#technology applications

[techtoio]

How to Create Stunning Graphics with Adobe Photoshop

Introduction

Adobe Photoshop is the preferred software for graphic designers, photographers, and digital artists worldwide. Its powerful tools and versatile features lead to the foundation of an essential application that one needs to create the best kind of graphics. Mastering Photoshop can improve your creative-level projects, whether you are a beginner or an experienced user. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the basics and advanced techniques so you can create stunning graphics with the help of Adobe Photoshop. Read to continue

[wikinley]

Does a USB drive get heavier as you store more files on it?

Nope. Paradoxically (and theoretically), the more you save on a flash drive, the lighter it gets.

USB drives use Flash memory, which means the the ones and zeros of the data are stored on transistors.

When you save data, a binary zero is set by charging the float gate of the transistor, and a binary one is set by removing the charge.

To charge it, we add electrons, and the mass of each electron is 0.00000000000000000000000000091 grams.

This means that an empty USB drive (which mostly holds zeros) weighs more than a full USB drive (which has ones and zeros). Add data, reduce the weight.

[wraithsoutlaws]

do you think there is any elitism regarding tattoo application in cyberpunk? cause we see v's tattoo being applied automatically by a ripperdoc but i have to assume that tattoo artist is still a job, if even a dying one that's slowly being replaced by machines. like even today we see artists fighting for their work and the integrity of art in general versus ai, and i know in the tattoo community there have been similar things happening re: robotics/automated application within the last few years (look up BlackDot tattoo) and i just want to know what that community is like in 2077. there must still be old school corner tattoo shops right??

[catenary-chad]

research tips for electric train whump:

-INDUSTRIAL MAINTENANCE SOURCES ARE YOUR FRIEND! There’s not much stuff specifically about trains but basic concepts (maintenance and repair of AC or DC motors, transformers, rectifiers, other heavy electrical equipment) largely carry over from sources about elevators or substations. There’s a lot of good videos on youtube about these topics, look into stuff aimed at apprentice electricians or industrial maintenance, it will generally be more visual/metaphor and less math-heavy if you struggle with that.

-many “breakdowns” are actually due to power infrastructure issues- third rail and catenary wires have different problems and these further vary based on how old they are. Fixed-tension catenaries on the former Pennsylvania Railroad are a notorious issue. The more modern the line, the less weird stuff you’ll have, but much of the US, parts of the UK, and a number of spots in mainland Europe have more unusual and antiquated electrification systems. And this is also an issue with model trains between brands and eras!

-On a related note, pantograph designs have varied by time and place and have different advantages/disadvantages/issues. You even have times when they have a uniquely bad time with old catenaries, like old Comet EMUs specifically getting snarled in those constant-tension PRR catenaries

-Never underestimate how “dumb” and un-computery a lot of electric trains actually are, especially circa the 80s. “Toaster” isn’t even an inaccurate insult for older DC-motor trains, they literally brake using huge resistors that put out a ton of heat… like a giant toaster. And the really old, simple stuff tended to last a stupidly long time in service so you can 1000% wave off a 20s-era engine or EMU in the 80s.

-If you want some really easy ones that have actually happened before: connecting to too strong of a power source and getting FRIED, and having wires ripped out willy-nilly by techs not familiar with electric trains that don’t know what they’re doing. Weaponized incompetence with anything electrical checks out with how even a lot of train people know very little about it and don’t care.

-model trains also have a lot of beginner-friendly electrical info you can work from

[itsnotsapphire]

returning to all my other apps after the tiktok ban

[allthe-everything]

to all my babes out there trying to get a job, got some tips for y'all. i'm updating my resume and realised that what i do might help some people, and not everyone knows about ATS parsing. gonna be long, will add a tldr at the end

so, first things, instead of MS office, i use libreOffice as my document creator/word processor. stop giving microsoft your money - libreOffice is free and open source, and it's amazing. go get it. saves you money too and god knows we need that. but, i'm sure you can do this in publisher too, i just don't know all the buttons

onto techniques: instead of creating my resume in libreOffice's equivalent of word, i use the equivalent of microsoft's publisher - the thing meant for you to make cards and flyers and whatnot. essentially you just pick a size document, and get to throw things (pictures, text boxes, charts, whatever) onto the page where you want them. since it's geared more towards artsy things, it's a lot more flexible with formatting than word (moving images in word? just don't).

essentially, every snippet of information i put on my resume is one text box. each job with its description, each project i've worked on, etc gets its own text box. this is great in a couple ways: it means that if you want to change the formatting of your resume, you can just move around text boxes instead of fucking around with copy/paste all day. the second thing is that when a machine tries to read your resume, internally it'll read that pdf and see blocks of related information that's more precise than giant paragraphs you'd get in word. make your section titles their own text boxes (like experience, education, skills, etc) so they don't get lumped in with the real info.

i'm not gonna talk about "resume words" or "clean formatting" bc tbh i'm bad at that and i think recruiters are dumb sometimes for wanting "no templates, but only format it this one particular way". but get all your info there, arrange it how you see fit, and THEN. then we get sneaky.

in libreOffice, you can name and add descriptions to text boxes. "what!" i hear you say. "that's so weird why would anyone do that!". and i say "well, if a human is reading your resume, it doesn't matter what the text box thinks it is. but it's a machine reading your resume! you want to speak the machine's language." the name is less important than the description, in my opinion, but you can name the boxes too. what you're gonna do is select a text box, click on "format" at the top bar, then "description". and you're gonna add in the alt text box what this text box is. if it's a list of skills, write "skills". if it's education, write "education". this info won't show up visually to a human reading the doc, but it helps machines categorise the data, just a little bit better. in the description part of this, you can also try adding the key words from the job description so the machine sees them but a human really can't find it unless they really look. this isn't something i've been able to test thoroughly, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

i'm still working out all the kinks myself, and picking apart what the ATS does in terms of parsing your resume, but when i started doing this my resume was better parsed whenever i applied to jobs. which, bonus, less retyping your resume into the bullshit job app.

tldr; fuck microsoft, use libre office instead. use libre office's drawings app or ms office's publisher app for ease of use. in libre office, click text box, go to format -> description and add a description of what the text box contains. test and retest your resume in an ATS parser online to make sure the machine reads your resume correctly.

i wish this wasn't how things are, but since we're here might as well figure out hacks. if anyone else has info to add, please please do. it's rough out here.

[tricoufamily]

kept getting invited to apply on indeed to positions that require like 10 years of experience and was getting super annoyed. i applied as a joke to this cybersecurity position that said 5 years experience. i don’t know shit about cybersecurity. these people have scheduled a meeting with me on friday. i am the dumbest motherfucker alive

[rifki16]

Anti-Sisyphus: A Reflection after being rejected from a PhD Program at DTU

I have been trying to get back to writing, for non-academic purposes, again. And after my latest PhD application rejection, I figure, this might be the best opportunity for me to start writing non-academic analytic essays again.

I got rejected by the Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) for a PhD program under their Department of Technology, Management, and Economics. The PhD program is also under the EU MOVEO project, a project which tries to conduct research on the inclusivity of transport in the EU. This rejection hits quite differently than the others - hence why I'm writing on my Tumblr page again. This is the tenth PhD application rejection I got, so far in the span of less than a year since my master's graduation ceremony. I had felt differently and more optimistically about this PhD application and program because the program is directly about STS, the field which tries to use social studies perspectives on the social of the natural sciences, a field which I'm madly interested in, and have extensive knowledge about and experience in. I really took time in making the reflective essay used for the application. I have the relevant experience of conducting STS research, which I think would actually be my competitive advantage compared to the other applicants, considering that not a lot of STS research has been done. I have quite a clear understanding of what I will do with the research if I had gotten accepted to the program - something which I don't always have about the PhD programs I applied to.

The rejection email arrived yesterday, on Saturday, at 2-ish PM, my time, or 9-is AM Danish time. I did not get a notification for the email at first. I just realized about the email when I opened the Gmail application several minutes after it had arrived. I was on the train back to my parents' place, and I did not want to ruin my mood during the trip, so I decided to open it after I got home and with my friends, Lars and Leo, being at least virtually present as I opened it. Several times during the trip, I clicked on the email again and again, and I had to restrain myself from reading the email; I couldn't understand the first part of the email anyway, as it's written in Danish. When I arrived at my parents' place, I became more and more anxious about what's inside the email.

In all my past applications, I have only managed to get into a further selection stage for one application, for the Cawthron Institute Scholarship at the Victoria University of Wellington's Geography/Environmental Studies PhD program. When I got the email about the first stage result of that scholarship, I was about to run at 6-ish AM my time, as New Zealand is several hours ahead of me. When I did my morning 24-minute running routine that day, I was already telling myself to brace for the bad news of being rejected by the scholarship team. I was at peace with that apocalyptic prediction about the email. I felt good about not having to worry about what that email entailed, what it could mean for me. I felt this sense of peace. When I got back to my place, I pushed the activity slot of opening that email quite back in the queue as I did not really need to read about being rejected and some templatic, fake, consolation message about the rejection and their attempt to rescucitate my motivation to apply to some other PhD applicaitons out there. I finally got to opening the email, I think it was already during brunch time. Then, there it was in the email, I got into the next stage of the selection process for the scholarship. I was so surprised. I really did not think that I could get it.

Now, that is sort of the go-to sign I'm looking for whenever I'm about to open a reply to my PhD applications: "Am I feeling at peace before opening the email?" When I eventually got rejected from that scholarship at the last selection stage, I wasn't feeling the same peace feeling after seeing the reply email in my inbox. The false belief then became reinforced so strongly in my head that I forced myself not to be giddy or to feel that fervently in any way whenever I received a reply. I suppose that it doesn't work since, even though I made myself feel "peace", I still got rejected again and again. I also did not have that feeling when I eventually lied down last night in my bed and opened the email. Underneath the Danish text, the English text plainly said that I got rejected, without any explanations of why, just rejection. Another reason why this rejection hurts quite deeply is that I don't have many other PhD applications on rotation - something which made me question my "suitability" in academia.

This whole ordeal, PhD applications, has been like an anti-Sisyphus activity for me. As Sisyphus was condemned to roll up a huge boulder up a hill only for it to roll down and Sisyphus to roll it back up, I, on the other hand, feel like I have to plunge myself further and further into this unknown, dark, and consuming abyss. Just like a blackhole, this abyss, which I'm falling further and further seems to also "take", "absorb", every mass, or in my case, spirit and confidence, away from me. I find the abyss analogy apt as all but one of the application processes I applied to did not leave any meaningful feedback about what made me get rejected from the application, and hence, I feel like I'm pouring all of this energy and effort just for some unexplained "black box"-effectuated hands to beat me up again and again as I'm diving deeper and deeper into the abyss.

I know that I have been saying to myself that I might not fit in academia every time I got rejected for a PhD program. However, this time, this rejection feels very different; it feels like it knocks down the last worth pillar I have about my sense of belonging in the academic world.

I know it's about the journey. I know it's about giving yourself hope in times of darkness. It just hurts. It really hurts to be rejected by fellow STS researchers.

I used to feel angry, pissed off at the PhD process which rejected me. Now, I'm just tired. I'm thinking that maybe I have to find other routes from fleeing this country.

On the other hand, when I looked back ever since that second rejection by Cawthron Institute, a lot of things have changed. Back then, I never really thought that I could ever take my PhD abroad. Now, I know that I can - even though I still question the time frame of when it will happen. I know which universities have funded PhD programs. I still have four other PhD applications ahead of me, one of which I have a good feeling and interest in.

The abyss might not have beaten me in taking all of my mass away from me, but it sure is depleting. And as I only try to gauge the things ahead of me, I become even more depressed about where I am. I know I have come a long way. I now have a tool belt, which I think can get me out of the abyss and land on a good PhD program. But it sure sucks to be falling this deep, this far, and without a light to guide me.

[hawnks]

I tried to download Love and Deepspace and it DID make my phone overheat and crash and then gave me an error that said it couldn't complete the download. Do I accept fates gracious decision to spare me from this madness or do I steal my brothers old iPad

[scoundrellyfeline]

finally. inner peace. (How to uninstall copilot 101)

PowerShell Method (Actually Uninstalls CoPilot)

This will fully uninstall CoPilot from your system, instead of disabling via group policy or registry entries. Even if Microsoft pushes an update that reinstalls it later, this method will still work to remove it again!

Run PowerShell as Administrator

Paste: Get-AppxPackage *CoPilot* -AllUsers | Remove-AppPackage -AllUsers

Press Enter (There will not be any output if it is successfully removed)

Reboot

See here for removing it further: https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/s/WNRtCTDeU3

[techtoio]

How to Optimize Your Workflow with Task Management Software

Introduction

The world has become too fast-moving; hence, the demand for organization and productivity is higher than ever. From multiple tasks at hand to meeting deadlines, the pressure is always there to make things easier. Task management software provides a powerful solution for this issue. This guide will walk you through optimizing your workflow with task management software to bring about efficiency and effectiveness in both personal and professional aspects of life. Read to continue...

[non-un-topo]

Applying for my Master's in gender studies kind of feels like shooting myself in the foot, but then again, it's not a useless discipline if it's being systematically censored and erased.

[celestialdaily]

The celestial object of the day is Haumea!

This dwarf planet is 43 AU from the sun, making a year on Haumea 285 Earth years. A day, in comparison, only lasts 4 hours. Haumea's rapid rotation, a product of a probable impact that also created its two satellites Hi'iaka and Namaka, is the cause behind its funny egg shape

[bigtiddygandalf]

i just had to take this ai personality test to submit a job application (to be a bartender).

[atcuality3]

Simplify Decentralized Payments with a Unified Cash Collection Application

In a world where financial accountability is non-negotiable, Atcuality provides tools that ensure your field collections are as reliable as your core banking or ERP systems. Designed for enterprises that operate across multiple regions or teams, our cash collection application empowers agents to accept, log, and report payments using just their mobile devices. With support for QR-based transactions, offline syncing, and instant reconciliation, it bridges the gap between field activities and central operations. Managers can monitor performance in real-time, automate reporting, and minimize fraud risks with tamper-proof digital records. Industries ranging from insurance to public sector utilities trust Atcuality to improve revenue assurance and accelerate their collection cycles. With API integrations, role-based access, and custom dashboards, our application becomes the single source of truth for your field finance workflows.