Pat @Pat@qoto.org

@mc

A couple of years before this film came out, I wrote a program that composed music (not just played, but composed) in a Bachian style.

The clip shows the computer learning how to play by listening, which is much more sophisticated, but yeah, I'm sure there's AI out there today that can do that.

(ps - The piece, written specifically for this film, is called "The Duel", an interpretation and extention to the famous "Minuet in G Major" by Bach.)

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #film #movie #romcom #technology #music #80s #art #happy #FTW #nice #AI #IBM #PC #univac

Retro SciFi of the Week…

Electric Dreams (1984)

More of a ROMCOM or a fantasy than a scifi, this great film received mixed reviews when it was released, but it’s a perfect snapshot of the 1980s – technically, culturally, and artistically. Plot-wise it was kind of like Short Circuit, if you remember that one, except this one is much more upbeat and better produced. Basically, it’s about an out-of-position guy who buys a very special computer and meets a woman.

When this film was made, most people didn’t own a computer or even understand what a personal computer really was, but the technology was rapidly expanding and creating a lot of buzz. There were no websites or social media. Because of this ignorance, the film was able to stretch the limits of credibility, so today you will need a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief to watch it.

The score, cinematography, editing, and art direction are excellent. The acting is pretty good but the main character plays it in a very stilled style in contrast to the rest of the cast which is probably why it got mixed reviews.

The title is derived from “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, the 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick, and there’s a clever little easter egg nod to the novel in this film.

This video clip gives a sample of some of the quality of the fantastic cinematography, art direction and score.
(fair use)

@icedquinn

I think that eventually municipalities will adopt noise ordinances that prohibit mowers and other gardening tools that are powered by putt-putt motors. And there will only be quiet electric mowers, leaf-blowers, weedwackers, etc.

@aworldinpages

Perhaps if you provided more information about the specific circumstance, then guidance might be more useful...

@trinsec

Time to get an electric car...

@freemo

The only way I know how to block someone is to find a toot that they did somewhere in a feed on qoto (local, home, federated), and then open that toot in the web by clicking "Open in web" to get the 3-dot ellipsis icon to show up, and then click on that ellipsis icon to popup a selection to mute, block, etc. If the user I want to block doesn't have a toot that I can get to easily, e.g., if the offending toot was in the federated feed and it's too old to find, then I can't block them.

That's the only way I know how to do it.

For example, how would I block those two users I cited above? They have no toots I can find on the qoto site.

(I don't want to go to some other instance's website to do it because I have no idea what that other site might do.)

@icedquinn

Yes, I remember the story about HRC's emails. But that's not the question here. (and I don't think she was involved in providing our enemies with aid and comfort)

@cweickhmann

Or they could just go 3D and use flying cars, jetpacks, etc...

@freemo

Ok, thanks. What about the blocking question?

Is there a way to block a user on another instance from the qoto site without finding a toot of theirs somewhere in a qoto-supplied feed? Like just entering the @user@site.tld into a field on a form.

@asa

Yeah. He surrendered to the Taliban.

#Afghanistan #war #biden #US

In case you're wondering which US president did the best job in Afghanistan, here’s the most important metric for the loved ones of the soldiers who fought over there…

(The objective of the war was to eliminate Al-Qaeda. Bush started the war, Biden won it.)

@2ck

Doesn't for me...

@Acer

Both "Happy" and "Belated" are adjectives, they are modifiers. A birthday is the anniversary of the date of a person’s birth, so it is always the same calendar date – it can’t be “belated”.

The phrase “Happy Birthday” is an expression of good wishes. The adjective “Happy” modifies the noun “Birthday”. When the expression “Happy Birthday” is given too late, then that expression is belated, but the birthday itself is not belated.

So you would say, “Belated Happy Birthday” because “Belated” modifies the entire expression “Happy Birthday”, while “Happy” only modifies “Birthday”.

Anyway, that’s how I see it.

@2ck

The web interface doesn't appear to have that option.

***Spoiler***

All of the first sentence is true -- Congress passed that law, the IRS plans to hire those personnel, and some of them will be armed.

But the second paragraph is not true. The title, "Assistant Vice Deputy Under-Secretary of Accountant Armaments" is a made-up title. The video actually shows a guy from the Pentagon listing some of the armaments that the US is sending to Ukraine to help them fight against the Russian military, which has invaded their country. The video was cut to exclude the parts where the guy identifies the list as going to Ukraine.

By attaching that video to this toot, it makes it look like the IRS will be using relatively heavy arms, when in fact they most likely will only have light arms, like sidearms, shotguns, rifles, etc. to use for ordinary law enforcement.

@lucifargundam

What setting does that?

Also, I'd like to block those accounts.

The only way I can see to block an account is to find something that that user has posting in a thread on qoto and then click on the 3-dot icon. But if the users don't have posts on a qoto thread, how can I block them?

Question about using qoto...

There is a toot and I want to see the list of users who have favorited the toot. It indicates that it has "4" favorites, but when I go to the page that displays the list of users, it only shows two names.

Here is the page that shows who favorited it:
https://qoto.org/web/statuses/108826143795153419/favourites

Here's an image of how the page displays the accounts:

I just blocked @civmik for posting a racist image. (pic of a black man with the image altered to make his lips appear very large.)

@civmik

>"How do I look"
(posting pic of a black man with the image altered to make his lips appear very large.)

Like a racist. Block.