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  There is a question - or rather three questions. They come out of the growth of AI. And I don't expect answers, I just think we should ask them. 1. What is intelligence? How would we know if software is intelligent? Turing Test is (of course) obsolete. So how do we check it now? 2. What is sentience? Again, how would we know if an AI (a real one) was sentient? 3. What is a spiritual being - a soul, or whatever we call it? How would we know if a non-human sentient being has a soul?

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  I know people talk about it a lot - but we go on long drives occasionally (not often). And we usually arrive with a clean windscreen. Maybe a couple of bugs. But I remember when I was young, we would go on a similar drive and the windscreen would be covered in bugs. That is in my lifetime - in some 50 years, the number of bugs identified on the Windscreen Index has gone from 200 to 1 (estimates). It is a very clear visible sign of the devastation we have caused in our country*. I was thinkin...

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  @alexadeswift@lgbtqia.space Yes - precisely. This is what I was thinking of. I just found it interesting that this was so clear and explicit in this case. It is rarely spoken so obviously.

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  Watching a show about Ibiza. An interesting comment was made that, while they try to crack down on drugs, if they stopped them altogether, that would kill the tourism industry totally. So they do a little and don't have money for any more - it is accepted that they need this illegal activity to keep the islands entire economy. And somehow, it feels like this is the case across a lot of the western world - at least. That is the nature of capitalism. You cannot erase the corruption entirely,...

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  Oh look, another police officer who was a KNOWN RAPIST but stayed in his job. Lucky him. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v0rq66q3no

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  RE: https://wandering.shop/@troublewithwords/116969334951166624 I would concur with this.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub July 23: "How much erotic content can a work have without being considered erotica?" Some of this is about intent. Is the intent of the work to be erotic, sexually exciting - really, do you want people to have a wank over it? If so, probably erotic. If not, they your focus should not be on the erotic nature of the erotic moments - it should be on a story. As a general rule, I think, the main purpose of your writing should be clear to you. For mine, it is t...

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  Cats are amazing. They can be gorgeous bundles of lovely soft furriness, and then suddenly turn into an explosion of razor blades.

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  #totp so that Andreas Johnson song is a great piece. I had forgotten it. I am not sure it deserves to be forgotten.

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  #totp Oh no, not the eternal number one.

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  #totp Well I knew Bros were terrible, I had forgotten exactly how terrible. (Apologies to Bros fans)

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  #totp - Billy Bragg was young once then. I saw him 5 or so years ago, and he has aged well. but he has aged.

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  #totp - play Divinyls. And pretend you don't know what it is about.

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  #totp - the miming standards of some of these performers leaves a lot to be desired. But is this song a precursor to "Ride on Time" by Black Box?

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  #totp - There are some really good songs in this chart - even some I don't necessarily want to admit to. And some terrible songs. Quite a few, I am pleased to say, I have never heard of, and never will.

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  Something that strikes me about America 250 - well the whole celebration of them being 250 years old - it could have been a great, global celebration. It could have been a time for many countries to have acknowledged what the US has done positively. I remember the 200th anniversary, and in the UK, some people celebrated it - I think we acknowledged it in school. It was seem as a time of celebration. And what it has become is another Trump failure. Nobody cares, and the US is making itself look...

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  @burek@metalhead.club It certainly appears that way. But (to take the question seriously for a moment) I think we are more just rejecting smartness. We are promoting in our society people who are very stupid. And demoting people who thing and people who can argue and discuss things properly with a view to facts and information. It means that as a big-picture society, we appear to be getting dumber. Because being unbelievably stupid is not a barrier to making a lot of money or having a lot of po...

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  I had seen this earlier, and so want to repost it here. It is important to remember that - despite the results from this week - the picture of local councils across the country is not as bad as some people make it sound. Note that Greens still have more seats than Reform. And the three main parties still dominate. Reform - scum though they are - only have 3.8% of seats.

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  OK people - any Netflix suggestions for me? I have signed up for a short period to catch up with Wednesday, so need other things to watch there. Bear in mind, I have worked through a whole lot of the normal stuff. I need unexpected things.

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  @f_o_tistic@autistics.life I have a superb tattoo artist, who also does a lot of the working of the design to work as a tattoo (that can be very important). Look at their portfolio, more for the skills that you need - can they do realistic images, can they handle colour properly (if either of these are relevant). But I also know I was fortunate. I found one of the best in our area. It is especially hard for a first one, because you will not know the people or what sort of thing is right for yo...

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  So often when I hear about - well almost anything. politics, AI, the state of the world, of my industry, of the future, and I want to go outside and scream at the top of my voice - or, in fact, a whole lot louder than that: JUST FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING SCUM. To the fascists, the grifters, the wealthy white men whose only contribution ot the world is to fuck things up. All of you: FUCK OFF.

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  I am getting heartily sick of the neediness of business. "Please give us feedback". "Tell us how we did". I have no idea how good this product I bought a week ago is - it will take a month or more to know. If my vets visit was not acceptable, I would have said at the time. Not in an anonymous questionnaire later. I am not constantly recommending things to my friends. They are not constantly asking. If they ask, I will tell them the truth. But there are probably a lot of v...

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  Cat

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  I would tell people to vote Green on Thursday and not to vote Reform. But I know that most people who follow me will vote sensibly if they can on Thursday. And if anyone is a Reform supporter, please unfollow me.

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  There are many reasons why I will never be on Masterchef. But the fact that I haven't travelled the world and can cook odd dishes from remote countries. You never seem to get people who cook normal food on there.

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  #TuneTuesday #GuitarsAndStrings - this came to mind straight away. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcqwG3bSTmo

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  "Is there anything else you would like to say?" I have had to respond to this including "anything more will get me in trouble." Because saying "person X should go fuck himself" would have got me in deep trouble.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub 5: Have you ever taken inspiration from something which could have but didn't happen? Oh yes - an older work of mine called Bubbles was all about this.

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  @chris_colvin It is difficult - I have an android phone. I still have a gmail address - but it it not my main one, and I am trying to wean off it. I am not using any others.

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  So I saw another of those insane AI pictures of Trump as saviour. That he loves so much, as he sees himself as divine. I struggle to say how deeply and intensely vile these are. From every aspect: Artistic - well they are not. Slop of the worst kind. The Jesus pictures they are intended to mimic are themselves utterly appaling. Total White Supremacist takes on Christianity. And for Trump - one of the most despicable, evil, hell-bound, hateful people the world has ever known - to put himself...