th3raid0r

joined 2 years ago
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Anyone ever sell their steam account? in c/gaming@beehaw.org
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 5 points 1 month ago

Pretty sure it's against the TOS to do that. So if found, the account is simply terminated and it ceases being valuable. That means that even if it's sold - it's value isn't in the games, but your friend network - as a sort of trojan spam/burner account. Which also means that it's not worth more than a few dollars at MOST unless you're some big-time twitch streamer with a vast network of steam friends.

So yeah, just be aware of what you're getting into. It's not likely some guy who wants an instant steam library - it's someone who wants to exploit your friends, family, and acquaintances for money via scams. Don't be that guy.

gitBlame in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I liked it just fine!

I know there are a lot of Asimov diehards that found it disappointing. I don't know why. The iRobot book wasn't even really a book, it was a collection of short stories. Not exactly an easy thing to adapt to a movie.

Why is Blender in Financial Trouble? in c/opensource@lemmy.ml
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think this take is starting to be a bit outdated. There have been numerous films to use Blender. The "biggest" recent one is RRR - https://www.blender.org/user-stories/visual-effects-for-the-indian-blockbuster-rrr/

Man in the High Castle is also another notable "professional" example - https://www.blender.org/user-stories/visual-effects-for-the-man-in-the-high-castle/

It's been slow, but Blender is starting to break into the larger industry. With bigger productions tending to come from non-U.S. producers.

There is something to be said about the tooling exclusivity in U.S. studios and backroom deals. But ultimately money talks and Autodesk only has so much money to secure those rights and studios only have so much money to spend on licensing.

I've been following blender since 2008 - what we have now is unimaginable in comparison to then. Real commercial viability has been reached (as a tool). What stands in the way now is a combination of entrenched interests and money. Intel shows how that's a tenuous market position at best, and actively self destructive at worst.

Ultimately I think your claim that it's not used by real studios is patently and proveably false. But I will concede that it's still an uphill battle and moneyed interests are almost impossible to defeat. They typically need to defeat themselves first sorta like Intel did.

How to photo/video a UFO/UAP - An astrophotography based approach in c/ufos@lemmy.world
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 2 points 2 months ago

Ha...

I listed only a mini tripod under "always", which - in the age of social media - is rather common daily carry. Everything else is software or under they "TRY" category.

But sure, be the internet contrarian you've always wanted to be. I'm sure your ancestors would be proud.

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How to photo/video a UFO/UAP - An astrophotography based approach (tucson.social)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by th3raid0r@tucson.social to c/ufos@lemmy.world
2 comments fedilink
 

Hi Folks!

With all the recent hysteria around drones/orbs right now. I wanted to offer a clear guide on how to get the best results when attempting to photo or video something you see.

If someone thinks they see a UFO - please know that quality is paramount right now. You should treat it like such. This isn't something folks can just whip out a phone and try and capture without contributing to the already-bad data. Given how long this mystery has persisted, I've been really surprised at how low effort most evidence is. Is this not important? Don't we want to get to the bottom of things? Well then, read on, here's how:

  1. ALWAYS- Validate what you are seeing with public data. Use AR Astronomy apps to rule out bright stars and planets. Use AR Flight Radar apps to rule out commercial planes. Also ensure you aren't looking at a lens flair by comparing against other light patterns in the image.
  2. ALWAYS- Use a tripod or stabilization of some sort and film from a stationary area. Even a mini tripod is better than nothing. Oh, and pull over if you're driving or ask to pull over if you are a passenger. This is important enough to pull over for right?
  3. ALWAYS- Lock your focus to infinity. You might need a 3rd party app to do it. Anything further than a few hundred feet doesn't need a focus wheel - just go straight to "infinity" or as far out focus as you can and lock it.
  4. TRY - To get as much data as possible. Is the orb still there? Do you have battery? Don't stop recording! 6 second snippets are a trend worth fighting against.
  5. TRY - Astrophotography mode if your phone supports it. It stacks thousands of exposures and tries to increase detail. Stop the capture if the subject moves to avoid streaks.
  6. TRY - Lucky imaging if you don't have an Astro mode on your phone. This means locking your shutter speed to 1 second, with a moderate-high ISO (about 3/4 of the way to max ISO) and taking images continuously. This can later be stacked in a photo editor or astronomy stacker where you can fine tune the image and get insane amounts of detail. If you find that the subject is too bright, reduce ISO first, then reduce shutter speed.
  7. TRY - To use a telescopic lens OR mount your camera to a telescope of some type. Many of the videos suggest that these anomalies are often stationary for long enough to be viewable in astronomy telescopes.

If you follow these tips, you'll get better photos than 90% of what's being shared recently. Even if you're using a smartphone.

Anyone else have good tips?

EDIT: Added note about what to do if lucky imaging subject is too bright.

How can the Fediverse protect against AI slop? in c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean, regional instances don't have to stop folks from engaging primarily with interest based communities.

Some regions will dominate certain interests for example - here in Tucson we're consider one of the Amateur Astronomy capitals of the world. If mander.xyz were to disappear tomorrow, Tucson would make a good home for all of the fediverse's astronomy needs even though its a region based instance.

Further, there's nothing that states an interest-based instance needs any registration. One could imagine a world where local instances have all the users and identities, and the interest based instances simply provide communities to the larger fediverse with no users of their own.

But yeah, it's definitely a paradigm shift that makes interest based communities a bit more difficult to find.

How can the Fediverse protect against AI slop? in c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh okay! I'm sorry about the misunderstanding.

How can the Fediverse protect against AI slop? in c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 4 points 2 months ago (6 children)

???

I don't particularly have any issues with them.

But if a user did, they don't have much recourse. I'm talking about that as a structural aspect. Not a moral one.

But sure if you just want to claim this puts me in the !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com community by ripping it out from any relevant context, go ahead I guess?

How can the Fediverse protect against AI slop? in c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 17 points 2 months ago (19 children)

Hi there! Admin of Tucson.social here.

I think that the only way the fediverse can honestly handle this is through local/regional nodes not interest based global nodes.

Ideally this would manifest as some sort of non-profit entity that would work with municipalities to create community owned spaces that have paid moderation.

So then comes the problem of folks not agreeing with a local nodes moderation staff - but that's also WHY it should be local. It's much easier to petition and organize against someone who exists in your town than some guy across the globe who happens to own a large fediverse node.

This model just doesn't work (IMO) if nodes can't be accountable to a local community. If you don't like how Mastodon, or lemmy.world are moderated you have zero recourse. For Tucson.social - citizens of Tucson can appeal to me directly, and because they are my fellow citizens I take them FAR more seriously.

Only then will people be trusting enough to allow for the key element to protecting against AI Slop. Human Indemnification Systems. Right now, if you wanted to ask the community of lemmy.world to provide proof they are human, you'd wind up with an exodus. There's just no trust for something like that and it would be hard to acquire enough trust.

With a local node, that conversation is still difficult, but we can do things that just don't scale with global nodes. Things like validating a person by meeting them to mark them as "indemnified" on a platform, or utilizing local political parties to validate if a given person is "real" or not using voter rolls.

But yeah, this is a bit rambly, but I'll conclude that this is a problem that exists at the intersection between trust and scale and that I believe that local nodes are the only real solution that can handle both.

GenAI killed music discovery for me. How are folks discovering HUMAN music in the modern era? in c/music@beehaw.org
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 2 points 3 months ago

Well, in the cases that I saw documented it happened in one of two ways.

  1. Spotify assumes a record label submits good faith information. Many of these impersonation attempts come from "brand new" lables like "Gupta Music" and such. Since they are in the system as a label, it's more permissive and Spotify generally assumes that it's not their place to ask why a Band using one label is suddenly using another. These are the worst offenders and actually impersonate real artists.

  2. Another approach that's been reported is to not actually impersonate the artist, but to confuse the user that this is the artist visually. Take for example, The Weeknd - AI artists might upload a band named "Weeknd" or "The Weekend" or some other similar permutation - banking on genre similarity to get the algorithm to present you the song and hoping that you don't notice the misspelling. These are still bad, but a bit less so since I can usually find the real band page for the "right" info.

As for new artists that get recommended, a quick search should be able to make it clear if an artist is a real person / group no? With tour dates or pictures and stuff?

I echo xuxxun's feedback here, the newest bands often lack any sort of presence - especially with their first single or EP. A notable one back when they first released was Apocalypse Orchestra - basically ZERO info on the artist except for a newly created facebook page with no images or anything. Obviously that changed in just a few short months. It's definitely not a method that would reliably sort AI from Human - but I do agree that it's more likely to catch the AI stuff.

GenAI killed music discovery for me. How are folks discovering HUMAN music in the modern era? in c/music@beehaw.org
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 3 points 3 months ago

I read a bit of it. And while I understand the desire to get away from folks on the internet being harassing. That is the problem of the internet right now. I'd be remiss to say that if I had a thin skin, Tucson.social would be a lot harder to run. I'm not excusing the meanness of the internet when I say this, after all, it's one of tucson.social's goal to deal with that. It's just a pragmatic fact.

There's also the fact that the Creator has no desire to hand this off. I understand that is work. And that I am not entitled to their work. However, it seems to perform a defeatist narrative. Which just doesn't feel constructive.

I'm in no way trying to be mean.

It's just that this Creator is coming across as "taking his/her/their ball and leaving." It kind of makes it harder for the community to pick up where they left off. No platform, no code base. And I think it's fair to criticize that. It comes across as "returning the meanness they received and redirecting it at people with good intentions".

I'm the type of person who is well resourced enough to pick this up and continue. Had I known about this project earlier, I might have been pitching in this entire time. But reading these posts now make me feel pretty unwelcome at least in that capacity.

I too am optimistic about community picking up where they left off. It's just that it's a lot harder to do when there's not even ashes to rebuild from.

I'm sure the Creator is a good person. And I have no ill will against them. But I am a little bit upset that what they built will be lost in entirety.

I think, going forward, open source will be a requirement for any sort of platform like this for me. I just don't want to be forced to lose something good because the Creator has made that decision for me.

But to your point, I probably shouldn't have called them an ass.

As an aside, I think you shouldn't be recommending this site. If it's going to shut down, then what is the point of learning about this? There certainly isn't any ability to swoop in and try to keep it going. I hope the existing user base enjoys the sunset celebration! But as a new user it just doesn't make sense.

GenAI killed music discovery for me. How are folks discovering HUMAN music in the modern era? in c/music@beehaw.org
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Looks like this is about to go away. 😢

EDIT: Looking at the persons thread as to why they are shutting down is... odd? Like, okay dude, you aint handing this over to anyone and nuking it - being an ass about it doesn't help. And I say that not as a random internet denizen, but someone who supports multiple websites including tucson.social. I know there will be a day to dim the lights or pass the torch, but I'd never play up being the victim quite like this creator has.

GenAI killed music discovery for me. How are folks discovering HUMAN music in the modern era? in c/music@beehaw.org
[–] th3raid0r@tucson.social 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Bandcamp, Qobuz, 7digital

Yup, I do that where possible now. Usually only for albums though.

I also buy a lot of band merch these days and try to go when they play locally.

I only take to the high seas in the event I can't find a particular hifi release or something equally niche and eBay is no help.

CD's have a nostalgia appeal to it for me, and since I'm finally financially stable I've been wanting to get back into collecting physical media. It's just hard because not many new bands bother with physical media at all anymore. At least outside of limited run releases.

As an aside, I don't get the resurgence of tape players at all! Tape being lower fidelity coupled with the shorter lifespan was something I thought people disliked.

UPDATE:

RYM is awesome. Thank you!

24
GenAI killed music discovery for me. How are folks discovering HUMAN music in the modern era? (tucson.social)
 

So first off, let me set this straight.

I actually like GenAI music. It offers me a way to er... "create" tracks that resonate with a particular moment in my life. It's more personal and relevant than anything most artists produce. But that's where it ends - I don't want to hear GenAI mass market slop. Heck, I don't want to hear MOST folk's AI Generated stuff. That's for them. The music I generate is for me.

Moving on from that - I primarily use Spotify currently for music discovery, and up until a few months ago it's been the most reliable way to find new Artists that might interest me. Their algorithm, while not perfect, generally hooked me up with artists that were in the ballpark of what I like and were REAL.

Today, about half of my "Release Radar" is AI generated slop. Some of it is published under their own names and labels which is fine, but others are transparently attempting to dupe listeners by imitating or outright impersonating known bands. However, even in the "nice" case of well labeled and non-impersonating AI tunes, it's significantly getting in the way of finding new stuff.

I think I'm done with Spotify, recent statements from the CEO has me thinking that they don't consider this to be a problem. They aren't looking to fix this issue, and aren't even pretending to.

But the problem is, none of the other music streaming services are in a better situation. None have sought to deal with the artist impersonation problem or general labeling of AI generated music.

I feel like I have to go back to CD's and word-of-mouth like back in the "old days" - at least if I'm to be sure that the music was actually made by a human. But how long would it be before we start getting CD's with AI generated music on them? My hope is that the fad is too "low effort" to bother with pressing vinyl or burning CD's.

How are you discovering new (human) music in this rapidly changing landscape?

54
My dad just got back online after years of boondocking it - he likes tactical shooters with a rich map making scene - what's out there? (tucson.social)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by th3raid0r@tucson.social to c/gaming@beehaw.org
9 comments fedilink
 

As in title, my father is an American nomad, and he just recently got a spot with good internet signal for a few months.

He hasn't really played in years, and the last game he really enjoyed was Warface and Novalogic's Joint Operations: Combined Arms.

There is a bit of a twist though, his vision certainly isn't what it used to be, so whatever game I suggest needs accessibility options galore.

I found a really good "singleplayer only" experience in Ravenfield and the style lends itself very well to my father's limited vision.

Is there something like Ravenfield but with a well supported online component? Perhaps Battlebit: Remastered is pretty close?

EDIT: I suppose the genre is better described a "mil-sim" than "tactical shooter".

UPDATE: Someone recommended the latest Insurgency game. After realizing my father had over 1K hours in the previous Insurgency game I realized that this was the game to get. Turns out it was a good choice! That's where most of my father's online buddies ended up! Thanks all! Feel free to keep recommending things, but we already seem to have a winner!

77
PSA - If your Pixel no longer connects to your wifi after the most recent update - disable WPA3 on your router. (tucson.social)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by th3raid0r@tucson.social to c/android@lemmy.world
13 comments fedilink
 

Obviously this is still a Pixel issue - but at least I can connect to my home Wifi again.

I previously posted saying that Wifi was broken in general, but I mistook my ongoing Xfinity outage as being unable to connect to any wifi. Thus I removed the post.

When the outage ended, I could connect to some other networks and couldn't figure out why.

It wasn't until after a painful factory reset process that I tried going from WPA3/WPA2 mode to just WPA2 on both of my APs and suddenly everything is able to connect again.

It seems that the recent OTA update borked WPA3-Personal in a way that doesn't allow it to navigate the "compatibility mode" of WPA3/WPA2 either.

Edit - Looks like this might even be something Verizon specific - UQ1A-20231205.015.A1

Edit2 - Also mine is a Pixel 7 Pro - a Pixel 6 Pro user reports no such issue - YMMV.

1
Trying out the different Arch based distros for fun and science - Why does Garuda perform so bad? (tucson.social)
 

Other Arch Flavors I've tried (some are no longer with us) include:

  • ArchBang
  • EndeavourOS
  • Manjaro
  • Chakra

So with that out of the way, I've found my Garuda experience incredibly painful. From messy repositories (Chaotic-AUR plus their own stuff), to an overly involved upgrade process (when using the helper) - the distro screams of a team that has no freakin' clue how to maintain an actual distribution.

It's basically Arch on hard mode with so many settings rolled into their own packages which need to be removed before customization.

Then we get to the purported performance enhancements and, honestly, this is the worst performing distro I've ever used, by multiple miles. I'm not sure if its the scheduler settings, or something with the zram settings - but this distro hitches and hangs constantly. (5950x, 64GB of Ram, Samsung 980 Pro drives, NVIDIA RTX 3080Ti - NOT a weak machine by any standards)

I'd normally chalk it up to compositor issues on Wayland (yes, I prefer Wayland and it works fine for most Arch derivitaves even with Nvidia). However the performance issues even crop up on basic terminal commands on a TTY with lots of weird hangs and lags.

The ONLY thing that was easier on this distro was installing the various Proton GE builds and other specialty stuff found in the Chaotic-AUR. But given the above, it's definitely not worth it when one can configure an Arch box to do the same things without all of the problems.

Perhaps I'm not doing something right? Given all the praise for this distro, perhaps it shouldn't perform like this?

To be completely and utterly clear - I'm an advanced user trying out these distros for fun and discovery. I can indeed "just use a different distro" but wanted to give this one a fair shake before moving on.

8
How would you describe your neurodivergent idiolect? (tucson.social)
 

As an AuDHD person with Echolalalalalalalalalia 🙃, I find that my accent/idiolect has changed as I've aged and been exposed to different accents of all types in the U.S.. I just kinda pick up certain things I like.

For example I like:

  • The British pronunciation/spelling of Aluminium and Banana
  • The Irish pronunciation of three (my grandfather who was not at all born in Ireland also used it though)
  • Upper Midwest sayings and phrases - Ope!, Oh ya sure!
  • Extended "Wwweeeelp"s
  • I bounce ALL around my register in speaking sometimes. I've sometimes been described as sing-songy.

But also dislike certain aspects of things and seek to avoid them at all costs....

  • Cot/Caught, Pen/Pin - NO MERGERS! Ever. They must be different sounds.
  • Glottal Stops in place of consonants are a no go - pronounce the whole thing dang it!

There's a whole lot more of course, but I need to finish this post so I can go be an unregulated mess after a long (and particularly annoying) day of work.

So what about y'all? I'm super curious to know!

24
As an SRE, what do I do about Alerts caused almost entirely by poor customer communication or misuse of a product? (tucson.social)
 

A bit more context there since you might wonder why customers can cause Sev1's.

Well, I work for a Database Technology company and we provide a managed service offering. This managed service offering has SLA's that essentially enforce a 5 minute response time for any "urgent" issue.

Well, a common urgent issue is that the customer suddenly wants to load in a bunch of new data without informing us which causes the cluster to stop accepting write loads.

It's to the point where most if not all urgent pages result in some form of scaling of the cluster.

Since this is a customer driven behavior, there is no real ability to plan for it - and since these particular customers have special requirements (and thus, less ability to automate scaling operations), I'm unsure if there is any recourse here.

It's to the point that it doesn't even feel like an SRE team anymore - we should just instead be called "On-demand scaling agents". Since we're constantly trying to scale ahead of our customers.

All in all, I'm starting to feel like this is a management/sales level issue that I cannot possibly address. If we're selling this managed service offering as essentially "magic" that can be scaled whenever they need then it seems like we're being setup for failure at the organizational level. Not to mention, not being smart about costs behind scaling and factoring that into these contracts.

So, fellow SRE's have you had to have this conversation with a larger org? What works for something like this? What doesn't? Should I just seek greener pastures at this point?

P.S. - Posted c/Programming due to lack of a c/SRE

54
What earplugs do y'all recommend? My sensory issues putting things in my ears makes most of them unpleasant for me. (tucson.social)
 

I've tried foam earplugs, but those are impossible to use socially as everything's too muddy. Also they'd end up sliding out eventually.

I eventually bought audiophile grade earplugs and they are FANTASTIC but the flange tips irritate my ears so bad.

I know circumaural headphones work great, but people have a harder time understanding I'm just using them as a filter to even hear them.

5
Fellow Heathens, what are your favorite Folk/Viking/Medieval metal/rock bands? (tucson.social)
 

Currently inspired by a discussion on the beehaw discord.

The three I always end up listening to are:

  1. Heilung
  2. Ensiferum
  3. Falkenbach
35
Jeff Geerling made his book "Ansible for DevOps" Free on linkedin today. (leanpub.com)
 

No Idea if this will be a permanent coupon link, but figured I should share here.

source

6
Hypersomnia and Lucid Dreaming + Autism/ADHD makes getting out of bed every day so difficult. (tucson.social)
 

So yeah, anyone else have a harder time getting out of bed than should be reasonable?

Like, sure I have insomnia issues at times, but most of the time I'm fine on the falling asleep end - it's just getting up that's difficult.

First - I don't think my ADHD part of my brain wants to let go of all the fantastic things that happen in lucid dreams.

Second - no matter what I do, I never seem to feel rested in the morning anymore. Weekends can see me sleeping 10+ hours before I feel a semblance of "normal".

Some might say "oh you should just get up and get started" and I do sometimes! But you just might find me dozing off in a chair a couple hours later.

FWIW - It's been like this most of my adult life. Ever since adolescence particularly. You could find me napping, completely upright, in the back of a classroom. (My teachers never cared because I'd still come in the next day and ace the finals/midterms).

I desperately miss the perceived energy of my youth. I'd be up at 4AM to watch super early cartoons (Sonic, Sailor Moon, Animaniacs - in that order) and never felt the need for a nap in the day. It wouldn't even matter if I feel asleep late back then - getting up was just that much easier.

Anyone here with similar issues? How do you cope?

214
Admins, we're about to have a really bad SPAM problem when Lemmy removes captcha support in v.0.18 - You ALL have a responsibility to communicate back to lemmy devs to try to stop it. (tucson.social)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by th3raid0r@tucson.social to c/technology@beehaw.org
182 comments fedilink
 

Look, we can debate the proper and private way to do Captchas all day, but if we remove the existing implementation we will be plunged into a world of hurt.

I run tucson.social - a tiny instance with barely any users and I find myself really ticked off at other Admin's abdication of duty when it comes to engaging with the developers.

For all the Fediverse discussion on this, where are the github issue comments? Where is our attempt to convince the devs in this.

No, seriously WHERE ARE THEY?

Oh, you think that just because an "Issue" exists to bring back Captchas is the best you can do?

NO it is not the best we can do, we need to be applying some pressure to the developers here and that requires EVERYONE to do their part.

The Devs can't make Lemmy an awesome place for us if us admins refuse to meaningfully engage with the project and provide feedback on crucial things like this.

So are you an admin? If so, we need more comments here: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3200

We need to make it VERY clear that Captcha is required before v0.18's release. Not after when we'll all be scrambling...

EDIT: To be clear I'm talking to all instance admins, not just Beehaw's.

UPDATE: Our voices were heard! https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3200#issuecomment-1600505757

The important part was that this was a decision to re-implement the old (if imperfect) solution in time for the upcoming release. mCaptcha and better techs are indeed the better solution, but at least we won't make ourselves more vulnerable at this critical juncture.

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