RealNetworks
The last time I heard the name "RealNetworks" was in 2020 when I was surprised to learn that A) they still exist and B) they got a $2.8 million Payroll Protection Program loan that they did not give back.
But "RealNetworks Military Drone Facial Recognition" was not on my 2023 bingo card:
According to a contract between RealNetworks and the U.S. Air Force, the facial recognition software will be used on small drones as part of special operations missions. [...]
This contract does not describe putting facial recognition software on large Predator and Reaper drones that will make decisions about who to assassinate in a war zone. The contract describes a use-case where teams of special operations soldiers use the facial recognition technology on smaller reconnaissance drones during operations in foreign countries.
But the contract did describe a world where sUAS will be used by America's operators for intelligence and target acquisition. It's possible this software will be used to identify targets, it's just that a different human -- or machine -- will be pulling the trigger. Larger drones identify targets through a combination of high powered cameras and cell phone tracking. They make mistakes all the time.
"Spectacular Optical makes inexpensive eyewear for the Third World, and missile guidance systems for NATO. We also make Videodrome."
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Sea of Segments
The display is made from 8 x 6 = 48 PCBs, each of which controls 8 x 4 = 32 digits via two TLC5920 LED drivers.
The PCB can tile in two directions, either taking data from the top or the right side and outputting to the bottom and left side. Up to eight channels can be fed in from the top, the first channel gets routed though the LED drivers and then comes out of the left side. All other channels are shifted by one and routed out of the bottom. [...]
I achieve a number of grayscale levels by using binary code modulation. I wanted to get 8 bits of colour depth on the segments, but given the arrangement of the PCBs and the fact that the LEDs are already multiplexed (only an eighth of the LEDs are on at any one time), I couldn't get this much depth without getting a very noticeable flicker. In the end I had to settle for 5 bits, so 32 levels, but of course in reality it was less because of the non linearity of our perception of LEDs.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
The Dream of the Nineties is Still Alive
So the outfit says Soundgarden, and the zine says Bikini Kill, but the bedroom set definitely says Chemical Brothers. We all know what a schwa pillow means, and these raver girls are way too young to be candyflipping and taking nootropics that don't even have street names yet.
This is like if Cock Ring Ken's box said "New! Comes with a cock ring!" in a puffy font.
It's pretty rad that the computer makes dial-up noises, though.
SpamAssassin
# This is working: message gets "X-Spam-Language: ja.shift-jis" added to it. add_header all Language _LANGUAGES_ # This is being ignored maybe? ok_languages en ok_locale en # This is supposed to fire but does not: score UNWANTED_LANGUAGE_BODY 3 # This doesn't fire either: header UNWANTED_LANGUAGE_HEADER X-Spam-Language =~ /\bja\b/ score UNWANTED_LANGUAGE_HEADER 3
I'd like to report a Bird Murder
What was your reaction last week when you found out that Bird was pulling out of the city?
Aaron Peskin: Not to sound sarcastic, but my reaction was that they came in as a classless, high-handed, bull-in-a-china-shop organization and left in the same way that they came in: Immature, incompetent and, as I said the other day, I don't think anybody had their feelings hurt when this bird flew the coop. [...]
There were no conversations with the Board of Supervisors. Bird chose to deploy thousands of scooters for hire in San Francisco in the spring of 2018 without a permit to operate, which they did because they wanted to occupy the field, and local laws be damned. And then they only communicated with the San Francisco MTA and the Board of Supervisors and the mayor through press releases, most of which, by the way, were factually inaccurate.
I've never seen a corporate actor behave in such an irresponsible, consistently irresponsible fashion.
[...] The guy who started Bird came out of a scorched-earth, Travis Kalanick school of "Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness."
Actually, don't ask for forgiveness or permission.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Today in Haunted Vagina news
The Knight Who Could Make Cunts Speak:
"Le Chevalier qui fist parler les cons", 1340.[...] In gratitude, the three fairies bestow gifts upon the knight to help him achieve riches. [...] The second fairy gives him the gift that if he speaks directly to a vagina, the vagina will be compelled to speak back. The third fairy adds to the second fairy's gift: if a vagina is in some way incapacitated and unable to speak, the person's anus will be able to talk to him. [...]
The knight asks the countess's vagina where she'd just gone, and the vagina cannot answer on account of having half a kilo of fabric in it. Whatever the knight tries, that pussy was just not talking.
He starts to panic, until Huet reminds the knight of his third gift - the Chekhov's talking butthole, hanging on the wall since the first act.
This, incidentally, is one of those Mastodon accounts that I would like to follow but can't, because of their horrid use of threads. You'd think they might have a blog that I could follow in RSS instead, and they might, but I can't tell because... they let their domain expire. Great job everybody.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Stop Doing Threads
starshine:
STOP DOING THREADS
- POSTS WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SPLIT INTO 25 PARTS
- YEARS of POSTING yet NO REAL-WORLD USE FOUND for a low character limit
- Wanted a low character limit anyway for a laugh? We had a tool for that: It was called "SMS"
- "My post got so long that I had to split it into 10 parts. Stay tuned for the 20 part sequel" - Statements dreamed up by the utterly Deranged
LOOK at what Mastodon Users have been demanding your Respect for all this time, with all the Fediverse and protocols WE built for them:
(This is REAL Posting, done by REAL Mastodon Users)
- Why communism will win, a 🧵 (1/255)
- Why I should be allowed to index all your posts for profit, a thread (1/X)
- The rise and fall of Twitter (283/185,781)
"Hello, I would like a 500 character limit please"
They have played us for absolute fools
I agree with this so much.
There are a number of interesting accounts that I keep trying to follow on Mastodon but their use of threads just makes it untenable for me to follow them.
They post these multi-thousand word essays -- essays that I am actually interested in reading -- but rather than posting a svelte 500 character thesis statement with a link to an actual blog post, they split the thing up into 20+ parts, which means that A) I'm reading the god damned thing backwards and B) they completely dominate my timeline to the extent that if I want to scroll back and find something else that I saw earlier in the day, I can't find it, because my timeline is 90% their-single-post by volume.
Fucking knock it off, people. Blogs exist for a reason. Stop being awful.
DNA Lounge: Wherein punching your way in still doesn't work
Anyway, they were arrested and charged. And the hilarious part is that apparently something broke in the handcuffs, so the cops had to wait for paramedics to arrive with a Dremel to cut them off.
In happier news... we have hired a full-time talent buyer, and also a full-time marketing person! So hopefully this will result in more live shows, and also more people finding out about them. And we have a bunch of live shows coming up in March:
Rotting Christ, Thu Feb 23
Platinum Max, Fri Mar 3
Candlemass, Tue Mar 14
Soulfly, Fri Mar 24
The Accüsed A.D., Sun Mar 26
It took 3 days for the account to come back, again with no explanation of any kind. Apparently we were guilty of some offense so egregious that they deleted our entire account -- but all was forgiven once we danced for them like a monkey, one time. And we still don't get to know what this offense was.
I wish I could convince myself that not having an Instagram (or Facebook, or Twitter) account would not cause our business financial harm. Sadly, I am not yet able to convince myself of that. Fuck all of these people entirely.
We had to cancel / reschedule the SubDocta show that was supposed to happen last Saturday because (...wait for it...) he caught COVID. Just in case you were still under the impression that we're not in the midst of a debilitating pandemic that is still killing more than 11,000 people a month in the US alone, and permanently disabling so many more.
In case you are like that guy who was waiting in line to get into the club a couple of weeks ago who decided to loudly mock me for wearing a mask. "Dude, that shit's been over since 2020," he informed me. So I didn't let him in to the club. Petty? Yes. Satisfying? Also yes.
Anyway, how about a photo dump, I haven't done one of those in a while.
Meanwhile, in the Desert of the Real
I was trying to explain the plot of The Matrix to this 15-year-old once, and that the character I played was really fighting for what was real. And this young person was just like, "Who cares if it's real?"
People are growing up with these tools: We're listening to music already that's made by AI in the style of Nirvana, there's NFT digital art. It's cool, like, Look what the cute machines can make! But there's a corporatocracy behind it that's looking to control those things. Culturally, socially, we're gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the nonvalue. And then what's going to be pushed on us? What's going to be presented to us?
It's this sensorium. It's spectacle. And it's a system of control and manipulation. We're on our knees looking at cave walls and seeing the projections, and we're not having the chance to look behind us. Or to the side.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
