lemmy.sdf.org

~~Aside from it being in a hellcountry~~, this server slaps. About 3k people on at a time. Most fields and dungeons got people hunting and partying. Lots of QOL tweaks while still being true to classic Ragnarok. Healthy economy with prices in the lower millions for high-end gear (you can easily make a million in just a few hours of play).

Probably more stuff I'm glazing over, but for sure give it a go in you're interested. I made an archer yesterday and I'm almost ready for job change.

This server is like a breath of fresh air compared to live which is a nightmare of p2w bullshit and generally not working well.

Oh there is a cash shop but I think it's purely cosmetic, it takes crypto if that's your bag.

Anyway DM me if you want to group together and play! doggirl-thumbsup

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So, dead internet theory seems to get new supporting evidence every day. Where does it go from here? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 hour ago by FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/casualconversation@piefed.social

11 comments fedilink

It seems like having a website open and available on the internet is getting practically impossible to manage, with bots accounting for more and more traffic. AI has gotten to a point where it can circumvent just about any form of captcha, sooooo, what? Does "the internet just get abandoned in favor of some other, better technology that we hope crops up? Does it fade away? Do the real nerds start their own separate internet, and not let companies in? I donno, food for thought I guess.

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Your Phone is an Entire Computer (medhir.com)

submitted 6 hours ago by JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

35 comments fedilink

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'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back (www.404media.co)

submitted 18 hours ago by Sepia@mander.xyz to c/Technology@programming.dev

1 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/48825506

[The Kenyan Michael Geoffre] Asia eventually hit a breaking point and stopped working for AI companies. He is now the secretary general of a Kenyan organization called the Data Labelers Association (DLA) and the author of “The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy,” a testimony of his time working as the real human labor behind AI sex bots. As part of the DLA, Asia has been working to organize workers to fight for better pay, better mental health services, an end to draconian non-disclosure agreements, and better benefits for a workforce that often earns just a few dollars a day. Data labelers train, refine, and moderate the outputs of AI tools made by the largest companies in the world, yet they are wildly underpaid and haven’t benefitted from the runaway valuations of AI companies.

...

Last month, the DLA held one of its largest events at the Nairobi Arboretum, sign up new members, and to help them tell their stories.

These workers are required to stare at horrific content for many hours straight with few mental health resources, are largely managed by opaque algorithms, and, crucially, are the workers powering the runaway valuations of some of the richest and most powerful companies in the world.

...

Web Archive link

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Should I implement direct wars in my Cold War inspired game, or only allow the player to intervene in proxy wars? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 28 minutes ago by sbeak@sopuli.xyz to c/gamedev@programming.dev

1 comments fedilink

For context, I am creating a HOI4-style strategy game set in the Cold War. The battles will likely be turn-based rather than involving maneuvering troops on the map.

A large part of the Cold War involved various proxy conflicts between the two global superpowers, the Americans and the Soviets. If I make it do that the player is only able to intervene in these proxy conflicts, things like "mega-factions" (the sort you see in games like HOI4 that are a pain to deal with) would no longer be a problem, and it also means a lot less work for me to add all the different factions joining in to create a huge WWIII.

However, if I limit the player to only intervention in other countries, that would limit the alternate history scenarios the player can take, and it would also mean that many countries could effectively become NPCs. I could implement a civil war mechanic, where certain focus paths will lead you to a civil war between two or more factions within your country, and you could seek intervention from the major powers. This would help countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, etc. to be more fun to play if there was no direct war mechanic.

Finally, if there was a direct war mechanic, how should the game react to the Americans and Soviets being in direct conflict? Should the game end once a nuclear weapon has been fired, indicating that nuclear annihilation has occurred?

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Unbelievable (crazypeople.online)

submitted 2 days ago by FrostyTrichs@crazypeople.online to c/weedtime@crazypeople.online

43 comments fedilink

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Pete Hegseth on Strait of Hormuz: 'Don't need to worry about it' (www.cnbc.com)

submitted 7 hours ago by happybadger@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

18 comments fedilink

spoiler

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday brushed aside concerns that the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz because of the Iran war, which has spiked oil prices, would continue being a problem for the U.S. and the world for much longer.

Iran has been “exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon press briefing.

“We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” he said.

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on Friday morning was around $93 per barrel. A day before the war began on Feb. 28, a barrel of WTI was selling for about $67.

Hegseth criticized media reports that claimed that before attacking Iran, the U.S. military lacked a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is the world’s most critical oil shipping choke point.

“Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the strait hostage,” he said.

“We planned for it. We recognize it,” Hegseth told a reporter who asked him why the Pentagon had not planned for the strait being choked off to traffic.

“Ultimately, we want to do it sequentially in the way that makes the most sense for what we want to achieve,” he said, without detailing specific plans.

Neither Hegseth nor Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine said how the U.S. would open up the strait to the traffic of oil tankers and other ships. Uncertainty about oil transport from the region has roiled markets and caused supply concerns, particularly in Asia.

On Thursday morning, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC the U.S. Navy is not ready to escort oil tankers through the strait. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, hours later, told Sky News that the U.S. Navy, and possibly an international coalition, would begin escorting ships through the strait as soon as “militarily possible.”

Asked how soon the Strait of Hormuz would be open to traffic, Hegseth said Friday, “The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping.”

“We have a plan for every option here,” he said. “We’re working with our interagency partners. That’s not a strait we’re going to allow to remain contested or a lack of flow of international goods.”

Caine, when asked about removing mines from the Strait of Hormuz laid by Iran, said, “We retain a range of options to solve a whole variety of problems.”

Hegseth predicted, again, that “soon and very soon, all of Iran’s defense companies will be destroyed.” He said that as of two days ago, every company that builds components of Iran’s ballistic missiles “has been functionally defeated.”

The Defense secretary speculated that Iran’s “new so-called, not-so-supreme leader,” Mojtaba Khamenei, “is wounded and likely disfigured,” noting Khamenei started posting on X on Thursday with messages that included only text and not video or voice.

Hegseth and Caine’s vagueness in offering either details of a possible solution to the strait’s closure, or a timeline for such a solution came as RBC Capital Markets, in a note on Friday, said, “There is significant skepticism that a robust US Navy tanker escort service will be operational soon.”

RBC said that skepticism was “due to capacity constraints as well as the fact that Iran’s enhanced military capabilities will pose a bigger challenge than the US faced during the Tanker Wars of the 1980s.”

The note also said that a $20 billion insurance program promoted by the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., to encourage oil tankers and other commercial vessels to begin transiting the strait “similarly ... is not generating much enthusiasm as it only covers the roughly 22 miles of sea lanes in the Strait, not the surrounding waterways, and offers neither casualty nor environmental coverage.”

“Above all, we are struck by the fact that a number of Washington-based security analysts seem to be working with longer-duration timelines than market participants residing outside the Beltway,” RBS’ Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy and MENA research, wrote.

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Apple’s Mac Mini selling out across China as OpenClaw fever rages (www.scmp.com)

submitted 57 seconds ago by rss@news.abolish.capital to c/china@news.abolish.capital

0 comments fedilink

The OpenClaw craze is rapidly driving up prices and depleting stock of Apple’s Mac Mini compact computer across China, according to local sellers, as consumers scramble to secure machines capable of safely running the open-source artificial intelligence agent amid a nationwide rush to “raise a lobster”. Beijing electronics seller Frank Chai said he was asking for a mark-up of at least 500 yuan (US$73) for a basic Mac Mini model, which comes with 16 gigabytes (GB) of memory and 256GB storage and...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

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Pete Hegseth attacks media for not being positive enough about US attacks on Iran (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 5 hours ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

85 comments fedilink

US defense head is eager to frame operation as a success – and slam journalists for not portraying it in a positive light

Pete Hegseth on Friday again claimed the US military campaign against Iran has been an unprecedented success, using a Pentagon press conference to accuse journalists of downplaying Washington’s supposed gains on the battlefield.

Speaking alongside the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, the US defense secretary claimed Iran had been left without a functioning air force, navy or missile defense network after 13 days of strikes, and said the combined US-Israeli air campaign had hit more than 15,000 targets since the war began.

“The United States is decimating the radical Iranian regime’s military in a way the world has never seen before,” Hegseth told reporters.

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Firefox's beta feature "Smart Window" shared browsing and search history to AI models without prompting (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)

submitted 2 hours ago by e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world

5 comments fedilink

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Discussion Thread 🤤 Saturday 14 March 2026 (aussie.zone)

submitted 11 hours ago by YarraByte@aussie.zone to c/melbourne@aussie.zone

20 comments fedilink

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PC upgrade woes (edited to obscure AI) (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) by Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

55 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/42490856

Obligatory damn clankers.

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Gay Muslim influencer hosts inclusive Ramadan meal and calls for acceptance across faiths (apnews.com)

submitted 4 hours ago by ptz@dubvee.org to c/news@lemmy.world

7 comments fedilink

BERLIN (AP) — Ali Darwich, a gay Muslim influencer in Berlin, picks up a date from his plate, takes a sip of water, and addresses the 15 friends sitting around the table and breaking the Ramadan fast with him.

The 33-year-old German with Palestinian and Lebanese roots — who goes by @alifragt or “Ali asks” on Instagram — has a quickly growing following on Instagram, where he draws attention to the difficulties of living as a young, queer Muslim and calls for more tolerance and inclusiveness.

“Tonight we want to send a message that no matter where a person comes from, no matter who that person loves, no matter how queer that person is, they cannot be too queer ... because they are exactly as they should be,” Darwich says, smiling at the diverse group of Muslims and Christians, Germans and immigrants, gay and straight people sharing this meal with him as the sun sets over Berlin.

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Deadly strike on Iranian primary school raises questions about AI, accountability (www.scmp.com)

submitted 1 minute ago by rss@news.abolish.capital to c/china@news.abolish.capital

0 comments fedilink

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the US-Israel war on Iran has sparked a legal and ethical debate, as well as condemnation from countries including China after a deadly missile strike on a primary school. To prepare for its operations against Iran, the US military reportedly used Palantir’s Maven Smart System, an AI platform that incorporates models like Anthropic’s Claude to aggregate large amounts of data. A US-based source familiar with the matter said the only thing that Claude or...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

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Iran includes American tech giants on list of new targets (gizmodo.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Captainautism@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world

143 comments fedilink

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I would like to set up a Mastodon account (bot) that mirrors a profile that currently exists on Bluesky. Is it possible to automate this? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world to c/mastodon@lemmy.world

7 comments fedilink

I don't have admin access to the Bluesky account, but the information would be good to share on Mastodon IMO.

Rss.app can make an RSS feed of a Bluesky profile, but it requires a paid subscription. Are there any better ways? (I had assumed there would be a tool specifically for this but I haven't found one).

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I kinda ruined my favorite recipe by perfecting it. (piefed.social)

submitted 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) by Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social to c/casualconversation@piefed.social

49 comments fedilink

Until recently, I really didn’t know how to cook properly.

One of the things I used to make often was spaghetti bolognese. It was high in protein, fit my diet well, it was reasonably healthy, and so I made it about twice a week. The recipe was very simple: mince, onions, spaghetti, and a bottle of pasta sauce from the store.

Over time I started experimenting. I tried different recipes, added more ingredients, cooked parts separately, and let the sauce simmer longer. Bit by bit it evolved.

Now I make the sauce from scratch, cook the mince in a separate pan, add finely diced carrots and a do a bunch of extra steps I never used to, as well as letting everything simmer for a two hours.

The result is honestly fucking delicious and better than any spaghetti bolognese I've had in restaurants.

The problem is that it went from being my easy go-to meal to something that actually takes effort. I used to make it multiple times a week, but now I barely do.

And the worst part is I can’t go back to the old version anymore, because it just tastes disappointing.

I just wanted to rant, I'm frustrated because I want the dish more, but don't want all of the added effort.

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Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 11th to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Fourth Iran VS US+Zionists War Megathread (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

1950 comments fedilink

A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of a Khorramshahr-4 medium range ballistic missile, which has a range of about 2000km.

As I said in the last megathread, trying to figure out what exactly is happening is becoming ever more difficult. The gist of things is that Iran has, very justifiably, refused to negotiate (assassinating their leader and striking their country with hundreds of missiles in the middle of negotiations causes some reluctance to return to the table, I suppose). Censorship across the Middle East has further ramped up, with reportedly extreme punishments for posting footage of Iranian strikes online. From what I can gather, Iran's number of strikes have stabilized at a comfortable daily rate, with strikes into both the Gulf monarchies and Occupied Palestine continuing apace. Official charts of these strikes over time seem very disconnected from reality on the ground, but again, it's hard to really get at the specifics.

The messaging on how long the war is expected to last is rather muddled on both sides. The Trump administration fluctuates more than daily - and even sometimes in the same speech - on whether the war is already won or whether it's going to last months longer. The US seems to be coming up a new possible scheme every few hours: a ground invasion with the Kurds? A ground invasion without the Kurds? An amphibious assault? A series of commando operations to steal Iranian uranium? A massive parachuting operation into Tehran? Fuck it, let's just send the Navy into the Strait of Hormuz? There doesn't seem to be a coherent plan for continuing hostilities beyond firing more and more of a limited stockpile of cruise missiles into mostly non-military targets, hitting easily replaceable drone and missile launchers with a limited stockpile of drones, and burning a limited stockpile of interceptors at an astounding rate (and, in the process, disarming every other Western-aligned country of their interceptors).

Meanwhile, from Iran, I've seen rumors and reports from classic anonymous "senior IRGC officials" (no doubt some invented by Zionists to sow confusion), that I don't know how to substantiate, ranging anywhere from "If the US pulls back their forces now, we will restart negotiations," to "It doesn't matter what the US or the Zionists do or say, we aren't stopping until every last trace of Zionism in the Middle East has been extinguished," to a few positions in between those poles. Despite the damage to infrastructure in Iran, it doesn't seem like there has been any political or social fracturing. Not to speak too soon - perhaps the West will start earnestly trying to overfly Iranian territory to drop their very plentiful bombs soon - but every indication is that there will be no regime change nor societal collapse in Iran in the short and medium term.

The US is desperately trying - and mostly failing - to keep a lid on the economic firestorm they have ignited. There has been much ado about oil prices and oil futures and indexes and what all the myriad Lines going up and down signify and things like that, which is befitting such a financialized empire which is so disconnected from the actual physical flows of materials and much more attuned to vibes and speeches. The only thing I'm personally paying much attention to on the economic front is the drones and missiles slamming into fossil fuel infrastructure, the Hormuz blockade, and the resulting global shockwave of shortages, stoppages, closures, bankruptcies, and force majeures spreading out from the epicenter that is Iran.

Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.