reay

reay, 1 year ago to random

Time for #TuesdayTunes

Alexis Ffrench is a British composer and pianist. Simply fantastic.

Some of my favourites:

Dancing Shadows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9b6hYaR_so

1/2

reay, 1 year ago to random

My aching feet ask that you PLEASE BOOST.

—————

People who wear safety boots or shoes for work and are on their feet a lot in them:

What brands can you recommend that are a) comfortable, b) durable, and c) don’t cost a fortune?

I got a Mellow Walk pair months back, and while they started off well, they’ve since started to absolutely murder my feet.

I was going to bite the bullet on cost and look at Blundstones, but a coworker has found they’ve come to hurt his feet, too.

reay, 1 year ago to random

We finally saw the last episode yesterday.

I thought it was good but not great. Largely I think because of the fighting scenes with Gideon.

Mandalorians are supposed to be known galaxy-wide for their badassery and battle skills, but the fighting against Gideon lacked that flavour for me. They should’ve been more of a challenge instead of him just being able to slap them around.

Like, yes, he knows how to fight, but in theory, not as well as they do.

1/2

reay, 1 year ago to random

Today’s contention with recording larger waveforms on vocal tracks:

• Try Garage Band on the Mac instead? It’s too old to run Garage Band. Or Audacity.

• Could Garage Band run on Windows? Not without some emulators I don’t want to bother with.

• Is my computer the problem causing the small waveforms? Recorded on it and immediately plugged the interface into another laptop running Audacity and… for some inexplicable reason, it’s not recording anything at all.

… so it’s all going swimmingly.

reay, 1 year ago to random

I fear for this pending writers' strike.

As you may recall, such strikes in the past led to the creation of things like reality TV.

What fresh hell would another one unleash?

reay, 1 year ago to random

I’ve taken CBD oil — no or very low THC so I can still drive and work effectively, etc. — on and off for years for back pain. Recently I’ve been trying gummies. But while they taste way better than the oil, even at the upper end of the mg dosage I was taking for my back, they don’t seem to work as quickly, and often not as well.

Could that just be a brand thing? Could it be some strain thing where maybe a different type of gummy in the same dosage may work better?

reay, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago) to random

** PLEASE BOOST **

#TuesdayTunes

I tripped across Dinosaur Pile-Up in the midst of Covid lockdowns, and quickly became a big enough fan that now I badly want to see them in concert.

They’ve got a few different sounds from one album to the next. Nature Nurture was the first one I heard, and it has a few solid tracks, including Arizona Waiting: https://youtu.be/jcVUofUFvBw?list=OLAK5uy_l55HrANyjUtlFWOngxpKb8X3GnO58Wwoo

Derail (trigger warning: Kidnapping and violence)
https://youtu.be/ONLYyef_m_g

… and Start Again
https://youtu.be/XsKsGYHUOH8?list=OLAK5uy_l55HrANyjUtlFWOngxpKb8X3GnO58Wwoo

1/3

reay, 1 year ago to random

*** PLEASE BOOST ***

Next VPN question: Does anyone a) access Masto with a VPN running, and b) do you use the Tooot app to (try to) do so?

I’m putting a VPN through some tests and it seems to do well overall but I couldn’t load anything on Tooot from any timelines.

The second I turned off the VPN, my timelines loaded. But I’m not yet clear on if that was an app issue or if somehow Masto itself (or at least the .social instance) doesn’t jibe well with VPNs.

Anyone got any insight?

reay, 1 year ago to random

Is #TuesdayTunes a thing?

If not, guess it is now.

New Finger Eleven: Together Right

https://youtu.be/ytXDpbXxwso

reay, 1 year ago to random

I know there’s famine and war ravaging the planet, but if I don’t get a good price on all these turnips in Animal Crossing, it’ll be rough going.

reay, 1 year ago to random

Am I afraid of the idea of practical, everyday A.I.?

No.

Am I afraid of what some megacorps may do to push the limits of A.I. in the name of science/experimentation and in doing so, put people at real risk?

Yes.

But it also seems to me a very simple process to curb: At every step, these companies must simply ask themselves if they’re putting the health and safety of people exclusively and irrevocably in the hands of A.I. (perhaps we call it The Skynet Test).

If yes, then fucking STOP. 🤷‍♂️

reay, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

My commute to my second job (ahem currently my main) job is unfortunately close to as far as I can get from my house while still being in the same city.

Adding to catching rush hour traffic both ways, the city has started what will be years of bottlenecking repairs on the routes I usually take. So a 27-minute drive on the weekend took me close to hour and a half last night.

I could literally have driven to London, Ontario in the time it took me to drive home from work across Toronto.

1/2

reay, 17 days ago to random

On the one hand, I don’t get the boycott of Loblaws because groceries being so expensive is a much wider problem than with just Loblaws alone.

On the other hand, for Loblaws to say they’re trying to keep prices down for customers and blame shipping and other issues of their control holds zero water when they netted profits of nearly $500 million this quarter.

You CANNOT be trying to keep prices down while also being a publicly traded company with happy shareholders. Pick a lane, Loblaws.

reay, 2 months ago to random

Looks like I get to go another round with Air Canada to get compensation for a multi-time delayed flight that was finally cancelled.

In round 1 they called the issue a safety problem with the plane, which thus excuses them from compensating passengers.

Wait until their hear that their captain told all passengers that it wasn’t a safety issue — that the plane could fly — just a mechanical issue that had nothing at all to do with the plane operating safely.

reay, 2 months ago to HashtagGames

Unless or until we change our mind.

#oddcontractterms
#hashtaggames

reay, 2 months ago to random

I was using Duolingo to learn Danish a short while back and found some of the translations worked out to be truly bizarre phrases.
“After work the ninjas like to drink beer”?
Amusing, but not helpful in any practical sense.

And lately I’ve been hearing that this is a whole phenomenon. Here’s just one example:

https://duoplanet.com/100-of-the-best-and-weirdest-duolingo-sentences-ever/

reay, 2 months ago to random

It remains weird to me that I apply to jobs where I amply cover almost every one of their qualification and experience requirements and not only will I not get the job, but I won’t even get an interview.

Like… if you wanted someone to fit this position, I can’t reasonably not be at least long-listed.

I chalk it up to a spot they were obliged to post but had already chosen someone internally for it (such was a place I worked at for years in other depts). But it’s head-shaking every time.

reay, 1 month ago to HashtagGames

John Mellencamp’s Jack & Diane is a behavioural study of small town American youth in the early 1980s, with a focus on the evident commonality of sucking on chili dogs.

#MisinterpretASong
#HashtagGames

reay, 1 month ago to random

Quick question I may have asked before (but if so, don’t recall): How long after applying to a position at a big company would you give it before you’d take no contact as meaning they’ve passed on you?

reay, 7 days ago to HashtagGames

“No Shit"
– Sherlock Holmes

#HashtagGames #FictionalCharactersAutobiography

reay, 25 days ago to random

I totally get that online services need to sell ads and subscriptions to make money. No problem with that business model.

But on the flipside, it’s particularly irritating when the ads are by the same service you’re currently using, entirely to disrupt your experience, doing a song and dance about how, ‘Hey, if you want to avoid ads for ourself like this, just subscribe!’

reay, 3 months ago to random

Went a week without shaving, which is almost unprecedented.

My daughter has wanted me to grow a beard, but I find just days in starts getting uncomfortably itchy.

My wife suggested I could shave it down to a goatee today and then maybe off tomorrow, just to see how they look.

Tonight the goatee just rated an “it needs to grow in more”. Which, I mean a) Of course and b) I’m not sure I have the patience for.

1/2

reay, 1 month ago to random

Yesterday I learned that vultures are birds of prey. Somehow I’d thought they were scavengers, maybe confusing them with buzzards? (He says, making a mental note to check if buzzards are birds of prey to maybe edit that out.)

So the several turkey vultures I’ve been seeing swooping around the Ontario Science Centre for months — and the wingspan of these things gets up to about my height, so they’re not subtle — are actively hunting, not just looking for carrion, or whatever.

1/2

reay, 2 months ago to random

Oh, Typeshift, behave!

reay, 1 month ago to random

Probably the best shot of the eclipse I managed to snag. Juuuust after totality.

Waited about 45 minutes of my hand cramping to discover my timelapse video didn’t work. 🙁

Still really cool to see it all happen.