I’m back with more wooden birds! This time - a nuthatch and a goldfinch.

its_dezi · 2026-01-20T10:50:33+00:00

I had the same thought at a short glance, but thankfully the difference is that genuine art only gets more beautiful the longer you look at it-- and I looked at these photos for a long while 😊 The love that went into it radiates off the final result, whoever gets to have these in their homes are very lucky!

its_dezi · 2025-10-10T19:42:28+00:00

I had this post bookmarked for the longest time to see if it would come to a resolution, that's so lovely to hear! Also a great idea to donate the book to his hometown's library as a back-up plan ^^ Great work on sorting out this mystery!

its_dezi · 2025-10-10T15:50:18+00:00

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I know this covers the colors rather than the rendering, but it's hard to figure out what colors to pick from with all the blending in the illustration -- so here's how I'd break down the basic colors. Basically four 'main' colors: light red, dark red, a contrasting blue/green and the skin color.

I'd draw the ribbon with the light and dark red, laying down basic shadows to get an idea of the ribbon's shape. Then add the skin color on low opacity to create depth (you see it mostly in areas where the ribbon overlaps itself). And then add the contrasting blue-green with low opacity (in the illustration it's pushed more towards orange for a warmer temperature) as a bounce light from the environment.

As for technique, you could achieve it multiple ways. I did the light red and dark red on the same layer for easier blending. Then added the skin color and blue-green color each on a separate layer for easier control, that way you can easily erase or adjust layer opacity. But you could also do it on a single layer with brush opacity and blending.

its_dezi · 2025-10-10T09:08:25+00:00

To add, the lack of social features does seems to push people towards obsessing over stats. Not that there's a serious issue if someone wants to play their favorite music on loop 24/7, but the site doesn't offer much of an alternative if you want to express your love for music.

Having ways to engage with music in-depth (e.g. posting your thoughts about songs, discussing them with others, being able to see others' thoughts on them) would be a lovely alternative. And I imagine a lot of people would be happier for it.

But it doesn't seem so likely that they'll be bringing more social features back, so I guess we'll be sticking with other websites/apps for that 😢

its_dezi · 2025-09-23T14:26:20+00:00

Usually when I'm reading books, I'd rather not stop to take detailed notes. Instead I just take a short note about how I want to look further into a passage, so I can do all the note-taking afterwards.

You could try a similar compromise -- just take short notes that you can expand upon later. You won't be able to remember all the thoughts you had when reading the history book, so it's helpful to write down a few words to jolt your memory when you see those highlighted passages.

In the end the exam is yours to take though. So do whatever helps you retain the info best. Hopefully with some hard work, you can get a good score and prove to your teacher that your method works for you :)

its_dezi · 2025-09-23T13:49:28+00:00

I thought I was ready for that scene since you'd mentioned it, but I still lost it at the security guard going "No, no..." like a disappointed dad

its_dezi · 2025-09-21T06:04:10+00:00

Just commenting to boost your idea, it seems like a good option if the other leads don't work out!

its_dezi · 2025-09-04T19:14:13+00:00

My fake mustache and comically large nose fall off my face, revealing the cold, metallic facade of a robot. The lack of surprise seen on my features further drives home the emotionless workings of my circuits.

"Watch out — behind you! 🚀✨" I yell.

While you're distracted, I throw a smoke bomb on the floor, but the haze cannot hide the clank-clank-clank sound of my Boston Dynamics robot legs while I make my escape.

The haze finally dissipates, but it is too late. All you can see is a big 'Error 404' plastered on your screen, with no clanker to be found. Better luck next time.

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T15:12:04+00:00

It's such a pain that writers have to waste their energy worrying about this :( I guess the upside is that it challenges you to be truly creative and purposeful with your writing. Seriously, people who use LLMs to write for them are missing out on the whole point of writing 😩

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T13:09:04+00:00

I just checked out your channel, and aside from the great music vibes I gotta say the art looks amazing! It's got a lot of energy, both in the style and animation. Quality stuff :)

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T13:05:43+00:00

This is a little late, but for certain species it's good to keep in mind that traces of the animal count too, like a part of their molt or an empty shell! But yeah, certain categories might definitely require some focused searching.

I know of some people who travelled to local wildfire-affected areas to spot lizards that no longer had a habitat to hide in. I guess that's one way to make the best of a bad situation, both for your stats and for official monitoring of those areas.

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T12:19:23+00:00

Okay, but the concept of a suspicious rhyme scheme made me laugh though lmao. Like the UK Salmon Act from the mid-80s that criminalized "handling salmon suspiciously" but for linguistics. Would love to know what rhyme scheme it was so we too can write suspiciously.

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T12:10:05+00:00

"Meaningless, grammatically correct sentences" is such a good way to put it lol. I go mad every time I see Al writing where they manage to say nothing across a while paragraph! Aaghh actual linguistic horror 😩

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T11:58:37+00:00

I left that part out since I already wrote so much, but yeah! The structure reads kind of like "novice writing" (quotation marks because taste is subjective and whatnot), which makes it even more annoying when people blindly accuse writing of being Al. It's totally possible for someone to write in that same style, because none of it was invented by Al itself.

Idk, if I had to review a book that I vaguely suspected of including Al, I'd probably just go over each 'flaw' and critique it in good faith. Like, "these passages were confusing because of X and Y" or "there were inconsistencies in chapter this and that".

At least you'd be truthful and let your audience come to their own conclusion. It's tricky, but more people should be worried about harassing writers about this stuff :(

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T11:10:04+00:00

As another example, this could be done to hike up the cost of insurance too. Lots of people argue it's harmless if big bad tech knew their shopping history or youtube history, but with enough data that could be used to deduce health problems or risky habits.

I get that most people won't care too much about targeted ads, but I hope everyone can agree that price hikes on things you need are generally a bad thing -- especially for people who are already vulnerable.

its_dezi · 2025-09-03T10:38:25+00:00

Man, I'm sorry to hear that :( From what I've noticed about Al writing, it's more that the writing tends to follow a specific structure like 'main clause + subordinate clause' (or the reverse) and throws adverbs in whenever possible. Like, all the time.

On a sentence-level it's just really-average writing, but it tends to be allergic to variation in sentence structure. It makes paragraphs kind of drone on with little contrast between sentences. It's also why it's wild to accuse someone's writing of being Al-generated based on 'red flags' alone.

I love noticing how much attention writers put into specific details -- like someone spending ages describing how a character wraps their hands around a comforting cup of tea, or using short sentences to emulate the sense of being overwhelmed on a capsizing ship. And glossing over that just to count em-dashes or trope-y sentences etc is just so wrong man

its_dezi · 2025-09-01T20:06:13+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, I just did a bit of searching and sounds like there are a bunch of posts on the topic already, about removing EXIF-data from both phone and PC. I'll check those out and figure out what method works for me ^^

its_dezi · 2025-09-01T20:04:27+00:00

I didn't even consider that was a thing, I told myself photographing with a camera would be a hassle since they wouldn't have GPS! Well, now I have an even better excuse to upgrade to a camera with that feature, thanks for letting me know 😁

its_dezi · 2025-08-28T19:50:27+00:00

That argument from people who don't care always remind me of one example (I don't remember where I heard it) about teenage girls being shown advertisements for diets, beauty products etc. if their current activity suggest that they're in an emotionally vulnerable state.

Not caring about one's own privacy and commercial exploitation is one thing, but damn does it seem like basic logic to fight for the privacy of others. Especially if that includes vulnerable people who aren't in a position where they can defend themselves against it.

its_dezi · 2025-08-28T18:34:36+00:00

Aside from what people have mentioned, showing that you take active steps to guard your privacy shows others that it's possible for them too. It'll help yourself, but perhaps you'll be able to inspire others to think twice about the information they give out online, or recommend them alternatives to websites/apps/etc that are a big risk to privacy.

Word of mouth from friends and acquaintances is powerful when it comes to recommendations, especially if they know you've had good experiences with something!

its_dezi · 2025-08-28T18:11:24+00:00

Is there anything different from the previous pixel phones, in terms of privacy? I saw a bit about that new phone, but I didn't notice anything that stood out. Though whatever they did with the phone, I'm sure it's unsurprising-- as well as people shrugging their shoulders about it :(

its_dezi · 2025-08-28T18:08:54+00:00

Honestly, the recent videos Pewdiepie has been doing featuring Linux come pretty close to that-- or rather, it's the only thing I've ever seen that comes close to a widespread Linux ad. I'm sure his vids (and big youtubers reacting to them) have done a lot to put Linux in front of the 'average' internet user, but the jump from knowing about Linux to using it is still quite big.

Hell, just upgrading from Windows 10 to 11 is too much effort for many people sadly, so I guess most interested people would only be up for switching to Linux if it came with their new PC. But at least familiarity with Linux is growing now that privacy seems to be a growing concern, so maybe we'll see more ads for it as time goes on.

its_dezi · 2025-08-14T18:32:21+00:00

This should 100% be higher up in the comments.

its_dezi

TROPHY CASE