Or have you played something else in the past? What's your favorite piece to play?

Edit: thanks for everyone that has replied. This has been so heartwarming to read 😀

Essential Steps to Launch Your Photography Business

Turn your passion for photography into a business with essential tips on equipment, branding, marketing, and managing your services effectively.

Nowadays, professional photographers are needed in multiple industries like journalism, real estate marketing, and travel. If you have a passion for photography and are interested in starting your own business, its valuable to look into integrating both.

If you are looking to start your photography business, first be prepared for the equipment of your studio with certain things like high-quality cameras and other accessories. After preparing this, you will also do marketing for your photography skills, which requires a website, accounting software, a logo, and other things.

Start your own photography business within your ability. Prepared with a detailed business plan, ready to manage your startup expenses and start sharing your innovative photography services with the world. Here are some tips for getting started with your own photography business.

Starting a Photography Business Without Experience: What You Need to Know

Photography Startup Plan
A great business plan helps to clarify your business strategy, recognise possible challenges, find necessary resources, and assess the market potential of your idea. First, take priority in launching your business, then plan to manage customers in appointment scheduling, the type of services you are providing and handling your invoice and payment process.

Next stage, you need to identify your business's targeted audience through research and plan to set up the price list for your services. Then buy quality cameras and accessories from brands that will ensure high picture quality, which will satisfy your customers.

Choose a Business Name
Every business needs a business name, and it is important to choose a unique one. While selecting a business, keep this in mind: it should be catchy, easy to remember, may reflect your niche, and relate to your business. Also, choose a name that not only reflects your speciality but also needs to leave a good, long-lasting impression with your clients.

Before finalising your business name, you need to check the domain availability for that name. For that, you need to verify with the business registry that no one else used this same name. After choosing the correct business name, you can create a logo and free business cards making using online software like Invoice Temple, etc.

Registration and Getting Licences
After finalizing your business name, you need to register your business as a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation. You can also register with a less formal structure known as a sole proprietorship, which does not offer many protections. Also, having some specific rules for registering businesses, obtaining a business license, collecting and sending sales taxes and periodically reporting business information.

Getting a business license not only allows you to run your photography business legally but also you need to build trust with your clients, which leads to improving your business. To secure your business license, you need to get in touch with the license authorities and submit the required documents.

Creating Website and Establishing
With your business name, buy a domain and create a website for your business using online platforms like WordPress, Wix, GoDaddy, etc. Design and add posts, photos, videos, and blogs to your website. With this information, add a clear call to action and contact forms to convert the visitors into clients. In this crowded market, you need to create an individual name for you to run your business. Effective marketing strategies help you to promote your business in the business marketplace.

Create engaging contents that reveal your best works and offer valuable tips in the form of blogs. Use relevant hashtags, run targeted ads, and regularly engage with your followers to build relationships. Collaborating with other creatives or influencers may help you expand your business growth.

For photography, your business must be well equipped with essential features like a high-quality camera, editing software, a business licence, and marketing tools such as business cards, a website, flyer designs, and a unique logo.

Essential Steps to Launch Your Photography Business

Turn your passion for photography into a business with essential tips on equipment, branding, marketing, and managing your services effectively.

Nowadays, professional photographers are needed in multiple industries like journalism, real estate marketing, and travel. If you have a passion for photography and are interested in starting your own business, its valuable to look into integrating both.

If you are looking to start your photography business, first be prepared for the equipment of your studio with certain things like high-quality cameras and other accessories. After preparing this, you will also do marketing for your photography skills, which requires a website, accounting software, a logo, and other things.

Start your own photography business within your ability. Prepared with a detailed business plan, ready to manage your startup expenses and start sharing your innovative photography services with the world. Here are some tips for getting started with your own photography business.

Starting a Photography Business Without Experience: What You Need to Know

Photography Startup Plan
A great business plan helps to clarify your business strategy, recognise possible challenges, find necessary resources, and assess the market potential of your idea. First, take priority in launching your business, then plan to manage customers in appointment scheduling, the type of services you are providing and handling your invoice and payment process.

Next stage, you need to identify your business's targeted audience through research and plan to set up the price list for your services. Then buy quality cameras and accessories from brands that will ensure high picture quality, which will satisfy your customers.

Choose a Business Name
Every business needs a business name, and it is important to choose a unique one. While selecting a business, keep this in mind: it should be catchy, easy to remember, may reflect your niche, and relate to your business. Also, choose a name that not only reflects your speciality but also needs to leave a good, long-lasting impression with your clients.

Before finalising your business name, you need to check the domain availability for that name. For that, you need to verify with the business registry that no one else used this same name. After choosing the correct business name, you can create a logo and free business cards making using online software like Invoice Temple, etc.

Registration and Getting Licences
After finalizing your business name, you need to register your business as a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation. You can also register with a less formal structure known as a sole proprietorship, which does not offer many protections. Also, having some specific rules for registering businesses, obtaining a business license, collecting and sending sales taxes and periodically reporting business information.

Getting a business license not only allows you to run your photography business legally but also you need to build trust with your clients, which leads to improving your business. To secure your business license, you need to get in touch with the license authorities and submit the required documents.

Creating Website and Establishing
With your business name, buy a domain and create a website for your business using online platforms like WordPress, Wix, GoDaddy, etc. Design and add posts, photos, videos, and blogs to your website. With this information, add a clear call to action and contact forms to convert the visitors into clients. In this crowded market, you need to create an individual name for you to run your business. Effective marketing strategies help you to promote your business in the business marketplace.

Create engaging contents that reveal your best works and offer valuable tips in the form of blogs. Use relevant hashtags, run targeted ads, and regularly engage with your followers to build relationships. Collaborating with other creatives or influencers may help you expand your business growth.

For photography, your business must be well equipped with essential features like a high-quality camera, editing software, a business licence, and marketing tools such as business cards, a website, flyer designs, and a unique logo.

If anyone thinks they are “saving the purity of the American race” by eradicating the Fourth Amendment, they are fools. They’re not saving America; they’re shredding it until there’s nothing of the American promise left worth protecting. Because there is no United States without freedom and the Constitution.

I’m sitting on the edge of fatalism, trying not to give in. Trying to be optimistic.

The United States Supreme Court just lifted a temporary restraining order that had protected Latinos in Los Angeles from what lower courts and several legal experts had already flagged as unconstitutional: detentions based solely on the color of our skin, the language we speak, or the kind of jobs we work.

In other words, ICE can once again roam our neighborhoods, grabbing “Latino looking” people without any cause.

And … shit. I don’t know what to say anymore. I’m trying to intellectualize it. Trying to sound like some kind of expert on what this means. Asking the chatbots to explain the ruling, as if logic will uncover a hidden fairness I just can’t see. But the truth is there’s something I don’t understand: what do Latinos have to do to get justice in this country?

I can’t help but think back to 2020, when the Supreme Court surprised almost everyone by protecting DACA. That morning, I was with Rodolfo Barrientos, the owner of Gracias Señor. His mom cried tears of joy when she saw the news that her son could stay in the only country he’s ever known.

At his taco truck in Pacific Palisades, customers of every race lined up. High school kids called him their hero. For one day, you could see Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous line — the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice—in real time, in the form of tacos and tears and relief.

It didn’t last, of course. Even Rudy knew it wouldn’t.

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” he told me that day.

He was right. Four years later, here we are again, facing a decision that feels like the opposite reaction: ICE patrols empowered, Latinos left vulnerable, justice snatched back.

I want to be angry. To shout. To flip the switch. But I hear my mom’s voice in my head, the way she’d try to calm me down as a kid: “Es mejor que haya un loco y no dos.” Better one fool than two.

Just because someone is being cruel doesn’t mean you have to meet them at their level.

So instead, I’ll remind myself and anyone reading this: sometimes justice does arrive. Not often. Not long enough. But it shows up just enough to remind us that this country can be better than its worst instincts.

And here’s another thing: Latinos are here to stay. We’ve been here. We’ve tilled the fields, built the freeways, cooked the meals, cleaned the offices, run the businesses, paid the taxes, and raised the children who keep this country running. We’ve written the songs, created the art, and told the stories that shape American culture. Our blood, sweat, and joy are already woven into the fabric of this nation.

So if anyone thinks they are “saving the purity of the American race” by eradicating the Fourth Amendment, they are fools. They’re not saving America; they’re shredding it until there’s nothing of the American promise left worth protecting. Because there is no United States without freedom and the Constitution.

And there’s definitely no United States without Latinos. There never has been. What they call “purity” looks a lot like fear. And fear is a weak foundation for a country that claims to stand for freedom, that claims to be the greatest in the world.

I don’t care what your favorite conspiracy theorist podcaster has to say. But I do agree with the idea that facts don’t care about your feelings.

And here’s a fact: There is no “invasion” of this land by foreign-born insurrectionists trying to replace its native people. That already happened in 1620.

Let’s be clear: Latinos are not the threat. We aren’t the new kid in town. And we aren’t here to replace anybody. We are the descendants of the people who have lived and labored on these lands since the dawn of civilization. Many of us are U.S. citizens and proud of it. Most of us are young and upwardly mobile. And clearly, we can swing elections.

So maybe we don’t need optimism, we just need patience.

[Apologies for pasting in the entire op-ed but archive.is etc. isn't getting past the blurb and you need to create an account to see the article, which can be done for free (if you can successfully crack the code)]

Opinion: Can Latinos Ever Expect Justice in America? ~ L.A. TACO

^lataco.com

The change could have enormous consequences for how people find information online, and for the websites that rely on Google to send them traffic. Publishers have already reported declines due to Google’s AI Overviews, which often answer users’ questions directly without requiring them to click through to another site. If AI Mode becomes the default, those effects may only grow.

https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/gemini/google-may-soon-switch-to-ai-mode-for-search-and-youll-just-have-to-deal-with-it

Collage Winter Guard performing “DIS/connected” during the 2023 Ohio Indoor Performance Association State Color Guard Championships at Wapakoneta High School in Wapakoneta, Ohio.

All of these photos are available under a Creative Commons license, free for you to use as long as you give me photography credit.
Collage Winter Guard
2023 OIPA State Color Guard Championships
Photo Credit: Kevin Gamin
You can find all of the edited photos from this and other events on my Flickr site.
Collage Winter Guard
2023 OIPA State Color Guard Championships
Photo Credit: Kevin Gamin
You can find all of my photos on my Smugmug site.
Collage Winter Guard
2023 OIPA State Color Guard Championships
Photo Credit: Kevin Gamin

We recently released the Third Edict Mystery Box! With 56 microtransactions inside (including variations), our artists put a lot of effort into making each one look great. Check out some of the concept art for this box below.

Doryani's Rare Finisher Effects

Fractured Dreamer Back Attachment

Fractured Dreamer Armour Pack

Fractured Dreamer Weapon Skins

Goblin Shaman Armour and Weapons

The Forgemaster's Map Device

Molten Portal Effects

Rhoa Mount Effects

Shifting Portal Effects

I listen to music, read about revolutionary movements, daydream about alternate timelines where the world is a utopia, play video games where I feel like I have power, and in control of stuff (like, for example, idk... fighting monsters and other evil things in open world games), sometimes write poetry (but I never share any of them lol, they just stay in Standard Notes).

Basically: escapism.

cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/37175444

::: spoiler Comments
- Lobsters.
:::

Pro

2025-09-09 23:44:07

Wikimedia sunsets separate mobile domains

::: spoiler Comments
- Lobsters.
:::

Wikimedia sunsets separate mobile domains

19 comments

^lobste.rs

LIVE: Gaza Sumud Flotilla attacked again in Tunisia | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/20…

- Fire broke out on Alma boat: Journalist
- Another attack reported on flotilla in Tunisia
- UN experts express solidarity with Sumud flotilla after attack
- Flotilla says mission to Gaza will continue after suspected drone attack
- Attack on flotilla could constitute war crime: Legal expert

#Palestine #Gaza #Israel
#SumudFlotilla

LIVE: Sumud Flotilla for Gaza says main ship attacked by a drone in Tunisia

Flotilla says drone attack caused a fire on board its main ship, but flames were put out quickly and all crew are safe.

^{Lyndal Rowlands (Al Jazeera)}

Buongiorno a tutti,

negli ultimi giorni ho riscoperto la voglia di fare dirette streaming. Dopo aver provato Glimesh, ho iniziato a esplorare Owncast e mi chiedo quanto sia complesso configurare un server per trasmettere in modo stabile e tranquillo.

Potreste darmi qualche consiglio pratico su come impostare il servizio? Inoltre, se conoscete alternative interessanti a Owncast, sarei felice di valutarle.

Grazie mille per il vostro aiuto!

Cordiali saluti,

Owncast

Owncast is your self-hosted live streaming solution.

^Owncast

cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/45730883

With more than 80,000 AI-powered cameras across the U.S., Flock Safety has become one of cops’ go-to surveillance tools and a $7.5 billion business. Now CEO Garrett Langley has both police tech giant Axon and Chinese drone maker DJI in his sights on the way to his noble (if Sisyphean) goal: Preventing all crime in the U.S.

In a windowless room inside Atlanta’s Dunwoody police department, Lieutenant Tim Fecht hits a button and an insectile DJI drone rises silently from the station rooftop. It already has its coordinates: a local mall where a 911 call has alerted the cops to a male shoplifter. From high above the complex, Fecht zooms in on a man checking his phone, then examines a group of people waiting for a train. They’re all hundreds of yards away, but crystal clear on the room-dominating display inside the department’s crime center, a classroom-sized space with walls covered in monitors flashing real- time crime data—surveillance and license plate reader camera feeds, gunshot detection reports, digital maps showing the location of cop cars across the city. As more 911 calls come in, AI transcribes them on another screen. Fecht can access any of it with a few clicks.

Twenty minutes down the road from Dunwoody, in an office where Flock Safety’s cameras and gunshot detectors are arrayed like museum pieces, 38-year-old CEO and cofoun­der Garrett Langley presides over the $300 million (estimated 2024 sales) company responsible for it all. Since its founding in 2017, Flock, which was valued at $7.5 billion in its most recent funding round, has quietly built a network of more than 80,000 cameras pointed at highways, thoroughfares and parking lots across the U.S. They record not just the license plate numbers of the cars that pass them, but their make and distinctive features—broken windows, dings, bumper stickers. Langley estimates its cameras help solve 1 million crimes a year. Soon they’ll help solve even more. In August, Flock’s cameras will take to the skies mounted on its own “made in Amer­ica” drones. Produced at a factory the company opened earlier this year near its Atlanta offices, they’ll add a new dimension to Flock’s business and aim to challenge Chinese drone giant DJI’s dominance.

Langley offers a prediction: In less than 10 years, Flock’s cameras, airborne and fixed, will eradicate almost all crime in the U.S. (He acknowledges that programs to boost youth employment and cut recidivism will help.) It sounds like a pipe dream from another AI-can-solve- everything tech bro, but Langley, in the face of a wave of opposition from privacy advocates and Flock’s archrival, the $2.1 billion (2024 revenue) police tech giant Axon Enterprise, is a true believer. He’s convinced that America can and should be a place where everyone feels safe. And once it’s draped in a vast net of U.S.-made Flock surveillance tech, it will be.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/09/03/ai-startup-flock-thinks-it-can-eliminate-all-crime-in-america/

The Wikisource reader app is now available for reading Wikisource books through mobile devices. Android users may get the app through the Google Play app store. For a book to be accessible through the app, it must comply with the data model at Wikidata:WikiProject Books, and have a Wikidata item which uses the Wikidata property Wikisource index page URL (P1957) to link a Wikisource book which the editorial community has certified as passing the proofreading and validation process.

Author @rek2@lemmy.ml

Hello fellow hackers and cyberpunk enthusiasts,

After 12 months of writing and research, I'm excited (and honestly a bit nervous) to share my first tech-thriller novella "Connection Timeout: The PingStarved Chronicles" with this community. This is my first time publishing fiction, so I'm both shy and thrilled to finally put it out there.

Set in 2030 Barcelona, it follows Andrés "PingStarved" Reyes, a 56-year-old hacker who must choose between protecting his estranged son and surrendering a revolutionary mesh networking protocol that could liberate global communications from corporate control.

What makes this different from typical cyberpunk:
* Features real mesh networking protocols (Meshtastic, Reticulum)
* Based on actual security research and exploitation techniques
* Grounded in technologies currently in development
* Authentic hacker culture representation - written by someone who lives it
* NO DRM - All formats are DRM-free because information wants to be free

This has been a labor of love, combining my passion for privacy tech and resistance against surveillance capitalism into a narrative that I hope resonates with our community. As someone who's been hacking for years but never written fiction before, I poured everything I know and believe about our culture into these pages.

Details:
- 29,429 words (86 pages, 2-3 hour read)
- Available in PDF and EPUB formats
- Price: $4.99 USD / €4.99 EUR
- DRM-FREE on all platforms

Available at:
- Gumroad (DRM-FREE): rek2.gumroad.com/l/connection-…
- Amazon Kindle US: amazon.com/dp/B0FPZ18STC
- Amazon Kindle Spain: amazon.es/dp/B0FPZ18STC
- Also available on Amazon in UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, and many other countries

If you enjoyed Neuromancer, Little Brother, or Mr. Robot, this explores similar themes of surveillance capitalism, digital liberty, and technological resistance - but grounded in the real tech we're building today.

Any feedback from the community would mean the world to me. Thanks for reading!

P.S. - For those who prefer open platforms, the Gumroad version comes with both PDF and EPUB, completely DRM-free. Support indie publishing and digital freedom!

The California Privacy Protection Agency, alongside the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, and Connecticut, today announced an investigative sweep involving potential noncompliance with the Global Privacy Control, or GPC, an easy-to-use browser setting or extension that automatically signals to businesses a consumer's request to stop selling or sharing their personal information to third parties. As part of the sweep announced today, the coalition is contacting businesses that may not be processing consumer requests to opt out of the sale of their personal information submitted via the GPC as required by law and requesting that those businesses comply.

California Privacy Protection Agency Announces Joint Investigative Privacy Sweep: CA, CO, and CT Investigate Businesses Refusing to Honor Consumers' Right to Opt-Out of the Sale of Their Personal Information

California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)

^cppa.ca.gov

These are the ones that seem to be the best currently. Does anyone have anything else? (Using the Downloader app)

Streamfire - 2396773
Sportsfire - 4585605
OnStream - 597576
SmartTube (YT w/o ads) - 28544
Anime- anilab.to