Lurker > Antifar

andel posted...

college basketball is more fun to watch than the nba and players that stay multiple years at top programs develop nba skills, it's why those players are basically always more nba ready than the raw and undeveloped one and done players.

This is an imperfect means of judging this, but I was curious, so:
The one and done rule took effect starting with the 06 draft. Since then, of the 18 players to win Rookie of the Year,

• 9 were one and done in college
• 4 left after their sophomore year
• 1 left after junior year
• 2 were college seniors
• 2 played internationally

Finished Open City, by Teju Cole today. I remember telling my girlfriend as I was about ~80 pages in that I was feeling underwhelmed by it, but it really packs a punch in the end. Everything in the book is carrying the weight of history and the past and the effect of it all is quite something.

KiwiTerraRizing posted...

thumb his softee into that cake

I would like to remove this metaphor from my brain thank you

I think the Republican party is less resistent to shifting than you may want to think.

1. Our electoral systems, from gerrymandered districts to the Senate to the EC, have tended to benefit them and meant that they do not really need to win a majority of public support.
2. The party of capital is always going to hold capital's views, and there will be propaganda networks committed to promoting those views.

Remember, the GOP had a very public "introspection" following the 2012 election. They had open debates over whether their stances were driving voters away, and then four years later Trump was their nominee.

Topic's not great

This is going to be the least funny thing imaginable

https://bsky.app/profile/bartenderhemry.bsky.social/post/3kdkae3zxuv2o

Bump

Now that's funny

The logic in that third tweet is some real galaxy brain shit, imo.

Not everything is a coordinated distraction from some other, more important thing.

WaPo has an article about how AI generated nudes are being used to harass influencers, classmates, etc:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/05/ai-deepfake-porn-teens-women-impact/

When Gabi Belle learned there was a naked photo of her circulating on the internet, her body turned cold. The YouTube influencer had never posed for the image, which showed her standing in a field without clothes. She knew it must be fake.

But when Belle, 26, messaged a colleague asking for help removing the image he told her there were nearly 100 fake photos scattered across the web, mostly housed on websites known for hosting porn generated by artificial intelligence. They were taken down in July, Belle said, but new images depicting her in graphic sexual situations have already surfaced.

I felt yucky and violated, Belle said in an interview. Those private parts are not meant for the world to see because I have not consented to that. So its really strange that someone would make images of me.

Artificial intelligence is fueling an unprecedented boom this year in fake pornographic images and videos. Its enabled by a rise in cheap and easy-to-use AI tools that can undress people in photographs analyzing what their naked bodies would look like and imposing it into an image or seamlessly swap a face into a pornographic video.

On the top 10 websites that host AI-generated porn photos, fake nudes have ballooned by more than 290 percent since 2018, according to Genevieve Oh, an industry analyst. These sites feature celebrities and political figures such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez alongside ordinary teenage girls, whose likenesses have been seized by bad actors to incite shame, extort money or live out private fantasies.

Victims have little recourse. Theres no federal law governing deepfake porn, and only a handful of states have enacted regulations. President Bidens AI executive order issued Monday recommends, but does not require, companies to label AI-generated photos, videos and audio to indicate computer-generated work.

Meanwhile, legal scholars warn that AI fake images may not fall under copyright protections for personal likenesses, because they draw from data sets populated by millions of images. This is clearly a very serious problem, said Tiffany Li, a law professor at the University of San Francisco.

The advent of AI images comes at a particular risk for women and teens, many of whom arent prepared for such visibility. A 2019 study by Sensity AI, a company that monitors deepfakes, found 96 percent of deepfake images are pornography, and 99 percent of those photos target women.

Its now very much targeting girls, said Sophie Maddocks, a researcher and digital rights advocate at the University of Pennsylvania. Young girls and women who arent in the public eye.

And in the Houston Chronicle, an article about scammers using AI to fake the voice of a man's son in law, stealing $17k from him
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/ai-generated-scam-18469518.php

An 82-year-old man was tricked out of thousands of dollars after scammers used artificial intelligence technology to pose as a Texas police officer over the phone, ABC 13's Erica Simon reported.

Jerry, identified only by his first name, told ABC 13 that he received a call on Oct. 21 from a stranger who introduced himself as Sgt. Matthew with the San Antonio Police Department. The caller told Jerry that Jerry's son-in-law, Michael Trueblood, was in jail for a serious accident that he caused. Another voice, which Jerry then thought belonged to his son-in-law, came on the line and asked Jerry to help pay for his release.

The scammers convinced Jerry to take out a total of $17,000 and hire a courier to deliver the cash from the assisted living facility where Jerry resided with his wife. Although Jerry wrote down the license plate numbers of the vehicles that drove off with his money, officers with the Sugar Land Police Department said leads to any linked courier services have turned up short.

"We really depended on that money. I'm going to have to get a job somewhere. H-E-B or something like that, to try to restore some of this money," Jerry said.

AI experts say there has been an uptick in similar schemes that rely on voice cloning devices over the past year. According to a FOX Business article by Eric Revell, advancements in technology have allowed criminals to better impersonate their targets' friends and families.

No

epik_fail1 posted...

"I don't play games with politics in it"

*proceeds to praise Yakuza like a dragon that's basically "sex work is work and deporting illegal immigrants is bad and the last boss is a politician*

Is the anti-politics Yakuza Like a Dragon crowd really that big

Setting aside the good reasons not to trust Steven Crowder, the notion that police would be reluctant to release such a manifesto seems dubious to me.

I used it pretty constantly for 12 years as a way of keeping abreast of sports and politics and generally following funny people.

I use Bluesky now because I do not want to support Elon Musk

I really liked the plot 2/3rds of the way in, but I was hoping it would keep pressing that direction and instead it veered elsewhere.

So the stats on this are interesting to look at, imo:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_game.html

Scoring hit rock bottom in 98-99 (coincidentally? a season shorted by lockout) and shooting percentage was down across the board from even other years in this era. But points per game lingered in the mid 90s from 96-97 through 05-06. And there are years in that stretch where the percentage of 3-pointers made is pretty similar to what you're seeing nowadays:
2001-02: .354 (95.5 points per game)
2021-22: .354 (110.2 points per game)

What changes isn't so much that players have become better three point shooters (though they certainly have). Instead these are the big differences between those two seasons:
3-pointers attempted per game:
01-02: 5.2
21-22: 12.4

So we've more than doubled the volume of 3-pointers being attempted. Given this, and the fact that 3-pointers are the least likely shots to be made, you'd expect overall field goal percentage to go down. And we see the exact opposite:
01-02: .443
21-22: .461

What this suggests is that, either because the rise in threes has opened the floor, or because teams are prioritizing more efficient shots, the league has gotten better at shooting 2-pointers.

Lastly (and maybe most importantly) there's a big difference in the pace of play:
01-02: 91.3 possessions per game
21-22: 98.2 possessions per game

Offenses are going to work quicker, and as a result there are more opportunities within each game to score. The change to the shot clock after offensive rebounds contributes to this, but offensive rebounds are at all-time lows.

A side-note here: the highest scoring years in league history are all in the 1960s, before the three pointer. Shooting percentage was lower than it is now, but there were significantly more free throws in each game.

I saw The Killer recently. I enjoyed it, but didn't love it.

Politicians aren't owed any deference. Sanders' pointed refusal to call for a ceasefire is deserving of criticism.

Part of it has been its availability on Game Pass

xlr_big-coop posted...

If anything he kept adding fuel to the fire instead of compromising or actually trying to unite the country.

When you say this, is there anything specific that comes to mind?

xlr_big-coop posted...

He's busy throwing away money to Ukraine and now Israel despite his own country sinking through inflation.

A note: inflation is back down below 2%

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-johnson-son-monitor-porn-intake-covenant-eyes-1234870634/

During a conversation on the War on Technology at Benton, Louisianas Cypress Baptist Church unearthed by X user Receipt Maven last week the Louisiana representative talked about how he installed accountability software called Covenant Eyes on his devices in order to abstain from internet porn and other unsavory websites.

It scans all the activity on your phone, or your devices, your laptop, what have you; we do all of it, Johnson told the panel about the app.

It sends a report to your accountability partner. My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. Hes 17. So he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice. Im proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate.

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) says he will host 119 town halls in his long-shot primary challenge against President Biden. If the reception at his first is any indication of the next potential 118, the nascent campaign faces an even steeper uphill battle for the nomination than expected as a little-known congressman challenging an incumbent president.

Speaking in a theater here less than a week after announcing his campaign, Phillips faced screaming and profanity from voters disappointed in his response to a question on a cease-fire in the Middle East. He was accused of gaslighting the lone Black woman in attendance, who was escorted out of the event but not before a handful of other attendees walked out of the room.

The tense moment reflects the impassioned debate and nuanced positions within the Democratic Party over the Israel-Gaza war and underscored the question of whom exactly Phillips hopes to appeal to with his campaign. Though many Democrats express a desire for an alternative to Biden, it is unclear if Phillips is the candidate they are looking for. The Minnesota congressman confronted the tough realities of being a late and little-known entrant to the presidential race while seeking to find a rhythm on the trail at the town hall, which like his campaign launch was unusual.

At the Rex Theatre, Phillipss crowd was small and appeared to be largely made up of staff members, family and friends. The atmospherics were atypical a loud live musical performance featuring his singing wife kicked off the event, followed by three separate introductory videos one of which included bizarre commentary on his old haircut and a visibly prominent security presence.

Around an hour into the meandering town hall here Wednesday, 23-year-old Democrat Atong Chan rose to ask Phillips to support a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war.

Phillips blinked rapidly as Chan asked her question, and then began his response by turning around the question to ask her about how she feels about the Israelis killed by Hamas in the conflict.

Im going to answer each of your questions, but I have to tell you, I took note that you didnt mention how do you feel about the Israeli babies? And moms and dads and grandmas and hostages in Gaza who were brutally murdered? I just want to hear, before I answer your question, if that empathy is across humanity or only for Palestinians right now? Phillips responded to Chan, a Manchester resident.

He interrupted before she replied, I am completely empathetic to them.

Phillips repeatedly invoked his multiple visits to Israel in the past year and his role as the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs subcommittee focused on the Middle East, and told Chan, You and I are the same. Though he said he was horrified and disgusted when I see Palestinians slaughtered, and denounced Hamas as an enemy of both Israel and Palestinians, he did not answer her follow-up questions about why he is not calling for a cease-fire.

At one point, he pointed in defense to his friendship with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of the House and one of several House Democrats calling for a cease-fire: I care deeply about Palestinian lives. Rashida Tlaib, my Palestinian sister, is my friend. Im her Jewish brother.

Phillips and Chan then debated whether she was being antagonistic, and when she said she hoped he would change his position on the cease-fire, the event devolved into a shouting match.

Theyre U.S. bombs; thats the f---ing problem, chimed in a man from across the room. A person seated in the same row as Chan shouted out that Phillips had not answered her question, and said, You just gaslit her instead, before getting up and walking out of the event.

I gaslit? Phillips asked, as more voices chimed in, You did, before Chan was escorted out of the town hall by three staffers. She accused Phillips of not caring about Gazan children, and he again turned around the issue to focus on Israelis.

But the question of a cease-fire continued to haunt Phillips after Chans exit. A Black man one of only a few at the event asked if white-supremacist and hate groups should be categorized as terrorists, to which Phillips responded, Those are terrorists, 100 percent. The man then asked if that means bombs should be dropped on states such as Alabama to eradicate said groups, to which Phillips responded that Ku Klux Klan is different from Hamas and again challenged attendees, saying they had not asked about the welfare of Israelis.

Another woman sounded as if she might cry when she asked how killing Palestinians is making what happened to Israelis better and if there were no other solutions to the conflict. Phillips again responded with a query, asking the two questioners for their ideas on how to fix the situation. He again returned to the idea that Israeli babies are also important a stance none of the questioners disputed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/02/dean-phillips-town-hall-new-hampshire/

justaguy3492 posted...

"It's the systems of oppression that let Trump regain the presidency!!!!!!" -one of those non-voting doofuses, probably.

"Calling people doofuses will get them to side with me" - you

If the goal is to help Democrats win elections, acting smarmy and condescending about the necessity of voting for them is counterproductive.

TheGoldenEel posted...

instead the core gameplay is almost unchanged from NSMB save for the wonder flowers

This feels a bit like saying the core gameplay from Mario 64 was unchanged except for FLUDD. It's a big change that radically alters levels in clever ways.

Also, wonder flowers aside, the structure has been altered in bigger ways. Progression being gated by collection rather than beating specific levels on a linear map. The smaller levels like break time and ko arena (and badge challenges) feel like they're taking from 3D World as much as anything.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/white-house-requests-unprecedented-loophole-that-obscures-arms-sales-to-israel

Buried within the $106 billion supplemental national security funding request the White House sent to Congress on October 20 was a highly unusual exemption. As part of $3.5 billion earmarked for Foreign Military Financing (FMF) funding for Israel, the executive branch sought permission to unilaterally blanket-approve the future sale of military equipment and weaponslike ballistic missiles and artillery ammunition to Israel without notifying Congress.

This means the Israeli government would be able to purchase up to $3.5 billion in military articles and services in complete secrecy. The House included the waiver language in a bill that splits off Israeli military aid from the rest of the package.

Ive never seen anything like it, says Josh Paul, former director of congressional and public affairs for the State Departments Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Paul recently resigned in protest against the administrations plans to rush weapons to Israel. A proposal in a legislative request to Congress to waive Congressional notification entirely for FMF-funded Foreign Military Sales or Direct Commercial Contracts is unprecedented in my experience. Frankly, [its] an insult to Congressional oversight prerogatives.

Well?

Lol

Anarchist doesn't mean that

Cheetaluv posted...

Cause that what their masters want.

You're smarter than this

Also key swing state Michigan has one of the largest Arab populations in the country.

Update: he got a lot of illegal campaign funding from Turkey
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/fbi-raids-home-of-major-fundraiser-for-nyc-mayor-eric-adams/ar-AA1jhLl7

https://youtu.be/VYGpnfltJjw?si=5O6w2JFr37voUL5W

Cuts to the IRS do not offset spending. It's like if McDonald's tried to save money by selling fewer Big Macs.

"We shouldn't hold a congressman accountable because his presence benefits us politically" is the GOP stance on this issue.

The bar for conviction and the bar for being removed from Congress should be separate bars, imo

https://deadline.com/2023/11/nicolas-cage-superman-cameo-the-flash-1235590271/

Nicolas Cage is opening up about his cameo in The Flash where he was featured donning the costume of Superman.

As you may remember, Cage tested as the Man of Steel for what wouldve been a Tim Burton-directed feature that was ultimately scrapped. With The Flash being about the multiverse, in another timeline, Cage does sport the red cape and blue suit but he said that what he filmed was not what appeared on-screen.

When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider. I did not do that. That was not what I did, he told Yahoo! Entertainment in an interview. I dont think it was [created by] AI. I know Tim is upset about AI, as I am. It was CGI, OK, so that they could de-age me, and Im fighting a spider. I didnt do any of that, so I dont know what happened there. But I get where Tims coming from. I know what he means. I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art and appropriating them. I get it. I mean, Im with him in that regard. AI is a nightmare to me. Its inhumane. You cant get more inhumane than artificial intelligence.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

The Dobbs decision was in early 2022, and you would expect covid's role to have been larger in 21 than 22

refmon posted...

why are people making this political?

Politics have a big role on infant mortality.

Yeah I don't think the answer is "cops don't like Eric Adams"

Imagine a way for a mayor to suck. He does.

Can I introduce you to Crusader Kings?

Mario Odyssey and Hitman are both about transforming your appearance in order to reach your targets.

FlyEaglesFly24 posted...

The choice in Gaza, because of the tactics of the enemy, create a situation that even the laws of nature cant account for, let alone the laws of war.

The laws of war can and do account for it. You just don't like the answer they give.

thronedfire2 posted...

oh well that makes no sense then

how did he even win?

The incumbent Democrat left his seat to run for governor from Kathy Hochul's right. The Democratic Party failed basic opposition research only to have Santos' fraudulent record get exposed in the weeks after election day.

More broadly, the NY Democratic party, with the Mayor of NYC all but calling his city a warzone, suffered the party's biggest setbacks of the 2022 midterms, likely costing Democrats the House. There's a pretty clear cut divide between Democrats' performance in and out of the NYC media market (which includes much of NJ and all of George Santos' district).
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/the-nyc-media-might-have-cost-democrats-the-house.html
https://newrepublic.com/article/176003/eric-adams-new-york-democrats-drop-dead

DnDer posted...

If it's a special election in that, if I remember, very red district, then you're right about there being no reason to oust Santos.

It is not a very red district. It's D+2

thronedfire2 posted...

eh, why not?

it's not like a different republican would vote differently

It's a district that voted for Biden!

After being heckled by a Rabbi tonight, Biden says he's pushing for a "humanitarian pause."
https://bsky.app/profile/brainnotonyet.antifa.llc/post/3kd63nkoufu2q

A pause is notably not a ceasefire, but more than Biden has backed so far
https://www.discourseblog.com/p/just-say-ceasefire-bernie

The crowd chanted "four more years" while the rabbi was escorted out by security.

The unspoken thing in all this discussion is that playoffs in baseball are a statistical crapshoot. You can build a team that, over 162 games, rises to the top, and still be done in by three bad ones at the wrong time.