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Stopthatgirl7 Stopthatgirl7 @lemmy.world

Hey, y’all! Just another random, loudmouthed, opinionated, Southern-fried nerdy American living abroad.

This is my lemmy account because I got sick of how unstable kbin dot social was.

Mastodon: @stopthatgirl7

Posts 354
Comments 104
apnews.com Secret DEA files show agents joked about rape in a WhatsApp chat. Then one of them was accused of it

A group of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents boasted in a WhatsApp chat of their “world debauchery tour,” shared lurid images of their latest sexual conquests and at one point even joked about “forcible anal rape.”

Secret DEA files show agents joked about rape in a WhatsApp chat. Then one of them was accused of it

In a WhatsApp chat that quickly devolved into depravity, a group of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents boasted about their “world debauchery tour” of “boozing and whoring” on the government’s dime. They swapped lurid images of their latest sexual conquests. And at one point they even joked about “forcible anal rape.”

Within months of that jaw-dropping exchange, an agent in the group chat was accused of that very crime.

The 2018 arrest of George Zoumberos for allegedly forcing anal sex on a 23-year-old woman in a Madrid hotel room set off alarms at the highest levels of the DEA, beginning with a middle-of-the-night phone call from a supervisor to the agency’s headquarters outside Washington. But U.S. officials never even spoke with the woman and made only cursory efforts to investigate.

The DEA has refused for years to discuss its handling of the arrest, instead telling The Associated Press in response to its questions that “the alleged misconduct in this case is egregious and unacceptable and does not reflect the high standards expected of all DEA personnel.”

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Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns
  • No voice actors, no writers…the future you’re envisioning for gaming completely sucks.

  • www.rollingstone.com AOC's Deepfake AI Porn Bill Unanimously Passes the Senate

    “It’s time to give victims their day in court and the tools they need to fight back,” says Sen. Dick Durbin as the DEFIANCE Act heads to the House.

    AOC's Deepfake AI Porn Bill Unanimously Passes the Senate

    THE SENATE UNANIMOUSLY passed a bipartisan bill to provide recourse to victims of porn deepfakes — or sexually-explicit, non-consensual images created with artificial intelligence.

    The legislation, called the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act — passed in Congress’ upper chamber on Tuesday.  The legislation has been led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in the House.

    The legislation would amend the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to allow people to sue those who produce, distribute, or receive the deepfake pornography, if they “knew or recklessly disregarded” the fact that the victim did not consent to those images.

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    Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns
  • I'm not talking about what is currently available. I'm talking about the future in gaming.

    So am I. Where are the future voice actors who wolud voice the major roles going to come from if the jobs they depend on to start out and get their foot in the door/build up their resumes at the beginning of their careers are gone?

  • Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns
  • Aren’t those minor roles exactly how people get their start in voice acting and start building up their resumes? Actors have to have a place to get their start, too.

  • www.nature.com AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data - Nature

     Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scraping data from the Internet, can lead to a collapse in the ability of the models to generate diverse high-quality output.

    It is now clear that generative artificial intelligence (AI) such as large language models (LLMs) is here to stay and will substantially change the ecosystem of online text and images. Here we consider what may happen to GPT-{n} once LLMs contribute much of the text found online. We find that indiscriminate use of model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects in the resulting models, in which tails of the original content distribution disappear. We refer to this effect as ‘model collapse’ and show that it can occur in LLMs as well as in variational autoencoders (VAEs) and Gaussian mixture models (GMMs). We build theoretical intuition behind the phenomenon and portray its ubiquity among all learned generative models. We demonstrate that it must be taken seriously if we are to sustain the benefits of training from large-scale data scraped from the web. Indeed, the value of data collected about genuine human interactions with systems will be increasingly valuable in the presence of LLM-generated content in data crawled from the Internet.

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    www.forbes.com 77% Of Employees Report AI Has Increased Workloads And Hampered Productivity, Study Finds

    Despite 96% of C-suite executives expecting AI to boost productivity, employees say it has increased their workload, hampered productivity and caused job burnout, research shows.

    77% Of Employees Report AI Has Increased Workloads And Hampered Productivity, Study Finds

    The new global study, in partnership with The Upwork Research Institute, interviewed 2,500 global C-suite executives, full-time employees and freelancers. Results show that the optimistic expectations about AI's impact are not aligning with the reality faced by many employees. The study identifies a disconnect between the high expectations of managers and the actual experiences of employees using AI.

    Despite 96% of C-suite executives expecting AI to boost productivity, the study reveals that, 77% of employees using AI say it has added to their workload and created challenges in achieving the expected productivity gains. Not only is AI increasing the workloads of full-time employees, it’s hampering productivity and contributing to employee burnout.

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    apnews.com Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns

    Hollywood’s video game performers are going on strike, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

    Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns

    Hollywood’s video game performers voted to go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections. 

    The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

    SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the studios will not make a deal over the regulation of generative AI. Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

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    apnews.com Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns

    Hollywood’s video game performers are going on strike, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

    Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns

    Hollywood’s video game performers voted to go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections. 

    The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

    SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the studios will not make a deal over the regulation of generative AI. Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

    1
    apnews.com In a reversal, Georgia now says districts can use state funding to teach AP Black studies classes

    Georgia state Superintendent Richard Woods now says the state will pay for districts to teach a new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies.

    In a reversal, Georgia now says districts can use state funding to teach AP Black studies classes

    Georgia state Superintendent Richard Woods said Wednesday that the state will pay for districts to teach a new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies, a day after he said districts could only teach the course using local funds.

    In the face of blossoming outrage, the Georgia Department of Education now says districts are free to teach the course and the state will pay for it as long as districts use a code linked to an existing state-approved course in African American studies.

    “Districts can choose to use that course code and teach some or all of the standards in the AP course, and students may take the associated AP exam,” Meghan Frick, a spokesperson for the state department, wrote in response to Associated Press questions.

    That reversal did little to stem the pushback to Woods’ earlier refusal. In a rally at the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday, 15 mostly Democratic speakers attacked the elected Republican, saying he was trying to keep students from learning about Georgia’s history.

    6
    Death Valley heat melts skin off a man's feet after he lost his flip-flops in the dunes
  • Legit, I did not know this until I read this article, either.

  • apnews.com Texas woman's lawsuit after being jailed on murder charge over abortion can proceed, judge rules

    A federal judge has ruled that a Texas woman who was jailed and charged with murder over self-managing an abortion in 2022 can move forward with her lawsuit. U.S.

    Texas woman's lawsuit after being jailed on murder charge over abortion can proceed, judge rules

    A Texas woman who was jailed and charged with murder after self-managing an abortion in 2022 can move forward with her lawsuit against the local sheriff and prosecutors over the case that drew national outrage before the charges were quickly dropped, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

    U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton denied a motion by prosecutors and the sheriff to dismiss the lawsuit during a hearing in the border city of McAllen. Lizelle Gonzalez, who spent two nights in jail on the murder charges and is seeking $1 million in damages in the lawsuit, did not attend the hearing.

    Texas has one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans and outlaws the procedure with limited exceptions. Under Texas law, women seeking an abortion are exempt from criminal charges, however.

    Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez and other defendants have argued their positions provide them immunity from civil lawsuits.

    Rick Navarro, an attorney for the defense, argued that it was “at worst a negligence case” during the hearing. Ramirez has previously told The Associated Press that he “made a mistake” in bringing charges.

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    Death Valley heat melts skin off a man's feet after he lost his flip-flops in the dunes
  • For those of you who don’t know Fahrenheit:

    123F->50.5C

    170F-180F-> 77-82C

    200F->93C

    109F -> 43C

  • www.yahoo.com Death Valley heat melts skin off a man's feet after he lost his flip-flops in the dunes

    A 42-year-old Belgian tourist was taking a short walk Saturday in the sand dunes in 123-degree heat when he either broke or lost his flip-flops, putting his feet into direct contact with the broiling desert ground.

    Death Valley heat melts skin off a man's feet after he lost his flip-flops in the dunes

    According to a National Park Service news release, the 42-year-old Belgian tourist was taking a short walk Saturday in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in 123-degree heat when he either broke or lost his flip-flops, putting his feet into direct contact with the desert ground. The result: third-degree burns.

    "The skin was melted off his foot," said Death Valley National Park Service Ranger Gia Ponce. "The ground can be much hotter — 170, 180 \[degrees]. Sometimes up into the 200 range."

    Unable to get out on his own and in extreme pain, the man and his family recruited other park visitors to help; together, the group carried him to the sand dunes parking lot, where park rangers assessed his injuries.

    Though they wanted a helicopter to fly him out, helicopters can't generate enough lift to fly in the heat-thinned air over the hottest parts of Death Valley, officials said. So park rangers summoned an ambulance that took him to higher ground, where it was a cooler 109 degrees and he could then be flown out.

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    techcrunch.com CrowdStrike offers a $10 apology gift card to say sorry for outage | TechCrunch

    Several people who received the CrowdStrike offer found that the gift card didn't work, while others got an error saying the voucher had been canceled.

    CrowdStrike offers a $10 apology gift card to say sorry for outage | TechCrunch

    CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that crashed millions of computers with a botched update all over the world last week, is offering its partners a $10 Uber Eats gift card as an apology, according to several peoplewho say they received the gift card, as well as a source who also received one.

    On Tuesday, a source told TechCrunch that they received an email from CrowdStrike offering them the gift card because the company recognizes “the additional work that the July 19 incident has caused.”

    “And for that, we send our heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience,” the email read, according to a screenshot shared by the source. The same email was also posted on X by someone else. “To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!”

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    Taiwan makes tough decisions as it faces its worst drought in nearly a century
  • Oops, missed that, since I saw it posted like it was something new, and didn’t check the date. My bad!

  • Taiwan makes tough decisions as it faces its worst drought in nearly a century

    Taiwan is facing a serious drought, maybe its worst in almost a century. This drought has depleted reservoirs, cut off farmers from water sources and limited some of the world's most advanced semiconductor factories. Factories use water. NPR's Emily Feng reports on the choices people now face.

    EMILY FENG, BYLINE: This is the third year in a row that rice farmers in southern Taiwan have not been allowed to plant their crops. Instead, the government is paying them subsidies not to grow rice this season. The rice uses scarce water that semiconductor factories nearby need.

    2
    www.theroot.com Two White Minors and a Mother Charged With Drowning 8-Year-old Georgia Black Boy

    The mother of one of the suspects has also been charged with giving false statements during the investigation.

    Two White Minors and a Mother Charged With Drowning 8-Year-old Georgia Black Boy

    The two suspects in the case are 10 and 11 years old and have both been charged with involuntary manslaughter and simple battery. Due to Georgia law regarding minors, their names cannot be released to the public.

    While it was initially reported there was no foul play in Bush’s death after the autopsy, police changed their tune after new information they discovered during their investigation. But in a new twist in the case, the mother of one of the boys accused has now been charged.

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    Genshin Impact Voice Actors Join in Criticism of Upcoming Natlan Region's Character Designs - IGN
  • Would you make the founding fathers of the United States and their fellowship black or Asian?

    …That’s literally the cast of Hamilton. Last I checked, it was fantastically successful.

  • www.ign.com Genshin Impact Voice Actors Join in Criticism of Upcoming Natlan Region's Character Designs - IGN

    Genshin Impact is facing more accusations of cultural appropriation and whitewashing, and some of its voice actors are asking publisher HoYoverse to make changes.

    Genshin Impact Voice Actors Join in Criticism of Upcoming Natlan Region's Character Designs - IGN

    Fan outcry stems from what many feel is a failure to accurately represent the cultures each character pulls from, including the fact that Mavukia, Kinich, and Ororon — who seem to be inspired by real-life deities like the Maori's Mahuika — are all white. It continues a trend in Genshin Impact that has seen players begging for proper representation.

    Now some of the actors behind Genshin Impact’s faces have begun to chime in. Albedo actor, Khoi Dao, published a statement on X/Twitter calling for change in Genshin Impact.

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    It's sensible for businesses to shift from physical media sales. Per CNBC's calculations, DVD sales fell over 86 percent between 2008 and 2019. Research from the Motion Picture Association in 2021 found that physical media represented 8 percent of the home/mobile entertainment market in the US, falling behind digital (80 percent) and theatrical (12 percent).

    But as physical media gets less lucrative and the shuttering of businesses makes optical discs harder to find, the streaming services that largely replaced them are getting aggravating and unreliable. And with the streaming industry becoming more competitive and profit-hungry than ever, you never know if the movie/show that most attracted you to a streaming service will still be available when you finally get a chance to sit down and watch. Even paid-for online libraries that were marketed as available "forever" have been ripped away from customers.

    When someone buys or rents a DVD, they know exactly what content they're paying for and for how long they'll have it (assuming they take care of the physical media). They can also watch the content if the Internet goes out and be certain that they're getting uncompressed 4K resolution. DVD viewers are also less likely to be bombarded with ads whenever they pause and can get around an ad-riddled smart TV home screen (nothing's perfect; some DVDs have unskippable commercials).

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    Sacramento high school biology final includes racist questions, targets students

    A Luther Burbank High School freshman was surprised to read his full name included on a biology final. Not only that, but he was being ridiculed. “In high school, there are individuals who are cross-eyed like (the name of a fellow student) and (the name of the student previously mentioned), which is a dominant trait. We call those individuals ‘weirdoes’. So, if you crossed two weirdoes (the two students named again), that are heterozygous for being cross-eyed, what is the offspring that would result?” Many students in the class were targeted by first and last name on the exam. Teacher Alex Nguyen chose to describe these students by their ethnicities and physical features, and then paired them up, posing questions about what traits a theoretical child of these two students would have. On one question, the teacher wrote a disclaimer, saying “in no way do I promote students being sexually active,” but the student’s parents and other teachers at the school said that the implication of any sexual relationship between students is inappropriate.

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    www.cnn.com A Black man got a job interview after he changed the name on his resume. Now, he’s suing for discrimination | CNN

    A Black man has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against a hotel in Detroit, Michigan, alleging the hotel only offered him a job interview after he changed the name on his resume, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by CNN.

    A Black man got a job interview after he changed the name on his resume. Now, he’s suing for discrimination | CNN

    A Black man has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against a hotel in Detroit, Michigan, alleging the hotel only offered him a job interview after he changed the name on his resume, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by CNN.

    Dwight Jackson filed the lawsuit against the Shinola Hotel on July 3, alleging he was denied a job when he applied as “Dwight Jackson,” but later offered an interview when he changed his name to “John Jebrowski.”

    The lawsuit alleges Jackson was denied a job in “violation of Michigan Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act.”

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    www.bbc.com South Korean politician links rising male suicides to women

    A Seoul city councillor is criticised for saying a growing "female-dominant society" may be to blame.

    South Korean politician links rising male suicides to women

    A politician in South Korea is being criticised for making dangerous and unsubstantiated comments after linking a rise in male suicides to the increasingly “dominant” role of women in society.

    In a report, Seoul City councillor Kim Ki-duck argued women’s increased participation in the workforce over the years had made it harder for men to get jobs and to find women who wanted to marry them.

    He said the country had recently “begun to change into a female-dominant society” and that this might "partly be responsible for an increase in male suicide attempts”.

    South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates among the world’s rich countries but also has one of the worst records on gender equality.

    Councillor Kim’s comments have been criticised as the latest in a series of out-of-touch remarks made by male politicians.

    18
    www.rollingstone.com How Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' Helped Young Kenyans Lead a Successful Protest in Their Country

    Young Kenyans protested a proposed tax hike in their country by using a hashtag and a rap song that sampled Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us.'

    How Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' Helped Young Kenyans Lead a Successful Protest in Their Country

    LIKE MANY AFRICAN countries colonized in the 20th century, Kenya has struggled to find its diplomatic footing in the decades since gaining independence. The East African nation successfully broke away from British rule in 1962, and a small circle of affluent and influential Kenyans quickly took over. They banked on their connections to Western superpowers and the detrimental effects of colonialism to maintain their power. Though that strategy has worked — Kenya has yet to see a president that isn’t connected to this circle — it hasn’t been without its conflict. The nation has found itself in states of civil unrest as the divide between the country’s governing bodies and its people continues to grow.

    Now, it’s become intolerable, and Kenyan Gen Zs have had enough.

    Last month, young Kenyans took to social media to object to the country’s 2024 finance bill, which proposed increased taxes on an alarming amount of everyday items, from tampons to bread. Using the hashtag #RejectFinanceBill2024 to rally together, it was an unprecedented approach to activism for Kenyans that inspired both international attention and national unity — and birthed a viral protest song that samples Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.”

    Titled “Reject Hio Bill,” the track, by local rapper Sabi Wu, has become the theme of a movement calling for change to Kenyan government.

    5

    As temperatures soar, judge tells Louisiana to help protect prisoners working in fields

    Amid blistering summer temperatures, a federal judge ordered Louisiana to take steps to protect the health and safety of incarcerated workers toiling in the fields of a former slave plantation, saying they face “substantial risk of injury or death.” The state immediately appealed the decision.

    U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday, giving the state department of corrections seven days to provide a plan to improve conditions on the so-called farm line at Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Angola.

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    Neil Gaiman Denies Sexual Assault Allegations Made by Two Women
  • Gaiman is one of my favorite writers and I actually have stuff signed by him, so…yeah.

  • mainichi.jp Osaka court grants refugee status to African man persecuted over homosexuality - The Mainichi

    OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court on July 4 recognized an African man in his 30s who fled to Japan from his own country fearing persecution for his ho

    Osaka court grants refugee status to African man persecuted over homosexuality - The Mainichi

    The Osaka District Court on July 4 recognized an African man in his 30s who fled to Japan from his own country fearing persecution for his homosexuality as a refugee, overturning a government decision not to grant him asylum.

    According to the man's complaint and other sources, his country bans same-sex sexual acts. After his family found out that he was gay, he was confined in his home and beaten by his father and younger brother. He came to Japan in 2019 and applied for refugee status, but the government rejected his application, prompting him to file a lawsuit objecting to the decision

    3
    Mark Meer Wants More People To Play As FemShep In Mass Effect
  • I usually play as FemShep, but when I do play BroShep, he’s usually a Paragon, because dude just sounds like a Goodie Two Shoes Boy Scout. Plus Renegade BroShep gave off serious roid rage vibes to me in a way Renegade FemShep didn’t.

  • A Deep Dive Into Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Expansive Character Creator
  • The trick I’ve learned is not to try to make a good-looking character, but an interesting-looking one. Usually I’ll jack up the settings on one thing in particular, like make the nose as big as possible, then build the face around it.

  • An $18 Big Mac meal sparked a revolt against high prices. Companies are finally listening
  • They gauged a little too much and boasted about record profits a little too loudly, and now have to deal with backlash. Too bad, so sad. 🙄

  • The math on unplayed Steam “shame” is way off—and no cause for guilt
  • Yeah, the math for mine would definitely be off, just because I used to be a console gamer. A lot of the games in my Steam library I played on Xbox or PlayStation before, and picked up for PC when they were on sale after I switched over.

  • US Record Labels Sue AI Music Generators Suno and Udio for Copyright Infringement
  • Someone posted links to some of the AI generated songs, and they are straight up copying. Blatantly so. If a human made them, they would be sued, too.

  • Hotly anticipated 'Black Myth: Wukong' is delayed on Xbox Series X|S — and now, Microsoft has responded
  • Yeah, I’m leaning against it being a timed exclusivity thing, just because those are normally for much longer than just a month. I think it’s the S not having enough RAM causing problems.

  • 'It's inhumane.' Despite how hot it is, Tennessee renters don't have a right to air conditioning
  • With as high as the humidity is in the south, it can feel really hard to breathe sometimes when it’s that hot - a friend of mine once described it as trying to breathe through a hot wet towel. Since she’s got breathing problems, that’s likely what she means.

  • New Yorker describes how she tackled child rape suspect after recognizing him
  • The community came together to deliver a well-deserved ass whooping.