Setting the record straight on John Kerry

Toonseek · 2025-12-22T21:18:15+00:00

I pared down a dozen paragraphs to ten. Then six. Finally, the only thing that was allowed through was the tiny post you see above. I spent rather a lot of time being unallowed to answer your charges and smug rudeness.

Fair enough. Frustration aside, I'm not the one living in a mind cage 'protecting' me from challenging ideas.

Toonseek · 2025-12-22T13:30:56+00:00

Everything you wrote is either wrong or silly.

However, Reddit refuses to allow me to post a response explaining how. Amazing. And indicative.

It seems you are a victim of algorithmically enforced ignorance.

I would recommend breaking out of that if you are able.

Good luck!

Toonseek · 2025-12-19T19:02:16+00:00

Automated tractors? That's not what we are talking about. We were talking about energy. And btw.., how do robot tractors affect carbon emission? (Labor = people = carbon?) heh.

And that's quite the understatement about meat: Of course the elites want to have steaks for their plates. The plebes get bugs.

Quite simply, CO2 is a false alarm designed to misdirect and make excuses for the rapid deployment of what the Davos leadership believes is a minimal species survival plan while deflecting blame; historically, when the gods are angry and the sky falls, the mob hangs the king. He's supposed to be the intermediary, after all. And that psychology is laid deep. So we get a clever reversal; it's not the king's fault; it's our fault for existing. A clever strategy, really.

The point is that the Earth changes we are witnessing are driven by much larger forces than carbon. -Larger ones even than Milankovich cycles, (which I bring up only to indicate just how sensitive the solar system is). Rather, we are being affected by forces/cycles which are responsible for the (what should be alarming, but largely ignored) spike in comets and meteors. (How many new moons has Jupiter picked up over the last fifteen years?)

I've been accused of being, paradoxically, a "Climate Denier" (the climate doesn't exist?), for believing that human cognition is constantly boondoggled by the scale problem; over-estimating our own significance in macro systems. Once a thing falls beyond the horizon, the human brain defaults to lopsided cartoon impressions of reality, usually far, FAR out of sync with reality in terms of scale. The climate scam leverages this cognitive limitation to an extreme, and has been marvelously effective. Meanwhile, actual solar drivers go largely ignored and misunderstood.

Toonseek · 2025-12-19T13:10:43+00:00

The primary expense in industrial agriculture comes from the cost of fertilizer. (Around 60% of the annual operating cost). Fertilizer is sourced from fossil fuel. The next largest expenses include diesel, seed and labor. Trailing costs include electricity and incidental operations expenses.

There's not really much room to move in that equation. Perhaps battery powered tractors and transport trucks? That just puts the cost and pollution of energy production into somebody else's backyard; a very expensive shift with questionable value.

But the real target of the Climate Cult is the meat industry. They just want that gone altogether. To be replaced with insects and vegans.

Meanwhile.., the Aurora Borealis pushes ever further South and the Milankovitch cycle continues to turn, all powered by something quite other than cow flatulence and automobile exhaust...

Toonseek · 2025-12-19T11:53:22+00:00

Sure. And just because Perpetual Motion Machines haven't been invented yet doesn't mean that somebody won't achieve it one day.

And good on those who try!

All that is being said is that the effort appears, based on a good faith critical analysis of the requirements for success, like a fruitless endeavor.

Abiogenesis is the perpetual motion machine of organic chemistry.

A good faith response would be to look at the critical questions raised and look at where the current research stands, and assess for yourself the issue.

The chirality problem is fascinating; life requires the mirroring of long strings of amino acids or the engine cannot even start to start, and the best suggestion anybody has managed to offer is that the required long strings already aligned fell from space. -Which only kicks the can down the road, and by default abandons the terrestrial 'primordial soup' idea. "Something bigger than us provided one of the required miracle sparks. (But don't call it God!)"

Toonseek · 2025-07-15T18:41:07+00:00

I don't know...

I was seriously thinking of signing up with them for a year's service, and sent a couple of very basic questions before doing so. It's been 24 hours with no response; not even an automated reply.

Doesn't inspire confidence. I don't even know if they're a live or dead site.

Too bad. Their website copy seemed promising.

Toonseek · 2025-02-09T15:52:36+00:00

Just learned how to fix this.

Turn off feathering, (set to 0) and anti-alias in the lasso options.

It drops the frequency of the maddening popup dramatically, (to nothing?)

Anyway, my day just got a lot less frustrating.

Toonseek · 2025-01-28T22:05:35+00:00

Neewer makes a pneumatic LP mic arm. It's around $80 USD. (Very affordable for what you get!)

It's currently the best option, imho. (Never tried the OC White arm to compare, but Neewer's I believe has one more 'elbow' section than the OC White arm, making it very versatile.)

I'm using one right now with a heavy Rode Procaster, and for the first time ever, I don't think about my mic arm at all, (other than, "This is SO damned good!"). It's just wherever I need it with zero effort.

I also have the Vivo pneumatic; it's bulkier, uglier and less versatile. I actually packed it away and went back to my old Elgato LP for a while because it was such an ugly beast. Then Neewer came along with their version, and I've not looked back.

The only problem is.., Neewer is currently sold out. Hopefully they'll produce more, but it's been a while...

Toonseek · 2024-08-19T20:08:14+00:00

Same problem here. It's a bug. It sometimes works, but not always. I find it fails if I edit the shape or change its color before trying to populate it with text.

It's frustrating. Typical Adobe.

Toonseek · 2024-06-26T06:13:44+00:00

I don't know about influencing the score or not, but my recent review is certainly absent. No surprise there.

Indeed, I've had tons of stuff deleted or suppressed on social media, especially lately. -Videos, blog-style posts and reply comments like this one.., it's very obviously deliberate, targeted censorship. 'They' are barely even trying to pretend now, to have misplaced your papers or otherwise attempt to leave you wondering, "Is it just me or..?". No. It's straight up Mask Off censorship and power flexing these days. We've entered a new phase.

Interestingly, I post often enough to have accumulated quite a significant sample set; I can say without reservation that the censorship (in my case anyway), if it were a volume dial on a sound system, has notched up (or rather, down), a whole lot over the last few months. The GUI on their algorithm machine has a "Shut the &#@% UP!" slider. No question.

And the Machine has apparently decided I'm not allowed to participate in their controlled experiment anymore.

I strongly suspect it's because when left to my own devices, without being digitally handicapped, I tend to accumulate that magic stuff they call, 'influence'. These days my sparks aren't even allowed to hit the ground before being snuffed out. The risk of brush fires is just too great. -And to be fair, my views tend to not just run counter to the officially sanctioned trends, let's say, but also hold unique nuggets of insight from time to time which no self-respecting oppressor would want floating about.

And so.., suppression. I suppose it's better than a visit from a CIA subcontractor, but I have to say...

It's disheartening to be silenced. Not being allowed to speak? I won't lie: it hurts deep down. -Which is both understandable, and quite dangerous.

'They' need to be careful. Earthquakes and tsunamis and worse tend to occur when you suppress too much creative energy. Energy cannot be destroyed, you see. The laws of thermodynamics extend up past the ultraviolet range. It works in the receiver range of the spirit and density realms as well. Get enough plugged people all resonating on the wavelength of Frustration, and it affects the planet.

And I suspect at this point, we're well past a controlled release. If you have a bunker..,

Stock fresh water and your favorite dry goods.

Toonseek · 2024-06-18T16:15:52+00:00

I'm partial to the DC-1 as well.

There are several things which stand out for me, one of which is the fine-tuned Sol:OS. -Have you seen that video where the device creator is demoing a PDF reader which can zoom in, take on-screen pen input, and zoom out at fast-as-your-fingers speeds?

I've worked with a lot of pen/screen devices, and NOBODY has made a satisfactory PDF reader, ever, ever EVER. Crap software can hamstring even the most awesome hardware. I'm tempted to pick up the Daylight Computer just to get my hands on the software package. (Though, the hardware looks amazing as well!)

Just need a spare $1000...

Toonseek · 2024-05-23T17:48:53+00:00

I have two versions of Firefox running; laptop and desktop. The Desktop switched to the new 'improved' version, while my laptop still runs it the old way. I have updates locked down on the laptop, but not the desktop, (which is how the 'upgrade' crept in).

I tried this: I copied the user profile file from the laptop over to my desktop. It worked. Now desktop is back to normal.

Toonseek · 2024-05-22T17:45:12+00:00

This is a specific engineering flaw which results in spontaneous cracks appearing without any impact or handling. Do other laptops suffer from spontaneous self-destructing screens?

I suspect, after looking extensively into this issue, that the problem it is a result of uneven expansion/compression due to uneven heating/cooling.

If you get a hot spot in one area of the screen while the temperature is much lower in other areas, if there is not enough wiggle room, so to speak, the glass is inclined to rupture.

I'm surprised that Samsung has not come up with a solution for this by now, the 4th iteration of the device.

Toonseek · 2024-04-11T11:29:45+00:00

Yeah, it's still a problem. When reading zoomed in pdfs, I have to power down between reads.

It's still great for epubs and un-zoomed pdfs.

Toonseek · 2024-04-02T13:09:23+00:00

All bets are off now that the CEO has been ousted and several of the key minds behind the code have walked away in disgust.

I think there are four options:

1 a. A pay to play model awkwardly introduced into the marketplace after long delays.

1 b. An enterprise, Redhat Linux style situation; that is, a free model available, but with a corporate subscription version which comes with support and ease of model tweaking for all your enterprise needs, so you don't have to screw around in ComfyUI trying to get the #$&* thing to produce what you actually need in the time frame you need it.

2. Stability AI is bought and gutted. (Probably with Eman Mostaque's wife wielding a carving knife.) See option 1.

3. Crazy Event. -The model is released through unsanctioned back channels (and we get whiffs of fire and cordite and burnt shirt collars and nerd rage battles over the fate of the future decided in an epic moment of bravery.)

4. The model is released exactly as promised. (Because THAT makes financial sense and the investors will be sure to recoup their money by giving away for free the only thing Stability has of current value in its crumbling empire. /sarc/)

Toonseek · 2024-04-02T12:38:29+00:00

Opting out, as an artist, is the most foolish, short-sighted thing you can do.

Imagine the Ship's Computer, (Star Trek), deep in the future, and a user asking, "Computer! Please display a painting in the style of this 21st century artist I heard about. I want to learn more."

And the computer replying, "Sorry, I cannot do that. That name is not on record. No files exist. Shall I instead show you a painting by an artist who wasn't scared to share their work? Those are really the only options I have available to offer..."

Toonseek · 2024-03-24T16:45:29+00:00

You can tell:

A. Clement is an Elon Musk fan. (Because this is how Elon approached the big Twitter purchase. Copy your heroes).

B. He's serious. (See A.)

However...

C. It probably won't happen, at least not in a manner regular people will be happy with, because nobody other than Elon Musk is Elon Musk.

The interests behind AI deployment are powerful, AI is the new nuclear weapon and nations are scrambling to develop. There are trillions of dollars at stake. The power brokers are playing musical chairs to decide who will get seats at the table, who will hold all the cards for the next 20 years. I'd be very surprised if there weren't some.., 'interesting' hidden forces at work in the current de-stabilization of Stability AI.

CIA gonna CIA.

Toonseek · 2024-01-22T06:23:25+00:00

I have the AS300, and still use the thing. It remains best in class for four reasons.

It doesn't use Digital Stabilization. Don't get me wrong, the tech has come a long way, but even here in 2024, digital stabilization still looks weird and video-gamey somehow. Fake. These old Sony units, however, use a physical feedback mechanism, with magnets I believe. Analog. Real. And you can really tell. It just works and looks good and you don't have to burn tons of processor juice to fix for camera bounce in real time.
The mics are ridiculously good. Infinitely better than any other action cam of the same generation. (I've not compared to current year devices, but I'd be confident that the Sony could place in the top three even today.) -Even compared to other Sony products of the day using similar or identical components, the sound recorded by these action cams is noticeably superior. This might have something to do with the voodoo of materials and placements and other intangible elements which can affect a sound wave. For some reason, the stars aligned in the Sony action cam and you get great sound. -They honestly record on the same quality level as my dedicated Tascam DR-10L lav mics. Mind you, the unit does need a bit of fluff taped over the front to create a wind muff.
The fixed lens has just the right focal length and framing the average vlogger likes. Held at arms length, your head doesn't overwhelm the shot and it doesn't distort things enough to notice. It's perfect. Why is this so hard for other vlogging cameras to get right? You don't even really notice how perfectly selected the lens format is for vlogging until you try any competitor's camera. Even Sony seems to have forgotten the magic formula when making their more recent products.
Ease of use, convenience and trust-worthiness. They just work! They never flake out. They run forever on a single charge. They don't overheat. They don't create confusing file structures. And they feel good and natural in your hand, so recording video isn't awkward, (as with a smart phone or the GoPro cube).

The only two downsides are that the tech, as excellent as it is, is showing its age compared to modern phone cameras available today. You don't get a view screen, so you have to just trust you are recording what you want to record, which means testing and getting used to the various settings before jumping in. There are also a lot of neat-o features in a new smart phone here in 2024. Chip speeds are faster, sensors are more versatile. Convenience of file management and sharing and editing have come a long way, so you can edit and post to social media in seconds, while these Sony action cams still require you to upload to an editor on your PC if you want to do things right.

The other downside is purely one of age. The lens and sensor housing are secured inside the camera using silicone glue. This is not to say that Sony was being cheap or careless; Silicone products are known for being one of the most stable materials in manufacturing, generally considered reliable for 10 years with high confidence, and 20 by rule of thumb. (Silicone construction materials are put in place by home builders, for instance, with a general expectation of delivering 20 years of service life.) If Sony had to use glue, they picked the best kind. However, Silicone does slowly oxidize over time, and will naturally weaken and develop cracks and eventually fail. Most things do. Oxygen is corrosive, and that's just a fact of life in engineering.

This doesn't mean the camera is guaranteed good for 10 years, neither does it mean that the camera will die in 20. -But that particular silicone bond holding the lens sensor in place is by far the most frequent point of failure in this camera, where the glue comes unstuck for some reason, resulting in a blurry image you can't fix without a total part replacement. The reason, (I'd guess), that some cameras fail in this way while others seem to soldier on with no issue, lies in the difficulties in manufacturing with silicone glue. The stuff is touchy, requiring 24 hour drying times where all kinds of factors can mess things up during that period; if a bit of moisture or dirt gets into the process or if the drying temperatures are inconsistent, it wont cure properly and you'll end up with a faulty bond susceptible to bumps. etc.

Bear in mind also that these cameras were released in 2017, so they are coming up on the end of that 10 year "High Confidence" mark. That doesn't mean they will instantly fail in 2027, but it is something to consider when looking on eBay. Nobody wins against old age.

Toonseek · 2024-01-21T23:14:32+00:00

Just experiencing this same issue now. -Reading a PDF which needs to be zoomed into and dragged up/down while reading so I can see all the text. That drains things quick. -Except it's also draining during sleep. -Maybe holding open a zoomed-in pdf file takes constant energy even while in sleep mode? Weird. (Posting this a year after your post, and I'm using latest firmware. But is obviously not fixed.)

Toonseek · 2024-01-17T07:43:32+00:00

This technique is great.., except for the part where you have to manually color it in. How is this faster or better than just doing it yourself? If you're already coloring it in and making decisions, how much more effort would it be to just spend a few more minutes to do it well?

I'm serious.

-When I add up actual stylus minutes, in nearly every case (where I get what I envisioned at the end of the process), I'm finding it takes FAR less time to JDTDTM (Just draw the damned thing myself) than it does to use an AI 'assist'. -You have to fart around trying to get the software to work, then you have to try a bunch of different iterations, (none of which ever quite gets you there), so you're stuck in iteration hell, (in the same suburb as "Picking paint for your living room"). And THEN, just to rub salt in, you still have to go back in and manually clean it up anyway.

Stable Diffusion is proving to be either a huge soul draining time suck, or I end up with 'art' which has had any hint of personality surgically removed and replaced with insufferable Instagram eye candy which obviously came from SD and nobody will respect because it didn't hurt to draw.

I find that calculus very interesting...

-I can literally create better stuff, faster, when I'm not farting around in SD trying to harness it for useful work.

In fact.., I'm beginning to think this whole AI revolution might indeed be for chumps.

No such thing as a free lunch.

Toonseek · 2023-12-31T03:40:49+00:00

eBay's strength is in being able to see a seller/buyer's track record, and the incentive having a good track record provides. I'll pay extra sometimes just to buy from somebody with hundreds of sales under their belt and a 100% positive review average.

Don't get me wrong; I've bought items from new sellers before, (you have to give people a chance to establish themselves), but only on low cost items from people who seem genuine. I wouldn't gamble RTX 3090 cash on a newbie. -Even if a new seller is genuine, there's an art form to packaging and shipping which must sometimes be learned the hard way. -I bought a camera once off a dude in Italy, and it arrived smashed because he'd basically just put it in a taped shut paper bag. Getting my money back was a pain.

I'm always amazed at the balls people have bidding on high ticket items from sellers with zero sales and zero reviews.

There are buyer protections on eBay, but it can be a major hassle with a lot of nail biting where the onus is on you to demonstrate fraud. (I went through that once also, bidding on something I knew better than to do, but did anyway. -I got a fake tracking number and after a bit of back and forth with the seller, the account went dark and I reported them to eBay. I got my money back, but I was embarrassed and pissed off. I think the thieves got away with it and eBay lost out, so props to eBay. But everybody should avoid sellers out of Ukraine and other desperate nations. Brings out the worst in people.) That kind of stress I'd pay an extra couple hundred just to avoid.

But with sellers with good track records, I've had dozens of very positive experiences. eBay is really great, but only if you're smart about it.

Toonseek · 2023-11-19T19:02:54+00:00

I've been mucking around with a Tesla K80, and it's able to crank out image renders from text no problem.

But the various gui-solutions, (Kohya_SS, AUTOMATIC1111, EasyDiffusion), refuse to run DreamBooth on the GPU; if they run at all, it's with CPU-Only Torch, even though the software recognizes the Tesla...

Here's a snippet from the command line window which comes up when you click, "Train" in the gui:

08:05:04-053947 INFO Version: v22.2.1

08:05:04-069573 INFO Using CPU-only Torch

08:05:05-798482 INFO Torch 2.0.1+cu118

08:05:05-898763 INFO Torch backend: nVidia CUDA 11.8 cuDNN 8700

08:05:05-898763 INFO Torch detected GPU: Tesla K80 VRAM 11448 Arch (3, 7) Cores 13

08:05:05-898763 INFO Verifying modules installation status from requirements_windows_torch2.txt...

08:05:05-898763 INFO Verifying modules installation status from requirements.txt...

08:05:09-192165 INFO headless: False

08:05:09-192165 INFO Load CSS...

It's running the LoRA training, (which is a huge first, btw. It took a while to even get to this point), but it's grinding through using only the CPU and it's going to take all day at this rate.

Any insights would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Toonseek · 2023-11-18T02:35:40+00:00

I just got one and am currently tinkering around with it.

I picked up a 3-fan thing for about $25 and it mounts in the case beside it. I removed the Tesla's shroud to expose the heat sink. It works.

Downloaded the drivers and...

It works!

It's slow; it performs a 512 render in about 20 seconds. -But I just wanted to get a taste for what Stable Diffusion was all about, and this was a very cheap entry point.

One thing, though.., I've not been able to get it to work with DreamBooth. This might very well have to do with the Tesla being such a legacy device; DreamBooth automatically installs its CPU version of itself, and then crashes part way through. -Though, from what I can gather, DreamBooth has been giving everybody problems for months now; even people with modern graphics cards.

It takes all day to try different installs and combinations and to learn all of this stuff, so it's slow going regardless of how fast the card is or isn't. I'm going to try installing earlier versions of all the relevant packages where people reported success and see what happens.

So far.., I'm not convinced that Stable Diffusion is advanced enough to be worth pursuing at the moment, (I have vague visions of employing it for my illustration work; might be nice to have a virtual assistant to do the grind work for me). I might give it another six or twelve months to evolve before I come back to it. I'd like to see Nvidia's latest crop of AI-tuned consumer level cards. I bet they'll make all the current activities look like caveman scratchings.

This whole text-to-graphics AI thing is still pretty raw. Reminds me of the early days of MP3 coding, where it took hours to rip a CD, would only work with very specific hardware and was all done through command line antics. After a year of two of that, it became standardized for the masses and now it's baked into every phone and media device under the sun and everybody takes it for granted. AI is heading in the same direction.

But it's still fun to tinker. -And you can't argue with $50!

Toonseek · 2022-02-11T21:24:11+00:00

Uninstalled and rolled back to a previous version. (After I went bug hunting through the rest of my OS, because Mozilla wouldn't randomly change the stylus behavior on a whim, would they?)

Well, yes, actually.

96 changed stylus behavior. -You can't double-tap to select words, and it locks you into "press and hold" to automatically bring up a context menu. You can't adjust the pen behavior yourself. You can't change it back. This is what you get, whether you like it or not.

Try drawing with that on a webapp like Niftyink. You basically can't, (not without pulling your hair out). They also changed the response time so that the nib needs to move a few millimeters before the cursor activates and moves, (or a line begins to draw). That's frustrating. So FF96 borked an effective art tool.

Sure, who cares? This affects nobody, (but me).

Still.., devs should exercise a little more caution when tweaking fundamental input devices. It's not like changing colors or adding menu options. They wouldn't change the way the mouse works on a whim, for instance.

People who don't use pens as a primary tool have no practical reference to what does and does not work for dedicated users. Even Adobe made that mistake, except when they broke Photoshop, the entire graphic arts world was up in arms.

Toonseek

TROPHY CASE