From an outsider’s perspective, I think a lot of people think you guys sailed past the point of no return back in the 80s.

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I think the only correct answer will be “there are lots of different reasons”.

My wife took my last name, even though it’s not a good one and I suggested that we pick a new one.

Here are a couple of her reasons:

1. She wanted us to have the same surname.

2. She was very close friends with my cousins growing up, so the name didn’t seem weird to her.

3. Tradition - she’d always assumed she would change her name to her husband’s name, so that seemed the most normal thing to do.

We could technically do it now, but you’d need a ton of quality control.

A basic workflow:

Use an image generator to generate start (and optionally end) frames of each scene.

Use a video generator like Runway to create the scene.

Use something to generate the speech, either a realistic text-to-speech engine or a record the dialog yourself and use AI voice changing software.

Use a lip synch AI to match the mouth flaps to the audio.

Generate music using something like Udio

Job done.

All these technologies exist and in some capacity are available to use. The only issue at the moment is consistent quality. This is coming on in leaps and bounds, however.

Ah, ok - that’s fair.

I thought you were implying that we had some kind of firewall like China or something!

I agree, US sites geolocking their content is sometimes a pain, but I get your meaning. We do tend to be more comfortable with our governments trying to protect us than the Americans seem to.

I’m really curious about what you think you’re not being allowed to visit on the internet.

I can’t think of a single thing that’s ‘blocked’.

Unless you’re under 13, of course, in which case I concede there are a lot of restrictions - but that’s a good thing.

Thank you! This is always the first thing that pops into my head whenever I read somebody using “females” instead of “women”

Running as a moderate party just continously pushes America politics right.

100% this

In the UK the left-wing party, Labour, very drastically moved themselves to the centre, rebranding as New Labour.

Since then, the Conservatives have increasingly adopted far-right policies and everybody just accepts it as normal.

At our GP surgery, there are a couple of doctors who won’t consult on birth control matters for religious reasons.

There’s just a sign at the reception saying that if you need to discuss birth control, please let the receptionist know and they’ll be sure to assign a different doctor.

I love the optimism here, but unless there was a significant potential for profit, none of the people who have the resources to begin collecting ocean plastics could care less.

The sad truth is that the majority of the world’s resources are owned and controlled by a handful of psychopaths.

Only in the US and a select few other countries…

In other places, ‘Professor’ is a specific academic rank - there’ll only be a few professors in a university.

chefs kiss

Materials.

If you’d have seen the marble sculptures when they were new, you would have described them as anything but realistic. We now know that many, if not most, sculptures were painted in bright garish colours.

Why paint a delicately crafted sculpture with a dodgy paint job? Party taste, perhaps, but more definitely because that was what was available.

The paints that we have now are carefully designed, mixed and stored to deliver a wide range of colours of a consistent quality (and even modern companies like GW struggle with that!).

The further back you go, the fewer pigments there are and the less sophisticated the binders are. It’s no coincidence that the rapid explosion in science and trade of the Renaissance led to the rapid development of paints. Even in those days, an artist didn’t buy paint, they made it - access to new raw ingredients was all that was needed.

So, why the Renaissance? Because it’s the earliest point in time it could have been possible.

That’s really interesting! So, apologies for the late reply, you sent me down an internet rabbithole.

Two of my good friends are from Hungary, and in the nicest way possible the fact that there’s a rule for that doesn’t surprise me at all!

One of them had a kid after moving here with her husband and deliberately named her something that they wouldn’t have been able to over there. It’s just a pretty normal ‘English’ name, but apparently in Hungary there’s a list of approved names for babies.

I’m just being silly. I have an MSc and my wife has a MA, so I promise there’s no ill will - they absolutely are as good as each other. (Honestly, if anything I think she wins out, as she had to write her dissertation by hand - mine was all on computer).

In the same vein, an MD is just as much a doctoral degree as a PhD - it’s just in a different area.

It’s like drawing a distinction between a Masters Degree and an MSc.

Everyone knows that the MSc is better than the other Masters Degrees, so it’s natural it should be a tier above in the hierarchy.

if they don’t have some already, 100% on the Brio train set - except not Brio. The generic wooden railway sets are just as good nowadays, and many many times cheaper.

You can buy a whole dinosaur themed wooden railway set on Amazon for £37. I’d want that, even as an adult!

FWIW, both of my kids played with their wooden railway for years - seriously good investment.

I read that book about 30 years ago! I didn’t remember the eye-scanning gargoyle, but for some reason I still remember the phrase “Ultima Ratio Regum” from the nuclear powered gun.

The poor old White Scars were put out of reach for me by GWs old Tip-Ex-like white paint. Despite what the guides might have said, there is no way that the models were base-coated with the Skull White of the time.

I don’t think the word needs to imply a creator necessarily.

“Clouds are created when water vapour in the air condenses”.

“Black holes are created when giant stars collapse”.

I’ll concede that going on to question political motive implies a creator, though.