Plouf de Phoque

Plouf de Phoque

@phoque.ing

A perpetually-tired, mostly-functional ADHD poindexter since 1990. Skiing, retro tech, software, geography, and other things of interest. Also a furry. Montréal/Ottawa, he/they, FR/EN/ES/DE/日本語 🔞 May occasionally interact with NSFW content.

616 followers1.1K following3.4K posts

Plouf de Phoque reposted

The Loch Ness Monster
@nessiopeia.space

A part of this not mentioned is that Texas used to let kids transition. I volunteered at a camp for trans kids in Houston when I was in college (pre transition I know I know how did I not know I was trans). Guess where part of that camp was? Texas Children’s. That’s how much we lost

union person@junlper.beer

its insane how not many people are talking about how republicans with the help of several moderate democrats are building out the largest abusive medical conversion therapy operation in modern american history

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Toronto Railway Museum
@torailwaymuseum.bsky.social

Oct 26, 1981: GO Transit begins rail service between Milton and Toronto Union Station with three weekday-only rush hour round trips. Intermediate stops were at Meadowvale, Streetsville, Erindale, Cooksville, Dixie and Kipling, where riders could transfer to the TTC subway.

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social

"Under Brazilian federal law, all legislators have immunity...To run for President, Bolsonaro decided not to run for his Senate seat. Now, after losing the Presidential election, he no longer has legislative immunity when his Senate term expires in January 2027." Very Special Episode of no amnesty

Mike Elk@mikeelk.bsky.social

Flávio Bolsonaro had his passport confiscated by the Brazilian fed police as his brother Eduardo told him to flee to the US. He is tied to paramilitary gangs, is being investigated & lost his legislative immunity when he left the Senate to run for president. paydayreport.com/brazilian-fe...

paydayreport.comBrazilian Federal Police Confiscate Flavio Bolsonaro’s PassportHe faces investigation for his ties to paramilitary gangs

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Bongo
@ghostofthewoods.bsky.social

100% Let cons know what you want to see! No AI, no resellers, and more handmade. Its awesome to have a good mix of styles, designs, and mediums. It should be feel like an art fair with a healthy mix of curated work.

🍊 STABLERCAKE 🍊 MFF@stablercake.bsky.social

THIS IS ALL TO SAY: if you find yourself not seeing as many hand crafted artisans at the con(s) you frequent, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, it might mean they didn’t get in! Good cons want your feedback, if you want more hand made, tell them! :)

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Fuck cancer.

Furnal Equinox@furnalequinox.com

It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of Linx Fox. Linx was a member of our Panels & Events team and was ever-present in our community. Furnal Equinox is grateful for his contributions. Our thoughts are with his friends and family during this difficult time. 📸 Tobee Coyote

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Lauty
@lauty3590.bsky.social

Ahhh yeeeees! This is what I needed for this god-awful week. What a great retrospective, definitely my favorite OS ever, that Windows XP Tour was such a mood.

LGR@lgr-yt.bsky.social

this is a QUARTER CENTURY old now youtu.be/GAv1EwoRnec Back to 2001 on LGR today for a retrospective on Windows XP! Reminiscing on its release, unboxing and setting it up, new features, games, screensavers, and a bunch of nifty early 2000s things. Still a truly enjoyable eXPerience decades later!

youtu.beWindows XP 25 Years Later! An LGR RetrospectiveYouTube video by LGR

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Merriam-Webster
@merriam-webster.com

We acknowledge that no one has the bandwidth for this, but if it helps: -It’s ‘sleight of hand’ -It’s ‘bated breath’ -It’s ‘lo and behold’ -It's 'buck naked' -It’s ‘brass tacks’ -It’s ‘free rein’ -It’s ‘toe the line'

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Kevin J. Kircher
@kevinjkircher.com

By my napkin math, total Bell Labs research expenditures from 1930-1980 were on the order of $50 billion in 2026 dollars. AI companies have spent ~$1 trillion so far: The equivalent of ~20 Bell Labs histories. In its history, Bell Labs researchers discovered the transistor, the solar cell, the laser

en.wikipedia.orgBell Labs - Wikipedia
Kevin J. Kircher@kevinjkircher.com

Funny thought experiment: Tech monopolies have spent about $1 trillion on AI development so far. How good of a chatbot could we have built for $1 trillion by just employing smart people to answer any question people might reasonably ask and collecting all the answers in a big lookup table?

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

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Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

That child turns and asks her, starstruck: "Are you Supernova?" Woman: Shh! Yes, but keep it a secret. Full voice, no whispering. Same tone as an ad's voiceover.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Y'all, I broke out yt-dlp and ffmpeg to cut this out, this is too good. LOOK AT HOW THE CANS FLIP TO BOXES BETWEEN SHOTS! LOOK AT HOW HER BOOK MORPHS AT THE END!

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

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Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Focus is on the characters across the table, David and his laptop are soft, but the table's wood grain has roughly the same sharpness throughout. This... is not how depth of field works. 🙃

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

View full thread
Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

OH MY GOD I forgot that we were in a flashback for like a whole ten minutes. We're back to that cursed talk show now, but David is nowhere to be found, and the rest of the superhero crew is being interviewed instead. What a weird jump.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Damn, I've never seen an audience stop clapping so abruptly. It's like everyone is a robot from deep in the Uncanny Valley. Wait. No, that checks out actually.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

View full thread
Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Oh, OH! They added reverb to the dialogue in exactly one of the scenes, when they're walking through a long hallway! You can even hear their footsteps! But everything else in that massive concrete bunker sounds like a recording studio.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

View full thread
Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Both David and Viper have the emotional delivery of a text-to-speech system, which... checks out, I guess. *Director mode* CUT! David! You're supposed to be *panicking* right now, and yet all you did was raise your voice a little! Give me a gasp, play it frantic, raise your heart rate a little!

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

And also, stop staring toward a corner of the room while you're supposed to be talking to a character who's *behind* you! This isn't a script reading for Pete's sake! Erm. Speaking of which, they're surrounded by concrete walls and there's zero reverb. It sounds like they're in a studio.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

View full thread
Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

OK, there's just zero shot continuity throughout. Viper (antagonist) wakes up in a hospital bed. Cut to PoV, David right up front staring right at her. Cut to reverse shot of Viper, she says one line... Cut to two-shot as David responds... SITTING IN A CHAIR BY THE BED.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

This sort of shit happens in every single scene I've seen so far. Characters and object spawn and vanish and change positions and locations between shots in a continuous scene, ALL THE TIME. Often in very jarring and non-subtle ways. Continuity is basically Filmmaking 101 and this one scores an F.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

View full thread
Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

So the protagonist (and yes, his name is David) captures one of the (presumed) villains who's unconscious, and then in the following hospital bed scene, shot continuity suffers some more as she seemingly flips between conscious and unconscious.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

OK, let's talk about scores. If you're putting on a song with lyrics, it's because it's a climax scene or a very emotional scene, and you're trying to convey that to your audience. You don't do that on a 10-second action scene during the exposition act, wtf!

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

View full thread
Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

The first action scene — a flashback originating from that talk show interview — feels more like a dance choreography than a superhero battle. There's no shot continuity. A tranquilizer arrow spawns from nowhere and there's this long agony shot focusing on a character that wasn't introduced.

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

After that action scene, several blocks of $CITY's downtown look like a war zone, and newscasters are seemingly busy interviewing the superhumans involved like it's a postgame interview! Especially the villains. (Well, in inferred them as villains, it's a bit unclear tbh.)

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Sitting through The 8-Bit Guy's AI-generated movie because it's Friday and I'm doing busywork at work. 5 seconds in, it's already 'Threat Level Midnight' levels of self-insertion. (And Threat Level Midnight is a satirical embedded work in a comedy sitcom. Let that marinate.)

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

The narrative structure is... awkward. The exposition feels forced. The dialogue is really unpolished. From the get-go we're dropped into a talk show scene where the protagonist explains what he does like he's a narrator instead of an interviewee, to the camera rather than the host.

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Charlie Warzel
@cwarzel.bsky.social

70 percent of the internet was vulnerable yesterday to very bad security flaws inside a coding language. Turns out, *one volunteer* is mostly responsible for maintaining that code & helping push updates. Yesterday Ondřej Surý saved the internet. So I called him up www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

theatlantic.comThe Man Who Saved the Internet YesterdayOndřej Surý was a relatively anonymous volunteer working on PHP security. Then the internet exploded.

Plouf de Phoque reposted

KetAnthropic JoshAI
@ketanjoshi.co

This is a good illustration of how so much of AI theft isn't indirect (ie, data sucked into a model to train the chatbot) - it's actually **direct** copying, but *enabled* by GenAI. Of course it is: chatbots absolutely suck at creating good, new stuff.

Plouf de Phoque reposted

MALF
@malf.io

I'm just so sick of the unrelenting wave of AI. If the thing you're attempting to make is so good and vital for others to experience, then the time spent learning the skills to bring it to life is worth it. The reality is that most of these things people use AI for is uninspired copycat garbage.

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Antagoniste 🏴
@antagonisteqc.bsky.social

Replying to @antagonisteqc.bsky.social

manon massé a porté un keffieh pendant deux ans, dont une fois durant le défilé de la st-jean, dans l'indifférence la plus totale du commentariat #polqc

Plouf de Phoque
@phoque.ing

Long, but worth a watch. It's a reminder of how recent this all is, and also how much the U.S. queer community has achieved through activism.

This post is unavailable.

Plouf de Phoque reposted

Frank Cifaldi
@frankcifaldi.bsky.social

Part of my literal job is to fly out to physical game studios to rescue and recover historical materials that might be endangered and put them in a permanent archive. @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social is a 501(c)3 publicly funded to do that, my DMs are open, and I'm free for the next couple weeks...