What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

So I came across this new dudesy video titled "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead" and it put me down a weird rabbit hole. I'm not a Carlin super fan but I know some of his famous bits and respect his work and maybe that's the perfect setup for watching this because... I'm honestly blown away. I planned on listening to 3 minutes of it to make fun of stupid AI but ended up letting it run for the entire hour and actually laughed quite a bit. It all makes sense. It does sound like him. I don't know how much editing went into it, how much prompting and discarded material. I especially don't know if it just dug up old jokes somewhere else and copied them. But still.

It feels like we just had awkward AI-wordsalad experiments and things like the infinite Seinfeld stream which was fun in a so-bad-it's-good kinda way but... I mean, it obviously was bad. The funny part was that it was unpredictably bad.

But only a year later we're having some uncanny valley shit. I looked it up and apparently this started with a comedy podcast with an AI co-host which produced a clip for a fictional Tom Brady standup routine which turned out popular enough to get them sued, apparently.

There's this part in the fake Carlin special where he talks about the future of entertainment being 24-hour streams where an AI comedian comments on daily news events in real time or something and I can't say I wouldn't watch that. Just to see what it's like. But I also get people calling it disgusting. It kinda is. I get [his daughter says "machine will ever replace his genius"](machine will ever replace his genius), she's right of course. But that video got close IMO.

You can still point at little flaws here and there with AI generated content but with this trend, it will be 3 or 5 years before we get perfectly polished content machines that don't trip over any of the easy and obvious stuff. What place would such content have in the entertainment industry?

What do you guys think?

Teams is down or was down for pretty much everyone I know (work context).

Thinking in terms of business continuity, what is your fallback plan. Is your fallback a managed, enterprise class service?

Might get everyone internally to install Signal since it's end-to-end encrypted, has a desktop client and can handle file transfers. That's just off the cuff.

Thoughts?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Edit: Voting closed

Lets try something a bit different for February, with one of the favorite discussion topics among cinephiles - with setting up superheroes against Martin Scorsese. We will need 4 movies for February and we will need 2 from each category. Directed by Martin Scorsese or a superhero movie (interpret that however you seem reasonable). Based on top number of votes the schedule will be:

• 5th: Superhero movie
• 12th: Scorsese movie
• 19th: Superhero movie
• 26th: Scorsese movie

Not a hard rule per se, but I would recommend to at least consider that especially the superhero movies should be reasonably standalone and not require having seen several other entries in a series.

Rules

• Must be directed by Martin Scorsese or be considered a superhero movie
• Only one nomination per user
• Please only nominate if you intent to participate

In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.

It's time to choose books for the book club to read. We will be voting between now and end of day Monday Pacific Time. Please only vote if you plan to read with us, regardless of whether you choose to comment.

I invite each person to choose up to three books from this list to vote for by upvoting. Edit: I did not adequately disclose this at the nomination stage. We will read a few top books, a number that makes sense from the final vote tally.
We will read at least the top five, possibly a couple more if there are books with the same number of votes. After voting, I will follow up with our books list and a tentative schedule.

From the list of suggestions I excluded the nonfiction, hoping that we can choose nonfiction in future where everyone submits nonfiction titles. I also excluded Gormenghast because it is second in a series. I did include some nominated books that are first in series.

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.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

All parents please report back. My children lost their damn minds.

Link

For best effect, followup with:
Rednex - Cottoneye Joe
The HampsterDance Song
Eiffel 65 - Blue

Also known as : Half of a middle school dance playlist from the 90s. Just need Macarana and Mmm Bop to wrap it.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

Please share why it's your favourite took, avoiding as many spoilers as you can.

Mine is Episode 45 of Darknet Diaries, Xbox Underground (and also Part 02).

It is about a group of hackers called the XBox Underground who infiltrated the networks of major video game companies. Their motives started out harmless, with members of the group enjoying playing early versions of games. However, things take a serious turn and there are many twists and turns as the story unfolds.

It's so good that I have listened to it every year since it first came out.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

A different thread reminded me of this unique for me and frustrating but enlightening experience.

This war of mine is a survival game where you have to manage food, building equipment, scavenging, security, stealth, possibly weapons and the morale of your companions for an unknown period of time until the siege is lifted. The art is beautiful but simple. The pace is slow. The emotions are profound. At the end of the game there are different stories for how your companions lives progress depending on how well or poorly you handled the circumstances of the game. It is very easy to die.

It is the only war game I have seen where you are a civilian.

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

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.

I recently bought a banjo and have started the journey of learning how to play. It's my first instrument but I have been having a blast so far, which got me wondering — what have you all been playing recently? This is not a reoccurring post, but maybe it could be, so let's use this as a place to talk about music-making related things: what have you been practicing, what techniques are you stuck on, what have you been playing around with, etc? Feel free to share or ask for advice.

I typically listen to music and discover new music through YouTube, but the gradual creep of ads and the possibility of videos being deleted in the future has made me interested in building up a personal library of tracks on my own computer instead of streaming.

What do you use to manage your songs, and buy songs when you find ones you like?

My main computer runs Debian so I'd prefer Linux compatible options, but I'd be interested I hearing whatever other people use regardless.

Personally, I like to check the South Park Controversies Page every now and then.

The page on Quantum Entanglement is fascinating and has so many rabbit hole links that lead to other rabbit holes themselves. I still go back and re-read them here and there to improve my understanding and check for laymen's updates without all pop-science nonsense you encounter elsewhere.

I'll come back and post a few more when I can think of them!

Kinda curious how many furries we have on Tildes. Personally I just got started with sewing and plushie making so I can make custom plushies of peoples fursonas. It's going well so far but it's convinced me to drop an absolute fortune on an embroidery machine so I can make better looking eyes and paws x.x

This can be something you want to tell a specific person in your life, or something that you want to tell anyone but are unable to (for any reason).

Share it here instead.

Also, for everyone reading the things posted here, please be empathetic and understanding. Remember that the person posting knows their situation far better than we do.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

I’ve been getting back into guitar playing and trying to have more focused practice when I play each day. I wouldn't call myself a "beginner", but I don't think I'm near the "intermediate" stage yet. I know chords and power chords and can transition between them pretty easily. I've been working on figuring out CAGED shapes, but still really struggle with playing scales and "solo-ing"...partly because (1) I have tried exploring music theory and "learning the notes on the fretboard", but it hasn't clicked for me yet, and (2) my fret fingers feel sluggish and don’t seem to move across the fretboard with the ease that I seem to have when switching chords.

That said, I’m feeling pretty discouraged right now. Looking for some “pick me ups”, so to speak. And wanting to learn to play a few songs all the way through so I can feel more confident in my ability to actually play a song. But I don’t really want to get hung up on a difficult “solo” or a bunch of individual fretting stuff yet.

As I thought about making this post, I figured it might be useful to also ask about some "beginner tips" on how to best stay motivated to stick with learning, practicing, and playing the guitar. If I'm going to keep this up, I want to really invest in it and stick with the guitar. Here are some additional questions/thoughts to hopefully trigger a discussion.

Fellow guitarists:

• What has helped you in the past?
• What helped you get over the "discouraging" first steps of guitar playing and keep at it?
• What were some of the first songs you were able to learn to play all the way through?
• How did you learn the notes on the fretboard?
• How did you learn to play different chords all around the neck?
• What would you say to your younger self to help encourage them to continue pushing through the sticking points of guitar?
• What was the "key" to getting guitar playing to "click" in your brain?

Looking forward to seeing what advice fellow players can offer! Everyone's musical journey is different, and I am interested in learning how you learned to get to where you are now!

I don't have aphantasia - I can generally imagine things pretty vividly. I also don't have face blindness - I am perfectly able to recognize faces when I see them.

I just can't remember any faces. And I don't just mean someone I barely know or someone I haven't seen in a while. I can literally be looking at a person who I know really well, but as soon as I turn away, I immediately have zero clue about what they look like. I don't know what my parents look like, or my friends, or even myself. Everything else - the body, the hair - that I can picture just fine.

What's also interesting though is that I can imagine photos of people. So, for example, I have no idea what my face looks like and I can't imagine it, but if there is a photo of myself that I remember, then I can imagine that specific photo in great detail, including my face. But as soon as I change the photo in any way in my imagination, I stop seeing my face again. This also works with other people, not just me.

Does anyone else here experience that?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

How do people here keep up with upcoming niche games? Most of the blogs I've followed for this have been abandoned over time and I'm looking for new one(s). Ideally, I'm looking for something that:

• Supports RSS
• Highlights trailers or other creator-made pages showing off lesser-known games
• Focuses on the "hobby itch.io experiment" to "Annapurna / Devolver-published" segment of the Lo-Fi to AAA spectrum (nothing more AAA than that)
• Posts occasional reviews/interviews with games/creators (optionally)
• Has no/little focus on industry-insider news

I'm obviously biased towards "small-web" blogs or forums, but I'd love to hear about however you stay up to date with cool things creators are making!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?