"Song drafts" -- I'm not even sure if that's a thing but let's go with it.

I have an outline for a whole album and some bits and pieces written. Rather than sitting down and starting to record immediately, I'd like to start drafting out everything with MIDI or something to where I can play around with the sounds and also make notes of lyrics, chord shapes, etc. Bonus points if I can use something like Garage Band's drummer features so I don't have to worry so much about the percussion.

What's the best software or website to do something like this? I'm imagining something like Fruity Loops or Guitar Pro, where I can plug in some guitar, bass, etc. tabs and include drums and other instruments. I would prioritize ease of use and speed of composition, since these are just going to be temporary sketches.

Then, when I get the songs in a shape I am comfortable with, I will jump into the DAW and do the actual recordings.

An RPG book is a book containing the rules and setting for a tabletop RPG game. Like Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, Worlds Without Number, Star Trek Adventures, etc.

The fact that they are rarely in text format always puts me off reading RPG books. I don't want to diminish the importance of art, but importing printed RPG books is prohibitively expensive, and reading huge PDFs on a laptop is not a good experience for me.

I also find it unpleasant to navigate the complicated design of these books. They're distracting.

I have a 6.8" Kindle Paperwhite but reading RPG PDFs on it is awful. RPG books have lots of art and complicated layouts. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to make an RPG into text. I was seriously considering just copying the text and converting it to markdown myself (it doesn't need to be markdown, just something that I can convert into a format my Kindle understands) when I remembered chatGPT.

Copying the text and asking GPT to make it into markdown worked okay, but it missed the tables. Sending an image of a page worked pretty well, so I think AI is the way here. But I am not a GPT subscriber and I bet I'll hit a limit at some point. Also, instead of sending pages individually, I would prefer to send the PDF and get the result in text. Even if there were limitations (like only 10 pages in one go), it would be an improvement.

In any case, using chatGPT will be much better than doing it by hand. But is there an AI or other kind of PDF service that is better suited for that task, so I can reduce the amount of manual input?

I did a masters in data analytics, and then the niche I fell into in the working world was building dashboards, reports and spreadsheets of financial data for non-technical bureaucrats. Instead of ensuring data quality by technical means, my current company often just has me manually reviewing and checking financial data. This is pretty frustrating to me because I have no education in finance, and the things I miss or get wrong are so second nature to my boss that he doesn't even see them as something I should have been trained on. The only technologies I use are SQL server and excel. Any proactive steps I've made to automate processes has been discouraged as not worth the time.

I'm aware that most people spend years on tedious stuff before ever getting to work with more engaging technology, but honestly I'm starting to wonder if they've forgotten I'm not a finance guy. I want to move up in my career especially to escape my current role, but I'm feeling completely lost as to how. There's no obvious role in my company that could be a 'next rung of the ladder' to advance into, so there's nobody I can emulate to help chart a course. My boss had an unconventional path to his current role, and isn't really into manager stuff like career mentoring, so he's no help in that regard.

To anyone with experience in data science, what is the advancement supposed to look like? What are the key skills I should be developing? Am I being too averse to learning the subject matter of the data I'm working on? Any insight is appreciated!

This post will talk about piracy. I won't provide any links or direct instructions. That said, if a mod or admin thinks there is something inappropriate about talking about that stuff, feel free to mention this in the comments and I will remove any inappropriate details as soon as I can.

Like many Latin Americans, I am a long-term pirate. I have pirated stuff with floppy disks, with CD-ROMs, through IRC, FTP, Kazaa, Napster, Soulseek, websites, and torrent. I have also purchased several illegal media from street vendors. The whole idea of traditional piracy is to get the files I want for me to own, which is why I made a Plex server for myself.

Stremio is a challenge to all of this. It is much easier to setup than Plex and basically requires no maintenance. It is a program that allows me to stream video content from a variety of sources, legal or illegal. It took less than 30 minutes to set it up on my computer, and I know that it exists for both of my TVs. I am using it with the Torrentio addon.

Stremio changed my viewing habits much in the same way paid streaming services did. I am more spontaneous in my choices. I have watched Doctor Who from 2005, ER, Tiny Toons Adventures, Animaniacs, The Twighlight Zone (original), The Magicians, Blackadder, and Falling Skies (alien TV show with Noah Wyle!). Playback sometimes takes a little while to start, but went it does it rarely stutters, even on old or less popular shows. A paid debrid service should improve on that. I am now considering removing most of our extremely expensive paid streaming services and replacing them with Stremio. Money is tight and, when added up, they make quite a dent on our budget!

One bad thing about Stremio is that it is basically a leech. It does not seed the torrents. I am considering getting Real Debrid as it seemingly reduces the strain on torrents via caching.

Right now, my only concern with changing everything to Stremio is that my wife will probably dislike choosing between multiple sources for an episode, and some episodes come with bad subtitles. That would require minimal effort to solve, but might still be too much for her.

Anyway, I am very impressed by Stremio. It is so good, in fact, that I am half-jokingly worried about the police knocking on my door.

Just kidding, that doesn't happen around here.

I've decided to try fantasy bingo this year. The most obviously challenging category for me on the reddit list is the challenge to find a book I will enjoy featuring fiber or fabric crafting or artistry.

Does anyone have suggestions?

I have read and enjoyed Surrender None by Elizabeth Moon which fits but I want to read something new and save rereads for the end of the year if I get stuck. Surrender None fits at least two bingo categories as it is also a story about disrupting systems.

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'm looking for a handheld voice recorder that's as simple to use as possible for my dad. His memory is starting to fail and I'm wondering if this would help ease some tension that that is causing.

He has trouble with tech these days so unfortunately using an app on a phone isn't an option. The hurdle of getting the phone out and app open would be too much and that's assuming he remembers to use it and HOW to use it.

I'm hoping for a device that just has a button that can be pressed or held down for short voice notes. I'm picturing the device being able to be plugged into a computer for saving the audio recordings. It would also be a huge bonus if there is some automatic transcription functionality that makes the notes searchable, though I bet there's software for that that doesn't have to come with or be part of the voice recorder itself.

I can see lots of cheap options on Amazon but before I just start buying some to try I'm hoping someone here might have some experience in this area.

I really appreciate any insight anyone is able to give.

Anything goes: foods, software, products, bands, websites, appliances, movies, programming languages, travel destinations, etc.

The point of this topic is twofold:

1. To surface some interesting alternatives that could use more exposure.
2. To highlight some of the issues with the currently popular option(s).

Let us know your best “more people should know about this!” swaps, and sell us on why they’re better than the well-known option.

I've not bought a new router since 2010 because I try to physically wire everything in my house so it's pretty much my phone using Wifi.
However, I've found great use for my Steam Deck as a streaming platform on my TV using Moonlight and I'd like to get a new, good router to support it.
I think the Steam Deck can support Wifi 6, but I'd like a Wifi 7 router if possible so I can future proof the possibility of getting a new wireless VR headset too. Though I'm not 100% sold to the idea if there's good argument to just buy Wifi 6 today.

Long story short, I'm finding it really hard to choose what router to buy. There's so much "gamer" junk.
Reviews are all over the place too, site A will give a router a top recommend and site B will list off a huge range of cons.

Does anyone have any advice? I just want a good, reliable, high throughput router and I can't be bothered with the returns process to try and buy if possible.

Overheard in the Cooldown Room:

Piastri: "That's all the highlights? That's all that happened in that race?

Norris: "Nothing happened. I didn't think there was one overtake [laughs]."

Piastri: "For a race that felt like it was pretty flat out, nothing...nothing happened."

Haha, never change, Oscar. Never change.

I'm going to bed.

Next race:

Bahrain Grand Prix
Bahrain International Circuit
Sunday, April 13, 2025

Hello all, as the title implies, I will be attending my first ever large scale protest(USA based) in person.

I’m wondering if people have any advice of what to expect/do and how to stay safe ?

Thank you !

PS - was not sure where to post this.

Curious to know if we have a current morphometric based system that can detect with the same accuracy as DNA testing, if two people are related, without a priori knowledge that they are related, if that makes sense.

Meaning, if a system is fed 100 random photos of humans, but is not told "there are definitely related people in here" can it match it as accurately as a DNA test of those same humans' DNA samples?

So I am considering switching to a dumb phone. All I really need it to do is call and text. However, the texting part might be slightly tricky. I am fine learning how to text using a numpad, but being able to do group chats would be something I would want to keep. Using Google Messages as my texting app even on an older Samsung has worked to get effective group chat functionality, so being able to access the Google Play Store to download it would be beneficial. Other than that, I don't have any other tasks I need to do on my phone. Does anyone have any recommendations?

A list of requirements:

• Available in Canada
• Can handle group chats or can download and install Google Messages
• Ideally not too expensive