• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    1. How do I get "good" at art?

      So this is the dumb post of the day. Bear with me. All I can say about art (like paintings and sculpture) is "is cool", "I like it", "it makes me sad" and look like a complete idiot totally out of...

      So this is the dumb post of the day. Bear with me.

      All I can say about art (like paintings and sculpture) is "is cool", "I like it", "it makes me sad" and look like a complete idiot totally out of place. (On the other hand, I can deliver a nuanced analysis of graffiti and hip hop so yeah it's all about the background.) I want to take my partner to a museum and start saying fancy shit like "oh you see the lines here these remind me of Donatello's style of light and shadow". Like I know it's possibly the dumbest thing to want but I really would like to learn more about it and be able to give informed opinions on art pieces.

      Anyway, any recommendations? Maybe some youtube videos or some books? Or should I just say that everything past 1400 is derivative?

      16 votes
    2. la donna è mobile.

      i had a dream, i saw my body as i stood watching outside of it an open door i had a guest, a little blondie baphomet she crept quiet up to my bed laid her hands upon my chest through groggy eyes i...

      i had a dream,
      i saw my body
      as i stood watching
      outside of it
      an open door
      i had a guest,
      a little blondie
      baphomet
      she crept quiet
      up to my bed
      laid her hands
      upon my chest
      through groggy eyes
      i saw an angel.
      took her hand,
      she made me promises.

      i sold my soul
      and said lets glo
      she passed a blunt
      said i dont know
      she insists
      i took a hit
      i felt a burning
      at my lips
      i let a cough
      the fuck is this?
      opened my eyes
      it was a kiss
      a little smirk
      she bit my lip
      she drew a knife
      she slit my wrist

      she cut her own
      said it's a pact
      now we're enslaved
      the bond intact
      the blood'll flow
      beyond the cracks
      and trickle down
      and leave a path
      and when we're old
      we can look back
      say what a life
      and have a laugh
      i'll be your wife,
      the better half
      you'll die, i'll write
      your epitaph

      i had a dream,
      i saw her body
      bleeding through a
      wedding dress
      she smiled still
      her face was pale
      she fed me love,
      i starved depressed
      an angel or
      a siren who would
      sing to me in
      soft caress
      i never thought
      she'd be my death,
      my little blondie
      baphomet

      bishop.

      6 votes
    3. Total noob looking for (hopefully) simple greasemonkey script

      I have knowledge of the basic concepts of programming in general and html and some very basic knowledge of javascript, but this specific task is proving a little beyond me. I'm actually using...

      I have knowledge of the basic concepts of programming in general and html and some very basic knowledge of javascript, but this specific task is proving a little beyond me. I'm actually using tampermonkey, in case that matters.

      www.bricklink.com is a site to buy Lego from private sellers. By default, when looking at a shop's listing of items, it shows 25 per page. I would like to automatically switch to 100 per page every time.

      Here's a randomly selected store page (no affiliation) at the default 25 per page:

      https://store.bricklink.com/TheBricky#/shop?o={"itemType":"P","catID":"18","showHomeItems":0}

      Now, same page set to display 100 per page. Note how "pgSize" is added to the url but doesn't appear by default:

      https://store.bricklink.com/TheBricky#/shop?o={"pgSize":100,"itemType":"P","catID":"18","showHomeItems":0}

      What I would like is for pgSize to be set to 100 only IF

      "shop" appears in the url

      AND

      "pgSize" does not appear in the url OR "pgSize" does appear in the url but does not equal 100.

      Since Bricklink remembers pgSize per shop page per session, once pgSize is set to 100 for a particular shop greasemonkey doesn't need to do anything. Intercepting the url before the page loads would be nice but unnecessary since loading is fast and I'm not worried about bandwidth.

      I tried making this but wasn't sure how to input what I'm trying to test for in the url. Of course now that I've thought about it some more it seems the task is more probably difficult than I thought it would be at first. Any help would be appreciated.

      EDIT: This comment below seems to be working, although the way Bricklink makes their urls feels funky at times.

      10 votes
    4. the emo rap deep dive - chapter three: dirty sprite

      howdy pardner! welcome back to my emo rap deep-dive series! for those just joining us, i'd encourage you to go back and check out chapter one: sprite. and chapter two: dirt. first. so why am i...

      howdy pardner!

      welcome back to my emo rap deep-dive series! for those just joining us, i'd encourage you to go back and check out chapter one: sprite. and chapter two: dirt. first.

      so why am i even writing this to begin with? if i'm being honest, it's not all entirely educationally-motivated. i've been really wanting a way to share my favorite genre of music with people (maybe it's a subconscious testing of the waters before i begin to record my own music?) and collect their thoughts. but every time i went to share a link in ~music, i'd deliberate over and over, "what should i share?" it's been so hard for me to pick one single song that's all-encompassing and anthemic (is that even a word? i keep using that word) of the genre as a whole.

      so instead of spamming ~music, or having to cherry pick a small number of tracks, i thought i'd use this as an opportunity to provide a little historical background and, hopefully, maybe, inspire a new appreciation in a subgenre that very often gets overlooked, or thought of as basic / whiney / overproduced.

      that said - hopefully you've all been following along, and i'll stop stalling! let's dive right into chapter three of our emo-rap deep dive - dirty sprite. or, how did we go from OutKast to Lil Pump?


      let me open with a question. what do the following have in common?

      polish composer and piano virtuoso frederic chopin
      controversial american rapper lil pump
      american actor and i guess also musician? corey feldman

      you guessed it!

      opiates.

      all of the present characters used opiates in their lifes, typically throughout the better parts of their creative years. chopin was using medicinal opiates in order to aide with his tuberculosis. feldman fell into and has since (i believe) fought his way out of a heroin addiction. lil pump sips promethazine by the bottle just to party (hyperbole. don't drink prometh by the bottle) which is a prescription medication often used as a sedative or used to prevent coughs or nausea. often sold as a mixture of promethazine and codeine, itself being an opiate. if you've seen a rap music video in the past two to three years, you may have seen this bottle somewhere throughout.

      where do all of these drugs come from?

      the answer to that question actually holds a lot of relevance to the history of emo rap itself, but to answer it, we first have to go all the way back to the 90s.

      off we go!


      believe it or not, drugs as a matter of discussion weren't always ever-present in the rap game. from the late 70s to the early 80s, only about 10% of all rap songs mentioned drug use, whereas in the early 90s, we see that number jump waaaay the fuck up to 45%, to eventually hit 69% by 1997 [source]. this is all taking place around the same time that we saw the decline of major urban neighborhoods due to the effects of white flight, decreasing the amount of tax dollars flowing throughout these areas, and leading to a decrease in public services that would include decreased effectiveness of, say, fire brigades or police squads.

      with poorer households now making up a majority of these neighborhoods, the illegal drug trade quickly grew in popularity as a way to make money on the business end, and a way to escape the day-to-day on the client end. a plethora of burned, broken into, or otherwise abandoned houses became a seemingly limitless amount of places to go about the production of drugs - most notably, crack cocaine. these houses came to be known colloquially as trap houses, and the music inspired by this phenomenon, trap music.

      this sound grew it's roots in the early 90s thanks to the early projects out of the south like UGK (title: Cocaine in the Back of the Ride), Three 6 Mafia (title: We Got Da Dope), and The Showboys (title: Drag Rap). coincidentally, the showboys are actually a group out of new york, though gained the height of their popularity touring around southern states.

      as we head into the mid-nineties/early-naughts, we see the emergence of a few acts that really take this sound and run with it. setting the roots for the coming commercial explosion of the trap sound, we see examples like OutKast's "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik", Lil Jon's "Who You Wit". we're gonna see lil jon's name pop up a few times as we go through this.

      taking the reigns from these majorly influential projects, we next see T.I. come to the stage for his second album "Trap Muzik" in 2003. much to the surprise of the industry (his debut album did not go over all too well), Trap Muzik debuted at number 4 on the Billboard 200, sold over 100k copies in it's first week, and was later in 2012 called one of the classic albums of the last decade by Complex. the album features many early hits from T.I. like "Be Easy", "24's", and even some tracks with producer credits from Kanye West like "Doin' My Job". still sticking to their guns, pioneering the trap sound, we continue to see records from Lil Jon and Three 6 Mafia taking to the radio such as, respectively, "Get Low" and "Stay Fly"

      paving the way towards the 2010s, we begin to see the rise of artists like Gucci Mane and his debut album "Trap House" (aptly titled eh?) hitting the Billboard 200 with tracks like "Icy", Young Jeezy with internationally-charting tracks like "Soul Survivor", and most notably in modern trap, producer-powerhouse Zaytoven with work on tracks like "Papers" x Usher.


      so we skip forward 5-7 years and things look...different.

      instead of having chart-toppers like "Smack That" x Akon, "Hey There Delilah" x Plain White T's, or "Umbrella" x Rihanna

      we see a lot of love for things like "First of the Year (Equinox) x Skrillex, "Sail" x AWOLNATION, and most importantly by far, "Versace" x Migos which was quickly popularized by Drake's remix. the rest of 2013 serves as the absolute corner stone of modern trap music seeing the success of songs like "Swimming Pools (Drank)" x Kendrick Lamar, "Started From The Bottom" x Drake, and of course, the absolute trap anthem, "Love Sosa" x Chief Keef.

      in that avalanche of tracks, we get the recipe that will come to make up the bulk of today's trap music:

      1. edm-inspired instrumentals
      2. triplet meter rhyme
      3. heavy 808s and crystal clear hi-hats.

      over the next few years, we steadily start to see these three ingredients come together to produce some absolute bangers leading up to the trap zeitgeist.

      in 2014:
      "Fight Night" x Migos
      "Black Widow" x Iggy Azalea
      the ever-memed "Lifestyle" x Young Thug

      in 2015:
      the year of Fetty Wap with tracks like "Trap Queen", "679" on the Billboard 100
      "No Type" x Rae Sremmurd
      "Flex" x Rich Homie Quan

      in 2016:
      "Panda" x Desiigner
      "Broccoli" x DRAM
      Drake jumping back in with "Jumpman"
      "Down in the DM" x Yo Gotti


      and then, finally, we arrive at 2017 - the year that caused the internet's busiest music nerd anthony "melon" fantano to pose the question "have we reached peak trap?". up until recently, the term "trap music" was actually not all too commonly associated with rap music - instead referring most commonly to a subset of edm with (still) heavy 808s, thicc bass drops, and dirty breakdowns. however, with the musical zeitgeist quickly moving to seat rap at the throne over rock music, and with the internet popularizing songs like "Ultimate" x Denzel Curry, "Flicka Da Wrist" x Chedda Da Connect, and "U Guessed it" x OG Maco, the term has now been absolutely overtaken as many rap fans find themselves infatuated with the sound. this causes the scene to absolutely explode throughout 2017 with songs like:

      "Humble" x Kendrick Lamar
      "Bad and Boujee" x Migos
      "Bodak Yellow" x Cardi B
      "Look At Me!" x XXXTentacion
      and of course
      "Gucci Gang" x Lil Pump

      this year sees the debuts of several artists that are still dropping bangers today, like the previously listed Cardi B, Lil Pump, XXXTentacion (rest in peace), A Boogie wit Da Hoodie, and (again) of course, 6ix9ine.

      analogous to the rise of screamed lyrics, heavy instrumentals, and prettyboy-frontmen of mid-late 2000s rock bands, we see the rise of trap music today.


      now, the final question to be answered.

      how do we get from rap songs with hedonistic lyrics, heavy 808s, and loud-personality frontmen, to a subsect of the genre that nearly predominantly speaks of subjects like death, addiction, loss, and suicide?

      i'll see ya soon for the fourth and final installment of the emo-rap deep dive - chapter four: xanax sprinkles.

      12 votes
    5. Usability Suggestion: Mobile sidebar closing.

      Edit: As @Bauke pointed out, apparently this feature already exists via tapping outside of the sidebar. I never even thought to try that. I'm not sure if this is in the gitlab issues or not, but a...

      Edit: As @Bauke pointed out, apparently this feature already exists via tapping outside of the sidebar. I never even thought to try that.


      I'm not sure if this is in the gitlab issues or not, but a cursory search suggested it's not. On mobile, if you tap the link to the most recent comment from the sidebar, you navigate directly to that comment just as on the desktop site, but the sidebar remains open and can't be closed without scrolling all the way back up to the top of the page. This is incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient.

      Ideally there would either be a method of closing the sidebar from anywhere, or for the sidebar to close on clicking the link. I would imagine that the latter would be simplest.

      8 votes
    6. White girls in cars drinking coffee

      I've been sick the last couple of days; cooped up in my dark basement apartment. I've been dying to get outside, but it's misting and cloudy, so I went to Starbucks drive thru and drove to a...

      I've been sick the last couple of days; cooped up in my dark basement apartment. I've been dying to get outside, but it's misting and cloudy, so I went to Starbucks drive thru and drove to a nearby park to sit and read. I opened all the windows and reclined my seat in the park's deserted parking lot. After a few minutes, a police car came up the driveway, pulled into the parking lot kinda fast and drove up to my car. I got ready to talk to him, but he averted course, drove around my car in a circle, glanced at my face (pleasant smile) and drove off again.

      The whole situation left me feeling a little pensive. I'm a young-ish white woman in a ten-ish year old car, drinking tea and reading a book (though i doubt he got close enough to see that part) in a parking lot of a deserted park on a rainy day. How could the story have changed if I was a darker color and/or/and a different gender? Would that cop have still driven off? Possibly. Hopefully. Or would he have inconvenienced me? Questioned me, demeaned me, dehumanized me? Would he have given me the benefit of the doubt? If i got scared because of a lifetime of tense police encounters, would he have hurt me, tazed me, shot me?

      I get the basics of managing risk. But having dark skin does not predispose us to be risky. Systemic oppression, un/official smear campaigns, mistrust, xenophobia, unequal opportunity, gerrymandering, propaganda have taught us that white girls in cars drinking coffee in a parking lot on a rainy evening are less risky than a black man in his home or his neighborhood or in his car drinking coffee in a parking lot on a rainy evening. And it hurts us all.

      I haven't posted in a while, and I want to do my part; also, I wanted to tell this story, but not on Facebook. Thanks.

      33 votes
    7. Black Mirror S3E02 "Playtest" discussion thread

      Previous episode | Index thread | Next episode Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 2 - Playtest An American traveler short on cash signs up to test a revolutionary new gaming system, only to discover...

      Previous episode | Index thread | Next episode

      Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 2 - Playtest

      An American traveler short on cash signs up to test a revolutionary new gaming system, only to discover the thrills are a little too real.

      Black Mirror Netflix link


      Warning: this thread contains spoilers about this episode! If you haven't seen it yet, please watch it and come back to this thread later.

      You can talk about past episodes, but please don't discuss future episodes in this thread!


      If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:

      • How does the title relate to the episode itself?
      • Are there any similarities between real life events and the episode?
      • Are there any references or easter eggs in the episode, such as references to past episodes?

      Please rate the episode here!

      10 votes
    8. Coding Noob Needs Help/Guidance on Small Project

      Hi, There's a certain site which hosts media files and has a player that depends on a lot of third-party resources to play, while browsers have native support for those file types. Those 3rd-party...

      Hi,

      There's a certain site which hosts media files and has a player that depends on a lot of third-party resources to play, while browsers have native support for those file types. Those 3rd-party resources are often blocked by ad blockers and I have no desire to white-list them. I would like to extract the direct link to the media file and make it playable on my custom web page.

      The link to the media file is present in the page source of each page, always on the same line. It's not anchored in HTML but present in the JavaScript for the player, like so:

          $(document).ready(function(){
            $("#jquery_jplayer_1").jPlayer({
              ready: function () {
                $(this).jPlayer("setMedia", {
                  [ext]: "https://[domain]/[filename.ext]"
                });
              },
      

      In this example it's on line #5. [ext] = the file extension.

      I want to build the following:

      • A web page with a form with a single input field meant to receive links from that specific file host
      • [Something] that extracts the file link from the source of the host's page
      • Present the linked file as playable in an embedded native player

      So far I've managed to create a form with an input box and a submit button, but it doesn't do anything yet. What is the best way to build the actual functionality? I know HTML/CSS. I have some rudimentary understanding of JavaScript/jQuery and Python3, so those would be my preferred tools.

      For those worried about piracy: The files in question are not copyrighted and I'm not looking to make copies. I just want to make them playable. This is for personal use.

      Thank you for reading this far. Any and all advice is welcome!

      10 votes
    9. The issue with modernizing stories: representation in The Killing Joke (book vs. movie)

      I've very loosely applying the title I used in yesterday's post because quite honestly, I can't even call what they did with the movie a modernization. Intro Old stories are always being updated...

      I've very loosely applying the title I used in yesterday's post because quite honestly, I can't even call what they did with the movie a modernization.

      Intro

      Old stories are always being updated for lots of reasons, ranging from trying to appeal to new audiences to correcting toxic depictions to fitting better to the current social or political climate and more. There's nothing new there. However, one thing I find a bit odd lately, as in the last five years or so, is that a lot of this modernization is actually done pretty poorly in main stream media. We see more forced diversity, queerbaiting, and generally bad storytelling.

      There will be spoilers for both.

      Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore (1988)

      This is probably my least liked batman comic that I still recommend fans read.
      It's one of the few Joker origin stories and have impacted the tone of Batman since. It's honestly the story I think of whenever I'm thinking of Batman and the Joker's relationship, and makes Joker the all-time greatest DC villain.

      And of course, through the paralysis of Barbara Gordon (Batgirl), we get one of the strongest female heros in DC - Oracle.

      The Killing Joke is infamous for adding Batgirl to the list of Women in Refrigerators. The treatment of women, specifically Batgirl, is probably the most easily agreed upon aspect to modernize. She was pulled into this story without much thought on the effects of the character before or after.

      Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)

      When details about this movie was in the works, it was hinted (and then confirmed) that about half an hour will be added to the beginning of the movie and better flesh out Barbara Gordon. This was exciting. The end result was disappointing almost to the point of offense.

      The additional time was devoted to Barbara debating with her "gay best friend" (who is every stereotype that phrase can embody) how her "boss" (Batman) doesn't respect her and that she should just quit. Also comes with a scene where she insists on being heard, is aggressive and then has sex with Batman. Yeah...I can't even truly describe how bad it was... (I'm just glad tickets were sold out at the theater so I didn't have to pay money to see it. I borrowed it from the library for anyone wondering.)

      The quitting thing in particular really bothered me. Barbara is one of the few heros in the DC universe that does not have a tragic back story. She chose to be Batgirl for the same reason someone chooses to be a cop in a corrupt city like Gotham. In the animated series and in Adam West's Batman, Barbara became Batgirl independently. She wasn't seeking approval or permission.

      Enough of the rant...why it didn't work? Ultimately, it was a lack of respect in general. There was a feeling all around that the team was asked to modernize, but they themselves weren't convinced. The end result was what you would expect a bunch of closed minded straight guys to write. Obviously no research was done to better understand gay men or women. They were ultimately not treated as real people. There was no research on Batgirl herself, and this includes watching Adam West's Batman, or reading any comics with Batgirl or Oracle.

      Final thoughts

      The sad thing is, they had a chance to really add to the original story. I would have love to see Batgirl in her prime. Show how strong and capable of a hero she was before she was paralysis and emphasize the loss Batman and Gotham will feel from loosing Batgirl. Show Barbara's determination in perhaps a little Oracle origin story. She's very smart, let's see some of that. Show her dealing with her own loss while still carrying a duty.

      Edit to add: I would also drop the gay best friend. In the new 52, Barbara's roommate is trans and they build a real friendship before she's comfortable enough to tell Barbara. Steal directly from that!

      What are your thoughts? Any other comic adaptations that stood out for you? (There are so many!)

      9 votes
    10. the perks of being alive.

      ten months, three kings. fuck. things you should know if you're gonna fuck with drugs. [reddit link] relevant shit: "Legends" x Juice WRLD "THE BLACKEST BALLOON" x Denzel Curry let's get to the...

      ten months, three kings.

      fuck.

      things you should know if you're gonna fuck with drugs. [reddit link]

      relevant shit:

      "Legends" x Juice WRLD
      "THE BLACKEST BALLOON" x Denzel Curry

      let's get to the piece


      death always seemed imminent
      every track he wrote it in
      real goth shit he'd represent
      drugs never put him on the fence
      geeked off coke, asleep off xans
      ate a couple shrooms he was diving in
      two hydros and two oxys blend
      had a full pill bottle in his hands
      nobody knew he would get so bent
      nobody knew it was laced with fent
      a message from postmortem breath
      everybody stop, get off your shit
      message rang, got left on sent
      looks like nobody's listening
      the saddest case that you could present
      never heard a peep about this shit again

      just pop another pill
      while the house is on fire
      just a warm blanket baby boy,
      you're gonna be fine.
      tryna look around,
      but you can't focus your eyes
      end up staring down the bottle
      tryna see what's inside
      looks like you found the
      perks of being alive.

      next gunned down midsummer
      cut across by two gunners
      reached their hands in
      to grab his things
      then bolted off and
      let shots ring
      they caught his neck
      boy couldn't breathe
      blood poured onto the
      beamer seats
      right as this boy began to preach
      a brand new message bent on peace
      a brand new face for the world to see
      his eyes saw love in the future
      tryna inspire life out of the dead sea
      20 years old, brought to his knees

      just pop another pill
      while the house is on fire
      just a warm blanket baby boy,
      you're gonna be fine.
      tryna look around,
      but you can't focus your eyes
      end up staring down the bottle
      tryna see what's inside
      looks like you found the
      perks of being alive.

      blue slides on both feet,
      just a college kid who loved weed
      found himself in a new scene
      little more fame, little more green
      then he started touring
      got hooked off the purp drink
      off the cocaine and promethazine
      found a swimming pool
      poured in the lean
      tried to swim out
      wouldn't let him leave
      pulled him to the deep
      wouldn't let him breathe
      cinderella, he had a queen
      ended, toxic, but they were teamed
      now four months later - it's the final scene.

      just pop another pill
      while the house is on fire
      just a warm blanket baby boy,
      you're gonna be fine.
      tryna look around,
      but you can't focus your eyes
      end up staring down the bottle
      tryna see what's inside
      looks like you found the
      perks of being alive.


      "Star Shopping" x Lil Peep

      "Snow" x XXXTentacion

      "Self Care" x Mac Miller

      rest in power my guys.

      8 votes