• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    1. Album of the Week #8: Tame Impala - The Slow Rush

      This is Album of the Week #8 ~ This week's album is Tame Impala - The Slow Rush Year of Release: 2020 Genre(s): Psychedelic Pop Country: United States Length: 57 minutes Listen! (Album.Link)...

      This is Album of the Week #8 ~ This week's album is Tame Impala - The Slow Rush

      Year of Release: 2020
      Genre(s): Psychedelic Pop
      Country: United States
      Length: 57 minutes
      Listen! (Album.Link)

      Excerpt from NPR:

      As a producer, Parker has more moving parts to balance this time, but he arrives at a deft auteur-pop synergy in which every last decision, down to the assorted cathedral-like reverb effects that lend his voice an otherworldly aura, become as intrinsic to the music as the melodies or the words. Though there's a lot going on in the latticework of the music — springy analog synthesizer arpeggios, guitars doing unguitarlike things, layers upon layers of pastel lushness — the post-psychedelic swirl of The Slow Rush registers as an organic blend, with the songs never feeling cluttered or too tightly scripted.

      Discussion points:
      Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
      Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
      Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
      What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
      Was there a standout track for you?
      How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

      --

      Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.
      Missed last week? It can be found here.
      Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~
      9 votes
    2. Movie of the Week #2 - Drive My Car (2021)

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      This is the second movie we discuss of Academy Award Winners. It also won for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

      IMDb
      Letterboxd
      Wikipedia

      Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.

      The rest of the schedule is:

      • 13th of November: L.A. Confidential
      • 20th of November: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
      • 27th of November: West Side Story
      8 votes
    3. Humble Choice - November 2023

      November's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games: Steam Page Opencritic Steam Recent/All Operating Systems Steam Deck ProtonDB Hardspace: Shipbreaker 83 88/89 Win...

      November's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games:

      Steam Page Opencritic Steam Recent/All Operating Systems Steam Deck ProtonDB
      Hardspace: Shipbreaker 83 88/89 Win Verified Gold
      WWE 2K23 81 77/81 Win Unsupported Platinum
      Unpacking 83 94/92 Win Mac Lin Verified Native
      Friends vs Friends TBC 85/81 Win Verified Gold
      The Legend of Tianding 81 97/95 Win Verified Platinum
      SCP: Secret Files TBC 89/89 Win Playable Gold
      Souldiers 76 80/65 Win Verified Gold
      Prodeus 82 90/93 Win Mac Playable Platinum

      Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

      11 votes
    4. Why are American carrots so skinny?

      I know this is a weird thing to ask, but google is failing me and I don't have enough agricultural knowledge to know where to start looking. I'm hoping this isn't another food thing I'm the only...

      I know this is a weird thing to ask, but google is failing me and I don't have enough agricultural knowledge to know where to start looking. I'm hoping this isn't another food thing I'm the only one who thinks about.

      I love carrots but I'm increasingly irritated by the tiny long carrots that I can find in the markets. I just bought a bag of carrots that had a number of them thinner than my pinky finger. In the meanwhile whenever I look at cooking shows on Youtube that are made in other countries they have thicker, longer, or otherwise more substantial carrots. The ones in Japan seem huge; some of them look like they have a 2" diameter!

      Is it just that they are using a different variety? If so, why would they be using those tiny ones here?

      18 votes
    5. If you use ChatGPT or other LLM, how do you use it?

      I am interested in how people are using ChatGPT, especially in a professional context. Any tips, tricks or pointers? I would appreciate if the discussion didn't revolve around the technology's...

      I am interested in how people are using ChatGPT, especially in a professional context. Any tips, tricks or pointers?

      I would appreciate if the discussion didn't revolve around the technology's negative aspects or future perspectives.

      43 votes
    6. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      10 votes
    7. How are your fantasy teams doing?

      Every other year besides this one I have suffered from several injuries on all of my teams, but this year I seem to have zero injuries on my two teams. I guess this is great considering I kept...

      Every other year besides this one I have suffered from several injuries on all of my teams, but this year I seem to have zero injuries on my two teams. I guess this is great considering I kept Michael Thomas on my team a year or two ago when he was out for nearly the entire season, hoping he would come back and save my team (that didn't happen).

      Anyways, just wanted to see if anyone else was doing as well as me, think I have a shot of winning this year which I've never done before.

      6 votes
    8. Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.

      Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:

      Here is my schema:
      
      ```sql
      CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse (
        article_id   INTEGER
      , warehouse_id INTEGER
      )
      ;
      ```
      
      How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
      
      7 votes
    9. Formula 1 Sao Paulo Grand Prix 2023 - Results

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Interlagos delivers again! Great weekend.

      Two weeks until Las Vegas, Nov. 16-19. Which I'll be at -- Well, at least FP1!

      Remember, this is an unusual one since it's a Saturday night race.

      Results for both the GP and the Sprint Race from yesterday below.

      GRAND PRIX Results -- SPOILER
      POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
      1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 71 1:56:48.894 25
      2 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 71 +8.277s 19
      3 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 71 +34.155s 15
      4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 71 +34.208s 12
      5 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 71 +40.845s 10
      6 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 71 +50.188s 8
      7 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 71 +56.093s 6
      8 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 71 +62.859s 4
      9 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 71 +69.880s 2
      10 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 70 +1 lap 1
      11 2 Logan Sargeant WILLIAMS MERCEDES 70 +1 lap 0
      12 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 70 +1 lap 0
      13 3 Daniel Ricciardo ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 70 +1 lap 0
      14 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 69 +2 laps 0
      NC 63 George Russell MERCEDES 57 DNF 0
      NC 77 Valtteri Bottas ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 39 DNF 0
      NC 24 Zhou Guanyu ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 22 DNF 0
      NC 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 0 DNF 0
      NC 23 Alexander Albon WILLIAMS MERCEDES 0 DNF 0
      NC 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 0 DNS 0

      Fastest Lap: Lando Norris

      Source: F1.com

      SPRINT RACE Results -- SPOILER
      POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
      1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 24 30:07.209 8
      2 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 24 +4.287s 7
      3 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT 24 +13.617s 6
      4 63 George Russell MERCEDES 24 +25.879s 5
      5 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 24 +28.560s 4
      6 22 Yuki Tsunoda ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 24 +29.210s 3
      7 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 24 +34.726s 2
      8 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 24 +35.106s 1
      9 3 Daniel Ricciardo ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT 24 +35.303s 0
      10 81 Oscar Piastri MCLAREN MERCEDES 24 +38.219s 0
      11 14 Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 24 +39.061s 0
      12 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 24 +39.478s 0
      13 10 Pierre Gasly ALPINE RENAULT 24 +40.621s 0
      14 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 24 +42.848s 0
      15 23 Alexander Albon WILLIAMS MERCEDES 24 +43.394s 0
      16 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 24 +56.507s 0
      17 24 Zhou Guanyu ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 24 +58.723s 0
      18 27 Nico Hulkenberg HAAS FERRARI 24 +60.330s 0
      19 77 Valtteri Bottas ALFA ROMEO FERRARI 24 +60.749s 0
      20 2 Logan Sargeant WILLIAMS MERCEDES 24 +60.945s 0

      Source: F1.com

      Enjoy the break!

      15 votes
    10. Presenting a new (old) way to solve the "album problem" when streaming music

      The "album problem" is, of course, the fact that our music listening habits have changed over the past decade and the value of a well-thought-out album is not nearly what it once was. This is in...

      The "album problem" is, of course, the fact that our music listening habits have changed over the past decade and the value of a well-thought-out album is not nearly what it once was. This is in large part due to the fact that it's easy for people to create playlists with a billion different songs to choose from, recommendation algorithms, "Discovery Weekly" playlists, and whatever else the streaming services can throw at us.

      I may not speak for all of us, but I've personally not been able to fully consume a new album for quite a while now, finding that I gravitate toward a few songs/singles that get dumped into a separate playlist. I don't like this and I miss the days that I would discover deep cuts in the back of an album that I listened to ad nauseum.

      I present to you the "Six Disc Changer" playlist. The rules are simple:

      1. Create a new playlist in Spotify, Tidal, or your chosen platform. Call it "Six Disc Changer"
      2. Add six FULL albums to the playlist
      3. Force yourself to listen to the playlist -- maybe not exclusively -- but a fair amount. Imagine you're driving around in your 2002 Honda Civic and the only music available to you is what you've got in your CD changer.
      4. Any time you want to add a new album, you must remove an old album. You should only have six CDs loaded up at any time.

      If you want to take the concept a few steps further...

      1. Any time you remove a CD, add it to a separate playlist called "CD Catalogue".
      2. Any time you want to add a new CD to the catalogue, you must "purchase" it with an "allowance" of your choosing. I'm going with 1 new album per week. You can swap out albums from your Catalogue playlist freely, but new albums must be "purchased." This will simulate scarcity, which was a large part of what drove us to listen to albums over and over again.

      But... why?

      My goal is to get back to listening to full albums and truly taking them in. The best way I can think of to do that is to simulate the way things used to be. By using a streaming service instead of, say, just going back to CDs or records, you get the benefits of convenience, Last.fm, easy Bluetooth, etc.

      As for what's in my CD changer right now, I've got:

      1. Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
      2. The Antlers - Need Nothing
      3. Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
      4. Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come
      5. George Harrison - Living in the Material World
      6. Bob Moses - Battle Lines

      Is it dumb? Probably. It's been fun so far and my music listening experience has been much more focused.

      25 votes
    11. Requesting info/experiences: software engineering and web documentation for the blind/low-vision

      I'm a technical writer. My company sells DevOps software mostly operated on the command line. I'm responsible for explaining this software via HTML5 documentation on our website. One of our...

      I'm a technical writer. My company sells DevOps software mostly operated on the command line. I'm responsible for explaining this software via HTML5 documentation on our website.

      One of our largest customers employs at least one software developer who is "totally blind" and requires a screen reader to work. I assume others exist, but they have not contacted us. Unfortunately, our website is not 100% ADA-compliant. It's far from the worst I've seen, but it could be a lot better.

      I'm familiar with high-level web accessibility paradigms and am currently doing an informal audit of our website to determine what we need to improve to make it fully ADA-compliant. I've prioritized discovery for accessibility concerns in our next sprint. Eventually, I'd like to look into hiring a consultant to do a more robust analysis, but only if necessary because I'd need to request funding. Unfortunately, I have limited control over the text that displays in our product, just the documentation. Long-term, I'd like to collaborate with the product team to ensure our CLI is fully ADA-compliant.

      I've begun reading web accessibility materials from the government. In the meantime, I wanted to ask: are any of you blind or low-vision, or have you used screen readers in the past? Or do you know any blind/low-vision devs? Either way, can you provide any personal insight into any of the things I can do as a technical writer to improve the usability of software documentation for the purpose of enabling you to do your job? My goal is to make the documentation experience great for screen reader users, not just OK.

      18 votes
    12. Do you think you'd use a hardware-based file sharing solution?

      All major operating systems have their own file-sharing protocols (AirDrop, Nearby Share, etc.) which are incompatible with each other. There do exist apps for "cross-platform file sharing",...

      All major operating systems have their own file-sharing protocols (AirDrop, Nearby Share, etc.) which are incompatible with each other. There do exist apps for "cross-platform file sharing", however, they require installation on both the sender and the receiver devices, which makes it a bad solution for quickly sending files to other people.

      I was thinking about making a file sharing solution that acts as a bridge between those different protocols and only requires action from one of the parties. However, there's a huge issue with AirDrop - it uses a custom networking protocol called AWDL. There are open implementations like OWL, but they still require low-level wifi access, so it can't be run on Android without kernel modifications.

      This means that the only way this can be implemented is by using a physical device, eg. a Raspberry Pi Zero W or a similar microcomputer that runs a custom firmware. An obvious problem is that it requires a lot of effort - you need to buy a Raspberry, flash it with the firmware and carry it around with you, just to be able to send or receive files to other devices without using third-party websites.

      So I'm personally not sure if that's worth making. But maybe you'll still be interested? Is this a big enough problem for you to want to use a hardware solution?

      21 votes