Amarok's recent activity
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Comment on Venus Hum - Look (2020) in ~music
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Comment on Death in D&D 5e, the various revival spells, and their impact on the game in ~games.tabletop
Amarok (edited )Link ParentThey don't tend to follow the armor class into the high numbers that melee characters do - but they do often end up in personal combat, and I don't want them to be gimped by taking wounds at...They don't tend to follow the armor class into the high numbers that melee characters do - but they do often end up in personal combat, and I don't want them to be gimped by taking wounds at double the rate of a Fighter class. That makes players not want to engage, and Rogues are meant to engage. Giving them the dex bonus just makes them a little bit harder to injure in combat particularly at lower levels, which is when I think they need it the most. I chalk it up in RP to Rogues just knowing how to roll with a hit. I'd extend this to anyone using a light armor proficiency, not necessarily Rouge-specific. Barbarians in leather armor get it too.
One could let the Fighters add in their Strength mod on the basis of being able to push back against a hit, but this sends the Fighter class wound thresholds up too high too fast for my tastes. Very quickly it becomes too hard for most level-appropriate encounters to have creatures that can actually wound them. That's less of a problem at around 12th level when monsters are hitting harder.
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Comment on Death in D&D 5e, the various revival spells, and their impact on the game in ~games.tabletop
Amarok (edited )LinkSimple method I use is adding one level of exhaustion to the characters every time a cantrip pops them back up for another round of combat. I'll let them ditch one level of exhaustion earned in...Simple method I use is adding one level of exhaustion to the characters every time a cantrip pops them back up for another round of combat. I'll let them ditch one level of exhaustion earned in combat if they take a short rest immediately after the combat it was earned in, or if the character benefits from some non-cantrip healing magic or potions. The exhaustion stacks, with one level being removed with each full long rest afterwards, until they've scrubbed it all. I do the same with monsters and npcs of course.
Another way to handle it is with wounds, to borrow a mechanic from Earthdawn. This is more crunch but I find the way it changes how things work on the table to be a lot more interesting and tactical. You just have to calculate one new statistic for every character to use it.
You calculate a character's wound threshold (WT) as their hit die type (maximum) plus their Constitution modifier. I further buff Melee by letting them add their AC (each point above 10) and Rouges by adding their AC and Dexterity modifier. This makes deciding who wades into melee a lot more intriguing than the base system. Rouges do a lot better than they expect and tanks take the lead in being able to take a hit after a couple levels pass. Casters take it worst with a low number, makes self and party buffs a lot more important.
If you take more damage than your wound modifier in a single hit, you sustain a wound. I encourage determining the type/location on the fly (in the moment) and getting the players to roleplay the wounds for maximum cheese. The first one is free. Each wound after that is a cumulative -2 to all dice rolls. If you only take a 5' step that round, the penalty is halved, so you can trade your movement to halve the wound penalty. This keeps wounded characters from sprinting around and gives them an incentive to use other skills plus have some decent ranged attack gear.
Wounds remain until after a rest where the character is already fully healed up - you can't heal wounds if you are not already at full hit points. You can only heal one at a time with a full day's rest, not a long rest. Think bedridden or sitting in a rocking chair all day kind of rest. Wounds stick around, and are meant to stick around. They make the party worried to charge through ten battles in a row. You could also go with a simple long rest healing one wound if you want your games to be more forgiving, works well enough both ways.
I also make the Medicine skill a lot less useless by letting it bandage up and or stint/split those wounds, as long as you tie or beat the damage number that caused the wound with your skill check - and I will let players do a Take(20) on that skill check if they've got the time. Medicine can bandage up to two wounds per character (so you could theoretically ignore three wounds total).
Wounds keep the party nervous about what else is coming down that corridor in the distance. They complicate things immensely for high level players as well, because monsters that can easily do 20+ damage in a single hit are a lot more threatening. ;)
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Comment on Spotify, the world's biggest music streaming service, has announced it is working with major labels on using artificial intelligence in a "responsible" way in ~music
Amarok Link ParentI'll admit it's become hard even for music obsessives like me to tell. A track slipped by my internal AI detector just the other day, I shared it in this post. It's easy enough to tell that the...I'll admit it's become hard even for music obsessives like me to tell. A track slipped by my internal AI detector just the other day, I shared it in this post. It's easy enough to tell that the instrumentation is synthesized (which is true for most real artists who use digital production), but I was on my fourth repeat of it before my brain noticed that the vocals are also synthesized. It was tricking my 'soul detector' for lack of a better term. First time that has ever happened, and I don't like the implications of where this is heading at all.
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Comment on This site is fast in ~tildes
Amarok LinkYou guys missed the most important point here. ;) It's low-bandwidth. I tested it myself and it's in a class all its own on that front. That's where the speed comes from - well that and having a...You guys missed the most important point here. ;)
It's low-bandwidth. I tested it myself and it's in a class all its own on that front. That's where the speed comes from - well that and having a robust/simple backend database that can respond instantly. Tildes is so low-band that it even works when your cable internet is 'disabled' because you missed a bill - that's right, it functions slowly but well on their heartbeat-level 4kb/s internet connection. At 10kb/s it's fully performant. At traditional dialup modem speeds of 56kb/s to 256kb/s it's instant.
I think a web proxy in front of it that can cache pages and maintain a lot of really slow internet connections using extended tcp timeout settings would improve that further. Also a good place to hook-in a Tor node - it'll run like lightning on Tor unlike most everything else.
Compare this with reddit or twitter who shove 30MB of tracking scripts at you with every page refresh. They are forcing you to download and execute the software they use to invade your privacy. Small wonder their sites run like molasses.
In the event of a major power grid disruption or anything that damages and shuts down a lot of data centers, most of these internet sites will vanish overnight because they can't exist on an internet that's been knocked back to 1994-style bandwidth and intermittent connections. Tildes nodes will yawn and continue on as if nothing happened. I'm sure the entire Tildes backup fits on a small thumb drive with plenty of room to spare, moving servers is easy.
This software is old-school BBS-era DARPA-class internet survival software. Not that it was the goal, that's just what happens when good, efficient engineering is the goal. It's the most overlooked feature of this software. Anyone can use it to set up a bulletproof internet site. Taking the survivalist mentality to the next level would be adding some form of file hosting capability, so people can send files through the forum or maintain a directory of things to share. Not that we'd ever need that feature on this node but it'd be a nice feature for the ecosystem to have available.
Tie in a self-hosted torrent tracker and you're not far off from everyone in the streaming game being able to use a Tildes to replace Patreon and self-host all their own video content on their own sites. Bundle in some form of node-to-node association and then the mobile apps can find all the nodes and weave them together. Then you've outclassed all commercial websites, and most of the centralized control and tracking with it. Bots have a zillion times more work to do trying to infect all the nodes.
Tildes is dangerous software. It can get an awful lot more dangerous with a handful of serious code sprints in a rather short time frame, so remember to donate to the project! <3
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Comment on Financial collapse? in ~finance
Amarok LinkFelix Phren just covered this about an hour ago. He has the most rational and well informed investing channel on the entire internet, far as I can find anyway.Felix Phren just covered this about an hour ago. He has the most rational and well informed investing channel on the entire internet, far as I can find anyway.
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Comment on Mr. Silver Grey - Risk It, Honey (2025) in ~music
Amarok LinkWell, it finally happened. AI has learned to sing the blues well enough that it got past my spider senses. Seriously tempted to put this into #13.Well, it finally happened. AI has learned to sing the blues well enough that it got past my spider senses. Seriously tempted to put this into #13.
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Mr. Silver Grey - Risk It, Honey (2025)
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Comment on Announcing the seventh annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
Amarok Link ParentI think the real fun is going to be in the upcoming bestofs. I file away an awful lot more albums than I use in the mixtapes, often just because they are off-topic for the current project. The...I think the real fun is going to be in the upcoming bestofs. I file away an awful lot more albums than I use in the mixtapes, often just because they are off-topic for the current project. The playlists on my spotify profile titled '20xx Maybe' are the albums that pinged me as being above average in musicianship and in the number of good tracks present. They are split by year but contain all sorts of genres. I'd normally go through them and trim out about 30% of them for the must-listens but it may be better to leave them like they are and let people do their own cratedigging because my tastes aren't the same as other people. At the least I can promise zero AI slop, just 100% real artists who have talent and at least a handful of hits (to my tastes) to recommend them.
What's missing is ten more people like me who have totally different tastes but the same sort of standards, so that we can cover more stylistic ground and a much larger number of genres. When we pool all of that together, this is what happens. I'm ready to pick up with 2018 where listentothis left off and bring it right up to 2025, but it'll be much better if everyone on tildes throws in all of their own best finds from those years to cover more ground. I might take that up after the Timasomo is done, modern AI tools should be able to take an awful lot of work out of the process of making playlists and those massive album-filled link posts. There must be a way to automate most of it by now.
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Comment on Denmark airport closed due to drones, two days after incursions in Copenhagen and Oslo in ~society
Amarok Link ParentI think we need a bigger drone that's really fast, shorter range, and carries a very large net. Just bag the enemy drone and fly it back to wherever you like. The net would be able to compromise...I think we need a bigger drone that's really fast, shorter range, and carries a very large net. Just bag the enemy drone and fly it back to wherever you like. The net would be able to compromise the propulsion systems almost immediately be it a jet or propeller. It'd lodge in there nice and tight, like hooking a fish.
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Comment on Denmark airport closed due to drones, two days after incursions in Copenhagen and Oslo in ~society
Amarok LinkI'm just wondering how long it'll take before NATO wises up and shoots down each and every unidentified drone immediately upon detection, no exceptions, no excuses, and no apologies. It's just...I'm just wondering how long it'll take before NATO wises up and shoots down each and every unidentified drone immediately upon detection, no exceptions, no excuses, and no apologies. It's just ridiculous in my view to put up with it at all - there are no lives lost taking out these drones, assuming you down them over a field instead of into someone's roof.
Russia always pushes everything, the only thing they respect is strength. The more NATO puts up with it, the more they embolden Putin, and he's getting really, really desperate right now since Russia's economy has flatlined and Ukraine is punishing them more and more brutally every single day. This situation is going to come to a head soon, and Russia won't even put up as much of a fight as Iraq did during desert storm if NATO decides to reclaim Ukraine and Crimea. Their troop numbers count for nothing at all and they've been reduced to rusty equipment from the 60s and mules or horses for transport. It's bad.
They could just as easily take out Moscow in a matter of weeks - the nukes are the only thing holding them at bay. NATO has overwhelming technological hardware and air superiority even without the US helping. Ukraine did catastrophic damage to Russia's nuclear command and control systems earlier this week, which is why things are heating up. Just yesterday, Ukraine took out more of the Black Sea fleet and most of the ports used for oil shipping. Russia has already lost this war and they know it. That makes them more dangerous and reckless than ever - I'll wager Putin is a very sore loser.
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Comment on Announcing the seventh annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
Amarok Link ParentI have what you might call a debilitating addiction to music - always on, at work, at home, in the car, so every day is hours of listening, since around 1994. My headphones are as always-on as my...I have what you might call a debilitating addiction to music - always on, at work, at home, in the car, so every day is hours of listening, since around 1994. My headphones are as always-on as my eyeglasses. At this point I'm so far past caring about genre it's almost comical, they are all great genres in my book, it's the best tracks I'm after. I'm like a psycho apache scalper who will raid an artist, burn through their entire discography, and walk away with three tracks impaled on a pike to put in my playlists. Almost always that's upbeat or positive in some way, I don't have much patience for dull harmony or trite lyrics anymore.
Since I'm always filling up playlists with my favorites I have a lot of them, and I group them impulsively by moods, or eras, or styles. Eventually when the playlists are pushing past ten hours I jump in and look for whatever story the tracks are already telling. I don't pick the themes, those just emerge from the collections of tracks and I stitch them together so that the lyrics all read like a single perfect letter. Then I listen to them about a hundred times before they are finished (yes, some of those I've spun for 300+ hours each already while making them). The tracks that wear out get cut, and once I know the theme I'm hunting new ones always pop out of the usual cratedigging at me and I file them into the appropriate mixtape. I suppose you could say these mixtapes make themselves, and I was just listening.
It's more fun and challenging than a jigsaw puzzle, I guess. I make these for my own infinite repeat enjoyment and they always take me back to when I was making them, like a photograph. Plus I get to share them which is always a lot of fun. I'll probably keep making them until I'm in the ground. It's just how I listen now. Might have something to do with modding /r/listentothis for ten years and listening to that non-stop while doing it, got me into the habit.
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Comment on Announcing the seventh annual Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo)! in ~tildes
Amarok (edited )LinkI'm in for finally finishing up what I started during Timasomo 2022. It's changed around a bit but it's still the same project - the world's first ever and only mixtape royal flush. Five...I'm in for finally finishing up what I started during Timasomo 2022. It's changed around a bit but it's still the same project - the world's first ever and only mixtape royal flush. Five multi-hour multi-genre music sets of new music (that sounds vintage) with almost no repeating artists and not one single track that isn't a perfect ten out of ten infinite repeat banger. There's a bestof 2020-2025 in there too once the tapes are done for sharing on ~music.
I reactivated my mixcloud account about a week ago and uploaded the final cuts of #9 and #10, they are both perfect. I've been working on #11 all this week and it's getting close - alternating male/female artists each track is an interesting challenge that takes more time. I finished #12 a little while ago, and #13 is a short but pretty solid draft. I want to get them done and all posted to mixcloud by end of october just so I can take a break from the mixtapes for a bit and get back to hunting new artists... my spotify release radar alone is at 3800 tracks of backlog right now and it needs a good spring cleaning.
Short summary of the mixes...
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SV09 - Anthem : This one sounds like a 90s/instagramcore hybrid, is a mixtape about making mixtapes, and lyrically doubles as a quarter life crisis manual. Ideal format is a Maxell 120 minute tape, it's two hours, 37 tracks, 41 artists, mostly pure punk-pop adrenaline with some emerald city vibes to wrap it up.
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SV10 ~ vs The Internet : This started as an idea for a Tildes themed mixtape and evolved into something any streamer or content creator will be able to appreciate since it lyrically represents their career path. It's a critique of the internet and spells out the solution. Target format is 4 LP Vinyl records packed to the seams, 40 tracks, 53 artists, and it's retrowave / funk / synthpop / darkwave / folktronica with a couple other spices mixed in. I am head over heels in love with how well this one came together. You'll have to make it past the devil (literally) to find the light.
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SV11 - Cut the Light : This one's not fully cooked yet but I'm happy with the first 20 tracks and still putting the story together for the finish... need to scare up some more duets. It's a 1980s-sound ultimate breakup and get back together mixtape. I may as well do something with all the love songs I find cratedigging. At this point it's mostly about the order of the tracks and which ones I cut from the set to get it down to 3 hours. Probably another 4LP Vinyl but I might cut it to 120 minutes, haven't decided. No cover yet, but I know it needs to feature a couple with their backs turned on each other that are silhouettes, I'm not putting up with race-based comments about the cover.
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SV12 - The Message : If there's a mixtape that's going to get me in trouble, this is it. The final word on the culture war... with a Tarantino styled (but heavier) mixtape of 1970s sounding soul, psych, and punk that eviscerates Hollywood without mercy. It should be (and probably is) illegal to have this much fun making a mixtape, this is probably the best one I'll ever manage. This is another 4 LP Vinyl set, 48 tracks / 56 artists and it's completely finished. I just haven't posted it to mixcloud yet since one can't re-order one's submissions, so once #11 is done this goes up right after.
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SV13 - #church : This is /r/boneyard (proto-metal) material that sounds like 1970s metal / hard rock. It's also the cure for depression because that's what the heavy stuff is the best for. Trouble is this is only 88 minutes and it feels like I can take it much, much further. Every track has to feature gospel vibes and/or at least a mention of god, devil, sin, etc to be on topic - but no 'christian' artists because they almost universally put me to sleep. :P This one needs the most work, but there's acres of good stuff I haven't gotten to yet to harvest, these genres are very active with new releases right now.
That 'Scag's Bones' mix I mentioned for Timasomo 2022 is slotted in at #14 now, and it's about reconnecting old friendships. Probably going to be the most sublime chilled out mix I ever make, almost the spiritual opposite of this set which all go pretty hard. That's not part of the Timasomo goal though, but it's still cooking.
So, three down, two to go. I think I can get there and have all five up on mixcloud by the end of timasomo. The best part that I don't tell anyone is that this is all one massive mixtape (in order) and the cure for ten second attention spans. It's already better than any /r/listentothis bestof. ;)
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Comment on Massive Attack remove music from Spotify to protest against CEO Daniel Ek's investment in AI military in ~music
Amarok LinkThey aren't the only one - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (and side projects like The Murlocs) removed their music for the same reason some time ago. Also Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof. The upshot:...They aren't the only one - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (and side projects like The Murlocs) removed their music for the same reason some time ago. Also Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof.
The upshot: Absolutely no one cares and nothing will change. I worry more about the fake bands and AI slop the platform shovels at listeners to avoid having to pay royalties than I do about drone warfare. Spotify's problems are myriad and all self-inflicted. They continually change artist agreements to grant themselves more rights for example so they can allow users to make their own mashups of artist's music. They do not respect artists at all, and never have. Not like there's any streaming platform that does.
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
Amarok LinkI just reactivated my Mixcloud account, since it is the last place left on the entire internet where one can upload music under the radio streaming license rules. That means anything goes and...I just reactivated my Mixcloud account, since it is the last place left on the entire internet where one can upload music under the radio streaming license rules. That means anything goes and there are no takedowns. Sounds Vintage #9 and #10 are finally, officially, done at last and uploaded in glorious .flac quality with proper editing as of this morning. If you are short on long, multi-genre cartwheels filled with Keter-class earworms that beat anything the radio has seen in two decades, you're in luck. Still need to get #11 done and rework #13 up to the 2h56min (4xVinyl) format, and then the mixtape royal flush is complete. I was thinking about making separate posts for them but I think I've spammed people on Tildes with enough of my music already. ;)
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Comment on Reddit announces new limits on moderating large subreddits and for moderators to remove content sitewide in ~tech
Amarok LinkTranslation: We don't want anyone to notice our plummeting levels of engagement and user retention, so we're going to obfuscate it to the point where nobody can tell what's going on anymore. Oh,...Translation: We don't want anyone to notice our plummeting levels of engagement and user retention, so we're going to obfuscate it to the point where nobody can tell what's going on anymore. Oh, and we don't have the time/energy to manage our own website effectively, so we're just going to let any rando mod delete everything site-wide instead to save time and keep legal happy. Oh, and powermods that hold a lot of real estate on the site still represent a threat to us, so we're nerfing the guys who do most of the real work. Again.
I sense another Tildes invite wave approaching.
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Comment on WOOZE - I'll Have What She's Having (2019) in ~music
Amarok (edited )LinkGary Numan meets DEVO? Hell yes, more please! Just on Spotify - that 2025 release is so slept-on it's criminal.Gary Numan meets DEVO? Hell yes, more please!
Just on Spotify - that 2025 release is so slept-on it's criminal.
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WOOZE - I'll Have What She's Having (2019)
6 votes -
Comment on Greek-American musician George Smaragdis dies tragically in Manhattan in ~music
Amarok Link ParentNow that sounds like an exceptional idea for a mashup track. I'm dedicating one of my better ear movies to him, his tracks put the idea for it in my head and it wouldn't work without them.Now that sounds like an exceptional idea for a mashup track. I'm dedicating one of my better ear movies to him, his tracks put the idea for it in my head and it wouldn't work without them.
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Comment on Venus Hum - Look (2020) in ~music
Amarok Link ParentTheir 2021 album Kindness Rages On is the most recent LP. For my money it's the best yet, due to Kip and Tony having cleaner production that isn't fuzzing out Annette's voice as much as older...Their 2021 album Kindness Rages On is the most recent LP. For my money it's the best yet, due to Kip and Tony having cleaner production that isn't fuzzing out Annette's voice as much as older albums. She's just framed better. Nothing since 2023 except one single in 2024. Not much in the way of social media presence. That's not unusual for them though, they've always been more of an underground group.
BMG still lives in Vegas and they pop out for a tour every couple of years, always with a new show. Seen them twice and enjoyed both shows immensely. Will see them again if I get the opportunity. :)
New Venus Hum track dropped recently - I sense a new album coming within a year. ;)