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6h ago

Valve bows to Kremlin: LGBTQ+ solitaire game [Flick Solitaire] pulled from russian Steam [cited a 2006 federal law prohibiting the "promotion of non-traditional sexualities"]
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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 6h ago

Everyday things like furnishings, food, how people treat each other, and so forth.
Russia is not a post-apocalyptic hellscape (yet). They have pretty much the same food and furnishing as anyone else in the west. And learning about how people across the world treat each other from video games sounds like a horrible idea.
Russians have been consuming US culture slop for a long while. Turns out, it doesn't help.

2w ago

Anti-AI communities might be helping AI training by filtering AI-generated content

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 2w ago

Changed it, a bit long now but I guess it's ok?

2w ago

Anti-AI communities might be helping AI training by filtering AI-generated content

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 2w ago

☝️🤓

2w ago

Anti-AI communities might be helping AI training by filtering AI-generated content

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 2w ago

Well, I didn't say it would lead to anything good. I'm not an accelerationist and wouldn't like to be one.

Showerthoughts @lemmy.world

ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com

2w ago

Anti-AI communities might be helping AI training by filtering AI-generated content

3w ago

FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

Has anyone read the article? I barely understand what the fuss is actually about, the text is meandering and repeats semi-relevant details (specifically the part about libxml2).

3w ago

Online Oxford English Dictionary puts definitions/meanings and usage behind paywall

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

Because the 1200$ paywall they put behind the physical editions

From what I understood, that's the price of used copies of the second edition these days, not how much it cost when it was actually published. I have no idea how I could estimate what's the objectively appropriate price considering the funding, expenses and the production costs of such a dictionary, and I think neither do you.

particularly the SOED has some of the most well put together definitions of any dictionary for casual lookup

So you want SOED, not OED. SOED doesn't cost $100 a year, it's available as an Android app that costs a one-time $30 payment.

If your reaching for one the logic should be that you want the best/most accurate and descriptive one possible, no?

Not necessarily. OED's entries can be so massive they're difficult to navigate and follow, and the length of the definition doesn't necessarily say much about its accuracy. The definitions in ODE and SOED are frequently more clear, perfectly adequate and faster to access and read through, e.g. if you're reading Shakespeare or Milton and just want to quickly find the word's meaning without all the additional scholarly apparatus distracting you. At least, such is my experience using dictionaries.

I strongly agree both with the idea that science should be freely available, and that it should be available as a local copy (PDFs, etc.). I also made my opinion on academic pricings in general and OED's price in particular clear in one of the previous comments. I know full well that they're not the only option, even in a capitalist society (many continental European academic institutions and Academies publish their major dictionaries, comparable in complexity to OED, online for free). The only thing I disagree with is singling out OED as if it's doing something particularly unprecedentant and almost heinous.

They likely don't want to publish it on CD or similar locally available (non-online) format because it'd easily get pirated. But, I say, maybe people should organise and pirate the existing database themselves.

3w ago

Online Oxford English Dictionary puts definitions/meanings and usage behind paywall

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

Also, I don’t buy the “academic quality things should be incredibly expensive because its meant for scholars and university libraries” argument.

You don't have to buy it, because I didn't use the argument and never would.

It cost less to update a database or serve thousands of visitors than you might think especially for simple database lookups sent through https.

If you think OED's expenses can be boiled down to updating the database and keeping the site online, it means you still don't understand what OED is and how it is produced.

I get the impression you're primarily looking to be infuriated (perhaps appropriate given the community, but still) rather than to talk about this seriously.

3w ago

Online Oxford English Dictionary puts definitions/meanings and usage behind paywall

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

Well, you can use it to check spellings too. Medieval and early modern spellings, even. Sometimes when seeing pedantic people online correcting others' spellings, I used to check OED and find old texts where the "misspelling" existed normally. Ideally the first editions of Shakespeare, with forms such as "scornfull" instead of scornful, etc. So the pedants would either have to admit it's not such a big mistake, or Shakespeare was illiterate too.

Anyway, yeah it's drama for its own sake.

OTOH the price is too high, but that's normal for English academic publications in general. It's a very rotten market that's not really aimed at individual buyers but at university libraries.

3w ago

Online Oxford English Dictionary puts definitions/meanings and usage behind paywall

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

Exactly, so why all the fuss about the inaccessibility of OED? Most people don't need OED in particular, spellings and most relevant meanings can be checked in normal smaller dictionaries (although these days autocorrect solves most spelling problems before people would even think of checking a dictionary, and people even treat Google as a dictionary because it provides definitions when needed).

Not that the pricing isn't awful and likely overblown, but that's a different story.

3w ago

Online Oxford English Dictionary puts definitions/meanings and usage behind paywall

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

You couldn't do that, OED is so massive they're not even printing it anymore. Old sets are on Amazon for $1000+

It's weird to talk about "the dictionary", there's no single default dictionary, they're all different and this is a dictionary for specialists. It's a historical dictionary, so it covers words and their usage from up to a millenium ago (although IIRC it doesn't include words that haven't survived into Modern English, so 400-ish years ago).

3w ago

Online Oxford English Dictionary puts definitions/meanings and usage behind paywall

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

This isn't enshittification, it was always a paid service. The extortionate price is aimed at universities and is sadly typical for anglophone academic pricings.

Anyway, OED is useful for scholarly purposes. Most users need a normal, smaller dictionary, not OED-level of detail. That's fulfilled by dicts such as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate edition (at merriam-webster.com) and Oxford Dictionary of English (yes that's different from Oxford English Dictionary).

If you really need OED, you can pirate the 2nd edition, since it was published as a program on CD. It's on Rutracker, IIRC. Let me know if you can't find it.

3w ago

Democrats: Stop dividing the left

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

Ok, this is making things more clear, although I get the impression I'd have to know way more about the Fr. Revolution, and maybe the following period in France to actually understand it. Was it really politically commonplace already in early 19th c. to demand abolishment of property?

Who's Maréchal?

3w ago

Democrats: Stop dividing the left

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

leftism is defined by opposition to the status quo

You've just introduced a whole other definition of leftism. Also it seems to mean that no leftist society could exist in practice.

the french monarchy was capitalist

From what I can figure out, it was still in principle feudal but moving towards capitalism due to the growth of the bourgeois class. Is that correct?

3w ago

Democrats: Stop dividing the left

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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ @lemmy.dbzer0.com 3w ago

The political terms “right” and “left” have meant the same thing since the French Revolution.

the weakening or abolishment of capitalism - the traditional dividing line of left and right

If you click on them, many images on Wikipedia will lead you to their parent page on Commons (click "view on Commons"). Ideally, that's where all non-copyrighted WP files are placed (unlike those that are under copyright, which limits in how many places they can be used).