Sheridan

I think pathological hoarding behavior stems from anxiety rooted in trauma (loss of a loved one, neglect, etc), or something like that. A hoarder might say they’re just being frugal or environmentally conscious but that’s a surface level rationalization.

I’m OOTL. Why am I seeing the number 4 everywhere?

Dynamic contrast (loudness and softness) is very important in classical performance. Composers employ in their scores a variety of dynamic markings that span a wide spectrum from very, very, soft to very, very, loud. Normalizing the volume goes against the composer’s intent. A recording of Haydn’s “Surprise” symphony would lose its intended effect if it cancelled out its stark sudden contrasts between loud and soft.

Classical music wasn’t intended to be listened to in the car or other noisy environments, so you have to keep that in mind. I think most music players though have a setting that can adjust the volume of the audio for such settings. (In Apple Music I think it’s “Sound Check”).

Generally avoid any albums with generic titles like “greatest hits”, “best of”, or “music for relaxation”, etc, and look for albums that on the cover indicate the composer, the performers, and focus on specific works like “Brandenburg Concertos”, or “Beethoven: The Late String Quartets, Op. 125-135”.

My area of expertise is specifically Early Music (medieval, renaissance, and baroque periods mostly), and I can recommend some of the bigger labels that are great for these sub genres (as they feature a lot of “historically informed” ensembles with period accurate instruments): Naïve, Naxos, Harmonia Mundi, Accent, Teldec, Alpha Classics, and Alia Vox.

There are streaming apps that are designed for classical music, like Apple Classical. I use it a little for music discovery but I mainly use Apple Music because I had already built out a very extensive chronologically ordered folder and playlist structure to navigate all the classical music in my library (plus Apple Classical doesn’t have a desktop version which is a shame).

And heavier is better because it does more damage?

Why is lead used for bullets?

It’s a really delicious onion tho

I didn’t start using AI (the LLM kind) until this year.

I use AltTexty.org sometimes for making alt-text of images that are text dense.

Aside from that, I use a chatbot (copilot at work, Kagi at home) for some information retrieval, mostly on things related to programming, but I don’t use it to “vibe” code. Like I’ll ask it for general programming examples, and to compile reference manuals on the basics of this or that programming language that I’m learning, and to help out with error messages that have me stumped, but I don’t have it generate whole programs for me (I did that once, felt gross, then asked it to teach me how it works in the form of a tutorial; I didn’t use the program until I felt like I understood it).

Edit: Regarding my view of AI, I’m pretty conflicted. I’m trying to use it just as a reference tool to help me learn, and not a replacement for thinking and creativity. I think that’s what I’m doing with it? But maybe I’m deluding myself.

I hate the environmental impacts though from what I’ve read it’s image and video generation which are the energy hogs and I never use it for those. In any case I intend to try local LLM for my narrow use cases once I learn how.