readbeard (u/readbeard)

readbeard commented on You wouldn't steal a font fedi.rib.gay/notes/a6xqit... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

tptacek · 4 months ago

There is maybe nothing in the entire world that I am less sympathetic towards than the cause of font piracy / font liberation. You have perfectly good --- in fact, historically excellent --- fonts loaded by default for free on any computer you buy today. Arguing for the oppression of font licenses is, to me, like arguing about how much it costs to buy something at Hermès. Just don't shop at Hermès.

readbeard · 4 months ago

Part of the problem is that Monotype has a bit of a monopoly in the upper segment of the market though right? I know they're not the only players, but it feels like they've vacuumed up enough small, successful foundries that they now control enough of the market that they can get away with the kind of aggressive behavior that wouldn't be tenable in a healthier, more competitive marketplace.

From Wikipedia [0]

> Via acquisitions including Linotype GmbH, International Typeface Corporation, Bitstream, FontShop, URW, Hoefler & Co., Fontsmith, Fontworks [ja] and Colophon Foundry, the company has gained the rights to major font families including Helvetica, ITC Franklin Gothic, Optima, ITC Avant Garde, Palatino, FF DIN and Gotham. It also owns MyFonts, used by many independent font design studios.[3] The company is owned by HGGC, a private equity firm.

For those less familiar with them, those are BIG names, and the acquisition of them could perhaps aptly be compared, for instance, to Disney's acquisitions of properties like Lucasfilm and Marvel.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotype_Imaging

readbeard commented on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2024) · Posted by u/whoishiring

readbeard · 2 years ago

- Location: From Central US but travel a lot

- Remote: Yes

- Willing to relocate: No

- Technologies: React, Redux, Typescript, NodeJS, MongoDB, AWS, Docker, Python, Meteor, a bit rusty in a few others

- Résumé/CV: Please ask if needed

- Email: readbeard@fastmail.com

I worked as the lead UX/UI designer and frontend engineer for a small startup for the last 3 years (I am also very proficient in backend and frequently contribute to backend features). I'm most interested in working for smaller companies that value a healthy work-life balance, offer a 100% remote structure, and provide an environment where I can continue to wear multiple hats and focus on crafting great user experiences.

Prior to my current job I built and ran my own SaaS side hustle for a while which led to more than $50k in revenue and helped me develop my skill interacting with customers and understanding their needs. I also designed video content and packaging that was used at retail stores around the United States.

readbeard commented on Blackmagic Camera for iPhone blackmagicdesign.com/prod... · Posted by u/Lwrless

londons_explore · 2 years ago

I think a neural network could do it. You just train it on a bunch of videos with different shutter speeds, and then you ask it to convert a given video from one speed to another.

I'm sure it would quickly learn to add/remove motion blur on moving things as appropriate.

readbeard · 2 years ago

But in addition to determining motion blur, shutter speed also massively affects which areas of the images are above/below the brightness range the sensor is capable of picking up.

readbeard commented on Blackmagic Camera for iPhone blackmagicdesign.com/prod... · Posted by u/Lwrless

londons_explore · 2 years ago

If Apple wanted to put an engineering team on solving this problem, they could record all the raw sensor data for the video, with the regular 'auto' settings, then, after the clip is recorded, decide what shutter speed, iso, etc to use, and then reprocess that raw data to simulate what that moment in time would have looked like with a different shutter speed.

I''m sure modern neural nets would do a decent job of simulating what a frame taken with one iso/shutter/focus would look like with a slightly different iso/shutter/focus.

readbeard · 2 years ago

How could you change the shutter speed in post?

readbeard commented on New ancient ape from Türkiye challenges the story of human origins phys.org/news/2023-08-anc... · Posted by u/janandonly

CameronNemo · 2 years ago

The US embassy also uses the spelling.

https://tr.usembassy.gov/

readbeard · 2 years ago

The US State Department website has a note about that here:

https://www.state.gov/countries-areas/turkey/

readbeard commented on New ancient ape from Türkiye challenges the story of human origins phys.org/news/2023-08-anc... · Posted by u/janandonly

Glawen · 2 years ago

off topic, but is Türkiye the new english spelling for Turkey ?

readbeard · 2 years ago

No. Erdoğan started advocating for a switch to Türkiye a couple of years ago, and the UN recently adopted the Turkish spelling. The US State Department uses both spellings, while asserting (sensibly) that Türkiye should be used in "formal and diplomatic contexts." [0] English Wikipedia still uses the established English spelling. [1]

Some Turks I know seem to think this whole thing was mostly cooked up as a distraction from other issues that have come up or worsened under Erdoğan's leadership.

[0] https://www.state.gov/countries-areas/turkey/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey

readbeard commented on Tell HN: We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt” · Posted by u/Jeannen

ejb999 · 2 years ago

but is it much different that descendants living off the interest and dividends of some large sum of money that their great-great grandparents accumulated a few hundred years ago?

To me it is pretty much the same thing - not a fan of nepo-kids living off of trust funds they didn't earn - but if you are going to fix one problem, you should try to fix all of the almost identical ones at the same time and not get upset that disney is still making money off of something they created 100 years ago, and not be upset about kennedy's, rockefellers, and the like still living of the money their great-greats generated a hundred years ago.

readbeard · 2 years ago

It would be similar if "intellectual property" was property in the same sense in which a table or a vast amount of money is property. However, it is not.

Normal property ownership is something we use to manage scarcity that already exists—that there is only one of something, and we have to decide where it will go and who will be able to decide how it is used. Intellectual property, by contrast, creates artificial scarcity by means of a government-enforced monopoly (in the case of copyright, the monopoly is on the right to produce a copy of a work).

It is unfortunate (and perhaps not accidental) that we settled on the term "intellectual property" as opposed to something more descriptive like "intellectual monopoly." "Intellectual property" encourages equivocating such monopolies with normal property, a mistake that tends to muddle debates on the subject.

readbeard commented on Netflix will end its DVD service after 25 years nytimes.com/2023/04/18/bu... · Posted by u/jbegley

SL61 · 2 years ago

> This is why the DVD service had so many more titles than the streaming service. At least when I was actively using it.

It still does. Just think of a movie or show and search for it, and they'll probably have it, although they seem to be missing the occasional season.

I think the DVD site would still be popular if more people were aware of the size of its catalog. Most probably assume it has the same catalog as the streaming service.

readbeard · 2 years ago

Some films are just not available for streaming. I used the Netflix disc mailer service relatively recently for this reason. It was a pretty good "catch all" for hard-to-find titles not on one of the major streaming subscription services and not available for streaming rental.

readbeard commented on DJI Inspire 3: new 8k cinema drone dji.com/inspire-3... · Posted by u/jackhalford

christoph · 2 years ago

I think because while visually and technically better in the right hands (with multi hundred million $ budgets), it will almost always end up looking like a cheap soap opera in lesser hands - every imperfection in makeup, set and lighting becomes immediately obvious to even an uncritical eye. It’s kind of similar to an uncanny valley situation in VR, side note: I think ultimately AI on its current trajectory will finally push forwards and make VR accepted and feasible for entertainment in a multitude of ways...

For 4K or 8k HFR HDR live filming, you have to raise all your general production values by a really crazy amount for it not to look cheap and naff. Forget additional storage and transmission costs of the extra data, the actual day to day increases in production costs (and timelines) rapidly scales far beyond those, making such trivial things like storage a mere rounding error. Case in point - the most watched UK soap opera “Eastenders” saw the BBC go way over budget and spend £90m+ over many years just rebuilding all of their iconic sets so they could finally film it in basic HD. HFR 4K HDR would require an even bigger and more serious upgrade across the entire production, and a long term commitment to those bigger budgets, which the BBC have clearly decided is totally not feasible and also not worthwhile for a 3-4 times a week half hour soap opera. It won’t happen for most things because HD and certainly 4K is more than good enough for most normal people to enjoy video media on a screen up to around 100”’s at a sensible seating distance… So most entertainment can be done at a much lower cost and with way lower risk. The benefits just don’t and probably never will outweigh those factors.

readbeard · 2 years ago

2k is enough for most cinema purposes. https://www.yedlin.net/ResDemo/index.html

I do think 8K will make a big difference for VR though due to the extreme angle of view.