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85 votes
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What is your favorite small internet forum? Whats your favorite story/drama from it?
About a week ago i made A post asking people what their favorite BBS board is, so I'd be curious to see what people answer to his question. Personally the only one i remember is emptyclosets, a...
About a week ago i made A post asking people what their favorite BBS board is, so I'd be curious to see what people answer to his question. Personally the only one i remember is emptyclosets, a forum for queer people.
Edit: By drama/story, it doesn't have to be something someone did that pissed people off. You can also include something interesting that happened on there (e.g on a Nirvana forum that used to exist, theres a micro-famous story about a user who went to a prostitute and talked about it on there)64 votes -
Threads is the perfect Twitter alternative, just not for you
59 votes -
Man found guilty in 2012 of supporting distribution of child porn, because he ran a Tor exit node – the story of William Weber
18 votes -
Computer chip with built-in human brain tissue gets military funding
39 votes -
Any idea on running a (very) small silent disco system?
For the last few summers I've tried (and failed) to get a silent disco system working for a small group of friends. The requirements are Anyone should be able to join (locally) with a phone and a...
For the last few summers I've tried (and failed) to get a silent disco system working for a small group of friends. The requirements are
- Anyone should be able to join (locally) with a phone and a pair of bluetooth headphones. With the absence of headphone jacks I've found most people rely on bluetooth headphones.
- Low enough latency.
- Decent enough audio fidelity.
- No weird monetized apps you have to sign in to.
In a post covid age where we all had low latency video calls, it seems crazy there isn't an obvious way to have <10 people connected to one 128kbps audio stream. Here are the shortcomings
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Most silent disco systems (for events) use FM to broadcast to FM receivers. Broadcasting without a license is technically illegal, but easy enough to do. The lack of wired headphones means most phones no longer support receiving FM frequencies, as they used the headphone wire as an antenna. It's not ideal checking up on everyone's phone models to see whether or not they support FM ahead of time.
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Throughout covid we used Discord to listen to music together many miles apart. The trouble is bluetooth does not have enough bandwidth for speakers and a microphone. So - those with wired headphones it worked perfectly, but with bluetooth headphones the audio drops to landline phone quality, far below what's listenable. Discord supports 'Stage' calls where some participants are talking and others are only listening. Unfortunately this doesn't disable the microphone for the audience, and so the audio is still poor.
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Lastly is streaming. This solves everything above but the latency is too high. Using software called 'Stream What You Hear' allowed us to create a webpage with a stream running, but each person could be many seconds ahead or behind depending on when they loaded the stream. Attempts to sync everyone up would fail if someone accidentally locked their phone.
I'm wondering if the solution is going to have to be a bit more technically minded, which I'm open to investigating, but wondered if anyone here had any ideas to bounce.
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: I tried SnapCast as recommendation by @arch and it seems to do exactly what I was setting out to achieve, and FOSS software too! Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and help, I'm really excited to trial it.
23 votes -
‘Not for machines to harvest’: Data revolts break out against AI
40 votes -
C64 OS: A modern(ish) operating system for the Commodore 64
16 votes -
ChatGPT can be broken by entering these strange words, and nobody is sure why
56 votes -
'Fuck Spez': Reddit users unite to turn r/Place mural into a protest
146 votes -
What is/was your favorite BBS board?
Whats a BBS board (either active or inactive) that you like most, and why?
16 votes -
Pop!_OS hardware compatibility
I want to upgrade my gaming setup, but I want to move towards a desktop replacement laptop for the compact form factor to free up desk space or even get rid of a desk altogether. I also want to...
I want to upgrade my gaming setup, but I want to move towards a desktop replacement laptop for the compact form factor to free up desk space or even get rid of a desk altogether. I also want to try out Pop!_OS since I know it has good Nvidia drivers and that most games are compatible with Linux nowadays.
Has anyone had any experience with switching to Pop!_OS from Windows? What is software compatibility like? Pros and cons?
Also is anyone here using an 18 inch gaming laptop? I'm interested in huge laptops since I'm not really planning on taking it on the go.
10 votes -
Why transformative artificial intelligence is really, really hard to achieve
10 votes -
How can I leave Reddit?
I tried finding other alternatives to reddit, which is what got me here. I still love the content of the subs that I followed and am not wanting to really step away. I'd like to as a matter of my...
I tried finding other alternatives to reddit, which is what got me here. I still love the content of the subs that I followed and am not wanting to really step away. I'd like to as a matter of my own principles... but I still want it. So much knowledge has been amassed on that platform.
Do you guys still mess with reddit regularly? If not, how?
82 votes -
TSMC delays US chip fab opening, Arizona chip factory won't be operational until 2025
21 votes -
Apple tests ‘Apple GPT,’ develops generative AI tools to catch OpenAI
17 votes -
AI often mangles African languages. A network of thousands of coders and researchers is working to develop translation tools that understand their native languages
17 votes -
Fear, loathing, and excitement as Threads adopts open standard used by Mastodon
40 votes -
Selecting monitors for a three monitor setup
I'm in the market for a 3 monitor setup. I've got a huge desk and about $2k to spend. Ideally, I'd like three matching monitors, but here's the catch. I want the middle "main" monitor to be my...
I'm in the market for a 3 monitor setup. I've got a huge desk and about $2k to spend. Ideally, I'd like three matching monitors, but here's the catch. I want the middle "main" monitor to be my gaming monitor (120-144hz) while the side monitors can be 60hz. It'd be awesome if there was a brand that sold the same form factor (same base, bezel, etc).
Thoughts?
14 votes -
Firefox outperforms Chrome in speed for the first time according to a Speedometer assessment
75 votes -
Asking advice re search engines, search technique
So, in the past, I have been able to find new poems I enjoy by reading a critical essay about poetry and taking the referenced poem and author and typing the information into Google search. It...
So, in the past, I have been able to find new poems I enjoy by reading a critical essay about poetry and taking the referenced poem and author and typing the information into Google search. It used to be that that technique turned up a copy of the text of the poem and typically more poems by the author 95 percent of the time for me.
This year, when I try that same technique, Google gives me general reference articles about the life of the poet, or news about celebrities with similar names (not the same name at all), or just no search results. Does anyone know what happened? Can anyone help me use the internet to find new poems again?
Thanks very much
21 votes -
Plexamp is now available for free
31 votes -
Famed hacker Kevin Mitnick dead at 59
85 votes -
The dirty little secret that could bring down Big Tech
39 votes -
What text comparison software do you use?
I've only had exposure to Beyond Compare and would like your opinion/suggestions on what's good. mostly, I use it to compare two different versions of similar csv and potentially to merge them....
I've only had exposure to Beyond Compare and would like your opinion/suggestions on what's good.
mostly, I use it to compare two different versions of similar csv and potentially to merge them. Next use case is to compare two versions of simple scripts to see what's been updated.
Command line tools are a little too much for me, but if it seem to be very important to learn I supposed I could be encouraged to do so.
11 votes -
Dolphin Emulator no longer releasing on Steam, still legally safe
22 votes -
A glitch in the SEO matrix
47 votes -
Thinking of creating a local media center for my home. Any ideas/collaborators?
With the growing fragmentation of online streaming services, I'm thinking of setting up a local media server for my home that I can use over Kodi to stream movies/tv shows to my chromecast. I...
With the growing fragmentation of online streaming services, I'm thinking of setting up a local media server for my home that I can use over Kodi to stream movies/tv shows to my chromecast. I might go Monkey D. Luffy for the content itself.
Basically the basic plan is to have some base features and some add-ons as follows.
Base:
- Create a media server using a Raspberry Pi and some storage to serve as the base for all my viewing
- Setting up Kodi on all relevant platforms to consume data from (1) [This should be trivial]
Add-ons:
- Create a python script to check for new episodes of any existing show available on the net (Imdb, moviedb, wiki can be starting points to check this)
- Automate download of shows from 1. Can be setup to run at some daily interval
- Download subtitles for shows from 2.
- Maintain some Github list to add new movies/tv shows that user might be interested to download. Script from 1 should be able to consume this.
I used Popcorn time was a software that was able to do most of this at some point, but I remember reading that there were some security issues identified with it. I never really checked it afterwards, but happy to be corrected if it's reliable.
Edit: Thanks folks, I did not know that the RR-sphere already solves most of these problems, will look into it. I was looking forward to the scripting, but I'm guessing these solutions handle security much better than I would at my end.
29 votes -
Elon Musk sues the lawyers that forced him to buy Twitter
59 votes -
Typo leaks millions of US military emails to Mali web operator
28 votes -
How to choose a Python API framework
10 votes -
Fediverse software Calckey to be re-branded as Firefish
12 votes -
Intel discontinuing NUC manufacturing
39 votes -
How to use ChatGPT to ruin your legal career
28 votes -
The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training
59 votes -
Google is directing searchers straight to troves of nonconsensual deep fake porn, raising legal and ethical concerns
18 votes -
US review of the Ideapad Duet 5i
4 votes -
Having trouble staying logged in here, and elsewhere on iOS
I’ve been running into a minor annoyance of late, I tend to get logged out of ~ on a page refresh (I.e., pull the screen down) on iOS after about a day or less. I have also noticed that my outlook...
I’ve been running into a minor annoyance of late, I tend to get logged out of ~ on a page refresh (I.e., pull the screen down) on iOS after about a day or less. I have also noticed that my outlook web also does a thing where it seems to forget that I’m signed in under an account, and asks me to input an email, but if I refresh, there’s a 50/50 shot it will see I’m logged in and drop me into the outlook web client.
I recall some of these threads from a few years ago here (but having issues finding them in search) and seem to remember the consensus being “check your add-ons”…. But this is happening on the super nerfed Firefox for iOS (I.e., there are no add-in’s to my knowledge).
I’m running Ffirefox 115 if that helps at all
12 votes -
Amazon seeks to evade EU regulations by claiming it isn't a Very Large Online Platform
29 votes -
Microsoft lost its keys, and the US government got hacked
25 votes -
Why AI detectors think the US Constitution was written by AI
35 votes -
Every time you click this link, it will send you to a random Web 1.0 website
159 votes -
The Password Game
108 votes -
We must end the tyranny of printers in American life
49 votes -
User accountability and complicated technologies
I've been thinking about the arguments that are increasingly common when dealing with tech: "it's too complicated" and "I just want something that works". My father gifted a used computer to me...
I've been thinking about the arguments that are increasingly common when dealing with tech: "it's too complicated" and "I just want something that works".
My father gifted a used computer to me and my brother when we were kids. Ours to use, ours to take care. He would pay for the eventual screw up, but we had to walk several blocks carrying the tower to get assistance.
I messed up a lot over the years, mostly because I wanted to explore the little that I knew and learn more. I had some magazines that expected everything to go well if instructions were followed and no access to internet forums to ask for help. I was limited to just one language as well. I had to find a way out. Nowadays things are much more simple and really just work, until they don't and I can't really fix them.
In this world, what people can do is complain. Or offer a report of how things went wrong and wait patiently. It's not even that common for people in general to just go back to the version that worked. There's no version, only the app we use or can't use and it's not our responsibility any kind of maintenance.
I have to confess I was going in another direction when I started, but things are really limited from a consumer's point of view. In part, it's our fault for not wanting to deal with the burden of knowledge, it inevitably takes the control away from us, but big tech really approves and incentives this behavior.
As with so many problems I see in the world, education is the solution. And educating ourselves might be the only dependable option.
10 votes -
What browser extensions do you absolutely love to use?
I have two that I will highly recommend: Vimium has completely changed the way that I use my browsers. They have extensions for firefox and safari as well, but the link I provided is for chrome....
I have two that I will highly recommend:
Vimium has completely changed the way that I use my browsers. They have extensions for firefox and safari as well, but the link I provided is for chrome. If you are used to vim keybindings, it makes websites almost completely navigable using only your keyboard! Here's a video demonstration of it in case you're interested.
My other is SponsorBlock for youtube. This one makes using youtube a little more bearable by automatically skipping the baked-in sponsorships and advertisements. It has literally cut down my viewing times of some channels by like 20%.
Are there any other extensions that you absolutely love?
110 votes -
Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement
57 votes -
Inside Snopes: The rise, fall, and rebirth of an internet icon
23 votes -
Why do cloud providers keep building datacenters in America's hottest city?
33 votes -
AI does not exist but it will ruin everything anyway
32 votes