Moving to: m/AskMbin!

\-When i was a child, i thought researchers were actually fighting each other when I heard "researchers are fighting to find a cure for this disease."

\-When I was little, I thought that high-voltage lines were there to allow little men to travel in cable cars.

\-I thought an autopilot actually worked like in the movie "Airplane", that it was really an inflatable dummy.

I have been trying to find a piece of lost media and was wondering if anyone knows any magazines/communties around lost media?

Like sometimes I'll make a post and I go back and I reread it and I'm like somebody way smarter than me wrote this, and sometimes I'll go back and reread it and wonder how the fuck was I so stupid as to write this?

Is that the way it is for you also, or am I just weirder than the average person?

Hello everyone!

This is u/TheArstaInventor, I have contributed to many communities as moderator both here on kbin.social and on lemmy instances like lemmy.world (my profile) and lemmy.ml. I have also made guides in the past to help new users migrate from reddit to the fediverse and was also part of the r/RedditAlternatives moderation team, helping several efforts within the community for migration especially during the Reddit API hype (although we all know at some point that had to subside down and organic growth is the long-term key anyways).

It's been a couple of months since I have been inactive as I am a student and I was very busy and didn't really have any time and was tightly packed, leading me to take a few months of time off social media in general, and I have now noticed that several things have happened in the past couple of months while I have been away, and this affects the future of the communities I moderate, including this one, and where I am planning to head my efforts towards in the future moving forward.

1. Kbin: Unfortunately the opposite of what I hoped for, it looks like development have stalled rather than taking off, when I was active a couple of months ago, the development was already slowing down and bots/spams were an issue, and unfortunately looks like things have only gotten worse. I understand and read the thread from Ernest and what he has been dealing with in his life, which has unfortunately negatively impacted the platform and I do hope he is able to turn things around at some point!

2. Lemmy: I wrote a post here on lemmy a while back, opened and ran a few communities there side by side with kbin.social and we have seen some nice growth there, I was honestly not yet decided on which platform to go for, as I was wondering if I should just switch to Lemmy due to the slow down of development with Kbin that was already an issue back then as well.

Now, as a moderator, I have looked at everything, the spam/bot has gotten worse and on all the communities I have moderated at Kbin is filled by spammers, I think at this point I must look elsewhere as I've patiently stayed supportive of this project and been here for a long time, and I am certainly not saying Ernest can't take things uphil from here, but I no longer can move forward blindly based on optimism as the past of Kbin has simply shown a downhill so far and that makes life much more difficult for us mods maintaining and investing time in these communities.

Now about Lemmy, as I mentioned, the experiment was pretty successful, after all Lemmy has always been the biggest and the oldest reddit alternative in the fediverse, despite my long discomfortness with the developers (being tankies) and they're not so clean history due to their beliefs, although that directly does not affect development and certainly isn't the reason/influence of my decision to not invest my time at Lemmy. The main problem for me with Lemmy is that the platform feels stagnant, and the development just doesn't seem fast paced either (for new features and etc, as it's pretty big and mature, adding new features or things would be slower compared to a newer/younger alternative with active developers).

At last we have Mbin, I never gave it serious consideration but even after so long after forking, looking at Mbin's development progress at Github after coming back myself from being inactive, Mbin has been developing actively and there seem to be several contributors working and helping the project out, while Kbin has been mainly/only being carried by Ernest so far, which is also because Mbin allows pull requests that can be merged by any repo maintainer (with merge rights in GitHub) and only one approval on the PR is required from one of the Mbin maintainers, this allows for much easie/more contribution - I really like this open community approach especially with Mbin.

That being said, I have made the tough decision to move forward to Mbin, this community will be archived later and I hope to see all of you continue your engagement that you've made so far in the community there at m/AskMbin which is where we will be heading towards, I will personally be moving to https://thebrainbin.org/, one of the many instances of Mbin (find other Mbin instances here). Although if you want to hold off and don't want to move instances, you absolutely don't have to! This is a change that only affects us moderators and the community itself, all you have to do to continue to be part of the AskKbin community in it's new future direction, is subscribe to our community from your existing instance even if that would be in Kbin or Lemmy, it certainly doesn't have to be mbin! The power of the fediverse!

Again we hope to see you there and if you would like contribute to this new effort and direction for AskKbin -\> AskMbin as a moderator, please message me here or at mbin so I can add you as mod in our new community!

Edit: Also wanted to mention, this is just the beginning, I will slowly be moving the rest of my communities to Mbin's thebrainbin.org instance, if you are subscribed to any of my other communities please keep an eye out for a new similar announcement.

Edit 2: We have also opened a discord server! If you are interested in keeping up with my iniatives and show your support, please join my server and stay up to date!

A moment were you had the false impression you were close to death.

For me:

\-Panick attack. I had a stressful internship, and one day, it materialized with a panick attack. Suddenly, i was increasingly paralysed, my skin became insensitive, had heavy tinglings, had hard to breath. I though "that's it, i'm about to die" and managed to call the ambulance. Of course, by the time it arrives, the crisis had stopped, but i went to hospital anyway. This is were i learned that it was a panick attack, and that was not a vital emergency. If you don't know what it is, you're really convinced you're dying.

\-When i tried a blood donation. My blood pressure lowered rapidly, i became weaker and weaker and feeling increasingly bad, they had to stop the process.

I'm a programmer and for a long time I've been encountering problems with the platforms I often use to write my articles on programming and technology. So I decided to get my hands dirty and built a website that has received a considerable number of visits in just 4 months. That's why I'm here to invite more people who would like to write articles about programming (theoretical and practical) and technology to register on my website.

What do the reputation points we earn here on kbin.social help us with?

i would like to know what the reputation points we earn here on the site can do for us and how we can use them?

i'm thinking of creating a tourist photography website and i'd like to know where i can attract traffic from the united states to my website?

i'm thinking of creating a tourist photography website and i'd like to know where i can attract traffic from the united states to my website?

I'm new to the area and I'd like to know which sites you use to exchange programming experiences.

If yes, is it determined by objective metrics such as child hunger or is there a song contest?

I am trying to get back into VR. It's great cardio.

I want my wife to be able to say "I'm going to bed, goodnight" without risking me smashing her face while I smash the face of a goon in GORN.

Is there an adhesive "doorbell" I can place on my doorframe that activates a vibrating wristband? Or activates an LED small enough to fit inside my headset? I cant find anything in that direction more refined than a Ring doorbell.

I could say "just yell" but its night time and our walls are thin.

My leading solution is supply a basket of plushies and tell her to throw one at my knees before bedtime, hoping that doesn't make me trip or something.

Anyone got better solutions?

...are you full of soup?

When spam started to become overwhelming here I signed up to the largest mbin instance, Fedia.io. On one hand it runs well and isn't overrun with spam posts. On the other, it's missing some communities that are active on kbin.social.

It also doesn't have a meta or askmbin type of community, like kbin does.

Are there any other differences I should consider before deciding which of the two to drop?

Edit: I also got a server error when I posted this and thought my post had been lost. Phew! This doesn't happen on Fedia.io.

Related question: What cloudy temperature will melt as much as 35 F and sunny?

I was riding with my bicycle. One of the elastic straps sticks out a little from my bag, gets caught somewhere, I hear a loud click, then see it spin in the air and finally land on the other side of the road.

...but backpacks are.

This includes science fantasy.

Realistically, that bear should have died pretty quick from the amount of coke it ingested right? Didn't the real one die in a few minutes?

I'm not really a fan of nuggets in general. I've always been much more of a tendies human. By and large, I find the texture of processed chicken to be extremely revolting. Even as a kid, I thought they were vile and Dino nuggets always seemed to be particularly low-quality.

Do you like them? Is there something I'm missing? Maybe a particular brand that's good? Wendy's spicy nuggs are pretty okay. Please defend your position.

What the title says. Feel free to get into fierce food debates in the comments.

I have a good few unique dislikes, but the one I'll mention here is Dr. Pepper. It tastes absolutely abominable, and I have no idea how everyone likes it. It's just not good.

Additionally, any recommendations for a good C-drama or movie would be very appreciated!

I'd like to be able to do more with it, mostly just because it would be neat to do, but even the most basic tasks become huge efforts since its my non dominant hand. What can I do? Thanks :)

So the basic idea here is using a low-resolution texture that is designed specifically to be upscaled (anything but the first 3) to a simpler smooth aesthetic. Pixel blob/triangle/hexagon etc in with a 32x-or-lower texture (which is all that is downloaded), crisp shape(s) out. Also probably things like lineart for faces (or other similarly composed pieces), generally less colors hopefully preventing ambiguous details.

Batch conversion / post-processing / basic filter (to preview) are all options, but a live shader in an editor would be more useful. Even better for multiple outputs to see results for different shaders and make designs with their quirks in mind to make specific looks (esp. if multiple shaders can be used), or even just an option to tinker with (say if other pixel-art programs are better).

For an editor, I'd want to use Krita (a G'MIC filter would be fine but the ones I tried weren't great\\) or maybe a web editor. GIMP would be fine too.

For a medium I probably want to use Raylib, Godot 3.X (with this aesthetic at least), or maybe even Krita animations? Basic 2D/3D, tile maps (per-layer filtering?), bump maps or other PBR/shader inputs, texture warping, using sprites in 3D, animation etc all seem interesting.

SDF (Signed Distance Field/Function) textures are a similar endpoint (and I would consider using Inkscape for that).

---

For some backstory, I don't really want the pixel art look (especially because I'm not so good at it) nor do I have the skill for a painted look. I'd rather have resolution-independent\* art, but upscaled could allow using raster art's tools/features for better support and easier tools/creation/aesthetic etc. particularly for learning/practice while still allowing for higher resolutions than tested for.

I could probably just go for untextured 3D with vertex colors, but I kinda don't want the extra complexity or needing to use Blender. Though both 2D polygons and 3D meshes could be used alongside upscaled textures.

\*= Like THE EYE, but there are issues like it needing not-yet-released-PR which may not perform well if used to create an entire scene, plus AA support not being everywhere even for basic polygons, or language bindings being unavailable for some languages in 4.X (ones that work in 3.X).

\\= Upscale [Scale2x] works somewhat (16x with x 8 scale factor to get a 128x texture), though the preview appears broken and you must manually resize your canvas before running it. I suspect this is because it is an older filter.

Meta note: No tags used because the relevant ones I could think of all relate to content, particularly pixel art which this doesn't really relate to aside from specific intention and maybe some techniques.

A serial comma (or Oxford comma) is an optional comma used before the last item in a list. For example, "bread, butter, and tax evasion" uses a serial comma, whereas "bread, butter and tax evasion" does not.

Do you use it? Why or why not?

I always use it. I don't perceive any less of a pause between the last two items in a list than between any others, so it feels natural to put a comma there as well. Tbh, I'm so used to it that I usually have to do a double-take when it's not there (since it looks like a grammar error to me at first).

I have a sense of how these decisions look in the board room— just curious what they look/feel like on implementation given that people presumably don’t enjoy putting in effort to make a thing worse, obviously don’t dox yourself and get in trouble at work!

What the title says. What books are you reading? Or if not books, what are some interesting articles you've read lately?

I've been devouring Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series this past week (just started the last book yesterday). It adds so much to the Percy Jackson universe, and I plan on binging Trials of Apollo afterwards.

For me, it's The revelation of the pyramides. It does everything that shouldn't be done when making a documentary: fallacies, approximations, bad math, not relevant experts (and sometimes so-called experts who are experts of nothing at all), conspiracism, but above all, a completly fucked-up postulate: ancient building have been built by ancient aliens (called "builders") following a precise pattern to advert us of...something, it's not even precisely named.

Exaggerated and made up example of what I’m curious about:

My country has legitimate elections. When my government wrongly convicts someone I feel as if I have personally wronged that person by voting for the person who appointed the judge. God will judge both me and the judge for it.

I have to check on here more often.

I have been thinking about things I haven't used since high school. Been wondering if high school was just a waste of time. If there should have been trades or specialization. I never used MLA formatting in more than a decade.

Are there any add ons for Kbin or any existing features within it that would let me filter out posts based on selected keywords? So if I didn't ever want to read any posts that mentioned bitcoin or covid for example, does anyone know of a way to achieve that on kbin? Sort of how RES could do that on reddit.

\#AskKbin

on one hand, carts have a shitload of plastic. on the other had de razors (at least mine) are coated in Teflon, which is also pretty nasty. what y'all think?

If a Kbin member requests deletion of their personal account and they happen to be a community owner, would ownership of that community default to the moderator with the next-longest tenure? That's how it worked at the bad place, is it the same way here?

How long does account deletion normally take after the deletion is requested? Also, do the posts get nuked along with the account, or do they remain on Kbin?

what I've found is just that bank is for profit, union isn't, and union can give better interest

thanks :)

isn't it like a debit card with extra steps? at a store I mean

Requirements:

1. Must be cool (optional)

It's a new year — about 6 months since that Reddit migration occurred — and Kbin progressed a ton in 2023. What are your thoughts on it? How much value have you gotten out of it, and what would you like to see in the future?

The new year has just barely started, and there are so many events that could transpire between now and the end of the year. What do you think will happen in 2024?

AskKbin is back to federation with Lemmy.world!

Backstory - AskKbin was one of the several communities removed from some of Lemmy's instances like Lemmy.world on their side, which means users from Kbin were able to see all the content from Lemmy instances normally, but users from Lemmy on the other side of the fence were not able to see certain Kbin communities and we were one of them unfortunately - This was due to bot spams flowing throughout certain communities with inactive moderators at the time, while the Kbin's development was also temporarily paused back then during that period due to Kbin developer's personal issues that he wanted to handle first, but ever since the development resumed, we've got a new fantastic built-in redditrequest-style system allowing users from our community to takeover communities from moderators that are no longer active. This allowed me to takeover and revive AskKbin, among other communities, removing all the spam, placing bans on spammers while Kbin developers have also removed and addressed spams sitewide with a cleanup which has also helped us decrease this issue in a wider context. (Lemmy.world admins' original announcement regarding the above)

With that being said, as a result, after discussions with lemmy.world admins, Ask Kbin is now back and users from instances such as Lemmy.world should also be able to access our community from now on, we're glad to have everyone back!

Fundamental what/what not to post here issue needs to be solved

There is a fundemental issue (understanding) of what type of posts belong and not belong at AskKbin so far. Our original (and long-term) purpose has and will be a place for thought-provoking discussions across the fediverse, heavily inspired and similar to AskReddit, although so far this community despite multiple heads up from moderators, has had the issue of many people regardless using it as a support sub or asking general questions about Kbin itself or even the Fediverse even though the right community is KbinMeta.

Considering Kbin and the fediverse as a whole is still in a young, but developing stage, we don't want to take drastic actions on this yet although once Kbin as a project reaches more maturity, we will get back to fixing this problem through moderation.

But for now, we kindly ask that unless you are a newbie who is super lost, please make sure your submissions are thought-provoking and not a support or low-effort post. Tons of great examples can be found throughout the internet or even AskReddit itself if you are new to "Ask" type communities.

Future plans for AskKbin (Plans to recruit more moderators and more)

We have so far managed with a single moderator (me), but as the community grows and now that we are back to moderating with Lemmy's instances, we need more moderators to keep the community clean more than ever.

Mod applications are not open yet, but once they are, this section will be edited and a new post linked with mod application will be pinned in our community here, so watch out for that!

We will also upgrade our Kbin sidebar rules and information with guides and other resources linked for new users as AskKbin is one of the biggest communities on Kbin, this can be one of the first places many new users end up landing on.

Lastly, we also plan on designing and implementing new banners that will go well along with the logo, making the community more appealing than ever for Kbin users.

For those who have stayed here and contibuted, even in the dull/difficult times, thank you! And we hope to see more people connect and have great thought-provoking discussions!