Xodium Dot Net

So, today, YouTube announced that they were raising the threshold for the YouTube Partner Program (y'know, the thing that allows you to monetize stuff and use monetization features) for people not already in the program (as of February 2017)  to 8000 hours of watch time (or 20 million views over 90 days if you're going for Shorts).   In a rare show of mercy, it was announced that if you're already in the program, you'll be grandfathered in under the old rules, which is 4000 watch hours (with 3000 unlocking SOME of the monetization functionality, like superchats I believe). But 1.I don't trust YouTube to remain merciful forever, and they'll either stop honoring this  or  find some weird criteria to begin forcing grandfathered people out, and 2. This doesn't help the person struggling to hit that 4000 hour milestone and maintain it, either.   It's pretty much YouTube saying "last chopper out of 'nam is in January 2027, and if you can't grab on...

Been seeing this one bounce around the rumor mill and reddit and personally, I'm kind of tired of it. Because I'd bet a Caniac Combo that there is no supposed 20th Anniversary iPhone, simply because there's absolutely zero precedent for it in today's Apple.   These rumors swirled back in 2017, too, and I think what John Gruber wrote about it then is still relevant today:  "Apple is not going to make a special edition of any product — let alone the iPhone, their most important product — just to mark an anniversary. Don’t tell me about the 20th Anniversary Macintosh  — that was a product from the old Apple that was heading toward bankruptcy, and a perfect example of why they shouldn’t do something special to mark something as arbitrary as an anniversary." That was almost ten years ago. And sure, one might argue that Apple did in fact introduce such an iPhone in the iPhone X, but I really, strongly believe that the X name was more of a nod to Mac OS X, or spec...

I think I've spoken at length in other places about how I am a very staunch AI hater and covered everything I hate about how the tech is presented to us today. But I want to take a second to talk about  how  I became this way, because I wasn't always like this! Oh no, I thought the whole "I fed the Bee Movie script into a bot and had them make a sequel" thing that perpetuated the early era of generative AI was...amusing, but easily ignored at worst.   In fact, if ChatGPT just kinda sat over there and existed, I probably wouldn't have hated it. Hated the people that used it to "well, acksually" people and be annoying? Of course, but that's no real fault of the technology. Technology is a tool, and takes on the will of the people using it and controlling it.   And therein lies the problem.    At some point, the entire tech industry saw ChatGPT and fell into a collective psychosis and decided that this,  this  is the next big thing, and that we must ...

(I've already written about this over on Tumblr but I wanted to talk about it here too, and maybe type it out when I'm not sickly and half asleep.)   This summer marks an important milestone for one of the longest-running pieces of equipment I have in my collection: I will have had my trusty Nikon D7200 for  ten whole years . Still on its original battery, too! And still going strong short of a dead pixel developing on the sensor. Which is honestly fine in this day and age of AI making things look too perfect.   After thinking on it, I think this is also the year I retire it.    Not completely, mind, I used air quotes in the title for a reason.   But as far as bringing the camera with me to events or places where there might even be the chance of running into other people? It's staying home and in its place I'll either bring my Mavica or RX100M2, or just use my phone. Is it because a DSLR is unwieldy? Nah. Do I hate being stuck with a 35mm prime? Also nah....

In case you missed it, Plex (the company that makes the media server software) is again raising their prices, by a drastic amount. Some time ago, they already raised their prices, from $80ish to $250, while simultaneously killing off remote streaming for free accounts. Which in and of itself is absurd because none of that streaming data is being passed through Plex servers, they're just handling discovery and authentication. ...but I digress. That was already a pretty big jump in price. Now? They're doing it again! Except this time, they're tripling the price a second time, going from $250 all the way to an absolutely asinine $750. Yes. You heard that right. The better part of a full grand. Anyone who can read between the lines here knows that, effectively, Plex Pass Lifetime dies on July 1st. It's a classic move. Technically, yes, they still offer it. But the pricing is so absurd that no one is going to buy in at that price. It also has the effect of goading people ...

A short one, because it's exactly as it says on the tin:  As of iOS 26.4, Apple has seemingly fixed the Music app's search function so that it no longer defaults to Apple Music. In fact, in my case, they've done more than fix it, they've  improved  it. Now if you have Apple Music shut off in settings (Settings > Apps > Music) there's only  one  search tab remaining: Your Library. Radio? Gone. I don't use Radio ever, so this is a net improvement for me. But because of this, Music now defaults to Your Library. Which for someone who doesn't really do streaming (and on the rare case that I do, YouTube Music is what I use), this is amazing. There are still little keyholes through which Apple Music pokes through (like the tiles in search, which are annoyingly still there without a subscription), but given this has been a problem since iOS 18.0?  A win's a win. Given Apple totally doesn't have to give a toss about the few of us still using Music for l...

So, I am very much anti-AI. I hate it, I think it is no more than some techbro-fueled plagiarism machine that only exists because techbros don't want to pay people what their worth and think this wonderful black box of misinformation they created will replace everyone and do everything and will throw unfathomable amounts of money and natural resources at it to realize that goal.   It is peak enshittification, at least as the AI bros present it.    However,  the thing with being against something is being informed and not irrational about it, and yes, I  do  see some uses in AI tech (that don't align with what the AI bros and boosters are pushing on us without our consent). To try and be more nuanced in my opinion, I have a tier list in my brain that I use to classify generative AI stuff and whether it's something I'm going to give someone shit for, or if I'll let them pass and not think less of them.   This is that tier list, at least as best as I can ...