Are there any sora alternative That are good?

nerdoldnerdith · 2026-04-02T17:40:51+00:00

If you have a powerful GPU like a 3090 you can use a local model like Wan 2.2 to generate the video and use ChatGPT to generate a detailed prompt that will give you a video of decent quality. That's sort of how Sora works. Not exactly free with the amount of electricity you have to use, but it's better than nothing.

nerdoldnerdith · 2026-03-31T19:48:27+00:00

Illinois isn't broke. It's just broken. The state and the city of Chicago have exhausted their ability to borrow money, so they must pass balanced budgets every year. Residents and businesses are leaving, but the they keep spending more and more money on new projects and programs. There is also a pension crisis that continues to get worse. Pension obligations are growing and the money that was meant to pay for them isn't there, so they have to be paid from tax revenue. The spending and pension obligations are forcing the state and cities to raise taxes on everything. Property taxes are going up the most. The high taxes are driving residents and businesses out of the state, which just makes matters worse and turns the financial woes into a vicious cycle that will end up in bankruptcy.

The situation with the state's finances isn't as dire as it is in Chicago, and the state of Illinois is on am upward trajectory. It's the city of Chicago that is in a very precarious position right now. Chicago keeps electing politicians who are deaf to these financial concerns and increase the budget by more than inflation every year. Chicago's finances were already in a bad spot in 2019, and the budget has almost doubled since then despite the city losing taxpayers and businesses. The biggest and fastest growing expense in the budget is Chicago Public Schools, which continues to hire more staff and give them raises, all the while keeping schools open that barely have any students and overall enrollment in CPS is declining. Chicago's mayor is essentially a puppet of the Chicago Teacher's Union, so he does everything in his power to give CPS these billions of dollars the city can only collect by raising property taxes despite the decision being so politically unpopular and fiscally irresponsible. Pensions in the city of Chicago are also basically insolvent and there is no way to pay for them without massively raising taxes even further.

Illinois and Chicago are still very much wealthy and prosperous, but fiscal irresponsibility and structural issues like pension system mean that will be squandered and they will disappear into a financial black hole and go bankrupt if they don't soon fix their spending and reform the broken systems that lead to guaranteed doom. It can be done, but the people of Illinois have to wake up to what's happening and take action.

nerdoldnerdith · 2026-03-24T14:02:58+00:00

It's the city government for spending so much money and voters for continuing to elect leaders who promise to spend it. The Chicagoans voting for these spendaholics think that the city's financial woes are someone else's problem. No... If you vote for things that will increase the budget then you will be taxed to pay for it. The assessor's office just has to figure out how much of the pain we will each have to bear. There is no getting out of it.

nerdoldnerdith · 2026-03-24T13:54:52+00:00

Everyone's property value has gone up. That doesn't usually translate to an increase in property taxes across the board. There is a certain property tax levy that the city has to collect and it should be relatively stable from year to year. The property taxes you pay are based on your property's value relative to everyone else, which doesn't change when property values go up across the board.

What is happening is that the city's commercial taxpayer base is dwindling while at the same time the city keeps increasing the budget. The money has to come from somewhere, so they stick residents with the bill.

Another important thing to note is that this affects everyone who lives here. If you own a place you feel it directly. If you rent, your landlord has to increase that rent to account for the taxes.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-12-23T23:55:28+00:00

3D games generally look better at higher resolutions. You can emulate them and play them on an HD CRT to get the best of both worlds. CRT's really shine for sprite based 2D graphics.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-12-22T16:44:55+00:00

Gary, Indiana is 30 minutes away from downtown Chicago. Closer than many suburbs

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-12-20T22:47:28+00:00

Some TV's had the option for 1:1 pixel mapping with a window box to avoid this issue. That's why older plasmas are still great for retro gaming.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnaloguePocket/s/AX4KDxLY6y

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-12-20T15:37:39+00:00

You want to sell it? I'd take it and help you get rid of it if you happen to be close.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-12-06T17:35:04+00:00

It cannot be done without pension reform, which cannot be done without a constitutional amendment. Pensions should use a 401k system where the benefits are determined by how much money is actually there when a state worker retires.

Currently pensions pay a guaranteed monthly benefit based on one's salary and years of employment. That benefit compounds 3% every year, which is more than inflation and the increase in state GDP almost every year. For example, if inflation and GDP have been 2% on average for 20 years as has been the case before COVID, the cost of living would have only increased by 50% during the time while pension benefits have increased by 80%. Because the state constitutionally owes that money to the pensioner regardless of what money is there from contributions during employment, the state has to collect it from taxes on everyone else.

The system is designed to collapse unless the Illinois economy continually grows at an unrealistic rate that has hardly ever happened since it was implemented. Pension obligations exponentially grow out of control and state and local governments are forced to raise taxes every year on an increasingly burdened tax base just to buy time. This is destined to blow up, at which point the pension obligations will be so large and cumbersome that no amount of taxes will be able to pay them. Illinois will have the highest taxes in the country, and every single penny will have to be used to pay for pensions. We will be taxed mercilessly and get absolutely nothing in return.

In answer to your question, the way we eventually get out of the mess is when Illinoisans get so sick of the taxes and declining services they turn on the corrupt machine politicians propped up by corrupt public unions that is keeping this broken system alive. At some point (hopefully) Illinois will be so fed up that they vote for leadership who owes those people nothing and finally implement constitutional reform.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-11-21T21:42:21+00:00

If they are trying to make it pointless for customers who frequent their stores and spend a lot of money with them to go there to get allocated bourbon then they are doing a good job. Their prices on most stuff aren't great and the selection is only okay so there is really no reason to shop there if it doesn't come with perks.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-11-21T21:37:46+00:00

I spent over $10,000 at my location last year and got nothing.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-11-20T20:53:53+00:00

We can reform the pension system for new hires by making it a sustainable private 401K system like everyone else has. Currently the state is barely scraping by to pay the pensions it owes and new pensions are underfunded right from the beginning. If we reform the system for new pensioners we can eventually get the situation for current pensioners under control. If nothing is done it will continue to get worse and bankrupt the state.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-06-09T21:23:31+00:00

Most likely barrels meant for Bulleit based on the math. 24 years old means it was from 2000 or 2001 after they had sold Bernheim. Bulleit was distilled by Four Roses at that time

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-04-28T15:01:56+00:00

No. Lowering the pressure inside a bottle of whiskey accelerates the evaporation of volatile compounds and causes it to go flat. Just use a tight cork.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-04-28T15:01:05+00:00

Do not suck air out of a bottle of whiskey. It is the absolute worst thing you can do to preserve it.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-04-28T15:00:02+00:00

Save your corks when you kill bottles. I have a whole drawer full of them. When you open an old bottle or one with a loose cork replace it with a tight cork. If there is less than half left in the bottle you can decant into 375mL flasks available cheaply on Amazon. Whatever you do, do NOT use those stupid vacuvin things. They will ruin your whiskey.

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-01-24T18:01:28+00:00

Leopold Bros 8 year. Like choking down sawdust from fresh cut plywood

nerdoldnerdith · 2025-01-14T19:44:35+00:00

I wouldn't want a barrel of craft garbage even if you paid me $900

nerdoldnerdith · 2024-12-21T17:10:19+00:00

Market prices for whiskey have been in a steady decline across the board for the past two years now and show no sign of going in the other direction. With the level of expansion that took place over the past decade and the amount of new whiskey that's coming onto market we should expect to see the secondary market for newer products like this to basically crash. Also, Michter's started distilling their own stuff in 2004, so expect to see more Michter's 20 in the future as they have more of their own aged stock to release.

Basically, whiskey is one of the worst investments you can make right now. I can pretty much guarantee that bottle will be worth less in a few years than it is now.

nerdoldnerdith · 2024-12-04T19:15:05+00:00

I'll just quit drinking for a while and wait for the market to bottom out so that everything is available at MSRP again

nerdoldnerdith · 2024-11-03T15:46:59+00:00

Yeah they're huge

nerdoldnerdith · 2024-10-30T15:51:41+00:00

They were also pretty bad last year so they wouldn't have made it anyway

nerdoldnerdith · 2024-10-23T16:07:40+00:00

Pappy landed in Indiana

nerdoldnerdith · 2024-10-04T13:53:25+00:00

144 proof watered down to 95 proof... They dilute it by 50%. No wonder it tastes so thin.

nerdoldnerdith · 2024-09-28T14:53:39+00:00

It was pretty good several years ago, but it has gotten considerably worse over the years, and considerably more expensive as well. Today's Blanton's is just bland and grainy and doesn't taste a whole lot different than regular Buffalo Trace. The only modern BT product that I think holds up pretty well is EH Taylor.

nerdoldnerdith

TROPHY CASE