I haven’t, but there’s ample stories which present more or less the same point.

Obligatory IANAL, etc.

If the template is being used for non-commercial services and does not closely replicate any of the material the characters is based on, then it probably falls under Fair Use - similar to how many rulings have affirmed that fan fiction is broadly legally permitted. Conversely, if the chat service owner is charging for the use, then it would probably be forbidden under the grounds that the service host is financially benefiting from another’s copyright.

Between that, is a murky zone.

• Content creators and owners have at times made legal demands that pornographic, shocking, or other fan content which could reflect poorly on the original owners be removed, on the basis it damages their value. If I remember correctly, rulings on this have gone both ways and the issue remains largely unsolved.
• If the bot hoster makes small changes to obfuscate the identity represented to the bot, it could likewise become iffy. It’d likely depend on the court ruling whether the identity was “substantially changed” enough.
• A new course would be to argue that - given some of the issues regarding how bots have become abusive or encouraging of harmful behavior - any chatbot usage represents an intolerable danger to their brand value. I actually expect to see this litigated fairly soon.

Living on an upper floor comes in handy for once, as it’s actually fairly easy to barricade the front door. Alert some key close friends and family members who will actually believe me. Then stock up on canned goods, fill every possible thing I can with water, and grab some camping solar kits for power once the grid goes down.

After that? Hunker down. Avoid being clearly seen in windows or heard to prevent attracting the undead. I reckon I need to last about 6-9 weeks.

See, the thing is, zombies are going to die out. The average human can go 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food. Let’s assume zombies have a magical lack of need of hydration, so they last 3 weeks. Double that for the time they’ll have ample food. Assume another 3 weeks that they’ll cannibalize each other or something.

At that point, I can begin to venture outside. Small numbers of capable zombies may still exist, but most will be dead or starving. Other survivors are my greatest worry.

Rage comics and advice animals had the perfect combination of communicating event and emotion caused by the event simply and straightforwardly.

Met someone who - in the course of a discussion - admitted that they were adamant in their belief that God existed and all the stuff in the Bible had actually happened, but also adamantly refused to observe any religious commandments or pray, because he was “angry at God” over the state of the world.

I wasn’t quite sure if I felt sorry for his dealing with that kind of anger, or mild respect for his willingness to fully believe in God and yet raise a giant middle finger in His direction. Man had a mission, I guess.

.ml complaining about being an echo chamber. I didn’t realize today was comedy day all around the political spectrum.

Now this is the good stuff I look for in a Tech community.

Subjectively, I’ve been seeing a lot of high ping/packet loss in gaming and sites loading tonight. Can’t help but wonder if something more fundamental is going on.

I wasn’t talking about him, but more other people who - if you see a headline of “XY succinctly summarizes [issue]”, all it will be is distilling a messy, nuanced topic down to “You should feel A,” often with ragebait to convince you.

Add in “succinctly explains” too. That’s shorthand for “reduces complex issue to a paragraph”.

To be fair, Star Trek always had its fantasy element as well. They dressed it up with Treknobabble a lot, but many of the episodes had fundamentally fantasy elements as well. Like, remember the time Kirk gets beamed down to a planet where the inhabitants use literal, actual magic and it turns out the Salem witches were actual witches?

Yep. Apparently I’m blind. Nevermind me.

This. There was something vaguely ritualistic about getting out a box to open all the little plastic packages into, then spreading out the instructions and getting to work.

For a while there the instructions sometimes even had little comics at the bottom of the pages, and so you could read the comic and then go back and actually build the thing.

Forgive me if I’m missing something, but… how is this related to Reddit?

In first grade? There was this little Hot Wheels style car that could transform into a robot man. I loved that little thing. Top favorite toy in the classroom.

Took it home one day. I was too afraid to play with it, so I just stuffed it into the box with the other toy cars. I was also too afraid to return it after a while. I still have it, and the guilt over taking this thing lives rent-free in my head.

I’m honestly surprised you can even connect to an MMO with an out-of-date client. On the few I’ve played, at least, a version mismatch is an automatic refusal to connect.

There’s always something extra adorable about cats accepting aggressive kid cuddles.

The first time you heard that sssssSSSSSSBOOM right behind branded every player with an eternal fear.

Also, shoutout to the moment they added fire spread. Way back in ye olde alpha days, you’d just randomly set stuff on fire to keep monsters out. Then fire spread suddenly made this dangerous and the world feel a whole lot more risky.

Technically you don’t need it, but it makes it a little easier for the developers and the users.

For that matter, if you poke around in some games’ files, you can find the actual game.exe and launch it directly from there, bypassing the launcher. You just bypass the authentication and compatibility checking as well.

As long as both brands are on your motherboard’s Qualified Vendor List (QVL), then you should be good in terms of compatibility.

Do be aware, however, that using all four memory slots can result in your RAM running at a slower-than-nominal speed, as the memory controller has a more difficult time handling four sticks than two. This isn’t automatically awful - I’m also writing this on a machine running 2x8+2x16 - but you might want to examine if you would be okay with 2x16 alone.