CerebralHawks

That makes sense. I remember people carrying planners years ago. I suppose some still do. It’s just that the digital one makes it easier.

Bit of a confession: even with tech, and me being technical, digital calendars didn’t do it for me. Until I got into anime and every anime character has a birthday, a blood type, all these details. I don’t even know Captain Picard’s birthday and I’m a lifelong Trekker who started with Next Generation. Maybe he has one, but I never knew it. Anime fans tend to know their characters’ birthdays. So it happened that I started putting the birthdays of characters I like into the calendar. It’s nice to see it’s someone’s birthday, even if they’re a fictional character who doesn’t even age. Like the Simpsons is like 30+ years old and Bart is still in fourth grade? (I don’t know his birthday, either.)

So, that got me into it. Working a weird schedule helped, I’d get my schedule and I’d put it in the calendar, I had a calendar just for shifts and I share it with my wife.

Never used the Google calendar, but Apple and Microsoft calendars are great for this. I only use the Microsoft one at work, to track shifts, but I get the notifications on my iPhone because I have Outlook on it. I don’t like having work email on a personal phone, but I ignore most of it. I can, however, say that the calendar works as it should. Tells me when I need to leave for work and whatnot — usually, just as I’m leaving (I have a pretty good handle on that). I use Apple stuff at home (Macs and the Watch, plus my iPhone). My main calendar is on that. I get a doctor’s appointment for example, they want to write it down, I say no need, it’s in my iPhone, which means it’s also on my Watch and my Macs. The fuck’s the paper gonna do? It’s just waste.

I’m not knocking Google, I just don’t use it. I’m sure it’s fine. I have an older Android phone (just on WiFi, it’s a backup phone) and I like it, just never used the calendar. Of course the real power move is a calendar that works with both iPhone and Android. There are a few options out there. Most of them are paid, so I’m not even gonna name any. But seriously, digital calendars are fucking awesome. Especially if you have a smart watch.

I get where you’re coming from, here and in the OP, but while what the guy said went a bit too far (the insult, and asking you to prove something), I get the spirit of what they’re asking. They’re asking what you’re doing, like as an example. Maybe to inspire others on what they can do.

Because on one hand, the spirit of the OP is kinda dumb. I mean, no one wants to stick their neck out and risk their livelihood, especially in this economy. So I guess what they were trying to say is, what are you doing and what can someone do that’s more than what they’re already doing?

But isn’t “reaveal[ing] ourselves” what you mean by “skin in the game”? That saying has a very specific meaning, it means to have a personal stake in the situation at hand.

Frequency.

A couple months ago, I found a really cool remake of one of the songs from KPop Demon Hunters. Everyone was doing covers of those songs, and many of them were indie artists, and I was rolling through them. So I found this video, and the video was just an image effect on the cover, which looked very AI-generated, but it’s just the cover image, right? Who cares about that? I asked them in the comments if they would release their stuff on Apple Music. And they quickly responded — no, they’re going to leave that money on the table, and have decided to stay exclusive to YouTube. Why would an artist choose to do that? Sure, a couple artists pulled their music off all other streaming platforms when they made their own, or their friends did. Garth Brooks has never been on streaming (except Amazon, I think they’re the only one whose ethics he agrees with or something?). But most indie artists are on all the platforms. Maximise revenue. So these people saying no, not only to Apple Music — maybe they didn’t like Apple kissing up to Trump — but also to Spotify, Amazon, Deezer, and all the rest. Turns out most of those platforms are stricter when it comes to AI music.

But here’s the thing — their songs are still by the original artist. They’re just stripping out the lyrics and putting new music to the lyrics. And that music is AI generated. Or so I later learned. I looked more into the YouTube channel, and they say they will make you a cover of a song, in any style you like, for $200. And they have hundreds of uploads… in a few months. Each song may have five or six variants. And the songs are still fine, but they have a generic, plastic, not real feel to them.

Of course, they also qualify the first thing in OP’s summary, no social media presence. They just have the sales site, and the YouTube channel.

But maybe it’s fine, or at least less bad, that they’re taking existing songs and just remixing them with AI? Only they’re saying the covers are better, and they’re monetising the videos, so they’re getting paid for the streams when that money should be going to the original artist. It’s fine if they actually covered the song and recorded it, but having a computer do all the heavy lifting? Just seems scummy.

I’m not going to name & shame, but if you look up KPDH covers and see something that looks like AI slop with click-bait titles… you’ve probably found the right one. (They cover other stuff too, not just KPDH.)

Guilt by association?

Agree, but Linux (and Mac) both fall to the sunk time fallacy. “I’ve spent years learning to navigate around Windows’s bullshit, so doing the same with a new OS is time I’d rather spend just using my OS!” It’s bullshit and should be called out as such.

All three of the major OSes are piss easy to use. Linux, specifically if you’re using Mint or Ubuntu and it’s already set up. Some Linux distros (e.g. Arch) take some effort to set up, but you’re rewarded for doing so by knowing more about how your computer works.

And they all have advantages. Windows is used by more people and more programs are made for it. It also has some of the best compatibility. Mac is the best “commercial” OS. It’s made for humans, it’s UNIX certified (though that certification is like 40 years old or something), it’s not made by Microsoft, and it’s used by creatives. Linux is aimed more at coders and tinkerers and people who want to really own their computer and control it at a deeper level. All of them can serve a person’s needs well and they all run Firefox.

I don’t do this. If I see a paywall, I don’t visit the site again.

The Verge recently went with paywalls… I just deleted the bookmark. It was never a very good site anyway. They blasted an Android phone for doing something new, and then praised Apple for doing the exact same thing. I forget what. We were calling them iVerge for a while after that. (It was not recently.) Even as an Apple guy, I could not respect that. But the content has been entertaining, so I kept going back. I definitely will not pay them for their content though.

And runs on Mac — probably anything that can use Java (so, not an iPhone/iPad). Keyboard shortcuts are different but otherwise, it works exactly the same.

God forbid they give us an official dark mode though! There is a hack, it doesn’t survive reboots/updates though and the thing updates a few times a day… I stopped trying after doing it a few times.

But yes, Jd2. Usually you can throw a link at it and it will parse it and give you the file. Though on sites like OP asked for, they are almost always lo-res and watermarked.

I have a dishwasher (came with the place). I don’t like it. I don’t think it does a very good job.

I use it as a dish drainer. That is to say, when I hand wash, I open the dishwasher, and I use its racks to air dry my washed dishes. I don’t even skip straight to the dry cycle, that’s a waste of electricity.

I would not own a dishwasher. I would throw it out if it were up to me and use the space for shelves to store more gear, like my slow cooker, toaster oven, air fryer, stand mixer, etc. when they are not in use.

Honestly I still like Hillary for arranging Epstein’s “suicide.” She’s far more devious. Trump is dirty, but he’s fairly up-front about what he’s about. Honestly I don’t think he’s intelligent enough to pull it off. Someone from his camp? Far more likely than him himself. I’m not shifting blame if he gave the order. I’m saying the whole thing would have been outside his realm of comprehension. If it did come from his side — and I do not, for a second, believe that it absolutely did not — he wasn’t told and is still in the dark about it.

But no. We’ve known Trump was a pervert and a predator for years. Anyway, all the emails really reveal is he messed around with some early-20s girls when he was in his 40s. Hardly children. Victims of sex trafficking sure, but not children.

It’s a cult. His followers will condemn poor people for doing the same thing he’s done, even if they’re white and straight, but especially if they’re brown and/or LGBTQ+. And they’ll forgive his mistakes. I heard he pardoned a transgender person who helped him try to overthrow the government on January 6. His followers don’t care they’re transgender. Trump doesn’t, either, apparently. But he’ll take some other action against the LGBTQ+ community and they’ll support him for it.

I will say that they made a great point, though. The White House, the Trump camp, I mean. They asked why we didn’t care about this so much when Biden was president. Solid point. No one thinks Biden is in the Epstein files. The answer is pretty obvious. They thought, after January 6 Trump is unelectable, just let him go away in peace. They’d rather let him get away with what he did rather than stain any of their colleagues. Only now that Trump is back in the White House are they trying to weaponise the Epstein files. They could have done this under Biden and they would have potentially won in 2024 but they didn’t.

Did they take away the ability to make servers? I made one too, but I’m the only account on it. I think my wife may have joined, I dunno. She does a lot more on Discord. Her interests have communities that only exist there, or mostly exist there. I’m not really in them. I’ve dabbled but I’ve never been a full fledged member. And that’s fine. It’s anime stuff. I’m fine being a fan, a consumer, a watcher, occasionally a reader (of the manga). I’m not gonna really create for it. They do and it’s awesome. I just enjoy.

I use Discord for a couple things that aren’t available anywhere else. It’s good for what it is. It hasn’t asked me to show ID yet. Maybe it’s obvious I’m an old guy. I dunno.

I feel like there’s an IQ cap on Discord. If you’re above average intelligence and you can’t hide it, you’re not welcome. It’s a chat program and you’re expected to use chat slang. Of course, this varies by server. I’ve been in writing servers where you can be intelligent (and it’s encouraged). I’ve also been in communities where you get warned by mods if your messages wrap on mobile (take more than 1 line). I did not stick around.

We can instance block? Using Voyager and Mlem, I only see user and community blocking.

So is it also okay to be good at difficult games without bashing people who aren’t good at difficult games, or nah?

I know this is just a meme, but I have the answer to this, if anyone cares to hear it.

Most people probably think writing is like reading, linear, chapter one, then chapter two, and so on. And some writers do write like this. Stephen King writes like that. He also strongly believes if the story doesn’t hold up, it wasn’t good enough to write. And then he drops it. His bibliography speaks for itself.

It doesn’t have to be like that, though. There are two kinds of writers. Pantsers — as in, they write by the seat of their pants — is the first kind. Then you have plotters. A lot of what they write isn’t for the story. They plot their course in advance. They write a story bible about the characters and setting — this is easier to stick to than the actual story because it’s just notes, no pressure. They also write out an outline, like a table of contents.

The most interesting thing about plotters is, they don’t start the story at the beginning. They write their favorite scenes first, then they connect them. As they write more, divine more context, they rewrite their favorite scenes, shaping them as they go. The connecting parts might only get written once, but those memorable scenes? They keep coming back to them, refining them so they’re just right, so the reader never forgets them.

There are programs designed for plotters. Pantsers can just use Word, Google Docs, or even Notepad/TextEdit or the like. Plotters can use those (Vonnegut used note cards!), but there are dedicated tools. Scrivener is one of them. It lets you write scenes, write about characters, build an outline, and at the end you can put it all together. I think the software is kind of confusing, so I didn’t buy a license, but it has a generous 60 day trial.

Anything Soulslike

I had to work all through COVID-19 because of my job status. So while I understand people had time to sit around and play video games and “git gud”… I ain’t got the time.

I much more appreciate Animal Crossing. Also a pandemic game (the one on Switch) but it respects your time. Sort of. I mean you can just pick it up for an hour and run around catching bugs or fishing (I’d only do this in handheld mode, the lag with any controller and the HDMI connection make it impossible to catch 3/4/5-star rarity fish), so it’s a fun little chill game. And it’s not like you have to start over if you miss a fish on your lure. Or even if you get jumped by a scorpion or tarantula or wasp (yes you can “die” in Animal Crossing, but really, you just get knocked out and you return to your house and lose nothing except the chance to catch the bug and sell it to the little raccoons in the shop).

Do I “suck at games”? Eh, maybe. I got no excuse, I’ve been gaming since the 80s. I played NES games. I played computer and Atari games before that (and many computer games since). I’ve really got no excuse for sucking at hard games except I have a full time job, but the truth is… I just don’t care. I can beat Bethesda games. I can beat Cyberpunk. There are games I can play and I enjoy them. I haven’t beaten Blue Prince yet (that one is also very hard, but not punishing… you just aren’t advancing without a lot of luck and/or a very specific strategy… but a “losing” run is still fun and can still teach you something… a thing I think Soulslike games could learn from. They don’t have to be easy if a losing run is still fun. The difference is, the Soulslike is repetitive because you have to do repetitive things very well (blind QTEs to parry and dodge, for example), whereas Blue Prince is a highly randomised puzzle game you’re not going to win unless a very specific order of cards (blueprints) are drawn for you. You CAN manipulate the pool, but not enough to guarantee a win.

I’m saying it’s bad when anyone does it. If you think rape is okay for countries X, Y, and Z, but you draw the line at Israel doing it, you don’t have a problem with rape, you have a problem with Israel. And that’s fine. They’re certainly doing bad shit. I’m saying I have a problem with rape and anyone doing it.

I don’t mean to excuse Israel with whataboutism, but I feel like most militaries do this? Americans have done it, the Israeli have done it, others as well… I’m sure a few like the Candians and Swiss don’t, but I would assume them to be the exception more than the rule.

It’s never excusable when anyone does it and it should absolutely be called out.

They mean an NSFW tag (standard practice for social media) or CW (content warning) (standard practice for Lemmy).

I wholeheartedly agree though, it shouldn’t be hidden. I’m also not opposed to warning people about triggering content on a social network where people who have such trauma tend to flock because their concerns are addressed better.

In theory, maybe.

In practice, it has the same result. If everyone who did not vote for Trump, voted for Harris, we would not be where we are.

Most people who voted for Trump stand by their vote, for one reason or another. You can ask them to apologise but they won’t. It’s the ones who didn’t vote for Harris and hedged their bet and are now saying “not my fault! I didn’t vote for him!” who are the real problem. Because they didn’t want Trump but they also laid down and let Trump have the victory, for some reason or another.

Look, for fucking decades my mother would not vote. She saw Kennedy killed (and/or heard about it) when she was 9 and she swears he was the last good president. (I didn’t like Kennedy all that much. My “last good American president” was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.) Anyway, after Trump’s first term, she voted in both the last elections. For Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024. She wanted Clinton to win in 2016 but did not go vote, she figured enough people would vote for her over Trump. When Trump won, she stopped sitting on the fence and started getting out and voting. And she’s like 70-something. Granted she’s retired. But if you have the legal right to vote, you should. I strongly believe that. And if you don’t vote, I absolutely believe you don’t get to sit there and say “well I didn’t vote for the guy who won.”