I’ve got a decade old Sony ereader that’s still good as new. Battery lasts a couple weeks too, I love it.

Unfortunately not. That’s like saying “A burglar put a spycam in my house once. I simply said no and he removed it. So hopefully it stays that way”. It’s there, you just can’t see it now.

Makes sense thank you. I see what you guys are saying, and the more I compare the more I feel like I over-corrected trying to improve. I’m studying getting off auto and I think I should try and find a middle ground between the two. Thanks again!

Wow thank you for the advice! It all really makes sense and the more I compare the more it looks like I over-corrected I think. Going off auto is what I’m looking into next and I’ll read through your comment a few more times to get started. I really appreciate it!

I’m not really sure what I was going for with lighting haha. This was my first time putting a shot together so I kind of just winged it. I want to see what I can come up with having full control over the environment. The lighting I used were some cheap usb lights and I think I need to soften the light on them more somehow.

I’ll look into ISO next, I’m still using the auto function while I figure some things out. As for the strip of sewing I noticed after that I could have used it to “direct” the eye to a specific feature but honestly the backdrop was just a placeholder. I saw a blog about home studios on the cheap and am gonna get a black sheet, but stores were closed yesterday and I didn’t want to wait haha.

Thank you!

Wow, thanks for taking the time to write this up! This was continuous lighting, I’m hoping to get a better feel for creating my light source. There are a few out of focus points that I want to look at sharpening up, as it is I’m still using the auto feature so manual is next on the list for experimenting.

Completely agree on the backdrop haha. I saw some cheap home studio techniques online and wanted to try it out myself. I’m planning to pick up a black sheet but the stores were closed yeterday for the holiday and I didn’t want to wait so I grabbed the darkest material I had.

As for the dust/fuzz, I certainly noticed how much was being picked up but wanted to see if I could use it to get a bit of an older/weathered look. If I try this piece again I’ll remove it, I don’t think it did what I was hoping.

Thank you, it certainly has issues I’m sure but it was a blast to set up. Think I might have a new addiction.

Thanks so much! Honestly I loved every second of it

Kagi has a lens that only searches the Fediverse.

Absolutely. I never imagined I’d pay for search but Kagi is leaps and bounds better than other search engines. I decided to pay when I realized how much I search every day after getting the free trial. Went through 100 searches in four days. If I search that much, paying for an engine that has no ads, uses useful lenses, and lets me block results from sites like Facebook was a no-brainer.

This is what I don’t get from a business standpoint. Why would anyone buy an AI read audiobook for $20 when they can get the exact same audio by buying the ebook for $0.99 and running it through AI?

Of course they don’t click anything. Google search has just become a front-end for Gemini, the answer is “served” up right at the top and most people will just take that for Gospel.

Has Mullvad ever been required to comply for anything though? Or are you saying Mullvad has already, and refused to follow Swedish law?

This is how I discovered I search around 20 times a day. Burned through it pretty quick haha

True enough. I suspect that “yet” will come pretty soon though. I’m hoping all of these ‘early AI adopter’ companies fuck themselves out of business. With the tech as it is, most companies pivoting their products to AI on the user-end are just introducing a middle man. Once people catch on to it and realize they can just cut out the middle man, they hopefully won’t last long.

This kind of thing is what confuses me as a business model. Take audio books for example, Audible is pivoting to ai voices. Why would people spend $20 on an audio book with an ai voice when they can just spend $1.99 on the eBook and run it through an ai voice program themselves?

A while back on Reddit I saw a post asking about this stuff. Companies don’t need to “listen” anymore, they have much more sophisticated options now. This example will use 3 people: A (wife) B (husband) and C (wife’s old friend from school).

The question: A goes to the store without B, and runs into C, who proceeds to tell A about this cool gaming chair he just got. After the conversation, A puts the interaction aside and never mentions it to B. B later gets ads for the gaming chair. If B never had any interaction whatsoever about the chair, and A never even talked about it to B, how does B get the ads?

The answer: A goes to the store, and her phone knows this through location data. The algorithm knows A is at the store, and now picks up that C is also at the same store. The algo then finds a connection through social media that A and C know each other, and maybe even knows spending habits and sees A and C buy similar things. The odds are good that A and C will interact at the store.

C has been searching about this gaming chair for months, has just recently bought it, and talks about it constantly on socials. Odds are good that if A and C interact, C will talk about the chair.

A has no interest in gaming or tech, but B does. The algo knows A and B are married, and B would be interested in the chair C just bought. There is now a vector to send ads from the interaction of A and C directly to B, even though A never mentioned anything about the chair to B, and B has never even met C.

Nothing is free. If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.

Privacy (different from anonymity) has become more and more important to me, and Google had access to nearly every part of my life in one way or another. I’ve cut out Musk, Zuck and Bezos, and I’m now nearly completely Google free as well.

I’ve often heard “why do I care if Google reads my emails? I’ve got nothing to hide”. 2 great answers:

1. Unlock your phone and give it to me for an hour. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn’t mean you don’t want privacy. Google does exactly that.

2. Speaking of privacy, why bother closing the stall door in a public washroom? You’re not doing anything wrong in there.