I have this 10-year-old Chromebook that wasn't being used, and I wanted to give it new life, so I looked into installing Linux on it. Lo-and-behold, it worked, and I'm on it right now!

I think it's pretty neat that you can get a Linux machine for under $50. This isn't the fastest machine, but it's absolutely functional, with a monitor, keyboard, wifi, webcam, USB ports.. running Linux Mint 21.1 Best of all, it's cheap (or free, if you already have an unused Chromebook and a USB drive or SD card you're willing to format.) I even checked Craigslist, and I saw a Chromebook that was 3 years newer and a bit better than the one I'm using, listed for $25. $25 for a potential Linux laptop. Imagine that!

Are you sure you want to promote that? It has an overtly neo-nazi ANSI pack as a featured creation on its main page, swastika and all.

I didn't see that, my apologies. More or less skimmed through one or two collections, and moved on. I forget that not everything is great on the Internet. I've removed the link from my post, maybe redact it in your quote as well.

Here is an active forum I found today while trying to find information about 16colors.com (an old pixel art animation community from the mid-2000s).

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php

It doesn't have anything to do with what I was looking for, but it might be interesting for some of you. "Vintage Computing Federation Forums"

There used to be a really edgy subculture around creating ANSI art by hand that was really similar to the early hacker, cracker and demoscene. It was simply called ANSI scene and it'd mostly consists of groups of artists who got together and regularly released downloadable packages of ANSI art for people to admire. It is kinda like the game piracy subculture these days, so a lot of pseudonyms, beefs between rivaling groups, and constant contests for the best.

So, this is ANSI art.


ANSI is usually immediately recognizable because it almost looks like pixelart; since the ANSI specification has full-width blocks in many variations.
ASCII on the other hand uses "normal" Latin symbols only with a bit of punctuation thrown in.

This is ASCII art:


And Unicode has a fuckton of symbols, including emoji, plenty of the world's writing systems and many many useful symbols. It's the encoding we are all probably going to use while browsing right now. It's the up to date standard for encoding writing these days. There isn't a Unicode art subculture though as far as I know.

This is so interesting! Thank you for sharing,

Just found this website: -link redacted-

Nowadays, the future is all about e-cars... but let me tell you a secret: Much higher potential than the electric cars have the equine carts (horse and donkey). Unless synthetic fuels become a thing. Because you can't grow oil and all the ingredients for batteries. Too complicated. Grow crops instead, which powers the horse or yourself on the bicycle.

Also, all that e-stuff will turn eventually to e-scrap and then we have a big problem. Even if it only has half the speed, the heavy 90s steel bicycle is the way to go, and that old one can be understood and fixed in every detail. E-Bikes are like Microsoft, a locked system. And all new cars also. I don't support that and went well at low cost, although it can be tough sometimes to be outside in the weather.

Hmm, well, you could use a kit (or buy parts separately perhaps) and build your own eBike.

I've really been considering an eBike to replace most driving in my life. It's an attractive options and I feel like I would enjoy it. Just gotta save up! However, the eScrap does concern me, but that can just as easily apply to normal car batteries as well. No matter what (so long as you can't have a horse) you're using a battery!

Finally made a more proper one, and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out

Hmm, well, all my friends know about my professional portfolio, but no one I know IRL (besides for my best friend) really knows about my personal website project. I know I've only been doing the personal site thing since the beginning of the month, but I don't think I'll be sharing the news with anyone else, simply because I'm going to stop creating work under my real name and begin creating work under this 'Onio' pseudonym. I've already made the social media accounts that I used to post my professional work on private, and I'm going to take my portfolio offline next month, because I want to make a clean cut between the two identities. It'll be rough having to build my audience from scratch a second time, but I look forward to it!

Have you tried looking through the ASCII Art Archive? https://www.asciiart.eu/

You might also find something good on Curlie.

i hacked toontown. when i got caught i swore to my mom i didn't and she had to call support to get me WRONGFULLY unbanned! and then i got re-banned years later when i told another player what i did

Oh nooo! Hahaha

Tick

feve

The hard truth is that its not really up for debate; AI is not going away; its going to get better and it is going to be used by a lot of companies and people who need things created. I think AI will replace the jobs of many print artists, comic book authors, UX designers, graphic designers, video editors, audio engineers and many many more! - Its not nice to be replaceable, but it happens

However the technology itself makes me really excited! In the same way as computers and software like Unity or even your web editor has allowed you to create things that would have been impossible 30 years ago, in 30 years we will be able to make things that are impossible today! I think AI is an amazing tool and its gonna have the potential to really positively impact the world and our creative lives.

I feel pretty similar.

For the record, I am also an artist. As a teen and in my 20s, fine art was the only career I was ever really interested in. I went to college for my craft, and spent years working on my career. When I first realized the implications of AI over the spring and summer, I had a bit of an existential crisis. I thought, man, I bet most of my life on this, only to see that soon I might be rendered useless. But I don't think it's something we can put back at this point, there's too much money and corporate powers are going to push its development now that the potential is realized. We can push for regulation, though.

As the anxiety receded, though, I began to realize a few things...

1. While it might replace image rendering, it won't replace the role of the artist in generating a creative vision, of translating their internal framework and philosophy of life into a visual experience that expresses the way the artist feels, views, and perceives life. If anything, it might push artists away from relying on eye candy to create work and toward substantial self-reflection and observation of life, and toward thinking on how to express their observations and philosophy of life into a potent visual experience/artwork. I think the most powerful artworks are those which touch on aspects of the universal human experience through the lens/individuality of the artist, connecting the artist with their audience through their artwork, to "speak" to them through the visual experience (the artwork) that they've created. That's something an AI art generator can't do, because it's so much more than "draw a landscape in X style."

2. It might just push discussion on a clearer definition of art, which I think is well needed. I really dislike the whole "art is anything" approach to art, because it muddies the water and doesn't set any helpful trail signs for artists who really want to improve their work beyond mere technical craftsmanship.

3. The speed with which it can produce "finished" compositions can lead to a lot of ideas for artists. Having access to AI generators gave me so many ideas for new compositional approaches that I might have overlooked or hadn't thought about before. I would love to have my own private use AI that I can train on all my artworks for this very reason. Obviously out of my price range now, but in a few decades, they might have a full featured and very powerful model that is obtainable for the average professional working artist.

4. Based on the responses I've seen across the web, I'm relieved and confident that there will DEFINITELY be a market for fine artists who create their work themselves. I can see the vast majority of collectors wanting to work done by genuine human beings.

5. At the end of the day, I started making artwork because I wanted to bring my vision to life, express myself, create things others enjoy and make awesome stuff. If AI helps me to accomplish this at even just double the speed, I am now for it, because I have way too many ideas for my work to be done on my own. The money situation may be difficult to figure out, but I'm beginning to pivot my practice and looking for alternative ideas for supporting myself in the future so that I can keep creating what I wish to create.

I've been nervous about AI in general for yeaaars. At the end of the day, while I wish we hadn't created it in the first place, it might be too late to turn around now, because we live in a money motivated world. The best bet is to adapt, learn how to use it, and grow in other areas (such as developing a creative vision with depth.)

I think link pages are my favorite, although they can get overwhelming pretty fast, but if they're accompanied by a short description. Here's an example of the kind of link page that appeals to me: Lost Letters.

DuckDuckGo is my main search and covers 95% of things

Google is a good backup, particularly if its a very specific thing Im looking for - also Googles reverse image search is great, and Google Scholar is really handy for academic documents.

I actually don't use any directory sites.. I find large lists of links quite overwhelming and Iv never found one that felt fun to use

I tried Ecosia (apparently they plant trees with search ad revenue) for a while, but its just Bing as far as I know, and I also tried Kagi which is a paid search engine; I actually really liked its design and results, but its too expensive and I reaaallllyyy don't trust its developer

Also a DuckDuckGo user here, though I agree with Frugal, sometimes it just doesn't cut it :/

What about Kagi rung the alarm bells for you? I find this interesting, considering how much has been revealed about our information being sold. It wasn't until last year that I realized how sketch Discord is!

Hey, I'm Plasmon. There isn't too much special about me, but I'm a physics undergrad, I like dicking around with technology, and I love synthesizers—I have other hobbies, but those are my big ones.

I thought this forum/webring looked cool so I'm just scoping it out right now. So far the vibes are immaculate, so I'll probably stay awhile. So much, so soon, I know.

Did someone say synthesizers?

Welcome!

I love synths too! Unfortunately, I never seem to have the money to afford them and have only had experience owning a few of the cheaper, more well known synths. So far I've owned the Korg Minilogue (og), 2x Behringer Model Ds, the Behringer Crave, the DSI Prophet 08 (my favorite that I've owned), and the DSI Mopho X4. Sadly, the only thing I have left is my midi keyboard, audio interface and my drum controller.

If I won the lottery, I would rent a small warehouse, buy a bunch of synthesizers and pedals, and lock myself into a makeshift audio laboratory.

Which synths do you own?

Which search engine, or combination or search engines and directories, do you prefer to use when you're seeking something specific or doing research online?