Chill Links

Europe needs to up its space game to fend off Musk, Russia and China.

Depression and other mental health conditions linked with immune response, study finds.

On cusp of storm season, NOAA funding cuts put hurricane forecasting at risk. Tropical cyclone track forecasts are 75 percent more accurate than they were in 1990. So fucking moronic. The MAGA clowns hate weather because they think it is climate.

In his first 100 days, Trump launched an “all-out assault” on the environment.

The Bad Data Backing Josh Hawley’s Attack on Abortion Pills.

Health Care and The Hollow State. How Federal Cuts Will Cascade Through State and Local Services. Things are going to get worse and worse for a very long time. All completely preventable and self-caused, this disaster.

The Democrats Could Learn a Lot From Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum.

Say it with me folks: imports do not decrease GDP. Correct; they do not.

Small Packages From China Are Now Subject to US Tariffs. Here’s What to Know.

Calam Down

Chill Clowns, Evil, Political Economy

Most Americans alive today have not experienced an era of extended decline. I haven’t either, but was around people commonly as a kid who had struggled to survive through the Great Depression. I suspect the upcoming calamity will be one that most people are totally unequipped to deal with.

It’s hard to know specifics now, of course, but I expect the Trump Depression to last 8-ish years (though it could be as much as 20), at the peak to have about 40% unemployment and to result in a decrease in US GDP of 20-30% in real dollar terms.

And that’s the most likely but far from how bad it could get. Worst case could be even more horrifyingly terrible. The middle-bad case is locked in now; it’s coming, like it or not. (And no one should like it, not even the most MAGA-addled doofball.)

Chill Links

The History of Album Art.

120 Companies with planned layoffs in May.

One third of the population believes every lie, one third is too ignorant to tell the difference between truth and lies, and the remaining third is powerless (or unwilling) to do anything about it.

Broken Justice: how Europe let its courts decay.

High Rent Hits Gen Z Hard: 3 in 5 Struggle With Affordability.

US Holders of Foreign Assets, Foreign Holders of US Assets, and Exorbitant Privilege.

Ever Worried About Being Laid Off? Read This.

Split Skulls

Chill Annoying

If I see one more clown refer to a switch as an “Ethernet splitter,” I’m gonna have to go ape up in here.

A switch does not “split” anything. That is fundamentally not how it works. At all, at all.

There is a thing that is an actual Ethernet splitter that you should never probably use. And this is it.

In tech correct terminology is paramount because you often get exactly what you ask for. Ask for something stupid, you’ll get it. GIGO.

AI Music

Chill Music

This is how all AI-generated music sounds. Not knowing anything about it, I identified it as AI slop within the first two bars.

It’s very static and repetitive in a way that human music just never is. I am not sure if I could teach others to clock AI-created music, though. Most people have not listened to the absurdly-vast amount of tunes that I have. But to me AI music stands out like a flashing blue light in a moonless night.

It’s not a bad song. It’s not a good song. It’s a nothing song. It’s just completely soulless. And that is apparent quite quickly.

Pol Incon

Chill Annoying, Clowns

It’s so fucking oddball all the clownish “scientists” who insist human sex is not essentially binary, with some very rare exceptions. It shows that even the supposedly truth-seeking really don’t care all that much about the facts when it’s politically inconvenient.

Bad Grade

Chill Regular-ass Post

The difference between photos and videos before and after color grading.

Nope. This is highly misleading. As a few commenters point out, the “before” footage is all in Log format, which is for the purpose of allowing a higher dynamic range than a camera can capture normally. This format is not designed for human viewing.

To truly see the effect of color grading, the footage should be viewed in a standard color profile. That’d be the “before.” The after would be the (effects of) grading.

This is an invalid and incorrect comparison. Just goes to show that about 90% of the information and claims on the internet are misleading or wrong.