elucubra

@elucubra@sopuli.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Swift’s new album comes in cassette. Who is buying those?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, first: You do you. Second: I’m not in possession of absolute truth.

  But if I may, I’d like to share some of my experientially acquired knowledge.

  On sound; I stand by my words. Why accept worse quality sound because the medium is inferior? Do whatever you want to post process, but having control. Want permanent “warmth”? Buy, or even better, build a tube amp. Pretty easy BTW. Want some sound characteristics? Get a proper equalizer and learn to use it. Want crackle? Well, really, that is something to discuss with your therapist… BTW, what all people call warmth is just a slight bump in the 60-80 Khz range. I like many old amps, and speakers. I’ve actually designed and sold a few bespoke speaker systems. Some vintage Klipsch sets, with a refoaming are still astounding, but sources have gotten way better.

  Regarding photography; I bought my first SLR, a Vivitar XV1 ( A Pentax K1000 copy) in the 80’s. All manual, but with a built in light meter. From there I went on to a Pentax , then another, then Pentax’s first autofocus, and the worlds first SLR with a pop-up flash, often derided as a gimmick, but amazingly useful, the mighty SF1, I also had a Nikon F601 with a couple of lenses and a Old school 6x6 Bellows Zeiss. I’ve developed quite a bit. I kind of know my stuff.

  Analog photography is not superior, but different. It’s absolutely true that the limited amount of film, and the cost of developing, promotes thoughtful composition, framing, and anticipation. Selecting the right film, understanding your lenses, and, crucially, undesrtanding that the most important piece of kit is the lens, 2nd the tripod, and then the body,
  helps a lot in getting superior photographs. If you know what you want, understand your film, your camera, your kit, you can get results unmatchable by digital, no matter how much post-processing. What, why, how, are necessary ingredients in film photography.

  That said, I would think, compose, etc the photo in my mind, and then shoot bursts, the ask for a contact sheet, and choose what I wanted for prints. No need to gamble all on the speed of your index finger. Film was the cheapest variable in the equation, except for Kodachrome, the GOAT of films. Fuji makes some very good film, but Kodachrome was beyond anything.

  Kodachrome 64, and occasionally 25, how I miss you! those films demanded discipline, but the rewards were astounding.

  Yes, in some respects, film is still superior to digital, ***IF ***you understand the medium, kit, process, and thinking.

  A digital compact? Fine, but get one of the later ones. Advice from someone who bought and used an Olympus 1.2 Mpx fixed lens in 1999. There is NOOOO redeeming value in an early digital, except… Yeah, NONE.

  Anecdote: I recently saw a kid, floating around his friends, taking pics with an old point-and-shoot. The cringe was strong. I was thinking, "Jeez, kid! I’m all for film, but buy an actual reflex with a proper lens, they are cheap as fuck in second hand marketplaces!!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Swift’s new album comes in cassette. Who is buying those?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You may agree that “cost, quality, and convenience” are pretty damn desirable.

  I do agree, and kind of miss, the anticipation for a record release, the listening to the radio (in my case the quality non-commercial programs, think BBC, NPR, and their equivalents) with the finger on the record button, the wonder of buying a new LP, and poring over the jacket, and the occasional included booklet, flipping through records at the store,and many other cool aspects, but I stand by the vastly increased quality and durability.

  If you want the rituals (save the fucking chore and expense of cleaning records), CDs are a pretty nice compromise. Tactile, mainly manual, choice of playing linearly, as many artists intended, possibility of programming or shuffling, high quality, and many other choices. With records and even worse, cassettes, you are stuck with the artifacts introduced by a bad medium and bad equipment. Want “warmth”? get a decent tube amp. Better yet, build from as kit. Great experience, and if you want control over sound, buy and learn to use a proper equalizer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨80s Nostalgia AI Slop Is Boomerfying the Masses for a Past That Never Existed⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I may have been one of the lucky. With all it’s warts, the 80’s, for many young people, were a banger. Sort of the final bang of the 60’s and 70’s. Perfect? Nowhere near, but the music, social, artistic, and so many other aspects, were pretty damn cool, and for the young crowd it was mainly what mattered. Things like the fall of the Berlin wall, the perceived end of the end of the cold war and the nuclear Armageddon threat gave us a sense of optimism. Looking back there are things, like the Reagan/Thatcher tandem, that were setting the stage to the neo-liberal clusterfuck we live in, but our focus was elsewhere.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨makes more sense than this shit⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  “Apparently” Shroedinger’s weasel?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Swift’s new album comes in cassette. Who is buying those?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree. The loudness is not what I dislike the least. Most 1st gen CDs were the work of love of sound engineers and producers, given near miraculous equipment, to produce records with unheard of quality. I own several. Dire straits Brothers in arms is one of these, a truly brilliant recording (The album itself is brilliant) The sound quality is truly astounding.

  The whole thing took a downturn when they started compressing the recordings to fit FM frequencies. Why they didn’t do the compression at the FM station, and leave the uncompressed stream for us, is always been a mystery to me.

  As for the range, it is generally pointless. Most people, even when young, can’t hear above 20 Khz.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Swift’s new album comes in cassette. Who is buying those?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That is by design. Unwanted noise is shit. A large part of the electronic pathways were noise and other unwanted signals removers

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Swift’s new album comes in cassette. Who is buying those?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Shit! I forgot about the life -changing Need to spool with a Pencil

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Taylor Swift’s new album comes in cassette. Who is buying those?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Older dude here:

  There is no advantage to listening to something on a cassette, except for the vintage brownie points.

  I did the analog to digital transition, and miss nothing. There was an intermediate time, when mp3s came along, and people were lowering bitrates to absurd levels, but digital is simply better.

  All the people talking wonders about the “warmth”, “tone”, and other supposedly desirable qualities are very mistaken. What they are fawning over is noise, feedback, muddiness, lack of range, lack of definition, and so on. Vinyl records are shit. They make sound by literally scratching something.

  The only advantage of tape was, at the time, it’s smaller size and portability, but sound was worse than records. I still have the last deck I owned, a marvel of technology of the time, a double auto-reverse TEAC deck with Dolby and Dbx noise reduction, auto azimuth, programmable, etc, which is objectively shit compared to a decent mp3 player, provided that the music is encoded in lossless, or large enough bitrate.

  CDs were a massive improvement, and the pinnacle were DDD CDs, which were Digital recording, Digital mixing, and Digital mastering, meaning very little analog garbage was introduced in the process.

  The objective for audio equipment is to be transparent, to not add or detract anything from the original performance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft breaks Windows reset and recovery⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  “Thanks to Microsoft’s legendary approach to quality control, installing Windows patches these days is getting to be less like Russian Roulette and more like accidentally stepping on a rake left in the grass.”

  Oooof!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh, so thats where the expression seersucker comes form!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Butter made from carbon tastes like the real thing, gets backing from Bill Gates⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Mmmmm.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Butter made from carbon tastes like the real thing, gets backing from Bill Gates⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My ex wife’s uncle was the director of the south American division of the arm that made coloring and flavorings of one of the big Food/Chem groups, Procter & Gamble, or unilever, or one of those. Can’t remember.

  No one in his household ate any processed/ultra processed foods.

  Do the math.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft no longer permits local Windows 10 accounts if you want Consumer Extended Security Updates — support beyond EOL requires a Microsoft Account link-up even if you pay $30⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I looked into the wine installation in Linux, and it seems that there is a custom wine setup that generally works, but I do professional graphic design, and page setting/layout as a side gig. I don’t need the hassle, or risking losing work, even with auto saves.

  I started a thread about Affinity in Linux in 2022. It’s still quite lively.

  The main idea was that considering the growth of Linux, they could get ahead of Adobe in that space and tap into a market space that is pretty in crowded.

  It’s still a fairly active thread.

  Affinity still says that they have no intention of doing a Linux port.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft no longer permits local Windows 10 accounts if you want Consumer Extended Security Updates — support beyond EOL requires a Microsoft Account link-up even if you pay $30⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Affinity suite, Designer, Photo, and Publisher. I have used Inkscape, Gimp, and Scribus, but Affinity is very intuitive, easy to work with, professional, inexpensive one-time payment (per major version), very well integrated between apps, and follows the same paradigms. I’ve never been a fan of Adobe.

  Running Affinity in Wine is a hack, and a lot less responsive in a VM.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft no longer permits local Windows 10 accounts if you want Consumer Extended Security Updates — support beyond EOL requires a Microsoft Account link-up even if you pay $30⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not saying it can’t be an alternative for a lot of people.

  I’m just stating my personal position, for my use case.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft no longer permits local Windows 10 accounts if you want Consumer Extended Security Updates — support beyond EOL requires a Microsoft Account link-up even if you pay $30⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m a Linux user since it was distributed in diskette images.

  I use both Windows and Linux, mainly Linux, but I dual boot or use a VM sometimes because I need to use some programs which are not practical or just don’t work with wine.

  I don’t see Linux as different tool.

  I mainly use cruciform (pozidrive if possible) screws and screwdrivers, but sometimes I have use flat.

  No drama, no religious zealotery.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sony says it’s not done making Xperia phones just yet⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sony has generally made awesome stuff. The number of groundbreaking concepts or tech is incredible, although they have been outputting less “wow stuff” lately. I get the impression that their marketing sucks balls lately.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Think about it⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So, 1 star?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"ok, imagine a gun."⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My kids say “Chewbacca!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google search boss says AI isn’t killing search clicks⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I run sites for a major NGO for addiction recovery. We often ask people how they found us. More than half now say AI. We don’t have ads in our sites, but for people monetizing their sites this must be dramatic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imagine if Amazon and all jobs out there were cooperatively owned?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Anybody saying that co-ops don’t work or whatever should check Mondragon which thrives in thoroughly capitalist Spain.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 11 is a minefield of micro-aggressions in the shipping lane of progress⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So, we essentially need a non evil company to put together a curated distro, with a solid wine solution for most windows shit, something businesses can trust for their day to day, and then people, being familiar with their work linux would come over to the light side of the force at home.

  Seteam OS for non-gamers?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avatar (the one with the blue aliens) is such a weird franchise⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Anticapitalist that made over 2 Billion dollars…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Duckstation(one of the most popular PS1 Emulators) dev plans on eventually dropping Linux support due to Linux users, especially Arch Linux users.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Merriam Webster seems to agree with me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Duckstation(one of the most popular PS1 Emulators) dev plans on eventually dropping Linux support due to Linux users, especially Arch Linux users.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  it genuinely seems like this guy hates developing duckstation at all.

  I don’t think you get it. He probably enjoys creating, and achieving something awesome. He has no obligation to deal with entitled users of what he gives away

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Duckstation(one of the most popular PS1 Emulators) dev plans on eventually dropping Linux support due to Linux users, especially Arch Linux users.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If I give something for free, it’s my rules. Simple as that. Don’t like it? don’t accept it.

  Linus is often a dick. He even acknowledges it. Don’t like it? Well, there are other OS.

  I’m not like that, I like being helpful, I actually do many volunteer hours a week, but… I do hate entitlement. I don’t see these people giving Microsoft as hard a time.

  Lets keep the Karen constrained, please.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Polish Train Maker Is Suing the Hackers Who Exposed Its Anti-Repair Tricks⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I was just thinking this. I imagine that there is only a few hundred train operators in the world, so they can all be reached easily, and would pay attention to the Polish rail operator.

  Simply explain the whole ordeal and bullshittery, and let them know what will happen to them.

  It’s unlikely that Mowag would get another sale. They are fucking with mainly state operator, who have a LOT of time and resources.

  If I were the Polish operator, I would have found a new hobby.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia plans to boost presence in Israel with multibillion-dollar tech campus in north⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, but I imagine that the volume thing still applies. I’m guessing here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Startup Claims Its Fusion Reactor Concept Can Turn Cheap Mercury Into Gold⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, my friend. Gold is an incredibly useful material, often not used because of price, unlike diamonds, which are mostly useful for abrasion/cutting.