Let's try and get 1,000,000 replies to this post

[____no5]

I once had a nearly metaphysical experience with a tremendous kidney ache. Story not quite similar with yours @Night Prowler but it immediately came to my mind:

Spoiler

Deep night something like 3 A.M., I could hardly breath or move. Such was the pain. What’s more I was in a remote Chinese village I couldn’t even call for help. No hospital, no friends, not that I could speak a word of Chinese even if there were. No medicine. Not if there were I could recognize the letters and what is for what. The definition of helpless.

I crawled myself 5 meters and managed to get some hot water, there was a machine in the living room, took it as if it were medicine and crawled back to bed.

The pain was endless. At some point I “decided” I should heal myself and some time later (was it minutes? An hour?) I had the sweetest sleep of my life. I still remember the moment I was falling asleep, it was pretty similar to the pleasant feeling I had the one time I passed out, years ago. Yeap. If passing out can tell anything about death, then the moment one dies is pleasant. More than pleasant it’s s like a deep and relaxing happiness.

Anyway next morning when I woke up I was healed. It’s quite personal so I put spoilers.

 

[el diablo]

It amuses me that much of the public believes that actual AI exists.

Every one of the the programs is based on the same basic premise of every other code base since the 1950s:

The data that is input decides the data that is output.

All of which is subject to the whims of the humans who control the input.

 

[Perun]

I just finished my Russian course on Duolingo, and now I feel I know a bit more Russian than used to, which was no Russian at all.

 

[MindRuler]

I just finished my Russian course on Duolingo, and now I feel I know a bit more Russian than used to, which was no Russian at all.

How many languages did you study over the years? I wonder if you know some Dutch.

 

[Perun]

How many languages did you study over the years? I wonder if you know some Dutch.

Depends. If you're asking about having formally studied by taking a course with a degree and the expectation to be to some extent able to speak, it's French (in school), Persian and Kurdish, although I sucked at Kurdish, hated every moment of it and forgot most of it (although that's in large part due to a very bad teacher). If you're asking about self-study including (but not limited to) Duolingo, it includes Bulgarian and Russian, both of which I would say I have some rudimentary knowledge of. I also know some very, very basic Arabic. Historical languages is a different thing, since that's part of my academic training and profession, and at current counting I have eight dead languages and gotten at least some introduction to three more, although that number will rise. With all that, I can read languages I never got any introduction to with some effort, including Italian and Dutch, being a German-speaker. But I can't understand Dutch when spoken.

I need to stress something, though. People think of me as a "language guy" when I mention all this. I'm not. I'm a historian. I have training in historical linguistics and I use that as part of my historical argumentation, and I believe this sets me apart from most other people in my field. But most of my modern language skills are expected from a professional in my field. I have to be able to read German, English, French, Italian and Russian. You can give me an academic article in Italian or Russian and I'll be able to read and use it. I won't be able to converse with someone in Italian or Russian, and I won't be able to read Dante or Pushkin, at least not for leisure.

 

[Diesel 11]

Historical languages is a different thing, since that's part of my academic training and profession, and at current counting I have eight dead languages and gotten at least some introduction to three more, although that number will rise.

Which languages are these?

 

[Saapanael]

I just finished my Russian course on Duolingo, and now I feel I know a bit more Russian than used to, which was no Russian at all.

Здравствуйте, друг. Как дела?

 

[MindRuler]

@THESEVENTHMARINER !

 

[Yax]

I had ChatGPT rewrite Judas Priest's Breaking the Law:

Verse 1: There I was completely focused On obeying every rule in sight All my life I've been a law-abiding citizen Never thought I'd be the one to ignite

Chorus: Respecting the law, respecting the law Respecting the law, respecting the law

Verse 2: Day and night I keep it steady Following every law, every decree Never had a run-in with the law My record's clean, that's my guarantee

Chorus: Respecting the law, respecting the law Respecting the law, respecting the law

Bridge: The consequences can be dire If you break the law, you'll pay the price So stay on the right side of the law And you'll sleep soundly every night

Chorus: Respecting the law, respecting the law Respecting the law, respecting the law

Outro: Respecting the law, oh yeah Respecting the law, oh yeah Respecting the law, oh yeah Respecting the law, oh yeah

 

[Travis The Dragon]

Had the worst toothache of my life last night.

Have you ever had a toothache so bad that even after it stopped hurting you felt exhausted? It was like that for me today.

As someone who's had 4 teeth pulled, I know exactly what you're going through. Needless to say, I've been taking much better care of my teeth since and haven't felt the slightest amount of pain in at least 10-12 years.

 

[Spambot]

Vinyl Outsold CDs for the First Time Since 1987

The resilient format raked in $1.2 billion in 2022, outselling CDs by nearly 8 million units.

gizmodo.com

What in the actual fuck? You hipsters are nuts. Get off my lawn.

It makes sense.
In 2021 I bought Senjutsu on CD.
In 2022 I got Senjutsu vinyl.

Fear me, Spambot, tipper of scales.

 

[Diesel 11]

Vinyl Outsold CDs for the First Time Since 1987

The resilient format raked in $1.2 billion in 2022, outselling CDs by nearly 8 million units.

gizmodo.com

What in the actual fuck? You hipsters are nuts. Get off my lawn.

This makes sense though. Nowadays almost everything can be streamed, meaning you don’t have to put your tape into your Walkman or a CD in your car — you can just use your phone for everything. The biggest downside of vinyl is its lack of portability. But if you already have the portability covered, then what is someone going to turn to if they want to purchase music that they can sit down and really experience at home? Vinyl may not be a perfect format, but they have way cooler album art because the sleeves are so much bigger. And I would also argue that putting the needle down and flipping it over halfway through connects you more, makes you feel like you’re part of the experience instead of just experiencing it.

This isn’t my personal view per se because I collect both CDs and records, I think there’s a different experience you get out of playing physical music than streaming it but each format has its pros and cons. But I do collect LaserDiscs over DVDs for the reason that others collect vinyls over CDs: cooler artwork and flipping it over partway through connects me more to the experience of watching the film. Only LDs are a dead medium and aren’t being made anymore, and vinyl never actually died.

 

[Perun]

Everything you say is true, @Diesel 11, but that doesn't diminish the wtf factor for those of us who thought they'd seen vinyl die in the 80's and 90's. I remember that as early as 1990, I looked on my parents' LP collection as an outdated dust-gatherer. Portablity wasn't the reason the CD replaced the LP. Mobile and car CD were a thing of the future, we still predominantly used tapes until the late nineties, but the CD replaced vinyl nevertheless, because it was generally considered the superior medium. If in 1993 you'd have told me that in 30 years, the LP would outsell the CD again, I'd have told you to get off whatever you were smoking. It's like suggesting today that 30 years from now people would be using old brick phones rather than smartphones.

Obviously the full story isn't that vinyl outsells CDs because vinyl is killing the CD, but that vinyl is outselling the CD because streaming is killing the CD. As a medium, streaming has about the same advantages (or more) over the CD as the CD did over the LP. But nowadays people overwhelmingly buy physical carriers as collector's items, and I do guess that vinyl is more attractive than a CD in that respect. But it really is a bizarre development if you look at it through the eyes of someone who grew up in the eighties and nineties.

 

[Perun]

Which languages are these?

Most of the old and middle Iranian languages, Greek, Latin and a whisper of Old Turkic.

 

[Jer]

The biggest downside of vinyl is its lack of portability.

Yes, but let's consider all the other downsides as well:

• Holds less music than a CD
• Track order is often disrupted on multi-disc releases vs. the intended order on the CD
• Hissing, popping, and crackling during playback
• Tempo warbling during playback unless you have an amazing turntable
• Each playing of the disc causes wear and reduces the fidelity of future playbacks
• You have to physically flip or switch discs every ~23 minutes or less
• One vinyl record has 12x the carbon footprint of a CD, and many albums these days use multiple vinyls (so much for millennials and Gen Z caring about the environment!)

Vinyl may not be a perfect format, but they have way cooler album art because the sleeves are so much bigger.

So display your digital album art on a large monitor or TV, and then it's even bigger than the vinyl cover.

And I would also argue that putting the needle down and flipping it over halfway through connects you more, makes you feel like you’re part of the experience instead of just experiencing it.

OK, but that's just emotional and aesthetic. Does that alone really outweigh everything else? I suppose for some people it might, but enough to justify vinyl outpacing CD sales with all of its inherent disadvantages? That's just bizarre.

But I do collect LaserDiscs over DVDs for the reason that others collect vinyls over CDs: cooler artwork and flipping it over partway through connects me more to the experience of watching the film.

How does interrupting a film that was meant to be watched straight through without interruption connect you more to the experience of watching the film? Would the same apply to watching a film on TV with periodic commercial interruptions? Or watching one on YouTube, where you have to physically click to skip each ad after 5 seconds? I just can't wrap my head around that mindset. So again, you hipsters are nuts, get off my lawn, etc.

Another fun fact about carbon footprint -- streaming music is estimated to hit the same greenhouse gas emissions as the production of a single CD after 5 hours of streaming, so if you plan to listen to an album more than 5-7 times, it's better for the environment to just buy the CD. (Yes, there's incremental impact if you rip the disc and play it digitally, but still way less than cloud streaming.)

 

[srfc]

I don't think it's a case of people buying vinyls instead of CDs.

There's a generation of people who've never bought a CD and don't have a CD player. They are streaming music instead, and some of them are buying vinyl in addition to this, for whatever reasons, but they were never going to be buying a CD.

 

[Perun]

I have a question for all 'Muricans on the board - how much time do you spend on average on your taxes and is it true that you have to work out yourselves how much you're going to pay?

 

[Jer]

I have a question for all 'Muricans on the board - how much time do you spend on average on your taxes and is it true that you have to work out yourselves how much you're going to pay?

Pre-retirement, with tax prep software our joint return would probably take 3-4 hours to complete and review. Post-retirement it’s more like 1-2 hours. If you did it on paper it would take noticeably longer. Yes, you have to compute your own tax (or at least look it up on a tax table in the end).

If you only have wage income and you’re below a certain number you can fill out a simplified form and it’s much quicker.

 

[Perun]

And here I was thinking that taking an hour to fill my form due to a very complicated income situation last year was long... most of the time was really spent looking up what's deductible and what not. Really glad I don't have to do American taxes.

 

[Travis The Dragon]

And here I was thinking that taking an hour to fill my form due to a very complicated income situation last year was long... most of the time was really spent looking up what's deductible and what not. Really glad I don't have to do American taxes.

We hire a tax person to do ours since they're a bit too complicated for us.