Hi rectangle friends. I love RSS. I have lots of wonderful blogs in my RSS feedcatcher. But! I have audited my subscriptions and confirmed my feeling that a high percentage of the people whose blogs I regularly read are white. Since I mostly subscribe to new blogs via links from existing subscriptions, I think I'm stuck in a bit of a bubble, and I'd like some help discovering technical blogs and feeds run or authored by non-white people!

If you or someone you know a) is non-white b) has a blog about Rust, Python, web tech, Linux, systems programming, tech and society, or other, related topics that c) can be subscribed to via RSS, please reply and I will check it out and boost it!

Those are the only requirements. If you don't feel like you're an "expert", have only written one blog post, haven't posted in a year, etc please still let me know and I will check it out. Everyone's voice is valuable.

Thank you 💜 Boosts are appreciated!

I've been trying out ComfyUI and trying different image workflows, but haven’t been happy with the output till now … I finally have a workflow which produces images that I’m happy with 🙂

So here are my images for the day for the prompt: “rabbit astronauts on a arboreal world, colorful, highly detailed, cinematic, artstation”

Of course, dragging any of the images onto the ComfyUI interface should load the prompt and settings for you — provided the server is not stripping anything off of the images …

#StableDiffusion #GeneratedArt #ComfyUI

Started watching “Chatrapathi” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13545522) since I’d heard a few comments that the main actor did a great job in the movie …

But then one of the first scenes was somebody saying how much they loved someone and then a few scenes later believing a lie about the person they professed to love, without any proof, and without any investigation. How deep was their love/trust if they are so easily swayed?

That basically coloured my view of the movie from that point on … I haven’t gotten a lot further, but I can already tell that this is not a movie that’s going to be crafted in a way that I’ll actually like it 😛

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood

Watched "Jailer" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11663228) and while it has the usual Rajnikanth style, though at a slightly more muted level given his advancing age, it was overall not a movie that probably would not appeal to anybody other than die-hard Rajni fans since it really doesn’t make a lot of sense 😛

The first half of the movie might have kind of worked, given some suspension-of-disbelief, since it was a fairly straightforward story which (kind of worked). But the latter half had a heist segment which didn’t make a lot of sense nor was warranted since the application of a smidgen of logic at the end of the first half would have prevented that storyline altogether 🙂

Overall though, it was good to see Rajni in action (and Mohanlal too) and I think I’ll leave it at that …

#Movies #Tamil #Kollywood #Rajnikanth #Mohanlal

Oh, found one app which (possibly) does not work with the Sonoma betas — Defult Folder X.

The current version of Default Folder X does not work with Sonoma. It might be that this is simply a permissions issue and once you grant the necessary permissions (I believe Accessibility and Full Disk Access) it works correctly, but it used to work fine in Ventura but would not work on Sonoma.

However, there’s a new beta for Default Folder X which does work correctly with Sonoma. If interested, you can get it here:

https://www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/beta.html

#SonomaBeta #macOS #DefaultFolderX #NotWorking #SonomaUnsupported

I decided to upgrade (well, OK, switch) to Sonoma Beta 6 yesterday since I really wanted some of the CoreML enhancements for #MachineLearning (especially #StableDiffusion model loading) that Sonoma brings along …

The switchover itself was fairly uneventful and I like some of the changes and hate a few others 😛 Overall, it works (mostly) OK and I have not run into any issues with any of my existing apps.

But then today, I ran into not one but two issues with my custom apps 😀

One turned out to be something that I could fix quickly with a code change but I haven’t been able to figure out the other one still. And both of these apps were working fine with no crashes till now …

Ah, well, the joys of living on the crashing edge 😛

#SonomaBeta #Apple #macOS #Swift #Coding

According to this Telugu movie I'm watching at the moment, “Parkinson’s is a disease that affects only rich people”.

Hah! The things you learn (and I say this very loosely) from movies 🙂

#MovieWisdom #MovieFacts #Surreal #WhereDidTheyLearnThat

I have at least 3 - 4 subtitle editors installed on my machine. Each one of them does one particular bit well, but falls down on others …

For example, one will take a subtitle file which does not quite match the movie and re-arrange the subtitles by rearranging the time to somewhat match the movie. But if there’s an unexpected addition to the video (a left over ad for example) all the subtitle would be quite off. It doesn’t have an option to let me fix things block by block easily nor add missing subtitles to the file.

Another lets me add missing subtitles or edit subtitles easily, but often gets the timecode and/or subtitle number wrong and doesn’t let me modify easily.

In fact, some of the above editors mess up the original subtitle file so much, that it’s hard to use the subtitles afterwards at all 😛

I finally got fed up of this and decided to create my own subtitle editor which has the features that I want.

Started with somebody else’s abandoned initial work and was able to get something working fairly quickly. The original was meant to be simply a subtile editor — you could edit the text for the subtitles and that was it …

I wanted to fix subtitles or the timecodes, insert new subtitle lines, delete existing ones, or move lines around. And also, be able to see when there are issues with the original subtitle file.

I think I’ve managed to achieve all of that and for the first time ever, I was able to fix a full subtitle file for a movie without getting frustrated 🙂

So yeah, progress …

#Subtitles #Apple #SwiftUI #Catalyst #Coding #PersonalProjects

Part 3 in (what is now a four part series) of posts by Karl Guttag on using Apple VisionPro as a monitor replacement is now out:

https://kguttag.com/2023/08/20/apple-vision-pro-part-5c-more-on-monitor-replacement-is-ridiculous/

This part compares a desktop monitor set up to the Meta Quest Pro and extrapolates the results to guess at what the experience might be on the Apple Vision Pro.

Disclaimer (since it appears that I have to add this to this type of post 😛) — I am not the author of the post in question. I am also not affiliated with Karl in any way.

I do find his opinions useful as a yardstick for figuring out AR/VR related stuff and for making my own mind up.

If you are annoyed because somebody dared to “besmirch” Apple or discuss a product that’s not released yet, please vent somewhere else and not at me 🙂

On the other hand, if you’ve experienced AVP yourself or have experience in the field and have a differing opinion, or even a similar one, I’d be interested to hear about what you think since finding a compact, portable monitor replacement has been a goal of mine for years …

#AppleVisionPro #Apple #Hardware #Analysis #MetaQuestPro #MonitorReplacement

“Warrior” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5743796) never dissappoints — storylines don’t go the “obvious” way, people don’t always think the way you would suppose they would, enemies become allies in the most unlikely ways, and nobody is ever totally good or bad …

I love this show because it captures humanity so well while showing us how brutal we all can be, given the right circumstances …

The season finale started out with such a small scene — but it played out totally differently than I thought it would if I’d been in the same place. It showed understanding and empathy where I’d have been full of rage.

And then topped that off in the next few scenes with such a satisfying ending to one of the most annoying and smug characters the show has had this season.

From there on, it just keeps building, building, and building to a bloody climax on top of all the groundwork laid out this season, ending with some interesting open threads which hints at some interesting developments and new power dynamics next season, if there is one.

I hope there’s another season (or two or three), I really do!

#TV #Warrior #BruceLee #Western #Finale #RenewWarrior

"The Jengaburu Curse" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27327718) started out looking like an interesting thriller, but by the end devolved into a stupid, brainless story which seems to have been written by kids — and I bet you, kids could probably come up with a better (and more intelligent) plot than this one 😛

The protagonist is a “tribal” who lives and an works in the UK, in fintech no less. But apparently she has no idea of how surveillance works or how you can be tracked … I guess her “tribal” brain just can’t comprehend such “marvels” of modern technology?

I had such high hopes for the show after the first few episodes, but by the end it had turned into a caricature of a show where people just did stupid things because it advanced the “story”, if it can be called that.

#TV #India #Hindi #MiniReview #BadPotBoiler

Indian movies "borrowing”/remaking English and other language movies is fairly standard. But what's even more prevalent is Indian movies in one language being remade in another language 🙂

This is a practice which probably goes back all the way to the beginning of Indian cinema. I certainly remember Tamil movies being remade in Hindi (or vice versa) all the way back to when I was a kid … and that was almost 50 years ago.

In fact, some stars have made a career out of taking a movie which was successful in another Indian region/language and making a hit movie — Jeyam Ravi and Ajay Devgn are names which immediately come to my mind …

Ajay Devgn has starred in the remake of the Tamil Suriya starrer “Singam” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655607) franchise, renamed to “Singham” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1948150) in Hindi 🙂

Even more interestingly, the Hindi “Singham” movies have taken on a life of their own and spawned spin-offs which make up Rohit Shetty’s (the director of the movies) “Cop Universe” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_Universe) which has various cops, including Singham, inhabiting a shared universe.

You can find the Tamil version of the first movie on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G-c07uvZik

There are multiple videos claiming to the Hindi movie on YouTube as well but I haven't found one which is actually the movie 🙂 It looks as if most are just re-assembled clips from the movie with an audio commentary — probably because the authors are violating copyright by uploading the movie 😛

I have not seen the Hindi version but my impression was that it was mostly a scene-for-scene remake rather than a re-imagining …

Guess I should find out one of these days?

Also an interesting thing to note about these cross-language remakes is that some actors, such as Prakash Raj (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695177) who plays the baddie in both “Singam” and “Singham” will reprise their role. Prakash Raj is fairly notable for this BTW since I remember him playing the same role in multiple such remakes …

(I actually wanted to talk about another re-made franchise Ajay Devgn starred in which has been re-made in at least three different Indian languages, but I think that’ll have to wait for another post …)

#Movies #India #Hindi #Tamil #Remakes #Singam #Singham #Suriya #AjayDevgn

Acorn woodpecker storing acorns

Continuing on with the theme of Indian remakes, “Coming to America” (1988) is an interesting one since I’ve seen at least three sub-continental remakes of the movie — two Indian and one Pakistani 🙂

I’m fairly certain that there are many more movies which lifted elements from the film, but I’m talking of the ones that I distinctly remember from back then as being fairly close to the plot of “Coming to America”.

I don’t recall the name of the Pakistani movie any longer (I think I saw it in ’92 or ’93) but I do remember the Hindi and Tamil versions fairly well.

The Hindi version is “Dil Hi To Hai” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106724) — it had Jackie Shroff and Divya Bharti and I loved at least some of the songs in the movie, if I recall.

You can find “Dil Hi To Hai” on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFPV6SdKjIw

Then, on the Tamil side, you had “My Dear Marthandan” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254593), which starred Prabhu and Kushboo and was trying to cash in on (probably) the Prabhu/Kushboo pairing which was very hot at that time.

“My Dear Marthandan” is on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Pqq_dtsMA

It’s been around 30 years since I’ve seen either movie, I think. I’d love to watch them both again and see if they still hold up or not …

#Movies #Indian #Hindi #Tamil #Remakes #Bollywood #Kollywood

Today I discovered something interesting — YouTube has fairly good versions of Hindi movies from back in the 80s and 90s!

Well, I think I actually discovered this yesterday when I found “Betaab” but I didn’t actually realize this till today when I searched for “EK Ladka Ek Ladki” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291883)

Back in the 90s, Hindi movies blatantly copied Hollywood movies (with no attribution or permission, mind you) and made their own versions. “Ek Ladka Ek Ladki” is one such movie which copies Kurt Russel & Goldie Hawn’s “Overboard” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093693).

This movie is probably responsible for getting me into Hindi movies again and for learning Hindi just so I could watch the movies 🙂

I generally never watch a movie twice (with a few exceptions) but I think I must have watched this one at least 5 times …

Oh yeah, it’s on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSdQeh3WnkU

The last time I looked for “Ek Ladka Ek Ladki” on YouTube, the only copy I could find was a really dark and hard to watch version. So this version is certainly a find for me 🙂

This gives me an idea! Maybe I should look for other movies from the 90s that copied Hollywood movies and post about them every once in a while?

I generally love the Bollywood version to the Hollywood version of these “re-makes”. So it might be interesting to introduce more people to these versions …

#Movies #Bollywood #Hindi #Remakes #MovieHistory

Yesterday I talked of masala westerns and how I remembered Sunny Deol (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0219971) in a masala western but couldn’t remember the movie.

I thought it might have been “Joshilaay” based on a Google search but it just didn’t seem like the right movie. I even did a quick scan through a YouTube copy of the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFuy-yr0E3I) and it still didn’t seem right — the look and the feel was off.

I’d had a vague recollection that Amrita Singh (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0802080) might have been in the movie I was thinking of as well, but had originally dismissed as my memory acting up.

Today I did a search for movies with Sunny Deol and Amrita Singh and found what I think is the right one — “Betaab” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254179).

This is from way back in ’83 but YouTube has the movie (https://www.youtube.com) and the first few minutes seem to indicate that this might be the right movie 🙂

The grasslands, the log cabin, Sunny Deol putting his boots and chaps on and getting his saddle, it all points to a masala western and I think this might be the right one!

Guess I’ll be watching “Betaab” again soon?

#Movies #Bollywood #Hindi #MasalaWestern #Memories

Seeing Sunny Deol in "Chup" reminded me of the one other movie in which he was memorable to me, but I couldn’t remember the name of the movie 😛

It was a masala western.

In case you’re wondering, a masala western is an Indian movie which deals with “cowboy”/western themes, similar to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. Sometimes, it’s just the theme of the movie without visible “cowboy” elements, but sometimes a movie will have people riding horses, in full cowboy getup etc. I used to love these 🙂

I just learnt today (or maybe I knew this but forgot) that they are also called “curry cowboy” movies, but somehow that feels pejorative to me 😛 So I’ll stick to masala westerns, thank you very much.

Anyway, I believe the Sunny Deol movie in question was “Joshilaay” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089382) but I can’t be sure since the synopsis on IMDB doesn’t trigger any memories and I have no recollection that Anil Kapoor was in the movie I was thinking of.

All I remember is a single scene where Sunny Deol rides up on a horse in jeans, (chequered?) shrit, and maybe even a hat. And that’s all I remember now ...

But now I’d like to see another masala western … I guess it’s a dying (or dead?) breed these days?

#Movies #Bollywood #MasalaWestern #SunnyDeol

So … “Chup” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15654262) was great more than halfway through. But as they said, or as I might paraphrase, it turned out to be a movie of two halves.

The ending was horrible, not to say stupid. The investigator who was so “smart” at the beginning couldn’t see what was going on right in front of his eyes.

And then he does even more stupid things that I won’t go into. (If you want to know what they are, watch the movie 😛)

So a good movie with a good set up, but let down by some of the ending. Ah well, such is life … and movies.

#Movies #Hindi #SecondThoughts #Bollywood

It's so much fun to see Sunny Deol and Pooja Bhatt in "Chup" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15654262) …

It’s been ages since I’ve seen either of them in a movie and it’s such a trip down memory lane to see them acting again. I think the last time I saw Pooja Bhatt in a movie might have been ’98 or so and I don’t even remember when I saw Sunny Deol last, but it must have been in the early 2000’s?

The way Pooja is introduced, she says to Sunny Deol’s character, “Why are you calling me after so many years?” and I had to wonder if that was intentional, or if it accidentally mirrored how I felt about seeing them both in the movie 🙂

And Sunny introducing Pooja’s character as a member of the “Psychopath Society” — priceless. Or maybe it’s just one of those things where it makes sense only to me? 😛

#Movies #History #Bollywood #Memories

What can I say about "Chup” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15654262)?

Actually, it feels as if I can write reams and reams about the movie. In fact, I think I’ll probably end up doing at least 2 -3 posts tangentially related to the movie …

But as for the movie itself, I’m only halfway through and I’m in love with it 🙂

It’s a movie about cinema, about critics, about people, about society.

Sure, it’s also about a psychopath and about some gruesome murders, but most of that seems far removed from the rest of the movie most of the time.

Most of the movie seems perfect so far to me and the characters just sing! Well, except for one. The one misstep I felt so far was a minor character who seemed way too stupid — mostly to show how clever another character was. And that just seemed forced.

But other than that, totally loving the movie!

#Hindi #Bollywood #Movies #MiniReview #Thriller #Psychopath #SerialKiller