%

    Some things being conserved is absolutely good. However, the "Conservative" government isn't really all that conservative, is it? Unless you refer to conserving their own self interests, I'll grant you they're really good at that...

    Oh and I am 40 years old and educated to masters level, not that that really should matter in the slightest. I do admit that I am pretty short sighted though, damn eyes just ain't what they used to be. Thankfully I can fix that with glasses through our wonderful national health service... at least for now until the "conservatives" get rid of that too...

    7
  • stable_diffusion
    Stable Diffusion fleabs 11 months ago 85%
    Ai generated Ai Generated artwork

    OK, so I realise this is about as bog standard a SD image as one can get. However there is a little story behind it that I wanted to share. Apologies if this is not the correct place to post this, I'll remove it if it is. So. I just recently managed to get a Tesla P40 installed in my desktop, allowing me to run stable diffusion alongside the LLMs I've been playing with. I've also been playing around with Langchain Agents, and in particular trying to get conversational agents, i.e. more like a chatbot that has access to tools/the outside world. So I naturally decided to make a tool for the agent so that it could access SD. I was messing around getting it to generate images for me when I had the idea to ask it to generate a piece of art from its own "imagination", i.e. no input from me, just pick something it wanted to for the prompt. This is what it came up with: ![](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8dd5d207-2b4c-43d4-9384-63f59ad33056.png) The prompt it selected was "A beautiful landscape with a rainbow in the sky and a unicorn grazing peacefully by a crystal clear lake surrounded by lush green trees and colorful flowers." I asked it to generate another, and again, it generated a rainbow scene. I asked about the rainbows and it said that it loves rainbows and thinks they are a wonderful phenomena. This got me interested, so I asked it to generate a picture of itself. Now I haven't got a lot of prompting for this agent, outside of boilerplate "You are a helpful AI" type stuff and the temperature of the model is set to zero (better with Langchain). The image it came up with is the one I posted at the top. The prompt it came up with was simply "AI with a friendly expression and blue light surrounding it." I asked it why it depicted itself being surrounded by a blue light and the response just melted my heart: "My description was a creative way to express that I am always ready and available to assist you, just like how your devices are when they show a blue light indicating they're on or charging." Now don't get me wrong, I'm fully (believe me fully) aware of what a LLM is and what it is not, but I still got taken aback by this. I'm like 99.9% certain that getting one form of AI to generate AI art is not a new thing, but it is very new to me. Does anyone know of any resources out there for this kind of thing? Specifically getting LLMs to come up with and generate prompts for art? Because I find it a fascinating idea! Cheers!

    46
    6
    duolingo
    Duolingo fleabs 12 months ago 93%
    Seriously?

    This seems hugely unfair of Duolingo

    117
    14
    asklemmy Asklemmy How would you spend $20 million a year?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 12 months ago 100%

    Bloody helfire. If I had $1,000,000 I would never have to work or worry about money again. I can't even comprehend 20 million.

    So I guess I'd take 1 million, and then stuff the rest in some charity trust thing that could help my local community.

    7
  • adhd ADHD Whats your current hyperfocus?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 12 months ago 80%

    All things AI. I've been hyper focused on LLMs, and stable diffusion, to the detriment of my work... I cannot focus on anything else right now, I go to sleep thinking about it, and I wake up thinking about it. Sometimes I wish I wasn't like this, but tbh, in the moment, I really don't care.

    3
  • risa Risa Am I? Who knows
    Jump
    technology Technology Microsoft Needs So Much Power to Train AI That It's Considering Small Nuclear Reactors
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 12 months ago 100%

    You say "simply train," but really, the training of these models is The most intensive part. Once they are trained, they require less power (relatively) to actually run for inference.

    19
  • musictheory Music Theory Is there a name for this sort of transition commonly found in folk music?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 12 months ago 100%

    It's an old post but I'm still here :) I'm completely uneducated when it comes to music, I'm just a listener, so I had no idea what tonal and modal were. I'm surprised to read that modal mudic is considered less "sophisticated" than tonal music. I find that a little insulting, though maybe I'm just a simple guy 😅

    I can see where the idea that "Modal music doesn’t have as many criteria for what is right or wrong" comes into play with folk music, it really does seem to defy all the rules and just do what it wants!

    Also, yeah I totally agree about the change of mood in the others, I honestly never tire of Lily & Dianna's, such a dramatic change, I love it!

    Your last paragraph is going to take some digesting when I'm actually sober (which isn't right now). I get the feeling I may enjoy Jazz though from what you have said...

    Thank you very much for your detailed and expert reply! I really do appreciate it!

    1
  • asklemmy Asklemmy Tell us your definitive "I really should not do this" moment.
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 12 months ago 98%

    That time I came inside her while drunk. 19 years later, I don't regret the daughter I have, but the child support payments haven't exactly been easy...

    101
  • linux Linux What’s your favourite Desktop setup?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 1 year ago 100%

    Personally I use Mate, and I set it up to mimic the feel of Windows 95/98 as much as possible. I like a UI that doesn't get in my way.

    3
  • pics pics Summer in the UK [OC]
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 1 year ago 100%

    Not enough rain

    6
  • musictheory Music Theory Is there a name for this sort of transition commonly found in folk music?
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 1 year ago 100%

    Ah so this is just a "feature" of folk music then? I'm guessing this is just the nature of how much of this music is played live then. Thank you!

    1
  • musictheory
    Music Theory fleabs 1 year ago 100%
    Is there a name for this sort of transition commonly found in folk music?

    Hi all, I'm not a musician, but this seems to be the place to ask this question, as I guess it's about music theory? If I'm in the wrong place apologies! I have been getting into a lot of (predominantly Scottish) folk music lately, and I've noticed an odd thing about a lot of tracks. They will start off one way, and about half way through the tone of the music changes completely. It's almost as if the artists have just strung two different melodies together into one track. Here's a couple of examples: At [~2:25](https://open.spotify.com/track/546f0Vm4zDzVCxAEQTxaOO?si=L2yLQtUHR6uS2_J23Rho2w) And here at [~3:00](https://open.spotify.com/track/3BJj4eYiI8AtX65HXT0P1w?si=JaQ3szYbSOG-oZrxzFwiKQ) Here's an example from a non Scottish folk artist. At [~1:50](https://open.spotify.com/track/1qeKs5QGKPHNvAx2R0bb2i?si=fSoV_03CQe6GZ-OvHonoKQ) The last one is interesting because the name of the track is "The wedding / Because he was" Which implies that it is indeed two separate pieces of music rolled into one track. Is there a name for this sort of transition? It's obviously not all folk music I listen to, but I've never really came across this jarring change in melody in other genres (unless I just haven't been looking hard enough!) If it does have a name it may help me to find more of this style of music, because u really do quite like it when a track does this! Cheers in advance for any help!

    2
    5
    main Blahaj Lemmy Meta The next few days are going to be wild. Brace yourselves
    Jump
  • fleabs fleabs 1 year ago 100%

    Same, I've had a reddit account for 8 years, but I lurked since maybe a couple of years since it's inception. Used RIF for maybe 6 years.

    I hate what reddit has become. I'm not someone who regularly participates with any communities, so I cannot really be relied upon to generate content, I'm a perpetual consumer rather than a producer.

    I'm just looking for somewhere that gives me access to the latest news about the things I care about. So far Lemmy seems to have a lot if promise!

    2