taints in its history

Ooh, let’s play “find the dark history”! What better way to distract from today’s issues and avoid talking about solutions for tomorrow’s problem!

This is me agreeing with you, to be clear. The description “taints in its history” is so ubiquitous as to be useless. Yes, acknowledging the errors of the past is important to learn from them and improve, but the focus needs to be on that learning and improving.

The NATO has potential to be a force of security. In a modern world, conflict between peers is more destructive than ever and the returns on aggressive action are more strongly affected by the strength of the defense, such a union of forces can discourage attack by making it too unprofitable.

Of course, that requires the union to actually stand united and the potential aggressor to be reasonable and motivated by the state’s prosperity. Neither of those seem entirely guaranteed right now…

One time long ago, a guy on the train (whether tweaking or mental issues, I don’t know) sat down across from me, which was probably the most spacious spot in a fairly busy train. I didn’t register any unusual behaviour, nor was I - white male teen, at the time - particularly concerned.

He suddenly leaned in and asked me what I’d do if he killed me. Die, obviously. He then followed up telling me he could punch me in the face. He did neither of these things, eventually got off the train, and I never saw him again. The incident obviously left an impression, but I wouldn’t say I am or was traumatised by it.

I think this exemplifies that difficult grey zone. I don’t think it was motivated by hate, given I’m a fairly “safe” demographic. I also didn’t take him for the type of bully that does it for the power fantasy, or the type of macho needing to establish superiority.

Was it a threat or just a rather unhinged musing on social restraints? Was there actual intent to hurt me, kept in check by some lucky circumstances, or was it just a brief outburst of intrusive thoughts? I did feel threatened and intimidated, but is what I felt enough to judge his actions?

Regardless of the legal question, he probably needed help - medical or social - rather than punishment. I’m not qualified to assess that, but that question has bounced around my head ever since. What led to this outburst? What could be done to prevent that? What could be done to help him?

It’s not strictly relevant to the legal question - his actions are his own to account for, though his mental state may be a mitigating factor - but I figured I’d add it as context because I think it’s worth considering.

Ah yes, let’s skip the social part and get right to the obligatory consumption.

I don’t really care for Halloween, but I don’t actively hate it either. I like seeing kids and parents in cute costumes walking around. To me, the whole point has always been one of social activity, of walking around the neighbourhood and showing off your cool costume and such. You know, the whole “reinforcing horizontal social ties” deal we’ve done since forever.

So if YouTube provided an RSS feed for its channels, all videos would be podcasts because they can be processed as audio-only and are distributed via RSS?

What exactly makes a podcast then?

Probably because there are no sanctions against them that his government is cracking down on? I don’t think he wants to get involved in politics so much as stay out of prison.

Yeah, you’re right. I got hit on a sore spot, responded impulsively and was a dick about it.

Sorry I was trying to match the level of insulting tone of your reply, I guess I went too mean.

Eh, I’d be a hypocrite to point fingers for that. All good.

Technology Connections actually has great CC and Transcripts as I believe Alec adds them directly after proofing an as aired script after his final edit.

I don’t know this specific creator, or many YT tech creators really, since YT isn’t really my main haunt (I’ve tried to explaing that elsewhere, but it boils down to “I rarely have the mental ability to sit and watch them”) and I genuinely prefer articles.

The video having good CC doesn’t solve most of my problems, unfortunately. It’s a good thing to have, don’t get me wrong, just doesn’t help me a whole lot.

it’s about a crappy ‘news’ site generating a two paragraph summary of a YouTube video and screencaping images from said video in order to generate ad revenue with minimal effort and dubious ethics

I’ll grant the dubious ethics point. That subtext didn’t parse for me. My focus was on the fact that the article, being a textual medium, is more useful to me.

I’m mostly upset at the prevalence of video content and the tendency to push people away from text, like “This guy has a great video” is a useful response to “I’m looking for an article”. This topic set me off, but my frustration is independent of the specific context. I’ve had it happen often enough to make it a sore spot, but that isn’t strictly the original comment’s fault.

If you’re so interested in the subject and want to learn more about the subject why not look for one, or even just ask?

It’s not a deep interest so much as a passing “stumble across something interesting”, so I wouldn’t necessarily seek out content on the topic. But if I were offered an essily digestible format, I’d be curious enough to consume it.

I agree that it would be better not to post cheap ripoffs, but they fill a market gap that I’m the audience for. The solution isn’t to complain about the moochers filling the gap, but to fill the gap yourself. I’m not defending sloppy AI text specifically, but the concept of converting content to a different medium.

If the content creators don’t want to cater to those who prefer that other medium - perfectly fine, that’s their prerogative. But to then complain if someone else adapts your content to a medium you didn’t want to, that’s what rubs me the wrong way.

Also, you’re a dingus.

Fair enough. My phrasing was harsh and born of a frustration that I didn’t really convey.

In my experience, YT would still end up loading a section of the video along with previews of suggestion. Maybe that has changed.

If it can make accurate transcriptions, sure. I’d enjoy the option of sending a link to an autotranscriber and get a conveniently readable version out of it.

And a good day to you too. Not sure why you felt the need to be insulting, but anyway.

A transcript of the video

Would you happen to have one handy? Or are these autogenerated these days. Are they better than the autogenerated CCs?

Also there’s a source listed in the description, guess what it is? An article.

Yeah, which would require me to click on YT in the first place, which is already what I want to avoid due to a limited mobile data plan and YT being a wonderful drain on that.

I’m just trying to push the point that “just watch the original video instead” isn’t as great a solution for everyone as some people make it out to be.

No, it’s about me not being able to arbitrarily sit down and watch a video due to various issues like attention span, hearing issues*, limited mobile data and being at work, where an article or summary is much easier and faster to read and can be interrupted at a moment’s notice unlike a video which I’ll have to pause, scrub back through if I missed a detail and wait for it to get to the right point, and I can more easily search for stuff.

My point is that there seems to be a habit of dismissing the value of textual summaries in favour of “just watch the video” in much of the online world, where I’ll be looking for a quick explanation and get presented with some video instead. Some people don’t do so well with videos so it’s not “just” watching the video.

There are advantages to text that I hate seeing people ignore.

(Besides, how would you know I’m incapable rather than just unwilling; or why would you assume either in the first place instead of considering inability?)

* That issue applies to voice messages and phone calls too. While videos occasionally have good CC, I haven’t found them to be reliable or ubiquitous enough. Additionally, they present the speech in fragments and usually are just as hard to search through. Either way, videos are a “sometimes” thing for me.

EDIT: That was an undeservedly harsh phrasing. The matter touched a nerve, but that’s not OPs fault. I’ll clarify, but leave the original comment at the end for transparency.

I’m not a fan of videos and much prefer having texts to read. I find them more comfortable to process, interrupt, resume, search for a specific section and consume while not on WiFi (due to a limited data plan, which YT tends to eat through).

Both professionally and privately, I have been frustrated by the number of tutorials and guides that are presented as videos where articles would work well enough. They seem to be more popular too, to the point that useful articles are buried deeper in the results.

I like textual summaries of interesting videos, because I’m curious, but often not enough to warrant clicking a YouTube link. I understand people’s frustration with AI ripoffs stealing content, but if the original content creator doesn’t cater to a textual medium, then someone else steps into that gap, I don’t feel like it’s so much ripping off as adapting to a different medium.

If the original creator offered a textual summary, and someone stole that to sell it as their own, I’d share the frustration. But if they didn’t, you can’t really steal what never existed.

Not that I’m a fan of AI slop specifically, but it’s better than nothing. If I can’t have a human one, I’d rather have an AI transcription than be excluded.

Sorry about my rudeness. This is a sore spot, but being snarky doesn’t help anyone.

Original comment below

Does someone have a content description so I can read instead of having to watch it?

Oh wait, here’s an article, nevermind.

I’ve had to grapple with pipewire. My old pulseaudio config didn’t seem to work and I wanted to migrate to the pw config file format anyway, but I found the pw docs to be highly opaque. You get a thousand solutions for commands online, or tools you can do it visually in, but to apply that config you need to start the tool…

I’m a noob, granted, but there seemed to be a lot of assumed common knowledge that I just don’t have. And if I don’t even know what I’m missing, it’s hard to google for it.

One big supermarket chain here has an app where you get a few cents bonus discount on already discounted items with the app coupon. The in-store announcement praises it as the first place of some insitute’s supermarket app ranking. Even if that institute were legit, the ranking fair and the spot well-deserved, I always felt like that’s a competition with no winners.

Particularly since some companies have made their websites intentionally shit so that you’d be encouraged to use the app instead. I noticed that with out local flavour of door dash, where the website got slower and clunkier and generally more shit right around the same time that the “Use our app!” banners got more obnoxious.

I don’t think that’s a reasonable solution

Is that really a reasonable solution?

No. Of course not. My comment was tongue in cheek.

How was your trip?

Oh you’re still going? Nice. Enjoy your stay!

I suppose you could install Word. If you want just Word, you can jump through a few hoops to make the Office Deployment Tool install only Word.

I don’t think that is a reasonable solution for your use case, but I suspect making people use (and buy) the actual Office Suite is the motivation.

Edit: I see my point has been phrased poorly - I was trying to outline that I suspect MS’ point is making people get Word (Office) instead. Maybe I’m just plain wrong on that though.

Bruh, imagine being in the shoes of that Lt Gen and having BoJo tell you to figure out if you could invade the Netherlands. Imagine the restraint it takes to not yell at him right there and then, to carry out a feasibility study in accordance with your orders, then to find a way to present it to him as merely a bad idea instead of a bloody insane one from the outset.

And then you get to worry that he might order its execution anyway and you’d have to start a political mess to avoid starting an international mess.