I’m inclined to agree. There’s no conspiracy, just incompetence. I think also it simply never occurred to Sunak what the optics would be. He only thought in terms of “this event is just me hanging around talking to people, I’ve got much more important stuff to do”, and he just doesn’t understand that talking to people and trying to be a human being is part of the job of prime minister.

Apparently his itinerary was set “weeks ago”. So he arranged to be recording a TV interview before the election had even been announced…?

Glad you enjoyed it! Yours was funny too, though! :)

I don’t particularly want to jump between a dozen different apps to have access to every single tool and filter I use, especially when even when using a single file format (PSD), not every app treats layers in the same way. In a detailed digital paint, you can very easily have hundreds of layers, so it’s absolutely a deal-breaker if your layer groupings or group masks are destroyed when switching between apps.

Thank you!

That would probably work for hobbyists, but I have my doubts that professionals, who rely on Adobe products for their livelihood, could use unsuitable software for years in the hopes that volunteer devs will eventually add the features they need. In the other post about this topic, someone commented that GIMP’s devs are refusing to fix problems that are repelling new users, which is not going to encourage Adobe users to make the switch. GIMP still doesn’t have fully functioning, reliable non-destructive editing, which is 100% essential for anyone beholden to a boss or client who is going to change their minds a couple of times between now and next month.

Adobe is big because of their userbase, but their userbase is big because they make genuinely powerful software that fits the needs of professionals. The free options (and the cheap proprietary options) are not there yet, and probably never will be. Professionals aren’t going to switch until the features they need are there (because seriously, why would anyone use a tool for their job that doesn’t actually allow them to do their job properly?), but the features aren’t going to be added until the professionals switch over. Catch22.

Been a while since I used Krita, so it’s hard to compare Krita from 3 or 4 years ago with Photoshop 2023, but it was okay. Better than GIMP, but unless there’s been some major changes, it doesn’t have anywhere near the versatility in tools and filters as Photoshop.

This feels like the key difference between Photoshop and the others. There’s an awful lot of stuff that previously I would have to do manually, sometimes over several hours, that Photoshop can do in seconds, either because there’s a tool or filter for it, or sometimes just because Photoshop is so much more responsive. This is really hard to quantify in an objective way, far more so than pointing out whether a feature is present or absent, but… I use an art tablet and Photoshop just responds to the pen better.

So like it’s not really that it’s impossible to do amazing work with the free apps, it’ll just take a lot longer. I liked your analogy in your other comment, about the e-bike vs pickup truck: you definitely can move that half a ton of crushed stone with an e-bike, but it’ll be quicker and less work with a pickup truck.

Unsatisfied with merely winning the election in the UK, Starmer went mad with power, and under his command Labour drove the Tories out of the UK. Terrified former Conservative MPs fled before them, retreating towards Russia, who had always reliably helped them before, but they discovered to their horror that Russia was now backing Reform, and they soon found themselves trapped between two advancing armies.

The Lib Dems were just on holiday in Switzerland, hoping to get some good photos of Ed Davey skiing so that people would notice them. Rumour has it they did notice a couple of Tory MPs running past, but decided not to help, because they weren’t falling for that a second time.

The EU said “look, can you guys go and do this somewhere else?”

However, Starmer’s bloodlust could not be sated, and the slaughter continued…

The one thing I’ve been dissatisfied with Photoshop for, in comparison to another app, is its traditional media analogues do not come even close to Painter’s, and I’ve not been able to get any brushes set up in a way that replicates them. There’s professionals that use Painter in addition to Photoshop because of that, and I expect I will as well - but I really notice the features missing that I use a lot in Photoshop.

I have to agree. I’ve used a great many software packages over the years, but having been given an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription by my university, as several of Adobe’s programs are required for the degree I’m doing, I’ve been very annoyed to discover that the alternatives really aren’t on the same level. They work, sure. You can get the job done with them. But I am genuinely finding Photoshop to be significantly more powerful than everything else I’ve used. And it’s really annoying because I’ve never liked Adobe as a company.

I know it’s kind of a thing that politicians lie. They are famous for it. But Sunak’s lies last night feel especially egregious. They were so blatant, so utterly lacking in subtlety or any of that typical… weaselly “true from a certain point of view” that one expects of politicians’ lies, that I’m impressed Starmer held his temper as well as he did.

As for times a UK politician has been publically accused of falsely representing the civil service… Well, the Tories have made a thing of it in the last few years. Not so much specific lies, but a broader general misrepresenting of what the civil service is and does. Every time the Tories don’t get to do what they want because it’s stupid, badly thought out, impractical, evil, or all four of those things, they blame the civil service for “blocking the will of the people”.

“Come on, pull your finger out, give the people what they want”

Well, we do all want a Labour government, which is best achieved by Reform splitting the right wing vote, so…

The “Willa Wonka Experience” event comes to mind. The images on the website were so obviously AI-generated, but people still coughed up £35 a ticket to take their kids to it, and were then angry that the “event” was an empty warehouse with a couple of plastic props and three actors trying to improvise because the script they’d been given was AI-generated gibberish. Straight up scam.

Okay, I’m now done watching too. I dunno if this is because I’m biased, but while neither performance was fantastic, Starmer overall came across better than Sunak. By the incredibly low standards set by politicians, Starmer seemed more honest, and I definitely noted him being irritated with some of Sunak’s more blatant lies. Sunak came across as a smug public school boy who always feels like he has to be right. I was particularly not impressed with Sunak making out that Labour would require people to replace boilers and cars “when they don’t need to”, when it’s bloody obvious that the plan would be to replace them with more climate-friendly options when existing stock wears out. I wish Starmer had been more deft in challenging him on that kind of bullshit.

Starmer’s experience as a lawyer helped him here, I think. He’s used to debating, although clearly he’s more used to a courtroom where he can speak at length to make his point. He’s not good at succinct so the 45 second time limit didn’t give him a chance to do his best debating. Sunak treated it more as an argument where it was more important to win than to put across a serious and thoughtful point.

Overall, I’m not a huge fan of Starmer, but I’m still happy to say I would rather have him as prime minister than Sunak.

I got home a bit late, so I’m streaming this on a 15 minute delay. So 10 minutes in, and Sunak really is pathetic. “Well actually, I do get it and you’re wrong.”

Yep. Talk of “the nation’s credit card” being “maxed out” has caused so much damage to the country.

UK citizens can also opt out, as the Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK’s implementation of GDPR and confers all of the same rights.

In my opt out, I have also reminded them of their obligation to delete data when I do not consent to its use, so since I have denied consent, any of my data that has been used must be scrubbed from the training sets and resulting AI outputs derived from the unauthorised use of my data.

Sadly, having an Instagram account is unavoidable for me. Networking is an important part of many creatives’ careers, and if the bulk of your connections are on Instagram, you have to be there too.

I suspect at this point that many of the undecideds aren’t going back to the Tories no matter what. They’re just undecided about whether to vote Labour, vote Reform, or stay at home.

Yeah, agreed with you there. I wish the media would stop covering every single thing the stupid prat says. His “party” has no MPs, yet for some reason gets more attention than both the Lib Dems and the Greens.

Let’s look at the upside. Farage is not going to win that seat, if his past performances are any indication. He’ll take a huge chunk off that Conservative majority in Clacton, which will make it easier for… Labour (if Electoral Calculus are correct) to take it. And Farage’s presence will boost Reform support across the rest of the country, because the man is an attention whore who will insist on being in the media at every opportunity. And that will cut Tory support in other “safe” Tory seats. But because the support is thinly spread across the whole country and Farage’s views are repellent to the majority of the electorate, Reform won’t win any seats.

Having been following the Electoral Calculus predictions for quite some time, the chances of my local Tory MP winning the seat seems to fluctuate with Reform support more than anything else. When support for Reform was at 17% a couple months ago, the Tory MP’s chances of losing the seat to Labour were 95%. When Reform support dipped to 10%, the incumbent’s odds of winning rose to almost 40%. So I welcome a splitting of the right wing vote.