mendacities's recent activity
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Comment on What are your thoughts on Wikileaks? in ~talk
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Comment on Can we try to talk like normal people? in ~tildes
mendacities Link ParentSomething to contemplate, were introspection not anathema to you.If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
Something to contemplate, were introspection not anathema to you.
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Comment on Can we try to talk like normal people? in ~tildes
mendacities Link ParentSon, you have implied Tildes to be amid ...and you have implied posters to be navel-gazing pretentious snobs, "over the top", and other things. Pretending you're a paragon of virtue because you...Son, you have implied Tildes to be
a echo chamber of pseudo intellectuals circle jerking with their verbose iamverysmart garbage
amid
a prevailing air of smugness
...and you have implied posters to be navel-gazing pretentious snobs, "over the top", and other things. Pretending you're a paragon of virtue because you haven't called anyone out by name is pure sophistry. It's transparent, disingenuous, and clearly done in bad faith.
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Comment on Can we try to talk like normal people? in ~tildes
mendacities Link ParentIf you're so viciously triggered by spelling, punctuation, and polysyllabic words, you should perhaps return to the imageboards from whence ye clearly came. Your insecurity and proud...If you're so viciously triggered by spelling, punctuation, and polysyllabic words, you should perhaps return to the imageboards from whence ye clearly came. Your insecurity and proud anti-intellectualism will revert to again being virtues, not vices.
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Comment on Alrighty, show of hands, how many audiophiles do we have here? in ~hobbies
mendacities Link ParentIf you don't mind going the DIY route, the 6DJ8-based headphone amp that's sometimes known as the "Super Simple": https://www.head-fi.org/threads/a-super-simple-6dj8-headphone-amp.402067/ ...is...If you don't mind going the DIY route, the 6DJ8-based headphone amp that's sometimes known as the "Super Simple":
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/a-super-simple-6dj8-headphone-amp.402067/
...is still available, nine years on, as e.g. eBay 273383386048.
With a suitable choice of part for C103, that design has amazing bass response, better than any headphone amp I (or indeed many others - read the ginormous head-fi thread) have ever used. It also puts out enough current to drive basically any non-electrostatic headphones, including Grados, with authority. It also works rather nicely as a bookshelf speaker amp, lol.
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Comment on Alrighty, show of hands, how many audiophiles do we have here? in ~hobbies
mendacities Link ParentNo, cables have never really been my thing. Sorry. I've made a few over the years, just enough to learn I'm terrible at it and don't enjoy it, lol.No, cables have never really been my thing. Sorry. I've made a few over the years, just enough to learn I'm terrible at it and don't enjoy it, lol.
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Comment on Alrighty, show of hands, how many audiophiles do we have here? in ~hobbies
mendacities LinkI was into DIY head-fi for a while, does that count? I have: ATH-M50s fed from a SOHA (the original one from long, long ago...) with a fancy stepped attenuator and the buffer stage replaced by a...I was into DIY head-fi for a while, does that count?
I have:
ATH-M50s fed from a SOHA (the original one from long, long ago...) with a fancy stepped attenuator and the buffer stage replaced by a JISBOS, fed by an AlienDAC; I use this setup for playing video games mainly, lol. Also Skype. :/
On the other computer, I have a BantamDAC feeding a Pimeta with LMH6321s and AD806n opamps, which sometimes drives various headphones or sometimes drives a small pair of bookshelf speakers.
I also have a couple other DACs I built, and at least four other headphone amps, including another Pimeta, a Mini^3, and another tube amp that used 6DJ8s. Well, and two or three CMoy-esque things I built on breadboard, and a homebrew variant of the Pimeta with a high-power discrete diamond buffer output stage... and probably a few other things I'm forgetting...
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Comment on What anime music do you listen to regularly? in ~anime
mendacities (edited )LinkThe anime itself didn't do much for me, but the Bamboo Blade soundtrack has some pretty neat stuff on it. I also really, really like the soundtrack CD from the Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei series....The anime itself didn't do much for me, but the Bamboo Blade soundtrack has some pretty neat stuff on it.
I also really, really like the soundtrack CD from the Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei series.
Edit: Also, many of the K-On songs, and Angela's ED from Seitokai Yakuindomo.
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Comment on Are there any other HAMs around here? in ~tech
mendacities LinkTech license, so I don't get fun trans-continental QSOs or anything like that. I mostly operate from home, but I've done Field Day a couple times, with a solar-powered bicycle-mobile setup in a...Tech license, so I don't get fun trans-continental QSOs or anything like that.
I mostly operate from home, but I've done Field Day a couple times, with a solar-powered bicycle-mobile setup in a park. Worked folks in four counties last year, which was pretty good considering I was operating at 1W most of the time.
Most memorable experience: got someone on a local repeater to phone-patch a 911 call for me when I came across an injured equestrian in a cellphone dead zone. Local RACES guy who was monitoring the repeater actually got there before the ambulance, lol.
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Comment on Reddit reinvents the chat room with subreddit chat in ~tech
mendacities Link ParentReddit already has an IRC network, Snoonet. And while there aren't channels for all the hate-filled subs, there are more than a few.Reddit already has an IRC network, Snoonet. And while there aren't channels for all the hate-filled subs, there are more than a few.
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Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - approaches to self-promotion in ~tildes.official
mendacities LinkBan early, ban often.If we find people that are over that line, how should it be dealt with?
Ban early, ban often.
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Comment on What if people were paid for their data? in ~tech
mendacities Link ParentI've made a little more than that from them over the same time span. I sometimes do the whole terrible surveys-for-money thing on an app. /r/beermoney stuff, basically. It always amazes me how...I've made a little more than that from them over the same time span.
I sometimes do the whole terrible surveys-for-money thing on an app. /r/beermoney stuff, basically. It always amazes me how much advertisers will pay - even factoring in what the app middlemen are taking, etc - to identify people for their targeted campaigns. Tragically I'm not the right demo for most of the stuff (i.e. someone considering buying a new car in the next month...), so I mostly get to do lengthy surveys wherein I try to be the voice of reason. Also kind of impressive how much some places value one person's opinion. (Of course, has to be the right person... and in some cases, the right opinion. A lot of surveys are... pretty unobjective, lol.)
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Comment on "The book was better than the movie." How important is the medium used in the storytelling? in ~talk
mendacities LinkEvery medium has different requirements, different restrictions. You see so many people who think that because they can write and sell a novel (for example), that means they can write and sell a...Every medium has different requirements, different restrictions. You see so many people who think that because they can write and sell a novel (for example), that means they can write and sell a television screenplay, or a movie script, or that for a video game. (Writing novels is not especially lucrative, sigh.) Or vice-versa, they have written movie scripts, ergo they can write novels.
This virtually never works out as intended. The skills are just too different.
The written word (by which I also mean comics, graphic novels... and electronic versions thereof; "still media", if you will) has advantages for the reader/consumer. One of the biggest, and most overlooked, is that people can readily re-read a line or a panel or a page or whatever if they didn't completely understand it the first time. They can stop and look up a word, if needed. When Tersefras is talking about the loyalist cities of the southeastern archipelago, the reader can flip back to the map at the beginning of the book and follow along, as it were. And this all allows the writer, if sufficiently skilled, to get away with things you can't do in other mediums. One of which is to let characters talk at length, because you don't have to worry that viewers or listeners are going to be all "Wait... who's Tersefras talking to again?" twenty seconds into his monologue.
But movies/tv shows/etc have their own strengths. One of the largest is the iron-clad control the producers have over pacing. Everyone watches Spaceballs at the same speed, y'know? When you want the metaphorical other shoe to drop sixty seconds after something else happened, in a movie (etc) 99.9% of people are going to experience it sixty seconds later. In a book, some people will experience it after thirty seconds, some at a minute; some slower readers might not get there for three minutes, some people might pause for the night at the page break in between and not get to it for twenty-three and a half hours, at which point the tension and everything is well and truly lost.
Me, I like and prefer books, and don't watch much TV or movies. Give me complexity, give me depth, give me complex fleshed-out characters, background details, and little bits of foreshadowing or sly passing references to other books. Give me more than two plot lines. Give me world-building, a sense of place. But to be fair, I'm likely biased, having written a book or two. I look at modern TV and despair that it's written for people with no measurable attention span; a TV writer probably goes "yes, and see how magnificently it captures their attention nonetheless". To each their own.
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Comment on ICANN't get no respect: Europe throws Whois privacy plan in the trash in ~tech
mendacities LinkWow that's a dreadfully-written article, even for El Reg.Wow that's a dreadfully-written article, even for El Reg.
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Comment on What is tildes' take on NSFW content? in ~tildes
mendacities Link ParentThere are still a half-dozen active darknet market subs and advertising is quite prevalent. And the sub mods care nothing at all about Reddit's legal liabilities, so they're perfectly content to...The darknet subs were strictly discussion forums. No sales were performed and anyone that tried was promptly banned. I can't speak for all subs and I'm sure some were conducting sales but most were not.
There are still a half-dozen active darknet market subs and advertising is quite prevalent. And the sub mods care nothing at all about Reddit's legal liabilities, so they're perfectly content to leave up ads for widely-regulated substances, drug precursors, card skimmers, and all the other stuff that sketchy people with disposable anonymous email addresses try to promise, if not actually deliver, in exchange for bitcoins. The transactions might not actually be taking place in Reddit's DMs the way they do on, say, /r/mechmarket, but, eh.
To be fair, there's all sorts of sketchiness all over Reddit, if you look hard enough. If you know the right words and phrases to search for, there are folks actively soliciting donations for jihadis in Syria, for example. (Though to be fair, for all I know those are, like, MI5 stings, or something.)
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Comment on Reddit — one of the world's most popular websites — is trying to cash in through advertising in ~tech
mendacities Link ParentI'm... not sure. I haven't had gold in a very long time. It depends on the subreddit, though. Right now, logged in with adblock enabled, I'm seeing sponsored posts on /politics, /worldnews, /aww,...I'm... not sure. I haven't had gold in a very long time.
It depends on the subreddit, though. Right now, logged in with adblock enabled, I'm seeing sponsored posts on /politics, /worldnews, /aww, /science, /books, /cooking... all the popular high-profile subs, really. Also some but not all smaller ones, like /r/notebooks, which has all of 26k subscribers.
Only seeing four ads - predominantly one for some shitty ISP that isn't even in my area, AFAIK, one for Pokemon Go, one for some IBM coding challenge thingy, and one for... coding bootcamp. But I've got Reddit in a private Firefox window and am behind a cookie-blocking firewall, so the terrible targeting is in some sense a feature, not a bug. :)
I don't see anything right now on any of the LGBT-related subs I read, but there have been sponsored posts there in the past. Earlier in the year there was some Amazon affiliate targeting them, and their targeting algorithms got severely derped, so they were advertising, like, bear-pride pins to lesbians, asexual-pride pins to gays, bisexual-pride pins to the asexual sub...
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Comment on Reddit — one of the world's most popular websites — is trying to cash in through advertising in ~tech
mendacities Link ParentThey already do that, if you're logged in. Sponsored posts. Which are always terrible and vaguely scammy. :/They already do that, if you're logged in. Sponsored posts. Which are always terrible and vaguely scammy. :/
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Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - proposals for "trial groups", round 1 in ~tildes.official
mendacities Link ParentAbsolutely support this. A lot of really insightful stuff gets spread randomly between ~talk and ~misc, and can be hard to find because of that. Having one spot for all this would be immensely... -
Comment on <deleted topic> in ~news
mendacities Linkhttps://tildes.net/~misc/33q/cruises_are_so_uncool_they_are_cool -
Comment on Anyone here interested in flashlights? in ~hobbies
mendacities LinkFor several years, I did a lot of caving, exploring old mines, that kind of thing. This was around 2003-2007, or thereabouts. Incandescents were still where it was at for overall output, though...For several years, I did a lot of caving, exploring old mines, that kind of thing. This was around 2003-2007, or thereabouts. Incandescents were still where it was at for overall output, though high-powered LEDs were starting to become a thing. Luxeon Stars used to still roam the world, sorted by color bin, lol. Right at the very end Crees and SSCs started to show up, which were slightly more efficient and also a lot more uniform in terms of color output.
I still have my main light from back then, a 2D maglite that's had almost every possible part replaced - some sort of large LED adapter, an aluminum reflector, a new tailcap spring, new lens... I still have some aspherical lenses for it, plus a protective tall bezel, for if I ever want to turn it into a hand-held spotlight, but that's not very practical most of the time, and very heavy. Also my backup light, a Surefire 6P that's gotten a new tailcap, new head/bezel/lens, some third-party SSC dropin, and a 17640 or whatever they're called, the next size down from an 18650. (The body isn't bored.) I've been using that for the last decade as a bicycle headlight, and it's still going strong, and still on the same battery I bought for it in about 2006...
They also have claimed to be "journalists", but wouldn't know objectivity if it sat in their lap and licked their face.
Ten years ago, I "leaked" a document off of a public but extremely obscure government website to them. They published it a week later - and used not a word of the description or title I'd provided, inventing their own hyperbolic, editorialized, ones.
Then there was the ridiculousness with "Collateral Murder", and... yeah.
Add in their blatant anti-leftist biases (reportedly they've repeatedly refused to publish leaks about the alt-right, when offered them) and it's very difficult to take them particularly seriously.
To be fair (not that they deserve it, TBH...) they have at least done a better job of protecting their sources than, say, The Intercept, who are a similarly unobjective, biased circus, just without the occasional moments of technological competence.