imperialismus's recent activity
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Comment on Am I the only who finds raw photography souless? in ~arts
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Comment on Sweden's employment agency has been tracking the online locations of thousands of citizens claiming unemployment benefits in an effort to crack down on welfare fraud in ~tech
imperialismus LinkI wonder if they've cleared this with EU law. Norway had a big scandal relating to basically the same issue. The EU has something called the "principle of exportability" which means welfare...I wonder if they've cleared this with EU law. Norway had a big scandal relating to basically the same issue. The EU has something called the "principle of exportability" which means welfare benefits can generally be retained even when living in a different member state. I'm not a lawyer, but the Norway case is strikingly similar to a layman and many lawyers were involved in getting that one wrong.
Norway isn't a member of the EU but is heavily integrated into it through EFTA/the EEA, and I believe the specific laws they ran afoul of here were general EU laws, not specific to the EFTA-EU relationship.
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Comment on Dwayne Johnson uncontrollably sobs as ‘The Smashing Machine’ gets fifteen-minute Venice standing ovation and generates Oscar buzz in ~movies
imperialismus Link ParentIt's definitely performative, but it's just a weird custom at certain film festivals. Media usually report on the length of these standing clap-alongs and use it to predict which films will have...It's definitely performative, but it's just a weird custom at certain film festivals. Media usually report on the length of these standing clap-alongs and use it to predict which films will have success in awards season. And those predictions tend to not be far off, because these viewings are full of industry insiders and critics, the kinds of people who vote for awards. I don't see how it's self-congratulatory though. While some parts of the audience will be people involved in the production of the film, the majority will be critics, media, other film industry people. They're not clapping for themselves.
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Comment on Should C be mandatory learning for career developers? in ~comp
imperialismus Link ParentAre you interested in it from a formal math perspective, or from an "expanding my computer science fundamentals" angle? For the former I can't help, but for the latter, I reccomend the classic...Are you interested in it from a formal math perspective, or from an "expanding my computer science fundamentals" angle? For the former I can't help, but for the latter, I reccomend the classic SICP. It only explicitly mentions lambda calculus a handful of times, but it will teach you pretty much everything you need to know about it from a programmer's perspective.
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Comment on In the far north of Sweden, locals and tourists alike chow down on Arctic cheesesteaks – hoagie rolls piled high with moose and reindeer meat are inspired by Philadelphia in ~food
imperialismus LinkI haven't visited this particular food truck, but I've had the "reindeer kebabs" they sell some places in Northern Sweden. Made with thinly sliced suovas (cold-smoked reindeer) served in pita...I haven't visited this particular food truck, but I've had the "reindeer kebabs" they sell some places in Northern Sweden. Made with thinly sliced suovas (cold-smoked reindeer) served in pita bread with veggies and sauce. It's quite good. I can often find smoked reindeer in the frozen meats section of my local grocery store, and I'd probably cook with it more if it wasn't so expensive.
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Comment on I had an idea for a Crusader Kings, but about rich families in Victoria-Modern Era. What could go wrong? in ~games
imperialismus LinkGood luck! It's a huge project you're taking on, but I hope it works out. I want to point you in the direction of a game called Espiocracy, if you're not aware of it. It's a Paradox-like grand...Good luck! It's a huge project you're taking on, but I hope it works out. I want to point you in the direction of a game called Espiocracy, if you're not aware of it. It's a Paradox-like grand strategy game being made by a solo dev in Godot. The developer posts yearly updates on the r/Godot subreddit with some technical tips. It looks like the game is slated for release this year, but it also puts into perspective how much work this is: it's taken over four years.
But it shows that it can be done. The dev said they were a web developer with no game dev experience prior to this project, and also said that aside from a few art assets that were contracted out, almost all the work was done by this one person. It's probably the closest thing you'll find to your project, and I'm sure there's a lot of useful things you can take from it.
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Comment on I asked Michelin chefs how they cook ramen in ~food
imperialismus LinkJust gonna drop this here since it's the same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW62RWXMlTc I love this guy's accent. I've never heard a Korean-Italian speak English before but somehow it's...Just gonna drop this here since it's the same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW62RWXMlTc I love this guy's accent. I've never heard a Korean-Italian speak English before but somehow it's exactly what I expected. I also like how simple it is, without any fancy ingredients.
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Comment on Bitter rivals Malmö FF and FC Copenhagen set for Champions League showdown – no love lost between clubs separated by a bridge in ~sports.football
imperialismus LinkWhy did you change the name of the Danish club in the headline? They're called F.C. København, or F.C. Copenhagen in English, or even FCK for short, but it makes no sense to translate the name of...Why did you change the name of the Danish club in the headline? They're called F.C. København, or F.C. Copenhagen in English, or even FCK for short, but it makes no sense to translate the name of a Danish club into Swedish on an English-speaking website.
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Comment on Berry is a ultra-lightweight embedded scripting language in ~comp
imperialismus Link ParentI wonder if anyone is using it for anything. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, but there are a lot of personal programming languages out there that were made because one person for...I wonder if anyone is using it for anything. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, but there are a lot of personal programming languages out there that were made because one person for whatever personal reason felt like it, not because it necessarily filled any particularly useful niche or solved a pressing issue in the industry. I've made multiple toy languages myself, and while this seems more mature than anything I've ever made, the motivations seem similar? Just some personal hobby project that you might as well open source in case someone else finds it useful. There aren't any references to any other projects using this language on the website or on github. Smaller programming languages that aren't known in the industry are usually quite eager to advertise any serious project that uses their language.
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Comment on The International MSI League of Legends 2025 tournament check in! in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentI don't play League but I randomly stumbled on the stream and watched for a bit. I have to disagree. League is way too complex to really enjoy without a good understanding of the game. It has,...As far as e-sports go I think that League is one of the more fun ones to watch even when you don't what's happening.
I don't play League but I randomly stumbled on the stream and watched for a bit. I have to disagree. League is way too complex to really enjoy without a good understanding of the game. It has, what, 170 characters or something? I watched a game and I could understand the basic flow of which team was winning based on the commentary and watching health bars tick down or gold leads tick up, but beyond that, I didn't understand anything, and that becomes very alienating very quickly.
There are some games that somewhat work as spectator sports even if you don't play the game. I used to watch Starcraft 2 but never played it. I also think Counter-Strike is probably one of the easiest FPS titles to understand because it's so simple. But a game like Dota or League with 100+ characters with multiple unique abilities? It's way too complex to really appreciate beyond "ooh" and "ahh". Like, I can get hyped at a caster's hype, but that only goes so far when I can't appreciate even the basic mechanics of how someone is winning or losing.
Anyway, not to piss on anybody's parade. I'm sure if you do understand it, it's really fun and engaging, and League has such a large player base that they don't necessarily need to attract people outside the player base to have a thriving esport. Just a perspective from someone who doesn't play MOBA games, but enjoys esports and occasionally tries to get into them as a spectator, but usually just bounces off due to the complexity involved.
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Comment on Can AI-generated photos be art? in ~arts
imperialismus Link ParentNo. 100% my own words.No. 100% my own words.
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Comment on Can AI-generated photos be art? in ~arts
imperialismus LinkAs an art photographer (not in a professional capacity, but professionally trained), I naturally have an opinion on this. It is, after all, one of the few fields in which I actually somewhat know...- Exemplary
As an art photographer (not in a professional capacity, but professionally trained), I naturally have an opinion on this. It is, after all, one of the few fields in which I actually somewhat know wtf I'm talking about. Which is not to say that my opinion is authoritative, but this is a field which I've engaged with for the better part of two decades now, and I'm very familiar with its history as well.
My basic opinion is that AI "art photography" can be art, but it's not photography. Even 3D rendering has more in common with photography, because with modern physically based rendering techniques, you can fiddle around with a virtual camera that behaves like a camera and renders light bouncing off objects in an environment in a manner resembling a camera, even if the environment and objects are entirely digital. But that's not really a disqualification of the (potential) value of AI art resembling photography. It simply means that, although we may consider it using some of the techniques and theories relating to photography as art, the process by which it's created is so fundamentally different that we have to consider it a separate art form, just like cinema and photography are related but different mediums.
What really bothers me is the obsession with redefining art to mean "good art", just like "literature" is often synonymous with "great literature". To me, it hollows out the meaning of art to say that only art which rises to a certain level of subjectively assigned artistic merit qualifies. Children make art all the time. Is it good art? Usually not. It has sentimental value to the people who are close to the child, friends and family, but it's not the kind of thing that rises to significance for people who have no relation to the artist. I don't think it's elitist to say that a stick figure drawing of Mommy and Daddy created by a five-year-old is deeply meaningful to the parents, but has no great value outside of that narrow context.
Art isn't just what you like or approve of. There can be such a thing as bad art, or uninteresting art, or derivative art. To declare that art isn't art unless it's both interesting and truly original ignores pretty much the entire history of art, going back to the earliest cave paintings and Venus figurines and passing through all the way to the modern day. Most art isn't groundbreaking. Most art is aesthetically flawed, shallow, or derivative of other art in some way. It can still have value, because it isn't a binary. It isn't either a Da Vinci or van Gogh masterpiece or literal trash; there's a lot of room in between.
Let me give an example of what I personally consider bad, or at least uninteresting and derivative, art. Comedian is an artwork by Maurizio Cattelan. It consists of an ordinary banana duct taped to a wall. It brought a lot of controversy because it sold for millions. As a piece of conceptual art, it isn't about the actual banana or the actual duct tape or even the wall, all of which are replacable. The buyer bought the right to tape any banana to any wall and say it was a work called Comedian by Cattelan. Now, why do I consider this uninteresting and derivative?
In 1917, Marcel Duchamp exhibited his famous work Fountain, which was an ordinary urinal only modified by the addition of a signature, the pseudonym R. Mutt. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it. The work was one of the first so-called readymades, which is the general term for works of art that consist of mostly or entirely unmodified ordinary objects that were not made with the intention of being art, but are presented and exhibited as art in art spaces. Duchamp's Fountain was, at the time, revolutionary. It caused a huge debate about the nature of art, and today, the result of that debate is that works like Comedian are considered art by the art establishment. The art lies not in traditional craft, not in meticulous sculpting, painting, or even photographing. It lies in the concept itself and the provocation and debate it inspires.
Comedian is just a rerun of this concept. It was interesting 100 years ago, because it brought with it new ideas. It has been repeated numerous times since, with all sorts of readymade objects. It's derivative and brings nothing new conceptually, and in terms of aesthetics and craftmanship it's obviously, like all readymades, not exactly impressive (but that was never the point).
Comedian is obviously a satirical work, as hinted in the title. Cattelan isn't a talentless hack. He's made many more traditional pieces of art, albeit with odd and irreverent subjects, such as a sculpture of the pope hit by a meteorite. This is how he was able to sell a banana duct-taped to a wall for millions of dollars. But this particular work is entirely conceptual, and to put it bluntly, the concept is old news. If anything, the social engineering required to sell the work is the real art piece.
Still, even though I think this piece of art is unoriginal and not that interesting, from the perspective of someone who's familiar with the art world, it created a lot of controversy among people outside the art world, which was the point. As such, it's not entirely valueless. It's uninteresting to me as an artist because I've seen it a thousand times before in various guises. It's "not art" and a disgrace to the general public, but that ironically makes it really interesting, a real conversation starter piece.
This is a huge tangent to the topic of AI art, but my point is that the definition of art is very expansive. I can accept Comedian as Arttm (R), but still think it's ultimately derivative and uninspired, or as the kids would say these days, slop.
I don't think Duchamp's work was slop, however. At the time, it genuinely represented something new, which has inspired thousands of artists worldwide. It introduced a view of art as something which was picked out deliberately and presented as art, rather than something that was created using many years of practice in a traditional craft such as painting or sculpting. This has great parallels to photography. Photography is the art of picking out a particular view of the world, during a particular time frame. There is, of course, a lot of photography that's staged, but my favorite kind and one that is very much acknowledged in the art world is the documentary or candid approach, where little to no intervention is performed by the photographer. They choose when, and from where, and how to capture a moment, but the moment itself is not created by the photographer, and in fact, in this kind of art photography, the deliberate creation of a "photographable moment" would diminish it.
AI art is similar in that it's largely an exercise in picking and choosing. The actual act of creation is largely out of the artist's hands. Prompts steer the gen AI, so in that sense it's more akin to staged photography. But if I were to go to an industrial location I'm unfamiliar with and look for some cool industrial machine or structure to photograph, is that fundamentally different from asking an AI to generate images of industrial machines and structures, then picking the best one? In many ways, of course it is. It's based in actual reality, not machine dreams. But in other ways, it's remarkably similar. The artist's hand is involved in the picking out of, and choosing how to present, an object or situation that wasn't created or manipulated by the artist or intended to be art.
In my mind, the interesting thing to consider is how gen AI is used in art, rather than simply that it was used.
I really appreciate traditional craftmanship. I've enjoyed working with old analog cameras even in the age of digital photography. The more cumbersome process places limitations which are often necessary to create interesting art. If you can easily shoot one hundred frames of the same scene, it's easy to be sloppy and end up with none of them being just right. If you can only shoot one, there's a huge risk involved, but it certainly means you'll have to be damn careful and deliberate when you do it. I don't want traditional art to die, and as a documentary-leaning photographer, I really appreciate the deep connection between the medium and reality. It would be a sad day if all we had was AI generated art.
But that doesn't mean there's no place for some of it.
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Comment on 'Kung Fury 2': ten-minute sizzle reel leaked in ~movies
imperialismus LinkI only discovered the original short film recently and I don't know how I missed out on it the first time around.I only discovered the original short film recently and I don't know how I missed out on it the first time around.
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Comment on Europa Universalis V officially announced (no release date yet) in ~games
imperialismus LinkThe way the game is shaping up reminds me a lot of the mod MEIOU and Taxes. That mod always had terrible performance and frequent crashes when I tried it, and the interface was extremely clunky,...The way the game is shaping up reminds me a lot of the mod MEIOU and Taxes. That mod always had terrible performance and frequent crashes when I tried it, and the interface was extremely clunky, both of which likely because they were trying to do something far beyond what EU4's engine and modding support could handle. But I was always intrigued by the idea of it: more focus on population, estate management, logistics, and generally building up your country. Whenever I tried to do a "tall" run I would just get bored and go to war in vanilla EU4, because everything in that game feels like it's just based on planning and executing one war after another. Clicking a development button every once in a while doesn't feel like you're meaningfully developing your country.
But at the same time, they actually let you control armies and it seems like the war system is better than ever now, which was one of the things that put me off Victoria 3. You can still map paint, it will just take more work, and I was never the kind of player to go for world conquests anyway.
I'm also excited to see what modders can do with it. I presume the same UI modding tools that exist in CK3 are also available in this game (haven't verified that but it would be dumb not to do that when you have the technology and these games have always thrived on mods).
I haven't kept up with all the dev diaries, but I'm excited to see some actual gameplay from various content creators now. I haven't played EU4 in a couple of years, but I used to really enjoy the game, and the newer Paradox titles haven't scratched the same itch.
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Comment on Jet Lag: Schengen Showdown | Trailer in ~hobbies
imperialismus Link ParentEpisode 6 It is a nice spot, and it's right outside the train station. The plaza they walked across to get there used to be an open-air drug market. The drug addicts were moved elsewhere around...Episode 6
The final challenge was really nice though. I kinda wanna do that with someone now. Really pretty spot too
It is a nice spot, and it's right outside the train station. The plaza they walked across to get there used to be an open-air drug market. The drug addicts were moved elsewhere around the time the Opera opened. The world really has a sense of irony.
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Comment on Non-American, English language news sources in ~news
imperialismus LinkI haven't been a regular reader in quite some years, so I don't know if it's still the case, but at least back in the day, The Economist was excellent for global news. They cover a lot of stuff...I haven't been a regular reader in quite some years, so I don't know if it's still the case, but at least back in the day, The Economist was excellent for global news. They cover a lot of stuff that you would never find in any other English language media if you weren't specifically searching for it. For example, reporting on issues in Africa that aren't the same ~5 ongoing conflicts or poverty, which don't get me wrong are important, but it's a whole ass continent that you rarely hear anything about except the same handful of stories about human misery. And they're also good with smaller countries in Europe and Asia that rarely get much attention in US media.
Their editorial stance is very much in favor of free trade and economic liberalism, but not really right-leaning on social issues, and most independent sources regard them as being reputable and not very biased.
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Comment on Started watching Adolescence in ~tv
imperialismus Link ParentI don't think switching attention is comparable to standard film cuts, where you may suddenly be in a completely different time and location, or rapidly switching between points of view of the...I don't think switching attention is comparable to standard film cuts, where you may suddenly be in a completely different time and location, or rapidly switching between points of view of the same situation which you couldn't possibly achieve in that time frame in real life. I don't mean that a long continuous shot with a slowly moving camera is necessarily "more realistic", but I certainly don't think it's objectively less like our standard everyday experience either. I've only watched the first episode of Adolescence, but for example the shots where the camera is following someone between different offices do feel, to me, very much like following along behind a person walking around in real life. Of course real life isn't choreographed the way a tv show is.
All of this just to emphasize that immersion is a subjective thing. It really is the sensation of being "in" the story, not some kind of objective measure of how much "like real life" that piece of media is. A novel can be immersive even if you have to imagine everything in your mind's eye, which is definitely not the same thing as seeing and hearing and smelling it in real life. I think different people will react differently to, for lack of a better word, fancy cinematography.
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Comment on Started watching Adolescence in ~tv
imperialismus Link ParentDoing an entire hour in a single seemingly continous shot is definitely a show-off. But long takes that aren't absurdly long can definitely be effective. I really like the first-person intro...Doing an entire hour in a single seemingly continous shot is definitely a show-off. But long takes that aren't absurdly long can definitely be effective. I really like the first-person intro sequence of Enter the Void, for example. The film as a whole I can't recommend, it basically looks really cool but has no actual substance to it, but I haven't really seen anything quite like the first minutes of that film. I say this as a stills photographer who really likes static shots in movies (because they scratch that photographer's itch).
There's also the issue of pacing. With no apparent cuts and moving locations, you run the risk of a lot of dead time. But you can use that to deliberately slow the pace down to make the more dramatic moments more impactful and let them breathe, which I think was at least the intention in 1917.
Immersion is really subjective. There aren't any cuts or edits in real life. I suspect that the more you know and care about filmmaking, the more immersion breaking these "show-off" techniques are. Because you're more aware of the editor and director basically executing a kind of cinematic magic trick on the audience.
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Comment on Race against the regime: The 1936 Olympics, and the Nazi rise to power in ~sports
imperialismus Link ParentI normally don't comment on a post if I'm not going to read/watch the original link, so I don't mean to imply that you personally made any demands of my time by posting it. I actually find the...I normally don't comment on a post if I'm not going to read/watch the original link, so I don't mean to imply that you personally made any demands of my time by posting it. I actually find the Berlin Olympics a great case study of what people today call sportswashing and it's a bit disappointing that it seems the angle they're taking on it is, to my mind, a bit strange.
Maybe it's just historical distance making it seem that way, but it seems like in the past 100 years, the usage of sports for propaganda purposes has become a lot more subtle and less on the nose. You have countries like Saudi Arabia investing a bunch into sports, and they're doing events in Saudi, but they're also buying up foreign sports clubs and even trying to buy up whole sports (like golf), so that even events that aren't happening in Saudi Arabia and have no overt messaging from them seem to be tainted by it.
There are clearly parallels to today. In 2018, four years after Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea, most of the world gathered in Russia for the FIFA World Cup. And four years later, Russia launched their full-scale invasion. It was the most expensive world cup ever until it was surpassed four years later by... Qatar.
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Comment on Race against the regime: The 1936 Olympics, and the Nazi rise to power in ~sports
imperialismus Link ParentThat's not a provocative question, that's like... a completely absurd question. Doesn't exactly sell that this video is worth 35 minutes of time, I'm afraid.That's not a provocative question, that's like... a completely absurd question. Doesn't exactly sell that this video is worth 35 minutes of time, I'm afraid.
I think you framed the question a bit confusingly, and people get stuck on debating "RAW" which is standard for most professional photographers, when what I think you're trying to say is that you dislike a certain "perfect" aesthetic, which is reminiscent of commercials. I think most people would be happy if their baby photos came out looking "like a Pampers commercial" because that's a metaphorically (and often literally) airbrushed version of reality. They don't want real, they want something that looks perfect in the way that parents view their children as perfect angels. But if you don't want that, there are surely photographers that could accomodate that, but as others have mentioned, that needs to be communicated.
Most people don't know what they want or can't express it, so any sort of "art made on demand" like commercial portraiture involves a lot of guesswork. But to a certain extent I can see what you're getting at. For example, modern lenses are ultra sharp, to the point of sometimes being too revealing when used for things like portraiture. They're made that way because (presumably, I'm not an optics designer) it's easier and cheaper to make high quality optics now, and also, they need to keep up with ever increasing resolution. But I know there's been a trend of people using things like "black mist" filters on modern lenses, which create a softer look. And of course, even in the past, people were using tricks like shooting through semi-transparent gauze or applying vaseline to a filter in front of the lens to create the effect of smoothing out skin in a time before Photoshop and digital editing made all that easy to do in post.
I can sort of understand what you're getting at, but I think if you want "less perfect" photos, you need to give your photographer references. Portrait photographers know what most people want, and know that most people aren't capable of verbalizing it, so they develop a style that satisfies most clients. But there are definitely ones out there that have more unique and less "lifestyle advertisement" like styles, they might just not be your average commercial portrait photographer. And I'm sure even an average commercial photographer could at least partially accomodate your requests if you actually give references and examples of what it is you want.