Discussion

@[email protected] @[email protected] "Don't you want to take a break from the meds to relax while you're not at work?" "No. That's not relaxing..."

Nb: hopefully this doesn't need saying but it's not that the song 'cured my depression' or anything stupid like that. But it was certainly a huge turning point in letting me know something was wrong, and to start dealing with it.

As a special bonus for reading this far, on the same album the band hired Brian Blessed for no other reason than to laugh at the beginning and end of a track. Have a look for 'The Joust' by Eden Burning, you won't be disappointed by the laugh.

For some reason, that song, at that moment, was exactly what was needed to break through the depressive shell and remind of a whole bunch of core things that had got buried in the numbness. And it's a good song, you should go l listen to it as well.

The only problem being I'm still driving down the motorway at 70mph and I can't see a thing through the tears. Fortunately, I didn't die. So that's also good.

In the mean time, I've joined RockSoc and started buying CDs, so I haven't listened to a tape for a while. But now I need to drive myself home from uni, and the car only has a tape player. So I drive for a while, but it's a four hour drive and I'm tired so I stop, find the cassette, and drop it in the car stereo. And after a while, it starts playing Hem Me In, and I start crying. I mean, really streams coming down my face crying.

Fast forward a few years and I'm at university, and I'm depressed. I don't know enough about mental health yet to know it, but the combination of a bunch of stuff including the knowledge I'm failing my degree badly overall despite seeming to understand things faster than my year mates individually (hello undiagnosed #adhd) and some things having gone very wrong for a close friend means I very much am depressed whether I know it or not.

Seems like I'm on an old music kick today, so gather around boys and girls (and the rest of you) for the tail of the song that turned my life around and nearly killed me.

Back in the day ('94-95?) I got roped into helping at a concert for a band called Eden Burning. Not huge, not unknown, very fun love, the recordings showed a bit their roots as live performers and not having lots of production money. I bought a tape, but while a couple of the songs were good the combination of them sounding better live and my not so good tape player speakers meant it didn't listen to it all that much.

@[email protected] Oh, weird. I wonder what's causing that one? I don't know if @[email protected] might be interested in knowing that is happening.

@[email protected] @[email protected] Now... does this make MS incompetent or dishonestly trying to shed responsibility by proclaiming incompetence? I'm not sure I know or care, really. But it feels hard on the other projects/3rd parties who got the random seagull experience.

@[email protected] @[email protected] Just saw a post (unfortunately on LinkedIn, which I'm reluctant to link to) where the head of developer relations was apologising because it wasn't even deliberate; they'd added a selection of useful tips to highlight third party tools with copilot integrations for the LLM to use in 'appropriate situations' and well, it's an LLM so it just started spamming absolutely everything with them.

Which means that, as far as I can make out, none of the third parties being advertise knew this was happening, wanted it to happen, or paid for it to happen. Which was kind of nice to know given I use at least one of the tools it was spamming about.

Oh, wow. Yoko Kanno & SEATBELTS have just released an extended 7+ minute version of Tank! (the theme from Cowboy Beebop) It is very, very, good and splat in the middle of the Venn diagram sweet spot of #jazz that is technically awe inspiring but still also sounds like really good music.

So if you've somehow managed to miss it for the last 30 years, enjoy! And if you haven't, go listen anyway - the extended section is fire and being able to see the band so obviously enjoying themselves playing gives life.

youtube.com/watch?v=d75ov4Hv...

@[email protected] @[email protected] I've just also realised that this is exactly what the best bosses do, which I've always previously described as 'being the shit shield' but that's a, erm, less useful name in a professional context than 'applies ring theory in their management of the team'

@[email protected] I love having a name for this concept, which I first met when some Chinese friends were horrified to learn that the immediate family normally handled funeral proceedings in the UK. "But... they're the ones most impacted! That's when everyone else is needed most."

Also: you (and by the sounds of things your wife) are standing strong even if this is a crappy timeline at the moment and that is awesome. There's a lot of us rooting for you, and hoping it gets less crappy soon, including adding some recognition for the people who are actually doing the hard work.

Just in case anyone is actually wondering, I went with fediverss in the end.

Starting to put together a hacky program to federate my blog by reading the rss feed to publish articles with #activitypub and then provide a known url to show any replies that I can drop onto the actual blog pages.

But that means creating a directory for the code, which means a name, 'activity_rss' sounds good but that's too long, I know...

mkdir arss

Fortunately my brain caught up with me before I actually hit enter.

@[email protected] okay, but I have to ask: Aldi clearance shelf or not, is there ever a situation where pink latte sounds like a good idea?

@[email protected] ah, well. It's all over now anyway. There's a line of LLM enthusiasts just waiting to explain to you how natural language is the ideal tool for capturing and defining complex processes.

Now, now, @[email protected] . You're almost making it sound like different programming languages are better at or make it easier to communicate different things to both their users and maybe even the computer.

This is obviously nonsense, as shown by the many developers who will immediately tell you the best programming language.

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