cutmetal's recent activity

  1. Comment on Any one use mesh networks like mesh core? in ~tech

    cutmetal
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    They were Heltec ESP32v3 boards with stock antennas and Meshtastic firmware. I'm in a suburban/rural area in the eastern foothills of the Appalachias (eastern US). Mesh network devices are a tough...

    They were Heltec ESP32v3 boards with stock antennas and Meshtastic firmware. I'm in a suburban/rural area in the eastern foothills of the Appalachias (eastern US).

    Mesh network devices are a tough sell because it's only really useful if some catastrophic thing happens and there is no wifi or 5g internet access, but you still have your phone. And the interface is clunky. FRS/GMRS radios are easier to get that crowd into because they're mostly pick up and use, and can serve the same purpose as our phones currently do but also not exactly the same.

    Not that I'm trying to convince you not to play with mesh networks - I think they're really neat, just have too many other things going on to dedicate the effort and money to messing with it. If I had been able to get more use from them with the (small) amount of effort I put in then I would have probably kept the units.

  2. Comment on Any one use mesh networks like mesh core? in ~tech

    cutmetal
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    I got some Heltec units last year. Played around with them for a few weeks but ultimately returned them - it's neat in theory, maybe my area is too rural to see much activity. My girlfriend wasn't...

    I got some Heltec units last year. Played around with them for a few weeks but ultimately returned them - it's neat in theory, maybe my area is too rural to see much activity. My girlfriend wasn't interested in playing around with them with me either šŸ˜”

    Though one time I did catch a message from someone who said they were overhead on a plane! That was neat.

    1 vote
  3. Comment on I’ve ā€˜run out’ of notes on TickTick in ~tech

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    Wow, that must be mostly attachments. No idea how much data is in mine, I should probably check that sometime.

    Wow, that must be mostly attachments. No idea how much data is in mine, I should probably check that sometime.

  4. Comment on I’ve ā€˜run out’ of notes on TickTick in ~tech

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    Hope it does what you're looking for!

    Hope it does what you're looking for!

  5. Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech

    cutmetal
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    Link Parent
    Another +1 for Debian for almost everything, been daily driving it for 15 years. Servers are mostly Debian (always headless): My router is OpnSense (so FreeBSD) Proxmox for VM servers (so Debian)...

    Another +1 for Debian for almost everything, been daily driving it for 15 years.

    • Servers are mostly Debian (always headless):
      • My router is OpnSense (so FreeBSD)
      • Proxmox for VM servers (so Debian)
      • NASes are just headless Debian
      • Most (all?) VMs are headless Debian
    • Raspberry Pis are Raspbian/RPiOS (so kinda Debian, I think?), except one running HomeAssistant/hassio that I really ought to repurpose
    • Desktops/laptops are all Debian, mostly with MATE desktop, except:
      • I might have an old Crunchbang++ install somewhere still (which is just Debian)
      • Still have two Ubuntu installs from when I worked for Canonical
      • Last year I put Bazzite on a gaming laptop I picked up to try something different out (Fedora is fine, KDE is amazing, but I'm not sold on the immutable thing)
      • Still have a Windows 10 install that I haven't booted in a few years, at some point I'll finally wipe that crud off and be free 😊

    Old packages shmold shmackages. When you find a package where the age matters there will be a way to install the newer version that isn't too onerous.

    3 votes
  6. Comment on Inside Doug Liman’s $70 million AI-made movie starring Casey Affleck and Gal Gadot in ~movies

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    Wow it really does! "Ultimately lackluster movie gets undue hype from production gimmick." I mean remains to be seen if this one will bomb too but it seems like a safe bet if the "AI post" thing...

    Wow it really does! "Ultimately lackluster movie gets undue hype from production gimmick." I mean remains to be seen if this one will bomb too but it seems like a safe bet if the "AI post" thing is the most interesting thing about it.

    3 votes
  7. Comment on Inside Doug Liman’s $70 million AI-made movie starring Casey Affleck and Gal Gadot in ~movies

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    Later in the article they explain that the production shot actors with a few basic props, but on a soundstage without proper lighting. Sounds like everything around the actors is filled in with AI...

    Later in the article they explain that the production shot actors with a few basic props, but on a soundstage without proper lighting. Sounds like everything around the actors is filled in with AI in post.

    Not sure how "fully AI generated movie" is an accurate description if they have cameras and actors like that. Maybe that part of the piece was written by AI šŸ™ƒ

    3 votes
  8. Comment on I’ve ā€˜run out’ of notes on TickTick in ~tech

    cutmetal
    Link
    I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Joplin yet. It's what I use for notes and todos, migrated from Evernote maybe 3-5 years ago and I really like it. It's pretty basic open source software with a...

    I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Joplin yet. It's what I use for notes and todos, migrated from Evernote maybe 3-5 years ago and I really like it.

    It's pretty basic open source software with a whole host of backends you can use to sync your notes across devices. I self-host their server, but you can also use Dropbox, Onedrive, you can pay to use their cloud hosting (may have a free tier, idk the pricing details).

    All OSes are supported - Windows Mac Linux Android iOS, there's a web version apparently, and a browser plugin too. There are also CLI versions for all three non-mobile OS flavors, though I've only used the desktop GUI version (on Linux, and also Windows a while back).

    Has always been rock-solid stable for me. There are updates but not annoying radical transformations like you might see in a more commerical program. A+

    9 votes
  9. Comment on Looking for more pop / rock songs with sick sax solos! Got any ideas? in ~music

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    šŸ’Æ%! Most of the time I have to listen to something a few times before I can make up my mind about it, but VoVV was love at first listen. Their other albums are pretty good too but this one is just...

    šŸ’Æ%! Most of the time I have to listen to something a few times before I can make up my mind about it, but VoVV was love at first listen. Their other albums are pretty good too but this one is just on another level.

    I just wish this fucking tariff situation would end so I could get their record and a shirt. So many musicians around the world have missed out on my money thanks to this bullshit. Not that this is the most important political issue of our day lol, but supporting artists is important, wherever they are.

    1 vote
  10. Comment on Looking for more pop / rock songs with sick sax solos! Got any ideas? in ~music

    cutmetal
    (edited )
    Link
    Gnome's fucking incredible album Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome (2024) has a track on it with a sax - it's The Ogre! Sax shows up in the breakdown at the end. It's mostly pre-2000, but if you like...

    Gnome's fucking incredible album Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome (2024) has a track on it with a sax - it's The Ogre! Sax shows up in the breakdown at the end.

    It's mostly pre-2000, but if you like rock with sax then you have to listen to Morphine. Their albums Cure for Pain, Like Swimming, and their last album The Night (released in 2000 so makes your cutoff!) have been in constant rotation in my life since I discovered them around 2006. Morphine isn't like anything else really, it just might blow your mind.

    Faded and Fleeting by doom band Rezn has a sax in it too, just came up on my shuffle.

    2 votes
  11. Comment on Sam Altman may control our future—can he be trusted? in ~tech

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    So long, but damn it was fascinating. I would say the authors didn't call his lies lies because they didn't need to - with all the details they give, Altman comes off as the lowest sort of weasel,...

    So long, but damn it was fascinating. I would say the authors didn't call his lies lies because they didn't need to - with all the details they give, Altman comes off as the lowest sort of weasel, talking out of both sides of his mouth to get himself power and money and glory. With some of those anecdotes where he lied to people's faces, and all the weak-ass "Oh I can't remember saying that" bullshit, yeah it's clear that this guy is a sociopath.

    2 votes
  12. Comment on From $250 million megadeal to empty offices: the unraveling of Bad Robot in ~movies

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    On tildes someone once taught me that you can get around some paywalls with Firefox's "reading mode" (the "document" icon that sometimes appears in the URL bar) and that worked for me here.

    On tildes someone once taught me that you can get around some paywalls with Firefox's "reading mode" (the "document" icon that sometimes appears in the URL bar) and that worked for me here.

    3 votes
  13. Comment on Used electric vehicles are a bargain right now in ~transport

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    You can do a complete brake system flush every whatever number of years like they say, it won't hurt anything except your wallet. If you don't do it, you may get ever so poorer braking performance...

    You can do a complete brake system flush every whatever number of years like they say, it won't hurt anything except your wallet. If you don't do it, you may get ever so poorer braking performance very very slowly over the years as the fluid eventually breaks down (I assume?) and absorbs a small amount of moisture from the air whenever the master cylinder cap is off. But imo it's really not that critical - I wouldn't bother flushing the system at all ever until a line has to be taken off to replace a caliper or something like that, which may never happen if you replace the pads when you should.

    2 votes
  14. Comment on Used electric vehicles are a bargain right now in ~transport

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    Yeah that's not a thing. Also the idea that normal brake system maintenance involves completely draining down the system every two years is pretty absurd.

    Yeah that's not a thing. Also the idea that normal brake system maintenance involves completely draining down the system every two years is pretty absurd.

    10 votes
  15. Comment on Balcony solar is spreading across the US in ~enviro

    cutmetal
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    Anybody running one of these systems? I guess in the simplest setup you just need a couple panels and an inverter right? Like $200 per 100w panel, maybe $200 for a cheap inverter? What do your...

    Anybody running one of these systems? I guess in the simplest setup you just need a couple panels and an inverter right? Like $200 per 100w panel, maybe $200 for a cheap inverter? What do your generation numbers look like?

    4 votes
  16. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of March 30 in ~society

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    Usually the AP calls a spade a spade, even when it's Trump's lies. It's refreshing.

    Usually the AP calls a spade a spade, even when it's Trump's lies. It's refreshing.

    6 votes
  17. Comment on MIRAGE: the illusion of visual understanding in ~tech

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    Yeah definitely. The explanation is probably a lot more mundane than what I'm suggesting above, I just like to imagine profound possibilities :)

    Yeah definitely. The explanation is probably a lot more mundane than what I'm suggesting above, I just like to imagine profound possibilities :)

    1 vote
  18. Comment on MIRAGE: the illusion of visual understanding in ~tech

    cutmetal
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    Jesus wtf. This is pretty fucking out there, but: what if this sort of "super-guessing", where real truth is hidden in imperceptible details, explains things like intuition or even psychic...

    Prompted by these findings, we train a text-only ā€œsuper-guesserā€ model on the public training set of ReXVQA, the largest and most comprehensive benchmark for visual question answering in chest radiology imaging, and show that our model outperforms all the frontier AI models, as well as radiologists, on a held out test set. It provides plausible explanations for the questions, indistinguishable from human-written ground-truth, all while lacking access to any visual input.

    Jesus wtf.

    This is pretty fucking out there, but: what if this sort of "super-guessing", where real truth is hidden in imperceptible details, explains things like intuition or even psychic phenomena? In general I write off all pseudoscience and I'm sure that all robust empirical studies of psychics have shown it's not real, but there's also creepy anecdotal evidence of eerily accurate cold readings. And intuition is often real, but pretty hard to put your finger on a satisfying explanation for. Maybe this AI behavior is more or less the same thing.

    2 votes
  19. Comment on Landslide: a ghost story in ~humanities

    cutmetal
    Link
    This person is taking a very abstract and interesting approach to the multidimensional problems we're facing today. It feels extremely novel to me, and while I did read the whole thing, I don't...

    This person is taking a very abstract and interesting approach to the multidimensional problems we're facing today. It feels extremely novel to me, and while I did read the whole thing, I don't feel like I have the bandwidth to really engage with it on a deeper level than to say: yes, this is good, this seems like it could be a really promising approach.

    Deep in the piece they linked to Unbreaking, which is a thing the author is part of. Group blog? Information collective? Sociopolitical documentation project? Idk what to call it but it's in line with the ideas expressed in the linked article and worth a look also.

    2 votes
  20. Comment on This eerily accurate ā€˜LinkedIn Speak’ translation tool will help you sound like an instant thinkfluencer in ~tech

    cutmetal
    Link Parent
    People who legit post on Linkedin make me think of this old Gunshow classic https://gunshowcomic.com/343

    People who legit post on Linkedin make me think of this old Gunshow classic

    https://gunshowcomic.com/343

    2 votes