Rudism's recent activity
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Comment on ‘The Walking Dead’ renewed by Netflix in five-year, $500m co-exclusive deal with AMC Global in ~tv
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Comment on Torontonians are flocking to birdwatching to relax, make friends and reap the mental health benefits in ~hobbies
Rudism LinkI recently hung a small bird feeder outside my home office window and have been enjoying watching the various birds that found it (mostly cardinals, finches, and the occasional bluebird). It's...I recently hung a small bird feeder outside my home office window and have been enjoying watching the various birds that found it (mostly cardinals, finches, and the occasional bluebird). It's quite soothing, especially when I need a little break from working, I can just turn my head away from my monitor for a few minutes and there it is... or rather it was quite soothing, until I started researching, and discovered that bird feeders can actually be quite harmful to birds as a vector for spreading disease. I'd already been cleaning it off with water and soap once a week, and now started soaking it in a diluted bleach solution as well, but that's pretty cumbersome to do every time (and a lot of sites say it can still be bad for the birds even if you do that regularly), so as much as I enjoy it I'll probably end up getting rid of it.
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Comment on YouTube Premium to come with Peacock, NBCSports to stream events on YouTube in ~tv
Rudism LinkI axed my YT premium subscription when they did their last price bump, so haven't been watching as much youtube as a result (I use invidious or yt-dlp to grab the few things I want to keep...I axed my YT premium subscription when they did their last price bump, so haven't been watching as much youtube as a result (I use invidious or yt-dlp to grab the few things I want to keep watching, mostly Red Letter Media stuff). This new partnership doesn't really entice me to return. Seems a little strange, like how much crossover could there be in the audience who would pay for YT and the more traditional cable TV audience who might be interested in Peacock or live sports?
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Comment on 8BitDo FlipPad in ~games
Rudism LinkI own a Miyoo Mini+, a TrimUI Brick, a TrimUI Brick Hammer, a RetroFlag GPi Case, an Analogue Pocket (aluminum), a hacked PS Vita, a hacked New Nintendo 3DS XL, a Logitech G-Cloud, and probably...I own a Miyoo Mini+, a TrimUI Brick, a TrimUI Brick Hammer, a RetroFlag GPi Case, an Analogue Pocket (aluminum), a hacked PS Vita, a hacked New Nintendo 3DS XL, a Logitech G-Cloud, and probably one or two other devices that I'm forgetting, any and all of which I could already use to play retro games on the go with physical buttons. And yet I still kinda want one of these.
What's wrong with me??
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Comment on Linus Torvalds says Linux is not "anti-AI", tells haters to 'fork it' and 'just walk away' in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentI think that sums up my problem with the general notion that vibe coding is bad, but AI assisted programming is good (at least as far as providing that as some kind of guidance to developers who...I think that sums up my problem with the general notion that vibe coding is bad, but AI assisted programming is good (at least as far as providing that as some kind of guidance to developers who are either in or entering the field of software development). It's too ambiguous. Two devs could follow the exact same process on paper, but based on different levels of competency/experience/knowledge between them we could conclude that one is a vibe coder and the other is using AI responsibly. How can a developer know whether they're using it responsibly or are actually vibe coding without realizing it?
And that's assuming that "using AI responsibly" is even possible at all with how problematic it is on other fronts (environmental/social consequences of data center madness, training on arguably stolen data without consent, AI corps establishing themselves as gatekeepers to all software development, and so on).
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Comment on Linus Torvalds says Linux is not "anti-AI", tells haters to 'fork it' and 'just walk away' in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentIn your mind, what is the scope of "AI-assisted" programming? For example, if I write an AGENTS.md file and spin up some agents and point it at an issue, and the agents generate an MR to close...In your mind, what is the scope of "AI-assisted" programming?
For example, if I write an AGENTS.md file and spin up some agents and point it at an issue, and the agents generate an MR to close that issue with a bunch of modified files, and I look over the MR and think it looks fine and merge it, would you consider that to be AI assisted coding, or closer to vibe coding?
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Comment on How long can I go with an obsolete phone? in ~tech
Rudism LinkThe reason I made the switch from older/dumber phones to a Pixel 9a with Graphene is that even if you only use a device for phone and texting, if you're no longer receiving security patches you...The reason I made the switch from older/dumber phones to a Pixel 9a with Graphene is that even if you only use a device for phone and texting, if you're no longer receiving security patches you can wind up being vulnerable to baseband-level attacks (SMS/MMS), or vulnerabilities in the network and bluetooth stacks. Also if you live in or travel to a country where they mess with your device at the border (US, China, etc.) you're making it easy for them to snoop and/or install spyware.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but it makes me feel a bit better knowing I'm doing everything I can to keep up to date security-wise, especially these days with AI being used to find vulnerabilities and develop exploits at a pace we've never really seen before.
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Comment on eBook management for Kobo in ~books
Rudism Link ParentI have some experience using the Kobo plugins for Calibre, and they are pretty decent if that's the workflow you're going for (Calibre for managing -> reading natively on Kobo). There was some...I have some experience using the Kobo plugins for Calibre, and they are pretty decent if that's the workflow you're going for (Calibre for managing -> reading natively on Kobo). There was some wonkiness with how the Kobo database needs to be updated if you want to sync fields other than title and author (to get series and series # to sync it required first choosing the book and sending it to the device, then a second "sync kobo database" step to transfer over all the extra metadata), but once you figure it out that's not so bad. It would also convert epub to kepub automatically during the transfer, so you get whatever extra goodies that format gives you in the native Kobo reader.
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Comment on eBook management for Kobo in ~books
Rudism (edited )Link ParentQuick update on this: Grimmory's metadata editing shortcomings and slowness was driving me crazy, so I spun up a copy of BookOrbit instead and started over from scratch. Having a lot more success...Quick update on this:
Grimmory's metadata editing shortcomings and slowness was driving me crazy, so I spun up a copy of BookOrbit instead and started over from scratch. Having a lot more success with this. Specifically it has a table view that lets you list your whole library with title, authors, series, series #, and other fields available as editable cells, so I can spot-check and fix my whole library all from one page without having to jump through a bunch of different views and modals just to edit one property. It also seems a lot snappier than Grimmory across the board and uses PostgreSQL instead of MariaDB behind the scenes, though it's very clearly based off the same code base.
Still haven't tried any Kobo sync stuff, but unless BookOrbit really drops the ball on that I'm probably sticking with it.
Edit: I've tried setting up Kobo sync now (native, not KOReader). Couple things I'm not sure I like.
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You can't use it with your Kobo in sideload mode, because the way it works is you override the Kobo API url with a specific url pointing to your BookOrbit server, and then you create collections on BookOrbit that are configured to sync with the Kobo. Then when you add new books to those collections, they show up on your Kobo the next time it syncs. It's pretty slick, but since you can't use sideload mode it means you need to have an official Kobo account to sign into and you have to live with all the marketing popups and discovery fluff in the UI.
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It only works for epub files, you can't sync other formats (pdf, mobi, cbz). This may be a deal breaker for me since over half the stuff I read on my Kobo is comics and manga which I only have in cbz, cbr, and pdf formats (and converting those to epub wouldn't really make any sense).
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Comment on Sam Neill, Jurassic Park star, dies at 78 in ~movies
Rudism Link ParentAbsolutely love Sunshine! Some more bangers are Pandorum, Europa Report (especially good if you enjoy found footage, which I 1000% do), the Cube movies (Cube, Cube 2: Hypercube, and Cube Zero),...Absolutely love Sunshine! Some more bangers are Pandorum, Europa Report (especially good if you enjoy found footage, which I 1000% do), the Cube movies (Cube, Cube 2: Hypercube, and Cube Zero), Life, and Pitch Black (I really enjoy the whole Riddick series, but after Pitch Black it turns into more of an action franchise than a horror one).
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Comment on Sam Neill, Jurassic Park star, dies at 78 in ~movies
Rudism LinkMy favorite Sam Neill movie is Event Horizon, an underrated 90s sci-fi horror (which sparked my lifelong love affair with that particular genre mashup).My favorite Sam Neill movie is Event Horizon, an underrated 90s sci-fi horror (which sparked my lifelong love affair with that particular genre mashup).
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Comment on eBook management for Kobo in ~books
Rudism LinkI've used Calibre in the past and found it to be very bloated and cumbersome, so for a long time have been doing similar to you (manual plug and sync). I actually just discovered Booklore (which...I've used Calibre in the past and found it to be very bloated and cumbersome, so for a long time have been doing similar to you (manual plug and sync).
I actually just discovered Booklore (which led me to Grimmory) this weekend and have been giving it a go, trying to organize my library of ebooks, manga, and audiobooks in it. So far it is also feels like it's trending toward very bloated and overkill for my needs (less cumbersome than Calibre, but only just barely). My audiobooks/ebooks are not very well organized and their baked-in metadata is all over the place so it's been quite a bit of work getting it all under control. I'm hopeful that once everything is organized, keeping it that way as I add new media in the future will be a lot simpler. I haven't even tried any of its Kobo sync features yet, but I'll probably be toying with that some time this week.
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Comment on Blog owners, do you write under your real name, or under a pseudonym? in ~hobbies
Rudism LinkI use either my real name or my Tildes username (which I think can be trivially traced to my real name) for pretty much everything. I also don't participate in very much social media or post...I use either my real name or my Tildes username (which I think can be trivially traced to my real name) for pretty much everything. I also don't participate in very much social media or post anything I wouldn't want associated with my real name (and also regularly purge a lot of older stuff, though of course everything lives on in some form out of your control). I've dabbled in using a more anonymous pseudonym for various projects in the past, but there's something in me that feels weird about it and it's harder to commit to those projects as a result.
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Comment on There is no reason to buy another PlayStation or Xbox in ~games
Rudism LinkThere are a few cohorts of people who I think consoles will always appeal to, regardless of how enshittified and/or PC-like they become: Users who don't already have or need a state-of-the-art...There are a few cohorts of people who I think consoles will always appeal to, regardless of how enshittified and/or PC-like they become:
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Users who don't already have or need a state-of-the-art computer. Like if your primary PC is a MacBook Air, or an el-cheapo 5 year old desktop that works just fine for everything else you need it for, or even a tablet or smartphone, but you still want to play AAA games, then buying a console is a much simpler (and typically cheaper) option than researching and buying or building out a new gaming PC.
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Users who may have a PC but are couch gamers. If you just want to kick back and play games on your TV with a controller instead of being hunched over your keyboard because you already do that all day for your job, then plugging a console in is again much simpler and/or cheaper than figuring out how to set up game streaming, buying a second PC to plug into your TV, or doing what a friend of mine did for a while with an insane cabling setup using HDMI-over-ethernet to wire his TV up to his desktop in a completely different room.
I feel like the whole "consoles are just PCs now anyway so just buy a PC instead" attitude overlooks the whole appeal of consoles where you don't have to buy or build a PC, which can be very confusing for non-technical people who just want to play games on their TV with as little friction as possible.
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Comment on Bethesda, id Software reportedly hit hard by Microsoft layoffs in ~games
Rudism Link ParentThe base game plus all DLC areas and dungeons that came bundled with your initial purchase of the game can be played without any monthly fee. If you want to play newer content as it comes out you...The base game plus all DLC areas and dungeons that came bundled with your initial purchase of the game can be played without any monthly fee. If you want to play newer content as it comes out you either have to pay the monthly subscription, or buy it as a one-time DLC purchase. It used to be that the newest chapter would only be available on Steam (or whatever store you go through), while older content could be bought piecemeal through less expensive in-game microtransactions... that may have all changed since the last time I played a couple years ago though.
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Comment on I need more hilariously awful pick up lines to make my wife roll her eyes at me in ~talk
Rudism LinkI guess that doesn't really work in your situation... Here's a bonus already-married line to compensate:Hey, look what my shirt is made of... (move head and hold up tag to show her)... Boyfriend material.
I guess that doesn't really work in your situation... Here's a bonus already-married line to compensate:
Baby, since we got married you've gotten hotter even faster than the global climate.
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Comment on I made a satirical AI detector in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentLike this: "Mom, Dad, I'm not only your child---I'm also an AI."Like this: "Mom, Dad, I'm not only your child---I'm also an AI."
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Comment on Steam Summer Sale 2026: Hidden gems in ~games
Rudism LinkNew Heights (239 reviews) Discount isn't the hugest, but I picked it up anyway since I'm a big fan of climbing games (Jusant, Cairn, Peaks of Yore) and this looked promising. Played it for a few...New Heights (239 reviews)
Discount isn't the hugest, but I picked it up anyway since I'm a big fan of climbing games (Jusant, Cairn, Peaks of Yore) and this looked promising. Played it for a few hours last night and I like it a lot. It definitely gets quite janky, with the character sometimes going full ragdoll mode, or unable to figure out how to move one limb around another, but for me that hasn't gotten annoying enough (yet) to feel like any more than just part of its quirky charm. The climbing mechanic feels most similar to Cairn, where you move and place one limb at a time (though full body position and movement plays a bigger role here). Playing the actual game with a controller works fine for me so far, but the menus are kinda hit or miss where the controller seems limited to some subset of items and I need a mouse to hit others. If you liked Cairn for the climbing and just want more of that without any kind of story this will probably scratch that itch.
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Comment on I made a satirical AI detector in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentSomething that I think about a lot is how AI content is basically guaranteed to win the attention game through sheer volume, which will kill the motivation of humans to write and share stuff on...Something that I think about a lot is how AI content is basically guaranteed to win the attention game through sheer volume, which will kill the motivation of humans to write and share stuff on the internet. Eventually the only new data that LLMs can train on might be stuff that other LLMs have generated. I'll be there, ready with my bucket of popcorn when model collapse becomes the new problem that these companies have to deal with.
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Comment on I made a satirical AI detector in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentI had originally thought about leaning into more of a Geocities aesthetic, and if I had gone that direction I definitely would have used some blink and marquee tags (plus animated gifs). I'm not...I had originally thought about leaning into more of a Geocities aesthetic, and if I had gone that direction I definitely would have used some blink and marquee tags (plus animated gifs). I'm not really sure what you'd call the aesthetic I ended up landing on... maybe "emojicore."
There's a 1975 BBC show Survivors, which is essentially what you describe. There was a remake in the 2000s that I never saw, but I rewatched the original a few years ago and it held up decently well.