It's always the first three quarters of the year entirely where I just do not care for its holidays. They're all boring and forgettable to me. Which is why I love the last quarter of the year where Halloween, X-Mas and X-Mas Part II reside.

New Year's Day - Wooo...just watching a ball drop and people just drinking or going to NY just to kiss on camera.

Valentine's Day - Awesome...just to be reminded how single some of us are so all of the mush of couples being shoved in our faces.

St. Patrick's Day - Just another excuse to go out drinking to most, not as if drinkers turn every other day into drinking.

Easter - Nobody can agree as to the true meaning of this holiday. It's just seen as yet another excuse to consume candy and go on dinners, kinda what Halloween and Thanksgiving both became more about. Non-religious people think it's bunny related, religious people believe it belongs to Jesus and whatever. Conflicted holiday, can't care.

4th of July - America's Birthday, yeah I've not have had a single solitary reason to celebrate America's birthday at all given the reputation it has gathered as of late and for a while. This is the period of the month where people annoy everyone with their big shopping sprees on fireworks.

I know these kinda questions get asked a lot these days, but hear me out.

I'm a junior-going-on-medior software engineer, graduated last year and have been (more or less) teaching programming for four years.

In my search to find meaning in life, I stumbled into programming and found that there was a lot to learn. I loved it. That's why I eventually chose to switch careers once I musterred enoigh resources to do so. I chose this job because I like learning and I want to keep learning for the rest of my life. I love the way how learning is an integral part of the programming community and how everyone encourages and stimulates it.

AI has changed the job of an swe, that much I understand. That is not a deal breaker for me, as long as there is still a lot of meaningful, worthwhile, marketable things to learn. I am using AI to learn things faster now, but there is an easy pittfall to actually learn nothing from AI. Some say we don't have to learn anything anymore, I don't think that is true, but then what is true?

How is AI affecting the learning aspect of this job? Is learning still an important part of the job? Is there still enough worthwhile things to learn? Is it still valuable to learn more?

Many of us have heard the deprecating characterizations of many countries. Like Putin described the UK as an "insignificant little Island", and Russia has been characterized as a "mob run gas station" or Trump calling El Salvador, Haiti and African countries as "shithole countries".

Let's flip things around for a bit of fun. After a heavy night of drinking with your country's head of tourism, you have one shot to give your best self-depricating characterization of your country for a new border sign.

I'll go first:

Welcome to Canada - Enjoy world class sexual assault in sport -- Come and play!

I mean not necessary inside the rain but just in its vicinity.

Do you have these sense of "damn, what are we even doing here" just hearing the rain, just staring out the window.

Do you ever just lowkey "flashback" to some time earlier. As if your brain kinda paused the moment, as if this is a tv show or anime plot.

Like the futher you stare into the distance, the more you feel that you've come a long way from your spawnpoint (okay but even if you never moved away from your birthplace, you still moved along on the tine axis, memories separated by oceans of time)

Why did I even post this? Idk its raining and I dont wanna do anything. Feels kinda like the typical sad scenes in media, raining is cue for something sad about to happen. Just need the sad piano music too lol.

I main on fingerstyle guitar, but I find my aural understanding on guitar feels impeded. Now I know music theory and how the fretboard works, but translating it is so damn laborious.

I've played other instruments, and this is what I've noticed about their impact:

1. Penny whistle. It's mostly in one key. The root will always be the same fingering and the fifth will always be the same fingering. I think this helps with making associations with sound and scale degree, as opposed to more chromatic instruments played in different keys. [Also used a transposing electronic digital instrument to the same effect.]

2. Clarinet: Having to figure out the fingerings made me painfully aware of key signatures and where the sharps and flats are. On guitar you can smoothly shift up or down a fret without much thought or just play in position, but on clarinet there is often a specific button or button combo you need to get one specific note.

3. This is the big one: Piano. You do need to bring a little theory into it to know what chords you're playing, but the actual NOTES you are playing are immediately obvious, and since I'm building all these chords myself, I know exactly where the third is and how to lower it to make a major a minor, or where to add a major seventh, so I can also very quickly ask myself, "What if went with a minor chord here instead" and almost instantly be able to play it. On guitar, there's a tendency to just memorize chords as shapes without knowing where the chord tones are because each shape has them in a different configuration (which is why eyes-closed arpeggio exercises are absolutely vital for guitarists).

[On piano it's also easier to play the same inversions over and over again, which might help you learn the sound. You can play a whole song with Root-3rd-Fifth if you want, but on guitar, the common chord shapes are a kaleidoscope of chord tones. For instance, common chord tones on root chords:

C: O-R-3-5-R-3
F: R-5-R-3-5-R
G: R-3-5-R-3-R
]

I'm curious about violin, too, because I'm betting needing to intonation just right really sharpens your ear.

What's your experience?

To forestall any suspicions: she is not AI. It's a real voice actress and I'm trying to determine whether this manner of speaking is reminiscent of any specific region or whether it's a placeless, purely performative affectation.

[SOLVED! A new POST counts as a new COMMENT. This is obviously not ideal.]

Just harvesting some new subs and find that the majority of subs are very low engagement, so I thought I'd turn on "Sort by New Comments" via Voyager to eliminate any posts with 0 comments.

But those zero-comment posts are still appearing. I don't think they have blocked comment because the comment count is zero...

Anyone have any insight?

Edit:

I’m visiting someone I know at their home for the first time and want to take sensible safety precautions. I have an AirTag in my wallet, and I share my location with a trusted friend who lives in another country. What else would you recommend, especially since my friend won’t be nearby if I need help?

Please no doomer responses.

I’ve been playing my guitar a fair bit. Relearning the solo dem another brick in the wall pt 2 because I never learned it right whe I was in high school and really wanna get that 5 fret bend down right. Havent learned a solo in a while, pretty easy reintro to solos.

Been getting my old anet 8 3d printer working again for a project for my girlfriend. Pretty fun iterativeprocess.

Also fucking around with retro games on an old pi I had sitting around. Contra hard corps is hella fun.

So what do you like doing? What have you been having fun with? What do you like?

There is a guy at work 2 heads taller and more muscular than me I find very strange: he seems to enjoy to either ask or tell me what he thinks about me without any filters: He either asks intrusively if everything is OK, staring at me like it’s an interrogation or blurts out loud what he thinks about my face (you look angry). It’s always when I’m preparing to do my job (checking the computer, taking notes) or when I’m working (looking for files). I’m starting to feel intimidated. I don’t talk to him but he talks to me, I don’t want to talk to him to listen what he thinks about me. Can’t he see I’m working? Doesn’t he have things to do? Or anything better than blurt out what he thinks about me?

I’m also a man, but smaller than him and I keep my opinions to myself.

Is this mobbing? Would contacting HR be of any good? Any ideas to deal with this kind of person?

This has happened twice already in 3 weeks, so you decide if this is a pattern.

@asklemmy@lemmy.world @asklemmy@lemmy.ml @ask l wish to build up a workstation right from scratch, where l can do basic animation, graphics and games. I wish to build it up purely on floss products as l wish to work entirely with Foss.

Can anybody suggest what are the likely hardware components that would go into building up such a workstation ?? I would also be modifying the machine later on according to my requirements, so I need to build it up accordingly.

#animation #graphics #blender #godot

I never thought Id be excited for a garbage can, but after going through multiple plastic cans and having the lid mechanism fail on cheaper metal cans, I broke down and got a more expensive one from Simple Human. I feel the quality everytime I use the step to toss something. It sounds so dumb, but I'm really blown away after years of crappy cans.

Aside from that, my python water changer for aquariums. That thing has been the goat for years at this point.

I've been wondering this question for a while. Ignoring current events, why is a little bit of inflation desirable?

I do understand that it's done to "stimulate" the economy so people don't let their cash rot in a checking account, but isn't it a zero-sum game? Everybody says that money is not meant to stay where it is, rather, should flow through the economy. But if the economy always needs injections of liquidity because otherwise it fails, isn't the economy broken?

I feel like there's something I can't comprehend about that.

Egg Nog, for me.

It used to excite me in the past that when October rolls around, I'm anticipating when and how early I'm to see those egg nog cartons and bottles come out. I always try to get as much time in with it as I can between October and December.

But lately, I tried drinking some and the thickness of the drink itself, takes some to get through. It just makes you feel fuller and when you think you've got room in your body for it and you drink it, you feel disgusted. But overall, just drinking through the thickness of it, ugh.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/55223705

Any recommendation about anything is welcome. I was thinking about reading something from Gigerenzer or Kahneman what do folks think?

So often I see a YouTube video in my feed that I think is titled as herbole and don't want to reward the poster for their click bait bullshit, but there's no way to know without opening the video and checking comments.

My BX750MI-GR has saved my precious data on two occasions. Earlier this year, my seven year old, well used waffle iron shorted, popping loudly and sparking quite brightly in the process, probably because of all the gunk that had accumulated inside its less cleanable interior over the years. That not only made my breaker trip, but also blew the 16 amp main fuse. The UPS kicked in immediately, making a klick and a beep, which felt amazing. That was my first time ever.

As for the second time, see this post.

I have seen people say they do writing in their free time. But I dont understand what they write about. Do you just pick a topic research about it and then summarize it. Is it whatever comes into the mind?

If someone asks me to write about something, I would probably write about Tech but even that I can not do in great length.

What do you write about and how? Do you copy certain writting style from great authors? How do you increase your vocabulary (i think before writting one must read a lot)

I would've wanted to be a freelance builder, crafter, designer and engineer. Here's why I know I can't, it's because I am terrible with just knowing things. An experienced craftsman knows their tools by heart, can pick one up that they absolutely need for the job at hand. They know their workshop, inside and out. They can calculate measurements with barely thinking. They just have it together.

That's not me. You can show me 3 different types of a philips screwdriver and for every one, I'd be like "erm..uh, still philips to me!" when there is subtle differences between them. I can barely measure things to save my life. I am just stunted to learn so many of these things, but I'm only capable of doing small projects at the very least.

People like Adam Savage really have inspired me, having seen the things he can do and how passionate he is about what he does. I love that. I wish I could be that. But I'm not.

No pharmaceutical aids preferably

I started using chatbots yesterday and it surprised me how complete and articulate answers are. Main topics would be apparel, sewing, cooking, finance, ETFs, taxes, house maintenance, retirement.

Do you consider AI good enough to substitute human interaction? Because I remember a south park episode where randy marsh ignores his wife to interact exclusively with a bot. A parody of course but we have already plenty of AI porn and AI short stories for gullible people… and it works because they don’t stop watching (and sometimes believe it to be real).

I was always kind of an anti AI guy due to privacy, to avoid LLMs monetizing my questions and because I didn't want to be a moron who has nothing better to do than to watch AI slop, but this is a tool so pervasive and practical I’m only isolating myself if I opt out of it. Thoughts?

Are there any questions you won’t ask a bot so the company behind it doesn’t monetize your input?