[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Got one yesterday. I’ve already made up my mind that I’m likely to switch to Linux Mint on my current PC and run that till it drops dead. Because I’m sure as shit not messing with or upgrading my three year old PC over something asinine like a TPM module. I don’t even want a new Windows. I like my PC just fine the way it is.

If Microsoft thinks they can force me to Windows 11, I fucking dare them. I switched to Mac before and I’m not afraid to switch to any other OS either.

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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by FinishingDutch@lemmy.world to c/pocketknife@lemmy.world

I’m a big fan of Spyderco; I own about two dozen of them. I absolutely love the Para 3 and Delica, but I also like buying oddball knives on occasion.

This one’s been on my wishlist for a while. I’m not usually a fan of pinned knives that you can’t take apart, as I like a bit of tinkering. But since I want to keep this original anyway, I’m making an exception. It’s well built like all their Seki City knives; nicely machined with no sharp edges besides the one that should be.

The Harpy has been in their lineup since the late 90’s, and it’s held in high regard by many. It’s a nautical inspired knife, with the serrations and blade shape being handy to cut rope. Of course these days Spyderco makes a separate line of actual nautical knives, but that wasn’t a thing in the late 90’s.

It’s a perfect fifth pocket knife; carries nice and comfortable. It also has excellent ergonomics despite not being very large. One thing I like: it feels like a very warm, friendly knife. The handle takes on your body heat if you carry it on your person. Holding it feels like a warm handshake.

This knife is also slightly infamous; it’s one of the knives that fictional cannibal-slash-serial killer Hannibal Lecter uses. It’s specifically mentioned by name in the book Hannibal, and shown in the movie. The movie has a plain edge knife though, but the book specifies a serrated Harpy.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 115 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Decisions are made by those who show up, it’s as simple as that.

You may hate it, but the Republicans are definitely better at getting people in line, both literally and figuratively. They turn up and vote even if they don’t like the candidate because… that’s their party. And it’s the only one that they feel represents them.

Meanwhile a lot of Democrats stay home because the candidate isn’t the one they wanted, doesn’t support everything they want, is too old/young, etc. There’s this attitude of ‘if I can’t have my perfect candidate, I’m staying home out of protest.’

I get it. Every voter wants a perfect candidate. But perfect is the enemy of good, as the saying goes.

I always look at it like this: if I vote, I might not always get the outcome that I want, but at the very least I’m nullifying the vote of a person on the other side.

If the other guy shows up and you don’t? That’s how you lose rights.

Be someone who shows the fuck up.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 99 points 2 months ago

Correct. Nobody was bothered by Nick Fury’s change for example, even though he went from white to black. That was a wholly unknown character for most Marvel moviegoers. And Samuel L. Jackson is awesome in that role.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 108 points 4 months ago

Yep. Years ago I interviewed someone for a radio program here in the Netherlands. This was a forest ranger, on the topic of people foraging for mushrooms. It was the hip thing to do at the time.

He explained how wildly dangerous it is for average people to do. Especially when looking up things online.

He showed me two images that looked basically identical. He explained to me that one mushroom was edible and delicious. And that it could be found in the forests in the United States. The other, identical looking mushroom can be found in European forests. That one liquifies your internal organs and causes you to shit yourself to an agonising death.

He explained that each year a handful of people die from eating it. Because they looked up a guide online, and failed to understand that there’s regional differences between edible and deadly mushrooms. And by the time they got medical attention, there was nothing that could be done.

I’m not a fan of mushrooms anyway, but I’d certainly never be dumb enough to go pick some myself. That shit’ll get you killed.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 128 points 4 months ago

Decisions are made by those who show up. It’s as simple as that. It really is the very least you SHOULD do as a functional adult.

I get how not everyone wants to be active on campaigns, can donate, etc. But voting itself should definitely be a given. Same goes for small elections; if you don’t vote, someone else will decide for you. And you might not like what they decide.

Show the fuck up and vote.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 117 points 4 months ago

I can relate.

At work, I’ve worked with a LOT of autistic people. We had about twenty on staff over the years, all over the spectrum.

People always say how working with autistic people can be difficult and that there might be challenges. There’s even training on ‘how to work with autistic people’. But I found quite the opposite - autistic people are a joy to work with for me. We can talk for ages about interesting things, but we can also enjoy a bit of quiet time.

Maybe it’s because I’m an introvert, but I find dealing with the ‘normal’ people at work much more exhausting. Working with the autistic people is a breeze. Most of the things you read about as ‘challenges’ make perfect sense to me. As a result, we run a VERY productive department.

So either I’m autistic, or autistic-adjacent enough to where I don’t see challenges, but just people.

I’m in my early 40’s so a diagnosis wouldn’t really change things for me anyway. But my sister who works as a psychologist basically told me that I’ve got enough traits of it that she wouldn’t be surprised if I was autistic myself.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 140 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The Greeks are insane for going along with this. Revolutions have started over less. Clearly their politicians no longer have the best interests of the Greek people in mind.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 103 points 6 months ago

You CAN in fact more or less do this for real: photographing a mirror from a straight on perspective without the camera visible.

https://youtu.be/ZlaeWRMYwGg?feature=shared

Basically, you need a special tilt-shift lens that distorts perspective to where it looks ‘straight on’ while the camera is actually off to the side or down below. If you do it correctly, the viewer won’t even notice anything’s missing.

These lenses are primarily used for architecture photography to prevent ‘leaning buildings’. They can also create really cool miniature effects. It’s quite a useful bit of gear, but also rather expensive because it’s such a niche lens.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 135 points 7 months ago

American politics really is one of the dumbest, most corrupt things out there. Good god.

This feels like trying to trick your dog into taking his medicine, by hiding it in its food. So apparently your average US Senator is as dumb as a Golden Retriever if they need this tactic to actually get shit done.

It’s insane that Americans still tolerate this. Clearly they don’t have your best interests as their main focus.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 121 points 7 months ago

In fairness, I do want to point out that this particular aircraft, N8668A, was built in 2015. This was its first incident. Basically, I’d assume this to be more of a maintenance issue rather than an actual Boeing issue.

Incidents like this now make the news with ‘Another Boeing…’ when usually the media would report ‘Aircraft diverted…’ and not even mention the aircraft type until the second paragraph in. Every Boeing incident now gets put under a magnifying glass.

Don’t get me wrong: Boeing has become a shit company and the people who knowingly put lives at risk for profit need to be lined up against a wall. But this doesn’t really feel like one of those incidents, knowing how often engines are checked and serviced after leaving the factory.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 157 points 9 months ago

Lemmy could definitely use a bit more comment activity on a lot of posts.

I think it’s because nobody really wants to be the first to comment and offer an opinion that might end up going against the grain when a thread develops. There’s no ‘reading the room’ as it were.

I’m doing my part by commenting on threads. Like this one.

[-] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 113 points 10 months ago

You either die a hero, or live long enough to become another shitty cable company.

I ditched Netflix years ago when the content got worse by the week. Good shows were taken off by rights holders so they could put it on other platforms and what remained sucked. Not to mention Netflix’s proclivity for killing its own shows.

It got to a point where all the new stuff were shitty movies and Scandinavian crime dramas. Hard pass.

With the way other streaming services are going, it wouldn’t surprise me if people jumped back to piracy. I honestly don’t mind paying something reasonable, but all these subscriptions and price hikes do add up.

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I’ve been playing with Bing Image Creator. This stuff really is amazing huh? I was playing around with some prompts and styles and came up with this. The car’s prompt was a classic BMW M3 E30.

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I was playing around with Bing this afternoon; that's pretty cool technology! Had it generate a few covers based on classic series like Outrun, Sega GT, that sort of thing.

Figured I'd give a different prompt a try as well. So here's "Retro-futuristic image of a white haired older man, dressed in a white 80's suit and sunglasses. Stepping out of a futuristic, red Lamborghini Countach with white interior. Background is an 80's Miami street with palm trees and art-deco buildings, sun-drenched, with neon lights on the buildings."

That's a vibe for sure.

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FinishingDutch

joined 1 year ago