So, the keyboard cap for the down button on my ASUS Q526 laptop fell off and got snapped.
I'm trying to find a replacement keyboard cap but it's hard to find one for Q526.
Um. Is settling for something else from the Q series an O.K idea?
Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.It seems as though that my laptop motherboard and battery are all but dead now after working just fine yesterday. It looks like I have to figure out a way to get this repaired or scrap it while trying to figure out to remove the hard drive. The thing is I need a hefty sum of money to repair it.
"Fan, a Mega Man character."So, today's Neue Zürcher Zeitung had an article titled "Rape in the Metaverse" that discussed a developing question for virtual reality spaces: How should actions that would count as sexual assault or rape if they happened in real life be judged (morally and legally) if they occur virtually?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThis is hardly a new phenomenon: online sexual harassment and assault have existed as long as the Internet has existed. In a sense, it gives people (mostly but not exclusively males) with toxic attitudes but insufficient self-confidence to display those in public a venue where they can act out in relative anonymity and with near impunity.
The Hashtag That Shall Not Be Named was a reactionary event in which that impunity was challenged and the culture fought back against the perceived threat to its privilege. Said culture is alive and well in the cryptocurrency and Metaverse spaces. Any online space that is not preemptively and aggressively policed against toxic behavior will attract people inclined to such behavior like maggots to rotting meat.
As for how law enforcement should interact? I've said this before but part of it is establishing rigorous online identity tracking so that when an avatar that looks like a low-res monkey JPG gropes you in the Crypto Club the person behind it can be effectively found and prosecuted. Of course, there's nothing that Internet culture hates more than identity tracking, except maybe rigorously enforced IP rights, so it's an impasse.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 21st 2022 at 1:20:35 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"That's missing the point about half a mile: With many of these interactions we don't have a legal basis for any action and the only standards are the rules website owners set up. The question posited by the article was what the standards should be.
(I am reserving judgment pending some research on the effects that such interactions have. One with decent sample sizes and representative samples)
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanYou're right that laws are unclear in this regard in many jurisdictions, but what I am saying is that there is nothing novel about the Metaverse that would require special treatment. I could, if I were so inclined, find a female character in World of Warcraft and send their player rape threats or emote at them in a harassing manner. Some have said that Second Life was all about that sort of thing.
Cyberstalking and online harassment are crimes in most places. The only novel challenge that the Internet/Metaverse presents is identifying the attacker and proving that they are the one who committed the act(s).
If you are suggesting that Metaverse platforms might incorporate the ability to, for example, rape another user's avatar, that's a whole different kettle of fish. The liability there attaches to the operators. It's the same with features that offer anonymity in the commission of such acts. If the platform doesn't allow them, then there's no issue to begin with.
Roblox and other child-oriented, open games have major problems with pedophilia and grooming behaviors. It's even got similarities with the Metaverse, since user-developed apps can offer interactions that are not... appropriate... for their notional audience.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 21st 2022 at 1:51:27 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The question isn't about verbal statements but virtual-physical acts. One example question: If you are in a RPG and your virtual character/avatar sexually assaults another one, is it a big deal or not? And in which context?
[I think one specific issue with sexual assault is that there is both a physical component and a psychological one - there is a kind of deception, manipulation or coercion involved -, while say for a murder there is only a physical one. So in a virtual environment a virtual rape may be a bigger deal than a virtual murder. On the other hand, it is considerably less direct than a real world rape]
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanIt absolutely is a form of sexual harassment, just like if you were sending an unsolicited lewd image or expression to someone on this site. Obviously some communities might tolerate certain forms of sexualised expression as part of their culture (e.g. "teabagging" in competitive multiplayer games); but otherwise the ethics of doing these things to someone who doesn't want it remains the same, even when they're behind an anonymised online persona.
One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.Again, in an online world one can only do what the world is programmed to allow. If there is no mechanism to "kill" or "kiss" another person's avatar, then neither of those things can happen, making the question of legality and/or consent moot. In most competitive online games, it is expected that players will attempt to harm one another within the game, so consent is implied by participation, while "unfair" activities are defined by the terms of use.
Any online service in which communication can occur between players carries the risk of that communication being used for offensive or unwanted purposes, and it is then up to the operators of that service to determine what sort of behavior is allowed. Again, the law only comes into play for egregious acts and/or when the operators of the service display no ability or desire to mitigate the issue, such as with bans or by reporting offenses to law enforcement themselves.
You seem to be making some kind of distinction here between these things that we already deal with and the "Metaverse", which makes little sense. Unless someone plugs into a full-body-sensory VR rig (which does not currently exist), there is no way for an online act to become a real, physical act. If we actually get to that point, then there will undoubtedly be some interesting legal cases.
In the current environment, if I willingly put on a rig that would allow me to be physically molested through a virtual world... I don't know that I'd be able to make a convincing case that I am not consenting.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I guess the closest to that would be in a porn online multiplayer game already focused on creating sexual scenarios. Even then, rape happening in such a game would either be something the developers intentionally programmed in (and didn't give players the ability to disable, for some reason, which I'm sure would lead to a ton of backlash), or would be the work of hackers forcing your character into sexual scenarios without the player's consent.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Feb 21st 2022 at 3:25:56 AM
For this to happen non-consensual sexual activity would need to be programmed into the RPG. Many RP Gs do have a form of non-consensual violence coded into them in the form of Pv P activity, but that’s both a key expected component of the game and in a number of games limited to Pv P areas where you enter for the explicit purpose of Pv P activity.
For non-consensual sexual activities to occur in the meta verse we first need to program in sexual activities and then for some reason not make consent a baseline condition.
Now that’s not impossible, teabagging (the activity of crouching over an opponents corpse such that your character model’s crouch touches the mouth of the character model of a character you just killed) wasn’t deliberately programmed into any games, but it’s still a thing. However mechanically it would be an easy thing to disable.
The solution to non-consensual sexual activity in VR spaces is rather simple, the people in charge of the VR space turn that feature off/don’t code it in.
It’s worth noting that something very similar to this has happened. I believe there have been a couple of cases of people wearing remote controlled sex toys that are internet enabled and cannot be easily removed, said devices then got hacked and the person was blackmailed/made to pay a ransom.
But the issues there isn’t the VR space, it’s the meat-space devise that a person places on themselves and then surrenders control of.
Edited by Silasw on Feb 21st 2022 at 11:05:22 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranTBH, I would go one step further and argue that if for whatever reasonnote DID program that in, that the acknowledgment that that is a thing in it... and the willingness to still engage with it is consent in and of itself. After all if that feature was a deal-breaker, you would just go to a different program where the developers didn't do that.
Pretty much this.
Edited by Imca on Feb 21st 2022 at 4:26:08 AM
If it’s an open and deliberate part of the VR environment sure, but as with teabagging this can be added accidentally and I also don’t trust all devs not to conceal the fact that virtual sexual assault is doable in their VR environment.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranSo it turns out the recent wave of cyber attacks on Nvidia was down to -checks notes- the fact they wanted to be able to sell GPUs to people other than crypto miners.
I don't even know what to say to that. There's no way to adequately express my contempt for those losers. The crypto people, I mean.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"You know, I thought that as well - since Vladimir Putin has decided to go full-jerkass mode so we have to! With lesser means, of course, but it's a question of means available not morals.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanMy GPU fried up and I had to switch to AMD exactly because I could get similar performance to Nvidia GP Us by almost half of the price.
It is pretty hard to get a Nvidia GPU due to the crypto dipshits drying the GPU market.
Inter arma enim silent leges

I'm sure I'll end up down that rabbit hole some day.
For now, I have a keyboard with blues, and a keyboard with browns and a bunch of o-rings.†
† What happened was I spilled something and thought it'd broken the numpad, so I got another keyboard, but it turned out to be fine. So I bought a set of o-rings to use it as an office keyboard.