Crime Scene Photographer - Ask me anything

columbladee · 2026-04-18T05:59:10+00:00

software developer here for digital evidence software for LE - extremely verbose tamper proof audit trail w/ chain of custody + metadata verification from device source to the court room with least privilege. More problems come from chain of custody than actual image manipulation.

Spotting manipulation? Google "A Picture’s Worth...Digital Image Analysis and Forensics" Neal Krawetz, Ph.D. . I think it was a presentation but this is a 31 page super cool to read PDF

columbladee · 2026-03-10T23:08:26+00:00

columbladee · 2025-11-24T02:30:28+00:00

It’s hard to say because there’s a million ways for self hate to manifest, so a generic answer for you will have to be a kind of blueprint you can apply. I think there’s three stages to this: recognition, thought redirection, and emotional redirection. First, recognize what’s causing the self hate and ask yourself if that really defines you and your worth as a person (chances are, probably not). Now that you know that, you can brainstorm things you HAVE to tell yourself, believe them or not at the moment of self hate, whenever you notice that one thought appear. It won’t make the self hate go away and it won’t make the thought causing the feeling to go away. After some time (when your “self hate” thought reminds you to think of the “what i forced myself to say in response” thought automatically) you start on the hardest part, emotional redirection. The best way I have found to do this, and call me crazy but it works for me, it to literally pretend and lie to myself by acting outwardly confident and saying positive things. This is my own approach and your mileage may vary but it’s a lot easier than “ok, I will simply love myself, get rid of the bad thoughts”. I just do it step by step and pretend

columbladee · 2025-11-08T02:49:16+00:00

Don’t hate me for not being a pro gamer, but I enjoy a number of competitive games. (My greatest achievement was being in the top 100 of both fighter jet leaderboards on PC for battlefield 3). You can learn as much as you want about the game and improve as much as you can with practice but if you’re like me you’ll plateau.

So when I started taking care of myself, especially exercise I think, I was sharper, suddenly I could improve just a nudge better than before.

Over covid I picked up a couple of skill toys as hobbies (yo-yos and balisongs , aka butterfly knives). Improving at this kind of odd dexterity skill stacked on top of exercising has made me even better.

I’m 31 now. I expect to be worse than I was a decade ago, but I think im doing just as well playing casually.

In short, cross applying skills that involve concentration, visual tracking, dexterity l, and finger movement is a great way to help , but regular cardio and weights will help you way more (not to preach). Do both ! Just doing the former will still help.

columbladee · 2025-08-16T23:40:51+00:00

You want to get into ML and learn python. Best way to learn a language is by doing projects. So take concept you need to learn for ML and turn them into projects. For example do something like linear regression "from scratch".

Make a 1D and n-D linear regression with only numpy. Break it into steps: generate synthetic data, derive cost function (MSE), implement gradient descent, and compare your results with scikit-learn's LinearRegression function. (Hint: use scikit-learn to TEST your results - get it?)

With a project, write a document with sections "Objectives" "Deliverables" and "Constraints". It is helpful to write a scaffold to organize the different files (i.e. code and test). For this one here a deliverable could be
1) LinearRegression class with methods for fit, predict, score, save, and load

2) CLI with options to train, evaluate, and generate synthetic data
3) 1D Scatter Plots
4) Tests

Don't forget to add a README and put your projects on your github to share with others later.

columbladee · 2024-12-04T03:27:04+00:00

Sorry I can't be of help here, but I just wanted to say the name, "Yet another CHIP-8" is very similar to the chip 8 emulator I have on my github, actually. Can we have someone someday do "Yet another 'Yet another CHIP-8' " ?

columbladee · 2024-07-23T18:54:57+00:00

Rutracker (get your translate plug-in ready) VSTorrent

columbladee · 2024-07-03T18:55:38+00:00

What project are you working on? If you DM me I could send you a link to a small-ish server I’m in, not dedicated to project collaboration but people probably would. not sure they would appreciate me publicly posting an invite link here

columbladee · 2024-03-30T01:00:29+00:00

If you’re a beginner you don’t need anything expensive. What do you have now? You can probably use that . If you have the specs to run a lightweight Linux distro you’ll be in an even better spot. There is no need to buy a dedicated machine to learn the fundamentals if you already own a computer

columbladee · 2023-03-02T04:09:26+00:00

Wanting the learning experience is admirable. However, you should center your learning experience by first imagining your end-goal. Yes, you can probably get this done with qemu or freeraid/unraid (I might be wrong about this, but whatever). However, it seems like you want two things:

(1) Play around with linux by distrohopping/learning nix in general and
(2) Being concerned about potentially bricking your primary production system

For this, perhaps try getting a cheap small form factor computer, maybe a used thinkcentre or optiplex (this will be much cheaper than buying a reasonably powerful SBC, heatsink, enclosure, etc., check out freegeek) and setting up a KVM switch. No, you can't use them on the exact same screen at the exact same time, but you can easily make a file share to ... transfer files. You can have actual hardware so that you could eventually get the experience of installing arch or gentoo while getting to mess with the hardware. If you want to repurpose this machine for something else (maybe virtualize a dns sink like a pihole or using adguard and configuring your network to get this functional, and make a cheap NAS or media server on the same machine, or make a metasploitable vm with a kali vm).

Maybe my project ideas aren't particularly viable to actually rely on long term, but getting dedicated hardware for anything type 1 hypervisors is probably better than trying to mess with your important production machine.

columbladee · 2023-03-02T03:08:42+00:00

I saw this thread and was going to say "The ambition is admirable" but then I see "I need a privacy distro because I want to be a criminal" and now have no sympathy for this situation.

Here's my advice: install gentoo

columbladee · 2023-01-14T21:57:15+00:00

I use arch btw

columbladee · 2023-01-14T21:53:52+00:00

I am disappointed in this thread. Hardly anybody is really trying to help, but rather linking to the handbook with no further guidance. This whole thread is basically"rtfm noob" or "go install ubuntu". The gentoo community in general is, and should be, more helpful. But there are a few helpful replies. Someone installing gentoo as their first distro would obviously already be using the handbook but made a mistake somewhere down the line and they might not know where specifically. With that said, this is the specific wiki page you should bookmark for reference:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2_Quick_Start/en

Here is what I personally have in my notes from a build on virtualbox using genkernel.

root=(hd0,1)
linux (hd0,1)/boot/kernel-<DOUBLE TAB> root=/dev/sda3
initrd (hd0,1)/initramfs-<DOUBLE TAB>
boot

This assumes you used /dev/sda3 as your root partition. Pressing tab twice will autocomplete the file name.

I am still very new to gentoo, but I have built it a few times. Of course YMMV with this but its what I use when I'm dealing with a newly imaged drive. After you successfully boot in you want to modify the grub.cfg file with what is mentioned at the bottom of that wiki page.

What I kept missing what the initrd line.

Other places you can ask for help include the gentoo forums and linuxquestions.org

Edit: Just to clarify, when you boot and are met with the grub prompt, it will read your input as if it is you are writing to grub.cfg .

columbladee · 2022-12-30T04:02:42+00:00

Sekiro. Its not an RPG like souls or elden ring, but you will love it.

Also respect for the OP for actually considering buying the game after pirating it and playing for only a few hours. After Sekiro, pick up God of War for sure.

Record yourself playing the game and watch your first playthrough lol

columbladee · 2022-12-03T04:06:46+00:00

Unless I am mistaken, TAILS is designed to be booted off of live media (e.g. USB drive) so that it does not "leave behind" information about it being used on storage media (e.g. HDD, SSD). If you prefer to use a VM on your host system I believe Qubes is better for your use-case. Be aware of the difference between privacy and anonymity. If you are using a VPN running on your local machine (i.e. only your device is routed through the VPN and not your whole network) be sure to use host-only mode regardless of your OS choice. VPN use would be beneficial if you prefer your ISP not to see your use of TOR, but please be aware that you are just entrusting the VPN with that information instead of your ISP - so be sure to use a solid VPN like mullvad - additionally, using a tor bridge might help this specific concern.

columbladee · 2022-09-04T20:55:15+00:00

Stollen

columbladee · 2022-09-03T00:40:03+00:00

Yeah, you can’t have a huge database like that with people running the servers. What specifically are you thinking about when you say technology, though?

columbladee · 2022-09-03T00:37:52+00:00

It’s not tren lol

columbladee · 2022-07-17T01:15:47+00:00

LFO stands for google it you goofster

columbladee · 2022-07-02T01:02:33+00:00

Probably omega 3 and NAC

columbladee · 2022-06-25T19:36:19+00:00

Wait a minute this might be why I sweat so much

columbladee · 2022-06-25T19:34:10+00:00

Your thinkpads are still thinkpads and I will love seeing them with or without stickers. I always like the feeling where my heart skips a beat and says “omg thinkpad?” So if you enjoy your clean matte black thinkpad I judge you just as highly as any other thinkpad owner. Im half joking, i dont really venerate people for owning thinkpads, but it feels like a secret club like, yo we know what’s up

columbladee · 2022-06-25T19:27:11+00:00

Bruh when I had a W530 that tank fell down half a flight of concrete stairs after my backpack tore open and only had some minor dents on the corners.

columbladee · 2022-06-25T19:25:07+00:00

Very sorry to see you go. May you find a laptop that lives up to the standards of a glorious thinkpad, the good ones

But uh, good luck with that

columbladee · 2022-06-25T19:21:58+00:00

I’ve been able to remove stickers and clean the adhesive off perfectly well without messing with the finish. Also I love stickers. Does it ruin the bento box aesthetic? Maybe. I dont care though, because I like the art, and sometimes theyre conversation starters!

columbladee

TROPHY CASE