Do we have any astronomy people here that can confirm this 3D model is wrong? And maybe explain how NASA of all organisations keeps showing it on their site? Or is there really a gigantic canyon running as a band over mercury, like someone tried to separate two halves, which somehow shows up in no other pictures I can find? #Astronomy #Mercury #NASA
This NASA site botched texture mapping Mercury pretty badly, and I was so so confused for a very brief amount of time. "Surely," I thought for a second or two, "someone would have noticed and written about this several hundred mile wide saggital canyon that completely encircles the planet. But what if.... aliens?"
@cjrando It's not wrong, but it IS misleading. If you check the model on the website, and zoom in, you'll notice that the edges of the "canyon" are not smooth, but stepped.
This is because the image is a composite taken from multiple photographs taken at different times of the local day by an orbiting spacecraft passing overhead. In some of the images, due to the different times of day when different regions were imaged, there are no shadows and so craters and other features look flat and smooth. In others, the shadows are long and pronounced, making the features look much taller, and more sharply defined.
In other words, there is no canyon. It's an imaging artifact. NASA would have kept it as is in order to be as true to the actual captured image data as possible. They often commission artists to paint objects when they want to give an impression of what something looks like, but that was probably not the goal here.
Full disclosure though: I wasn't involved with creating that image and didn't speak to anybody who was. My answer was an educated guess. I'm pretty confident about it being a mosaic (the stepped edges are a dead giveaway), which is why I spoke to definitively, but I might be wrong on the details of WHY the individual squares look different.
The main story starts on the day that Princess Diana died, though that fact is not important for the film I think.
This is one of those days/nights that everybody remembers. I remember watching the BBC when they switched to a live feed of a tunnel entrance in Paris, with nothing to see and no explanation yet why. It was very eerie watching this tunnel, knowing something bad must have happened which they hadn't confirmed yet, so they couldn't say. Then slowly the information trickled out, that it had something to do with Diana, then that there had been a crash, then that the people were treated in the car due to bad injuries, then that they had been taken to hospital. All while for hours looking at a dark tunnel entrance in Paris, with nothing to see. Of course everybody hoped she would survive, but before the news eventually came that she had died, we saw the car being taken away on a truck and from the state of the car I lost all hope right then that anybody could survive that (it's miraculous that one person did, all three others died).
Ever since I bought a can of chemicals against silverfish I haven't seen the insects anymore. I haven't used the can yet, but it seems to act as deterrent.
So why did I stop using Tumblr? Back when I stopped actively using it (I still have the account), there were two main problems. Firstly it was utterly broken in varying but always original ways. It gave me the impression that people working for Tumblr didn't use their own software. Secondly they introduced terms at the time (when they were under Yahoo) that forced you to accept that everything you did was communicated to all kinds of 'partners' like Facebook, with no opt-out. The latter has since relaxed.
This caused me to look into Mastodon (at first) and I've since started to appreciate the open source nature and the ability to have different servers with different moderation that all interoperate.
I have so many ideas to un-mess-ify my blog, but it's so much work that I can't bring myself to begin doing it. And I'm also somehow making things more complicated than they need to be, adding moving servers, going multi-site, new domains, caching, to just reorganising content and making a homepage.
If you want advise on how to make simple things more difficult, ask me.
Still thinking about what radically different things my ideal social media / microblogging platform would do, and another thing struck me: no @-mentions. No need to protect someone's mentions if there are none.
Yes, I'm still on my Tumblr-like vs Twitter-like thing and how within ActivityPub platforms we have loads of the latter and none of the former (that I know of). I don't know whether Tumblr has since added @-mentions but back when I used it they weren't a thing and I loved how this made conversations impossible. No trolls etc demanding attention in a thread that everybody is exposed to, if there is no thread.
I'm thinking of have these interaction options: you post your microblog post and indicate whether you want replies, default no. Followers and profile visitors see the post and can respond with a like, a reblog on their own profile, or a reblog on their own profile with added text. They can also reply privately to you, which won't show up publicly attached to the post (yet). You have three tabs for incoming replies: replies you asked for (which cause a notifi
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Still thinking about what radically different things my ideal social media / microblogging platform would do, and another thing struck me: no @-mentions. No need to protect someone's mentions if there are none.
Yes, I'm still on my Tumblr-like vs Twitter-like thing and how within ActivityPub platforms we have loads of the latter and none of the former (that I know of). I don't know whether Tumblr has since added @-mentions but back when I used it they weren't a thing and I loved how this made conversations impossible. No trolls etc demanding attention in a thread that everybody is exposed to, if there is no thread.
I'm thinking of have these interaction options: you post your microblog post and indicate whether you want replies, default no. Followers and profile visitors see the post and can respond with a like, a reblog on their own profile, or a reblog on their own profile with added text. They can also reply privately to you, which won't show up publicly attached to the post (yet). You have three tabs for incoming replies: replies you asked for (which cause a notification), replies from people you follow (optionally cause a notification), replies you didn't ask for from people you don't follow (never cause a notification or unread count or badge). If you like a reply, if you even see it, you can hit a button to promote it to your microblog, seen on your profile, possibly attached to the post.
What finally broke the Tumblr software, because I suspect they weren't aware of all the places in the code it was used, was that they stopped using post types. So I want post types back on my hypothetical ideal platform. It would have post types like:
a note, short and only text
an article, longer like a mobile web page with photos and videos between sections of text
a photo post with one or more photos, with a short caption, shown in a layout the poster controls
a video post with a description
an audio post with a description
posts asking for interactions like: poll, question, form, q&a
a link share post with introduction text (which includes the link preview from the sender side)
Miranda Cosgrove has made car-selfies a very regular feature and in this latest one she's wearing what given the car seats colour is almost a camouflage dress. I mean, is she even in the picture? 😉 #MirandaCosgrove
In my quest to find how to do 'unlisted' videos on PeerTube, I found that PeerTube has unlisted videos. At least if you switch the UI to English, one of the privacy options is 'unlisted'. In Dutch it is called 'Geheim', which means 'Secret', which is much closer to the real behaviour. The 'unlisted' videos of PeerTube don't work at all like 'unlisted' posts, but more like the 'sharing with link' secrecy setting of Microsoft Sharepoint and similar.
I want something that is available publicly to guests, listed on my public profile, maybe notified to followers, maybe found in a search, but which doesn't show up in a federated timeline ('Recently Added' in PeerTube) on other servers. I want to avoid having to setup a separated server without federation to do that.
I'm now thinking of setting up a separate PeerTube account and/or channel especially for unlisted (but actually secret) videos, then setup a separate Friendica account (because 'unlisted' is a profile setting, not a post setting in Friendica) or Wordpress blog to manually publish my 'secret' videos in an u
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In my quest to find how to do 'unlisted' videos on PeerTube, I found that PeerTube has unlisted videos. At least if you switch the UI to English, one of the privacy options is 'unlisted'. In Dutch it is called 'Geheim', which means 'Secret', which is much closer to the real behaviour. The 'unlisted' videos of PeerTube don't work at all like 'unlisted' posts, but more like the 'sharing with link' secrecy setting of Microsoft Sharepoint and similar.
I want something that is available publicly to guests, listed on my public profile, maybe notified to followers, maybe found in a search, but which doesn't show up in a federated timeline ('Recently Added' in PeerTube) on other servers. I want to avoid having to setup a separated server without federation to do that.
I'm now thinking of setting up a separate PeerTube account and/or channel especially for unlisted (but actually secret) videos, then setup a separate Friendica account (because 'unlisted' is a profile setting, not a post setting in Friendica) or Wordpress blog to manually publish my 'secret' videos in an unlisted manner. Unfortunately, Friendica's 'remote-self' feature can not be used to do this automatically, because PeerTube keeps 'unlisted' videos also secret from followers... #PeerTube
PeerTube is one of the few platforms that have a 'license' field on each post/video. I would prefer that any post/video with an unknown (or non-free) license would never appear publicly (to unauthenticated guests) on other servers in some 'federated'/'Recently Added' timeline. I think Mastodon/Friendica/Pleroma are wrong in appearing to host items of which it doesn't know the license, which for these platforms is all items. One of the reasons I switched off public viewing of 'global community'.
Today Emilia Clarke's new film The Pod Generation is available in cinemas, somewhere in the world, I didn't get where. Maybe UK, maybe US. Thursday 24 August it comes out in Dutch cinemas!
Living in the not-so-distant future, a New York couple takes a wild ride to parenthood after landing a coveted spot at the Womb Center, which offers couples ...
I tried to look for a ticket today in my country, but it turns out to not be released after all. There's no new date other than what seems like a placeholder date of 31 December 2023. I was looking forward to seeing Emilia Clarke on the big screen. Anyway, I have set a notification alert on that film.
Why do film companies always do this? They complain that they can't make enough money from people going to see the films, then when people do want to see the films they make it impossible to see them. I can't pay for a ticket if they don't sell them. #ThePodGeneration #EmiliaClarke #FilmIndustryGripe
Everytime an organisation posts something on Mastodon, there's someone in the replies saying 'you should also make a Peertube account' (or Pixelfed, etc). It's so tiring. Can we stop driving people away?
Everytime a software developer posts about a new feature or product they're making, someone replies with all the other technologies that should have been used instead. Can we stop it? Can we start accepting that other people may do things that don't fit in your own world view?
Like "I bought a roomba!" -> "no, no, no, you should have strapped your vacuum cleaner to your cat".
I think both Friendica and Peertube don't support unlisted-like posts.
The Mastodon unlisted scope could be useful if you want to add a post that's visible to everybody even when not logged in, but you don't want to bother the global or local timelines with it. It is still sent to followers though, which may or may not be useful. The big problem with Mastodon's implementation is that I've heard these posts also don't show up in searches, not even with hashtags, which doesn't make any sense to me.
For Peertube I'm looking for a scope that's public locally, but is not public when federated out. In fact I believe this should be the default for any platform: don't show publically what you've only received from other servers.
Pinned post, about following from multiple addresses
Hi, when I follow someone I usually do this from multiple accounts, with different servers and platforms. This is partially as backup. It’s also because different software has different features. E.g. at the moment of writing I mainly post from my Friendica server, but it doesn’t yet support polls, or account migrations. So I also follow from my Pleroma server, which does notify me someone has migrated.
I also sometimes use platforms that support nomadic identity, that allows my channels on multiple servers to be synced. From software that doesn’t support that, a follow request looks like multiple separate requests from those channels.
Miranda Cosgrove, as the host of Mission Unstoppable, the show to promote women in STEM, telling the story of Marie Curie in this tiktok and Instagram reel.
Once advertising has failed as an attempt to finance the web, we will finally be rid of its consequences. No more clickbait headlines. No more wholly copied q&a websites, or websites full of stub pages. No more engagement enhancing algorithms. Just content.
Another reason we should not let the receiving server resolve a link preview (so apart from the ddos that is many receiving servers at once loading from a site, bringing small blogs down): your text in the preview will be in the language of where the server is located. E.g. on mastodon.social previews are often in German.
If the client resolves the link preview, load will be spread in time and the reader gets the text in their language. If the sending server resolves the link (my preferred solution), only one request is done to the site (much fairer) and the text will be in a language the poster expects and can see.
I'm starting my dvd of Hooten & The Lady, a tv series with Ophelia Lovibond, the actress with the most British name I know. All the images of the series look very adventurous and I gather each episode is in a different location. On this first disc we get Alexandria, The Himalayas and Rome, but first: The Amazon. #OpheliaLovibond #HootenAndTheLady
Hugely charismatic, roguish American adventurer Hooten and his fantastically feisty partner in crime, Lady Alexandra travel the world, from the Vatican to The Himalayas, the Amazon to Egypt, in their quest to save the world's lost treasures.
This so easily could have been a cheap comedy with unrealistic studio shots, but it isn't. It looks quite convincing and realistic, in a dangling over great heights sort of way, and is entertaining enough to watch. This seems like a welcome addition to the pantheon of tv series, shame it's so unknown. Ophelia is great as the determined adventure seeking Lady Alexandra Diana Elizabeth Lindo-Parker (Alex). #HootenAndTheLady #OpheliaLovibond
The behind the scenes feature on episode one shows that the reason the location seems so real is because it is real. They actually are in the jungle shooting it.
This was a quite nice series. Each episode has a behind the scenes location documentary, since the locations of the stories are an important part of the show, and that things are really filmed all over the world. #HootenAndTheLady
Jenna Ortega in this Instagram reel for Adidas Sportswear, acting out the emotions watching the world cup football. instagram.com/reel/Cvt4hsnuJma… (I still can't do video in these posts...)
Uploaded the video using a separate account: [share author='Jenna Ortega fan channel (resharing clips)' profile='https://friendica.gidikroon.eu/profile/jennaortegatrailersandclips' avatar='https://friendica.gidikroon.eu/photo/356510832164deee12ca2b0607770161-5.png?ts=1692331566' link='https://friendica.gidikroon.eu/display/1f16c6da-9764-df65-3028-c47213496231' posted='2023-08-18 12:33:52' guid='1f16c6da-9764-df65-3028-c47213496231' message_id='https://friendica.gidikroon.eu/objects/1f16c6da-9764-df65-3028-c47213496231']Jenna Ortega showing how she and her family watch the World Cup. This was part of the publicity for Adidas Sportswear, of which she's the brand ambassador.
(I finally found a way to share the video unlisted, in a rather indirect way, using another account and my PeerTube. Original link in video description.) #JennaOrtega #Football #AdidasSportswear
Sometimes I look up the strangest things. This time, driven by annoyance that films increasingly aren't distributed in my country, I looked up how much it would cost to be a film distributor, expecting it to be millions. Turns out it's free? There are different models and some expectations, but in one model you pay the production 30% of gross revenue without an upfront fee. You pay for marketing and investment in e.g. producing a batch of dvds, but what if you don't? Don't (agree to) do any marketing and just stick the file on a server, or use manufacture-on-demand.
Sure for streaming it may cost 100000 to millions per film (what I read). And sure they would expect you to do marketing. And maybe subtitles are nice. And film ratings. And packaging.
And for a production company, even if a film is still looking for a distributor in a territory, signing a single media deal for that territory would loose them the ability to later sign with a real distributor that wants to have all (cinema, dvd, digital, streaming, tv, film clubs, etc).
This photo she posted may or may not be from the same thing, but this is also about her wrapping on a film project. I don't know which one.
IMDb lists an upcoming project called A Very Venice Romance and that could be this. They say it releases next month already, 30 September. #StephanieLeonidas
Hey European & American friends who use tools and do building, repairs, DIY – are Robertson screws common in your area?
Are Robertson screwdrivers common in European toolboxes?
In Canada I suspect that 99% of people who have tools would have Robertson screwdrivers in their toolbox. At least the red & green (#2, #1) sizes. The more intrepid will have the yellow and black (#0, #3) sizes too.
Based on Mary Shelley's novel, "Frankenstein" tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a promising young doctor who, devastated by the death of his mother during childbirth, becomes obsessed with bringing the dead back to life.
Somehow we have to believe that Kenneth Branagh is the son of Cherie Lunghi (eight years difference), and grew up as children together with Helena Bonham Carter (six years difference).
Her character is more forceful than you'd expect a female character to be in this kind of role, maybe helped by having a female author. It seems to be Helena's thing: choose a role that isn't lead by events but who drives the narrative, then in her acting drive it even more. #HelenaBonhamCarter #MaryShelleysFrankenstein
I don't know anything about baseball and I don't know whether it really was a strike as someone said, but if a celebrity first throw is at least caught by the catcher, I think it's a good thing. Well done Chloë. If I were to throw it it would go in such a random direction they wouldn't be able to find the ball again.
Examples of how AI enforces stereotypes, in this Instagram reel: instagram.com/reel/CvhXQULIcfs… By London Interdisciplinary School (LIS), h/t Jasmin Savoy.
I'm old enough to remember the time when you had to phone a package delivery service to hold your package because you were going to pick it up yourself, and the person on the phone audibly climbed into the back of the truck, rummaged around until they proclaimed 'I've got it!'.
Logged into LinkedIn for the first time in months, and I feel like this says it all
First thing you see
"Do you want a new job?
A) Yes
B) Yes, but not right now"
The concept of being content with your current job, and *not wanting to career climb* seems utterly anathema to the modern corporate world, and I feel like that explains a lot about where we're at.
Another miniseries, two parts this time, with Helena Bonham Carter this time: Merlin. I like these different retellings of the Arthur/Merlin legends. And I like seeing Helena. In this she plays the witch Morgan, and they've tried with special makeup effects to make her look ugly, which is of course impossible.
Since it's such dreary weather outside, I'm watching A Room with a View so at least someone has something nice to look at outside. It's a film with Helena Bonham Carter of a long time ago. I've seen it before, but I have it on blu-ray now. It's one of her costume dramas.
Just looking through her massive list of films, I think I've seen a significant part of them. Including some of the unknown ones, some so long ago that I can't remember the plot...
This Lucy Honeychurch is really a different kind of woman than you'd expect in a costume drama, the opposite of demure. I love how Helena Bonham Carter plays her, as a true independent spirit.
Another dvd to watch: a three part miniseries which is one of the first things I saw Emilia Fox in. Not the first, but it is of long ago. Shooting the Past is about the world of photo archives. I've seen it before and it's quite interesting, mainly character based.
A US property developer realises that he has a battle on his hands when he tries to renovate a London building containing a vast photographic collection and discovers that the library employees will resort to anything to thwart him.
It may be about photo archives, and beautifully shows the stories even in otherwise unremarkable pictures, but it is also about loss and grief. It's very much the moment a doctor gives you a terminal prognosis and you want to just not accept it, but then in a metaphor of photography. #ShootingThePast
When I as a kid consciously started to watch films and notice the performances I liked, I became a big fan of the actresses Jodie Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jane Horrocks and Juliette Binoche. Still am, but there's not so much news about them anymore. And yes, I was very aware those are all J's. Since then I've found great actresses of other generations whose name don't start with a J, I am a big fan of Stephanie Leonidas for example. People who have seen posts of me before most likely have seen me mentioning being a huge fan of Jenna Ortega. Yes, I'm back at the J's.
Now I'm watching an old film, one of my all time favourites, with Jane Horrocks: Life is Sweet. The film is directed and written by Mike Leigh, based on improvisations by the actors during rehearsals, as is his process. Mike Leigh is probably the only director I ever followed, once describing one of his films just with 'it's about... people' because I didn't know anything more to say and later realising this is accidentally a good description of all of his films. They're about people.
This on
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When I as a kid consciously started to watch films and notice the performances I liked, I became a big fan of the actresses Jodie Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jane Horrocks and Juliette Binoche. Still am, but there's not so much news about them anymore. And yes, I was very aware those are all J's. Since then I've found great actresses of other generations whose name don't start with a J, I am a big fan of Stephanie Leonidas for example. People who have seen posts of me before most likely have seen me mentioning being a huge fan of Jenna Ortega. Yes, I'm back at the J's.
Now I'm watching an old film, one of my all time favourites, with Jane Horrocks: Life is Sweet. The film is directed and written by Mike Leigh, based on improvisations by the actors during rehearsals, as is his process. Mike Leigh is probably the only director I ever followed, once describing one of his films just with 'it's about... people' because I didn't know anything more to say and later realising this is accidentally a good description of all of his films. They're about people.
This one starts with a panning shot across a row of houses, suggesting that the family we are going to watch is just one of many and we could just as well have watched the story of the people in the other houses. (Edit: that's not actually this one, but another one. It was long ago I saw it...)
In this preview image Jane Horrocks is second from the left, wearing 'the shirt'. Claire Skinner, second from the right playing the other daughter, is a great actress as well.
That scene between Nicola and her mother is one of the best dialogue scenes in films ever. In a sense everything in the film before that leads up to that dialogue.
Played this from my own dvd since it's so not available for streaming, rental or buying digitally that it doesn't even have a JustWatch entry (in my country). Most other films I look up there just say 'not available', suggesting they are available in other countries or were available at some point in the past.
Owning dvd's may seem old fashioned, but is still the only way.
I can't figure out how to upload videos on Friendica, but I have found out that I did figure it out twice before on this server. But then forgot. Trying to replicate what I did then I can now upload it, even select it for inclusion in a post, but it doesn't show up in the post. Even if a previous post still shows the video player...
Just watched a film called Hide and Seek which is an American remake of an Asian film called Hide and Seek, neither of which are the film called Hide and Seek that I wanted to see.
It could be a case study in how not to write a film, and as such have some merit. Still interesting enough to sit through it once, though.
I'm thinking of what moderation rules I would set if I were to set them for some microblogging server. I'd do something sensible and normal like have specific rules that only apply to replies, like: no reaction gifs, no links, no photos, no changing the topic and no evangelising ('have you tried rust/mastodon'). Each top level post is in my mind a new forum with strict rules against off-topic messages or posts that don't contribute anything new.
But more than that I would want replies to be hidden by default. With the original poster being the moderator of this microforum. Maybe able to set the no-links etc rules per post.
Also: it would be illegal to reply to a post with a link to an article, without reading the article. (Twitter is already doing something like this!)
Also: a reply should take at least as much effort as the original post. When you reply to something quicker than someone took to post it, or write the blog, you will be automatically locked out of your account for the remainder of the time.
![Screengrab of top of a LinkedIn feed, which shows a picture of a diverse trio of people having a meeting over coffee. Under that is the question "Hi [Name], are you looking for a job right now?" with the options "Yes" and "No, but I'm open". Those are the only answers permitted.](https://friendica.gidikroon.eu/photo/preview/640/2618153 "Screengrab of top of a LinkedIn feed, which shows a picture of a diverse trio of people having a meeting over coffee. Under that is the question \"Hi [Name], are you looking for a job right now?\" with the options \"Yes\" and \"No, but I'm open\". Those are the only answers permitted.")
Allen Very Serious Versfeld
in reply to Gidi Kroon • • •@cjrando It's not wrong, but it IS misleading. If you check the model on the website, and zoom in, you'll notice that the edges of the "canyon" are not smooth, but stepped.
This is because the image is a composite taken from multiple photographs taken at different times of the local day by an orbiting spacecraft passing overhead. In some of the images, due to the different times of day when different regions were imaged, there are no shadows and so craters and other features look flat and smooth. In others, the shadows are long and pronounced, making the features look much taller, and more sharply defined.
In other words, there is no canyon. It's an imaging artifact. NASA would have kept it as is in order to be as true to the actual captured image data as possible. They often commission artists to paint objects when they want to give an impression of what something looks like, but that was probably not the goal here.
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Gidi Kroon
in reply to Allen Very Serious Versfeld • •Allen Very Serious Versfeld
in reply to Gidi Kroon • • •You're welcome!
Full disclosure though: I wasn't involved with creating that image and didn't speak to anybody who was. My answer was an educated guess. I'm pretty confident about it being a mosaic (the stepped edges are a dead giveaway), which is why I spoke to definitively, but I might be wrong on the details of WHY the individual squares look different.
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