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What is something you want to gush/talk about but haven't had the chance/audience to?
As the title says! I recently got a fretless bass and it's super hard to intonate correctly since I'm used to the frets doing it for me. It's such a weird sound but it isn't bad. I'm learning a few songs on it already and it's funny to me that even if I switch to my fretted bass, that I still try to maintain proper intonation
This is kinda stupid,
but I'm proud of myself for confronting someone at work in a respectful manner about their use of the term faggot referring to someone they disliked. He took it well and said sorry. This is the first time I've done this, as I generally try to avoid confrontation.
Honestly kudos to that! Standing up for yourself is never stupid, and especially the way you did it. Mad props here. I hope this grows your self-confidence.
Fucking hell. Well done! It takes guts to confront someone about such indelicacy, especially in a work environment.
You deserve to be proud of yourself on this one.
Good job! I could never do something like that.
I turned an old laptop into a linux based file server. As someone with almost no linux knowledge I was quite proud of myself. Im now looking into learning more about linux and maybe one day I can rid myself of windows.
E: for future readers. It is now 5 months later and I have ridded myself on windows. Also apparently I should have said GNU/Linux.
I'll second that. Mint is there to kinda sidestep all the linux-fu and give you a simple, easy to use, rich desktop experience without the need to learn so much tech stuff. Mint is still Linux, so all that stuff is still there, and you can learn it at your own pace. It'll teach you.
Ill look into this!
You really don't need to know much about linux to get rid of windows. You could do it right now. What is stopping you?
I think we tend to forget that learning linux when you're only used to Windows/OSX isn't so easy for everyone.
"What's stopping people" is unfamiliarity, maybe lack specific applications, gaming isn't as good as windows (I stay up to date on this. Windows flat out is still better than Linux if your only concern is gaming), etc. Learning linux does not mean one has to immediately switch over.
Honestly laziness mostly. I have everything set up how I like on windows, and I am familiar with all its little oddities and how it works.
Also my unfamiliarity with the linux terminal, I will just need to learn it.
Then there is gaming and I do know about wine and proton.
Ill probably dual boot for a while as I gradually move over, then just use windows in a VM.
When I learned it in college (over a decade ago now), I dual booted for about a week, then just backed up the windows partition and formatted the whole hard drive. It was a struggle for a couple weeks, but I think immersive learning like that is the best way. When you have windows to fall back on, you'll be more likely to not figure out how to do something in Linux. Go for it.
I see your point. But i think im always going to have a windows partition around for those games that just wont work in wine / proton.
And maybe a couple bits of software i cant find linux equivalents of if there are any.
Another thing to look into!
I run the occasional VM within windows and it runs quite poorly. Would it run better on linux? Do I need to do some config changes?
This is me. It's been on my to do list forever and I just never seen to get to it. Windows working well enough for me as my home computer is really a glorified Netflix machine now. (My work is Linux and I do love that!)
Note that you'll need an officially-released browser (Chrome / Firefox) on Linux to use Netflix because of the DRM it uses; a version built from source won't work.
Thanks for the heads up!
Everyone is different, but what's your use case? I happen to prefer Linux; I can't use it well because I like my video games too much.
Depending on how you like to your computer, Linux could very well become your primary system.
Some advice:
Don't use Linux Mint; the devs have messed up on security alarmingly at points.
Manjaro is a really user-friendly distribution with a very full package manager and a Windows-like default desktop environment.
If you're really wanting to "learn" how to use the shell/terminal, immediately install "fish". I wouldn't recommend staying with it forever, but it gives you a bit of discovery you wouldn't have otherwise, which is always useful for learning.
TAB is the most useful key on your keyboard when in the shell; it's incredibly useful for when you don't have "fish" on you.
Gradually transition yourself onto Linux. A 50GB partition to dual boot off of will last you a really long time, and by the time it's full you'll probably be using Linux the majority of the time, anyway.
Noted. Thanks for the info. Ive got a small m.2 kicking around in an old (ish) laptop. Ill use it for linux. Storage space isnt an issue for me.
I'm going to go a different route of suggestion for Linux, and I'll suggest installing Fedora. Though this suggestion only applies if you want to learn Linux. If you want Windows-looking but not Microsoft then Mint is a great suggestion. I found that Mint does such a good job of making you not need to do things using Linux tools in the cli that you just never learn. I first played around with Mint, found I was basically just using an open-source windows 10 machine, and then for work had to start using Fedora. Within two weeks I felt like I had learned more in the months previously on Mint. That's just my experience though, and it only really applies if your goals are to learn Linux. If your goal is to get away from Windows then Mint is a great way to go (though I still prefer Fedora :) )
Honestly i just want to praise how NPR (which often pops up with pretty solid articles here on Tildes imho) gives us Europeans the choice to opt out of any and all cookies, trackers and whatever and just see each article in plain text with nothing else on it. It's commendable to say the least.
Speaking of, how do the Americans see NPR as a source of articles? Is it considered credible and well respected?
NPR is extremely credible, and highly respected by a large chunk of the population. They can be a bit... milquetoast when it comes to politicized subjects (very "both sides" about literally everything), but outside of that NPR is a national treasure.
Believe it or not the first time i actually got to know NPR was when i moved to Berlin.
While shifting through the radio stations one morning imagine my surprise when i heard some heavy American accent talking about many different topics with absolutely no news and music breaks in-between.
It was my go to for whenever i just wanted to drive without music up until some time ago.
I actually wonder if there might be an FM back in Italy as well even if honestly i doubt so, I'll have to look it up.
Glad to hear it's appreciated in the US as well.
Honestly I listen to a bit of their podcasts and I enjoy the work they do. They always seem to have really insightful and informed stuff. I just need to listen to it more often, as I'm a bit of a music junkie as well.
Radiolab ftw! Some of the best journalism in human history, on a wide range of topics.
Here is a pretty excellent review of different news source's bias.
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
Oh my god, i just opened the link while on the go and there's so much to take in!
I had no idea something like this even existed... I'll look into it later when i'll have some time on my hands, it looks like an extremely interesting website, thanks!
Ah the horseshoe strikes again... Good to shoe people who say it's not a real trend.
BTW, do you know anything about how those charts at constructed? Anything more than subjective analysis?
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/how-ad-fontes-ranks-news-sources/
Thanks for the link, I looked around the site and that's as far as I got, too.
So basically, yes - it's all subjective. At least they admit that it's just one person checking boxes on a scale and using some "proprietary algorithm"...
It would be nice to see something more systematic and rooted in statistics and psychology i.e. using basic machine learning classifiers based on the language being used in each article and news source.
NPR is pretty biased toward the left, even if they're not as blatant about it as Fox is about their bias the other way. They ran around panicking when Trump got elected and lost all sense and reason. I remember stopping listening to one of their podcasts because it became little more than handwringing about Trump.
I should note that I'm writing this from the perspective of someone so far left that Norway is about the only country I consider close to my political views.
Fox News viewers (such as my parents) SAY that NPR is biased towards the left, but I don't really see it. I just listened to David Green (I think it was Green) push pretty hard in Morning Edition's interview with Andy McCabe on that "lack of candor" stuff. I hear them interview Republican politicians all the time and they give them a chance to look good (or not) on their own merits. If anything, I would say they are biased against the left considering how little they covered Bernie Sanders in 2015/2016.
As I commented in response to acdw, it sounds like the podcasts I was listening to were a little less carefully scrutinized for bias than the flagships / written / other content. Again, thank you for clarifying, maybe I'll give them another look if the news as a whole stops making me depressed.
No, they're really not biased, except for in the way that the people who work there tend to be more liberal than average. They actually have a mandate not to be biased since they get federal funding.
Their podcasts might be different, considering they're more for entertainment, but I know for a fact a lot of care is taken so that the flagship shows (Morning Edition & All Things Considered) are neutral as possible.
I think after Trump got elected, they were surprised, but who wasn't?
Yeah, the podcasts are a bit different, but they still aren't exactly Pod Save America. It's a bunch of reporters (most right-leaning people don't study journalism) talking among themselves about politics. They try to analyze the different sides fairly, but when everyone is left-leaning, it might come across as a bit biased. But that is effectively an opinion and analysis show, so I think that you can't really get any better than NPR Politics when it comes to bias in that.
Right -- the thing I like about NPR is that they clearly delineate the news from the commentary. The anchors who read the headlines at the top of the hour do an excellent job keeping their voices neutral and just relaying the facts of the situation. Whenever there's commentary, the hosts make sure to tell you who the people are and where they're from, so you can figure out for yourself what their biases might be. Compare that to other news outlets (cough Fox, or Young Turks) that push their take on a situation as facts, which I'm not a fan of.
I only really listened to podcasts, so that certainly sounds like I was seeing something different than someone who consumes their other material. Thank you for the clarifications. :)
Sure thing! I'm sorry if I came off a little annoyed; I'd just woken up when I wrote my comment and I have an immediate blanching reaction to talk about NPR being biased -- because it's usually something like "NPR = Fox News." You didn't say that, so I apologize.
I made a similar comparison, though, and I don't think you have anything to apologize for. We've had a respectful discussion about things and I've learned that my perspective was incomplete. Thank you for that. :) Hope you've had some tea / coffee or something else to help you start your morning off right.
Thanks -- I have! A very good mix of mate and rooibos I get from a shop around me. I hope you have a wonderful day as well.
Mate and rooibos sounds curious. I'm switching between earl grey and chai myself. I'm indeed having a great day; was surprised to learn that my employer observes President's Day this year, so I got an unexpected day off. :D
I just refurbished, extended and upgraded my raspberry pi powered indoor gardening setup. I'm quite excited because I have installed extra insulation to help keep temperatures more controllable; significantly upgraded and hopefully sorted out the problems with the ventilation system; fixed and replaced the flooring and old/damaged reflective sheeting; added new lights and on top of all that - I have a new grow system to test out!
When I power everything up I'll rework the scripts that control everything and give the web interface a coat of fresh CSS - but there's a bit more wiring left to do before I get the computer up and going again.
If you need some help with the CSS, ping me. I have a few years of experience in the field. I'd be glad to assist.
That's very kind of you to offer, but I've got fifteen years of web dev work under my belt. I think I'll be OK. :)
Also the pi is powering up OK but currently not responding to pings which is rather worrying because it's a cable nightmare to reach it.... Fixing that is tomorrow's job!
It's for the better that my help isn't needed.
Best of luck with the Pi.
I am a idiot. Pi was fine. I'd plugged the network cable into the wrong port on the workshop's wifi bridge so it couldn't reach the rest of the network. Moved cable, sorted. Looks like one of my temperature sensors has either died or worked loose during all the kerfuffle, but if that's not fixable I had too many of them in the first place.
I would love to see pictures of that! It sounds awesome.
How big is it? Are you consuming a basement or just a table in a room? Is humidity or mold or dirt a problem?
I don't currently have any photos because it's not entirely finished yet - but I'll grab some when it's done. Footprint is 1.2x1.8m, 2.2m high. The height is a little extreme but it does give me lots of room to hang lights, ventilation ducts and so on. It's a fully enclosed, and now fully insulated, cupboard built into the corner of my workshop. It can grow six full-size chilli plants in one run - that gives me enough delicious spicy fruit for over a year's cooking! Or more smaller things - it's good for getting seedlings started before planting out later in the year, or doing fresh herbs in the winter. I currently have an aeroponic system which takes up about 2/3 of the space if I'm growing full size plants, the airpots are new.
Humidity is a problem - especially with aeroponics because there's a lot of water around - but I've rejigged the ventilation system and upgraded the fan so I can pull air in from the outside much more efficiently, and can hopefully vent it back out again before it condenses in the duct. Mould not so much of an issue, I think the intense light helps keep it under control.
I have never really been into outdoor gardening (although my wife is) but indoors with lots of tech I find it fun and relaxing. The Pi monitors temperature in a number of places, humidity, controls the lights, fans and heaters and generates lots of lovely graphs. At some point I might add more sensors and maybe a camera for timelapse. Possibly even an auto-watering system would be fun.
That's so cool, thanks for sharing!
I think I understand the indoor vs outdoor bit. The engineering and design elements are so cool. Who needs dirt or the sun when you've got such cool tools to play with.
Yeah, that's the thing - the plants are almost a side effect of creating and maintaining environmental control. When you can manipulate light, temperature, humidity, nutrient balance, oxygen availability[1] and so on, plants just happen. The fun bit is (a) building all the stuff in the first place and (b) tweaking and adjusting so it's all optimised. I enjoy preparing for growing stuff slightly more than actually growing stuff.
[1] once you have a lot of light available, which is super easy (sun or big lamps) the bottleneck on plant growth in a lot of growing systems, including soil, is O2 availability at the roots. Which is why aeroponics is so good - the roots sit in, effectively, wet air: so they can suck up as much O2 as they want. I think I'm currently bottlenecked on CO2 levels, which is a slightly trickier thing to deal with. But this is the fun bit!
Personally I have 3
I'm interviewing at a headshop next week and because of that I've been brushing up on my glass knowledge. It's honestly amazing to me how intricate and difficult of an art form it is, and the science behind it is 100x more complicated than I thought it was going to be. There's one specific form of glass art called murrine that I'm actually incredibly interested in learning how to make.
I'm a pet rat breeder, and it's the week that I start sending my 8 week old babies home. I have an adopter coming in an hour and I couldn't be more excited. I'm also always down to discuss animal ethics with ANYONE, it's a huge passion of mine, and I hope we get an ~animals subthread going soon on here.
I've recently started watching e-sports, and that's also something I want to talk with more people about. Specifically the ongoing Overwatch League. Who do you support, and why? How has your team been doing?
As much as I love posting animals for fluff, I would like to see a group based on what you mentioned more than just cute photos. I feel like those fluff photos tend to encourage bad husbandry methods more often than not, and it usually just makes me angry. I'm very very motivated to teach people about the best ways to keep their animals, and recognizing the pros and cons of the ways they keep and acting on those in their animals' best interest.
So, I got into breeding rats because I was originally breeding for my snakes. Then I realized that I liked rats WAY more than I liked snakes, rehomed the snakes to some wonderful people (I was already getting bored with keeping them and their new homes are phenomenal), got some better starting stock from a local feeder breeder, and started breeding towards pet quality animals. This was about 2 years ago. Snakes mainly eat rats and mice, and in the rat breeding community (it's small but we're very close knit) we are accepting of feeder breeders and pet breeders alike. Most of us want to raise the happiest and healthiest animals possible, whether it's to further nourish an animal that we're going to feed the rat to, or to provide someone with a high quality pet that is social and affectionate rather than scared and aggressive (slight bash at pet stores, but it's not wrong)
As far as someone wanting to 'adopt' for feeders: Even pet breeders have to euthanize animals that aren't able to be pet placed or further their lines so usually I'll have 1-2 in my freezer, generally newborns that were failure-to-thrive babies, that are available for friends of mine that have snakes or raw-fed animals at no charge. However, I have an application process, a FB page that I require adopters to interact with and talk to me through, and my pet rats have a $20 adoption* fee per animal and are adopted out in pairs. Even someone who requires jumbo rats for a different species wouldn't pay that and either raises rats themselves or buys frozen in bulk.
I'm always more than happy to talk about the ins and outs of breeding. It is my main hobby outside of work and my video games and I've spent a lot of time researching and learning from other breeders in the community in order to get where I am today. Quite a few people in the community also breed at least one other type of animal, whether it's bugs, dogs, other rodents, or reptiles, so I've learned a lot about species I don't even keep by proxy and am able to give advice on them if no one else is available.
I want to hear the answer to the rats as pets vs food question. Can I be a rat farmer for the main purpose of solving snake starvation issues?
Usually there's more rats than snakes, the reason that they're starving is generally due to bad keeping or owners forgetting about their animals. It's unfortunately way more common than people would think, because most commonly kept pet snakes tend to be very sedentary or not super social/open to being handled and people get bored with them, similarly to how I did.
I actually had to stop a breeding line of feeder rats because they developed congestive heart failure, and the friend I gave the rats to (frozen, euthanized humanely via CO2, which is approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association) was over the moon because it meant she wouldn't have to buy feeders for about 3 months.
Rocksmith is great fun! Enjoy :)
Dude that game is excellent! Kudos for learning the guitar too!
I got Stepmania 5 loaded with every song on every Console DanceDanceRevolution game I own, and I finally have a working Playstation2 to USB adapter that plays well with dance mats, so now I can choose between about 400 DDR songs in one game, instead of having to choose between 70ish per game on the PS2, or having to buy an XBOX pad to play the unique songs to the XBOX DDRs.
I made my own website – which is great. I talk about web design a lot, but it was never about doing something of my own: always about improving something else. But then I made mine. It's as perfect a mix of minimalist aesthetics as I could make it.
Now I'm working on an idea for the website's navigation that includes both superficial (top-level) navigation (categories: writing, worldbuilding, design, projects...) and local (this-project-level) navigation – which is excellent. Everything's in one place, neatly and succinctly, it's obviously-levelled etc. The latest work-in-progress iteration looks like this; navigation brightens up on hover.
On mobile devices, it hides offscreen and be summoned via an unobstrusive icon (which is important, given that the whole site is reading-oriented), like this.
There are things to be done still – mostly code clean-up – but right now, I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far.
It's pretty much March now, and I haven't used any single-use products, except for one coffee someone else brought me, and two ziplock bags because I can't figure out another way to store cheese that doesn't end up with it drying out.
Everyone gets bored with me trying not to create garbage so I try not to constantly inflict it on everyone, but guys I am doing SO GOOD.
I finished the second dream and now war within quests of Warframe, and am still shook a week later despite being spoiled of what the second dream was before hand.
I just found a new genre of music called wave (thanks to a recent RL Grime ama on /r/trap) and love it. Here is an awesome mix for anyone interested.