@movq@www.uninformativ.de Thanks, itās mostly following the Louis Rossmann thing https://youtu.be/2_Dtmpe9qaQ - a symbol of protest, against the rapid enshitification the Internet is facing, accelerated to the extreme, during this year. It has reached a point where something really has to be done about it all. Obviously not just everyone changing their profile pictures, but also cataloguing all the consumer rights violations, invasion of privacy, censorship,⦠to shove it in the face of as many government officials, as possible.
@bender@twtxt.net have you seen how many Google apps, get shoved into the new releases of Android. MicroG, Google Play, maybe Chrome is fine, but everything else, I canāt get rid of, is just bloatware to me.
@prologic@twtxt.net @moveq@twtxt.net I think itās mostly the serious lack of competition. All the Android phone manufacturers just use the Google version of Android, bundle in piles of Google bloatware and do whatever Google tells them to. If some of them installed Lineage, or any other versions, with their own stores and rules, or even just offer a less Googly version of their phones, as an option, for more experienced users, Google wouldnāt be able, to push everyone around.
@movq@www.uninformativ.de @prologic@twtxt.net this is extremely concerning and I hope there is enough push back to stop this! The ability to modify apps, is one of the two biggest reasons, Iām still using Android. If they remove that option, Iāll be forced to switch to one of the de-Googled forks.
That might not be a good solution either, because I need banking and identity verification apps on my main device and already had to get a second device for work, which has tighter sideloading restrictions and I would very much not like to be forced into using three Android phones simultaneously, to do what should be possible, with just one.
Joining the Clippy profile picture club, now that I finally finished my custom one.
@movq@www.uninformativ.de Thanks, glad you like it, but sadly Iām not sure, if thereās still a way, for this particular project, to continue.
Reducing 38 pixels (previous smallest) to 27, inside of a 7x7 square canvas, is a result Iām really happy with. Now it seems I can only shave off single pixels and get a lot worse looking results - to the point it doesnāt even look like my mascot, to me.
There doesnāt seem to be a hard cap for drawing tiny dogs. Itās possible to arrange 5 pixels, in a way someone recognizes them, as some kind of a dog. The record for cats, is currently a single orange pixel: https://youtu.be/gzeK8NKuzmg
The only way to beat that, is either a monitor, with just a single red diode lit, inside one of its pixels, or an image file thatās broken and empty, on purpose.
@prologic@twtxt.net Thatās fair, this version really is a stretch. Similar to old Atari game spirites, a lot is left to interpretation,especially by those who have not seen any of the more detailed ones, before.
On the other hand, some suggested Iām still wasting too many pixels on the tail, but removing those, makes it just a generic dog (at best), even to me.
After around 3 years, I managed to make my āsmallest recognizable canineā, even smaller. So hereās the all new, smallest recognizable canine 2.0:
My website has 0 depreciated tags now and all identical IDs, were merged into a single class. This also improves, how the text on top of the page, is aligned on mobile.
@bender@twtxt.net I think itās actually a new XEP proposal ( https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0084.html#proto-info ), but itās still a bit unclear. Sorry for the late and vague response, Iām still trying to test it and see what itās even about, didnāt yet find a server, that supports it.
Since Fastly acquired and recently shut down glitch.com, some of my ancient webapps are no longer available, nor do I have any plans to make them available again - all had either zero, or very few monthly visits, used outdated libraries and would be a waste of money, to continue hosting and updating elsewhere.
All art archives remain unaffected and all projects shut down before 2025, were already permanently deleted, but if thereās someone out there, still relying on the recently discontinued projects, somehow - you can reach out and request their source code.
These requests will only be honoured, until the end of this year, when we plan to permanently delete, all of this data (both webapps and files only hosted on Amazons CDN).
Canine out °_°
Just a random drawing
@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah, you gotta love when a ātotally real decentralized protocolā does that. How are they doing this and still pretending to be one, is beyond me.
After drawing the bigger canine stickers, I also want to change my profile picture for summer, to something more fluffy, shaded and a bit smug looking.
@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Not intended as a vampire thing, at least not this time. š His canine teeth are usually one pixel long, when visible, but on this one, heās making a face, that makes them more exposed.
Felt the need to make this stupid reference - nobody will get, most likely. Feel free to guess (the file name and todays date, are both a hint), any other notes and opinions appreciated too, idk if I ever drew a standing one, from the front, before.
Of Pointlessware and CEOs
Had a moment, to check up on some of the companies, I stopped following, get to The Browser Company and see their newest product - itās just Chrome, with an AI chat window pop-up and thatās it. Something Canary Chrome, come with already.
I see Theo from T3.gg, making fun of it on YouTube and promoting āhisā product - an AI chat app, where you can choose from multiple models, by all the popular AI companies. Something I already have a worse version of, at work and I donāt even use it.
Thereās also an interview, about the future of virtual keyboards, surely this is at least actually a real thing and not more pointless horse shit. I check the website of the keyboard SDK, and itās around 20 identical apps, that just copy the same keyboard SDK/api and slap chatgpt features on top - in the App Store, these are surrounded by chatgpt clones, that just feed the users prompts, into the real thing and put ads, next to the answers.
QR codes, already posted about them in the last two posts, but I want to hear your hot takes: Should they only be black and white, are they even worth doing in 2025, incorporating them into things,..?
Also, finally getting full screen view for avatars in XMPP - a better integrated one, after 25 years. Y@ay!
Source of inspiration:
https://youtu.be/TlafDammd6s
I sent you my QR code, please respond!
*for context: long ago, there were some complaints, about some of my sitting drawings, where the legs are apart, not using dithering/more shading and one of my favourite artists, made a video, exploring the use of QR codes, in art
P.S.: the code just redirects to my websites
@prologic@twtxt.net What I meant, is that I will not say that someone is not really a writer, if they choose to have what they wrote, ran through some spelling and sentence structure checker, like the one included in MS Word, the average phone keyboard, or on reverso.net - given that they look over the output and make sure the corrections make sense.
Similarly, I wonāt complain much, if someone uses AI, to remove backgrounds from images, where the AI can preform this task, as well as a human would and makes sure to check it afterwards, or use ai as a way to sort large quantities of images - usually done for science. An example of this, would be having terabytes of plant photos, from some cities camera system and having an AI analyse them, in an attempt to detect notable changes, like mold, parasites, or the plants needing more water.
@bender@twtxt.net @prologic@twtxt.net Jokes aside, I donāt think thatās the right approach either. We had spell checkers, since I can remember, as well as other tools, like the smart image select, used mostly to remove backgrounds. These are tools, that just simplify the process of either opening up a dictionary and looking up a word, you canāt remember the spelling of, or the process of placing a billion little dots around the part of an image you want to select - none of these are creative or enjoyable tasks, we already had tools for them, decades before AI. I donāt think we need to go back to cave paintings, to be free of AIs influence on our creative work.
To follow up what I said minutes ago, they donāt even want you to think of the initial idea, they want you to be a mindless organism, the AI algorithm analyses and tells what you should make, down to the script, so that you get the highest number of people possible to click it and see some AI generated advertisement, blended seemly into whatās no lonher even your work.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/netflix-will-show-generative-ai-ads-midway-through-streams-in-2026/
https://youtu.be/dGA6sVaGveU
@prologic@twtxt.net @movq@www.uninformativ.de I donāt even think the premise of this makes much sense. If an artist is convinced they cannot compete, with the āAIā learning models, we already have today, they must have some self esteem issues, strange opinion on what the purpose of art is, or just be someone mindlessly redrawing already established things and not be all that good at it.
It might be connected to some typically non-artists assumption, that the more time and effort the artwork took to accomplish, the more artistic it is - this can be further twisted in these peoples minds, into the āmore pointless detail = more artistic artā meme. AI often ads pointless and illogical details everywhere, āso itās obviously better, than the human artist, who drew the originalā.
Some people just enjoy having the picture they wanted or having the status of an artist to brag about and donāt actually enjoy the artistic process of discovery and small decisions, made while drawing, that shape the outcome into something, only you could have created.
@movq@www.uninformativ.de you need to get a gold chain and hang this little penguin on it, so that nobody can doubt your Linux user status.
@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org maybe 3D printed toys are the solution, to the dust collecting problem. My collection of 3D printed canines, just expanded today, with this new keychain:
Buying a TV these days, means trying to avoid endless enshitification:
-Spyware and adware
-Shitty AI upscaling/ frame interpolation
-HW that breaks after 2 - 3 years
-One off OS, dead on arrival
-Android OS, that starts lagging after the third update
-8 buttons worth of ads, on your remote
You probably have to make some kind of a compromise. I thought that was buying from some other brand like Hyundai, but that one also felt into some of those categories and just broke, after less than 3 years of use. At this point Iāll probably go back to LG and hope their HW is still reliable and the rest manageable⦠It has AI bullshit and knowing LG, probably some spyware you have to try your best to get rid of, can buy a remote with āonlyā 2 ads on it, some web-based OS shared between all their TVs, that usually gets 4 - 5 years worth of updates and works decently enough afterwards.
At this point, Iāll probably settle for anything that doesnāt literally fall apart, not even 3 years in, like the Hyundai did.
smug woof
@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz yes, both the newsletter and the podcast, from time to time.
@prologic@twtxt.net I was not expecting much, but since the list of restaurants near company buildings, was hard coded into it, I did expect it to at least copy the menu text, from the websites, in its database. Ironically, the only restaurant where it got something right, is the only one, where the websites has the text as a transparent PNG, the AI has to convert to text.
We havet an AI assistant at work, new version came out today ānearby restaurant recommendationsā mentioned. Gotta try that!
Ask it where I can get a burger, knowing thereās 3 spots that had it on the menu, AI says thereās none. Ask it to list all the restaurants nearby it can check⦠it knows 3, of the 10 or so around, but 1/3, even has a burger, on the menu.
Ask it to list the whole menu at restaurant 1: it hallucinates random meals, none of which they had (I ate there).
Restaurant 2 (the one most people go to, so they must have at least tested it with this one): it lists the soup of the day and ¾ meals available. Incomplete, but better than false.
Restaurant 3: it says āfoodā and gives a general description of food. You have to be fucking kidding me!
āBuT cAnInE, tHe A(G)i ReVoLuTiOn Is NoWā
This one just occurred to me randomly.
I do not agree with every decision the Internet Archive makes, but I consider it a very important tool, for Internet archival and preservation - to the point, it even influenced what licence I chose, for my media and websites.
Sadly theyāre now facing another threat, in the form of litigious music labels, that theyāre now trying to convince to stop, by collecting signatures here.
@hacker-news@feeds.twtxt.net this is the 4th one in the row - I think. Loosing count of them.
AI problems, top to bottom:
1: Open AI nerds, believe fine tuning a language model algorithm, will eventually produce an AGI god.
2: Subpar artists and techbros who canāt code, convinced AI image bashing and vibe coding, will help convince the dumber parts of Internet, they are a real deal.
3: Parasites, using AI to scam people, because they just want passive income, selling crap, made by an automated process.
Side: Adobe&co, killing Flash/old web, pricing new artists and developers out, to face learning curves of free tools, or use AI, peddled as solution.
@prologic@twtxt.net itās fine, I never expected my yeets, to be preserved for future generations. Any art I posted here, can be found through my (now almost entirely HTML 5 complient) website.