True, but imho the last great game BioWare made was Mass Effect 2. ~16 years ago.

My two cents:

Creating a monetary union without a fiscal union was a grievous macroeconomic mistake. For example, it allowed countries like mine (Germany) to abuse the shared currency to artifically lower the cost of exported goods, with the downstream effect of allowing it to “move” parts of its state debt to others, like e.g. France.

There really are only two ways towards eventual stability: Create a fiscal union (which for all intents and purposes means turning the EU from a confederation into a sovereign state), or breaking up the monetary union.

The latter, however, would destroy large parts of the export-dependent German economy almost overnight. It would almost certainly lead to economic suffering not seen since the Great Depression in the short-term. To steelman the argument for a moment, it could theoretically be a (state-)controlled burn to purge all those ailing German big corporations almost exclusively dependent on fossil fuels that have been refusing to innovate for more than 30 years now and be the catalyst for a rapid green transition. But there’s 0% chance of any far-right party desiring this, let alone being able to pull it of.

So that means either we create a fiscal union, or we’re screwed with a monetary system that will continue to amplify existing problems, instead of being a tool capable of addressing them equitably.

I don’t get why people are saying there should be a punishment.

Being treated exactly like every other country outside the EU is not a punishment. A punishment would be demanding reparations for the damages the UK inflicted with Brexit, which you’ll note neither me nor anybody else here I could see asked for.

[…] Why not just let them leave and then realise it’s wrong when it happens and come back?

This is what that looks like: Accept the same terms as anybody else or don’t join. There are plenty of ways to have constructive cooperations without the UK joining the EU.

Like if a family member that I know and love hurts me and leaves, I’d eventually welcome them back and let bygones be bygones, because we are a team. But if it’s some coworker I don’t care about, I’d want to be made right for the troubles.

“We” are not a family. The EU is a confederation. If we were a family, I would require both contrition and some form of reparations, because breaking such a much closer bond has more severe consequences.

It’s good to let the leavers feel a taste of how bad it is to do it, but joining should always be a good thing and not a punishment.

If the UK thinks joining on the same terms as anybody else is a punishment they are free to not join. We have way too many grandfathered-in friction-causing privileges already.

I’m all for constructive cooperation moving forward, as long as the UK never gets its special privileges back.

We don’t.

Here in Germany one of the few good things that came out of our previous federal government was the SBGG, which - among other things - allows you to delete the entry. And before anyone points it out: I’m aware it isn’t perfect.

The good Apertus model is too large at 70B, unfortunately. The 8B model is much too small to be useful for what I need.

Yeah, it seems the llama.cpp changes have been merged in the last 24 hours. I’m hoping ollama makes them available this week.

Merzweckeier!

Thank you very much, I hadn’t heard about this model coming out anywhere!

Seems like I’ll need to wait just a bit more for it to be available in Ollama. As soon as it’s there I’ll try it out :)

I’m really hoping Soofi models are going to be good. Because afaict they’ll be the first (and so far only) open source (not just open weight) models in the ~30B parameters range.

Now do the same for generic/vacuous travelling pictures in a majority of womens’ dating profiles ;)

What’s there to lay out, other than what anyone can read from the Wikipedia entries?

The Internet is a specific global network of computer nodes that use some version of the Internet Protocol to communicate with each other. There are many different services over on it. The WWW is simply one such service.

German neoliberals (which most CEOs of our larger corporations are) and empirical data don’t really mesh well. It’s why most of them still clutch the neoclassical “school” of economics, which has zero empirical data behind its basic assumptions.

If only there was a mechanism for new companies to challenge and outcompete dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the regulatory capture emerging from capitalism and explicitly supported by our electorate means barriers of entry are drawn such that it’s almost impossible to challenge entrenched wealth, unless being backed by rival entities of comparable wealth.

Finally someone who at least knows the difference between the WWW and the Internet…

Where do you get that certainty from? Lucasfilm owned all the rights to the Expanded Universe, including all work-for-hire novels. Disney acquired everything Lucasfilm owned, so they shouldn’t have had to pay any further royalties.

Do you have better evidence than this interview, where it was stated that Chewie dying was the reason?

I agree, but I can’t see it happening until they’ve milked this “timeline” dry.

I don’t know, but his death was the primary reason they killed the Expanded Universe. The merchandise aspect is my cynic interpretation, because the stated non-reason why it’d be a problem makes zero sense.

Should’ve just used the Thrawn Trilogy as Episodes VII through IX. But that would’ve eventually lead to

and think how much that would’ve hurt merchandise sales…

Ah, yes, the duality of USA’s foreign policy w.r.t to the EU: We want you to pay (us) more and take on more responsibility for your own defense, but only in such a way that we still get to keep all our soft and hard power over you.

This may have become more obvious under Trump, but this is nothing new to anyone paying attention since the late 90s / early 00s.

Though, to be fair, they should really blame the electorate. The politicians have simply been doing what they and their parties were voted in for.