HelixEndeavor

If we're to pass any sort of legislation, it shouldn't be against the kids, they're the victims of exploitation by greedy monopoly/oligopoly algorithms, we should legislate against companies like Meta, Snapchat, etc. the TikTok ban unless they sold off to an American firm that could be subject to US legislation was actually not the worst idea in the world (albeit I highly doubt the current Congress would've actually done anything constructive after the theoretical sale)

2005 is about as late as you can go before the processors in cameras started being powerful enough to do a lot of stuff to the images. Most of my collection is very early 2000s or even late 90s. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F717 is a great cam from 2002 that was Sony's flagship at the time. Despite having cool features that modern cams don't (nightshot which also allows for easy IR photography, a swiveling lens assembly), the pictures have that "filmic" look thanks to the CCD sensor and little to no denoising done in-camera. It was also high resolution enough for the time (5MP) that the pictures still look reasonably detailed and sharp. Super early digicams often had like 1MP sensors that produce quite fuzzy images (though I feel that has its own appeal)

"pirated" yes but you can often source the install images direct from Microsoft and then use open source tools to crack the activation systems. Microsoft has kind of stopped policing piracy at the individual user level, you can even download Windows cracking tools off GitHub, a platform that Microsoft owns. As long as you're using their software it makes them happy. And LTSC is worth it to have a barebones no-bullshit Windows installation.

This sounds nightmarish. One of many reasons I refuse to sign into my Outlook account on Windows, I just know they'll use the excuse of "integration" to completely fuck up my computer with cloud bullshit. I want what's on my computer to stay on my computer, dammit.

This. Important distinction between "the company wants to know everything that happens to the server" and "Microsoft wants to know why you don't want their bloated adware running 24/7"

So is there a regedit you can do to disable OneDrive completely or does Microsoft worm their way around that as well.

Honestly the only thing keeping me from updating from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is that the ads and forced behaviors are an order of magnitude greater in their shittiness.

Well, given that the modern web has a lot more requirements for security to even permit most browsers to view a site, it makes sense that the base hardware needs have increased noticeably.

Early digicams weren't powerful enough to pull off a lot of the fancy behind-the-scenes instant post-processinf modern cameras do before you even get to see the picture. The result was they often resembled film photography in many ways, especially the digital noise that in the right circumstances didn't look too dissimilar from film grain.

This is why I personally have a small collection of early digicams I like shooting on from time to time, and why they've recently become a whole TikTok trend.

I think if we allowed modern cameras to have an option that performs little to no post-processing on captured photos (without having to resort to RAW capture), we could get pictures that a lot more closely resemble this stuff.

Haven't touched Mastodon myself. "Decentralized" reads to me as "fragmented, dependent upon randoms to uphold the infrastructure, interoperable to a degree but you'd better hope your 'home' server doesn't go down for any myriad of reasons because then you'll lose your profile and have to make another at another server, which in effect pushes people towards the Big Players like Mastodon's own server, kind of defeating the whole point and making the main selling point a layer of unnecessary added complexity that makes the platform(s) substantively worse, harder to use, and less attractive to the average joe."

Personally I've moved to Cohost. Not simping for them, but at least I can comprehend the business model and operation of the platform.

Bullshit artists trying to build vague techbro hype with the right buzzwords to hopefully attract enough Silicon Valley VC funding so they can turn up no product or a really hilariously bad product and walk away with all the money.

Professional wine tasters are proven to be full of shit from top to bottom time and time again, and yet they still have careers, it's still a very wealthy industry, and people still give them the time of day. Pretty wild.

Water isn't dangerous but if you were dropped into the middle of the ocean you would probably drown. Does that mean you must swear off water because it's proven to be dangerous since people drown in it?

last time I encountered this, I had my phone on me, but had no cell signal in the area and the restaurant had no public wifi. I asked my server for a physical menu and they brought me a goddamn iPad with the brightness locked to max in a dimly lit restaurant. Absolutely awful.