Recent posts

#31

Meetings / Re: Possible PLUG Mug, Monday ...

Last post by ssfc72 - August 17, 2025, 10:17:33 PM

Ok Mike. Looks like you are the only one who is available for tomorrow afternoon.

I will cancel the meetup for tomorrow and try again in a couple of weeks, to see if I can get some more people that are interested.

#32

Meetings / Re: Possible PLUG Mug, Monday ...

Last post by fox - August 16, 2025, 09:34:32 AM

I would be interested.

#33

Meetings / Possible PLUG Mug, Monday Aug ...

Last post by ssfc72 - August 15, 2025, 08:36:01 PM

Anyone want to meet up for a coffee, this coming Monday 2 pm,  at the Tim Hortons on Monaghan Rd. or the Lansdowne Mall food court?
Let  me know here, with a reply.

#34

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by buster - August 14, 2025, 01:29:18 PM

Interesting article about AI in The Examiner today by Gwynne Dyer about the unforeseen consequences. Found this copy in the Maritimes that might let you in:

https://www.saltwire.com/cape-breton/opinion-cape-breton/gwynne-dyer-investigating-the-looming-artificial-intelligence-crash

[one month]

#35

General Discussion / Re: A boring topic about visit...

Last post by buster - August 13, 2025, 04:46:38 PM

 2023 was a big year. The site had one million eight hundred thousand views. In comparison, in July alone this year, the 31 days of this one month, had well over five million views.

Bill's comments were scary. It's surprising the Internet can keep run without overloading. And if this is happening everywhere, the consequences of no human minds being involved in selection or assessment is scary. In the future, what is presented by limited machine minds will become the new truth.

So this year we will get 25 times as many views (or more) than we did in 2023.

#36

General Discussion / Re: A boring topic about visit...

Last post by buster - August 11, 2025, 04:36:43 PM

A follow up:

With 25,279,000 views this year so far, today, August 11, 2025, we've had more views than all of last year.

The most viewed article is over 200,000 views.

Some articles are hit more often than others, but it's hard to judge why. The stories have done well still in the General posts. It could just be a matter of length.

#37

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by buster - August 11, 2025, 12:03:00 PM

Reading the local edition of our newspaper yielded two more examples of unpleasantness.

a) There is a picture of a massive fire in British Columbia near a highway taken from the air appearing in social media. The authorities warned people to disregard the fire, because it does not exist. The picture was created by AI.

b) AP reported a study done using fake 13 and 14 year old teens in contact with ChatGPT getting information on drugs, best ways to commit suicide, and even how to write notes to leave for the parents. This age group seems to be the most committed to asking the program for advice.

A simple search AP and ChatGPT will produce the article.

#38

Articles, Tutorials and Tips / Re: The super ultra easy metho...

Last post by ssfc72 - August 10, 2025, 08:05:52 AM

Thanks Buster, for the detailed steps to get sub titles for a movie, using the VLV video player (if the sub titles are available for a movie)

#39

Politics, Society and News. / Re: Simple Known Dangers with ...

Last post by Jason - August 09, 2025, 05:50:05 PM

I was one of those people who had my account disabled because of unclear reasons from Instagram, which also made me lose my Facebook account. Some of my friends were formerly Facebook friends, and their accounts don't let you send friend requests to them, so there are friends I'll never get back unless they look for me. Facebook and Instagram don't have numbers or emails you use to contact them when it happens. And new subscriber requirements make it extremely difficult to create a new account. They make you do a short video to see if your picture matches a disabled account, as well as other measures. I asked ChatGPT how to bypass them so I could create a new account. Hard to bypass a video unless I got somebody else to pose for me!

I finally got back on with a new account by using an existing account that I created for a family member who ended up not using it and passed. Not the way I wanted to do it, but I was able to change the name.

At least I have friends outside social media. There are a lot of shut-ins who don't, or people with mental illness who go on Facebook with other similar conditions to get peer support. And they're just cut off, just like that, and probably by AI and a faceless corporation that won't help you if you could find a flesh-and-blood person to do it.

Btw, it's not just mods that are AI-controlled now, tech companies are using AI as the front line of support. You click on the chatbot to ask questions, and many require you to use the bot first before you can even try to reach a real person. It can be frustrating. Most of the time, the questions I have can't be answered by a bot. It's because it only searches the help files to answer your question, and I've already gone through the help files. If it was in there, I wouldn't be trying to find a real person.

#40

Articles, Tutorials and Tips / Re: The super ultra easy metho...

Last post by Jason - August 09, 2025, 05:33:53 PM

Thanks for the tutorial, Buster. Very useful.

My wife and I watch all our shows with subtitles, even though we're watching them on streaming services. It has been reported that something 40% of viewers now use subtitles. In modern movies, it's hard to understand all the dialogue, and it's because they expect you to have 5.1 sound systems with all the bells and whistles (like in movie theatres). Some movies are created in different audio formats, but the result isn't always great. Some directors, like James Cameron, have gone on record saying they refuse to downgrade the audio quality for the audio-challenged audience. If you search for why dialogue is so hard to understand in modern movies, you'll come across a few articles that explain it better than I can.

We listen using headphones so left and right is all we need and honestly, headphones sound better than any speaker system, as far as I'm concerned.