This is a pretty common response to national trauma like this. The US had a million ‘we’re gonna kick their ass’-songs post-9/11. Most weren’t exactly subtle about it either.
Calling out other artists like Dua Lipa though… I’d probably avoid that as a musician. You never know who you’ll end up sharing a podium with down the line.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to become another shitty cable company.
I ditched Netflix years ago when the content got worse by the week. Good shows were taken off by rights holders so they could put it on other platforms and what remained sucked. Not to mention Netflix’s proclivity for killing its own shows.
It got to a point where all the new stuff were shitty movies and Scandinavian crime dramas. Hard pass.
With the way other streaming services are going, it wouldn’t surprise me if people jumped back to piracy. I honestly don’t mind paying something reasonable, but all these subscriptions and price hikes do add up.
Exactly. And I’d say if someone bothers to post that question, they are clearly interested in it. So why not watch an episode or two and see if you like it? It’s not exactly a life-changing decision.
Personally, I’d much rather form my own opinion regarding shows, instead of relying on the opinion of others. I’ve hated shows that others loved and loved shows that others hated.
Why would you consider robot vacuums to be particularly dangerous in terms of security? I’m certainly more weary of things like Google Nest, Amazon Alexa, pet cams, doorbell cams, that sort of thing.
I know that some but not all vacuums have cameras, and I’d assume some might have microphones as well. But in general it doesn’t strike me as inherently more dangerous to one’s privacy.
You should always assume any camera to be hostile, unless you have full and complete control over all related software and connections.
Basically, the people who supplied the device will always have more control over it than you do. And big tech just looooves to abuse that and/or cave in to pressure from governments and police agencies.
That’s not what he’s correcting!
The ‘new’ Battlestar Galactica is literally set in our past; 150.000 years ago. The characters eventually settle on a new planet that they also call Earth. From the show’s perspective, we are their descendants.
Not only that, but there’s an entire line of presidential succession. It’s part of a broader concept of ‘continuity of government’. Basically, it ensures that there’s always someone formally in charge. You could vaporize half the country including every senior official and there’d still be a legit, sworn in president in a few hours.
There’s basically contingencies upon contingencies. One interesting book on the topic is ‘Raven Rock’ by Garrett M. graff.
That would certainly annoy me if I couldn’t uninstall some bullshit thing like that. I don’t imagine a phone NEEDS that to just work.
Guess I’m not returning to Samsung any time soon.
It’s that bad these days? I’ve only had one Samsung phone, three phones ago, and it didn’t really have any bloatware on it, except their own Galaxy store app thing.
Everyone around me uses iPhones and I hear no complaints. And the folks who buy Android tend to prefer Samsung here, which seems to get decent updates.
I’d never even heard of Redmi, but Googling it, it appears to be the entry level line of Xiaomi. When you buy a budget phone from an already budget brand, I’m not surprised that the user experience out of the box isn’t that great.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard an average user say: ‘I like my phone’s hardware, I just wish it had a different OS.’
Phones by and large are seen as a locked system: you specifically choose to buy Android or iOS and stick with that.
There’s really no incentive for companies to make different OS installs easy. I’d say there’s plenty of reasons not to: do you really want to give the average user that much power to fuck up their phone? I assume there’s also some security implications if they made it too easy to fiddle with.
So yeah, it’s difficult because you’re fiddling with something that wasn’t meant to be an end-user thing in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love it if they made phones much more open in terms of hardware and software, but the big guys aren’t going to do it.
The thing that really annoys me is the people who are most enamoured with Chat GPT also seem to be the ones least capable of judging its accuracy and actual output quality.
I write for a living; a newspaper. So naturally, some of the people in our company - sales people - wanted to test it. And they were delighted with the stuff it wrote. Which was terrible to read, factually incorrect, repetitive and just not something we’d put in the paper. But they loved it. Because they weren’t writers and don’t know how to write an engaging article with proper sources.
I tested it as well. Wanted to form my own opinion and read up on the limitations, how to write good prompts, etc. So I could give it a fair chance.
I had it write a basic 500 word article about things to see in our city, with information about the tourist info office. That’s something a first year intern can do in his second week with us.
Basically, it ended up ‘inventing’ two museums that don’t exist, it listed info for a museum on the other side of the country, it listed an ‘Olympic stadium’ (we never hosted the Olympics) and it gave a completely wrong address for the tourist info, even though it should have it.
It was factually incorrect in just about every sentence. But it all sounded plausible enough and was written with such confidence that anyone not from this city might assume it to be true.
I don’t want that fucking thing anywhere NEAR my newspaper. The sales people are pretty much monkeys with Chat GPT-typewriters, churning out drivel instead of Shakespeare.
If you take the time to make / share something good, it usually gets little traction compared to bots, misinformation, astroturfed bullshit, etc. Your stuff gets lost in a sea of nonsense.
I used to make good posts on a favourite subreddit of mine. But because of poor moderation, the sub basically got drowned with low-effort stuff from drive-by posters who weren’t regulars. Mods refused to ban those posts, even though users really wanted them to.
The end result? I no longer post good content there. Why bother when it gets drowned out?
The other end of the spectrum is that some platforms are too heavy handed with moderation, taking any sort of flavour out of it. You need a bit of spice to make a platform enjoyable. Sadly, that’s also what’s been happening over at Reddit in general: discourage content that doesn’t fit the desired advertiser / IPO profile. Which again drives people away from posting things.
I used to love Reddit, but I’ve totally abandoned it. It’s not one particular reason, but the broad effect is that I and many others no longer feel welcome.
We lost a lot of good users; people who contribute to topics, make good posts and comments. We also lost good moderators; people who cared about the content quality and vibe. The Reddit-appointed replacement mods by and large are not people who ran or SHOULD run communities.
Add in the fact that both subreddit mods and Reddit admins are going hog wild with the ban hammer on both subs and users, and it’s hardly a wonder that users aren’t having it. They’re trying to turn it into a gentrified Disneyland and that’s not what we want.
I’m hoping we can grow the Fediverse and prevent it from getting fucked by people with bad motives.
I own a few Minolta’s, including the X500 and X700. Those were basically the last of their manual focus SLR’s. I love classic bodies like that; metal built bricks that feel solid and chunky to use. I also bought a ton of Minolta glass back in the 2010’s when they stuff went for pennies on the dollar on Ebay. Good glass is good glass, right?
I’ve never shot HP5 myself; I tend to be more of a Fuji shooter in general with Acros for my B&W needs. I’ve developed my own rolls, especially when I had to shoot that in cut-down form in Minox cartridges. Not exactly the kind of thing you take to a one hour photo place :D
Though I’ve also shot stuff like Tri-X 400, Ektar and a bunch of other stuff from Kodak and Fuji over the years. But the thing I absolutely LOVE to shoot is slide film. Velvia 50 & 100 in particular. Absolutely amazing to see slides on a lightbox. You get a lovely depth and color that you just don’t really see in other negatives in my opinion.
I actually just bought a Fuji X-S20 camera which includes a bunch of film simulations, including Acros and Velvia. That’s how much I love shooting those, that I want to bring that fun factor to digital as well :D Also own a Fuji X100S, which I found out is a ‘TikTok trend’ apparently…
I’ve got plenty of stuff that’s older than I am. I’ve got mechanical cameras dating back to the 1930’s, electronic camera’s from the 70’s, watches dating back to that time as well. And there’s game consoles dating back to the NES, like many here.
I like old tech. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s bad or unreliable. If you treat stuff well and maintain as needed, a lot of things will outlast you. I’ll be shooting film in cameras that are a hundred years old in a few years.
Geez, the fuck’s going on over there?
I don’t think anyone minds artistic nude or even full on porn, assuming there’s reasonable legal protections to keep underage kids away.
Sorry, I just have to:
You’re correct on the plane type in that it was a U-2. However, that’s a photo reconnaissance aircraft - it has no bombs or other weaponry. You’re probably thinking of the B-2, which is a stealth bomber.
New Cyberpunk 2077 sidequest: hack the bionics company to restore people’s vision. Like a more murder-y version of Orbis.
As a Dutch guy, I’m also very glad that we’re sending weapons to Ukraine.
You know why? Because we DO have a score to settle. I hope our guns, ammo and fighter jets kill as many Russians as possible.
The Netherlands would never go to war over MH17. But every single dead Russian killed with our weapons will be a delight to many.