V17's recent activity
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Comment on Which covers did it better than (or put a fresh twist on) the original? in ~music
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Comment on “60s lounge” and Laufey in ~music
V17 LinkCan't believe nobody has listed the ultimate source of lounge music, the ULTRA LOUNGE collection, which is something like 25 CDs of lounge sorted by various subgenres and themes. It used to be...Can't believe nobody has listed the ultimate source of lounge music, the ULTRA LOUNGE collection, which is something like 25 CDs of lounge sorted by various subgenres and themes. It used to be hard to get, but these days most or possibly all of them are on Spotify.
A lot of lounge is kind of silly, fun music, less serious than what you posted, but you should still be able to find interesting interprets and pursue their other releases outside of Ultra Lounge.
I love lounge music, but I'm focused more on the sillier, livelier and jazzier kinds, so I can't give you any interprets off the top of my head apart from maybe Julie London who was already mentioned.
But do try some of the other Lounge styles, maybe you'll like them too.
A Lot Of Livin To Do by Nancy Wilson has great energy.
Gopher Mambo by Yma Sumac is one of my favorite songs because it's just so fun.Oh, and also try Samara Joy who's more of a classic jazz singer, but she's so incredible she will for sure be viewed as one of the greats along some of the very best jazz/lounge singers, and she's just 26 years old.
Finally, I think this is a good place to plug the band I play in, Perfect Time. Unfortunately a lot of lounge music needs a big band, but we try to make functional arrangements where possible and we do have two great loungy songs recorded on video - Le Paradis Pour Toi from 1960 and Aruanda from 1963. More music to arrive on the channel soonish, though not exactly this style.
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Comment on METRO 2039 | Official reveal trailer in ~games
V17 (edited )Link ParentMetro 2033 game is great and considered by some to be the best of the three. It was quite demanding on hardware when it came out, but it is pretty old now, so give it a try. I think the Redux...Metro 2033 game is great and considered by some to be the best of the three. It was quite demanding on hardware when it came out, but it is pretty old now, so give it a try. I think the Redux version may actually be better optimized, but I don't remember for sure.
Regarding the books, I think there Metro 2033 is considered to be the best pretty universally. Each of the sequels has a different vibe and a different kind of story. The first book is the only one that could be cut down and adapted into a game relatively directly, being one person's journey of discovering the Metro, though the game has much more shooting.
The second one is a tragic story where it's obvious Glukhovsky had an overarching concept that he built the entire book around, but in my opinion the result just doesn't work that well and the book suffers from him insisting on sticking to the concept.
The third one is again a story of discovering and learning about the metro. But compared to the first one it's bleak and depressing. It's a transparent metaphor for Glukhovsky saying that the entire current day Russian establishment and parts of culture/social attittudes should be burned to the ground, pissed on, the earth salted and the only thing to do is just to leave somewhere far away and start over. Which is a sentiment I identify with, but it's not exactly hopeful. After I finished the book I had to go check - surely he doesn't live in Russia anymore, releasing a book like this? No, he doesn't.
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Comment on METRO 2039 | Official reveal trailer in ~games
V17 LinkI appreciate that they showed actual in-engine footage at the end, but overall this gets a profound meh from me. I'm definitely a fan of Metro 2033, I enjoyed Last Light, but Exodus was a...I appreciate that they showed actual in-engine footage at the end, but overall this gets a profound meh from me. I'm definitely a fan of Metro 2033, I enjoyed Last Light, but Exodus was a disappointment and I suspect this will be similar.
One thing I hated about Exodus was how it insisted on being "cinematic", specifically in two ways. Firstly super long cutscenes, 5+ minutes long, but with bad voiceacting, bad voiceline timing, and animations and sets that really tried to look like a movie and in some ways did look great, but in others very much didn't, and the result for me was that my brain stopped seeing the cutscenes as a technologically and budget limited videogame where I easily suspend disbelief and let fantasy take over, and started seeing them as attempts at an actual movie. And as an actual movie they're not quite on The Room level, but they're way below an average B grade flick.
Secondly the game insisted on taking control away from me for cheap little cutscenes like unavoidable monster ambushes all the time. And even if it wasn't a monster ambush but something less time critical, it also unnecessarily pushed me to look at the important thing as if I'm too dumb to notice (which also happened in those long cutscenes, where it was perhaps even more annoying, it's like taking the worst from static video cutscenes and in-game events). It's like the opposite of Half Life.
Looks like Metro 2039 is sadly still firmly in this genre.
Another thing I thought was weak in Exodus was antagonist variety. There were like 3 different but really not much different types of cultist groups. Here it seems like we get nazis, which, on one hand I appreciate the absolute bleakness in which they were described in the 2035 book and it seems like some of it may have spilled here, but on the other hand this is again not exactly original. But they can still be great with good writing, it's just that after the cultists in Exodus I'm not very optimistic. The monsters looked good though, if we could get something like the dark ones again, something more than just dumb aggressive beasts, I'd take it. I loved even just the masked enemies in Caspian that looked like semi-invisible statues until you came close enough.
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Comment on A.T.L.A.S: outperform Claude Sonnet with a 14B local model and RTX 5060 Ti in ~tech
V17 Link ParentI just used openrouter.ai because it's simple, it allowed me to test all the models before finding one that's good enough and while obviously they need to have an overhead cost to be sustainable...I just used openrouter.ai because it's simple, it allowed me to test all the models before finding one that's good enough and while obviously they need to have an overhead cost to be sustainable it seemed low enough to be inconsequential for me.
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Comment on A.T.L.A.S: outperform Claude Sonnet with a 14B local model and RTX 5060 Ti in ~tech
V17 LinkRunning locally is great for privacy, but also if this is that good, then even renting it through buying credits for some datacenter provider could be awesome, because the price per task is about...Running locally is great for privacy, but also if this is that good, then even renting it through buying credits for some datacenter provider could be awesome, because the price per task is about 10x lower than the big providers like GPT or Claude.
Ever since I needed a visual-language model for OCR for a hobby project and found out that I can OCR 9000 webcomics for about 2.50 USD because even the biggest QWEN model ran through an independent provider is that much cheaper than ChatGPT and for this task just as good, I've been quite excited about similar models.
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Comment on Britain mandates heat pumps and solar panels in new homes from 2028 in ~enviro
V17 Link ParentI think it's two reasons. First is that individual solar still costs a lot to purchase and install and efficiency varies a lot based on the amounts of sunlight you get (trees, landscape or taller...I think it's two reasons. First is that individual solar still costs a lot to purchase and install and efficiency varies a lot based on the amounts of sunlight you get (trees, landscape or taller buildings nearby) - centralized solar in appropriate locations is cheaper than individual rooftop solar.
Second is energy storage. Solar is incredibly cheap as a supplement, but it sucks as a main source because it's not constant, it's dependent on things we cannot influence, while the energy grid needs to be reliable and stable. And energy storage is an unsolved issue. Even just storing energy in batteries overnight almost doubles the cost per kWh (which is still a competitive price), seasonal storage during winter (lowest output + peak energy demand) is just completely financially unviable. Hydroelectric dams are much better for storage, but viable locations are limited. Currently countries with a lot of solar/wind energy production like Germany partially solve this issue by importing energy from other countries (they're the biggest importer in Europe), but that only works because not everyone has such a high proportion of non-firm sources.
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Comment on Seth MacFarlane teases new life for ‘The Orville’: “Season 4 is written” in ~tv
V17 Link ParentHe didn't just say that it's written, he said that it is happening and it's just a matter of when. We'll only know for sure once (if) they start shooting, but surely that means something.He didn't just say that it's written, he said that it is happening and it's just a matter of when. We'll only know for sure once (if) they start shooting, but surely that means something.
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Comment on Seth MacFarlane teases new life for ‘The Orville’: “Season 4 is written” in ~tv
V17 Link ParentI thought S3 was good, perhaps not as good as S2, but much better than S1. I think it's crazy that they wrote an episode about an alien kid (de)transitioning well enough that I don't recall any...I thought S3 was good, perhaps not as good as S2, but much better than S1. I think it's crazy that they wrote an episode about an alien kid (de)transitioning well enough that I don't recall any culture war drama about it, for example. I definitely agree that as a whole it's closer to Voyager than to the holy trinity, but I'm entirely content with that.
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Comment on 'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' to end with Season 2 in ~tv
V17 Link ParentThis is hard to judge objectively because we have the benefit of seeing the whole of TNG (or DS9 or Voyager) in retrospect and we don't see into the internal decisions to keep going or cancel...Ending a show after two seasons, well really after one, is kind of everything wrong with modern TV. I love TNG, but the first season was pretty mid. In today's world that show gets cancelled too. A show needing to be a hit in the first season with only 8-10 episodes almost guarantees failure and is not in Star Trek's favour in my opinion.
This is hard to judge objectively because we have the benefit of seeing the whole of TNG (or DS9 or Voyager) in retrospect and we don't see into the internal decisions to keep going or cancel shows (now or then), but from my point of view TNG and something like SFA just aren't the same thing.
TNG had some bad episodes at the beginning, Riker was kind of annoying before growing his beard and other characters weren't exactly settled yet either, but at the same time there were some brilliant episodes in the first season as well, the show clearly had lots of great ideas and there was a ton of interesting work already done even in things like set design - the bridge, the new computer interfaces, the visual language of the Enterprise as a whole.
All of those foundations were present in the first season and indicated the potential that TNG could reach if the characters and stories built upon those foundations settled successfully, and that was already realized in some of the excellent first season episodes. I don't see this kind of creative and no doubt hard earned foundations in most of the NuTrek shows. Maybe the execs would cancel the shows even if they were present, but from my point of view they aren't, so I don't see it as the same thing.
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Comment on 'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' to end with Season 2 in ~tv
V17 LinkWell that's a relief, for some time I thought that the tastes of Trek fans just completely degenerated. Perhaps the recently announced (though with no date yet) season 4 of The Orville will unite...Well that's a relief, for some time I thought that the tastes of Trek fans just completely degenerated. Perhaps the recently announced (though with no date yet) season 4 of The Orville will unite us again.
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Comment on Quentin Tarantino and Sylvester Stallone are teaming for a 1930s-set series filming in black and white with “1930s cameras” in ~tv
V17 Link ParentNot an expert, but I think it has something to do with the fact that some specifics of color recording and representation in film still cannot be recreated digitally because different films have...It is a bit interesting that the camera is really the only thing that people care about still being analog, like no one really cares about sound being captured digitally, the film being edited digitally.
Not an expert, but I think it has something to do with the fact that some specifics of color recording and representation in film still cannot be recreated digitally because different films have different sensitivity curves for individual color channels. Once a color spectrum passes through that "input filter", information is lost and a different curve response cannot be faithfully recreated. This is not the case with analog vs digital sound.
Doesn't mean that film curves are necessarily the best, but they're different and nice, and film also automatically does other things that can be recreated digitally (like dynamic compression), but have to be done by hand, so it gives a slightly more finished image, the way I understand it.
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Comment on Angine de Poitrine - Sarniezz (2026) in ~music
V17 LinkThe KEXP video seems to have become viral. I discovered them a couple days ago through instagram and today my friend excitedly sent me the same video. What I really like about them is that they...The KEXP video seems to have become viral. I discovered them a couple days ago through instagram and today my friend excitedly sent me the same video.
What I really like about them is that they feel like an old avantgarde rock band that just skipped a few decades and then kept developing the genre in a contemporary way. A big part of their music and their costumes really feels like it came from a golden era of The Residents or something, but it's distinctive enough to feel new. Sent the video to my dad, who enjoys that kind of music and he loved it.
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Comment on Almost a third of Gen Z men agree a wife should obey her husband in ~life.men
V17 Link ParentI only went through the data briefly (it's linked in the article) and I don't have more time right now, so maybe I misunderstood, but that is what it seemed like.I only went through the data briefly (it's linked in the article) and I don't have more time right now, so maybe I misunderstood, but that is what it seemed like.
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Comment on Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability in ~tech
V17 Link ParentOfftopic, just sharing it as good news: probably thanks to the spread of right to repair laws relatively easily repairable USB-C ports are already available. I don't know of any devices that use...Those ports and/or USB-C ports have historically (at least in my experience supporting them) been a common failure point through wear and tear in an office environment, that used to require entire motherboard replacement.
Offtopic, just sharing it as good news: probably thanks to the spread of right to repair laws relatively easily repairable USB-C ports are already available. I don't know of any devices that use them yet (haven't really looked though) and they're kind of expensive for now, but both is likely to change soon since adoption of similar stuff will likely be mandatory. So in time this too will hopefully be a thing of the past.
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Comment on Almost a third of Gen Z men agree a wife should obey her husband in ~life.men
V17 Link ParentNo, that is not what is surprising. What is surprising is the graphs showing that the younger you are, the more of those conservative sentiments you have in general, meaning boomers are by far the...I mean at the risk of being crass is it really that surprising? I feel like it's once a week we have some study that shows gen z men being more conservative and gen z women being more progressive.
No, that is not what is surprising. What is surprising is the graphs showing that the younger you are, the more of those conservative sentiments you have in general, meaning boomers are by far the most progressive generation, gen X less so and millenials are almost as conservative as gen Z.
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Comment on Almost a third of Gen Z men agree a wife should obey her husband in ~life.men
V17 Link ParentSeems like it. At least some of the data exludes "don't know/not stated", which could distort the results by a lot. It doesn't even need to be a true hardening of agree/disagree sentiments in this...Seems like it. At least some of the data exludes "don't know/not stated", which could distort the results by a lot. It doesn't even need to be a true hardening of agree/disagree sentiments in this young generation, it could just be that young people may tend to have stronger opinions in general.
On top of that most of the data was collected online and naturally includes more people from urban/well connected groups. This likely selects for more educated and liberal boomers specifically because 60-80 years old people with more conservative views and/or from rural areas are surely much less likely to respond to online polls.
Some of the groups are also really small. They don't weight the results based on population I think, which means that countries with few respondents have the same weight as countries with a lot of respondents, but the boomer groups may be tiny with a lot of noise in them.
And speaking from experience with similar polls done in the EU, there are sometimes issues with translation that create pretty big biases, for example in this case it could be "wife should always obey the husband" translated to something like "wife should always respect or follow the husband", which is far less extreme. I remember something like this happening with polls on attitudes towards ethnic minorities, the wording was different enough in different languages that it made some countries look nonsensically bad.
Only the first two points would directly lead to what we're seeing in the graphs, but I'm not convinced by the quality of the data in general.
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Comment on Almost a third of Gen Z men agree a wife should obey her husband in ~life.men
V17 (edited )Link ParentWith a carefully selected sample 23k people easily is a big enough sample. But it really seems strange that literally all the metrics are continually increasing from boomers to gen Z. edit:...With a carefully selected sample 23k people easily is a big enough sample. But it really seems strange that literally all the metrics are continually increasing from boomers to gen Z.
edit: looking at the data, it is not a carefully selected representative sample.
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Comment on The Lobster programming language in ~comp
V17 LinkOh, it's the guy who made Cube and Sauerbraten, and worked on the first Far Cry engine among other things. I was always a bit disappointed by the unfulfilled potential of Cube and Sauerbraten as...Oh, it's the guy who made Cube and Sauerbraten, and worked on the first Far Cry engine among other things. I was always a bit disappointed by the unfulfilled potential of Cube and Sauerbraten as actual games, but engine-wise they seemed brilliant - original and well thought out. That makes any claims he makes about this project trustworthy for me.
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Comment on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in Israeli and American joint strikes in ~society
V17 Link ParentLikely the most important update at this moment: Times of Israel now claims that Khamenei is confirmed dead. 1 2
I'm a fan of Richard Cheese, who does jazz covers of "inappropriate" music like various metal hits, lewd hiphop songs etc. Here's his cover of Creep by Radiohead and People = Shit by Slipknot, but the whole Sunny Side of the Moon album is excellent. Metal and jazz are two genres I've been listening to since I was about 7 years old, so naturally I love this. His style enhances the slight inherent silliness in metal that's trying to be super dark and heavy.
I'm also a big fan of Nomeansno who did a couple covers, my favorite and probably the most interesting and high effort one is Bitch's Brew, originally by Miles Davis.