I’d say the worst are when…

• You outplayed your opponent, but still lost

• The opponent is toxic

• Your teammates are actively throwing

• You put a significant investment into the game

Of those, usually only the last is true of chess. I’d say most Esports titles are worse. Nothing is as bad as being locked in a game of CS or Dota for an hour with a griefer, while the game is clearly otherwise winnable, and the opponents spend the whole game gloating about how good they are.

Notably, this photo is listed as being in Russia, and the source is Moscow regional governor Andrei Vorobyov. The source isn’t a particularly reliable one, but I’m also not seeing any definitive evidence that the image isn’t real. Theres no weird alignment/disjointing of the bricks, no identifiable logical errors, and no watermarks. There are a bunch of elements that look weird, like how the bricks end on the second floor wall, whatever it is in the middle window, how the smoke curls very evenly around the roof piece, and the uniformity of the concrete rubble, but given the low resolution, none of this is clear enough to be definitive.

I also notably tried to track down the original copy, but it was in a telegram channel, not anything easy to verify.

I’d put the distinction around the same place as the distiction is between copyright infringement and transformative work. At a certain point, the AI output becomes less of a “piece” of the work and more of an ingredient unrecognizably blended, with a similar amount of care to any other element. For example, if a Vending machine asset is generated by AI, its slop. Add flavour text to it, and its still slop. Replace all the contents with theme-approprate contents, and and clean up the topology, and it finally starts to become distinct enough to (potentially) not be slop. Basically, it needs to be distinct enough to have a unique, human author and/or no longer fill the original “”“role”“”.

I mean, people do, although terrorist isn’t a super accurate label for him. Terrorist implies using violence to create terror for a political gain. Trump generally is more acting out of sheer stupidity and malice rather than for any deeper political agenda. Terms like violent madman, fascist, war criminal, murderer or wannabe dictator are more accurate.

Boost (for Piefed). I know its not free, but everything else is either missing too many features, or uses a UI style I don’t like.

Warhammer 40k has too many good options to list. The entire ork faction is great, although one of my personal favorites is Grizgutz, an ork who accidentally travelled back in time, and decided to kill himself to steal an extra copy of his favorite gun. The Necrons are also fun, for their unlimited capacity for arrogance and pettiness.

No, altough they do tend to be good at picking out vulnerable people and manipulating them.

I think you’re misunderstanding the premise of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character. A big part of definition is that they are almost entirely without flaw, and are generally (although not always) meant to be an author’s self-insert. Light and Tony Stark for example, are both intelligent but also stubborn, arogant, privileged assholes who are practically defined by their flaws. Superman could be considered a Gary Stu, esspecially in some of the earlier and simpler iterations but he’s honestly such a simple character in general that his lack of flaws doesn’t stand out.

The examples that do come to mind are Kirito from Sword Art Online, some versions of Batman, or Butcher from The Boys comics specifically. These are characters that are portrayed as unambiguously good, near perfect men who win every conflict are uniquely capable of solving every problem. Kirito is almost universally disliked, Batman depends a lot on the iteration but generally isn’t well-liked as a character, and I’ve heard nothing positive about The Boys comics (although its less popular in general).

As for why there is more criticism of Mary Sues, I think its not directly because people are harsher on female characters (not that they aren’t) so much as because they’re more common, esspecially in popular culture. Writing fiction is more cultural acceptable for young girls than young guys, so you end up with more amateur writers writing Mary Sues. In professional projects (notably often led by men due to industry sexism), it tends to be a matter of design-by-committee where they pick a man as a lead to match the male majority, and just throw in a token strong woman as an afterthought.

Now, not every character or show has to be relatable. Peter Parker works because he’s an everyman; however, the opposite can also be true, and people like fantasy escapism. That’s why soap operas about wealthy people or sitcoms about financially stable families are popular, because it’s a form of escapism this goes for Mary Sues and Gary Stus too.

I think a big distinction here is where the enjoyment comes from. You can have a story with a Mary Sue/Gary Stu that is still enjoyable, but generally that specific character adds nothing to the story themselves. For example, if you enjoy Sword Art Online, its for the setting, or the action, or the self-insert-fantasy. Its not for Kirito, and any time you put any focus on him, the story gets weaker. Compare that to, for example, Light, who has meaningful moral complexity despite his unmatched abilities, or Saitama, who despite his infinite power is made relatable through his struggles of daily life. The problem with Mary Sues/Gary Stus isn’t their power or self-insert nature, its the focus on a character who is flat, incapable of growth, and/or trivializes any plot.

I never really clicked with other social media, but I still use Reddit a lot. The format is good (I’m here because its trying to build on that format) and it actually allows me to find content relevant to me, unlike most of the more algorithmic stuff.

That part was to vent.

Generally, I post either hoping to inform others, or be informed by others. Unfortunately, the lack of discussion/activity here is a pretty major disincentive to continue posting.

jorymo@lemmy.world, for their art.

From my understanding, code is still covered by copyright. This means that copied code, even if run through an intermediary like an AI, is still copyright infringement. In the same way, even if an image generator recreates a character or movie frame, it isn’t made public domain (the default state of AI Output), its just that the AI ingringed on someone else’s copyright. If the code or image is then used, you can still be sued.

Even before getting into the copyrightability of code, at the very least, any LLM-produced parts are not copyrightable. They are public domain.

That said, if its a mix of LLM code and human code, things get pretty messy. From my understanding, if the human expanded on or modified AI code, its public domain. If they wrote a section fully independently, they absolutely own the copyright. If its an unclear mix, it would have to be proven on a case-by-case basis with the onus being on the AI user to provide solid evidence that the code copied isn’t AI generated.

Maybe its a bit of a cheat answer, but the only song the comes to mind is I Like Trains by LilDeuceDeuce and Tomska.

I have for some, and had the same issues, but its solved now. Apparently secureboot messes with the GPU drivers or something. I turned that off and its working fine now.

This seems to have fixed it! Thank you!

Unfortunately its not just Portal thats the issue. Its everything.

It is connected to the graphics card. Like I said, it ran fine on Windows so its not a hardware issue.

It feels like there has been some dropoff, particularly in higher-budget areas. Big studios seem to be taking fewer risks, and small creators have less money (and time by extention) to spend on art.

That said, it also feels like discoverability has gotten far worse. Social media has become increasingly insular, more personalized, more algorighmic, and ultimately harder to explore. Its not like the old days, where you could find a new thing, even from a random person’s forum signature.