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What old pixels should i avoid?
  • Same, on my 3a right now. Deeply considering just buying new old stock of the same phone as a backup. :'D

  • What is the most beautiful song you've ever heard?
  • This song feels like the the sun on my face. Lajtha Lassu by A Hawk and a Hacksaw

  • Lemmy users lack nuace and it stops actual discussion.
  • Absolutely. At work I man a tech desk for a big box store (aka helping people who don't or can't understand what email is activate phones), and at home I share responsibility caring for two people who don't have the mental capacity to shut the refrigerator door when they're done finding food. That's...a bigger can of worms than what we're talking about here, but encountering open-and-shut thoughts on how things ought to be (on here) feels like whiplash compared to how I usually have to think through my actions in a day.

  • Wizards of the Coast denies, then confirms, that Magic: The Gathering promo art features AI elements | When will companies learn?
  • Speaking as a professional artist myself, I'd wager that many of the responses you've run into are emotional ones. Supporting oneself as an artist was already difficult, and AI generation is an astoundingly powerful tool. For a long time there was a sense of financial security in quieter/grunt background and asset design work such as the WotC backgrounds in this situation. WotC in particular was touted as "one of the companies that actually pays artists to make neat things" in fantasy art circles, and so their fans and artist clients (often one in the same) feel betrayed.

    I'm personally a sad-bitch about it because my peers and I have been posting art for one-another and fans online since 2002, our work was scraped, and now people can click a button to ape the look of all of our work without having run across it organically, knowing our names, or being able to, like, say hello to us. I really don't mean that out of self-importance or ego- the community I grew up in online was all about discovering working artists by word of mouth this way, and getting to know them. So it's a weird (albeit unintentional) dismantling of a community and "a way that was", so to speak.

    More practically one of my specific worries regarding AI generated images: Illustration in the literal sense of the word means 'to illuminate', to make clear'. Think along the lines of technical illustration- biological in my case, but this extends to mechanical parts, manuals, diagrams, medical books. These are situations where clarity is seriously important, and I feel like the deluge of generated images (and the general public's lack of information about how the image gen works and how to decipher them) will cause harm.

    Hopefully that wasn't too much of a ramble. đŸ«€ TLDR: It isn't necessarily immoral, but people are emotional, it's a big change, and it's happening really damn fast.

  • How many of you actually use the headphone jack on your phone?
  • I use mine consistently, and the presence of one will be a dealbreaker when I choose my next phone. I use it with an AUX cable in my car, wired headphones I already own, and (most importantly) with a Square point of sale thingamajig at shows. Bluetooth options exist for the last thing of course, but they have their own disadvantages- and I'd rather be able to use both options than just one!

  • What is a video game that you'd love to play, but no one has developed yet?
  • I've always yearned for something like this too. I wonder if, from the dev's perspective, balancing the years and years such a thing would take in real time conflicts with other aspects of gameplay? Or maybe soil chemistry is too difficult a thing to gamify for a casual player (including myself in this- unfortunately I don't grasp chemistry or physics easily).

    A colony sim/resource management game in early access I played recently tries to touch on this actually- Farthest Frontier. As you might imagine from what I typed above, I'm heinously bad at grasping the system, but the building blocks are in there! None of the procgen ideas you're interested in though.

  • What is a video game that you'd love to play, but no one has developed yet?
  • Argh tone on the internet- I'm not mad or anything, just wanted to state my opinion since ours are so wildly different, and it's interesting that all of these ideas will have to coexist in gaming spheres.

    Speaking strictly as a player, this is the opposite of what I would want in a game. The...intention, I guess, is what I want when I play anything story-driven. Chatting with ai on purpose feels upsetting to me and I think I would feel tricked if I encountered it as a par-the-course kind of thing (knowingly or especially unknowingly) in a game.

    But- I haven't encountered it yet, and perhaps it could really, really work!

  • Do Multivitamins actually do anything?
  • Unsure if this is OP's angle, but I have pretty chronically bad anemia/ferritin levels. In my layman's research, I found that both dairy (calcium) and tea (oxalates) inhibit the body's ability to absorb iron when consumed alongside one-another. My list also included peas, coffee, eggs, and just about every other damn thing I like to eat, so that was a fun discovery. 😅 Link to kickstart research for anyone curious.

  • What are your favorite single player games to go back to?
  • Popped in here to say FTL and was delighted to see someone had already mentioned it. Absolutely love that game.

  • Living Jewels

    Yellow Velvet Beetle - Lepturobosca chrysocoma

    Pardon the dorky title, insects are just unreal sometimes 😭

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    Bee mimics are the best

    Orange-legged Drone Fly, Eristalis flavipes

    It's that time of year when I spend a good chunk of time with my head crammed into patches of goldenrod hunting for cool bumblebees. I'm always delighted to be fooled for a moment. 😁

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    People Who Stay On Twitter Are Aiding Musk In His Antics
  • For years now I've done what I can to encourage use of other sites, but the fact remains that my specific community of friends and peers (many of whom have known one-another for over two decades now) have used twitter as a stomping ground since 2008 or so. It's extremely difficult to establish that sort of intersection elsewhere, and it gets particularly ugly when folks' livelihood and income are tied into the matter.

    Having the main hub for communities torn apart because of one fool's antics really, really sucks, and then I'm/we're called garbage on the sites we try to establish on, for clinging to that lifeline. It's all a frustrating feedback loop.

  • Make sure not to underestimate the brilliance of 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' as it proves to be an exceptional movie!
  • I found it extraordinary- I'm unsure if another movie has made me feel the whole gamut of emotion like this one did, and each heartstring was tugged differently. Skillful stuff.

  • Field pea flowers!

    cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/1230210

    > Thrilled to pieces to see these bloom for the first time. 😄 I picked up these seeds at my town's local seed swap where they were labeled "Swedish Tall Red". I knew of a few other names for the cultivar but I wasn't expecting the absolute onslaught: > > - Dead Viking (coool lol) > - Biskopens grĂ„ĂŠrt > - Bishop’s Grey > - Bishop’s Red > - Swenson's Swedish > > I guess people like this plant. Now I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it can set pods and dry in my short season!

    [Attempting to figure out cross-posting, and figuring the best place to post stuff like this in general. Apologies if you've seen this a few times!]

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    What are you fine folks drinking today?
  • I'll be honest: regular ol' bulk Folgers. Having three coffee drinkers all working from home became too labor-intensive for my French press habit and too expensive for my wallet.

    Living vicariously through everyone else's brews, here! I may have to whip up some cardamom cold brew this week. 😄

  • YSK: How to Budget
  • I've never been able to budget in the literal sense due to how utterly unpredictable my income is (artist sole proprietor kind of thing- don't do it, kids!), and how wildly the structure of my months vary...but getting wise to tracking all incoming and outgoing transactions on my own spreadsheet has brought such peace of mind.

    It came naturally after dealing with self employment income records, so it's frankly silly that I never applied the same ideas to my personal finances.

  • Roesel's Bush-Cricket

    All of Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids, crickets, etc) were tolerant of my photography shenanigans during a hike the other day. These in particular (Roeseliana roeselii) were just stunning!

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    Field pea flowers!

    Thrilled to pieces to see these bloom for the first time. 😄 I picked up these seeds at my town's local seed swap where they were labeled "Swedish Tall Red". I knew of a few other names for the cultivar but I wasn't expecting the absolute onslaught:

    • Dead Viking (coool lol)
    • Biskopens grĂ„ĂŠrt
    • Bishop’s Grey
    • Bishop’s Red
    • Swenson's Swedish

    I guess people like this plant. Now I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it can set pods and dry in my short season!

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    What happened to the French colonists in the US. ?
  • You may enjoy reading about this linguistic offshoot, Missouri French!

  • What are some of the best purchases of your life?
  • I know it's practically a meme at this point to say so, but: same here! I've used their return-holey-socks-for-store-credit service twice now (carried mail; guaranteed sock killer) with zero problems and couldn't be happier. I make sure to buy pairs as gifts for friends to make sure they see new business, too.

  • What are some of the best purchases of your life?
  • Very much agreed. I went with a Kobo since I enjoy futzing around with files and already had a Calibre (ebook management software) library going anyway. I highly recommend e-readers of any kind to anyone on the fence!

  • Never said hello!

    So, greetings! 😄

    In short: Early 30s, in an oddball place up north in the US. I draw things, photograph them badly, and enthuse about ecology a lot. I luv the site iNaturalist! Other hobbies and interests include regenerative agriculture, fountain pens (and art supply/media in general), cemetery and burial history, fantasy/scifi lit, roguelike games, animal rehab, and critter-keeping. The scrambling of communities on reddit and twitter has sent me a-wandering, and I like this place. Nice to meet ya!

    Rambles: I'm an artist and illustrator by trade (plus whatever work I can find on the side- I've worn many hats!), and admittedly I'm a bit coy about it here on Mander. Posting art online has become so tied up and bogged down with branding, identity, commerce, and the like over the past few years, that the idea of presenting that "face" here up-front-and-center felt...off.

    But, it is who I am, and experiences in the industry and the people I've met through it have shaped everything about how I see the world and sciences. In particular, I worked in the graphics department for a state natural resources department for a spell, and it was quite formative. Here's a quiet link to my work. If you have any little projects that could use a doodle to liven them up, I may be able to help.

    Anyway, cheers to all of you trying to make something nice happen here. It really does make things better. :)

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    Paste Tomatoes Coming In Nicely!
  • I started an Amish Paste from seed this year and eagerly anticipating the result. My climate and growing season are suited for small globes and cherries, but I've heard such wonderful things about this specific variety. 😄

  • Crome Sphagnum

    Hell yeah moss!! Went to trawl my iNat archives for presentable photos.

    Crome Sphagnum (sphagnum squarrosum)

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    Photobomb

    laughed my ass off when I found this assortment, laughing again now. pls enjoy

    Genus Hygrocybe according to an iNaturalist user!

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    Last year's peas! Longing for this right now

    This year's winter-to-spring transition in my part of zone 4b was rough and the garden is looking haggard because of it, so I took a cruise through last year's photos to find something to share as my first post. Absolutely cannot wait for this year's snap peas- something about the plants just delights me.

    These are Oregon Sugar Pod II and Mammoth Melting. This year I added a few other varieties to the mix (Admiral, SS 141) as well as the Swedish Tall Red* just to see what happens.

    Happy growing!

    *a dry/shelling/field pea

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    Toadvark Toadvark @mander.xyz

    Illustrator, ecology nut, and a bit of gardening (zone 4b in USA). Nice to meet ya!

    Posts 10
    Comments 17