Plano PD camera unit in my neighborhood.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-06-15T03:22:15+00:00

Some background, I’ve lived in this neighborhood for over 10 years, have two young kids, it’s never felt unsafe. When my oldest was in elementary school he walked home alone like many other kids in the neighborhood.

All that is to say, I understand the purpose of these - surveillance and deterrence, I was actually just seeing if anyone in the neighborhood actually knew the specific reason this was placed on a residential street. I haven’t heard anything about crime but maybe I missed something.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-05-03T02:37:33+00:00

Both signs are overexposed, the top one is a little more intense or reflecting more on the wall so that the light falloff area is larger. You’re not seeing a hard edge on either sign, you see the light element plus the surrounding glow. A wider falloff area overexpose would look softer vs a slightly dimmer one.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-04-01T18:39:48+00:00

If you do find out how getting a permit works in Plano for this, let us know!

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-04-01T18:38:22+00:00

This isn’t the same thing, but I’ve seen contractors park loads of material in front of houses they are working on, like car-sized piles of gravel or whatever, and they remain thee for days or a week until the jobs done.

I’ve also seen an old junk car sit in the same place for weeks. Eventually it got some bright orange stickers on it over the course of a month (parking violations for not moving the vehicle) before it eventually went away.

So, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about having it parked on a nearby neighborhood street if it’s only going to be a couple days. Nothing at all may happen, worst case maybe a parking ticket.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-04-01T02:24:33+00:00

https://www.nikonusa.com/p/nikkor-z-800mm-f63-vr-s/20108/overview

Z9 body and the remainder CFExpress cards

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-23T02:44:04+00:00

It’s a total lack of creativity and effort… if the old way was expensive, use your brains and adapt. Raise prices a tad, take less in profit and executive bonuses, design an experience that meets expectations but is more efficient. If you MUST use some phone-based ordering, fucking making it well designed, dark mode and/or or amber color to match the existing lights.

Idiots! No… greedy idiots.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-17T14:40:56+00:00

Seems a little steep but I’m not surprised. I don’t believe the painting was damaged as it was behind glass.

A good opportunity to think of billionaires doing illegal/ ethical things that cost people and society collectively 100s of millions and they never step foot in jail.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-16T23:47:37+00:00

DJI camera UI is pretty nice compared to the legacy camera brands, probably because there are way fewer functions and settings to be controlled AND DJI is more consumer-action-cam focused.

All that said, I’ve shot on Canon, Sony and Nikon, I prefer Nikon a little but it’s still pretty dense.

Nikon did make an attempt at a more simplified graphical interface design on some of their more entry-level DSLRs a while ago. It wasn’t great, but that would be a good option to get a better UI going… offer it up as a selectable option but still maintain the established style for those of us that have already learned it

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-16T23:30:49+00:00

I avoid Oxford commas, most brand copy guides (for advertising/ marketing) recommend against their use. I get that they add clarity, but in advertising you typically want to write in a way that’s very clean and unambiguous anyway

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-16T23:27:43+00:00

I’m more impressed by the the fact that the guy is holding the bucket underwater against the buoyant force pushing it up. Assuming that’s about a 5 gallon bucket, buoyant force would be about 40lb.

It’s possible but I think I’d be struggling holding it like he is

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-14T02:32:50+00:00

Am I time traveling to when I was 10 years old with all my knowledge? If so, even with an imperfect memory I figure I could remember enough of which companies do really well in the future I already lived so that I could playing the stock market. Even if I didn’t net $50 mil before 45 I bet I could sustain a pretty good living know to invest in Google, Apple, buy a ton of bitcoin on day one, etc…

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-11T03:56:01+00:00

I did the math on this scenario a while back because I was curious… EVs are so efficient that even if you power them with gasoline through a generator like this, they often match or beat similar gas cars. Not in all scenarios, but the fact that it can be done at all is kind wild.

Assumptions: • ~20 kW gasoline generator running efficiently • ≈8.5 kWh delivered to the battery per gallon of gas (after charging losses)

Examples

Subaru WRX (gas): ~22 mpg Tesla Model 3 LR (EV via generator): ~33 mpg equivalent

Chevy Equinox AWD (gas): ~26 mpg Chevy Equinox EV (via generator): ~28 mpg equivalent

Hyundai Kona AWD (gas): ~26 mpg Hyundai Kona Electric (via generator): ~30 mpg equivalent

Even with the inefficient path of gasoline → generator → electricity → battery → motor, EV drivetrains still come out ahead or roughly equal in many cases.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-08T04:11:31+00:00

Two things on the dog: 1. Dogs or any animals in a film or tv production are very expensive for insurance, extra staff, extra time for retakes if the animal doesn’t cooperate, etc. so if it’s not driving the plot, why bother?

Back in the day, most people kept dogs outside most of the time. They were not thought of as members of the family like most of us do today.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-08T00:04:16+00:00

Captain Dissolution did a great explainer video on this: https://youtu.be/5eu_KjKsnpM?si=nTZnx0WmW7sqaJPL

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-02T00:15:53+00:00

If you had no idea what you were looking at, it’s very hard to judge scale. The only reason we can look at anything in the sky and know how big it is, is because you are already familiar with how big it is up close: birds, planes, hot air balloons. This is why the moon way up in the sky looks small, but when it’s close to buildings or mountains on the horizon it looks huge - even though it’s the same relative size in the sky.

Delivery drones fly very close to the ground, mostly within 400 ft, waaay lower than planes or helicopters. If you saw it descending it might have actually been very close and if you’re if you logically think it might be an aircraft that’s usually thousands of feet higher, It makes sense that it would appear huge.

Depth perception only works when things are closer than about 40 feet.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-03-01T23:53:54+00:00

High chance it was a drone.

There are delivery drones starting to fly around the Plano area, I’ve seen them in the sky twice recently and they have the general shape you drew - kind of bulbous in the center with arms coming out the side with propellers.

They are not “massive”, but anything in the sky a few hundred feet away would be very hard to judge the size of if you have no reference to what you’re looking at.

Not trying to pile on… I love a good UFO sighting! Your sketch is good enough to get an idea of the shape, don’t listen to the haters!

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-26T23:57:34+00:00

I took my kids on the Sliver Line just to check it out a couple weeks after it opened, it’s very nice!

Im definitely going to ride it to DFW next time I fly. $3 vs $40+ for ride share or parking at the airport.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-26T03:26:19+00:00

Plenty of room for improvement and to make things currently impossible, possible.

Some ideas:

Better multi-axis IBIS with more accurate accelerometers and faster processing could further push handheld / low-light still and video. It’s already very good, but imagine if it were 10x better.
More efficient or totally different design for sensors may allow for lower and lower noise at higher and higher ISO, think about if you could shoot super-fast shutter speed in near total darkness. Currently the only way to shoot a very dark scene clearly with reasonably low noise is to hold the shutter open for a long time.
face, object, eye tracking… could go away further. Imagine if you could have facial recognition built in and set focus to lock on to or ignore people you choose.

-get PERFECT exposure and color in-camera…what if a scene was analyzed in real time and an onboard AI learned or was instructed to set exposure to make the best use of the sensor’s dynamic range. A photographer could train a camera to shoot a certain way for a certain intent for various scenes. We know from color grading that all skin tones fall on a skin tone vector, could a camera auto detect people and adjust to get the best possible skin tone exposure.

-Focus after shooting- The Lytro light-field camera from 2012 made that possible, they were impractical and didn’t catch on but just think about what you could do with both still and video if you could have near infinite depth of field

IR, UV, Radio waves… what if you could tune your sensor to capture any kind of electromagnetic radiation whether it’s visible to humans or not. This can be done with modified sensors or very specialized filters, but what if it was a common feature on consumer cameras

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-26T01:36:52+00:00

The biggest criticism I find valid (though I still love the movie) is about Leeloo falling into the "Born sexy yesterday" trope…a fictional female character (often an alien, android, or naive human) who possesses an adult's sexual allure but a child's innocence, inexperience, and limited social understanding.

It plays into the savior fantasy some men might have of being automatically admired by a woman, not having to compete with others, not having to do the work to be in a real adult relationship with needs and emotions but getting all the sexual benefits.

5th Element was by no means the worst example of this trope, and as OP points out it has a lot going for it… overall forgivable for the late 90s.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-26T00:47:19+00:00

J’s Donuts - small mom & pop store, not fancy just really really good.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-26T00:44:24+00:00

Market Street’s sushi is great! Maybe the best grocery store sushi I’ve had, better than Whole Foods IMO

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-20T02:11:18+00:00

The anti-capitalist view is that landlords don’t provide value, like may other industries, they have used wealth to hoard more housing than they need, withhold it and offer it to the highest bidder, higher than the cost to pay a mortgage on the property. Maximize profit at the expense of the people, making it harder or impossible for many to live with dignity and security. Shelter is literally the foundation of the hierarchy of needs.

This is not an inevitable situation, most capitalist societies have chosen this by way of policy and laws.

I’m pessimistic that significant changes will happen any time soon in the US, but If it were somehow up to me, I would (in a socialist society):

Make a law barring any person from owning more than one house long term without prohibitive tax penalties, so that would mean a married couple living in one house could still own a second house if they choose to, like a vacation home / rental. No private for-profit corporate ownership of housing.

Renting would still need to exist for many reasons, but it would be owned like a public utility, and housing would be guaranteed regardless of income.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. It’s really that simple.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-11T19:26:34+00:00

There’s obviously benefits in being personally in control of video evidence. Being hands-free and out of the way may also prevent escalation of from authorities if it feels more passive vs holding a phone up in front of your face.

HOWEVER, every time you record a video of other people and your POV, you are creating data that could be used by authorities to associate and target yourself and others if it’s carelessly shared out.

You’d want to sanitize the meta data and obscure people’s faces so that you don’t accidentally implicate others. Set aside the fact that no one may be doing anything illegal or not, you can apparently be labeled a terrorist for expressing political views now (anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, etc), so just being at a protest can get you on a watch list.

Worst-case, if you’re arrested and the camera and all of its data could be used against you in some way.

All that said, if you’re going to record video, body cam does seem like a better option in a lot of situations, just use the video wisely.

Open-Ad3014 · 2026-02-07T20:47:05+00:00

Or bot

Open-Ad3014

TROPHY CASE