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Comment Re:Ugh (Score 1) 274

Have you tried monk fruit?

It's available as a liquid or as a highly refined powder. Tastes a lot like honey to me.

I'm phasing out my other sweeteners other than sucralose and monkfruit where I can. Only keeping the sucralose to use in very limited amounts because it tastes the most like sugar, and I can add 1 packet to the monkfruit and shift the taste from the honey-like taste to a more pure sugar sweetness.

Comment Re:Uhh huh, sure they are... (Score 4, Interesting) 406

It makes sense when you realize they're using off-the-shelf walkie talkies instead of encrypted radio in many areas and other older, less useful equipment everywhere. The funding for upgrading and maintaining their forces was diverted to the oligarchy, and they're making do with whatever they can find. The drones made with off-the-shelf components are a good example as well. I mean, does it make sense for the Russian military to all be using open radio bands to discuss battle plans when the Ukrainians can listen in?!?!? Heck no. Of course they have encrypted radio - but not enough, and the ones they have are of different, incompatible types. So for the units of one type in one area to talk to units of a different type that's incoming, they use the open air radio b/c it's the only thing they can do to communicate. Better equipment exists, but they don't have it. Same is likely with this GPS. It was cheap and it worked, so they used it.

Troops are leaving behind expired rations, expired med kits, paper maps from the 90s, and other archaic things. We're not talking expired by a few months, either - expired by decades. Much of the heavy equipment is decades old - some dating back to WWII.

But, their biggest problem is that their supply lines are heavily debilitated. That coupled with the fact that their equipment was designed for nuclear warfare tactics and their generals have no experience with this type of warfare is crippling. They first thought Ukraine would fold under intimidation, then thought the fight would be similar to Syria. It's just been mistake after mistake & they're now lobbing cluster bombs and lots of older, terribly imprecise missiles at the region.

Ukraine has pushed Russia back to the disputed areas, but the war will go on until Russia has had enough. The borderlands are much easier for Russia to resupply and control what land they hold. Barring a nuclear launch, I don't see Russia taking an inch of Ukraine, and quite possibly losing Crimea as well. The Ukrainians are in no mood to negotiate after what Russia has done to their people.

Comment Re:Australia's Wildfires Have Created More Emissio (Score 1) 155

California's Solar Panel Roof Mandate went into effect Jan.1st this year. All new homes and low-rise apartments are required to include solar panels as well as better insulation/HVAC. Will be interesting to see if it has any positive effect. Doubtful, considering all the traffic jams from denser housing.

Comment Europeans at fault (Score 1) 167

These aren't even the largest wildfires in Australia's history, the largest occurred in 1975, they are all the result of European's clear-cutting old growth forests and replanting with grases that more easily burn in the Summer. Similar problem with Calfiornia using legislation to prevent forestry practices from being carried out that would reduce the risk to homes from naturally occurring fires.

Comment Re:Agree to disagree. (Score 1) 279

The "higher quality digital masters" are almost always 2K - because that's the output resolution of the preferred digital camera used in most productions. It's also the preferred master for 35mm film to digital master transfer. Special effects that are added later are in 720p - because that's the default for rendering them for every major Hollywood blockbuster due to the time it takes to render them. Later, they're up-scaled by a very advanced method, but it's still nowhere near 4K when completed.

Even the blockbusters that used actual film are almost always converted to a 2K digital master that is up-scaled to 4K.

For instance, Iron Man 2 was filmed using 35 mm. It was transferred to a 2K digital master, then 720p special effects were added and the entire thing was up-scaled to 4K with HDR 10 bit, then compressed and sold as a 4K UHD (ultra HD) Bluray.
You'll find Blu-ray after Blu-ray is the same story.
https://thedigitalbits.com/ite...

Now imagine how much CGI was in the Avengers: Endgame movie - and remember all of that CGI was rendered at 720p. If you get a 4K Bluray of that, you're watching mostly 720p animations enhanced (mostly interpolated) to 4K, then compressed for release (which creates artifacts).

Cloverfield Lane was filmed in 6K which is really 4K because of the area of the sensors, but it was converted to 2K as a digital intermediary to have its 720p CGI added to it... which was then up-scaled and color corrected for 4K, then compressed for 4K UHD Blu-ray. So, even though it was filmed in 4K, it's really an up-scaled 2K as well.
https://thedigitalbits.com/ite...

Alien's 40th anniversary release is one of the very few actual 35mm to 4K transfers for the theatrical release (the Director's cut portion is likely 2K up-sampled and the release includes both)
https://thedigitalbits.com/ite...

There just isn't very much actual 4K content out there for movies and TV. You an sometimes find it, but it's very much true that nearly everything you see that says it's 4K has been up-scaled from 2K at best.

Facebook

Facebook Bans Alex Jones, Yiannopoulos, Other Far-Right Figures (bloomberg.com) 974

Facebook said it's banning a number of controversial far-right figures, including Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer, for violating the social-media company's policies on hate speech and promoting violence. From a report: The company is also blocking religious leader Louis Farrakhan, who is known for sharing anti-Semitic views; Paul Nehlen, a white nationalist who ran for Congress in 2018; and conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson. All of these individuals and accounts that represent them are also banned from photo-sharing app Instagram. "We've always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology," a Facebook representative said Thursday in a statement. "The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today." Facebook is often chided for failing to stop the spread of harmful speech and misinformation on its platform, and Thursday's bans show that the company is taking a firmer hand in enforcing its own service terms.

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