I had a conversation with someone who teaches research skills at the university level. They said that incoming new students seem to start with the assumption that .org and .edu domain names can be trusted for accurate information and .com domain names will be unreliable.

I didn't find it hard to find dodgy nonprofits and sketchy colleges but do you know of any extremely reputable corporate sites that they could use as counter examples to this misinformed theory about how to find reliable sources online? I'm thinking maybe Bloomberg but would love to hear more.

I have self-hosted my email for many years, but am finally encountering some straws that may be breaking the camel's back. A few email providers are now rejecting my server's mail, Microsoft in particular (@hotmail, @outlook). (In case you're wondering, I already set up SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc. and none of that is the issue.) Self-hosting was fine, and the technical admin work was never really an issue. I'm just tired of the external factors that are beyond my control, like belonging to an IP range that is scored badly by some random blocklist company.

So, I'm now shopping for a good email provider. Privacy and security are important to me, and I am more than willing to pay for email, so all the usual "free" email providers are out of the question. (Update) Also, client access (IMAP, SMTP) is a must.

For now, I am eyeing

• Fastmail Standard plan @ 5 USD / mo
• Proton Unlimited plan @ 10 USD / mo

Proton is looking to be my choice among those two, as I like the replyable email aliases feature. 16 times the storage doesn't hurt, either.

Any other recommendations in the same vein as these two, and in the same price range?

Recently I've been coming back to my chrome browsers to find a tab open with the following URL:
(link disabled to prevent giving them any more clicks)

https ://theaisecrets.beehiiv.com/p/chatgpt-can-now-work-docs-apps-websites-emails

This is happening across all my computers, both linux, windows, and linux VM, so I don't think it's OS-specific malware, but I suspect a rogue chrome extension is opening the tab, because I have chrome synced across all affected devices via my google account.

I've searched for this particular problem and URL to no avail, so I wondered if there's a way to track back which extension opened the tab, other than by doing a binary search disabling half my extensions at a time (which would be annoying as hell - the tabs only seem to get opened once a day or so).

Hi Tildestrians! I recently acquired a broken Sony TV from work. Its older, but its 4K, and would be a substantial upgrade over my current TV, so I am hoping to fix it. My usual willingness to tinker and google prowess has failed me. I am hoping one of you can provide some guidance.

Its a Sony XBR-55X850B. It is showing an error code of 7 flashing red lights. I tracked down the service manual (Sony, you should really have this available to customers and not locked behind an "authorized service center" certification), and it says the motherboard needs to be replaced. I found a replacement motherboard on ebay (it was for the 65 inch version, but that should not make a difference). I installed, and it gave a different error code. I think it was flashing green and orange. Based on my research, that means it needs new firmware to be flashed. Sony's website doesn't still have the firmware file for that TV (should be illegal in my opinion), and tells you to contact support. Support seemingly can't give out the firmware file either. I found a firmware file on Softpedia, but I have no idea if it is legitimate or even still a working file. Threw that on a fat32 drive, and couldn't manage to get it to update. I tried multiple drives and all usb ports over the course of 2 weeks. I ended up pulling the new motherboard and returning it (thankfully I was able to return it for full price). Now I am stuck with a TV panel that works perfectly, except for the motherboard, and I seemingly can't replace the motherboard.

This got me thinking: I don't need anything fancy. I want a display with an HDMI input that takes 4K signal and puts it on the screen. I truly don't need anything more than that. Even an IR remote for power is optional, because I could plug it into a smart outlet. I don't need the speakers because I have a receiver. I know you can get bypass boards to turn laptop screens into monitors. They take the place of the support circuitry on the laptop motherboard and give you a display input, and nothing more. Is there anything like that I can get for this TV? I don't know where to start on that search.

Or are there any other routes I should explore before junking this TV? It feels really bad to throw out a perfectly good 4k panel just because the motherboard is broken.

Basically the title. I've been told my voice is too soft on zoom in spite of having tried many options. Before I buy new hardware, I'm asking advice. I have to record a presentation soon, so this is important.

What advice can you give?
Thank you

Hey all,
Over here in Australia (imagine in USA and a few other countries), the 3G/2G mobile networks are being shutdown. My carrier Vodafone is gradually shutting its down with Dec 15th 2023 being the final closure date. The 4G network will have VolTE but my device (LG V20) does not appear to support VolTE nor does it look like i can update the firmware easily (if at all) to do so.
Anyone else have this issue with their phone? (i realise it will be older ones)
Question about VolTE though - will sms and standard voice calling still work on 4G on my device or similar devices without VolTE ?.
thanks
Nig

I'm interested in domain names that are remarkable in the sense that they are short or easy-to-remember.

This idea for a topic started because I find myself window shopping for domain names. Thing is, the only use I have for a domain is for my personal website. That's why I hesitate picking up these fun quirky domains.

What are some interesting domain names you've encountered?

Do you think it's worth it (in terms of utility and/or entertainment value) to have a more remarkable domain name for a personal website?

Off the back of all the chatter and conspiracy theories being thrown around because of the OpenAI Boardroom drama, I thought I'd ask how people are feeling about AI in general.

For those of you with your head in the sand, have you heard about AI or interacted with anything knowingly?

Those of you surfing the AI world right now, what are you looking forward to AI doing and are you fearful of where it's leading?

I'll start by saying, as I've said before, I'm looking forward to living in a world where the start of "I,Robot" is a reality. Robotics and generative AI are going to be amazing, as shown in its infancy by Boston Dynamics. If we stick to the way things are going, we could end up very Star Trek with our very own "Data" androids.

My fear is that the human race isn't ready, and we're too stupid as a whole, so we end up more with T1s being actually made by the military and at some point, AI will become cognitive and conscious.

So come on, folks of Tildes, where do you stand?

I go to LinkedIn to find work.

My real name is there. My picture is there. My career history is there.

There are many places on the Internet where I can anonymously post inflammatory opinions without endangering my job, my career, or my reputation in my field.

I kind of feel like that is the situation on for everyone else on LinkedIn too.

So... why do some people post inflammatory opinions about politics and other non-career related subjects on that site?

All risk and for zero gain.

I'm helping some friends setting up a bar/little restaurant. they have some tvs and are looking for an audio system.
The idea is that they can put on some music videos/sports and it shows up on all TVs and audio goes to their (to be bought) soundsystem.

all this has to be as cheap as possible, as we're in a low income country.
The environment is quite loud. so it needs some power.

So I think I just gonna buy a cheapish hifi-system with 4 passive speakers, connect it with their "smartest" tv (they are all off-brand) and run audio cables to the different areas and speakers.

how to synchronize the tvs I still have no idea, but it is not really a priority

So my questions

• What is something like this even called? with the keywords I tired i only find nothing or very expensive pro solutions.
• how would you resolve the video part? 3x 15m HDMI cables seem quite expensive, but might be the only solution. how do i split the signal?
• might it be better to buy active speakers and use a small mixer?

If you have experience in this I would be very happy for your advice/opinion.

Looking up the Boox Palma device right now, it seems to be very handy actually. The only point where I may not be able to use it for everyday use would be that it seems to struggle with playing Spotify music. But I wouldn't mind picking up one of those 4G dumbphone devices that Nokia puts out for that usecase.

I am looking for an e reader with specific features, honestly I don't know if what I want even exists, but I figured this might be a good place to ask. Here's my wants:

• Charge via USB-C
• Open, allows .epub files (I understand some brands don't)
• interfaces with Calibre
• Does not have any wireless radios ie bluetooth, wifi (I know lots of people would say just turn those features off, but I would just prefer the device doesn't have them to begin with)

Have you guys seen any devices that meet this criteria?

So I'm in the market at the moment for a GPU upgrade. I haven't spent a dumb amount of money on something stupid in a while now and I'm thinking this Christmas season is the time. My only problem is, I've been really out of the loop since the Great Shortage. I've heard AMDs cards these days are actually more than complete jokes, and NVIDIA has been getting too big-headed and making some poor consumer choices. So a switch to AMD sounds like it might be viable for me.

At the moment, I've got an RTX 2070 8GB. I've read that lately, games have been utilizing VRAM like crazy so I want to bolster my numbers on that front. Was looking at 12GB cards since the 24GB ones are all ludicrously priced. At the moment, I'd say my budget is around 500/600 USD. Is AMD worth switching to at the moment? Or should I go for something like a 4060?

My girlfriend has started a small business and is looking into a blogging platform. What she has tried so far hasn't been great. She has decided to go the WordPress route and this is where I am involved.

Any suggestions for hosting providers? What features should I be considering or anything else I should be aware of when it comes to picking a provider?
Right now I am looking at Bluehost vs Hostinger. Bluehost just seem to be the most advertised. Hostinger seemed to offer more for the same cost.

Well, maybe they're not that odd, but I've not really been paying attention to what phone manufacturers are up to these days, so I need some help with what will work for me. I've previously had a huawei p10 lite (which I only sold after the news of them selling data to the Chinese government), Pixel 3a (i used that until it dying breath and then sold it for parts), and now I have a RealMe 8 5g, but I'm having charging issues with it. I might look at getting it fixed, but depending on the cost I might sell it on and buy something else.

MUST HAVES:

• Headphone jack. I'll die on this hill and I will get a phone with a headphone jack as long as they are available to me.
• good battery. It's the main reason I went for the RealMe 8, the battery has just been fantastic so far.
• No bloatware. I'm ruling out Samsung, and anything similar that is full of extra junk I can't get rid of. As close to pure android as possible is best.

IDEAL

• good for games. the heaviest duty game I play on my phone is TFT, and then I move around between various puzzle and idle games for when I'm travelling or on my lunch break, but I don't need it to be super powerful.
• wireless charging. Nearly put this as a must have, but I could definitely live without it.
• Not chinese made/owned. Also nearly put this as must have, but I don't want to limit myself massively.
• under £250 I very rarely spend even that much on a phone, but I'm open to treating myself a bit.

I don't care about the camera really. I'm a photography hobbyist and so if I want to take good photos for memories I'll just take a camera with me. If it's good then thats a bonus but its near the bottom of my list of things I think about.

What would there be out there for me? I've always liked the look of Sony phones but they're typically a lot of money, how do they fit in with my requirements? I've also been looking into the Fairphone but it really is out of my budget, and i don't know how it runs.

Thanks in advance for any help :)

I recently visited my sister who has a big screen TV that shows very smooth movement including on Star Trek, the original series. Not that I don't have smooth movement on my home TV set, but hers was ridiculous. It almost looks like raw footage before it was refined down. It was like there were frames between the frames, if that makes any sense.

What am I seeing here?

Hi all,

I’m looking for advice re making a full snapshot/backup of a running Linux system (Debian).

In an ideal world, should an issue occur, I would like to be able to load a live USB with the backup, boot and write from that.

Timeshift seems to be an option but I’m wondering how the above would work in my case. A few questions.

1. My disk is fully encrypted with LUKS. Would this pose a problem?
2. I would like to write my backups to a veracrypt container. Would this pose any issue? I’m not sure how I would boot from a live USB in this case I could not decrypt the USB.

Essentially I’d like a step-by-step guide to backing up my full system (including all files in home) in such a way that I can easily roll back should the worst happen. Do any of you know of such a guide or can perhaps offer some help?

Hi. I work from my tiny studio and I only have one table for eating and for the computer.

Might be a very silly question but: I'm usually too lazy to put the external keyboard away when I'm having lunch and so the keys eventually get sticky with oil from the food and whatnot. Is there some way to clean them? Is there a type of keyboard that would be easier to clean?

The spacebar and the ctrl / shift keys in particular are the ones to get sticky first.

I understand that one solution would be to just put it away while eating -- and maybe that's the best solution? But maybe there are alternatives?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Thank you again to everyone for taking the time helping me with my silly problem. Especially to the ones who tried their best not to be judgmental. :)

Youtube has become rather broken of late. The nagware popup complaining about my ad blocker can no longer be removed. I don't want ads and I certainly aren't going to pay. So far, I download the videos via Jdownloader. Is there a less bothersome way? How do you go about it?

I am interested in how people are using ChatGPT, especially in a professional context. Any tips, tricks or pointers?

I would appreciate if the discussion didn't revolve around the technology's negative aspects or future perspectives.

All major operating systems have their own file-sharing protocols (AirDrop, Nearby Share, etc.) which are incompatible with each other. There do exist apps for "cross-platform file sharing", however, they require installation on both the sender and the receiver devices, which makes it a bad solution for quickly sending files to other people.

I was thinking about making a file sharing solution that acts as a bridge between those different protocols and only requires action from one of the parties. However, there's a huge issue with AirDrop - it uses a custom networking protocol called AWDL. There are open implementations like OWL, but they still require low-level wifi access, so it can't be run on Android without kernel modifications.

This means that the only way this can be implemented is by using a physical device, eg. a Raspberry Pi Zero W or a similar microcomputer that runs a custom firmware. An obvious problem is that it requires a lot of effort - you need to buy a Raspberry, flash it with the firmware and carry it around with you, just to be able to send or receive files to other devices without using third-party websites.

So I'm personally not sure if that's worth making. But maybe you'll still be interested? Is this a big enough problem for you to want to use a hardware solution?

Hi all,

Has been a while :)

I'm having an issue with upgrading an SSD on a Lenovo x270 and thought I'd reach out for some advice.

I'm installing a SATA SSD (Crucial BX500) but the original caddy in the laptop is for a NVME M.2 PCIe SSD. The only part I can use of the original caddy is the plastic shielding that can fit around the new drive.

The issue is, now I have no shielding. The new drive will fit in the 2.5 inch slot the old drive was in but it rests on top of only two small pieces of foam glued to the board. Do you think this is an issue? Should I shield it somehow? Perhaps EMI tape? If so, should I shield both the top and bottom of the drive? There's no caddy I can find for this use case in Europe.

Any help would be appreciated.

p.s I am following this article: https://techblog.paalijarvi.fi/2020/01/02/32gb-ram-for-thinkpad-x270-and-other-pimp-ups/

As you can see, in their case, some metal foil (an EMC cover?) came with the eBay cable they bought to support the SATA connection. I'm wondering if that's nesscary.

Looking for a good wireless (probably bluetooth, but happy to hear if something other than bluetooth is recommended for a good reason) keyboard to use with my home laptop/dock setup.

I've ben using my laptop's keyboard while plugged into my dock which is probably less than ideal ergonomic-wise and am looking to improve things.

I don't need to be a fullsize or compact keyboard - I think my sweet spot would be middle size with a number pad. I'm somewhat aware of mechanical keyboards but will admit my complete ignorance as to their benefits (other than sounding nice when you type?) and so am open to those if there are more tangible benefits that I'm just totally ignorant about. Battery life would be important as charging it constantly could get a bit annoying.

Appreciate any input you all have!

The release of the Meta Quest 3 seems to have been slowplayed but my take is that Zuckerberg is still going full force ahead with MR but doesn't want to have a fiasco like the last round of publicity about "the metaverse” when people were mentioning it in the same sentence as blockchains and NFTs.

I read a lot of very positive reviews about the hardware

https://www.theverge.com/23906313/meta-quest-3-review-vr-mixed-reality-headset

https://www.reddit.com/r/QuestPro/comments/17631ja/24_hours_in_my_quest_3_review/

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/meta-quest-3

so I got one and I am really impressed. It comes with a very convincing demo where cracks appear in the ceiling and walls of your room opening views onto another planet and then aliens come into your room that you have to shoot with the controllers to stuff them into a tube. I am showing this demo to people on the hopes I can sell some kind of MR exhibit to a local museum.

Karl Guttag could show that the MR quality is "awful" from an eye chart perspective but the motion-to-photon is really excellent, you can throw and catch a ball just fine wearing it, and it is totally practical to walk around the house, interact with people, read (large) text to copy, use a touchscreen, etc.

I get the feeling too that they are doing many of the right things to market it, for instance, it comes with a license for a major game that comes out in two months which will might give people who don't click with it right away a chance to re-engage. There is intensive notification based marketing with discounts and stuff which is totally textbook for a new app store and that I like at the moment but it is possible it just won't connect if the product isn't up to snuff.

I tried Horizon Worlds and ran into the problem of not being able to succeed at the fishing minigame (in real life I've only been able to catch sunfish and smelt, but you really can fill up your freezer with zero skill with the later) and also the way it is weirdly empty. I have some content that I think could be put in there which I think is often a good idea on a new platform that is heavily promoted (e.g. easy to get free publicity and other benefits from the platform) but that emptiness might mean they don't feel pressure to get content. VRChat was more fun but showed me the challenge of onboarding people to that sort of thing, I got into an entrance room where I met one person who was actually attentive and trying to communicate and I think a lot of kids who were "doing their own thing", I figured out some of how to interact in that space but the problem of "getting gud" while sharing the space with other people who might be annoyed seems tough.

My take is that the software is not up to the hardware right now but as a software developer I think that’s a great problem to have.

If you're excited about Apple Vision I think you should be excited by this. Any thoughts? Anyone tried the MQ3? Anyone developing content for it?

I saw people talking about YubiKey here a few weeks ago so I got curious. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing a lot of helpful reviews for it.

I’m personally getting tired of having to take my phone anytime I need 2FA for Okta but I don’t have a lot of super important accounts to secure so I’m going back and forth in deciding whether the 100+ euro investment (to get two so that there’s a duplicate) would be worth it.

How do you use your YubiKey in your personal life and do you think it’s worth your use case ?

I'm on the search for a good, over-the-ear headphones that actually blocks out background voices (not just noise). My wife and I share a home office and she is on a lot of calls. I'm looking for headphones that are comfortable to listen to for long periods of time and really muffle the outside world. I have two headphones I've been using, Sony MDR-7506 and Bose QC45. The Bose does great with blocking out ambient background noise like fan hum. However this has the effect of accentuating my wife's voice. Her voice is tinny but more clear even when listening to music. The Sony does a better job of blocking all noise and attenuating her voice, but I can still hear it.

Wired is better since I run multiple computer through a mixer so I can hear all the computers at once when I have the headphones on.

Hey there! Back when the pandemic was in full swing, I stumbled upon a comment that shared a link to a website with a title quite like this post. I can't quite recall if I saw the comment on Reddit, the orange site, or even here. The site was quite basic, and claimed to have a list of jobs from companies that understood that its workers would like to have a life outside of work

The job market has changed a lot since the pandemic, but if any of you awesome folks happen to know where I can find a good part-time software development job, I'd be seriously grateful.

Hey folks

I've got a couple of months to put together an overview for tools that a company could use as part of television production and I'm hoping for your input.

It goes without saying that everyone in the tech world is pushing ai heavily. Having been in IT for almost 3 decades I know what to watch, look at, out for, etc. AI is still very much regurgitation of its input but the input is vast. What I have right now is some bare bones of what I want to throw around for insight and discussion for what would help people in TV production tool wise.

For those that do not know how TV production works it's a simple idea: you generate a huge raft of ideas for shows, absolute basic outline of what the show would be about and put that in to a paper. You then sit around in your research/Dev dept and pitch to each other and the ones that people go "yeah, that could make a good show" get some extra meat added. Those ideas get pitched to dept heads who then take the best ones to channel/broadcasters execs and see if any get hooked at all. If they do, they get given some development funding to put together a taster/pilot/video version with the funding they have. This means shot on camera, run through an edit for cutting, audio, graphics, etc, still in its infancy and development state. This video and a bigger padded Treatment (documented idea with its bones, flesh and now make-up added) goes back to the broadcaster and you wait for feedback. If you get lucky you get a greenlight and order for X amount of shows and then you have a production. The production is taking the idea to it's full potential, shooting it, audio and music, graphics, the works and that's what you see on TV.

I'm after working out what tools AI offers today that would help them with this process. Right now, ChatGPT v4 will generate some great treatment ideas for shows, except I would imagine these shows already exist or have been tried to channel/broadcaster before? AI is regurgitation and not thoughtful to its own ideas and imagination. I suppose with great prompts it could generate great output.

Okay, that's the process and I'm rambling. Right now I have a short list of LLMs such as ChatGPT and Bard types that will help with the idea stage for researchers. I could use some decent links for prompters to help the research know how to ask AI for what they want out of it.

When it comes to generative AI for graphics I only have experience with txt2img using the likes of DALLE and Midjourney, along with some inpainting for changing images with lies, I mean, graphics (insert plane on fire, etc).

Does anyone have any other ideas and tools which would help production or useful things I can look at and research myself to see how they could be helpful? Auto audio generation? Graphic building that takes less time? Think of those great show intros for the likes of Game of Thrones, can that be done using AI yet or are we no where near that level for AI? Even basic video edits, where are we for AI help? Can we feed it some clips and have it autostitch based on an input document? If so, what tools should I be looking at and researching?

I'm asking here before I plop search terms in Google and Bing and then get swamped with whichever has paid the most or played the SEO game to be top of the pages. Asking for real human input is definitely better than asking AI which may actually be the whole point of my talk when it happens.

Thanks for listening and any help/pointers/sites you can give.

UPDATE:
I went off and did some research. Enjoy these if you want. I had issues linking so if a mod wants to go ahead and do that, feel free:

Pre-Production:

Treatment idea generation

Generating a great idea is usually through using knowledge and research, but these days you can literally ask an AI engine to come up with a show idea. Here I will list some good AIs that use a very large language model (LLM) to come up with ideas:

ChatGPT4 from OpenAI

ChatGPT is the best known AI out there, but essentially it's the AI that everyone uses. What's different is the data that is fed to it. ChatGPT from OpenAI has a lot of knowledge, however, it's generally backdated information and not up to the minute.

You.com

Built on ChatGPT4 AI. Data fed in more up to date as it's based around a search engine. Due to the plethora of sources being fed to the You.com Chat bot, you may find some more interesting results and ideas.

Bing.com - Chat

Directly leverages the latest version of ChatGPT4 from OpenAI but uses additional media from Microsoft sources. Responses are more natural due to the Turing Natural Language.

Copy.ai

A fun LLM designed for advertising agencies and the alike. The difference here is you can upload a back-catalogue of your own data for it to analyse to take on your brand voice, mix up your ideas and generally become one of the family.

Prompting

Just from picking one of the four AIs listed above, you can straight out ask for a basic show idea. All of them came back with interesting ideas from the prompt of "Generate me a great show idea for a television production treatment. The show should be a documentary for daytime viewing."

Prompting is the hardest part of any AI interaction, the results can wildly vary depending on what and how you ask. Due to this, there's a new type of website to help with prompting:

https://promptperfect.jina.ai/prompts

Using the line from above about generating a great show idea, promptperfect injects a lot more information into the prompt before running: "Please create a compelling show idea for a daytime documentary television production. The show should be engaging and informative, catering to a broad daytime audience. It should focus on a specific topic or theme that is both educational and entertaining. The documentary should be well-researched and provide in-depth information on the chosen topic, presenting it in a visually appealing and accessible manner. The show should aim to captivate viewers and leave them with a better understanding and appreciation of the subject matter. Additionally, please provide a brief outline of the structure and format of the documentary, including the number of episodes, approximate runtime, and any unique features or storytelling techniques that will make the show stand out." The quality of the Treatment created will be far superior to the initial request.

https://webutility.io/

An interesting take on generation of prompting. It breaks down the prompts to dropdown boxes with key words such as create, design, analyse along with the focus type. This forces the ai to create some more complex and well thought out documentation for a treatment idea with explanation of how it got to where it did.

AIs to help with show production

Location finding/scouting

With the latest AI image searching features, you can now upload an image and get a "related" search. Using this technology, you could, for example, look for English Country Gardens that you would like to film out of. Uploading this image would give you a list of locations, similar places and website associated with the image:

On each of the following sites, in the search bar, click the Image Icon to upload the image:

https://www.bing.com/images/
https://images.google.com/

Scheduling (not specifically AI)

Scheduling shoots should be simple. We've seen all the fun from an Excel spreadsheet that's laid out like a calendar, through to the most complex diary entries in a shared Google calendar. We already have the tools for this in Microsoft Office:

Microsoft Bookings: This is a great tool for scheduling a diary of a single person or a whole team. It allows to have a Web Page where people can book in time for appointments, whether virtual or in person. Perfect for a researcher trying to book interviews with a host. The AI lies in the ability to cross search a calendar and pick associated times available.

Microsoft Planner: A tool for project and time management. Breakdown the show in to buckets (categories) and assign out tasks to people and teams, due by dates or exact dates, etc. You can even keep all of the documents in the plan.

Microsoft Shifts: Team management for your production using Shifts. This allows you to schedule team members in Teams, allowing them to clock in and out, as well as specifying when they need to be available.

The three tools all work with the Outlook Calendars so each person knows what their plans are well in advance.

Post-Production

This is the one most people are interested in for AI at this time. The tools used for image generation, manipulation, etc. The market is currently being flooded with tools and not all of them are equal, but here's a few ones to watch and use.

Auto-Clipping & Social Platform

OpusClip, using the power of OpenAI, can take a long video and create 10 viral clips from it at the click of a button. The AI behind it analyses the video, looks for compelling sections and highlights, then seamlessly rearranges in to short videos. This tool will be great for generating short promotional videos of long form shows, documentaries, etc.

Descript is a great tool that can take a video, give you a transcription, then you can edit the transcript, where it then edits the video to match. You can remove words, create studio quality audio from a standard mic, remove common error words such as um, and er, etc. One of the bigger cool things it can do is voice mimic using AI. You read it a line and then you can type out a whole transcript and it'll narrate it in your voice and allow export.

AI Generative

Moving on to the more scary AI platforms, we have completely generative AI. This is where AI generates absolutely everything including the "avatar" of the human speaking. It's getting so real, you could probably make a documentary using nothing buy AI voice for narration and even have an interview with the AI Avatar.

Video Generation

Synthesia has 120+ voices, over 140 AI Avatars and an editing tool that is extremely easy to use. Mostly aimed at Sales, Training and Marketing Teams, but could easily be used to create development tasters and cuts by mixing in the AI with real video. An example video here.

AI Studios from DeepBrain is another tool, similar to Synthesia. The avatars are based on real humans being recorded but then converted in to AI models. Again, lots of models, full text to video.

Spline AI is a 3D modelling engine that will generate models from text prompts. It's still in Alpha stages but specifying something like "A cube", "rounded corners", "floating", "spinning slowly" will generate exactly that. This tool is aimed at animators but is likely where CGI effects will head.

Still Image Generation

Txt-2-img is amazing and growing at an ever rapid pace. With the wealth of images out there to learn from, the styles, etc, it's no wonder it's doing great. However, it's far from perfect, even now. You'll often find that it adds limbs or fingers to models, shadows completely wrong, crazy styles that are not what you asked for, and that's just the start of the issues with it. However, when it gets it right, it's amazing.

DALL·E3 from OpenAI is the current leader in image generation. If you need to whiz up a picture of a steam train, crossing a suspension bridge at sunset with a woodland in the background, this is the tool of choice.

Bing Image Creator is probably the second biggest right now and has very good accuracy of text to image due to the absolutely huge database of images with high detail being fed to it by Microsoft. It's also free.

I'm not going to list too many more as a lot of them stray off in to fantasy land, being trained on Anime, comics, however, DeepAI definitely deserves a mention. These are the folks behind a lot of the viral videos where you can scan your face and and speak a few lines, then it adds you to a section of a movie as a "Deep Fake". You can have it chat, generate images and even AI edit images with txt-2-img.

Video Edit Tools

The biggest AI enhancers right now are tools that help in the Edit at a professional level.

Topaz Video AI is one of the leading tools in Post production. Upscale footage from SD to 8K and HD to 16K. Full denoise, sharpening, 16x slow down with AI interpolation including building new frames. Corrects people and faces. AI Stabilized video to stop bounce and tracking issues. This is a complete Post Swiss-army knife.

Adobe After Effects which everyone knows. The Adobe AI, called Sensei, is under constant development. Easy animations of text and logos via text to video, rotoscoping video objects to remove the background of a person and replace, or removal of all objects in a scene using AI generative filling is all extremely easy.

Adode Premiere deserves a mention, but again, this down to Sensei. The current AI tools coming in to the suite are things such as Auto Rough Cut using the transcript to generate the video, full auto transcription with subtitle creation for multiple languages. Auto Colour will fix most colour issues using AI to save time in grading. AI Morph Cut adds visual continuity to cut transitions, remix for music matching with visuals, and Auto Ducking – popping dialogue over background audio to make sure you can hear voices correctly.

ColourLab AI is a new kind of grading tool where you no longer need to spend time with an artist grading every scene. The tool is a plugin to Davinci or Premiere and will do cool things such as film grain matching or stock emulation, which allows you to match any scenes together to look exactly the same. Take a video of a pigeon flying over a statue in London, and have it grade using a still frame from The Martian to get those awesome colours automatically, for the whole scene.

Audio/Narrator/Voice Over

The final piece is the new voiceover AI generation. No longer do we need voice over artists. In fact, Hollywood thinks the same and fired the whole staff of Snow White and replaced the Dwarfs with CGI and AI voices.

Altered Studio can change any persons voice, in any way you wish. Record your voice for narration and then adjust it to be male, female, Elvern, whatever. It also does full transcription and allows for VO with text-to-speech using AI voices.

A quick shout out to a member of Tildes who wants to remain anonymous for some of the cool links that they sent over - much appreciated.

Any advice should be suitable for a non tech person who knows how to google and follow instructions but not code in any way.

Can anyone suggest which firewall and or antivirus might be best? All suggestions for making life easier while dealing with a new machine are welcome.

I host a couple of very small websites for personal stuff and a Foundry server for my weekly RPG. Not exactly resource-intensive. And I've been paying for webhosting for a while for it, and it just feels unnecessary.

I always figured when I finally decided to do it, I'd just grab a Raspberry Pi and go to town. But they're... weirdly expensive. The Zero 2 W is sold out everywhere, they have insane resale prices, and you still need to essentially buy the 'kit' first time to have most of the stuff to set one up. So is it worth it?

I've been toying between that or just grabbing an old server off craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for $25-$30 and just going to town from there. What do you guys recommend?

So far I only managed to find two online communities in which people are able to hold a productive discussion and share interesting stuff - Tildes and LessWrong. Do you know if there are any other great online spaces like this?

With the Youtube adblock debacle going on, and my account on Firefox+Ublock getting the dreaded popup, I was trying out the Piped alternative frontends for Youtube. If you're unaware, this is basically lets you browse Youtube without using the actual Youtube site or your Google account, and there's no ads. Whenever this adblock issue comes up, everyone starts pushing other frontends like Piped as the solution. There's also a dedicated bot that automatically replies with the Piped link when anyone posts a Youtube link on Lemmy. People seem to think very highly of this site! The simping for it can be very strong.

I tried using the main instance, https://piped.video, but it was laggy! Completely, unusably slow. I've also had it crash whenever I try to watch certain videos. I heard there were other instances that would have less users and less pressure on the servers, so I tried out the other public instances. One of them worked great for a couple days, now it just stopped loading videos all of a sudden. All the other instances I've tried either don't load videos, or the domain is down.

Are they cracking down on Piped now, or are all these instances just not good and you need to self-host to get anything out of Piped? Are there any other alternative frontends that you've liked?

A recent post here made me realize how much I really wish I just could pop in a CD while driving (you can skip those, and I can make mix CDs, so no need for cassettes haha). I commute a decent amount and I'm using a Pixel with GrapheneOS. Adding a streaming service would just be one more piece of Google I'd have to add to my "work" profile. I'm listening to some great podcasts, but I'd rather go full nostalgia without ripping all my CDs.

That being said, I'd like any recommendations. USB would be nice for the constant power option, but blutooth is doable as well. TIA!

My wife has an ipad pro, and we have a baby monitor. So I was watching the baby monitor and noticed that her ipad was also in view of the camera. What I also noticed is that her ipad seems to flash an infrared light every minute or so.

After some googling I think this is the lidar scanner, although I'm not 100% sure.

Anyway, does anyone know why her ipad is doing this? It feels pretty creepy that a device is scanning your house all the time. Normally you don't even notice, it's only when you view the iPad pro from a camera that also shows infrared.

Maybe I'm just a little paranoid, but it feels like a privacy violation.

So I'm looking for a solution that's basically just a remote to scroll the web while I'm slouched down in the couch. Something that doesn't require a flat surface to work.

I'd also be interested to hear your solutions for your living room PCs. Thanks!

Recent article How can I get my engineers to accept being on call? sparkled some discussion, so I was become very curious.

If you can choose between working without any on-call duties or working where every second/third day you will be 24h on-call, what compansetion will make you accept second options?

Im in my early middle ages, and personally, I think

Looking for recommendations for a multiplatform note taking app. Needs to support Windows and Android. Some things I'm looking for:

• Markdown support
• offline/local support (should be stored in an easily accessible and movable format e.g. markdown)
• is free or only a one time fee
• Syncing (either a one time fee via app dev or built in support for GDrive or OneDrive)
• Mind mapping functionality (including linking between notes)
• flexibility to be both a knowledge base and a place to keep todo lists and general small notes

Obsidian hits most of these features but without paying $8/mo, syncing is a huge pain in the ass. I got it to sync between machines if I store my vaults in Google Drive, but I'd prefer to have them locally then synced. I don't mind paying for software, but I'm trying to avoid another monthly fee on top of everything else I'm paying for. I'm open to staying with Obsidian if I can solve the syncing issues, too.

My company has given me a budget of around ~$1200 to purchase a device. Its technically for "education" so my excuse is that I'll be doing online certifications with it, but the reality is that its going to be primarily a toy to play with, watch movies, play some light games, etc.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I know the ipad pro is the big dog in town but I've never been much of an apple fan and don't have any skin in their ecosystem, I'm mostly an android guy but I'm not married to the idea of an android tablet.

Here were some of the ones I've looked at so far:

Surface pro 9

Dell XPS 13 2in1

Lenovo Yoga 9i

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9+

They all seem like decent options honestly, but I was wondering if anyone had first hand experience with them and could give some thoughts.

I'm open to hearing from folks who have used iOS longer than me. How is the iOS dialer so terrible when it's supposed to be the primary usage of a phone, calling people?

1. Why can't I type the letters of a name in my contacts list, eg "5-2-6" for "JAM" and have all the "James" show up? Android has had that since forever because it's not rocket science.
2. Why can't I type to correct a digit in the middle of the number dialed? Or correct a number I've pasted in?
3. Seriously, is there no way to replace the dialer with something better? And if there is and I just missed it, what are your recommendations?
4. Same question for the god-awful contacts list. I use Google Contacts, have 3 google accounts in which the contacts are… and the syncing seems piss-poor.

Ok, this turned out to be more of a rant than I anticipated. I've gotten to like iOS quite a bit, especially because the android ecosystem has become a very "worst of both worlds" option. But man the dialer's shit. Someone please tell me I'm missing something obvious.

I'm looking for a desktop monitor for mixed usage (work, gaming, etc.):

• MiniLED
• 4k
• 144Hz
• 27"
• Built-in KVM switch

There are 2 well-rated monitors that fit this criteria:

• Cooler Master GP27U
• INNOCN 27M2V

I'm in a bit of an analysis paralysis between these monitors. It's very hard to gauge anything without buying both and comparing in-person (I might actually do this).

Going by the numbers alone, the 27M2V has x2 dimming zones making it "better". This monitor received a lot of praise for picture quality. Not so much for the rest (e.g. build quality, support, etc.). But I'm willing to sacrifice some of the picture quality, unless it's very noticeable, if it means better build quality and support from the manufacturer.

I hear blooming occurs (even with the x2 dimming zones) during normal usage. Which is fine because, as I understand it, this feature makes sense when you're consuming media (movies, games, etc.). Not so much for everyday tasks. I don't really care about the blacks when developing or browsing the web. I haven't seen anyone do a comparison without going into graphs, charts, and checkerboards. Lab tests and numbers are one thing, but are the differences drastically noticeable to the eye when compared side-by-side?

I currently have an LG 27GL850-B which has been going strong for ~2 years. I'm sure either choice will be a significant improvement, but I'd like to know if anyone here has any first-hand experience with either monitor before I make the jump.

I opened up the Google Earth app on my phone wanting to browse random beautiful and interesting places, but it doesn't seem to have a good way to do it. (Maybe this is a limitation on the mobile app, and the desktop app is better?)

For example, if I try searching for "wetlands", it only shows me a list of maybe 10 places near my current location.

I tried searching the web too, but I mostly get "listicles" like "10 amazing places on Google Earth" but they're practically unreadable with the webpage being covered with ads.

I found Earth View Gallery https://blog.google/products/earth/most-stunning-images-from-google-earth/ and it's nice but it's just a gallery of images with no contextual information (at least when viewing on mobile). It shows me beautiful pictures but no information about where the picture is from... I would have expected it to link to the spot on Google Earth.

Anyway if you happen to have some recommended places for me to check out on Google Earth I'd love to see them! I like:

• wetland-type habitats like marshes, pond systems, mangrove swamps
• beautiful natural scenery in general
• abandoned and/or ancient architecture

But open to any interesting recommendations in general.

Edit: It does seem to be slightly better on desktop. Searching on Google Earth works better, and Earth View Gallery does link to the location on Google Earth. I wish Google Earth had like, a built-in community feature for me to check out other people's public projects.

I have a Pixel 4a which has just reached end of support for Android. However, I love this phone and the only hardware issue is that the battery doesn't last me scrolling social media all day, so I am not looking to upgrade to a newer handheld just yet.

I've been looking into Graphene OS and Lineage OS as perhaps alternatives I should consider, at least just so I can keep getting security updates. However, looking through GOS, they say that their 4a build is an "extended support" build different from the main OS which is described as a "stopgap" before upgrading phones. LOS says it's supported but through an automatically generated page which doesn't leave me with much confidence about the attention and stability of the build on my particular phone.

I'm asking y'all's opinion on whether I should even bother. Security upgrades are important, but my phone is a secondary device at best, one which I always use with the same apps and websites and honestly not really that much of a security risk. Watch hubris get me.

I have a quandary. Even with a decent android keyboard (Typewise offline keyboard), I still find myself hampered by gettingnanstringnofnwordsnwhereni miss the space bar. Sometimes I miss n "A" key. I am very out put by my likelihood of getting "out" when I meant "put" and vice versa.

I am becoming a part time worker / primary parent while my wife goes back to a full time job, which means I do a lot of waiting in places where I'm typing extended sections of text (like this one) in places where its not really practical or appropriate to pull out a laptop.

What I really want is a physical keyboard for my phone. It seems like there are a lot of folding and non-folding options that are meant to work on a table with the phone as a screen. But if I could do that, I could pull out my laptop.

If I had a wish that could get me anything, I'd like a split thumb keyboard where the two halves sandwich (and grip) the phone the way the joycons go on a Nintendo switch.

The best thing I have found so far is this keyboard puck. I have bought a similar device for HTPC, and it is surprisingly easy to use. This still has the downside of requiring the use of with hands and not having a way to hold the phone. Maybe I could 3D print some kind of mount, but something with a built-in mount would be much better.

I'm wondering how others have solved this problem? I'm open to almost anything that makes me a faster /more accurate typist on the go.

I don't want to pay an extra thousand dollars for 'rugged' design suitable for military deployment, but the user in this case is not well coordinated at all and it should be able to survive being dropped.

I otherwise need sufficient memory and speed to boot reasonably quickly and to run standard text, spreadsheet and database programs without annoying lag.

my old regular app has been dead since it got underwent featurecreep and got bought out by underarmour.

lots of apps now have way too many features.. social this, calorie burning that. i know its probably a good thing for them to branch out but i'm one of those luddites that prefer simple and to-the-point apps with no social features, no account needed, etc.

all i really need from the app is gps distance tracking and a clean interface with some basic readouts for pace and whatnot. having audio readouts for pace every kilometer was a nice feature but ideally the app would be simpler than that.

if all else fails i know i can just fallback on one of those 'full featured' apps like strava but i figured i'd ask here before i got too tied into any particular app (creature of habit)

I'm curious if anyone here is currently using the 6GHz channel with WiFi 6E devices and whether you're seeing a benefit in your experience. Do you feel it was worth purchasing a router/access point with WiFi 6E over WiFi 6? I've been following the rollout of WiFi 6E for a while but I haven't heard much real world feedback.

Context: I have 3 access points at home all at the WiFi 5 standard and I'm considering updating each to WiFi 6/6E. I have few (if any) 6E devices at the minute but would plan to keep the access points for at least 5 years or more.

P.S. this is my first post so apologies if it's in the wrong location or a duplicate. I searched and found no other WiFi 6E discussions ✌️

In the corners of Tildes that I read on, I’ve noticed that a lot of us on here subscribe to online services like - Netflix, Kagi, Spotify, Dropbox, Mailbox.org, Patreon, Twitch, Bandcamp, etc.

I, myself, am kind of stingy about subscriptions but lately I’ve been considering subscribing to some online services.

So I’d like to know which online services (like those with monthly and annual fees) have you subscribed to (which tier if applicable) and which ones do you think is worth it and which ones are not?

To get the ball rolling, the only regularly recurring monthly payments I have right now are with Namecheap for the domain and IONOS for my server (the cheapest tier).

I’ve managed to avoid subscribing for entertainment like Disney+ or YouTube Premium or even music streaming platforms. Though I’m considering Deezer for the hifi option.

I’ve at some point subscribed to Patreon, Bandcamp and Twitch for artists I really liked.

And I’m currently looking into productivity apps that might be worth it to me.

—-

PS: It’s my first time posting and if this post would be better elsewhere, don’t hesitate to move it. Thank you!

Specifications:

Computer: Framework 13" DIY Edition.

• 32GB RAM
• 11th Gen i7-1185G7
• Windows 11 Pro

Browser: Brave Browser

• Current Version

Displays:

• Samsung LC27JG50QQNZA Series Curved 27in
• HP VH240a

Dock:

• Dell WD19TB Thunderbolt Docking Station.

Issue:

• If I move it to the HP display it stops.
  • sometimes when I move it back it continues and sometimes it doesn't.
• If I try and capture it via the built in screen recorder in windows it doesn't show up in the recording.

Have any of you had this experience or know what is causing this?

P.S. Thank you in advance for whoever corrects my tags and title which seams to happen evetime I post. I'm still trying to learn the correct way to post here on Tildes.

***EDIT***

• My monitor also blinks now and then video starts to slide
• I've only gotten it to reproduce on Brave Browser.
• I put Firefox and Brave side by side when it started happening. When I clicked on the Firefox browser it stopped. Then when I clicked on to Brave browser it started again... Like WHAT!?
• With the browsers side by side the video on the brave browser started to slide again but now slid across both browsers...
• Every time I try to record it stops... It's mocking me at this point.

Hey, I thought folks on tildes might have some personal experience here. For context - I'm not stuck on the raspberry pi zero, and I'm open to alternatives. I'm looking at it because it's inexpensive ($15), which is my limiting factor right now.

I am curious to play around with pihole to block ads network wide. I'd also love to be able to run a web server to host my website. After some precursory research, I learned that raspberry pi zero w is a good option.

My question is - are there any other things that are good (or necessary) to purchase to go along with it? Asking because I am going to have to buy it online (one of the authorized sellers), and since I'm going to pay for shipping, I only want to make one purchase. So, if there's other things I need to get, I'd love to know.

Alternatively, if you have personal experience with an alternative device, I'm all ears. (P.S. I realize I could just run pihole on my laptop, but I don't want to do that, as I'd need to keep it running 24/7...) I did see some alternative devices (orange pi, for example). But they were all much more expensive ($40 + rather than $15 for raspberry pi zero w)

We recently had a big thread about all of the subscriptions we find valuable.

This is a follow-up to that: how do you keep track of and manage your subscriptions (if you do at all)?

I’d love to have a sort of one-stop subscription management tracker where I can toggle things on and off and it can email me when something is coming due soon, but I’ve yet to find something like that I love.

If anyone has any tips, tricks, or pointers, I’d love to hear them!