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Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

opensource.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

#61

Post by inigyou »

mossTechnician wrote: post #53
inigyou wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was explained to me that the word "Copilot" is just Microsoft's brand for what the rest of us call "AI" - just like "365" means "online", "Azure" means "cloud", "Entra" means "login" and ".NET" used to mean "with a computer". So when you see something like "Azure Copilot 365" you can pretend they wrote, fully generically, "Online Cloud AI". If you see a button labelled "Copilot" you understand it would've said "AI…

Microsoft also apparently "rebranded Office to Microsoft 365 in 2022"[0], causing a lot of confusion about what "Microsoft 365 Copilot" on their homepage meant, but I think it would translate to "Cloud Office Suite + Cloud AI" [0]: https://www.theverge.com/tech/856149/microsoft-365-office-re...

Microsoft 365 means Microsoft Online, according to the translator. And it makes sense: they are positioning Office as their core product, not just one of many products. They are renaming Microsoft Office to just Microsoft; this is the online version (which happens to be the only version); and it has AI, which they are prominently showcasing. Hence, Microsoft 365 Copilot. It means "Microsoft Online, now with AI"

Of course, all of this is completely retarded.

Re: Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

#62

Post by cindyllm »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #59
serf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this was released in 1996. Microsoft was at one of its' most powerful evil phases it had ever seen during that phase, and to pretend it was some kind of antithesis to 'corporate metric please' is a disservice to history. I liked comic chat , and I see that your actual point is more just "ai bad" , but 88-99 microsoft was brutally corporate metric pleasing. see also : Microsoft antitrust history Microsoft FTC investig…

Microsoft was a massive corporation To imply that every single person there was evil to their core simply by association is utterly ridiculous. I doubt the guy who created Minesweeper was dreaming of world domination while working there

[dead]

Re: Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

#64

Post by outintospace »

Hi, I'm Robert Standefer, the guy who made this happen, with lots of support. I'm excited to see the enthusiasm about Comic Chat being open sourced. How this came to happen is a very interesting story that spans a six-year period with success that hinged upon being in the right place at the right time, literally.

I want to point out that, while I (along with Scott Hanselman) made the Comic Chat open source release happen, I am not the original developer. That is DJ Kurlander, and he was very supportive of this project. He was even enthusiastic about it.

Re: Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

#65

Post by outintospace »

rideontime wrote: post #63

Depressing to see all the AI-generated text in an article about a creative communication tool. Even the comic's punchline is clunky, and no human being would ever refer to Michael Jordan as the "Space Jam guy."

I wrote that, not AI. There's a typo: it was supposed to be, "Is the Space Jam guy still playing baseball?" I didn't have time to recreate the entire comic before publish date.

Re: Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

#66

Post by Sharlin »

Athas wrote: post #19

Comic Chat is a piece of Internet history, but I remember that it was somewhat reviled when I first started being active on IRC. This was around 2002, so it was probably due to some cultural memory rather than anyone having actually used it in years. The issue, as I remember it, is that Comic Chat extended the IRC protocol with support for explicitly indicating the appearance and emoting of your comic character, rath…

Microsoft SOP, especially back then.

Re: Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

#69

Post by Sharlin »

hedora wrote: post #55
serf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this was released in 1996. Microsoft was at one of its' most powerful evil phases it had ever seen during that phase, and to pretend it was some kind of antithesis to 'corporate metric please' is a disservice to history. I liked comic chat , and I see that your actual point is more just "ai bad" , but 88-99 microsoft was brutally corporate metric pleasing. see also : Microsoft antitrust history Microsoft FTC investig…

This came out of Microsoft Research, which was a bit of a safe haven from such stuff back then. MSN Chat was the full corporate bundled with windows program that matches your description of ‘90s Microsoft. A non-monetized chat app targeting decentralized protocols definitely was not.

Still, they managed to Embrace&Extend the IRC protocol in a way that was annoying to anyone not using Comic Chat.

Re: Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source

#70

Post by art0rz »

Athas wrote: post #19

Comic Chat is a piece of Internet history, but I remember that it was somewhat reviled when I first started being active on IRC. This was around 2002, so it was probably due to some cultural memory rather than anyone having actually used it in years. The issue, as I remember it, is that Comic Chat extended the IRC protocol with support for explicitly indicating the appearance and emoting of your comic character, rath…

On the IRC servers I managed I always set up an automatic kick when one of these messages was sent anywhere on the servers. It would ban after 3 kicks, which was a necessary change from the immediate ban as legitimate users got curious sometimes and installed Comic Chat.

It was fun messing with these folks, though, since they were often oblivious to IRC and internet culture in general. Or they were just completely tech illiterate, but somehow ended up starting Comic Chat, and somehow ended up on our obscure servers.

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