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- Nairn2
^
This is the first Easter.. possibly ever.. that I've recognised the exstence of somewhat in advance. Usually it comes up as a dark surprise to fuck my schedule and expectations.Because the kid's in school, I am now acutely aware of upcoming holidays and such, however this year it would appear that roles are reversed and it's my clients who've been blind-sided by Easter's unexpected appearance. Oy vey.
- OBBTKN1
Very slow weeks, work-wise, everyone is on vacation for holy week and easter now (6 projects stopped right now)... but also elections time, regional and EU that paralyze everything...
Except for the money issue, everything is going well, but there is always THAT black cloud that doesn't let us live in peace.
- Gardener2
Coming this Friday morning on Tak Tent Radio - part 2 of my Skylarking mix 'Behave Yourself', sorry...
- Ianbolton1
Went to watch comedian Jerry Sadowitz here in Leeds last night. Fuck me, he really doesn't have boundaries. There's nothing off-limits, but he openly says he's too far into his game to change his routine and accepts that it'll get to the point where he won't get anymore gigs. (He did suggest maybe adopting a ventriloquist routine to make the character-play more obvious).
It's important to understand there's a character he's playing and all the racist, misogynistic, homophobic bollocks he spews is all in the name of comedy. He really was amazing, although you could see certain parts of the crowd were the 'you can't say anything these days' sort - totally not understanding the fact that being racist just isn't acceptable - ever!
- His show got shut down in Edinburgh last year because some of the young staff at the venue couldn't handle it.PhanLo
- yeah, like he wasn't gonna talk about that haha. But watching it, i did think 'yeah, i see why they'd not like it.'Ianbolton
- But then, imagine accidentally seeing Jerry Sadowitz, not knowing what he's like. It's pretty racey stuff!Ianbolton
- My mate went to the first show and thought it was good, but for a young person he's probably too wild now. Strange young people are usually pushing boundariesPhanLo
- His stuff is pretty bananasPhanLo
- His jokes about Diane Abbott were fucking awful, but the delivery was so amazing you couldn't help but laugh. But yeah, totally bananas!Ianbolton
- Guess they are pushing boundaries by saying 'i can identify as whatever i choose'. Whether that's right or wrong, who knows.Ianbolton
- Comedians aren't the ones pushing boundaries... it's the fucks whining that he's 'broken them' who have set 'boundaries' in their own narcissistic heads.PonyBoy
- I saw him in Dundee on this tour a few weeks ago and yes, he was still brilliant, it was the EIGHTH time I've seen him too, I am sick...Gardener
- I took my teen with me, he knew nothing of his act but thought he was "mildly amusing" tsk, fuckin' kids today eh?Gardener
- bainbridge4
Remember when you could smoke in restaurants and bars?
- some countries still let you do that.pango
- which countries?uan
- some restaurants in japan is still ok to smoke indoor. china too.pango
- There is a bar in our town where they allow smoking after 12 at night.OBBTKN
- I remember going to a pub in SF where you could still smoke, it was an Irish bar that would show Celtic games, was strange seeing Scottish teams on the wall.PhanLo
- A pub I was in last year in Denmark allowoed smoking too. I don't smoke thoPhanLo
- File under “signs you're getting old“dee-dubs
- It sucked so much.SimonFFM
- Not a fan of those daysstoplying
- at least i don´t remember the time when doctors said its healthy as in- a vacation for your lung - ads...neverscared
- Even as a regular smoker at the time, i was much gladdened when it was banned from restaurants, pubs and clubs - no more stinking clothes when you got homeNairn
- Smoking section on a plane!Bluejam
- +1 Nairn. Although at a recent gig a significant number of the audience lit up doobies and that was most enjoyable.MrT
- ya smoking indoor is much worst. 10-20 times? can't remember exact. just throwing numbers here.pango
- Many bar/grill places with gaming in Las Vegas you can smoke/eat/drink/gamb...Akagiyama
- Oh yes Vegas. I hated walking through the hotel lobby. The mix of cigarettes and perfume is really irritatingpango
- ephix4
Welp, started university for "applied design" which includes things like design thinking, aesthetics, but more importantly creative entrepreneurship and ofcourse ui/ux. Being self taught I thought I'd see if there are any gaps to fill so to speak. Was daunting at first considering I don't even have a year 10 certificate but it's been fun so far, and the lecturer is an amazing illustrator. His style has brought back a lot of fond childhood memories. So far so good.
- NBQ00-6
I fucking love it spicy. Putting hot chili on everything. Even chocolate.
- HAYZ1LLLA-4
Can anyone recommend a good free AI portrait generator for desktop? One that makes you look like a astronaut or viking, shit like that. I had NameSake on my phone but they want ££ now.
- https://perchance.or…pockets
- Thanks does that take an existing photo of me and change it?HAYZ1LLLA
- NBQ00-3
My wings are black from all the dust and ashes that I picked up in hell. But I'm cleaning my sword, I am dusting off myself, licking the wounds. Bring it on.
- have you joined a cult?pango
- No pango. I am describing my inner world.NBQ00
- Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In My Lane. Focused. Flourishing.palimpsest
- Is that your inner world Palim? Sounds magnificent. Being moisturised is a luxury that most people can only dream off.Ianbolton
- I thought you'd found 'the one' NBQ? The next one will defo be the one.Ianbolton
- Has nothing to do with my relationship status :)NBQ00
- Are you a larper NBQ?milfhunter
- lol, not really. it's metaphoricalNBQ00
- Andrew Tate's on QBN?Nairn
- So you’re an angel in this metaphor? lol, what’s hell then?monospaced
- QBN? lolNBQ00
- Are these Wu-tang lyrics?futurefood
- mg3312
I'm kind of losing my mind at the awesomeness of Chat GPT and the ability to generate code with it. I've used it for code before, but this weekend wanted to work on an audio player for my music site. I can't tell you how many times I've looked for nice, minimal HTML5 audio players that were easy to customize, free, and MINIMAL. Let me repeat MINIMAL.
Go look for Wordpress plugins for audio and it's so hard to find a minimal one. So many are multi-song playlist styles, cost $, are difficult to customize, or can only have visual pieces removed through CSS.
I got a paid GPT account last week which opened up the floodgates of all the different GPTs that are available. Thought I'd see of one called "Code" could get me what I want. I've used free ChatGPT to create code before, but tried this one out. I'm sure they're all generally the same, but Code has a really nice conversational explanation of what it's generating.
Anyhow... long story short, in about an hour yesterday I asked for the following, in order:
1. Create code for an html 5 audio player that uses font awesome icons and consists of a play/pause button, a back button to the left, and a forward button to the right. I should be able to use multiple audio files.
2. can you add a horizontal progress bar below the play buttons that can be styled with css?
3. Add a numeric indicator that displays the number of the track being played before a forward slash, and after the forward slash, displays the total number of tracks in the player.
4. update this code to change the pause button back to play button when a track is over.
5. (Lastly, today) update the code above to let me pull audio files from a Wordpress advanced custom fields repeater. (the original code required adding urls into the javascript, which I didn't want to mess with on a regular basis.
And here it is: www.theagelesssea.com
Just a couple sample tracks there now as I'm testing it out, but I'm so happy to be putting more time into this project.
- Great work. Really love the music. ChatGPT or AI couldn't make something as lovely as thatIanbolton
- Thank you Ian!mg33
- Nice. Please give us more.Longcopylover
- ^ Thank you! Hoping to finish a 7-8 song album this year. Laid off recently so it's nice to have time to focus on it more.mg33
- that's pretty damn awesome mg33... cool use of chatgpt, and excellent music to boot :)exador1
- I've been trying to think of a way to combine chatgpt and figma... i know lots of others are in this space as well, but it just seems like an interesting space.exador1
- Next thing is ask ChatGPT how to fix SSL.zaq
- exador1, I've been thinking of Figma plugin ideas lately as well.mg33
- took'r jurbss!BabySnakes
- BabySnakes1
Any of you with middle school kids, learning Vex Robotics stuff? My Friend's daughter was explaining to me and its really cool they have the access to this type of stuff in schools now.
She was just bummed that her class partner wasn't letting her code much, and as a developer i can't let that stand. So i was looking in home tool options.
- a friend's kid is on the team. prohibitively expensive, though https://www.vexrobot…imbecile
- ya the hardware is expensive, i was curious about the VR dev testing, might be enough.BabySnakes
- Ianbolton7
I've just eaten a hog-roast sausage roll. Fuck me it was delightful. I'll send a photo next time, but for now, use your creative faculties to imagine how great it was.
Hope we've all had great weekends and NBQ stops being such a teary, emotional rollercoaster.
- Thanks Ian; Weekend was great, now comes penance. Even my eyelashes hurt ;)OBBTKN
- https://www.theguard…BuddhaHat
- searched the name and that does look freaking delightfulBuddhaHat
- ^ that's totally the vibe :-)Ianbolton
- bainbridge-4
Real G's move in silence like lasagna.
- Saw the video too but the g is not silent.
Akshually, "gn" makes a /nj/ sound not an /n/. Nobody says lasana.palimpsest - I've been shown this on IG too. Very clever.HAYZ1LLLA
- bArSpalimpsest
- Saw the video too but the g is not silent.
- NBQ00-3
I am so hyper-sensitive right now. I can listen to a moody or beautifully ambient/ epic audio track and start crying. It's mostly tears of joy. Being so close to the universe is vulnerable.
- Sometimes one is open.jagara
- TAKE OUT OUT OF YOUR WINDOW MAN. IT'S ALL FUCKING BURNING.Horp
- erm, take a *look* out, was what I meant to type
*exasperated face emoji*Horp - I have the same “condition.” Look up info about being an emotionally sensitive person. It’s not a bad thing.mg33
- I have the opposite condition. Totally dead inside. Nothing moves me. My GF declares "OH! A SWAN! HOW SERENDIPITOUS" and I'm all "eh so fucking what".Horp
- She's dying slowly like Artax in a swamp of sadness, except I'm not tugging her reigns and saying "DON'T GO" I'm just watching, saying "eh so fucking what".Horp
- @Horp there's no known cure, I'm afraid: https://www.youtube.…jagara
- @mg33 +1jagara
- Pussies.crazyprick
- Emotionally sensitive person + being an empath has so many benefits but just as many downsides. When anxiety is bad these things collide like a car crash.mg33
- As a musician the emotionally sensitive part can be amazing. As a music listener it can be intense joyous emotion or intense dark emotion.mg33
- I get triggered at the oddest times by music especially when related to a happy memory in conjunction with a song. It's an amazing phenomenon.mg33
- Just curious. Microdosing lately?monospaced
- lolNBQ00
- Horp1
*sigh*
I worry that a chunky percentage of younger people just really don't get nuance and irony anymore. No big deal in some ways, but in other ways, it does imply that everything could increasingly need to be very literal and descriptive and thoroughly unambiguous.
It's quite an important layer of the communication cake to remove and discard.
I've noticed this a lot with people I've worked with here and there. Something said in allegory is taken literally leading to a lost half day stressing about it, when it doesn't even exist (whatever it was), and I've had to explain what I meant by "a needle in a haystack" or "the seed of an idea".
"So I'm not meant to be looking for a real actual seed then?"
I just had an example now, on a BMX forum. We're getting a new, quite extensive BMX/Skate playground built right by my house. For the UK it's pretty large. A multi-level / multi-object ramps and rails area and then flowing from that a fairly wild looking pump track in asphalt that in parts is like a skate bowl.
So it's quite impressive.
I decide to ride past it today on my BMX and shoot a vid over the railing on my phone. I wanted to post it to show everyone what's being built.
I needed to ride standing up, and pedal, hold a video camera in one hand, up high, and maintain a straight line down the path next to the building sight.
So I start off narrating this video and I begin pedalling.
Literally 10ft later - before the new BMX park has even made it into frame, I lost my balance, made a god awful "old man yowling" noise as though my long saggy nuts had become trapped in the hinged lid of a school desk, and I came clean off my bike face down on the ground. Camera up in the air, the sound of my skull smacking down on hard tarmac, some impeachments made in earnest to a higher force and of a blasphemous nature, plus a few sexual swears on the audio.
A stupidly old man who should not be riding a BMX anymore, crowing proudly about the new skate park as though he's going to boss it when it opens, and yet he can't even trundle along a perfectly flat, smooth, obstacle free surface for more than 10ft before falling off for no known reason and breaking his hip. (I haven't actually broken my hip but you know what I mean)
"They'll love this" I thought. So I posted it on the forum.
"Dude, we can't see the skate park"
"Dude your video sucks there's nothing in it"
"Dude, I think you uploaded the wrong video?"
"Dude, it's just a shaky bit of sky"
I had to *walk them through* the reason why I posted the video and the irony of its concept, context and content, and the slapstick, and the hubris, and the ridiculousness.
After I had explained it, they said "ahhhh okay, I get it now, but you should have said it was about you falling off, not that is was a video about your new skate park because we can't see the skate park".
No. No, you can't see the skatepark I promised but you did get to see an old cunt falling off a BMX for no apparent reason at all.
But they don't like surprises. They can't process what wasn't expected. It needs to be presented as what it is, and it needs to stay true to that.
Then somebody posts a video of a one legged BMX rider. Julian Molina. Seriously good rider. Can't pedal, obviously... he only has one leg, but he's right up there in the skills stakes and fearless as hell with it. Attempts and fails a 20ft drop and lands face first. Gets up, grins. Ready for more.
It's seriously impressive stuff.
I comment "Pfffft.... try doing that with *two* legs and then we'll see how good you are" adding "Goddam freeloaders with their cheat codes"
The next thing I know I'm getting DMs from people telling me he can't try it with two legs because he only has one leg... and actually it's much *easier* with two legs, not harder... and I shouldn't mention that he only has one leg anyway because I'm othering him... and it's all very well saying what I said on the internet but they bet I couldn't even ride as good as he does with my two legs... and by the way he *isn't* using a cheat code his friend just gives him a push to get him up to speed but that's not classed as cheating if you can't pedal.
Seriously guys, come on. I'm joking. They may not be *FUNNY* jokes and I'm not suggesting anyone ought to be amused by them, but, we mustn't forget how to recognise jokes and abstractions, even really shit ones.
It's like communicating with a crowd of 1st generation helper bots.
I don't know what's caused this but the trajectory we're on, we're going to end up in a VERY literal world where people can only say, and process, information that fits a template.
And I worry about the poets. It's going to be a struggle for them in this new paradigm.
- "memories like summer clouds passing through me, softening my heart in rain" Dude this poem sucks! if a cloud rained inside you you'd basically drown instantly.Horp
- Here's Julian Molina...
https://youtu.be/UxR…Horp - In the interests of balance, here is Alfred Molina...
https://youtu.be/WnL…Horp - This is King Alfred....
https://youtu.be/YSC…Horp - This is King Julien...
https://youtu.be/vYH…Horp - Dude the poets will be finenb
- Internet is just chock full of this shit. It’s mind numbing.monospaced
- I thought ‘cheat codes’ was fucking funny! I wonder if it’s something to do with how sarcasm doesn’t translate to text...monNom
- The 90s was the era of irony and sarcasm in comedy. But then email came along. You can’t do that kind of comedy over email, so comedy changed.monNom
- The younger generation grew up in a world of email. They were oblivious they were missing the joke. They just thought people were being mean.monNom
- That explains so much. What if the special snowflakes are all triggered because they don’t ‘get’ sarcasm? What does it look like when you aren’t in on the joke?monNom
- next level is when the helper bots start calling you a NPC.uan
- That would never happen on QBN.palimpsest
- I feel youSimonFFM
- It's their world now, evolve or die.robthelad
- how big is the chunk ? did u run any numbers on this compared to the previous generation or is this just fantasy talk ...neverscared
- the boomer and his far out generalisations ....C'est la vieneverscared
- ^ hahahaHorp
- Ooh, rub 'the lack of nuance genie' and neverscared appears. how odd.Nairn
- It's a generation cosplaying autistic.i_monk
- Horp0
Ehhh fuck it. Still logged in so I'm going to post again. It's going to be long and boring though. I'll log out again soon and go back to watching you all through the soundproofed one way mirror.
I've always loved writing. Typing really, rather than writing. I like to violently shart the contents of my brain into different places, in unmanageable splatterings that hit a large circumference in disorganised patterns. A hot wet mess of thinking, transcribed hastily by my pulsating epileptic sphincter. I have done this for years across a lot of platforms.
As a result, I do get people saying "write a book, I'd read it" quite a lot. However this sort of comment, whilst frequently offered, needs to be tempered by a few things:
1. I cannot write a book to save my fucking life. I've tried. Sharting your mind-mucus is not the same thing as structuring and telling a complex story with realism and well-grounded characters. It's completely different.
2. People see you doing something and feel compelled to offer encouragement. I think of this as the Moonwalk Effect.
Over the course of my life I have seen many many people do a Michael Jackson moonwalk and their gathered friends and family all applaud and cheer and clap wildly and say how very good that person is at doing that.
However, that person wasn't actually doing a moonwalk, they were merely walking backwards with draggy feet, T-Rex arms and a stupid look on their face. People cannot discern between a technically well executed moonwalk (the illusion of travelling opposite to locomotion) and just walking backwards in a party setting for entertainment.
Similarly people cannot discern between 'lots of words on a page' and 'a skilled writer'. They just see the words and think "oh look he's a writer! He's good at that... he should write a book!". My fat arse should I write a book. Ridiculous.
3. As frequent as the encouragements to write are, statistically, they are almost zero on a data chart against all the people who saw any given post and *didn't* make that comment.
It probably sits at 1 in 5000 people who reply with a "Write a book" comment. Those are not encouraging odds but we as humans tend to use selective bias when it makes us feel good. I don't though.
But I do also dabble in writing things that are just for me. Stored on my hard drives, not published anywhere. They are my projects and a few of them have been things I've picked up and put down over decades. The Planetarians, The Dolsda Figures, Frank Dandyhand (a wordplay parody of the old timey detective noir genre), All The Ham In Halifax (a deliberately stupid parody of romance fiction); a stupid fucking thing about a mad painting that's honestly the lamest piece of crap that wouldn't even make it onto a fucking blog post. It's all shit. All of it.
But, when down time is enforced by the economic climate, and I can't land my next contract or a job, I get really stuck into one or more of these things and start pushing it towards completion.
This time around it's The Planetarians. I'm at around 30,000 words and I've become excited by different format. It's not a book, it's a sequence of transcribed notes and interviews spanning decades, detailing the weird life of my Uncle Gerald and what happened to him. A mailshot series of documents that form the idea of a mystery, loosely, with the reader needing to fill in the gaps and reach their own conclusions.
I am now *SERIOUSLY FUCKING OBSESSED* with completing The Planetarians. I am *GENUINELY VERY EXCITED* about it and work on it every day between other tasks. I stay up late smashing the shit out of my keyboard, working out the structure, adjusting the timeline, working out how each mail-out would be packaged in something that relates to the particular aspect of the story being covered.
A kind of deconstructed book that you maybe would subscribe to and receive each new part in the post across months. Official documents from various sources across decades.
I'm almost ready to admit that I could start sending this thing out to people.
That's VERY important. It is important because whenever I get to that point... the point of maximum self-belief and enthusiasm, I get offered work and have to stop thinking about it. Then it sinks back into the soup of hard drive storage and I forget about it until next time I'm between projects.
Probably nobody here recalls the time back in around 2009 when I was in a similar difficult situation and I rustled up a mail-out art project and a whole bunch of you sent me $20 by post (as specified) to receive a bunch of artworks over the course of the following year.
Well, the "rescued by a job offer" phenomenon happened then. I got all the cash... $20s / £20s from QBN people in the post, and I never sent a single fucking thing out. Not fucking one person got anything in return.
Unintentionally, a grift. The thing was, I was suffering a very severe depression back in 2009 and that project was how I got through every day. But as soon as I decided "Fuck it, hit the launch button and share this project" the cosmic order said "hey, here's a much needed full time job, and you start tomorrow, and you'll be busy".
So nobody got their artwork, but to be fair I never spent that money either. It's all still cash in an envelope somewhere in my loft, mentally noted as "must be returned to senders". I found it a few years ago and thought "I must return all of this", and then I put it back and didn't do that.
(about 10 people sent me cash, just for scale. It wasn't a major scam heist... just a few friends being bilked by a manic depressive Brit on QBN)
So, ya know.... sign up for my latest writing project The Planetarians. You won't receive anything, it's another unintentional grift, but it gets me back into paid work by operating the standard cosmic mechanisms of "infuriatingly inconvenient timing" and "creative ambition thwarting".
Okay I'm done. Time to log out.
- I never said a book. I don't even know how people accomplish such a thing, but there're a lot more uses for written words outside of books. Or podcasts :)Nairn
- Oh hello! noI didn't specifically mean you Nairn. Sorry. I'd actually forgotten you made that comment...Horp
- It's actually more a thing on LinkedIn (lately). I get DMs from people saying "I love your posts you should write a book", and I always answer "no".Horp
- Nor did I mean to presume you were talking alone to me, but I was serious about my comment. You have a knack, but how you wrangle it, I dunno.Nairn
- I do believe that some things are more important to us and than mere fincancial transaction anyway. I've lost every other passion to commercialism...Horp
- across a long, varied career. Typing out a load of shit remains impervious to cash, and therefore remains highly valuable, therapeutically, spiritually, maaan.Horp
- My knack is really just the moonwalk at the party. It appears to be a decent enough approximation that it passes as entertainment, briefly. Sometimes.Horp
- Aye, the thing is - that's how most Creative is. It just needs to fool enough of the people, enough of the time :)Nairn
- See, I do LOVE fooling people. That kind of thing motivates me.Horp
- so don't write a book. write a column instead.hans_glib
- Eh, columns, books, blogs. I just like to take a big shit in different people's boudoirs.Horp
- http://concep3.com/d…Nairn
- ^Horp
- For mobile users...
<Horp
- doggydoggdog0
Randomly browsed Nordstrom today.
First, the store is huge, do they really sell enough to pay rent?
Lots of random brands, some cool, but mostly trying too hard
The clothes are very expensive. Many random shirts for $300+
- bainbridge-1
AI is the worst quality it will ever be, right now
- OBBTKN9
Tomorrow I have lunch at a cider house with "lifelong" friends whom I have not been with in about 15 years!
At the very least, it's going to be fun...
- "So, do you have any pets?"bainbridge
- Txotx!!!Miesfan
- The cider was too sour for my taste, but it didn't stop me from drinking liters of it, lol. But the meat was realy bad, badly cooked and bad quality in origin..OBBTKN
- Enjoyed a lot, but don't remember how I've come back home. Now I'm going to check it with my wife...OBBTKN
- imbecile-4
I can't help but ponder the broader implications of this growing trend towards literalism and the diminishing appreciation for irony and nuance. It feels like we're witnessing a gradual erosion of a crucial layer of human communication, one that adds depth, color, and texture to our interactions.
In a world where everything must be explicit and unambiguous, where allegory is mistaken for fact and irony is lost in translation, we risk losing not just the art of wit but also the ability to navigate complexity with grace. The incident with the BMX video serves as a microcosm of this phenomenon, where a simple act of slapstick humor is met with confusion and criticism instead of appreciation for its satirical essence.
It's disheartening to witness the struggle to convey and comprehend anything beyond the surface level. What was once the domain of poets and comedians now seems like a foreign language to many, as if we're communicating with a generation raised on binary code rather than the rich tapestry of human expression.
And yet, amidst this concern, there are glimmers of hope. Individuals like Julian Molina, with his fearless resilience and ability to defy expectations despite physical limitations, remind us of the power of human spirit and the potential for transcendence beyond the confines of literal interpretation.
But as we march towards a future where algorithms dictate our understanding and expression, we mustn't forget the poets, the artists, the jesters—the custodians of ambiguity and champions of complexity. For theirs is the voice that whispers truths beyond the surface, the beacon guiding us through the fog of literalism towards a horizon where irony dances freely and nuance reigns supreme.