smores's recent activity

  1. Comment on Apple TV picks up rights to Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books for adaption in ~tv

    smores
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    Holy cow, these are fantastic! That shardplate is WILD — you said you made the Bondsmith set yourself?? It has so many pieces haha. I love the scale of Nightblood, too! Really the whole Szeth...

    Holy cow, these are fantastic! That shardplate is WILD — you said you made the Bondsmith set yourself?? It has so many pieces haha. I love the scale of Nightblood, too! Really the whole Szeth cosplay is really spot on

    2 votes

  2. Comment on Apple TV picks up rights to Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books for adaption in ~tv

    smores
    Link Parent
    Surely I'm not the only one that's, like, very interested in seeing these cosplays?

    Surely I'm not the only one that's, like, very interested in seeing these cosplays?

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Alternative to Spotify? in ~music

    smores
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    Personally I use Plex as my music server and Plexamp as my player. It's available on all platforms, is very pretty and performant, and works super well. It's a really good overall music...

    Personally I use Plex as my music server and Plexamp as my player. It's available on all platforms, is very pretty and performant, and works super well. It's a really good overall music experience, in my opinion!

    3 votes

  4. Comment on RCS — SMS via the internet — is good, but it doesn't matter in ~tech

    smores
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    As I wrote that, I did realize that Graphene's sandboxed play services might actually let you use RCS haha. Well, good to know, thanks for the correction!

    As I wrote that, I did realize that Graphene's sandboxed play services might actually let you use RCS haha. Well, good to know, thanks for the correction!

    2 votes

  5. Comment on RCS — SMS via the internet — is good, but it doesn't matter in ~tech

    smores
    Link Parent
    Yup. This also means that it's not possible to use RCS on most (any?) non-stock Android OSes, like Graphene or CalyxOS or iodeOS. It really sucks! The spec is "open", but so much of the planning...

    Yup. This also means that it's not possible to use RCS on most (any?) non-stock Android OSes, like Graphene or CalyxOS or iodeOS. It really sucks! The spec is "open", but so much of the planning and design happened in closed-door conversations with Apple and Google engineers that there's no meaningful way for anyone to build an RCS client based on that spec.

    5 votes

  6. Comment on Where to buy mp3s legally? in ~music

    smores
    Link Parent
    They absolutely do, Libro.fm rocks! All of their audiobooks are DRM free, and most can be downloaded as either MP3 or M4B files (M4B is just an MPEG4 file with an audio stream with chapter...

    They absolutely do, Libro.fm rocks! All of their audiobooks are DRM free, and most can be downloaded as either MP3 or M4B files (M4B is just an MPEG4 file with an audio stream with chapter metadata — you've probably also seen MPEG4 files with .mp4 or .m4a file extensions)

    2 votes

  7. Comment on Where to buy mp3s legally? in ~music

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    I use Bandcamp where possible, and fall back to Qobuz if Bandcamp isn't an option!

    I use Bandcamp where possible, and fall back to Qobuz if Bandcamp isn't an option!

    12 votes

  8. Comment on Federal officers kill another citizen in Minneapolis, National Guard activated in ~society

    smores
    Link Parent
    It's part of a strategy to prevent themselves from being identified as ICE agents by the communities they target, and to sow distrust and anxiety overall. I'm a rapid responder in my area, and...

    Side note: the fact that their gear all says 'Police' I assume is a deliberate tactic to appeal to society's trust in police officer

    It's part of a strategy to prevent themselves from being identified as ICE agents by the communities they target, and to sow distrust and anxiety overall. I'm a rapid responder in my area, and it's extremely challenging to get a reasonable noise to signal ratio from community hotline calls because they drive unmarked cars, do not wear identifying badges or insignias, and refuse to identify themselves. Actually, rapid responders can almost always identify ICE (if we're able to speak to them) because they're typically the only law enforcement group that refuse to identify themselves (often even refusing to say whether they're law enforcement).

    19 votes

  9. Comment on No bull: This Austrian cow has learned to use tools in ~science

    smores
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    Well I wouldn't have said anything, but since you're on the edge anyway... Some evidence that cows are basically 1000lb, herbivorous dogs:...

    Well I wouldn't have said anything, but since you're on the edge anyway... Some evidence that cows are basically 1000lb, herbivorous dogs: https://www.tiktok.com/@uncleneilshome/video/7378960607317642542?lang=en

    Mostly sharing in jest/joy, but having spent some time taking care of rescued cows at sanctuaries, they really are very playful, social, and intelligent creatures. They don't deserve all of the horror and pain we put them through.

    11 votes

  10. Comment on Ian's Shoelace Site is still the best site for tying your shoes in ~tech

    smores
    Link Parent
    Totally agree. I wrote a whole blog post about this, but about a year ago I helped my sister-in-law build some wind chimes. We found this site, Chime Design and Build by Lee Hite, which had more...

    Totally agree. I wrote a whole blog post about this, but about a year ago I helped my sister-in-law build some wind chimes. We found this site, Chime Design and Build by Lee Hite, which had more information about building wind chimes on one web page than I think I've ever seen about any topic anywhere else. This person had just clearly become absolutely fascinated by wind chimes, and had essentially become one of the only producers of publicly available knowledge on wind chime production techniques.

    It's amazing, because making a set of wind chimes is something you can do in a weekend, but only if you have all of this information available to you! I mean, you can obviously do it without any information, but you won't have any control over the sound of the chimes.

    But the site feels... fragile! I have no idea who's paying to host it, or how old Mr. Hite is, or what will happen if one day he, or his kid, or their kid, forgets or decides not to renew their hosting plan or domain name. I mean it seems like there's a big enough community around the site that hopefully it's being backed up and someone would re-host it, but there's so many other, similarly amazing sites without such active communities!

    3 votes

  11. Comment on Anyone here a LISP/schemer? in ~comp

    smores
    Link Parent
    The only scheme-like programming I've ever done was a brief stint with Extempore's xtlang. It's a whole programming environment/runtime/stack, primarily used for multimedia livecoding. I arranged...

    I think LISPs work really well for interactive scripting environments

    The only scheme-like programming I've ever done was a brief stint with Extempore's xtlang. It's a whole programming environment/runtime/stack, primarily used for multimedia livecoding. I arranged and performed a piece with it for a class in college, and holy cow it was awesome. I don't think I could imagine doing the same thing with a C-like programming language — the live editing just felt very approachable and natural with xtlang's closure syntax. Extempore's whole thing is that you can dynamically recompile individual closures without interrupting the multimedia loop.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Avengers: Doomsday | Fantastic Four and Wakanda teaser in ~movies

    smores
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    I think that's a fair assessment of the movie, and I was particularly disappointed in the third act (beautiful dragon fight aside), which felt very rushed and out of proportion (very weird to have...

    I think that's a fair assessment of the movie, and I was particularly disappointed in the third act (beautiful dragon fight aside), which felt very rushed and out of proportion (very weird to have this like tiny little ten-on-ten "war" for the fate of the world, after all that build up about the power of both sides).

    I was thinking more about Simu Liu's portrayal of Shang-Chi, which I thought was very engaging and was really the only new character since Endgame that I cared about individually, the way I cared about RDJ's Tony Stark. It felt like a character that deserved more story, and certainly more time to interact with the rest of the universe, and instead we just haven't seen him in 5 years. And the movie was very well received when it came out — audiences clearly resonated with the character.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Dimension 20: Gladlands - "Welcome to the Wastes" in ~games.tabletop

    smores
    Link Parent
    Ohhhh I did not know Vic was in this, I'm gonna have to give it a watch, I think they're hysterical

    Ohhhh I did not know Vic was in this, I'm gonna have to give it a watch, I think they're hysterical

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Avengers: Doomsday | Fantastic Four and Wakanda teaser in ~movies

    smores
    Link Parent
    I feel like the only post-Endgame movie that actually started to do this was Shang-Chi, and I feel like quite a lot of that potential ended up being squandered (or at least, like, indefinitely...

    I feel like the only post-Endgame movie that actually started to do this was Shang-Chi, and I feel like quite a lot of that potential ended up being squandered (or at least, like, indefinitely postponed?). Simu Liu has a ton of charisma, Shang-Chi is a very compelling character, and the action in that movie was fantastic. If we had seen him even once in the past 5 years, I think we might genuinely be feeling different about this. Or maybe if he had interacted at all with the Thunderbolts or Captain Falcon at any point. Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2 came out two years apart! And Captain Americas 1 & 2 were only three years apart.

    It doesn't help that it seems like Marvel does not know how to write a good Sam Wilson Captain America movie. Brave New World was.. bad.

    12 votes

  15. Comment on US to stop processing visa applications from seventy-five nations in ~society

    smores
    Link Parent
    Sure, right now it does not. And potentially that's for economic reasons (China, India, and Mexico are also some of our largest trading partners, for whatever that's worth), and potentially...

    Sure, right now it does not. And potentially that's for economic reasons (China, India, and Mexico are also some of our largest trading partners, for whatever that's worth), and potentially they're just taking incremental steps, which aligns with pretty much every other action taken by this administration since its first day. It's an administration of compulsive, malicious liars, so it's not like we can take their word for it. I feel pretty comfortable with the assumption that this is part of a well documented fascist/white nationalist plan enacted by a group of well documented white nationalists, though, since it doesn't make much sense through any other lens.

    10 votes

  16. Comment on US to stop processing visa applications from seventy-five nations in ~society

    smores
    Link Parent
    Sure, but also just part of the overarching plan to pursue a white ethnostate in the US, no? Like there is one thing that (almost?) all of these countries have in common, and it's that a US racist...

    Sure, but also just part of the overarching plan to pursue a white ethnostate in the US, no? Like there is one thing that (almost?) all of these countries have in common, and it's that a US racist would not consider them “white”.

    11 votes

  17. Comment on US to stop processing visa applications from seventy-five nations in ~society

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    “Some countries” is an… interesting way to describe more than 1/3 of all recognized nations in the world.

    “Some countries” is an… interesting way to describe more than 1/3 of all recognized nations in the world.

    25 votes

  18. Comment on US to stop processing visa applications from seventy-five nations in ~society

    smores
    Link
    Full list of countries affected (from PBS):

    Full list of countries affected (from PBS):

    Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

    20 votes

  19. Comment on Looking for audio recording advice in ~hobbies

    smores
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    The reason to be closer is so that you can turn down the gain on the microphone, which will result in picking up less noise that is not coming from your mouth (e.g. echoes off the walls). If...

    The reason to be closer is so that you can turn down the gain on the microphone, which will result in picking up less noise that is not coming from your mouth (e.g. echoes off the walls). If you're a foot or two away, in order to pick up your speech clearly, you'll have to turn up the gain enough that it is likely to also pick up a lot of sound reflecting off of the walls.

    In my sound engineering course in college, our instructor talked about the 1:3 ratio: the primary audio source should be no more than 1/3 the distance to the recording equipment of any background audio sources (sorry that was a clunky sentence). Put another way, if you're 1 foot from your mic, your mic will also be clearly picking up sounds from your walls up to three feet away. If you're 4 inches from your mic, you can likely get away with other sounds that are more than a foot away.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Not-so-humble brag: What are you proud of that you don't normally get to talk about? in ~talk

    smores
    Link Parent
    Thanks! Unfortunately not really — we don't really hire, because it's a collectively owned coop (so everyone is an equal owner and managing partner). We have very little incentive to grow, unless...

    Thanks! Unfortunately not really — we don't really hire, because it's a collectively owned coop (so everyone is an equal owner and managing partner). We have very little incentive to grow, unless there's someone who we already know to be a very good fit, and we have a client that we really would like to work with but can't fit in. I am happy to chat any time, though, if you like! Shoot me a DM whenever!

    2 votes