Darkshade Forum

It really seems Musk is trying to kill Twitter completely.  Now he's demanding the remaining employees to work long hours at high intensity or be fired.  After also firing employees on Twitter for daring to correct false statements, he's not inspiring any loyalty.

It's alive!  I got the old message forum (read-only) working again by another means.  All the old content is back online.

surrealist painting of a duck wearing a top hat on its head while standing on the bank of a river

A woman walks her dog, in the style of Monet

You might have heard recently of an AI called Stable Diffusion that can generate images from text prompts.  I just installed it on my M1 Mac Mini tonight using a tool called DiffusionBee and put it to work.

Among the images I had it create were "The Predator steps through The Stargate", "Two Galleons battling at sea during sunset", and "a woman walking her dog, in the style of Monet".

It takes a while to run, since I have only 8GB of RAM instead of the recommended 16GB.  It does still work though, as you can see.

Due to a dramatic drop in their stock price, Netflix is considering adding Ads to lower level subscriptions.  If you're concerned about 200,000 subscribers suddenly leaving, adding advertisements doesn't sound to me like a way to entice others to stay.

Back in 2014 I reviewed this electric razor:

I don't like electric shavers.  While convenient, my experience was always that they pulled, got hot, and couldn't cut on anything but a flat, dry patch of skin.  Any curves or moisture and forget it.

Since I switched to blades, I never looked back.  But recently I read a review on Gizmodo for the best electric razor.  http://gizmodo.com/5976226/the-best-electric-razor  I wondered if the tech had improved since I was in school.  Certainly the ability to shave wet or dry was new.

They described their top razor, the Philips Norelco SensoTouch 3D, as feeling like "removing facial hair with robot kisses."  That's a far cry from what I remember... more like robot meat grinder.  Intrigued I read on, and ultimately decided to pick one up from Walmart.

http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/ph.....lex-3d/6000012376359

I tried it out yesterday, on 4 day growth.  Till now, that's strictly razor blade territory.  The Philips 3D made quick work of it.  Robot kisses indeed!  The little pivoting heads hugged every bump and bend as well as a blade, and even took less time.  Certain spots that always get nicked were no problem with this.  Cleanup was a cinch.  Just pop the little heads open and dump the whiskers.  If it had been a wet shave, with foam, I'd have to additionally run the open heads under hot water.  That's it.

To me, it felt a smoother shave than I was getting with a disposable razor.  Perhaps its because with the Philips you're supposed to shave in a circular motion, while a blade should just go "with the grain".

The SensoTouch 3D is amazingly better than the electric razors I had in the '90s.  The price was a bit steep, but frankly, worth it.  Now when I go away for a few days, I don't have to pack blades and gel.  Shaving just got easier.

The Good: Fast charging.  Wet or Dry shave.  Robot kisses.
The Bad: $200 for an electric shaver.  That's about 500 shaves with disposables.
The Ugly: The "stylish" carrying case looks like a tiny bicycle seat.

It just died last week.  Although at last use, the battery would still last for 3 shaves between charges, it no longer accepts a charge.  I've since replaced it with a Phillips Shaver Series 9000 which is currently $100 off at Amazon

Amazingly it's an even gentler shave!  I was sporting several days growth (something I would cringe at with the previous model) and it handled it like a champ without any pulling or irritation.