pizzaboi

We dropped them for good old blocklists, and so far we’ve actually seen less spam for our clients.

Trump’s second term: literally too confusing, too extreme

I’ll admit that I was in that position, once. The difference is that when I did it I voted for McCain, not a failed actor and businessman with a clear plan to tear apart our democracy.

It’s great that people are waking up to this, but the damage is done. We’re going to all have to fight tooth and nail to stop and undo the damage, if we can at all. Hang on to your butts, people.

I’ve really been struggling with seeing everything and just, at the end of the day, there’s nothing I can do. I will continue to vote and donate and protest, but… I really don’t think it matters anymore. The system is so out of whack, so built on trusting people in certain positions to act in a certain way, that when people don’t there’s no real guardrails to stop it. Maybe I’ve just grown nihilistic, but… Sure seems like we’re fucked.

Sadly, no, though I’m curious how the other lemming changed their polling rate. I used Piper, so maybe different methods have different effects? Idk. I’ll have to keep tinkering.

Fair enough! Thanks for sharing that. I think there’s a beauty in photography that we can each create in our own way, and that the process is part of the photographer’s expression, despite the viewer knowing none of that.

Interesting! I’ll give that a try.

Gaming is my struggle, right now. On x11, I get stable framerates, but even though my benchmarks show 60+ fps, it sure looks lower to my eye. On Wayland, gameplay is smooth, but I keep getting this weird thing where after 20-30 minutes of gameplay I’ll get this weird input lag, where my mouse movement stops and then “catches up” every second or so, resulting in choppy gameplay despite the smooth framerate.

If I can figure that out, I’d happily drop my Windows partition.

Just a thought… Don’t use AI noise reduction! I’ve seen the “magic” they produce and am not impressed. I take pride in capturing the image, not relying on software to recreate it the way I wish it had been shot (I recognize this is a bit hypocritical given that I do use noise reduction in Darktable).

Additionally, I stopped caring about (luminance) noise a long while ago, now, and am perfectly happy with the results I get out of Darktable. In fact, much like film grain, I find modern luminance noise quite pleasing, especially on smaller sensors, and it can add texture and feeling to your image. Still, my default style includes the fantastic, camera model specific, noise reduction profiles by default, which effectively removes color noise and brings luminance noise down to appropriate levels.

The rise in clinical photography and “AI” tools has only given me a stronger drive to be creative and embrace the flaws of my camera and my tools. Call me a romantic, but I want people to know my photos were taken and created by a human, not a machine.

Ok, getting off the soapbox, now xD

If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any…

Quite literally what he said back in 2020.

Is there a good resource out there for wrapping my head around RISC-V? Last time I read a wiki my head hurt haha. Seems cool, though.

I hope you’re right.

The first hurdle is getting over the fact that the US is huge and fragmented. Organizing a general strike so vast would be difficult, especially once you consider that any company, big or small, will have bootlickers, not just employers, that will actively work against you. Not a chance you could get more than 10% of the population on board. But, let’s say you get that far. Now you have the do everything “legally.”

Legally protesting is getting harder and harder to do. You have to strike in the right place, at the right time, in the right manner. Even then there’s a chance you get shut down with little ability for legal recourse without immense resources. Many protestors will likely end up in prison and many more will lose their jobs and probably homes. Trust me, the employers won’t care. There are thousands of applicants ready to take their place. But, if you can keep it going even after that, what happens next?

You might get a few “peace talks” that result in a 3-5% bump in wages, a stipend for childcare, and free coffee. Maybe some industries get a few small protections. There’s too much money from businesses flowing into Congress for anything more to happen.

And that’s that! You end up with wages that barely keep up with inflation, lots of people losing their jobs and homes, and most assuredly a more active and higher funded militarized police force than ever.

The days of American workers being able to make real change happen through striking are just gone.

“Back to our roots around free expression”

God, why would I want to binge oligarchy?! /s

Just puked a little after reading that.

“Unfortunately, we’ve found we need an addition trillion per year to ensure our salaries can continue to inflate.”

It’s slowly but surely growing. I also get more engagement there than anywhere else right now.

I mean, I am. I held out because I’m a photographer with local friends & connections that are only on Meta’s platforms. But, it’s just not worth it anymore. It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve had enough.

It’s largely reactionary. The world has seen a lot of progression in the last couple decades, but a lot of people aren’t feeling any benefits. In fact, many feel worse off because they see progressive policies as unfair to them. It’s always been a pendulum… My worry is that the pendulum seems to be swinging further to each side than we’ve seen in a long while. It’s really starting to feel like widespread unrest will give way to widespread uprising.