So this is the music I listen to these days.

Every week my music taste more resembles a 2006 teen. For example, I just rediscovered Senses Fail.

Dude's voice is a bit high but I still like it.

@cybereality said: So this is the music I listen to these days.

This is good. Hey, have you ever heard of Carpenter Brut, his sound really taps into my second-hand nostalgia for the 1980's (even though I was born in the 1990's).

Still though, the song I've been listening to the most is Nasty by Polyphia. It's amazing how they took influence from Hip-hop and integrated into their music in a subtle way that only fans of the genre will notice.

speaking of 2006, I just got a "gaming" PC that probably hasn't been upgraded since that decade. I now use it to play old windows games, test prototypes and play music because the speakers are pretty good. Has anyone talked about how crappy Windows 7 media player is compared the XP for playing local files? It's so convoluted for apparently no reason and I can't find the cool visualizers. Because of this I've been trying to find a copy of XP to install. It doesn't need to do anything beyond play old games from discs or play music, AND I WANT THE VISUALIZERS

@some_lame_kid said: Every week my music taste more resembles a 2006 teen. For example, I just rediscovered Senses Fail.

I still listen to Linkin Park, LOL. Found they do these remix/mashups on YouTube, they are fun.

@Audiobellum said: Hey, have you ever heard of Carpenter Brut, his sound really taps into my second-hand nostalgia for the 1980's (even though I was born in the 1990's).

Yes, I've heard them in mixes, but I never saw that video. Best video of all time. I used to listen to Synthwave for a bit, stuff like Mega Drive, but I got out of the whole 80's thing and moved to more dubstep influence.

Probably my favorite artist right now is skeler.

Still though, the song I've been listening to the most is Nasty by Polyphia. It's amazing how they took influence from Hip-hop and integrated into their music in a subtle way that only fans of the genre will notice.

That's amazing. Definitely a sound I haven't heard. So many genres mixed together seamlessly.

@cybereality said: Humans are really not as special as we think.

I agree. Humans are pretty conceited, but it's a fact that we have the best brain on our planet for general problem-solving and predicting the future. It's also a fact that brains are orders of magnitude more efficient and powerful than anything made with silicon. So far, computers have only shown any provable aptitude at specific, mindless tasks. Quantum computers are even more limited -- but very good at what they can do.

I'd love to meet an intelligent piece of computer software, but so far either no one has, or they can't prove it. And if you can't prove it, it didn't happen.

@DaveTheCoder said: Re: cancel culture

I agree with you, but "cancel culture" is nothing new (or particularly threatening), it's just more obvious now.

@cybereality said: This was the first video game I played on my Commodore 64. I think I was like 4 years old.

[Castles of Dr Creep] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castles_of_Dr._Creep) was my favorite C64 game, but I tried it again recently, and I didn't enjoy it much. I guess I was easier to satisfy back then. :)

@Audiobellum said: Hey, have you ever heard of Carpenter Brut, his sound really taps into my second-hand nostalgia for the 1980's (even though I was born in the 1990's).

I love Trilogy:

@some_lame_kid said: Has anyone talked about how crappy Windows 7 media player is compared the XP for playing local files? It's so convoluted for apparently no reason and I can't find the cool visualizers. Because of this I've been trying to find a copy of XP to install. It doesn't need to do anything beyond play old games from discs or play music, AND I WANT THE VISUALIZERS

There are loads of free (as in beer or freedom) music players for windows with visualizers. I used winamp back when I had windows, but I'm sure there are better choices now. I just use mpv on linux -- no visuals, but easy to script.

As for playing old windows games, I've had a lot of luck with WINE, but you can still get XP from MS's website. (You can get it from other places too, if you're careful, but I don't recommend it.)

@cybereality said:

@Audiobellum said:

Probably my favorite artist right now is skeler.

This is nice. I don't really come across dubstep this relaxing; I feel like I can read or code to this.

Honestly, I feel like some things have gotten much worse in terms of computing. Winamp with bootleg MP3 and MilkDrop or Geiss was the pinnacle of audio-visual entertainment. They even had a mod where you could play it with 3D shutter glasses, I had 2 CRT monitors back then, it was epic. Now we just pay more for less features.

This is kind of neat, and it says it runs on windows. Looks a lot like I remember winamp.

Edit: This one might be even prettier. I'll let you know.

Honestly looks nowhere close to as good as Winamp, but it's better than nothing I guess.

@cybereality said: Now we just pay more for less features.

Well, to some degree, you have to blame the independent developers who constantly sued microsoft for two decades every time they tried to add something nice to the operating system. I understand that the developers were protecting their livelihood, but they put a stop to a lot of features that might have helped everyone.

No, I'm not blaming anyone. There are market forces in place, and also developments in technology (mostly streaming) that have made downloading files almost irrelevant. But we also lost a lot of culture, especially in terms of the customization of UI and also visualization and mods.

Its a lot like cars on the market. Gave up style for convenience and safety. Can't blame them from a realistic standpoint, or the people who buy them. But I've always been of the opinion that I'd rather die young in style than live my whole life bland until my heart gives up.

Well, I'm a bit disappointed. The only working plug-ins I could find for audacious were these. I guess linux geeks just aren't into fancy displays. It looks even worse after uploading to youtube, but I'm not an experienced youtuber.

Then again, I don't usually consider wasting screen real estate on something I'm not actually working on. I use a laptop, so my display's small as it is.

@Audiobellum said:

This is good. Hey, have you ever heard of Carpenter Brut, his sound really taps into my second-hand nostalgia for the 1980's (even though I was born in the 1990's).

Have you seen Blood Machines? It's a 50min long space opera sequel to the Turbo Killer music video (by the same team), with Carpenter Brut doing the sound track. Some amazing visuals. (Video has some slight nudity)

I've used VLC multimedia player on both linux and windows. Worked great for me. Haven't used it in a while. https://www.videolan.org/ If you already talked about it, nevermind, I'm kind of a scanner.

@cybereality said: Honestly looks nowhere close to as good as Winamp, but it's better than nothing I guess.

Biggest loss IMO was when nullsoft/AOL dropped the video streaming support from winamp, it was kinda the youtube before youtube or twitch before twitch in a way. A real shame.

@some_lame_kid said: But I've always been of the opinion that I'd rather die young in style than live my whole life bland until my heart gives up.

There was this author that said: "The point of life is not to arrive safely at death."

@Kojack Blood Machines looks awesome. I'll have to check that out tonight.

@Megalomaniak said: Biggest loss IMO was when nullsoft/AOL dropped the video streaming support from winamp, it was kinda the youtube before youtube or twitch before twitch in a way. A real shame.

Yes, I remember that. There were channels that streamed music videos. I remember there was one that had Family Guy episodes 24/7. Though the internet was not as reliable at that time, it still worked okay for the most part. Yes, this was like the original streaming video, before YouTube and Netflix and all that. But it was all bootleg stuff, so I understand why they dropped support.

Yeah, the internets 'wild west' period I call it.

I've followed the arguments against doing anything about climate change since before most people had ever heard of it. (The first warnings I've heard started in the mid twentieth century.) The early complaints were that it didn't exist, then there was nothing we could do, then there was bickering about pointless details, but lately it seems to have turned into, simply, "I don't want to do anything."

I guess, eventually, you have to fall back on honesty. :)

"I don't want to do anything."

Sad but true for most :(

Personally I switched my utilities to green tech and make sure everything I buy is high efficiency, I don't own a car (PT and bicycle everywhere) and actively invest and moved my super/pension fund into renewables.

Funnily enough, my investments/super are now doing better than they ever have and my electricity bill is at an all time low.... So 'not doing anything' is more than likely costing people more than if they actually acted. :(

Also trying to avoid Beef, though this habit hasn't stuck yet. I'm not going full vegetarian but cows in general have a horrendously high impact.

On a side note (because it legit is something I care about and do a bit of work in), having trees that provide shade to your house will decrease your utility bills and increase house prices (plenty of studies). In my state (NSW, Australia) the government are even giving free trees away. There doesn't even have to be a $ cost, people are just not motivated to do anything these days that doesn't fit their convenience routine.

Personally, I doubt we could make much of a dent at all in carbon dioxide rates without going to pretty much full on nuclear power. Everyone around here thinks they are doing something getting an electric car but the power plants around here are all run on diesel. Solar might account for maybe 5 or 10 percent. Wind power has too many moving parts and is too affected by high winds. Kills birds by the swarms. It reminds me of closing the dumps and "recycling" when they sent all the plastic to China and they dumped it into the ocean after they took out the metals. The dumps were actually better by a factor of 100. I agree on beef. They are making pasture land out of forests and that's one of the biggest culprits of global warming. Trees hold moisture down sometimes 30 feet. Grass holds it one foot. Creates almost no shade. Increases the wind that dries everything out and is the next step from an ecosystem going into full desert. Australia shows the largest percent of global warming for a country and they have cut down something like 40 percent of their forests in the last decade.
The other thing no one wants to admit is there are too many us. Nothing will actually work at a certain population level and we are pretty much there. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure we will have a nuclear war before global warming is very much of a problem.

The dollar cost depends on where you are. I live in a deep red, oil company area. Certain interests have made sure that you have to spend extra to do anything green. You could buy an electric car here, but you'd probably have to have it shipped from another state, and the local dealers won't help. I might be able to swing one, when my hybrid dies, but it will cost a lot more than a cheap gas-guzzler.

I agree that the problem is immense, and a lot of the efforts may prove to be misguided, but you also have to consider momentum. Any effort can keep the ball rolling, and make it easier to convince people to do something later on.

On the other hand, I haven't got any descendants, so I don't have any real stake in the future. :)

The other thing no one wants to admit is there are too many us. One of the many reasons I'm childfree. I'm one of five and my older brother/sister have 5 between them. It would be frankly selfish of me to have them now when as a family we've already exceeded our lot -.-

On the other hand, I haven't got any descendants, so I don't have any real stake in the future. :) I'm an Atheist who never wants children, but I also want to leave the world a better place than I found it just because it's the right thing to do.

So I subscribe to this green energy plan for power. It means they source the electricity from renewable energy. It was supposed to be more expensive, but I bought these "Green Blocks". I don't fully understand them, they are like shares or NFTs or something, I don't know, but I bought 10 of them for the hell of it.

Now my power bill ends up being less. It was like $150 before, now it is like $120 per month. So it ends up being cheaper, people are lazy. I'm also going vegetarian in a week. I was a vegetarian for like 10 years a while ago, but I want to do it for health reasons (and it's also much better for the environment).

Anyhow, though, if you ask me, whatever will happen, will happen. If we are destined for a Mad Max future, then that is what will happen. It might take things falling apart for people to wake up. And, in any case, we won't die. We'll either have to build biodomes, or live underground, or whatever, but no one is really going to die. It will just change.

I gave up beef a long time ago, simply because I like chicken so much more. Chicken's cheaper too. All the cow farms in my state are dairy, so beef costs kinda high.

@some_lame_kid said: I gave up beef a long time ago, simply because I like chicken so much more. Chicken's cheaper too. All the cow farms in my state are dairy, so beef costs kinda high.

Especially lately. I get lean ground beef and it's about twice the same amount of chicken breast. Every once in a while I feel like I need a hamburger, though. Pork doesn't use much pasture land either, so I could possible find some lean pork for variety. I only have meat once per day. Some days I just have a few slices of cheese instead of meat. I don't make a very good vegan. I have beans for lunch and oatmeal for breakfast, but by supper I just need a little meat with my food.

My mom recently told me she got pork wings and they were really good. I think they are really just ribs, but I'm surprised I've never eaten them before.

I don't know what it is. Chicken with a bunch of greens makes me feel so good, but burgers make me slow and lazy. And I hate being sluggish. I've been told I eat like a hawk because I very rarely eat a whole meal at once, but its spread out over like 3 hours.

Unreal Engine 5 is out. I'm not really into 3D, but it sure looks pretty. I've been told that there are an obscene amount of premade assets included, and you can use a camera to add everyday objects. As a non-artist, it's making my mouth water.

@duane said: Unreal Engine 5 is out. I'm not really into 3D, but it sure looks pretty. I've been told that there are an obscene amount of premade assets included, and you can use a camera to add everyday objects. As a non-artist, it's making my mouth water.

It takes some heavy duty hardware. All I remember was waiting and waiting. Not only was unreal slow, but somehow it made my entire computer slow. That was with unreal 4.