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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: December 29th, 2025

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  • Of course. Me too. I don’t just like bright all the time. I like control. For example in my living room, there are 17 light sources. Let’s say “bulbs” to stay out of the weeds. Nearly everyone of those 17 “bulbs” is dimmable and can be adjusted for color, or at least color temperature. One of my favorite presets is titled “chiller”. And that is exactly what it does. It “chills” you out All of the light sources are dimmed way down. None of them are set to “white”. Over here is pink, over there is amber up here is a cool blue. What it adds up to is a very dim, relaxed vibe with a ton of depth and you see everything. You can read a paper book. You can see expressions. It’s as if you were sitting on a west facing beach watching a sunset.


  • For years I did work for events that had an audience, stage video recording, Imag and a couple times even film. Rosco 03, with an absurd amount of light and power. You can beautifully white balance the cameras and display and it looks great and matched to an audience in a dark hall. I like to pair R60 and R51. If you’ve got the circuits, add some lee 202 .5 correction, but careful not to lose white balance in scene changes… Does anyone actually use gels/poly anymore? I moved on years ago to commercial AV installation. I assume it’s all LEDs now right? The last time I did stage lighting was 2005. My memory might be failing me here, so if the colors sound crazy, I’ve probably forgotten or mixed up. I have actually designed a bunch of installations using LEDs (S4, ETC, etc lol). The technology we are discussing is ancient history now right?


  • I also am disgusted with the Democrats. But I vote in every election always, and I pay attention to all the local races. I always vote in the primaries. I have had to switch back and forth between parties to do that. That’s one of the problems right there. That Bernie Sanders even has to run as a Democrat, or Ron Paul has to run as a republican is an illustration of what’s wrong with our system. It would be hugely changed if we got ranked choice voting on a national level. I have voted for maybe 8 republicans since 1992, and none of them were presidential or senate candidates. There have been some pretty good good repug candidates in primaries. John Kasich comes to mind. But, Hillary was perfectly accurate when she called the Trump coalition a basket of deplorables. We’re at a stage now where rampant Nazi-ism in the Repug party isn’t even newsworthy. Everyone knows it.


  • My thumbs will fall off if I answer that. I sort of answered in another response you can read about Dark Bastard Amber (Rosco 03). Power Factor is why it’s stupid to ban Halogen’s and why LEDs are not as efficient as has been claimed. A Halogen bulb has a much higher CRI and power Factor of 1, a cheap LED has a Power factor of half of that (.5). That means the cheap LED uses twice as much current as the Halogen and can’t come close to the Halogen’s CRI. In commercial applications ( Like a stadium, for example) the power company charges on Kva demand and charges extra for Power Factor. That’s because in real energy terms and on a commercial building’s bill, a building full of cheap LEDs is way more expensive than the light it provides should be. So they often have to install capacitor banks on commercial buildings. And the LED needs just as much or more copper (Wire gauge/ breaker capacity) as the Halogen. All for a much shittier quality. Sure, encourage the USE of LEDs, go for it. But that old Twaine quote applies here: “don’t ban steaks for men just because babies can’t chew them”.





  • OMG. As an old (Gen x) lighting designer who lives in CA, may God help you if you asked me this question at a party. In order not to bore you to death I’ll try to spit it out before you fall asleep. Never ask me “What is Power factor?”, All would be lost. Or for god’s sake, “What is Dark Bastard Amber?”( Rosco 03)“Are ellipsoidal fixtures most accurately called Lekos or source four?”. You could die of regretful boredom within 9 seconds". At least you’d have someone to talk to for the duration of the party

    Yes. I have a handful of very beloved, non-LED bulbs and fixtures. I have to trouble the out of state family to help me smuggle these into my home. For example, “Halogen” bulbs. I have a floor standing, up firing, dimmable lamp that will transport any room immediately to the surface of the sun. Cleaning? Look out dust. It would be easy to accidentally start a fire with this lamp using the bulbs I put in it. I use it every day in my office, which is so much brighter than any room in average people’s houses. A home tour of my house always results in an “OMG It’s so bright in here, I love it!”. Me too. I think it’s sad that normies can’t have good lights or good drugs.






  • There’s a flip side to this. I am persistent. But busy, and a realist. Since AI, I have been able to accomplish things I always wanted and planned to, but never got done before. I’ve been wanting a contractor’s license to expand my business. But I’m busy. AI is the tutor that helped me get it done. I’ve been loving Linux and open source, had a handful of raspberry Pi projects, but was never quite confident enough to go full on self hosted. Thanks to AI, I am fully self hosted and loving it. Also, I own a service business, time is money. Guess who has more time since AI? Define persistence in the context of my experience with AI. Put in other synonymous terms, am I faltering, yielding, “going fallow”, atrophying? I don’t think so.






  • I guess you didn’t grow up in one of these racist, white nationalist families. As someone who did, your whole blame shifting scenario is absurd. My uncles believe they have a birthright as white men. And they are violently furious that they aren’t thriving, at the top of the food chain. Obviously they are proudly MAGA. Of course they aren’t thriving, lol, we’re not from Texas, Kansas or Nebraska. Their racism ( and sexism) is at insane levels that I guess you can’t even fathom… The loudest laughter I ever heard at a family gathering came when my uncle told this joke: “I don’t have a problem with N@##@rs, I think everyone should own one.” Ha ha ha. There is no nuance here. To older men in my family, if you are a (stupid, because they all are) women, gay, or brown, or liberal, or Jewish, Muslim or atheist…you are filth. And any suggestion that you are equal deserves immediate, violent response. Sound crazy? Lucky you. I know from experience that kind of family and upbringing is not rare, or strange. It’s rampant. Just pick a random American church to visit. The “root”, as you say of the problem, is that they are terrible people, completely lacking character. They should be disenfranchised, sterilized and have their children taken from them. That’s right. I said it. Democracy can’t work if people that mean and stupid can vote. RFK and Trump are what you get if you don’t have the stomach for stomping on cockroaches. We need a " Great Proletarian Cultural Democratic Revolution" The USA failed at reconstruction and needs to take another crack at it in earnest. Nationalize Palantir. Stamp out the Idiocracy future.