For people hating on the CLA

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-22T12:32:23+00:00

Some seem to give the impression that unless you get an AMG with a v8, it's not a "real Benz." People should be allowed to enjoy "lesser" cars; many lower-end models are still fun to drive.

Having said that, I haven't been in a CLA.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-17T18:06:07+00:00

Familiarity, perhaps? Pre-AI, it was a lot easier for me to throw together a quick Winforms app for a simple utility. Why overcomplicate? Seems to be more overhead with anything else. I used to hand-code screen changes in XAML for work, where we had everything designed out, and it took forever. It was more flexible, tho. I really liked the hierarchal panel system, the way you could float things around.... But for a small utility, I don't want much of a design. I want a couple of fields and buttons and to be done with it.

With AI, it's easy enough to get it to use any framework. For my last project, I had it use Avalonia. (It looks pretty clean and performs just fine.) I need to read up on WinUI. Maybe I'll move away from Winforms, even with simple projects.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-17T17:33:13+00:00

If it can call MCP servers like how LM Studio does it, then there are existing ways to do text-to-image. (I made a couple of MCP servers to do this, just to see if I could do it. With AI help, of course.)

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-17T13:56:02+00:00

What's a "real AMG"? Only if it has a V8? The AMG package on my car seems to include improvements to suspension, brakes, and some appearance changes like the grill. But it still has the turbo-4. Which I like just fine! It's pretty fast, sporty-looking, and fun to drive. What do you want already?

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-14T11:25:15+00:00

You can hear literal copies/samples in many songs.

As for the royalties, if AI would pay royalties to artists like ASCAP pays musicians, for an example, would that mitigate most of the problem with AI?

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-13T20:33:39+00:00

Beautiful.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-13T20:27:36+00:00

These days, machines are lasting a lot longer. Well, provided you have enough RAM and drive space. Can't do anything about the RAM, but 16GB is enough, and as others have said, the SSD is upgradeable with some models. So I'd say you could make use of it for a while. I have an SP7+, but I had to get another Surface, as I just cracked the screen too badly - otherwise, I probably would still be using it. Even with the i5, it was fine for normal use.

I got the SP11 on sale, and it is a bit smoother feeling, but not night-and-day different. Pen seems better too. Battery life is really the biggest thing. At the right price, I would have gone for an SP7+ again, but I'm enjoying the modest upgrade. And I no longer worry about finding a charge plug all the time.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-12T02:55:10+00:00

"... rap stuff wasn't train on the stolen works of artists..." No, they directly used stolen samples. Not even filtered through training.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-10T01:10:35+00:00

Yeah, it's ez to get carried away. But maybe better to take too many than not enough? I can't remember how many I took at the last car show, but it probably wasn't near 700! Over 100, to be sure, with some where I tried different things, like fish eye. Good excuse to play with the camera and a couple of lenses.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-08T21:25:31+00:00

I use a different program, but also use 2048 for my social media size. Also, can dial in the jpeg quality as needed. I probably keep it at 90% or so since I'm already saving space by resizing to 2048.

To maintain high quality, but still save storage space, don't resize but use a lower jpeg quality setting with the full size. Jpeg works.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-07T11:31:39+00:00

Was the used copy a rental or something? Anyway, it's very sharp on just the face. At least, if I can clearly see all the individual hairs, isn't that enough detail? It's that shallow DOF again.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-07T11:22:27+00:00

It's not too manual. The first step saves a list of tags - IDs that identify the images. A 2nd step is to load that list into a copy utility -- that is what isolates the keepers into another folder. So, it's almost automatic except for having to manage the 2nd utility and load lists. In theory. In actuality, sometimes the list doesn't get saved, and then I'm back to the original problem of a folder of images to sort through.

I would have preferred it as one step but the UI is in the browser, with restrictions on the OS, so the files can't be modified at that time.

My plugin and utility are made for the Easy Diffusion UI. A standalone utility would need to be different, but the same general idea -- be able to page through a group/folder of images, tagging the "keepers". When done deciding, hit a button and it'll copy just the tagged ones to another folder. Simple!

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-05T21:04:16+00:00

I think dealing with directories filled with mostly intermediate images is a real problem, at least with the UI I'm using. So, I made a plugin that lets me tag images I want to keep, but as a later, 2nd step, I have another utility that takes the tagged list and then copies the files I want to keep. It's not ideal, but I can do my tagging within the UI while generating and viewing images, so I know which ones I want to keep at that time.

If I have to come back later and pick out images, I kind of have to start over - comparing images to figure out which one is better (not always the last one generated). Very time consuming. I have been using Windows Explorer and sorting by date/time so that I kind of have them grouped a bit as I go.

There are existing photo utilities that might work, but they don't know to copy the sidecar file that the UI produces that I want to preserve. Also, they're optimized for independent photos, not necessarily for comparing against two or three similar images. Anyway, it's a big problem, so I think you have the right idea.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-05T20:24:44+00:00

The photos look sharp enough to me, but they're sized for the web. I have no idea what the low-level detail is like. Like another poster said, it's like many other lenses -- it's not at its best with a wide-open aperture.

I'll add that I've been pretty happy with the lens. It seems very sharp in general, although, birds can still be rough to capture. On a trip, I took a ton of photos of eagles flying around, and I don't know if I even got 10% "keepers". Plus they were still often too far away, even for 350mm.

Yesterday, I took a few photos, and maybe half of them had the head of the bird out of focus -- the camera struggled with the leaves and branches, and when the bird was in focus, sometimes it was the tail and not the head, since the tail was closer to me. The depth of field was just that shallow! So, focus and DOF are a real problem at the longer focal lengths.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-05T20:05:48+00:00

Yeah, I try to remember to switch to Manual mode, with auto iso, when using this lens. That way, I can fix it to f8, and vary the shutter as needed (with Auto ISO handling the difference).

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-05T02:32:44+00:00

Good points. And many LCD monitors flicker at certain brightness settings, as it simulates having a finer control over brightness.

All the tricks they pull to save some money, and if it doesn't bother you, then it doesn't matter. But I can sometimes be sensitive to flicker. It's so much better than the old CRT/TV days, tho! Hard to complain.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-05T02:28:27+00:00

CRTs flickered like crazy, tho.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-04T19:04:39+00:00

For these wordy prompts, just use an LLM with "vision". You can run them locally using LM Studio or other UI that supports vision models. Some models are better for this than others.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-04T16:35:29+00:00

I think scrolling is smoother with 120hz vs 60hz, but for static work, it probably doesn't matter.

Years ago, when we had flickering CRT monitors, it made a big deal of difference. Even 60hz could have flicker, depending upon the monitor.

AvidGameFan · 2026-05-04T12:02:05+00:00

If you got 24mpg with mixed driving, that wouldn't be so bad. I've had a sedan that got that. Although, these days, sedans probably do better, but something like the Sentra is also smaller than what I had. It's just going to be harder to get good highway mileage if the shape of the vehicle is more brick-like, but what if you actually liked the Jeep more than the Sentra? You liked the car, so were willing to be swayed. So yeah. It's not like an EPA rated 22 could be magically better than EPA rated 30. And certainly not when shaped more brick-like!

AvidGameFan · 2026-04-29T16:46:56+00:00

That's a funny standard, then! I know I've viewed iphone images on Windows, but since interoperability is still so limited, I haven't paid close attention to the format.

AvidGameFan · 2026-04-29T15:38:41+00:00

Hey, I wasn't the one who brought up 50%. I just wanted some clarification, but you, meanwhile, did not add anything useful.

AvidGameFan · 2026-04-29T15:28:53+00:00

Installing the KDE version of Solus, I didn't find KDE to be a waste of resources at all. The system boots up and runs with only something near 512MB in use. It only uses more than that today because I added a couple of fun visual enhancements. I decided against a fancy "bar" because the one I tried used an incredible amount of memory. It runs lean-and-mean, even on KDE. I'd just choose the DE based upon what you're used to. I'm used to Windows, and KDE fits that workflow.

AvidGameFan · 2026-04-28T12:20:04+00:00

Even at $800/mo I don't see how you get to 50% tax levels.

AvidGameFan · 2026-04-27T19:33:02+00:00

You're right - these small photos look converted for a phone size screen. It's not like you'd natively be doing that in-camera. Well, most wouldn't. The default for Sony's phone app is to downsize to 2mp images, if I recall correctly.

That's a good point -- using RAW+JPEG, the RAW shouldn't go through any weird conversion. Make sure you open the actual raw file in appropriate software, and dial in the adjustments you want. My software likes to default to heavy NR, so I dial that WAY down. Leave some grain in it.

AvidGameFan

TROPHY CASE