An eye-opening thing was when back in university our club had a talk by someone from a gambling company. Without thinking it was in any way weird (that was the chilling thing) he was listing the characters they had bought in various tv shows. So yeah, even the smallest thing that's happening in your soap or series may only be there because someone lobby group payed for it. I think back to that each time some character has a sudden but unknown disease: awareness campaign.
I think these magic eye pictures may be some kind of conspiracy, 'The Emperor's New Clothes'-style, where a few people only pretend to 'see it'. Though if you're following WelshPixie you already know what it's going to say...
Cross your eyes they say... What if your eyes are already crossed? Instructions on such pictures say to 'start with your nose touching the image where the picture should be blurry', so I guess my nose is too long or my nearsightedness too strong...
Content warning for those without stereo vision: we can't see this so don't waste your time.
This may be relevant to the strike as the article points out. I think if Netflix were to create a film by replacing writers and actors with AI, we would be legally allowed to copy it.
Of the two things I was supposed to do this morning, I've done one finally this evening (the one I was actually planning to do two weeks ago) and did another one I had decided not to do yet.
“The Peripheral” has been canceled at Amazon’s Prime Video, Variety has learned. The news comes despite the fact that Amazon renewed the show for a second season back in February.…
Also interesting how part of the biopic touches upon misusing the name of famous people by publishers, then the film has Maisie Williams in a tiny role so they can use her fame.
It's one of those things that annoy me about reading an open source project describe themselves: you can be four paragraphs in and still don't know what it does.
Of course the license and stuff are also important, but why does it need to be your opening sentence?
Things that are not «features» of an app: - The license - The technologies it uses - The fact that it’s simple - The application it’s an alternative to Your app should be compelling on its own. What makes it worth using? How can it help people? Highlight those things instead!
🔋 From electric mobility to energy storage, we must ensure batteries are fit for our green future.
As of today, the #EU Batteries Regulation will make them safer, circular and sustainable throughout their lifecycle, including:
- A restriction on harmful substances - Mandatory minimum levels of recycled content from 2025 - Removable and replaceable portable batteries in consumer electronics by 2027 - Recovery targets for raw materials, such as nickel and lithium
I spent so long trying to get these photos downloaded from my camera. It insisted on first downloading the 600 earlier ones and ran out of battery twice. #Squirrel
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.
Gidi Kroon
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