@TerryHancock@realsocial.life
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

TerryHancock

@TerryHancock@realsocial.life

Fan of space, film, free/open-source software and free culture. Former pro astronomer. Writer, blogger, editor, visual artist. Occasional free-software developer. (Personal Account)

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ben, to random
@ben@m.benui.ca avatar

What's the group noun for British people?

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@ben
You mean "Britons"?

scottsantens, to random
@scottsantens@hachyderm.io avatar

Stop insisting on work requirements. Just provide cash unconditionally. People will still work.

Stop insisting on targeting the poor. Just provide cash universally. Tax the rich more than the amount. That way we won't exclude anyone in need.

On these core tenets, Unconditional Universal Basic Income exists.

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@scottsantens

NOT making it means-tested also has a great political advantage: it takes the wind out of accusations of bias.

A popular (right-wing) way of attacking welfare programs in the USA is to depict the recipients as an undeserving class, often playing on racist or classist beliefs. E.g. Reagan's "welfare queen" narrative.

Either way, this gets used to build populist resentment against the programs. UBI could be more proof against this kind of attack.

reckless1280, to random

I told you Decoder this week was bananas and here it is: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan’s vision is thousands of AI digital clones attending video meetings https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/3/24168733/zoom-ceo-ai-clones-digital-twins-videoconferencing-decoder-interview

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@reckless1280

Something familiar about this... 🤔

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1X4o-MV6o

TerryHancock, to random
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

#Inkscape is really not too happy when I try to embed 90 MB of images. Possibly I should use linking, instead. 🤔

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@doctormo
What might be useful in my current case is some option to resample images to a lower resolution when embedding (or after). I suspect this would be frequently useful. Probably could be implemented as an extension.

In this case, I just used full resolution images when I really should've scaled them down prior to importing them. I knew this was probably a bad idea at the time. 😅

Painted myself into a corner, really. I can fix it, but it'll be a chore.

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@doctormo
FWIW...

Just extracting and replacing with the smaller image does NOT work -- it must remember transforms as a factor, not absolute extents .

Looks like "Paste Size" and the alignment menu can be used to replace the images one-by-one without too much hassle (have to transfer the clipping, of course).

Slow, but constrained -- no sloppy repositioning.

This is probably what I'll do on this drawing.

ajroach42, to random
@ajroach42@retro.social avatar

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't know a lot about the great depression.

But I've been thinking about the great depression lately, for reasons that I assume are fairly self evident, and I'm thinking about the mechanisms that enabled it, and I'm drawing conclusions and modern parallels.

I don't know if these conclusions are right, or if these modern parallels are sensible. I don't know the inner secrets of the universe. These are just some things I'm thinking about.

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@ajroach42
Not a correction, but an alternative view I found interesting was that the Depression was an economic "market correction" due to the US economy flipping from an agrarian to an industrial basis.

Industry existed in the 19th century, but it wasn't the dominant form of wealth production until the early 20th century.

Many social values, laws, and market practices were still based on agrarian models.

I'm not sure where I first saw this idea, but it made a lot of sense to me.

And...

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@ddlyh @ajroach42

It is definitely Complicated. 😅

But it seemed like a useful lens.

I think I probably picked up this idea from "Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future" by Paul Mason. (2017).

But of course, the undermining of the economy of material production (inherently scarce) by the flourishing of the economy of information production (inherently non-scarce) is something I've been thinking (and writing) about for quite some time.

So I think that's why the idea resonated for me.

TerryHancock, to random
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

I always say I need to write it down, but everytime I cook aloo gobi, I watch Gurindar Chadha's little cooking video on the "Bend It Like Beckham" DVD. It's becoming a tradition.

Unfortunately, I'm missing some of the ingredients. Turmeric?! How am I out of turmeric? We had so much! So I'm just using curry powder w/ turmeric in it. Also fresh cilantro/coriander. How did I forget that? So, dry coriander seeds, I guess.

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

One of the things I liked about her recipe is that it's the only one I know that calls for cilantro stems. We use the leaves all the time in salsa, of course, but the stems usually get thrown out.

TerryHancock, to random
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

Well.
The 88x31 buttons are very cool and nostalgic, but I think I have to try out this hexagon thing:

:amaze:

https://css-tricks.com/hexagons-and-beyond-flexible-responsive-grid-patterns-sans-media-queries/

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

As you may already know, of course, hexagons are how you know it's the future.

That, and flying cars. 😅

TerryHancock, to random
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

I discovered a site today that has collected 29K of those 88x31 GIF buttons that used to be so common on the web. No useful order (they're alphabetical, and the names are from the sites they were scraped from):

https://hellnet.work/8831/

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

I liked these back in the day, so I included them when I designed my page for Lunatics Project. They're still on the end of the page at https://lunatics.tv if you scroll to the bottom.

I looked back through the previous iterations on Internet Archive, and I've had them from 2012 when I first set up the site.

Maybe they'll become retro-stylish now? I just like a little kitsch on my site.

TerryHancock, to random
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

"Here comes the rain again..."

davidrevoy, to linux
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org avatar

Here is my new GNU/Linux distribution guide about Debian KDE 12, the right GNU/Linux distribution for professional digital painting in 2024! Also about three major problems with GNU/Linux distros that will drive away all professional artists, IMO, and how I got kicked out of the Fedora KDE ecosystem with F40, which imposed Plasma6 and Wayland. I hope it helps other artists here!

Blog post: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1030/debian-12-kde-plasma-2024-install-guide

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@davidrevoy

I just installed AV Linux this month. So far, I like it a lot. I was using Ubuntu Studio, but got fed up with the snap packages.

AV is built on MX which is built on Debian. The desktop environment is XFCE4, so it looks a lot like Ubuntu Studio.

Also, it's an init.d system by default, although there is an alternate systemd boot provided.

Haven't tried my colorimeter yet.

18+ urusan, to random
@urusan@fosstodon.org avatar

I was watching a YouTube video and they quoted that ChatGPT/GPT-4 uses 300Wh per request. This was so beyond reasonable that I had to go check and what I found was a rabbit hole.

It turns out that there's very little evidence that AI is actually using the truly staggering amounts of electricity that have been widely reported.

Yes, even in the giant companies at the center of the hype bubble (with one possible recent exception, because Google is being self-destructive).

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@urusan

Okay. I just pasted it all together with a brief intro. Also, I added Internet Archive links for all the references:

https://lunaticsproject.org/2024/05/30/guest-blog-ai-energy-consumption-fact-checks/

evan, (edited ) to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Should citizens of your country who live abroad be allowed to vote in national elections?

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@evan
Waffled between strong and qualified "yes".

IMHO, if they are in fact "citizens" then it's a strong "yes".

The question of whether people should be able to retain their citizenship long after they no longer live in a country is kind of sticky though. So that's my "qualification".

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@trebach @evan

Yeah, it's one of those "In an ideal world this would not be a problem -- shame we don't live in one of those" situations.

TerryHancock, to random
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

Wow. A website just asked me if I were between 13 and 15 years old.

What's that about, I wonder?

I mean, the implication is that the content is okay if you're < 12 or > 15..? 🤔

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@FeralRobots @jdnicoll
Yeah. I considered posting as a reply, but it seemed a little off-topic.

My guess is that < 13 is already covered somehow, but they wanted to extend it to 15. But it seems like they'd just ask "are you under 15?" for the same effect.

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@WearsHats
Wow. That is a bit darker than I imagined.
@FeralRobots

knittingknots2, to random
@knittingknots2@mstdn.social avatar

The public thinks America is in recession

https://thehill.com/opinion/4688422-matthews-why-the-public-thinks-the-country-is-in-recession/

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@knittingknots2
We need better metrics.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I don't know, pick one:

A. You have an excellent education, the means to answer questions: building a consistent understanding of the world. You are hard to trick. That said, you live in a society where the powerful can't be criticized. Many things you know cannot be said.

B. You freely and loudly express your ideas. But, you have very little education, formal or otherwise. You have been tricked before & know you could be again. You just don't have the best tools to prevent this.

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@futurebird @llewelly

IMHO, the problem is absolutism.

People want there to be absolute truths and falsehoods.

But in reality, science offers only probabilities, theories, and evidence. Some are very solid. Some less so. Some are pretty much bunk -- but some oddball theories then turn out to be true (I'm still reeling from "the Moon is a bashed-off piece of the proto-Earth", myself).

You have to learn to accept uncertainty as fundamental, but not as a roadblock.

frameworkcomputer, (edited ) to random
@frameworkcomputer@fosstodon.org avatar

Do you want your computer to have photographic memory of everything you’ve looked at:

Via (X image below)

TerryHancock,
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

@ramsey @frameworkcomputer @majorlinux

I do something like this with Python, FFMPEG, and Kdenlive. It's a bit more hands-on, no AI, no outside control, and I have the on/off switch. So it's okay. There are still some security concerns to keep in mind.

https://lunaticsproject.org/2024/05/22/hows-and-whys-of-screenlogging/

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