Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

[Frindis]

@Zloth The thing is, even if you use Adblock, you still have an enormous amount of ads thrown into your face. Just look at the latest sponsored 100K USD Classic Hardcore Mak'gora tournament. This is how you can do it though, without having the idiotic "TV ads" turn the consumer's brain into mush. (Link to give an example and timestamped)

View: https://youtu.be/LdRMXrirrtI?t=1670

 

[Frindis]

"For a long time, several streaming companies have not been able to illustrate their capacity to turn a profit, and investors are now looking for those returns"

Maybe look at Jeff Bezoz's 500 million estate value or perhaps Ted Sarando's mansions.

​

 

[Zloth]

@Zloth The thing is, even if you use Adblock, you still have an enormous amount of ads thrown into your face. Just look at the latest sponsored 100K USD Classic Hardcore Mak'gora tournament. This is how you can do it though, without having the idiotic "TV ads" turn the consumer's brain into mush. (Link to give an example and timestamped)

?? I'm not following? Are there supposed to be ads in the video or is it that companies sponsoring sports do that as a form of advertising?

 

[Frindis]

?? I'm not following? Are there supposed to be ads in the video or is it that companies sponsoring sports do that as a form of advertising?

They made it so the participants had to show their company name (Starforge) in character/guild name while playing WoW and in participants streaming channel which would equal a hell of a lot of advertisement for Starforge (They had over several hundred of thousands of viewers divided on all channels). That would mean that the more popular the streamer would be participating in the tournament, the more would watch it (like myself) and the more advertisement Starforge would get from it, so basically a huge win for them overall. Meanwhile, I myself would see the ads, but not really be obstructed by them in any way shape, or form as you would with a regular "thrown at your face ad".

 

[Brian Boru]

look at Jeff Bezoz … or perhaps Ted Sarando's

Jeff owns ~⅛ of Amz—huge of course, but it's the other ⅞ who want to see a return. A big proportion of those in all companies are orgs like pension and retirement funds—so there are a lot of ordinary Joes invested there, whether they realize it or not.

Ted Sarandos isn't one of Netflix's top shareholders, so I couldn't quickly find his holding—but it won't be huge either, given that institutional investors own ~80% of the shares. So again, us little guys have a much bigger stake in the company's performance.

Same with all big public companies—their financial performance impacts the wellbeing of the general population far more than that of the few people who have made their fortunes there.

I myself would see the ads, but not really be obstructed by them in any way shape, or form

That's the way I'd like to see ads go, much more of the product placement and clothing decal approach.

 

[Frindis]

Jeff owns ~⅛ of Amz—huge of course, but it's the other ⅞ who want to see a return. A big proportion of those in all companies are orgs like pension and retirement funds—so there are a lot of ordinary Joes invested there, whether they realize it or not.

Hopefully, they got a good union.

Ted Sarandos isn't one of Netflix's top shareholders, so I couldn't quickly find his holding—but it won't be huge either

Reed Hastings probably didn't like him that much then.

, given that institutional investors own ~80% of the shares. So again, us little guys have a much bigger stake in the company's performance.

That is a very good point. I guess going against the particular political party that wants to invest the little guys' tax money would be one way to go about it when the investments meet a severe downfall. Maybe even preventing it in the first case, moving to something more wise.

Same with all big public companies—their financial performance impacts the wellbeing of the general population far more than that of the few people who have made their fortunes there.

Definitely what some of the war arms dealers would approve of

That's the way I'd like to see ads go, much more of the product placement and clothing decal approach.

Now we just have to tell the others the secret of being less annoying.

 

[Frindis]

Do you guys find it a bit ironic that Larian Studios swears to be an independent game studio, but at the same time, Tencent owns 30% of the company, the same Tencent which is also part of a major oligopoly (a larger company that controls smaller ones)?. I'm just finding it a bit odd, but I guess it also makes sense seeing how Tecent wants a slice of the pie and Larian Studioes knows just how much of the pie they'll get while still being in complete control of the company. I just think Larian Studios could have picked, you know, someone better.

 

[Andrew741]

Wow, AI has gotten much better at making pictures of people. I just asked CoPilot for a picture of a kid on the beach, and the kid was perfect, even the hands and feet. Now, she was wearing a modern bathing suit and hat and staring out at Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge sailing way too close to shore, but, hey, little steps forward...

Absolutely, the evolution of AI-generated images is truly impressive. Even with a dash of artistic flair, it's incredible to see how far we've come. Here's to the exciting journey ahead in AI-driven creativity! 🌟🖼️

 

[Zloth]

Do you guys find it a bit ironic that Larian Studios swears to be an independent game studio, but at the same time, Tencent owns 30% of the company....

No. I've never associated a studio's stock ownership plans with whether they are "independent" or not.

But then, I don't really know what to do with the term "independent" anymore. It used to mean that the game was made by a little company, publishing its own game. That wasn't even possible back in the brick & mortar days. Then Steam came along and made it possible for game makers to go without publishers. Now some of those game makers, like Larian and CD Projekt, have gotten bigger than many of the publishers out there. Heck, CD Projekt has their own store now with GOG!

The same thing might be starting to happen with books, too, after Sanderson's huge kickstarter project.

 

[ZedClampet]

Do you guys find it a bit ironic that Larian Studios swears to be an independent game studio, but at the same time, Tencent owns 30% of the company, the same Tencent which is also part of a major oligopoly (a larger company that controls smaller ones)?. I'm just finding it a bit odd, but I guess it also makes sense seeing how Tecent wants a slice of the pie and Larian Studioes knows just how much of the pie they'll get while still being in complete control of the company. I just think Larian Studios could have picked, you know, someone better.

Technically they are still independent, but hell yeah they could have found someone better to invest in them. Tencent itself isn't bad. They have a long history of letting studios do what they want, even when Tencent owns a majority share; however, Tencent has to do what their authoritarian government orders them to do, so at any moment they could start making weird demands regarding capturing personal information, etc. Of course, since they only own 30 percent of Larian, Larian can tell them to kick rocks, but people like Fatshark who sold themselves entirely to Tencent will do whatever the Chinese government tells them to do.

 

[BeardyHat]

Do you guys find it a bit ironic that Larian Studios swears to be an independent game studio, but at the same time, Tencent owns 30% of the company, the same Tencent which is also part of a major oligopoly (a larger company that controls smaller ones)?. I'm just finding it a bit odd, but I guess it also makes sense seeing how Tecent wants a slice of the pie and Larian Studioes knows just how much of the pie they'll get while still being in complete control of the company. I just think Larian Studios could have picked, you know, someone better.

Oof. I somehow didn't know this fact, but it's a little disappointing.

As for AdBlock, I block absolutely the most amount of Ads I can in my household. Not only do I run uBlock on all my PC browsers, but I also have it setup via Firefox on my phone and my wifes phone. I also have a piHole that runs my DNS, which blocks almost all of the ads on our phones when using apps; it's not 100% and it can be fiddly on occasion, but many times when I leave the house, I forget how many ads the wider internet has. I need to reconfigure my VPN on my new phone so I can dial in to my home network when I'm out and about and have adblocking even when I'm not at home.

Ads are so utterly alien to both my kids, they're baffled by them when they go to Grandma and Grandpa's and see Ads on TV.

Otherwise, I was excited to see the Free Weekend for Anno 1800 on Steam. I actually never take advantage of Free Weekend games, because usually whatever is available is something I'm not interested in or it's a game I'm not interested in playing at that very moment. But Anno 1800 is one I've been wanting to play for awhile, as I really enjoy the series. So, between basically yesterday Evening and this evening, I've managed to put in 6.1 Hours, which is an unheard of amount of game time for me. Suffice to say, I love it and am going to be purchasing it before the sale is over.

Now, that said, while it runs pretty damn well at 1080p/Low on my laptop, it's kind of pushing me towards buying a new machine, which I've been thinking about for awhile anyway...

 

[Brian Boru]

Louis Rossmann's 13m on YouTube's adblock war is backfiring in the worst way possible:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GARcKCaUfI

 

[Frindis]

@Brian Boru I'm just watching and have to give him a 200IQ point for mentioning the Streisand effect while also having another video explaining the Streisand effect. He brings up a good point that the internet will find a way to combat this and that it is up to us as consumers to be more invested and perhaps not as gullible aka the Gmail thing he talked about. Kind of funny thinking that YouTube should have just let the consumers wander around the fields eating that sweet grass instead of burning them with a hot pick

 

[neogunhero]

Anyone watching Invincible? I’m not huge into superheroes at all but Invincible feels is awesome. The action is great, the drama is engaging enough that you care, and the visuals are brutal. I’ve always loved really bloody movies, shows, anime, games… and Invincible great that right. I didn’t believe all the hype until I watched Season 1 earlier this year and was immediately drawn in. I am extremely picky about what shows and movies I watch, I have to be totally invested or else I stop watching, so it’s rare for me to watch a show and actually care, and this has been the only show I’ve cared enough about all year. Highly recommended if you like animation and super heroes.

 

[ZedClampet]

Based on Guido's suggestion, and after researching it and watching Louis Rossmann talk about it, I have changed from Edge to Brave. Don't even need an adblock as far as I can tell. It natively blocks ads, tracking, fingerprinting, cookie notifications, etc. And on my computer, at least, it's very fast.

 

[ZedClampet]

I need some help. I have a digital portrait that I edited (removed the glasses and other things) and I'm trying to faceswap this old picture of myself onto Elvis in the music video for Bossa Nova (because I'm bored). The problem is that the faceswapper can still see the glasses in the photo and puts them in the video. I've painted over the glasses. You can't see them at all. I've done this first in Photoshop and then in paintdotnet. Still the glasses show up in the video. I took a screenshot of the picture and used the screenshot, but somehow those glasses are in there somehow. How do I get rid of this invisible data?

 

[BeardyHat]

I need some help. I have a digital portrait that I edited (removed the glasses and other things) and I'm trying to faceswap this old picture of myself onto Elvis in the music video for Bossa Nova (because I'm bored). The problem is that the faceswapper can still see the glasses in the photo and puts them in the video. I've painted over the glasses. You can't see them at all. I've done this first in Photoshop and then in paintdotnet. Still the glasses show up in the video. I took a screenshot of the picture and used the screenshot, but somehow those glasses are in there somehow. How do I get rid of this invisible data?

Quick and dirty, but what if you screenshot the photo sans glasses and then use that screenshot for the video?

 

[Frindis]

Kind of weird that GOG removed the ability for you to see (through numbers) the amount of games you own on each platform. You could do that until pretty recently...

 

[Pifanjr]

Anyone watching Invincible? I’m not huge into superheroes at all but Invincible feels is awesome. The action is great, the drama is engaging enough that you care, and the visuals are brutal. I’ve always loved really bloody movies, shows, anime, games… and Invincible great that right. I didn’t believe all the hype until I watched Season 1 earlier this year and was immediately drawn in. I am extremely picky about what shows and movies I watch, I have to be totally invested or else I stop watching, so it’s rare for me to watch a show and actually care, and this has been the only show I’ve cared enough about all year. Highly recommended if you like animation and super heroes.

I've seen mentions of it before that sounded interesting, but this is the first time I actually learned what the name of the series is. It seems it's only available on Amazon Prime though, which I don't have a subscription for.

I need some help. I have a digital portrait that I edited (removed the glasses and other things) and I'm trying to faceswap this old picture of myself onto Elvis in the music video for Bossa Nova (because I'm bored). The problem is that the faceswapper can still see the glasses in the photo and puts them in the video. I've painted over the glasses. You can't see them at all. I've done this first in Photoshop and then in paintdotnet. Still the glasses show up in the video. I took a screenshot of the picture and used the screenshot, but somehow those glasses are in there somehow. How do I get rid of this invisible data?

The most obvious answer is that you accidental somehow keep using the original picture with the glasses instead of the one without, because I don't think there should be any invisible data left after saving the image. Especially not if you're using a screenshot of the edited picture.

If that's not the problem, then I guess the faceswap is detecting the glasses-shaped edits and is adding glasses itself, which would be kind of weird.

 

[ZedClampet]

I've seen mentions of it before that sounded interesting, but this is the first time I actually learned what the name of the series is. It seems it's only available on Amazon Prime though, which I don't have a subscription for.



The most obvious answer is that you accidental somehow keep using the original picture with the glasses instead of the one without, because I don't think there should be any invisible data left after saving the image. Especially not if you're using a screenshot of the edited picture.

If that's not the problem, then I guess the faceswap is detecting the glasses-shaped edits and is adding glasses itself, which would be kind of weird.

I'm not using the old picture. The thing is, the other day I used Photoshop to remove the backgrounds of about half-a-dozen pictures, and I saved them as .png, but when I look at them in File Explorer, they still have their backgrounds. Open them up in any editing software or in a picture viewer, and the backgrounds are gone again. You can only see them now in File Explorer.

I wonder if this could have something to do with the Windows 11 update that allows you to do automatic editing of photos including removing the backgrounds? I never had anything like this happen to me prior to that update. Maybe windows is saving multiple copies of the same picture, perhaps like the layers of an image editor.

 

[ZedClampet]

@Pifanjr I figured out a way to fix it. Just by chance and because I do a lot of art, I knew that pictures that I turn black and white in Paintdotnet cannot be edited in Photoshop in any way unless you let Photoshop convert them first, so I did this to this picture and then let Photoshop colorize it. Then it worked. No more glasses showed up.

 

[Brian Boru]

when I look at them in File Explorer, they still have their backgrounds

Good job finding a workaround. My thought is maybe that's a cache that FE uses? Dunno, don't use FE myself.

 

[neogunhero]

It seems it's only available on Amazon Prime though, which I don't have a subscription for.

I’m a filthy scammer who keeps making new Outlook emails to get free Game Pass and 30 day trials to Amazon 😂 They haven’t caught onto me yet even though I always have the same shipping address… maybe they think 10 different people with slight variations of the same name live here. “Meet my brothers - Curt, Kurt, Khurdt, Churd, Churt, and Kchurdt”

 

[BeardyHat]

My dumb brain has become obsessed with the idea of a thin and light laptop, so I've been vigorously researching what I would want to pick-up. My current laptop, a Thinkpad T480s isn't bad at all; plenty of power for its size and only 2.99lbs and while that is pretty compact, I also have a Microsoft Surface Go 2, which often comes with me wherever I go. It's small, less than 2lbs and easily fits in my backpack I carry around for my kids everywhere.

Buuuuuuttt...the battery life on the Go is mediocre, the keyboard is uncomfortable to use for extended periods and I dislike that I need to use the touchpad or bring along a mouse to really feel like I'm getting the full utility out of the machine. I really like having the Trackpoint on a Thinkpad, as it's very versatile when it comes to usability and is excellent for gaming on the go without a mouse.

So, I've been looking at Thinkpad X1 Nanos. The cheapest one I've been able to find is $500, which isn't terribly expensive, but is more than I ought to realistically spend on a secondary computer that will be used intermittently. But what's driving me nuts is that I've become obsessed with this idea, even though it really lacks any sort of logic, as I'm already awash in PC's.

 

[ZedClampet]

My dumb brain has become obsessed with the idea of a thin and light laptop, so I've been vigorously researching what I would want to pick-up. My current laptop, a Thinkpad T480s isn't bad at all; plenty of power for its size and only 2.99lbs and while that is pretty compact, I also have a Microsoft Surface Go 2, which often comes with me wherever I go. It's small, less than 2lbs and easily fits in my backpack I carry around for my kids everywhere.

Buuuuuuttt...the battery life on the Go is mediocre, the keyboard is uncomfortable to use for extended periods and I dislike that I need to use the touchpad or bring along a mouse to really feel like I'm getting the full utility out of the machine. I really like having the Trackpoint on a Thinkpad, as it's very versatile when it comes to usability and is excellent for gaming on the go without a mouse.

So, I've been looking at Thinkpad X1 Nanos. The cheapest one I've been able to find is $500, which isn't terribly expensive, but is more than I ought to realistically spend on a secondary computer that will be used intermittently. But what's driving me nuts is that I've become obsessed with this idea, even though it really lacks any sort of logic, as I'm already awash in PC's.

Been there, done that. Once the idea takes over, I usually just have to give in.

Can't offer any advice on the laptops. I have no idea how much mine weigh, and they are always plugged in, though I do know they last less than 30 minutes if you are playing a game unplugged.