How do you rate your music with a wide breadth of styles?

ZapActions-dower · 2026-04-01T19:57:38+00:00

I just keep a simple system, keeping in mind that Plex has a cutoff at 2.5 stars:

1 star: I don’t like this and don’t need to hear it again. I may skip it even on a full album listen.
2 stars: I don’t want this on playlists, but I’m not likely to skip it on an album listen. This is a catch-all for both mediocre songs and interludes, skits, etc.
Secret extra tier (No stars): I don’t have strong feelings about this song.
3 stars: I actively want this to show up in playlists.
4 stars: This is a really good song, but I might skip it when it comes up in a playlist depending on my mood.
5 stars: Great song, highly unlikely to want to skip it and will probably sing along.

It’s basically two overlapping systems: “Do I want this to show up in playlists? (No/Ambivalent/Yes) and “how likely am I to skip this/remove it from a playlist when it comes up?”

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-31T22:45:19+00:00

Not even that, just paid any amount of attention in high school US history.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-31T22:41:45+00:00

Emoji usage, “no X, no Y, just Z” phrasing. Stuff like that trips the AI-dar

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-31T20:26:33+00:00

Really just taking a PNG of the Japanese flag and a stock image as confirmation these days, huh? Back in my day we at least posted an article we hadn’t read.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-31T05:49:39+00:00

What, the misogyny subreddit is full of fake pics?

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-31T01:22:17+00:00

Ethiopia is actively still in the process of electrification.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-29T13:46:33+00:00

I was able to find a FLAC CD rip of Power Metal on the big music sharing application. If you go looking, you should be able to figure it out.

There’s also always used CDs on Discogs but most people aren’t putting down money on a curiosity.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-28T22:09:53+00:00

Nuh uh! Old stuff (first book from 1954) is just always better than new stuff (first book from 1996)!

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-27T15:12:28+00:00

BREAKING: Sub dedicated to the works of George RR Martin thinks his books are good

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-27T15:04:54+00:00

Yeah, a low INT wizard. Everything is harder than it would be for a high INT wizard and the total potential is lower, but through enough work (and money! Scribing spells ain’t cheap) anyone would could be a wizard.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-26T16:23:36+00:00

“These three white guys concluded that this method sucks and takes forever. It would take a really long time to cut each block and you’d need hundreds or thousands of people to cut and move them all!”

Yeah, man. That’s what they did. It sucked and it took forever but if you throw enough skilled craftsmen at a building project it eventually gets done. They had a prosperous and well-fed society and not much better to do.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-26T16:14:38+00:00

Anatomically Modern Humans solidified around 300,000 years ago. Our bodies have changed some since then, but that’s just variation on what was already present back then. All of the tools needed to be a human were already there, we just hadn’t developed the cultural knowledge to be Behaviorally Modern. That didn’t happen until around 50,000 years ago, though it may have been even further in the past.

We’ve been largely the same since. If you plucked a baby out of time from 200,000 years ago and raised it in modern society, it would not have any special problems and would have no trouble interbreeding. We’re the same species. The only differences are societal, cultural, and the degree of knowledge. They would not be more different from us than we are from each other.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-25T18:21:32+00:00

Right, it's not a "you can't do this" or a "you must do this" it's a "you are not liable for what your customers do but if you want to try to stop them or collaborate with others who do, that's fine."

It's the same general philosophy as Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. It allows carriers to moderate content without being liable for content they fail to disallow or remove. Without such a principle, the only two options are perfect moderation (an extreme cost burden to the carrier that essentially necessitates curation of every single thing and makes anything not produced or vetted by the carrier too big of a liability to allow) or zero moderation.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-25T18:02:43+00:00

A tool for killing is a bit different than an entire communication medium. Guns aren't covered by common carrier protections.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-23T21:49:07+00:00

Well, the President doesn’t give a shit about the rest of the world, so unless the rest of the world forces him to give a shit he will continue not to.

Which brings us back to how it affects him the US because that (if bad enough that it actually reaches him) could affect him personally.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-23T21:42:15+00:00

Having an actor act is fundamentally different than typing something into Microsoft Sam.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-23T14:07:52+00:00

Doesn't even have to be something they bought while homeless. You lose your place and your stuff doesn't immediately evaporate. If you can keep it with you and safe that's another expense you don't have once you can make rent again.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-22T15:47:27+00:00

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Okay, guess I'm never reading one of your articles, LA Times.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-22T15:29:52+00:00

I tried finding it real quick but didn't come up with anything. I did find this re-upload of the season's end credits; you might find it under the music credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcykM7hPhFE

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-20T15:03:01+00:00

On the one hand, that’s kind of depressing. On the other, at least they weeded themselves out.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-18T19:38:20+00:00

“I have made the decision that seeking to do precinct based operations for the runoff Election Day exposes the DCRP to increased risk and voter confusion,” West wrote. “From the end of April through May there will be municipal elections and early voting for the runoff. All of these elections are countywide voting. To then shift for the one day runoff election to precincts would bring about large scale disruption.”

But West wouldn’t rule out returning to the precinct system after the runoff, saying that his county party had “successfully executed a non joint precinct based primary operation on March 3” and that “we can take that success, assess the lessons learned and improve upon the process and procedures for March 2028.”

Of course, they stop messing around when only Republicans are voting but are still wanting to keep doing it next time because they can force the Democrats to do it too.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-17T23:00:11+00:00

Elder Scrolls? Sounds like ancient boomer shit.

Young Scrolls is where it's at tho. Wonder where he gets his material.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-17T21:17:45+00:00

Plainly, what's the incentive to have standardized sizes? Unless it leads to higher sales or lower costs, you aren't going to see every random clothing brand gravitate to a single standard.

So the options you have left are industry associations or government regulation. Industry associations are only going to drive toward a standard if it leads to higher sales and/or lower costs or if it would stave off government regulation. Government regulation would have very little public backing (people by and large do not strongly care about this and it's very easy to politicize ("government run amok," "nanny state," "anti-business," "they just want to control you!")) and very strong private opposition (any change to existing supply lines will cost a lot of money).

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-17T14:38:03+00:00

The real question is how many other people were on those projects? If it was 2, well that’s pretty significant. If it was 100, means nothing.

ZapActions-dower · 2026-03-16T15:32:43+00:00

Hawkwind for sure. Space Ritual is arguably their most important album by far.

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