TheRealKuni

TheRealKuni , 1 day ago to Technology in The ugly truth behind ChatGPT: AI is guzzling resources at planet-eating rates

So few people learn the soulful art of the organ ever since the damn pianoforte came along! And the guitar is so easy that art will die, because anyone can learn to strum chords!

TheRealKuni , 1 day ago to Technology in The ugly truth behind ChatGPT: AI is guzzling resources at planet-eating rates

we've taken human creativity and joy out of art.

“As the photographic industry was the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies, this universal infatuation bore not only the mark of a blindness, an imbecility, but had also the air of a vengeance. … I am convinced that the ill-applied developments of photography, like all other purely material developments of progress, have contrib­uted much to the impoverishment of the French artistic genius, which is already so scarce. … it is nonetheless obvious that this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mor­tal enemy, and that the confusion of their several func­tions prevents any of them from being properly fulfilled. … If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally.”

-Charles Baudelaire, On Photography, from The Salon of 1859

TheRealKuni , 9 days ago to Technology in On self-driving, Waymo is playing chess while Tesla plays checkers

I may be wrong then. There are a bunch of sensors above the windshield behind the rearview mirror, it could be that LiDAR isn’t one of them.

TheRealKuni , 9 days ago to Technology in On self-driving, Waymo is playing chess while Tesla plays checkers

The LiDAR you have on your vacuum isn't going to cut it as a safety relevant component onboard your car. Automotive-grade LiDAR are on another price range. Development for such sensors is quoted separately from the part price, and it costs millions of $.

Obviously, but my Ford Escape PHEV also has LiDAR and, despite being the highest trim level, cost FAR less than a Tesla. It doesn’t do FSD, obviously, but it still has LiDAR. And radar. And will do level 2 self driving enough that if I’m driving in traffic I’m more managing the car than driving it.

There is zero good excuse for not including LiDAR in Teslas.

TheRealKuni , 9 days ago to Technology in On self-driving, Waymo is playing chess while Tesla plays checkers

Yuuup. Muskrat decided LiDAR was too expensive to include in every vehicle and scrapped it. Even disabled the sensors on the cars that have it.

My vacuum has LiDAR. That man is a cheap idiot.

TheRealKuni , 10 days ago to Technology in Apple Patent Hints At Foldable iPhone With Self-healing Screen

13, and it just wasn't worth it. They weren't selling well enough to justify the manufacturing cost.

I do love the iPhone Mini though. My sister has one, and every time I see it I’m delighted by how tiny it is compared to my Pro Max.

TheRealKuni , 11 days ago (edited 11 days ago) to Technology in Conservative cell carrier Patriot Mobile hit by data breach

There are more than you might think, just not the loud ones that give everyone else a bad name.

Edit: Note that this is true for almost every group. The stereotypes from people outside the group will almost always represent the worst of that group, because humans have a tendency to overemphasize and overrepresent negativity.

A completely benign example: convincing my friend to watch Doctor Who was difficult because his perception of the fan base was that they were obnoxious and obsessed with how hot David Tennant is. Which…I mean, look at the man. But also, no, the loudest part of the fan base isn’t representative of the show.

TheRealKuni , 12 days ago to Technology in People want 'dumbphones'. Will companies make them?

Was Antennagate fixed? Or did people just learn not to hold it in the wrong place?

I thought it was about physical placement of the antenna, I’d be surprised if a software update fixed it.

TheRealKuni , 16 days ago to Technology in Samsung mocks Apple’s crushing iPad Pro ad with its own ‘UnCrush’ pitch

I thought the Apple commercial was really clever. Squeezing all of the stuff into one device. I don’t really understand why people decided that it was about the death of creativity, there’s plenty of creative shit you can do on a tablet. And it’s not like the existence of the iPad precludes using instruments and paint.

Shit, 98% of what my wife does on her iPad is piano and vocal sheet music related.

TheRealKuni , 20 days ago to Memes in Guardian Angel.

And also could very well have survived the crash that killed him had he been wearing the Head and Neck Support (HANS) device that was available, but not mandatory, at the time. He called it “that damn noose” and claimed the tethers would more likely hang him than save him in the event of a crash. One of the greatest protective devices in motorsport since the helmet and the seatbelt and he eschewed it and suffered the consequences.

TheRealKuni , 20 days ago to Technology in iPad Pro with M4 chip boasts impressive performance jump compared to just-released M3 MacBook Air

Sure, definitely not a perfect benchmark. I’m not saying it’s going to outperform a current x86 machine in general. But if it can perform as well as or better than a relatively powerful x86 machine from a few years prior, while emulating, that’s impressive.

But I don’t know, I don’t have a MacBook.

TheRealKuni , 21 days ago to Technology in iPad Pro with M4 chip boasts impressive performance jump compared to just-released M3 MacBook Air

Personally I love my iPad as a larger browsing/watching device, for creative uses like vector image work, photo editing, and drawing, occasionally for CAD work (which is remarkably simple with Shapr3D), and of course streaming from my Xbox or PS5 to play remotely. Also it can run Stable Diffusion, which can be fun to play around with.

But the primary reason I originally bought it was for sheet music. 😅

I don’t really need the pro performance, but it’s nice to have for some of the creative stuff. And learning to redo workflows with the pencil and touch inputs can be frustrating and slow at first but I find once I get the hang of them it can be really intuitive and quick. I recently designed a T-shirt design for my dad in a vector app that I had never used before, took me only an hour or so to feel proficient enough to be satisfied with the work and further practice will only make it better.

Obviously it isn’t for everyone, I’m not trying to be an iPad evangelist. But even though I don’t use mine for my primary job I really enjoy working with it when I get to.

TheRealKuni , 21 days ago to Technology in iPad Pro with M4 chip boasts impressive performance jump compared to just-released M3 MacBook Air

I have a friend who said on his M2 MacBook, even before the Apple Silicon build of Factorio released, the game ran better in x86 emulation than on his previous machine. And much cooler.

The battery life and thermals that come out of these powerful ARM chips are amazing, and anything that can be multithreaded is going to perform brilliantly on these chips.

Obviously for stuff where thermals and power consumption aren’t as important the gains aren’t as large, but I can’t remember the last time I worked on an actual desktop machine rather than a laptop with or without a docking station.

TheRealKuni , 23 days ago to Technology in EA wants to place in-game ads in its full-price AAA games, again

Counter-counter-point, “Devil’s 🥑,” games have cost $60 ($70 with the most recent generation) since, what, 2006? 2007?

$60 in 2006 is over $90 today.

So we’re paying less upfront for games now than we were in 2006. Yet costs to develop AAA games have gone up significantly.

I’m not saying ads in games is a good idea, I fucking hate ads. I also hate microtransactions. But every time prices go up people get angry. Remember the backlash when Xbox Series X and PS5 prices were standardized at $70?

I don’t know the solution. But the current trends are unsustainable. Just like everything else in late-stage capitalism.

TheRealKuni , 25 days ago to Technology in Apple introduces M4 chip

Man, if I didn’t already use an iPad, and weren’t responsible for creating forScore setlists for several other chorus members, I’d probably get something like that.