QuantumBamboo

I always have a little chuckle at 13:37. It’s one of those times that I irrationally feel I see more often than any other time, but it’s just that I notice that specific set of numbers more than any other… or maybe I check the time at exactly the same point each day because my body clock is 1337!

The concern about digital media compatibility and longevity is definitely valid. But even in the unlikely event that all electronics simultaneously went kaput, the knowledge to recreate working systems, as well as the materials, are still going to be there. Also, the average person has more knowledge than even just 200 years ago, not too mention the fact there is still more print media around than then too.

Yes our current global data footprint could take a massive hit, and would feel like a huge step back, but it’s still going to be comparatively huge compared to any other time in history. Not so much going back to the stone age as going back to the 1980s.

Information his always degraded over time. Some being lost, some being made obsolete, some evolving (like culture). I think given our short term digital experience as a species we just find it a bit of existential crisis to view our digital data as having a shelf life too.

Snowball throwing was banned because a nephew of a friend of a friend of a teacher was supposedly blinded by one. Same school had an assembly that informed us that listening to heavy metal would make us want to kill our friends.

*Ubend Oranges

For an IRL example… I explained April Fools Day to my 4 year old kid this morning for the first time. His first instinct was to wrap a piece of Lego in foil and have me write CHOC on it, then leave it outside the bedroom door for my wife (who was having a lie in). I think he gets it!

People are perfectly within their rights to be rubbed up the wrong way.

Find another way to try and bring people to your point of view

Thanks for your great example of condescension for clarity. A little unsolicited feedback though… other people, unaware of your virtuous intent, might view it as a petty attempt to belittle a stranger on the internet. Other than that, a solid comment. B+

… that’s condescending.

Ah Morcheba! Now that’s a band I’ve not heard in a while!

Another album feature I enjoy is the “bonus” track at the end after an absurd length of silence. 1977 by Ash comes to mind. Nothing like going to sleep with an album on to be suddenly woken up by drunk people puking.

As well as transitional tracks, I love it when tracks genuinely feel like they exist as part of something larger. Whether through transitions within the tracks (Nonegon Infinity by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard takes this to the extreme) or by essentially turning the album into one long almost operatic piece (like Colours by Between the Buried and Me).

No accusations intended. My point is if you’re clued up enough to be comfortable making your own decisions then fill your boots. I’m not here to convince you. The “aggressive” advertising is the only way they are able generate revenue. And I’m fine with that compared to the alternatives. I find it far more disrespectful to have my data skimmed and monetised by a system of exploitative consumption.

Coal, I had my childhood home heated with a coal fire in winter. Crude oil I touched at an art exhibition. I also remember real creosote! Amazing smell.

And rightly so!

I would rather they make money from advertising their own pretty awesome services than from advertising unsustainable (environmentally, but also unsustainable for the fucking soul!) bullshit via blood sucking multinational tech companies that prey on the masses with whatever data they can automatically dig up on you. The revenue Proton makes from converting free customers to paid allows them to grow a freely available service that is a user-friendly and is a technical rival of the surveillance capitalists.

My take is:

• If you’re the sort of person that is convinced your requirements need some custom covert ops pagan voodoo self hosted data center in an old cold war era bunker, don’t let me stop you. You crack right on mate and good luck (sounds like you need it!).
• If you want the sorts of services Proton provides, but don’t want to be fucked, then Proton are a good shout.
• If you can afford it, pay for it. It makes the experience smoother and keeps a relatively small but decent company going in an ocean of massive cunts.
• If you can’t afford it and don’t want to use the free version of Proton, I hear Google and Microsoft will happily buy your soul and sell your data.

A-to-the-mutha-effin-men

Yeah I almost exclusively listen to full albums. Definitely helps give context to the music and understand the artist better. I also agree that you should give it a few listens. Some great albums need you to dial in before you really fall in love with them. It’s a more active process than just listening to an unending algorithmic recommendation stream, but the effort is rewarded!

I’m more concerned that streaming platform algorithms prioritise passive listening (maybe not more concerned… I’m not sure how concern is quantified). It goes against their business model to risk serving users music that might actually push, and thus potentially expand, their taste. Music that is challenging may cause a user to stop listening. Better for the auto play algorithm to serve up safe bets, homogenising the general popular music gene pool. Like serving endless Big Macs in case tom yum is too spicy or lamb shoulder is too rich. As a result, the way to find success in the era of streaming platforms is to play G-D-Em-C and sing about the boy/girl you like/liked. This causes a feedback loop where bland music leads to bland tastes, which leads to bland music…

I worked with Creo for years, and ProE before that. I still have nightmares about the cascading unresolved reference screens. I’ve never used NX, but my understanding is it is AAA, though not super user friendly by default. I’ve pretty much exclusively used Solidworks for over a decade now, and I have to say that it’s generally pretty well behaved, and I’ve never really found I couldn’t do what I wanted to in it. Thus it has become my crutch.

I would agree that FreeCAD is the best, but it’s not slick and doesn’t feel particularly robust. Don’t get me wrong, I have no rose tinted glasses on when it comes to Solidworks, but it’s generally very usable and very powerful.

Solidworks - A reliable FOSS 3D CAD package would be amazing… Parametric Blender? Photoshop/Illustrator - I know how to do 50% of what I need to in GIMP/Inkscape, but I lean on Adobe usually!

Not my wife

I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the person who came up with the name Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors revealed their idea. I’ve got an image of someone sitting on their hands, eyes wide and shaking slightly as their desire to share it tries to burst out of them!

That sounds chillingly similar to that episode in Fall of the House of Usher.