RheingoldRiver's recent activity

  1. Comment on How To Train Your Dragon | Official teaser trailer in ~movies

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    funny you say that because there's totally a Groundhog Day musical and honestly I'd be thrilled if the musical were re-adapted back into a movie, it has some truly amazing songs and the lyrics are...

    funny you say that because there's totally a Groundhog Day musical and honestly I'd be thrilled if the musical were re-adapted back into a movie, it has some truly amazing songs and the lyrics are hilarious all the way through

  2. Comment on How To Train Your Dragon | Official teaser trailer in ~movies

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    That would require them to include a bagpipe in their instrumentation, which.....somehow I doubt brass - fine woodwinds - fine percussion - need more soaring violins - ok but never with the melody...

    That would require them to include a bagpipe in their instrumentation, which.....somehow I doubt

    brass - fine
    woodwinds - fine
    percussion - need more
    soaring violins - ok but never with the melody
    bagpipe - never

    [that is representative of my belief of current movie composers' opinions, not my own opinions]

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Meta Quest 2 - For someone in a wheelchair in ~games

  4. Comment on Meta Quest 2 - For someone in a wheelchair in ~games

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    wait, these exist? are there good options? i want to do this

    think virtual escape game

    wait, these exist? are there good options? i want to do this

    3 votes

  5. Comment on How To Train Your Dragon | Official teaser trailer in ~movies

    RheingoldRiver
    Link
    but whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy also the changed mood of the music depresses me, the original is so good cos the music is fun and happy not...

    but whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

    also the changed mood of the music depresses me, the original is so good cos the music is fun and happy not traditional hollywood epic

    34 votes

  6. Comment on Graduating college, starting work, and being lonely in ~talk

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    If you are vaguely interested in some type of art, I highly recommend taking a class! A lot of people take art classes just to make friends, so it's a great way to just that

    If you are vaguely interested in some type of art, I highly recommend taking a class! A lot of people take art classes just to make friends, so it's a great way to just that

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Where does your username come from? (Following up on last year's thread) in ~tildes

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    You're welcome!! I've seen two live cycles before, and it depends a bit I think. In Chicago it was JUST the operas, and then in between you were on your own (which for me meant going to school...

    You're welcome!!

    I've seen two live cycles before, and it depends a bit I think. In Chicago it was JUST the operas, and then in between you were on your own (which for me meant going to school because I lived there and was in high school haha). Then because I loved it so much my dad bought us tickets to see Gotterdammerung in the 3rd cycle (we saw the first I think) but I had food poisoning so I didn't get to go LOL

    2nd cycle was in Seattle and that was DEFINITELY more festival-y. They had several lecture series and a trivia game (which I totally would've won but they didn't want to pick a kid to go onstage and compete and I'm so salty almost 20y later haha. Some of the lectures were really cool and some were really boring and obviously for people who knew NOTHING about the cycle (though I think for people who actually didn't know anything yet they would've been cool). So we were at the opera house almost constantly, it was super fun!!

    For Vienna next year I'm not sure what they're doing! But either way I'm super excited, I was just in Vienna last week and it's a lovely city, I'm very keen to go back regardless!

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Where does your username come from? (Following up on last year's thread) in ~tildes

    RheingoldRiver
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    You can watch it here it seems, broken up by acts. I linked to Das Rheingold/The Rhinegold (opera 1, only has 1 act total), but imo Act 1 of Walkure/Valkyrie is the best single act of the whole...
    1. You can watch it here it seems, broken up by acts. I linked to Das Rheingold/The Rhinegold (opera 1, only has 1 act total), but imo Act 1 of Walkure/Valkyrie is the best single act of the whole cycle, followed by act 1 Gotterdammerung, followed by Act 1 Siegfried, followed by Act 3 Siegfried......but this opinion changes frequently lol.
      • However, the only recording I ever listen to is the Solti recording.
      • Also, I have NO IDEA how you could get a hold of this anymore, it's literally a CDROM from the 90s or early 2000s but this is how I listened to it in high school incl libretto in both languages, full score or piano reduction (you could pick), annotated lietmotifs, and also some analysis on screen: The Ring Disc It uses the Solti recording (as should everyone). Looks like Internet Archive maybe has something.
    2. NEED? no, you can just enjoy the music. But, I did read the librettos multiple times before listening to a recording even and it helped to have a bit of an idea of who were Freya, Fricka, Wotan, Loge, Alberich, Fafner, etc. The recording I linked above has subtitles. I also listened to this lecture I believe, but again, been a while. Not sure if it was this or something else. Really teaches you the lietmotifs which is how you learn the story, the music tells the story more clearly than do the words.
    3. TBH if you can find a way to get the Ring Disc, that's ideal imo for your first several listens because it's the lietmotifs that you need to learn. Although maybe if you just want to experience it one single time, watching might be more enjoyable.

    And if you (or anyone) falls in love with the music, there's a Cycle (all 4 operas in a row) happening in Vienna in June next year and I'm planning to go!!

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Where does your username come from? (Following up on last year's thread) in ~tildes

    RheingoldRiver
    Link
    When I was about the age of picking my online identity I was obsessed with Wagner's Ring Cycle. It was literally the only music I listened to for about a year straight and sadly I don't have...

    When I was about the age of picking my online identity I was obsessed with Wagner's Ring Cycle. It was literally the only music I listened to for about a year straight and sadly I don't have metrics still but usually I listened to approx 2 operas a day so I think I listened to it well over 150 times all the way through. So it was no question that this inspire my online name. I didn't like Valkyrie nor the german Walkure so I figured Rheingold. Then needed a 2nd part to it which I debated for a while, decided on River cos (a) it's the gold of the River Rhein and (b) River Tam from Firefly

    Over the years I shifted from abbreviating as 'rhein' to abbreviating as 'river' and now im just 'river' to everyone!

    8 votes

  10. Comment on How self-driving cars will destroy cities in ~transport

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    The reason that I used SAD as an analogy is that no one expected that to have an effect and there was zero way to be prepared for this issue ahead of time. Sure maybe we can avoid some obvious...

    The reason that I used SAD as an analogy is that no one expected that to have an effect and there was zero way to be prepared for this issue ahead of time. Sure maybe we can avoid some obvious influences, but what if a prevalence of red cars turns out to slightly increase aggressive driving (this is a fake example to represent "some unknown unknown")

    3 votes

  11. Comment on How self-driving cars will destroy cities in ~transport

    RheingoldRiver
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    You are taking my point way too literally. What I am saying is: The moment a driverless car uses any type* of ML trained on human data, yes it will demonstrate behavior similar to its training...

    You are taking my point way too literally. What I am saying is: The moment a driverless car uses any type* of ML trained on human data, yes it will demonstrate behavior similar to its training set, even if that set includes instances of road rage.

  12. Comment on How self-driving cars will destroy cities in ~transport

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    hmm given LLMs experience SAD I'm not sure that I believe this

    Agreed in some ways: a driverless car doesn't get road rage

    hmm given LLMs experience SAD I'm not sure that I believe this

  13. Comment on What are some good YouTube channels/shows/series related to travel? in ~travel

    RheingoldRiver
    Link
    in case you haven't seen it linked from tildes yet, https://www.youtube.com/@jetlagthegame is pretty popular around here and it's amazing

    in case you haven't seen it linked from tildes yet, https://www.youtube.com/@jetlagthegame is pretty popular around here and it's amazing

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Tildes Book Club - Spring 2025 nomination thread - Books from minority or diverse or disadvantaged perspectives in ~books

    RheingoldRiver
    Link
    Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee is a cool standalone ft a nonbinary MC written by a trans man. It's set in a secondary world loosely based on South Korean culture and has a very cool magic...

    Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee is a cool standalone ft a nonbinary MC written by a trans man. It's set in a secondary world loosely based on South Korean culture and has a very cool magic system with colonial metaphors weaved through.

    tbh I kinda liked his Machineries of Empire a bit more, but that's a trilogy and this is a standalone so imo this is the better book club pick

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Tildes Book Club Discussion - Kindred by Octavia Butler in ~books

  16. Comment on Tildes Book Club Discussion - Kindred by Octavia Butler in ~books

    RheingoldRiver
    Link
    Oh no I'm in Vienna for the book I nominated!! I will write reactions next week when I am home :)

    Oh no I'm in Vienna for the book I nominated!! I will write reactions next week when I am home :)

    2 votes

  17. Comment on What is your favorite museum? in ~talk

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    I'm doing and/or did most of these things! Imperial Crypt wasn't on my list at all though, I'll keep it in mind - I have a conference for the next 3 days and then Friday I'm planning to go to a...

    I'm doing and/or did most of these things! Imperial Crypt wasn't on my list at all though, I'll keep it in mind - I have a conference for the next 3 days and then Friday I'm planning to go to a bunch of bookstores, and Sunday I'm spending the day playing escape rooms with friends who will be in the city, but I still need to fill Thursday and Saturday (i'm going to the Riding School on Thursday but I'm not exactly sure what I got a ticket for, if it's watching training or a tour or what)

    1 vote

  18. Comment on What is your favorite museum? in ~talk

    RheingoldRiver
    Link
    I'm in Vienna right now and I think that if I had more time here I could've spent a full hour JUST in the room displaying the Order of the Golden Fleece vestments at the treasury museum in the...

    I'm in Vienna right now and I think that if I had more time here I could've spent a full hour JUST in the room displaying the Order of the Golden Fleece vestments at the treasury museum in the Hoffburg.

    But I think my actual favorite museum doesn't exist anymore, it was the hologram museum in Chicago. I went there before cell phones existed and before I had a personal computer (though my family had one) and it was magical.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on Sony closes Concord studio and permanently shuts down the game in ~games

    RheingoldRiver
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I've got to run to the airport (to travel to a wiki conference heh) so just a couple brief thoughts: WMF operates wikipedia, and publishes MediaWiki as a side effect. Engineering for so-called...

    I've got to run to the airport (to travel to a wiki conference heh) so just a couple brief thoughts:

    • WMF operates wikipedia, and publishes MediaWiki as a side effect. Engineering for so-called "third-party" wikis is not a priority for them, never has been, and likely never will be. So if WP isn't using FR, FR dies
    • Originally typed out a long comment about wikipedia's moderation policies but I don't want to be negative. Wikipedia faces a HUGE and CONSTANT problem of special interest groups/people, children, confused people, etc, who are constantly making the site worse. The number of active moderators (not a real thing in mediawiki, that just means "power users who care a lot") and admins (actually an elevated rights group) on wikipedia is unparalleled almost anywhere, the only analogy I can think of is reddit mods (taken as a whole), but reddit mods have it easier imo. There is a cost to relying on this many people, which is that you're more or less at the whims of their collective mood as your "brand identity" towards any new editors.
    • The solution to a REALLY REALLY REALLY difficult problem is "ask people nicely to make an account" which to me doesn't seem that bad? You don't even need an email address. You can just make an account, make one edit, never save the password, and move on with your life. All you have to do basically is solve a captcha challenge.

  20. Comment on Sony closes Concord studio and permanently shuts down the game in ~games

    RheingoldRiver
    Link Parent
    haha so yeah a bit more context, and I'm going to let it go without saying that MediaWiki is the only acceptable wiki software, everything else is absolutely awful for anything beyond a tiny...

    haha so yeah a bit more context, and I'm going to let it go without saying that MediaWiki is the only acceptable wiki software, everything else is absolutely awful for anything beyond a tiny personal wiki that only 1 person will use ever (whoops, MW is still better, cos u may want to share it in 5 years)

    Now so that said MW has a number of problems, not the least of which is revision control.

    There's two main extensions that you can use for revision control as you are proposing, and I used one of them (FlaggedRevs) for much of my career, when I was the lead admin/manager/dev at Leaguepedia. The other one is called Approved Revs, and I had previewed that to see if we could get it to replace FR because FR is very server intensive, not well maintained and therefore a gigantic pain to deal with on MW version updates, and extremely hard to start using if you weren't using it from day 1; but AR has really bad UX and so far no one is interested enough in using it to fund development, which would IMO require basically a complete rebuild with a mindset of making it easier for reviewers.

    AR is available on wiki.gg if any wiki wants it, FR is not, because FR is just too big a nightmare to use for the good you get. I think we have maybe 2-3 wikis using AR but most don't because it's not a good extension.

    Now all of this is just tech problems, once you get past that you still have people problems. Any revision system is only as solid as the people doing the approving, and so your approver list has to be short enough that everyone is trusted, but long enough that if someone takes a break or quits without notice etc, other people can take over. And reviewing accurately is a LOT more important once there's a tool in place to review, because then the cultural assumption is "well if this was here it was reviewed" and not "well anyone can edit Wikipedia, I'm guessing that the Sears Tower isn't actually 70000 stories tall."

    Additionally, my experience has been that there's a very narrow band in which a wiki has enough contributions to warrant this and not so many that keeping up with approvals becomes impossible no matter how many reviewers you get because of the general 90/9/1% content creation rule, and that goes for wiki admins too, there'll be a spectrum of availability.

    And what do you do when you have FR/AR enabled and then the only admin is MIA for 3 months and you have 500 pending edits and no one on staff knows the first thing about this game? (Note, we have about 900 distinct language families of wiki atm, with over 1k if you include translations.)

    As for turning on anon contribs - tbh most wiki admins are very scared about "vandalism" and it's likely a lot fewer wikis would get made in the first place if we forced anon editing everywhere. It's a matter of effort, your willingness to create an account saves the wiki admins hours and hours and hours of cleaning up some kid's idea of a fun prank etc (or anxiety about having to do so even if it doesn't materialize on many wikis).

    I don't like having anon contributions open personally, even aside from vandalism it makes it super difficult to get in touch with, for example, a contributor who seems well-meaning but doesn't understand some convention and is messing up dozens and dozens of pages; with an account you can send a talk page notice, but as an anon there's nothing you can do.

    WMF is making some strides with temporary accounts which will mask IPs and possibly (?) enable browser notifications if you write on the talk page, I'm not sure yet, and that will go some way forward but it's just really hard to accept anon edits.

    3 votes