Aral Balkan

https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral

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npub1p095l6jcegr5j3zz0zjg2zukf7aq34awuetvkkpc8z78qwlvwavs5hm5vl

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqhj60afvv5p6fg3p83fy9pwtylwsg67hwv4kttqur30rs80k8wkgd7wxgf

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relay.momostr.pink

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npub1p095l6jcegr5j3zz0zjg2zukf7aq34awuetvkkpc8z78qwlvwavs5hm5vl

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Published at

2024-03-21 13:43:21

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Last Notes

2024-06-24 12:27:38

- reply

How about you help instead of calling people who are helping assholes?

2024-06-24 12:27:04

Small Web: computer science colloquium at University of Groningen
This is the recording of my talk the other week where I demonstrated the current state of the Small Web to faculty and postdoc students in the Netherlands.
It includes demos of setting up new Small Web places at your own domain/server in about 10 seconds, Small Web places communicating with end-to-end encryption, and live coding using Kitten’s Streaming HTML workflow, etc.
https://ar.al/2024/06/24/small-web-computer-science-colloquium-at-university-of-groningen/
#SmallWeb #Kitten #Domain

2024-06-21 19:15:00

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What I mean is I’ve seen “virtue signalling” etc. used before by certain folks to attempt to silence folks arguing for social justice.

2024-06-21 17:46:37

To think I was recommending System76 to people. Won’t be making that mistake again.
Apparently caring about accessibility is “virtue signaling” and “concern trolling”.
Well, I know exactly the kind of people who use those terms and they’re not folks I want to have anything to do with or will be recommending to anyone else in the future.
If you’re not in the US, you should buy from a local shop anyway. In the EU, we’re spoilt for choice with Tuxedo, Slimbook, StarLabs, etc.
#System76 #Linux

2024-06-20 10:29:50

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(@npub1f2q…229c @npub1k7m…0d7l was being sarcastic – you know what they say about good parody being indistinguishable from the truth and all that) ;)

2024-06-20 08:00:34

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You can unfollow and publicly shame me for calling out a glaring accessibility issue in nearly every major Linux distribution on the planet. What you can’t do is both do that and argue that there isn’t an ableist culture in open source software because you’re literally perpetuating it right now by showing the next person exactly what happens when someone criticises the lack of accessibility in your community.
#a11y #linux

2024-06-20 07:54:14

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Do you know how long Wayland has been default on Fedora? I just looked it up. Since Fedora 25. For eight years. I hadn’t even realised. EIGHT YEARS, Fedora has been shipping GNOME with a broken screen reader!
And hundred-million-dollar corporations like IBM & Canonical ship operating systems today based on GNOME with a broken screen readers.
Why do I say “ableist?” Because this can only happen in an ableist culture.
#a11y

2024-06-18 16:06:42

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Background: It’s not just Fedora. Every Linux distribution that ships with Wayland by default – and that’s almost every major Linux distribution – ships with a broken/unusable screen reader at the moment.
(Read that again until it really sinks in. Yep. I know. Uh-huh. Really.)
#Linux #a11y #wayland #accessibility #screenReader

2024-06-18 16:04:49

Fedora: “The Fedora Quality Team is joining Week of Diversity with an Accessibility Test Week!
Much like other Test Days, the goal of this week is to put Fedora through its paces and catch as many accessibility related issues as we can for our disable users.”
Me: Fedora, your screen reader is broken.
Fedora guy: Patches welcome 👍
Me: *reaches for block button*
From the actually-what-you’re-referring-to-as-ableism-is-GNU/ableism-department
#foss #a11y #accessibility #fedora #ffs

2024-06-17 21:42:58

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Oh, man, so I’ll be writing a proper review of the new #StarLite #Linux #tablet but initial thoughts…
Emotional brain: I love this thing! The screen alone is amazing. Just gorgeous! 2,880×1,920 @ 200% is perfect. Feels amazing in your hand in portrait orientation.
Rational brain: Has basic usability issues.
• Can’t use encrypted drive without external keyboard
• GNOME on-screen keyboard unusable
• Front camera is crap
• Back camera not recognised (?)
But amazing this even exists… more soon.

2024-06-17 21:14:27

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All good. @npub133l…pfxe informed me that the bug has been fixed and I can confirm that it is in the latest Fedora Silverblue.

2024-06-17 19:31:12

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Is this the exhibition from 2015 or a new one that’s currently on?
https://www.metmuseum.org/articles/color-the-temple

2024-06-17 19:13:58

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Thanks, that’s good to know :)

2024-06-17 18:47:47

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Oh, my bad, there is a pen you can get separately: https://starlabs.systems/collections/accessories/products/stylus (I don’t have it.)

2024-06-17 18:38:37

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The bug’s still listed as open but, sure, I will test with latest Fedora. Starlabs is shipping with latest Ubuntu and a number of other operating systems. Will let them know to at least not ship Ubuntu until they update.

2024-06-17 18:15:24

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It means Ubuntu (and likely any other distribution that defaults to GNOME) is broken on tablet computers.
But things like this happen in the Linux world. Basically all major Linux distributions are also currently shipping with a broken screen reader, making them inaccessible to people who rely on one to use a computer.
🤷‍♂️
#linux #gnome #tablet #pc #computer #accessibility #a11y

2024-06-17 18:10:42

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So, first issue, popovers (eg., drop-down menus, app menus, etc.) don’t work on GTK 4 apps (like System Settings in GNOME) on touchscreen devices. Three-year old bug: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1523
I guess that means tablets are not currently supported under GNOME.
Going to see if KDE Plasma works on touchscreen Linux tablets.
*sigh!*
#gnome #linux #tablet #gtk4 #kde #plasma #popovers #mutter

2024-06-17 18:07:32

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Ah, looks like a three-year old GNOME/GTK 4 issue: apparently popovers don’t work in GTK 4 on touchscreens. I guess I have to install KDE Plasma on this if I want a working tablet? (Unless that has issues on tablets too…)

2024-06-17 18:05:54

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I don’t believe it has a pen, sorry :(

2024-06-17 17:57:56

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(This is not an issue I have on non-touchscreen; wondering if it’s a touchscreen issue or a touchscreen on Ubuntu issue… or…?)

2024-06-17 17:46:07

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Just tap the hamburger menu or a drop-down menu in Settings. None of them appear.

2024-06-17 17:19:43

Sorry, that wouldn’t be the psychopaths destroying humanity’s future industry by chance, would it? https://mastodon.world/@davidho/112626873670066685

2024-06-17 17:16:48

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And all they were trying to do was commit a little genocide.

2024-06-17 17:05:52

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Yep. And it’s basically supposed to be laptop-level. Let’s see; haven’t really done anything with it yet (it’s charging and I cooked lunch) :)

2024-06-17 17:05:02

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Will do :) Give me a little time to break it in :)

2024-06-17 17:04:20

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I’ll let you know once I’ve had a chance to put it through its paces :)

2024-06-17 17:03:53

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Will do :)

2024-06-17 17:02:50

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It’s got Ubuntu on it from StarLabs (just wanted to make sure everything was working. I’ll likely put Silverblue on it. Although I first want to see if the bug with popovers not showing is a GNOME issue or an Ubuntu issue.

2024-06-17 17:00:34

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Sure :)

2024-06-17 17:00:01

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Haha, thanks 💕

2024-06-17 15:43:13

Oooh, ooh, ooh… look what just arrived! I’ve been waiting almost a year for it and boy was it worth the wait. My new Linux laptop is a… tablet? Yep. The StarLabs StarLite.
Oh and the screen on this thing! 😍
https://ie.starlabs.systems/pages/starlite
#linux #tablet #StarLabs #StarLite
https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/media_attachments/files/112/632/252/643/674/982/original/5fc7c38e5083eafe.jpeg
https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/media_attachments/files/112/632/252/794/300/033/original/fc28197f113484e5.jpeg
https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/media_attachments/files/112/632/252/985/214/966/original/cf62992de5b49676.jpeg
https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/media_attachments/files/112/632/253/135/470/708/original/25b54c14fc7d74a3.jpeg

2024-06-17 14:20:50

Do not compare Israel to Nazi Germany, that is Holocaust inversion.
Meanwhile, in Israel:
Former Israeli MK Quotes Hitler While Discussing Gaza War
“As Hitler said,” Moshe Feiglin said to Channel 12 news, “I can’t live if one Jew is left,” we can’t live here if one ‘Islamo-Nazi’ remains in Gaza.”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-16/ty-article/former-israeli-mk-quotes-hitler-while-discussing-gaza-war/00000190-224f-d231-a1b2-e65f76fe0000
Via @npub1hh8…0cqv
#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Nazis #Hitler #settlerColonialism #apartheid #ethnicCleansing #genocide #holocaust #holocaustInversion #zionism #antisemitism

2024-06-17 09:32:24

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Alt text: "Imagine for a moment that you have been gifted
100 expensive wine bottles by 100 different
people. But there's a catch: you discover that one
of the bottles has been poisoned, and you have no
idea which one. Fortunately, you have a test that
can detect poison very accurately, even among a
large volume of liquid. Unfortunately, you have
only 7 of these tests available. What should you
do?"
Adam Kucharski
The shape of information
KUCHARSKI.SUBSTACK.COM

2024-06-17 09:17:19

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Yeah, loved it :) Good to see not all academics are suckling at the corporate teet.

2024-06-17 09:15:50

Toxic masculinity was the original Al. Don’t @ me.

2024-06-17 09:14:46

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👍

2024-06-17 09:13:18

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[winks in awkward]

2024-06-17 09:10:10

Hey boy, you’re so full of shit, are you sure you’re not a large language model?

2024-06-17 09:03:16

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Awwwwwwwwww! 🥰

2024-06-17 08:53:51

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Oh, I hear you. That bastard being given the run of the place is the problem, not your being forced to use his space junk.

2024-06-17 08:51:25

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Haha, I was simply enjoying the image of one of Elon Musk’s receptacles being used properly.

2024-06-17 08:49:11

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Let’s not forget other genius moves like Ireland limiting booster shots to over 80s.

2024-06-17 08:43:47

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Has it shit on it yet? It might just think it’s a toilet.

2024-06-17 08:34:52

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Let’s hope it’s just a phase :)

2024-06-17 08:26:15

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Yeah, kings rarely abolish the monarchy.

2024-06-17 08:24:04

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Why would tumours cure cancer?

2024-06-17 08:18:44

“Children at the top 250 English private schools have access to more than 10 times as much outdoor space as those who go to state schools, an exclusive Guardian analysis can reveal.
A schoolboy at fee-charging Eton has access to 140 times more green space than the average English state school pupil, the analysis found. Experts condemned the ‘staggering’ and ‘gross’”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/16/revealed-private-schools-have-10-times-more-green-space-than-state-schools
Damn, you’d think it was a monarchy or something.
#England #inequality

2024-06-16 21:38:27

Being right is easy. You just have to be unaware that you’re wrong.

2024-06-16 20:51:34

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(They are VC funded.) ;)

2024-06-16 20:35:21

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Damn, next you’ll tell me they’re VC funded.

2024-06-16 19:48:02

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I’m so sorry to hear it, Robb. Your dad sounds like he was a wonderful person. Sending you lots of love. 💕

2024-06-16 15:33:42

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💕

2024-06-16 15:26:50

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Yep, it was pure organic sarcasm.

2024-06-16 15:25:51

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Clearly the sarcasm in my post didn’t come through :)

2024-06-16 15:20:51

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💕

2024-06-16 15:15:46

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Yeah, should be “if you can’t teach, do.”

2024-06-16 15:12:27

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Next you’ll tell me carbon offsets are a scam.

2024-06-16 15:02:53

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Fuck Hamas.
Also, fuck Israel.
See how you can oppose an “ultranationalist and religious organisation … that would kill you on sight” without supporting a fascist apartheid regime that is committing genocide?
#StandWithHumanity #CeasefireNOW #Israel #Palestine #Gaza #aparthied #ethnicCleansing #genocide

2024-06-16 14:54:55

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If they’d been ethical, they would never have allowed themselves to become a trillion-dollar company. The kind of culture you need to become a trillion-dollar company is the kind of culture where shit like this happens. It’s like looking at the monarchy and asking “why are they decadent?” Because monarchy is inherently decadent. Similarly, trillion-dollar corporations are inherently unequal, unjust, unethical and patriarchal.

2024-06-16 14:41:59

“…there is ‘little precedent’ for ‘the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space’”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cybertruck-a-perfect-symbol-of-american-political-rot/
What could possibly go wrong?
#musk #usa #corporatocracy

2024-06-16 14:04:20

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Just started; all good 😬👍

2024-06-16 10:55:32

Meta did this? I’m shocked!
(Meta is John Mastodon’s new bestie. https://www.platformer.news/mastodon-interview-eugen-rochko-meta-bluesky-threads-federation/) https://hachyderm.io/@det/112610136883080131

2024-06-16 09:54:20

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Hiya, thanks for playing with it. And thanks for your issues/PRs in the repo; will get back to you there today/this week (was busy with the video, sorry.)
PS. I’ve not used Kubernetes but – at a quick glance before my morning coffee – do all the Kitten instances spun up by this share the same mount (and TLS cert?)

2024-06-15 21:24:12

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Thanks, Harald 💕

2024-06-15 19:16:46

Just finished editing the video and transcript of the recording of my computer science colloquium on Small Web at the University of Groningen.
I’ll make a blog post with it soon but here’s the video itself in case anyone’s interested in watching it before then.
https://vimeo.com/958556510
PS. I recorded this myself from the laptop I was presenting from so please don’t expect the same quality as my regular videos. I did go in and replace the slides so those sections should be smooth :)
#SmallWeb

2024-06-15 17:27:33

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Yeah, I stopped filing bugs because of that culture. Hey, I get it, I’m a designer, your job as a designer is to say no to most things. But this is something else.

2024-06-15 17:23:22

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Seriously, ok, you guys win, I’m going to do my best not to mention GNOME ever again – heck, I’d already stopped filing bugs because of this culture – because FFS, apparently you have to preface any criticism with “a thousand apologies, this lowly person who uses your amazing gift to humanity (peace be upon it) and was likely holding it wrong (silly me) might have a teeny tiny suggestion – not to doubt your infallibility, of course – so that perhaps someone else might not lose a day of work…“

2024-06-15 17:16:45

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GNOME doesn’t have bugs, it has unappreciated features.

2024-06-15 17:15:30

Thou shalt not speak ill of GNOME.

2024-06-15 17:13:54

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Literally what I was told, but sure, my fault as always with anything GNOME related. Best not to speak of it at all. Gonna learn that lesson one day.

2024-06-15 09:34:44

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Original source: He’s made his Instagram private but here’s the link to the video from his Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?id=1262795066&story_fbid=10231952626219505

2024-06-15 09:16:15

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💕

2024-06-14 23:40:10

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Something tells me someone might have been a little confused :)

2024-06-14 23:17:45

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OK, replace the sixes with ones and it spells out Geek in binary.

2024-06-14 23:14:07

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No idea, sorry. It’s not ASCII. Some sort of niche code?

2024-06-14 19:18:31

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👍

2024-06-14 19:17:18

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You can also add the ones you like to your favourites (the star button) but they’re not prefixed by group so it can get confusing as some have the same name (eg. Video fade in and Audio fade in both appear as fade in.)

2024-06-14 15:36:43

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The darn thing is they are doing a lot of good work. It’s almost like there are two cultures clashing internally or something. One that’s the old school arrogant free and open source “coder knows best” culture and another that’s design-led and cares about improving the experience and listening to the people who use it. I just can’t abide the former.

2024-06-14 15:27:42

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🎻

2024-06-14 15:24:43

Folks, just a quick apology, I was wrong: I just heard that GNOME’s screen recorder is apparently only meant to be used to create low-quality recordings to be added to bug reports.
(Apologies for assuming it was a professional-quality tool. The screenshots it takes don’t look bad so I just went and assumed the screencasts would be usable also. My bad.)
So please don’t use it to create any actual screencasts or anything. (You can use OBS if you need a real screen recording tool.)
#gnome #linux

2024-06-14 15:19:42

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And this is the other reason why I don’t file bug reports any longer.
Me: this feature is not fit for purpose.
Someone on GNOME team: actshaully, according to technical reason #3096… why are you publicly smearing GNOME!
Ok, pretend I didn’t say anything. And you heard nothing.

2024-06-14 15:16:11

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👌🤣

2024-06-14 15:08:08

Keir Starmer truly is the sliced white bread of politicians.

2024-06-14 14:55:55

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Yeah, Ryan, I’m afraid you would’ve gotten a similar reply had you said that to me. I’ve been on the receiving end of such accusations and I can tell you they’re not fun. If folks like us wanted to fuck things up, we’d go do it quietly while earning high six figures for our efforts. We wouldn’t be wasting our time and effort to try to and raise awareness and hopefully affect some progressive change in the world.

2024-06-14 14:51:28

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Yeah, agreed. I’ve worked with them all almost (started out with Avids and Media 100s at film school, then the usual suspects Vegas, Premiere, FCP, etc.) I did try a bunch of the open source ones but ended up using Lightworks earlier – which is excellent – but it’s overkill for what I’m doing. So, yeah, Kdenlive is great :)

2024-06-14 12:38:49

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Here’s a better list of what’s affected when you change the frame rate of an existing project:
• Guide locations are wrong (offset by a certain amount). If there was a way to group all guides and move them together it would be a five-second fix (or if Kdenlive did this automatically so they were correct to begin with). As is, it’s a laboriuous process of moving each guide separately.
• Effects like freeze lose their timecode.
#kdenlive #nle #nonLinearEditor #video #editor #linux

2024-06-14 11:40:04

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PS. One thing that caught me out: the default project setting was for 1080 resolution at 25fps. Make sure you set it to 30 (or 60 if you’re a gamer, I guess) if you need to and not get caught out like I did as changing the FPS on an existing project throws out all your timings for effects, etc.
#kdenlive #nle #nonLinearEditor #video #editor #linux

2024-06-14 11:34:22

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Tried vertical, never really worked for me. Found myself straining my neck more often than not.

2024-06-14 11:33:53

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Thanks, it’s a Filco :)

2024-06-14 11:32:58

If you’re working in Kdenlive, guides are your friend. As are the razor, slip, and ripple tools (take a moment to really learn them and you’ll save yourself a lot of time).
Also, the alt+arrow keys for navigating between clips on the timeline and ctrl+arrow keys for navigating between guides.
Finally, useful filters: Everything in Motion, Volume and Dynamics (audio fades, etc.), Alpha, Mask, Keying → Obscure (pixellate sensitive stuff).
#kdenlive #nle #nonLinearEditor #video #editor #linux
https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/media_attachments/files/112/614/229/091/678/547/original/3bd693614b8f849d.png

2024-06-14 10:54:09

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Merci, it’s this: https://kbdcraft.store/products/adam

2024-06-14 10:53:42

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Haha, noted ;)

2024-06-14 10:51:13

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Right, take two…
#presenting #recording #slides #screenCapture #linux #Kdenlive #OBS #NLE #screencasts
https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/media_attachments/files/112/614/118/054/469/073/original/7a05a2c70c4a85cb.jpeg

2024-06-14 09:05:04

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https://archive.ph/8VtXp

2024-06-14 07:31:36

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*badum tish* :)

2024-06-14 07:30:20

We’d they call it Recall when Panopticon was right there?
#microsoft #BigTech #surveillance #capitalism #PeopleFarming

2024-06-14 07:22:11

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(Case in point: the exact issue that made me lose a day of work was reported three years ago: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/3371 and the reason it’s still an issue is not because of an inability to fix the issue but a reluctance to see the problem as an issue since, given the use case you stated above, the low quality isn’t a bug but a feature as the tool is optimised for a different use case to one that people outside the GNOME dev team have.)

2024-06-14 07:15:39

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Hi Jeff, thanks for taking the time to reply and for providing background but I hope you realise this is exactly why I stopped filing bugs for issues like this on #GNOME projects. It makes perfect sense for a tool made for the GNOME team to be for “quick partial recordings to attach to bug reports” where quality doesn’t matter. For anyone else who uses a screen recorder, quality is what matters. But were I to report it, my issue would be closed with this justification.

2024-06-14 07:07:56

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Yeah, I used to use it early on for streaming, before I got the Atem. Just never thought of it as a recording tool (mostly because of how large an app it is and because GNOME comes with one. Albeit one that’s not fit for purpose.)

2024-06-14 07:03:46

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I do believe there is an asshole in this situation but it isn’t you.