Oxalis's recent activity
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Comment on ‘Do not pet’: A robotic dog named “Spot” made by Boston Dynamics is the latest tool in the arsenal of the US Secret Service in ~tech
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Comment on Scientists and archivists worry Epic Games' control of the 3D model market will 'destroy' cultural heritage in ~games
Oxalis Link ParentOh no! This is what I get for being a lazy netizen and not reading the article. Thanks for calling me out. This isn't a good thing for anyone. FAB is a weird mess.Oh no! This is what I get for being a lazy netizen and not reading the article. Thanks for calling me out.
This isn't a good thing for anyone. FAB is a weird mess.
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Comment on Scientists and archivists worry Epic Games' control of the 3D model market will 'destroy' cultural heritage in ~games
Oxalis Link ParentSketchFab is pretty big in this space. They're mainly a webgl-based 3d asset viewer but do offer downloads and a store for scenes and models. They have a pretty diverse selection of cultural...SketchFab is pretty big in this space. They're mainly a webgl-based 3d asset viewer but do offer downloads and a store for scenes and models.
They have a pretty diverse selection of cultural heritage, history, science, and archeology models from various libraries, museums, and research groups: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/categories/cultural-heritage-history?date=week&sort_by=-likeCount
Many are downloadable too! (though most are not "water-tight" for 3d printing)
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Comment on The Kids Should See This in ~tv
Oxalis LinkProjects like this always remind me of a quote from Activist Dee Dee Halleck, founder of public access channel Paper Tiger: The activation energy to find something genuinely wholesome for young...Projects like this always remind me of a quote from Activist Dee Dee Halleck, founder of public access channel Paper Tiger:
It is one thing to critique the mass media and rail against their abuses. It is quite another to create viable alternatives.
The activation energy to find something genuinely wholesome for young minds is tiring. Billions of options but the majority of them are brain-rot trash churned out at industrial scales to capture the view market. So even though this isn't an endless feed of content to plop a kid in front of (that's a bad idea anyway) it's awesome to have a resource for consistent, curated things that hearken back to the glory days of PBS.
I especially love that many of the videos have additional text/image content underneath with lots of related links in them for context. Makes a video into a stepping stone for deeper learning.
Though it's worth noting that many of the videos are curated from youtube as far as I can tell (with a smattering of vimeo), so ad exposure is still an issue. Hosting this much video content would be super expensive so I can understand it.
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Comment on E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders in ~food
Oxalis LinkOn a tangent, the fast food chain A&W released a "Third-of-a-Pound Burger" in the 1980s to compete with the quarter pounder. It was cheaper, it did better on taste tests, and had full ad support...On a tangent, the fast food chain A&W released a "Third-of-a-Pound Burger" in the 1980s to compete with the quarter pounder. It was cheaper, it did better on taste tests, and had full ad support nationally but still failed due to Americans not understanding fractions.
Misunderstanding the value of one-third, customers believed they were being overcharged. Why, they asked the researchers, should they pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as they did for a quarter-pound of meat at McDonald’s. The “4” in “¼,” larger than the “3” in “⅓,” led them astray.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/
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Comment on Big changes are coming to ArchiveBox! in ~tech
Oxalis LinkWow, I didn't see this coming! The restructuring to allow for a plugin system will be massive. I'll have to see how difficult the API is to possibly add support for dezoomifyWow, I didn't see this coming!
The restructuring to allow for a plugin system will be massive. I'll have to see how difficult the API is to possibly add support for dezoomify
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Comment on I'm looking for a spicy wasabi snack that will kick my ass and make me regret eating it in ~food
Oxalis Link ParentI came into this post looking to see what OP was wanting out their near death experience with heat but I ended up finding my favorite new snack. I got a bag from my local pharmacy and they're...I came into this post looking to see what OP was wanting out their near death experience with heat but I ended up finding my favorite new snack.
I got a bag from my local pharmacy and they're delicious. Thanks for the recommendation!
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Comment on My hated AI video in ~creative
Oxalis LinkGiven that many of his videos start with a disclaimer that "There is no stock footage in this video" implies that Posy understands the value and difficulty of creating your own visual content from...Given that many of his videos start with a disclaimer that "There is no stock footage in this video" implies that Posy understands the value and difficulty of creating your own visual content from scratch. He prides himself on putting in the hard work to get amazing shots.
From that alone, dipping into using tools that forcefully took style and concept data from literally every human-made creative work in the world without asking for consent nor providing value back to those who helped train them is kinda against his brand's M.O.
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Comment on IPTV and 'Firestick' hacking in ~tech
Oxalis LinkI get m3u playlists of global channels from an old satellite-hacking forum. As you described, the quality of these temporary thieved-from-thieves streams is hit or miss at best. I would in no way...I get m3u playlists of global channels from an old satellite-hacking forum. As you described, the quality of these temporary thieved-from-thieves streams is hit or miss at best. I would in no way want to rely on them for entertainment or education on current events. Their use as such seems relegated to nations like Brazil and Argentina where affordable availability of more legal methods is nowhere to be seen.
That said, it's a wonderful curiosity. Being able to bounce around through thousands of TV channels from all over the world is pretty magical. The sheer amount of amusement in seeing how diverse cultures put on TV productions is worth the tech nightmare of getting it to work. I'm especially fond of local broadcast channels in India and the Middle East; religion is a central cultural focus there and it colors every last frame in exotica.
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Comment on Ig Nobel prizes 2024: The unexpected science that won this year in ~science
Oxalis LinkAs fun as this years winners are, I'm surprised that there isn't more chatter about the demography award winner. Digging into population longevity data and finding that pretty much all the "people...As fun as this years winners are, I'm surprised that there isn't more chatter about the demography award winner.
Digging into population longevity data and finding that pretty much all the "people who live in X are living longer thanks to Y and Z" stuff is complete bunk is pretty scary and frustrating. Discovering that the vast majority of global supercentenarian are either long dead or active pension fraud throws so much global health narrative in the garbage.
Here's the preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3
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Comment on Does anyone have experience with tools for locally archiving the web, like Archivebox for example? in ~tech
Oxalis LinkArchivebox is great but I wouldn't rely on it, at least not in the current release state. In its current state, I've had issues with zombie chromium instances stacking up during archive jobs and...Archivebox is great but I wouldn't rely on it, at least not in the current release state.
In its current state, I've had issues with zombie chromium instances stacking up during archive jobs and slowing my server down to an unresponsive halt and requiring me to do a hard restart.
The project's dev, Pirate, is pretty fast and loose with the codebase. Pushing broken and WIP code to the main repo branch instead of creating feature branches as he works on things, so don't try and jump the gun and run :dev to see if a given issue has been fixed. I learned this the hard way. :\
With all of that said, it's a neat system and it's easy to pop up using their docker container. For now though, I would just follow the project on github so you can get emails as Pirate pushes RC releases so you can see how the project is progressing and when the eventual 0.8.4 release goes live. He's been swapping out a lot of the inner workings so a lot of the user grievances should be remedied.
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Comment on Looking for chill horror lets players in ~games
Oxalis LinkWhen new horror games come out, I usually try to watch SuperGreatFriend's play sessions over others. By day, he's a civil servant in New Jersey but by night he's a mellow sardonic streamer who has...When new horror games come out, I usually try to watch SuperGreatFriend's play sessions over others. By day, he's a civil servant in New Jersey but by night he's a mellow sardonic streamer who has a lovely dry wit. There's absolutely no overreaction in his content except maybe a good laugh if something bonkers happens in a game.
Some of my favorites:
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Whose Lila? - Bizarre slavic indie horror spread across two executables that goes into some really weird philosophical places.
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Martian Gothic: Unification - Quirky puzzle point and click, has a somber horror vibe that I really enjoy along with some really comedic jank.
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Alone in the Dark (original) - Screwball old PC horror game. SGF ended up playing every Alone in the Dark title including the modern reboot from this year. The entire series is worth watching.
The only remark I have is that he does 1 hour tryouts of games every stream session and then a larger project for the second half of the stream. The games from the tryouts may never be picked up again. This is also never really discussed. So if you see a playlist with just one video and it's reasonably old, it probably wasn't picked up as a project.
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Comment on Why GitHub actually won in ~tech
Oxalis Link ParentA nice weekend project would be to setup a self-hosted gitea instance and set it to mirror your github repos for safe keeping. It looks and works exactly the same as github but you can run it on...A nice weekend project would be to setup a self-hosted gitea instance and set it to mirror your github repos for safe keeping. It looks and works exactly the same as github but you can run it on your own intranet.
Then you could disengage from github at some point in the future without any issues other than redirecting the remote urls in your local repos. If that never happens, well then you still have a backup of everything on your github account.It is a server application though, best used on something that runs 24/7. I have mine running on a raspberry pi along with a number of other self-hosted applications.
There are tutorials on installing it into the OS directly but I'd always recommend using a containerization system like docker or podman instead.
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Comment on A new AI model can hallucinate a game of 1993’s DOOM in real time in ~games
Oxalis LinkFor a (much simpler and older) example, a developer named Ollin Bohan trained a custom neural net for real time image generation based on pokemon for the Game Boy Color that works in-browser. It's...For a (much simpler and older) example, a developer named Ollin Bohan trained a custom neural net for real time image generation based on pokemon for the Game Boy Color that works in-browser.
It's very trippy; like being a ghost as reality melts away around you https://madebyoll.in/posts/game_emulation_via_dnn/demo/
The accompanying blog post complete with 2022-era musing upon AI and where things will go: https://madebyoll.in/posts/game_emulation_via_dnn/
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Comment on What are your favorite Dreamcast games? Any odd or unique ones worth playing? in ~games
Oxalis LinkI'm always attracted to the weird when it comes to older consoles. There was a lot of one-off ideas that were never repeated and they're worth the effort to experience unlike precursors to...I'm always attracted to the weird when it comes to older consoles. There was a lot of one-off ideas that were never repeated and they're worth the effort to experience unlike precursors to still-ongoing genres which really feel their age.
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Illbleed - An absolute fever dream unlike anything I've played before. To say more would spoil the experience if you haven't already heard where this game takes you. A perfect game for the upcoming spooky season.
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LOL: Lack of Love - A bizarre puzzle/"life simulation" game made by Love-de-Lic. Its bewildering text-less gameplay reminds me of Spore mixed with a point and click and features a unique soundtrack (and core narrative) by Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame. (He also made the startup theme for the console!)
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Frame Gride - Long before Dark Souls, From Software made a medieval-themed Mecha battle game exclusively for the dreamcast. It's not really worth playing but the concept is something I just have to mention.
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Comment on Tubi explodes in popularity, outranking Max and Apple TV+ in ~tech
Oxalis Link ParentFox is a weird situation. Four Years ago "Disney acquired 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion, the media company also gained access to every property Fox owned. For example, Disney now has the...Fox is a weird situation.
Four Years ago "Disney acquired 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion, the media company also gained access to every property Fox owned. For example, Disney now has the rights to X-Men characters, the Avatar franchise, and numerous popular movies and television shows, from Die Hard to The Simpsons. Additionally, the company obtained the television channels that Fox owned, like FX, Fox Networks Groups, and a majority stake in National Geographic." https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/four-years-on-was-disneys-fox-purchase-worth-it/ar-AA1kVCL3
A lot of this content was rolled into Disney+ but I don't know enough about the Fox slate to say if any of it is on Tubi.
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Comment on Tubi explodes in popularity, outranking Max and Apple TV+ in ~tech
Oxalis LinkTubi is infamous for being a dumping ground of content for the un-discerning viewer. It's not a place for high-level prestige television or even a place for someone that knows what they want....Tubi is infamous for being a dumping ground of content for the un-discerning viewer. It's not a place for high-level prestige television or even a place for someone that knows what they want. Instead it's just a source of consistent background noise and now that its hitting high numbers, I think this will only strengthen the push to create so-called "Ambient Media" to combat the glut of binge-able old series and films that millennials and younger haven't seen yet.
Red Letter Media has a video where they call the deluge of low-to-no-budget films on the service "Watchbait" through most of them sound like mockbusters.
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Comment on Cables — interactive visuals, made from cable salad in ~comp
Oxalis LinkIf you just want to see some procedurally-generated eye candy made with Cables - https://cables.gl/made-with-cables/ Create Digital Motion/Music has been doing a good job of tracking the project's...If you just want to see some procedurally-generated eye candy made with Cables - https://cables.gl/made-with-cables/
Create Digital Motion/Music has been doing a good job of tracking the project's growth with lots of nice examples - https://cdm.link/tag/cables-gl/
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
Oxalis LinkAlways great to see someone make hardware their own like this. It takes a lot of time and a lot of skill development but it can be so rewarding. Bonus points for introducing Plasticity. I didn't...Always great to see someone make hardware their own like this. It takes a lot of time and a lot of skill development but it can be so rewarding.
Bonus points for introducing Plasticity. I didn't know there was an inexpensive "buy to own" CAD program out there that's not an ocean of buttons and menus.
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Comment on YouTube without a working ad blocker in ~tech
Oxalis LinkIf you're the kind of user that only wants their subscriptions and nothing else, you can look into using freetube as a stand alone app or setup yt-dlp as a service/cronjob to download the stuff...
Most of the options here require loony toons gimmicks of balloons on drones or someone getting within close proximity of the thing with some kind of cover. Ideally, a device can be taken down at range with something rather innocuous that anyone can get.
As someone who has accidentally fried a few laptop cameras during undergrad optics research, just get a high power laser off of ebay/amazon/aliexpress and pepper the sides till you take out some of the 5 or so cameras it uses to build a 360-degree composite view of its surroundings.
Just be sure to wear proper protective eyewear!
Spots in particular also have well-defined blindspots, thanks Boston Dynamics!