Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

@eniko I've used a projector instead of a TV since I think 2019 and it's been Great.

Bloke on Craigslist sold me a conference room projector for like $300, it was great. Lady on local Buy Nothing group put up an Optoma that didn't work, it just had a knackered colour wheel, ten minute swap job, sold her the old conference room projector cheap, it's Great.

As with anything, used is best; if you spend €250 on a new one it'll be shit, if you spend €250 on one that cost a grand a few years ago you'll be smiling. Office types go through projectors like they go through computers, buy a whole new fleet every few years whether they need them or not so the middle managers look like they're doing something. The old ones show up eventually on Craigslist or eBay or liquidation sites. See what's available in your area and before buying, check prices for lamps (last a couple years) and colour wheels if it's a DLP (last longer, but they're a spinny mechanical part and do eventually wear out). Most importantly plug the model number into https://www.projectorcentral.com/projection-calculator-pro.cfm and that'll tell you how well the projector can fit into your physical space. Nearly every projector has vertical keystone adjustment to give you a bit of wiggle room, some have horizontal as well, some do it by moving physical parts (good), some do it in software (usually acceptable), it's best to not need it but it's there if you do.

You can project onto a screen or onto a blank bit of wall if your walls are light coloured. Screens also come up cheap on craigslist. Just like with thin TVs the sound will be shite, you'll want external speakers (fancy 5.1 home cinema systems are great but you can also use a free old BlackPlasticTat hifi system from the 90's outta the skip if it has a line-in and you get a HDMI audio splitter). You'll want to dim the room and the contrast will not be great but yaknowwhat, it's bloody hard to argue with a hundred-inch picture for less than half a grand.

This is another thing I need to make a blog post about on my blog that doesn't exist

What makes excellent alt text for blind folks or deaf folks here? Illustrative and flowery language that gives depth of interpretation from how the poster sees the image or hears the sound, or as factual as possible though not leaving out any details referenced in the text of the post, or notable context, so you can have your own experience without guidance? Somewhere in between?

I suppose I mean to ask if you want to hear the voice of the writer in the alt text or not, and want to explore how to achieve that.

#AltText #MetaAltText

While there are many independently maintained servers that provide services to Bluesky and its users, there is only one Bluesky server. @pluralistic nailing it on the head again

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

KDE is asleep, that means I can post Konqi (illegally??) eating a DVD 📀💾

#KDE #MastoArt #Art #Krita

anyone have opinions on projectors for home use? i looked around and they go from 230 euros to 2,300 euros and uh, that's a big spread

EDIT: Fwiw we can position it pretty far from the screen (about 3 meters I'd guess) and we have blinds that we can use to darken the room very effectively

An escaped scarlet ibis is hanging around in a polder near Dordrecht, and it makes for some incredible photos. The animal looks like it came straight from one of Audubon's books.

#birds #birding

Question for pagans and/or Christmas-music avoiders: I’ve been told I have to play holiday music next week at the bookshop. I protested fruitlessly but am allowed to play “witchy solstice” music (an idea I threw out there) as long as it’s “festive holiday” music. Any thoughts on a Pandora station that might pass muster? What’s “festive” and lends itself to peaceful bookshop browsing—maybe folk, instrumental (like harp??), Celtic, Scandinavian, ancient Germanic . . . ?

#PaganMusic #SolsticeMusic

they say that visiting IKEA and assembling furniture is a true test of a relationship, so what does it mean when emily and I walk in with a complete AR-checked 3D model and parts list, head directly to relevant departments, pull everything from the warehouse, aldi-speed through self-checkout, and pack everything into my car within 45 minutes of arriving?

My mother’s union just secured a 40% raise and 7 weeks parental leave for its workers after walking off the job (in an illegal strike no less).

Don’t let people tell you unions aren’t worth fighting for

Putting the new iOS18 “vehicle motion cues” to the test in the passenger seat on today’s windy roads down the Oregon Coast to reduce motion sickness potential. So simply clever, so unexpectedly effective, and barely distracting once you get used to it.

The only downside is that it’s impossible to remember how to search for that very specific name in settings search, but there’s a control center widget for toggling it that makes that moot.

anyone else keep redundant pieces of furniture around cause the cat likes em?

#CatsOfMastodon

#flohmarkt needs an #accessibility review to leave beta phase.

Is there someone in the #fediverse who can help on #a11y?

Boosts highly appreciated!

https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/issues/182

Imprisonment is a form of torture, no matter how 'humane' it is on paper, and should be treated as such from an ethical perspective.

And when you argue for imprisoning people as a form of 'justice', you are arguing for torture as a form of 'justice', with all of the implications that that has.

It's just a form of torture that's easy to rationalize if you don't want to confront those implications.

Oh my FUCKING GOD

I finished dumping 99.99% of a very old, damaged, backup CDROM that was previously unreadable. It took 3 days and I was super excited to find out what old data I put on it. The disc had UDF sessions, because that was common at the time for just Adding Files to non-rewritable media.

So I mount that shit in my Windows 98SE box, and lo and behold, this is all that was on it.

I would be absolutely upset if it wasn't so fucking funny

#cdrom #DataArchival #retrocomputing

Heb jij vragen over burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid? Wil je de A12 blokkeren, maar twijfel je nog? Maak je je zorgen om je Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag (VOG)? Dan is een actietraining iets voor jou! Je bent van harte welkom met al je vragen!

Info & training: https://a12blokkade.nl/