Turtle42's recent activity

  1. Comment on The hardest working font in Manhattan in ~design

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    Interesting is putting it lightly. Long read but so so worth it if you're into design or typography, shit, even keyboard nerds and mechanical engineers might find intrigue in this. I work at a...

    Interesting is putting it lightly. Long read but so so worth it if you're into design or typography, shit, even keyboard nerds and mechanical engineers might find intrigue in this.

    I work at a school and immediately started walking around looking for old signs with this font/typeface and it took only seconds to find an example of it.

    I loved taking typography in college, I continue to enjoy it with a passing fascination but type nerds often take it to the next level, as evidenced by this essay.

    4 votes
  2. Comment on Stolen Kingdom | Official trailer in ~movies

    Turtle42
    Link
    Bright Sun Films has some of my favorite video content on Nebula. The Bankrupt series tickles that part of my brain that is also into Air Disasters, Modern Marvels, and How It's Made style shows....

    Bright Sun Films has some of my favorite video content on Nebula. The Bankrupt series tickles that part of my brain that is also into Air Disasters, Modern Marvels, and How It's Made style shows. Absolutely stellar educational content.

    This looks like it transcends even that level of content. I love insights into little news moments like this too. Thank you for sharing, I've fallen off Nebula content lately, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for this.

    1 vote
  3. Comment on National Stonewall Monument has had all references to trans people erased in ~lgbt

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    Definitely not. I'm sure they see this as retribution for tearing down confederate statues. They don't care about history, they care about rewriting it to fit their worldview.

    Definitely not. I'm sure they see this as retribution for tearing down confederate statues. They don't care about history, they care about rewriting it to fit their worldview.

    1 vote
  4. Comment on What's the scifi book in ~books

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    I LOVED this book when I was a kid. I barely remember what happens in it, but I remember not being able to put it down.

    I LOVED this book when I was a kid. I barely remember what happens in it, but I remember not being able to put it down.

    1 vote
  5. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    I've been trying to get into Darktable for years. It's by far the best for my needs especially because I'm so used to Lightroom. a I've been using it again lately and I think I'm finally getting...

    I've been trying to get into Darktable for years. It's by far the best for my needs especially because I'm so used to Lightroom. a
    I've been using it again lately and I think I'm finally getting it the more I tinker with and configure it to my preferences.

    I just wish it was a little more approachable out of the box, I would have taken to using it a decade ago. Lightroom was so self teachable to me because the UI is amazing and it has a flow. Darktable is missing that, I feel like there's no rhyme or reason to some features or improvement to the modules section and while after using this, Lightroom definitely feels limited in scope of features comparatively, I wonder if maybe that's also a good thing? I'm sure I'm a couple of tutorials away from making it work so this time I won't give up.

  6. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Turtle42
    (edited )
    Link
    Ah just basic dumb linux homelab stuff lately, compared to the wild projects everyone else here is working on. I want to move away from SoftRAID on MacOS because they have switched the licensing...

    Ah just basic dumb linux homelab stuff lately, compared to the wild projects everyone else here is working on.

    I want to move away from SoftRAID on MacOS because they have switched the licensing fees and structure of the software since I first adopted it over a decade ago. I am using ZFS on all my Linux servers and have been testing it on MacOS lately with a backup drive of the data, just hesitant to pull the trigger and wipe and rebuild this pool.

    I also reinstalled Linux on a T2 2018 Mac Mini again after something happened to the previous install on it, I'm hoping to move my photography workflow entirely to FOSS but I often still get caught up tinkering with other things. For instance, I checked out Docker again and I forgot how easy and fun it was.

    3 votes
  7. Comment on Phishing tests, the bane of work life, are getting meaner in ~tech

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    I failed my first phishing test recently and it genuinely bothered me, despite the seemingly low stakes. I've always considered myself security-conscious, so being part of the "record-breaking 14%...

    I failed my first phishing test recently and it genuinely bothered me, despite the seemingly low stakes. I've always considered myself security-conscious, so being part of the "record-breaking 14% CTR" at our school district was particularly frustrating for me.

    What's more concerning is the complete absence of any security awareness training at our institution. No onboarding materials, no periodic briefings, not even a notification that we'd be subject to these tests, aside from the failure reports. It feels fundamentally unfair to assess employees on practices they haven't been trained on.

    It's a bit concerning though, and perhaps I lack knowledge on the subject. But as a lower-level employee, the fact that I could potentially compromise our systems through a phishing link suggests the real vulnerability isn't just employee awareness - wouldn't it be inadequate access control and system hardening? Ideally, a low level employee email account should be setup in such a way that it could be phished every day without any concern for privilege escalation.

    14 votes
  8. Comment on Super Bowl LIX Megathread in ~sports.american_football

    Turtle42
    Link
    Vibes in Philly are palpable and we are hype.

    Vibes in Philly are palpable and we are hype.

    7 votes
  9. Comment on a/s/l? Tildes user survey question. in ~tildes

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    A little but not as much as I should. Mostly when I'm traveling. Although I did win an award last year at a juried exhibition so that was validating. I used to do a lot of street photography but...

    A little but not as much as I should. Mostly when I'm traveling. Although I did win an award last year at a juried exhibition so that was validating.

    I used to do a lot of street photography but it feels bad these days. Now it's mostly pictures of trees and my cats :)

    3 votes
  10. Comment on a/s/l? Tildes user survey question. in ~tildes

    Turtle42
    Link
    31/m/Pennsylvania, USA Haven't answered that question in awhile! What a blast from the past. I love this idea, haven't seen any of the previous surveys and want to participate so I'll start I...

    31/m/Pennsylvania, USA

    Haven't answered that question in awhile! What a blast from the past. I love this idea, haven't seen any of the previous surveys and want to participate so I'll start I guess.

    By trade and degree I'm a photographer/artist.

    By occupation I'm currently a janitor/custodian which sounds bad but I weirdly love it.

    For seven years I was a famous photographers assistant but he wasn't very nice to work for. Managing his 500TB of storage got me really into self hosting, data hoarding, and Linux though so that's currently my main hobby along with light web development, art making, writing, and reading.

    14 votes
  11. Comment on Single most useful program you daily use? in ~tech

    Turtle42
    (edited )
    Link
    OpenZFS for me. It's in use even when I'm not at my computer to store and scrub all my data. For a couple of years I was just using it as a RAID implementation. And then I learned about all of its...

    OpenZFS for me. It's in use even when I'm not at my computer to store and scrub all my data.

    For a couple of years I was just using it as a RAID implementation.

    And then I learned about all of its other features; scrubbing, datasets, ZFS send, snapshots, etc. The list goes on to things like compression, L2ARC, hot spares, deduplication, and even more I'm sure.

    I want to spread the ZFS gospel far and wide now. Proper knowledge and use of ZFS can save many businesses and homelabs so much grief from unexpected events like bit-flips which gets fixed by scrubbing, or ransomware which can be rolled back to a working snapshot. It will even aid in creating simple incremental routine backups off-site using zfs send. It's more than just a filesystem, it's a Swiss army knife for your important data.

    1 vote
  12. Comment on The Sims 1 & 2 have been officially re-released for modern computers - but EA misses the mark in ~games

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    My friend got me into retro gaming recently and it's a blast. He pointed me towards the Anbernic devices and I grabbed one that has the same form factor as the Gameboy Advance SP. Still somewhat...

    My friend got me into retro gaming recently and it's a blast. He pointed me towards the Anbernic devices and I grabbed one that has the same form factor as the Gameboy Advance SP.

    Still somewhat new to the world of emulating, but aside from the copyright issues of acquiring ROMs what's to stop someone from running an emulator and playing the old original games?

    As an aside, I'm always super impressed with how amazing the original Roller Coaster Tycoon is on iOS/mobile. It was the best $5 I've ever spent on a mobile game and it's near identical to the version I played on the computer. So getting old games running like they used to can be done! It's insane a huge company like EA can't get it right.

    2 votes
  13. Comment on Should I self-host my blog? in ~tech

    Turtle42
    Link
    I self host mine and I don't think it's that big of a deal. Nginx, an open port and a DNS record gets you there. Lock your shit down and you'll be fine.

    I self host mine and I don't think it's that big of a deal. Nginx, an open port and a DNS record gets you there.

    Lock your shit down and you'll be fine.

    7 votes
  14. Comment on AI video editing helpers are changing my life in ~creative

    Turtle42
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Who's to say AI can't innovate or create trends? Most contemporary trends in a post modern society are based off previous trends anyway, it just needs the right marketing to take off. Look at...

    Who's to say AI can't innovate or create trends?

    Most contemporary trends in a post modern society are based off previous trends anyway, it just needs the right marketing to take off. Look at fashion, it's always circling back on itself. Right now 90s and Y2k styles are huge. I wouldn't call it innovative, the clothes and knowledge have always been around, it just needed the right environmental factors or, unfortunately, influencers, to turn it back into a modern trend.

    Innovation happens everyday, we just miss most of it. I think of it like natural selection, especially when it comes to something like a stylistic choice where the occasional happy accident can tie a piece together. One person doing it doesn't make it trend, but as other people see it and become influenced by it they integrate it into their style and soon it spreads and evolves on its own.

    I don't see why AI isn't capable of making a random decision that could spark a trend. AlphaGo and the Watson chess AI (IIRC) both made innovations in their respective games much in the same way I believe by finding patterns and moves the human mind or collective understanding of the game just didn't see.

    Edit: The more I think about this more the more I think about how nothing I or any human creates is truly innovative by definition. Everything I make, whether intentional or not, is either influenced or inspired by something or someone I've encountered. AI LLMs have an advantage here because they're trained on more data than you or I could possibly ingest and recall when creating. I think you're right in that the immediate concern might not be an AI bot selling us the trend directly, but influencers and other creators are absolutely figuring out how to use AI to brainstorm new trends they can spark today.

    5 votes
  15. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Turtle42
    Link
    I probably mentioned this last time but I have paused on my library catalog that I was building using the python framework Flask and vanilla css & html since all the features I wanted to implement...

    I probably mentioned this last time but I have paused on my library catalog that I was building using the python framework Flask and vanilla css & html since all the features I wanted to implement worked and I didn't want to break it by messing with it as I tend to do.

    I've moved onto building a portfolio website in React and at first I hated it but now I LOVE it. I've never had a website this cool. I put together every bit of it too. The blog backend, the markdown rendering, the cool little animated about cards. I even added an activity section full of the dumb little games I made when I first started learning a programming language. I've even included some utilities like a color palette picker, diceware password generator, a rudimentary RAID calculator, and an API fetched cocktail recipe menu.

    I'm pretty new to programming, I'm more on the sysadmin side of things so this all started as a way to understand the CI/CD pipeline, test out UX/UI skills, learn new skills, and create a portfolio that hopefully might finally get me a real job.

    I'd love some human eyes on it, if anyone wants to check it out and look at some cool photography, play some dumb mini games, or read a couple of mediocre blog posts, you can find it here. Constructive criticism not required but welcomed!

    To me this looks so good, all I want to do now is rebuild my library catalog in React. Though I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

    8 votes
  16. Comment on Any real AI recommendations from the community? in ~tech

    Turtle42
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Dumb question, but how did you share this artifact? I can't seem to find the option on my end. You inspired me to think of my own generative art tool and I want to share it with you, but I can't...

    Dumb question, but how did you share this artifact? I can't seem to find the option on my end.

    You inspired me to think of my own generative art tool and I want to share it with you, but I can't figure out how.

    Edit: Of course I figure it out as soon as I ask.

    Here's my own art generator! Was really cool to conceptualize something and then have it make exactly what I wanted.

    2 votes
  17. Comment on Does a picture prove anything anymore? in ~arts

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    Thank you! Honestly can't tell you how much those kind words mean.

    Thank you! Honestly can't tell you how much those kind words mean.

    3 votes
  18. Comment on Does a picture prove anything anymore? in ~arts

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    If you poke around the projects section on my site I'm sure you'll find his name. I didn't leave the studio amicably and I know they have Google alerts setup, last thing I need is them suing me...

    If you poke around the projects section on my site I'm sure you'll find his name. I didn't leave the studio amicably and I know they have Google alerts setup, last thing I need is them suing me for slander/libel. I can also DM you.

    I will say that the spectrum of his work varies, he's done journalistic type work that has more integrity (Photoshop wise) than the commercial work, for instance. Although much of the "journalistic" work still lives on that spectrum, for example he might've removed a distracting pole coming out from someone's head in an otherwise really good picture. The issue I have, was that the line between the commerical work he's done and the documentarian work he's done wasn't clear when posting, portraying these fantastical scenes as true. I had other issues with him and his work but they aren't relevant in this discussion.

    It's a fine line, and a discussion that has been around since the dawn of photography, and will persist through it's future.

    1 vote
  19. Comment on Does a picture prove anything anymore? in ~arts

    Turtle42
    Link
    I wrote a blog post after I first saw commercials for the pixel 8 in late 2023. It's full of random thoughts about the future implications of such tools and it lacks deep insight into how these...

    I wrote a blog post after I first saw commercials for the pixel 8 in late 2023. It's full of random thoughts about the future implications of such tools and it lacks deep insight into how these features actually work but it feels sharing in a thread like this. I hope it's not considered egregious self promotion, I never share this kind of stuff and tbh I'm kind of scared to so please be gentle.

    You can check it out here if you want.

    I worked for a photographer who got into controversy because they were discovered to be photoshopping their work a number of years back. I watched the fallout from that, and now everyone has the same tools at their fingertips. People complained about this figurehead of photography manipulating imagery, creating a false world, but what happens even everyone does it?

    7 votes
  20. Comment on Any real AI recommendations from the community? in ~tech

    Turtle42
    Link Parent
    yes exactly! It's really fun. I had a couple of old bash and python scripts for dumb tools like a diceware password generator and color palette picker and cocktail recipe api I didn't know what to...

    yes exactly! It's really fun. I had a couple of old bash and python scripts for dumb tools like a diceware password generator and color palette picker and cocktail recipe api I didn't know what to do with so I made a little interactive playground on my new website to showcase them, and had Claude simply repurpose the code into JavaScript. Funny enough, some of them still have my original bugs! It was really cool to see it working in Claude before testing it out on my site.

    2 votes