this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I should get a green screen for my videos. Suggestions welcomed.

  • I can't leave it up permanently, I need to be able to get it out and put it away each use without it being a massive PITA.
  • I record in a small room. It's tiny and awkwardly shaped and I'm fixed in place by perspective tricks (something I would like the green screen to alleviate).
  • Amazon is the least worst vendor in this circumstance if all else is equal.

Any ideas? Do any of you use such a device yourselves?

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Mount camera to ceiling, get a green rug, record lying on the ground (jk)

[–] jonhendry@iosdev.space 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

@swlabr

While lying on a lazy susan and rotating slowly, with Major Tom playing faintly in the background.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

really leaning into the pivot theme

[–] jonhendry@iosdev.space 7 points 1 day ago

@froztbyte

More reclining into but yes.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Maybe you could paint the wall greenscreen, and hide it behind a tapestry when not in use. Then you wouldn't need a place to store or deploy the screen frame hardware.

edit: froztbyte has a good point! To clarify, I mean only an appropriate square of wall that is in view of the camera. Also, I'm a deranged person that consumes pivot via podcast, so I don't know the layout of the room. A more clever person than I would have checked on that before offering a potentially impractical suggestion.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 2 days ago

imma hazard a guess and bet David doesn’t want to do nearly that much work

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Actual suggestion: maybe mount a roller blind to the ceiling. Might need extra weight to tension the blind but also might not.

Also, you probably don’t need a totally green background, just enough to make masking easier. You could conceivably tape a big sheet of green cardboard to the back of your chair and see how that goes.

Also: idk how hard or easy this is but if the camera position is fixed and the rest of the scene is static, maybe there’s software that can just mask out the static scene?

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago

I'd scrounge the biggest piece of cardboard that I could and go at it with spray paint.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

oh yeah anything that can be chromakeyed basically, green is canonical and quite a good colour for the job.

Green and blue are canonical because they tend to have strong contrast with the people and their clothes, so the cromakey isn't likely to pick up random bits of people's face and outfit to cut out. If you want to go for the green cardboard option I would just make sure you get as consistent a color as possible and see about finding a cheap light and/or reflector to put behind you so that it doesn't get obscured by your shadow. Definitely had that happen in a couple of student projects I did and it was impossible to set it up to be an aggressive enough match to always get the board (including the shadowed parts) without also picking up the lining of someone's jacket or something.

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I know Elgato do a collapsible greenscreen, but that's the only one coming to mind.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago

i've had several recs for that greenscreen and frankly it looks ideal for the job. Now for the £160 ... it's on my channel wishlist.