albino_yak's recent activity

  1. Comment on What makes you chew fire? in ~talk

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    I don't participate much in book discussions much, except for looking out for recommendations (and whatever the opposite of recommendations is - warnings perhaps?), so this is my first time...

    I don't participate much in book discussions much, except for looking out for recommendations (and whatever the opposite of recommendations is - warnings perhaps?), so this is my first time hearing this interpretation. Anyway, I read NotW based on someone's recommendation and I totally didn't pick up on any of that unreliable narrator stuff and I just didn't get what people saw in it. It's all making sense now (the hype, anyway), and I think you might be on to something about why the third book hasn't materialized.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on What watch do you wear daily? in ~hobbies

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    I agree with absolutely everything you've said, and I had very similar criteria for picking a watch (I also ended up with a Timex). My only difference is that I didn't go for one with a sapphire...

    I agree with absolutely everything you've said, and I had very similar criteria for picking a watch (I also ended up with a Timex). My only difference is that I didn't go for one with a sapphire crystal - I haven't had too many scratched crystals in the past (or more accurately, by the time the crystal got scratched I'd managed to break the rest of the watch, too). Time will tell if this was a good decision for me...

    3 votes

  3. Comment on What watch do you wear daily? in ~hobbies

    albino_yak
    Link
    A Timex Midtown Chrono 40mm. I like watches (in a casual, not-willing-to-spend-money sort of way), but I'm clumsy, I'm forgetful, and (as previously mentioned) I don't want to spend a lot of money...

    A Timex Midtown Chrono 40mm. I like watches (in a casual, not-willing-to-spend-money sort of way), but I'm clumsy, I'm forgetful, and (as previously mentioned) I don't want to spend a lot of money on them. The Midtown is a quartz watch (so it's hard to break the movement and the only maintenance it requires is a battery change every few years), it's reasonably waterproof (50m, so I'm not going to kill it if I keep it on while I wash the dishes), it looks (in my opinion) pretty good, and it wasn't expensive (I got it on sale for about $85).

    I love the idea of a mechanical watch; my background is in mechanical engineering and I'm so fascinated by how they work I've bought a few movements and learned how to take them apart and put them back together. Some days it's great fun to get out my tweezers and tiny screwdrivers and poke away at them, but more often I just want a watch that works.

    For me, the criteria for picking it were:

    • I have to like how it looks - if I think it's ugly, I won't wear it and then what's the point?
    • It can't be too expensive - I've broken watches before (mostly by putting them in my pocket when I was washing the dishes or my kids, forgetting about them - the watches, not the kids - and putting them through the wash)
    • It needs to be waterproof - or else I'll put it in my pocket and it'll go through the wash
    • It needs to be quartz - I'm clumsy, I will bang it into stuff by accident or drop it or something, and if it was a mechanical watch I'd constantly be worrying "did that bump break it - is it still ticking?"
    3 votes

  4. Comment on Stability AI announces Stable Diffusion 3 (currently in the early preview stage) in ~tech

    albino_yak
    Link
    They aren't releasing many details, mostly just sample images highlighting that Stable Diffusion 3 might be better at generating images with text in them. I was a little off-put by the throwaway...

    They aren't releasing many details, mostly just sample images highlighting that Stable Diffusion 3 might be better at generating images with text in them.

    I was a little off-put by the throwaway line they gave to address the potential to abuse this model:

    Safety starts when we begin training our model and continues throughout the testing, evaluation, and deployment.

    This reads to me like they're paying lip service to safety and little more, but perhaps that's unfair. I'm curious to know what others think about this.

    6 votes

  6. Comment on New guitar - bit of a hiss on the G / B / high D strings? in ~music

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    More shielding won't hurt so go for it, but don't expect miracles. As others have mentioned, single coil pickups are inherently noisy. It's not surprising that holding you hand near the pickups...

    More shielding won't hurt so go for it, but don't expect miracles. As others have mentioned, single coil pickups are inherently noisy. It's not surprising that holding you hand near the pickups increases the noise you hear. I'm no electrical engineer, so I won't hazard a guess about whether your body is acting like an antenna or a waveguide or something, but it's not unusual and as long as it goes away when you touch the strings it isn't a reason for concern.

    Before you try shimming the neck or loctite-ing the bridge, try to identify the source of the buzz. If the buzz is only happening with open strings and not when you fret them higher up the neck, it's either an issue with the nut slots being cut too low (so the open strings rattle on the first fret) or the first fret being too high. If it's happening all along the neck, the issue if probably at the bridge.

    Jazzmasters have bolt-on necks, so you can unbolt it and shim it to your heart's content, but that will only change the angle of the neck relative to everything else. I'm not that familiar with Jazzmaster bridges, so that may well be the best way to adjust the height of the strings over the fretboard. If the nut is cut too low, though, it might not be feasible to ship the neck enough to fix the buzz.

    Careful with the loctite. I haven't heard of using that on guitar bridges before and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me because it will only help for metal to metal connections, and those connections are the ones that you want to be able to move so you can set the guitar up correctly.

    I did a little more reading about Jazzmasters and it seems like buzzing at the bridge is a common problem. People blame it on the low break angle at the bridge (the break angle is the angle that the strings make when they go over the bridge and slope down towards the tailpiece). The lower the break angle, the less force the strings exert on the saddles, so there's a greater chance of the strings and saddles moving in ways they weren't intended to and buzzing. There is an aftermarket accessory for Jazzmasters called a Buzz Stop which bolts onto the tailpiece and holds the strings down to increase the break angle. People seem to have mixed feelings about these, but the consensus (which seems reasonable to me) is: make sure your guitar is set up well before worrying about using accessories to fix what might just be setup problems.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    I missed that. I'll delete this post since the article I linked doesn't add anything new to the conversation.

    I missed that. I'll delete this post since the article I linked doesn't add anything new to the conversation.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech

    albino_yak
    Link
    The TL;DR is: Reddit sold the right to use it's content for training AI models to an undisclosed company for $60 million per year. It is implied that this company might be OpenAI, given similar...

    The TL;DR is: Reddit sold the right to use it's content for training AI models to an undisclosed company for $60 million per year. It is implied that this company might be OpenAI, given similar deals that they have been pursuing. The timing of this disclosure is significant, since Reddit is in the process of going public; it will likely increase Reddit's value to investors.

  9. Comment on New guitar - bit of a hiss on the G / B / high D strings? in ~music

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    A quick way to check for a bad ground wire connection is: plug in your guitar, set it down and don't touch it. Hear how much noise you're getting. Then touch the strings (don't play them, just...

    A quick way to check for a bad ground wire connection is: plug in your guitar, set it down and don't touch it. Hear how much noise you're getting. Then touch the strings (don't play them, just make contact with them). If there is no change in the amount of noise, you have a bad ground connection. With single coils, you should hear a big reduction in noise when you touch the strings.

    3 votes

  10. Comment on New guitar - bit of a hiss on the G / B / high D strings? in ~music

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    I agree that this sounds like fret buzz. Increasing the neck relief (loosening the truss rod) is definitely a good option, but before doing that I'd suggest trying to raise the bridge (or...

    I agree that this sounds like fret buzz. Increasing the neck relief (loosening the truss rod) is definitely a good option, but before doing that I'd suggest trying to raise the bridge (or preferably just the saddle of the affected string, but I'm not sure how do-able that is on a jazzmaster). I'd like to add, though, that if the buzz is limited to one note just leveling one spot on one fret isn't too hard, provided you take your time and don't overdo it and remove too much material.

    3 votes

  11. Comment on Does anyone else have posting anxiety? in ~tech

    albino_yak
    Link
    It's not just you, I'm also a chronic lurker. Just writing this comment was a struggle. I'm interested to hear if anyone has advice about overcoming posting anxiety because I would love to be more...

    It's not just you, I'm also a chronic lurker. Just writing this comment was a struggle. I'm interested to hear if anyone has advice about overcoming posting anxiety because I would love to be more active here and on other forums.

    28 votes

  12. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    albino_yak
    Link
    I just picked up Hogwarts Legacy and honestly, I'm a little disappointed. I just finished playing Witcher 3 (I'm a bit behind the times, I know) and I thought it might be nice to try an RPG set in...

    I just picked up Hogwarts Legacy and honestly, I'm a little disappointed. I just finished playing Witcher 3 (I'm a bit behind the times, I know) and I thought it might be nice to try an RPG set in a less depressing world. So I may well be doing HL a disservice because I'm holding it to the standard of Witcher 3, although both games are trying to achieve very different things. My two biggest criticisms of HL are:

    1. There appear to be no consequences to your decisions or actions so even though it is open-world, it feels a little like your character is on rails - your progression through the plot of the game feels inevitable. Perhaps this will change as I progress through the game, but I'm not too hopeful about that.
    2. The controls for PC feel incredibly awkward. Walking around and exploring isn't too bad, but for combat the controls feel like they were designed for a console then ported to PC without too much thought (which may well be the case). Take this as an example: movement is WASD, as usual, but casting specific spells uses the number keys 1-4. You definitely need one hand on your mouse during combat, so you can either cast spells or move, and switching between them quickly is hard. Then, if you want to block (which is very important) you have to press and hold the left ctrl button. So casting spells (i.e. attacking) then blocking mean moving your whole hand up then down on the keyboard. I've remapped a couple of things (including blocking) to extra mouse buttons, but it's still not great.

    I don't want to be too negative about this game, it is a lot of fun (if you like the Harry Potter stories). The art is appropriately whimsical, there is a clear effort to make characters stand out (which is a little hit or miss, but I appreciate it), and you can do enough customizing of your character and some other parts of the game to feel like this is your character, not a persona selected for you. Despite the key mapping issues, combat feels challenging enough to be fun and the way that spells interact make combos intuitive and satisfying (I hate games where combos are important but learning them feels like prepping for a particularly inscrutable exam - I'm looking at you, Bayonetta).

    An interesting choice that the designers made (and I suspect is an acknowledgement of the controversies surrounding J. K. Rowling), is that when you design a character you never explicitly assign them a gender. You pick an appearance from 20-ish presets (some male in appearance and some female), customize it, then select which dormitory you character will stay in (witches or wizards). The player character is always referred to by gender neutral pronouns. To me, this seems like an elegant way to handle character creation.

    I suppose that my main criticism of this game is that it's trying to achieve exactly what I wanted, but what I wanted is impossible: you can't have a cozy RPG. I think an RPG needs urgency and consequences and both those things detract from the feeling that the game is just a nice place to be.
    Without urgency, without the feeling that advancing the plot is important, following the plot becomes a drag. HL suffers from this a bit. The plot is fine, but finishing one quest in the main story don't motivate me to start the next. A couple of time so far, the game made me wait to start the next main quest (using level requirements or implied timers - characters are away and you can't start the quest till they get back) which really undermines the feeling that it's important to keep progressing.
    Without consequences, there's no motivation to care about the character. Everything will work out the way it's supposed to work out and the user has no more agency in the story than someone reading a novel does (not to say that you can't become emotionally invested in a novel, but then again novels never ask you to do fetch quests). But both these qualities of a game, which make you feel involved and motivated, push the game from cozy to intense. You want things to work out, and you feel like your choices will decide if they do work out, so you'd better choose right. Witcher 3 intentionally steered towards the intense side, giving you ethically difficult choices and decisions whose consequences reached far beyond the current part of the story. The upshot was an exciting and captivating game. Hogwarts Legacy chose the cozy route, with no real decisions and a story line which, though inflexible in it's content, will happily wait for you to get bored of flying on your broomstick. The result is a nice place to cast spells, but overall a forgettable experience.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on Taylor Swift does not exist in ~music

    albino_yak
    Link
    This article ticked me because I just bailed out half-way though reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" because I'd had enough of the author's self-aggrandizement and the way he...

    This article ticked me because I just bailed out half-way though reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" because I'd had enough of the author's self-aggrandizement and the way he treated the notes he took during a mental breakdown as some sort of received wisdom. Seeing that sort of narcissism lampooned here was a pleasant reminder that other people find it annoying too.

    I might be in the minority here, but I really enjoyed this brazen, throw-you-in-at-the-deep-end parody. It took me a good few paragraphs to be sure this was a parody and in those moments when I was trying to decide if this was intentionally funny or if the author was just a nutter I was forced to evaluate what I was reading more objectively than if he had announced at the top "this is a style parody of gonzo journalism". Of course, it helps that the author isn't a nutter (or at least this article is not sufficient evidence to conclude that he's nuts).

    9 votes

  14. Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music

    albino_yak
    Link
    I enjoy bands that don't take themselves too seriously, so the musical highlight of my week was coming across the band Mystic Prophecy's album Monuments Uncovered, where they perform old-school...

    I enjoy bands that don't take themselves too seriously, so the musical highlight of my week was coming across the band Mystic Prophecy's album Monuments Uncovered, where they perform old-school metal takes on hits from the 70's and 80's.
    Patti Smith's "Because the Night" reimagined as a hard rock ballad? Yes please!
    Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" with some real fire and aggression to it? Finally!
    CCR's "Proud Mary" replete with downtuned guitars? I got you fam.

    4 votes

  15. Comment on Would anyone be interested on a reading/reviewing exchange recurring thread? in ~creative

    albino_yak
    Link
    I love this idea! I had no idea that /r/DestructiveReaders existed (which is probably a good thing, since the comments here suggest it wouldn't live up to my expectations) but I've been on the...

    I love this idea! I had no idea that /r/DestructiveReaders existed (which is probably a good thing, since the comments here suggest it wouldn't live up to my expectations) but I've been on the lookout for a quality reading/reviewing exchange for some time. I'll be watching this thread closely in the hope that the recurring thread becomes a reality.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on What home network equipment do you use? in ~comp

    albino_yak
    Link
    Not my personal experience, but the other day I came across this (somewhat dated) deep dive into using Ubiquiti equipment for a thoroughly over-the-top home network setup:...

    Not my personal experience, but the other day I came across this (somewhat dated) deep dive into using Ubiquiti equipment for a thoroughly over-the-top home network setup: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/enterprise-wi-fi-at-home-part-two-reflecting-on-almost-three-years-with-pro-gear/

  17. Comment on Sergey Brin's airship gets US FAA clearance in ~transport

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    Capacity was my initial thought, too, but the article suggests that the maximum capacity of this airship is only 14 people. Now, that might just be the capacity of the gondola that their using...

    Capacity was my initial thought, too, but the article suggests that the maximum capacity of this airship is only 14 people. Now, that might just be the capacity of the gondola that their using (because this is a test vehicle and they don't need greater capacity), or they might be planning on scaling up the capacity in future designs (there's mention of another, even larger, airship in the works), but as it stands the design does not seem like a good fit for the use that Brin is interested in.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Sergey Brin's airship gets US FAA clearance in ~transport

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    I agree with you on both counts: it seems pretty cool, but it doesn't seem very practical. I'm particularly confused by the assertion that airships would be useful for humanitarian missions. In...

    I agree with you on both counts: it seems pretty cool, but it doesn't seem very practical. I'm particularly confused by the assertion that airships would be useful for humanitarian missions. In that capacity, I don't know what an airship offers that a helicopter can't do better and more cheaply.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food

    albino_yak
    Link Parent
    I like the idea of a herb-y negroni. It might be time to get out the bottle of Campari that's been gathering dust at the back of the shelf. How was the smokey version? I'd worry that smokey +...

    I like the idea of a herb-y negroni. It might be time to get out the bottle of Campari that's been gathering dust at the back of the shelf. How was the smokey version? I'd worry that smokey + bitter would come off tasking acrid.