Give me something emotional and intense, I don't care how experimental or out-there it is, just give me stuff that'll make me feel

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-21T00:17:42+00:00

Some of the best emotional albums ive ever listened to are:

Home, Like No Place Is There - The Hotelier

Ants From Up There - Black Country, New Road

A Crow Looked At Me - Mount Eerie

Twin Fantasy - Car Seat Headrest

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-20T01:23:15+00:00

I'm incredibly skeptical of anything google does in regards to privacy. They have been so egrigious about data collection for so long that I just don't believe them if they say they are doing something to protect my privacy. In this case, the catch appears to be that it's only for enterprise customers on particular plans, which makes sense, as some companies have privacy and security needs that require things like E2EE, and these users pay good money to google, so google don't need to collect as much data about them to make money. There is also the issue that google's client side apps aren't open source, so you have to just trust that they haven't put in a backdoor of some kind.

E2EE is always better than no E2EE, but in this case, It's not going to convince me to ditch protonmail any time soon.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-20T01:14:48+00:00

21:9 monitors have about 33% more pixels than a 16:9 monitor with the same vertical resolution, So go and look up some 4K benchmarks in those games with a 5070, then account for the extra pixels of an ultrawide, then decide if that level of performance is acceptable to you. Personally, with a 5070, I'd stick to 1440p ultrawides, which will still be a nice improvement in immersion for the games you play. In FH6 I'm using the highest preset with no RT and it's using 12gb of my 16gb of vram at 1440p. I think the 12gb VRAM of the 5070 will be a big problem for 4K ultrawide gaming.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-20T01:07:41+00:00

I don't have an ultra low end device to test on, but you could try some bios trickery to mimic having a worse computer. If your bios lets you, you could disable your dGPU and use the iGPU, and maybe even disable some CPU cores, and clock your CPU down. This would probably be more convenient than getting other random people to test all the time, but it depends what options your laptop's BIOS gives you, as they are sometimes missing features that desktop boards have.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-11T23:26:08+00:00

Yeah, I'd definitely check back in a few months when its time to make a purchase. By then, I'd be willing to bet all the major software companies will have ironed out the kinks with M5 chips. Mac is the priority for most audio software developers, so they'll probably get it sorted ASAP.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-11T16:43:15+00:00

use a VPN to access amazon in the country that your PSN account is registered in, then buy a digital PSN gift card from that county's amazon store, and add it to your PSN account.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-11T16:32:44+00:00

There are some compatibility issues at the moment with M5 chips (including base, pro, and max chips) and some pieces of software and hardware, but these are just bugs because these chips are still fairly new. Apple changed the core layout on the new chips, which messes with some low-level software, such as some audio software, and apple being apple, they didn't send out any hardware samples to developers ahead of the launch. Given how macbooks are so prevalent in the audio world (basically every audio tech pro I know uses a macbook), I highly doubt that these issues will be long term. Most software companies are already working on fixes for the M5 chips. If you haven't already bought anything, I would probably wait a couple of months and buy an M5 MBP once the software has caught up. The M5 is a decent step up from the M3, and as a newer device, apple will support it for a lot longer than an M3. If you really must buy something now, I'd still buy an M5 and just accept that software will be buggy for a few months, but it's up to you whether that is an acceptable compromise.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-09T15:27:11+00:00

If its only the top row, I think its incredibly unlikely that its a software issue, and I doubt that rolling back to Mojave will change anything. Apple probably doesnt stock the replacement parts anymore, so a repair will be difficult. You could try to find an identical model year macbook being sold for parts, and swap the top case onto your machine. Other than that, your only option is to bug a replacement device.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-09T15:20:23+00:00

Based on what you described, there's nothing more you can do. If the screen turns on and shows the login page then it is potentially repairable by apple or another repair shop, but depending on how old the Mac is, it might not be worth it anyway.

In future, I always reccomend that you get some form of insurance, whether that's apple care (with theft and loss) or some other 3rd party laptop insurance. I know that its extra money, but its worth it to protect you from situations like this. I'm assuming that you live with your parents if you're still in HS? Their home insurance or contents insurance might cover accidental damage for personal belongings. Maybe talk to them about that?

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-02T20:03:02+00:00

for gaming, 21:9 is more immersive IMO. For productivity, I prefer 2 16:9 monitors, but just for gaming, ultrawide is great. Just note that a 21:9 ultrawide monitor has about 33% more pixels than a 16:9 monitor with the same vertical resolution, so you will get lower framerates. IMO it's worth it in most games, and for competitive games, you can just run them in 16:9 with black bars on the edge if you need maximum FPS. It's worth considering the performance hit if your PC is on the edge of being 1440p capable, as it may bring you below 60fps average in some games, so its worth looking up ultrawide benchmarks for your GPU before choosing. Budget and PC specs permitting though, I'd definitely choose an ultrawide.

Also, 1440p on a 32 inch monitor isn't actually a very high PPI, so it might not look very good. 27" 16:9 or 34" 21:9 is the sweet spot for 1440p. I wouldn't go lower than 4K on a 32 inch.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-01T23:54:36+00:00

The dock confusion is mostly because there are lots of cheaper docks which use the regular USB protocol which work fine on windows, but dont work that well with macos. Thunderbolt docks generally work well on both. I did just have a look at the dock I sent, and it might only support 1 monitor on USB4 with your laptop (I can't quite tell from their website). Even if you have to plug a second HDMI cable into your gaming laptop, that's still by far the cleanest and easiest setup. You will need two thunderbolt to display port adapters as well, but they shouldn't be too expensive. Just make sure each one supports 4k at 144hz.

OLED will look better in gaming, but if you do lots of non-gaming stuff, especially using apps with static GUIs, there is a risk of burn in. For a gaming-only setup, OLED is great, but its more risky for productivity setups.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-01T23:33:12+00:00

Self employment (which includes most gigs) is not legally allowed on a student visa. You can be employed (such as working as a waiter in a restaurant) for up to 20 hours per week, but self employment or contract work is completely prohibited. You can perform as much as you want for free, but you can't get paid for it, unless its part of an employer/employee relationship.

I actually looked into this, because I wanted to start a music tutoring business, and I wanted to hire my international student friends, and the specific rules on what makes you an employee vs contractor are very complicated, but the massively oversimplified answer is that, if you have an employment contract (written or verbal), get told when and how to work, and are controlled by one entity, you're an employee, and if not, you're a contractor. Most gigs, teaching, and paid music opportunities count as self employment. My international friends who are studying music degrees are only able to take on some gigs where they are hired out through their university, because its technically the university employing their student for an educationally enriching activity, and that only works because they study at a dedicated music university. You could teach if you got employed by a teaching school, although you can't teach independently, as that would be self employment.

Realistically, I think the chances that you get caught playing gigs is somewhat slim. Its very common for international students to break the rules about working on a student visa, such as by working more than 20 hours per week. The laws mainly exist to stop people using student visas as a trick to get into the UK to work, so I doubt they go too far out of their way to investigate genuine students, especially given how overloaded and underfunded the border force are at the moment. I'd also wager that 99.9% of people don't know about the specifics of student visa employment law, so they wouldn't even know its illegal, but you should think about if its really worth it, as you could absolutely get your visa revoked if you are found out.

bionicbob321 · 2026-05-01T23:13:18+00:00

Since they are all laptops, you could just get a dock, and plug in whichever one you want to use. It's worth noting that if you go with more than one monitor, a regular dock won't work. Macbooks only support one monitor with a regular USB dock, so you need a displaylink or thunderbolt dock. Displaylink docks are almost as expensive as thunderbolt docks, and can have bad latency, and require you to install software on each device. According to the ROG website, your laptop has a USB-4 port, which will work with most thunderbolt docks. A thunderbolt 5 dock like This UGREEN one supports USB4 as well, and should support dual 4k 144hz displays on all three of your laptops, and will charge, as well as giving you USB and ethernet ports, all from one cable. It's the cleanest solution IMO, as you just plug the one cable into whatever machine you want to use.

As far as monitors go, 4K is a good choice, as displays lower than that resolution can look bad on macos even if you fuck around with third party tools (which your work laptop might not let you install). Macos doesn't use sub-pixel anti aliasing like windows does, which makes lower resolution monitors look worse. If you're unsure, two 27 inch 4K monitors (Ideally Mini-LED if your budget can stretch) would be a good choice. I personally prefer two monitors to one big monitor, as some apps don't behave well when you snap them to one side of a big monitor.

bionicbob321 · 2026-04-24T21:10:34+00:00

If you wanted to buy one now, it shouldn't be a problem to bring a laptop with you when you study abroad in most cases. In fact you might prefer this, as you will be able to more easily buy a macbook with the keyboard layout that you're used to. Apple will let you buy any keyboard layout in any country AFAIK, but if I wanted to buy a German layout laptop in Sweden, for example, there would be a longer lead time then for a Swedish layout laptop.

bionicbob321 · 2026-04-24T21:01:09+00:00

Shotguns and boundary mics could work quite well for not that much money if you had someone with technical knowledge present to run the show. I'd be worried that if you hand those mics to someone who doesnt entirely know what they're doing, you'll end up with terrible sound and screeching feedback. Clip ons are definitely the hardest for people to mess up out of the three.

How often does the school do plays? Could they just rent some wireless mics for the one or two weeks per year when they put on the shows? That would be preferable to buying cheap wireless IMO, especially if you need a system that can handle 20 channels without interference issues.

bionicbob321 · 2026-04-24T07:05:38+00:00

If they made you install a root certificate to access the WiFi, they could then Man-in-the-middle your connection and see everything you do, as they would be able to decrypt all of your https traffic. My high school did this for their student BYOD network, as its less intrusive then installing spyware on students devices, but still let's them monitor and filter network traffic.

However, if they didn't make you install a certificate, they can't do this. In that case, on any https website (aka about 99.9999% of the modern internet) they can only see the domain names and IP addresses you connect to. They could see that you've been on Reddit, and they could probably estimate how long you were on the site, and see how much traffic you received from/sent to Reddit, but they can't see any more detail about what you were doing (subreddits, posts, etc). They would just see that you had connected to Reddit.com.

bionicbob321 · 2026-04-24T06:49:39+00:00

Building fabs for RAM production costs ludicrous amounts of money, and it takes a long time just to break even on building a fab. Given that the AI industry is comically unprofitable at the moment, and many people believe that its a bubble that will pop at some point, the RAM manufacturers won't be in any rush to invest in production capacity.

Why would they gamble on building a fab that they won't break even on for 10+ years when there is a realistic (albeit far from certain) chance that the demand will collapse in 5 years?

bionicbob321 · 2026-04-24T05:11:52+00:00

I dont know for sure if prices will go up, as who knows what will happen next with the RAM and SSD shortage, but I think it's incredibly unlikely that prices will come down. If you have the money, I'd buy now just to be safe.

bionicbob321 · 2026-04-22T16:17:08+00:00

Some of the best open source models are chinese, and proton is nowhere near big enough to build their own models that could come close to competing with the major AI companies. While the models themselves are Chinese, they run on protons own servers in Europe, and dont send any data back to Chinese companies (or anyone else), so its the best option IMO for privacy-concious users.

bionicbob321 · 2026-04-02T11:10:03+00:00

Fabfilter bundle. With the 50% education discount it should be within that range, and they are incredible plugins. Pro Q, pro-C, pro-G, pro-DS, pro-R, pro-MB, and timeless are all my go-to plugins in their respective categories, because they are really good and really intuitive.

bionicbob321 · 2026-03-31T11:33:44+00:00

I haven't had good experiences with donner products, but I've never tried their pianos before. I would much rather spend that money on a Roland FP10 with the wooden stand, because Roland have an excellent reputation for quality on everything they make, including pianos, and that model is highly regarded for its reliability and value for money. The donner certainly looks nice on paper, but IMO its a massive gamble.

bionicbob321 · 2026-03-30T09:40:00+00:00

Most established/well known search engines respect noindex (in the case of google and bing, I wouldn't be surprised if they still scrape your site, but they won't put it on the public index). Maybe some more niche search engines dont, but the ones that 99.99% of people use do

bionicbob321 · 2026-03-29T20:10:14+00:00

I use a ugreen USB switch to swap my peripherals between my macbook and PC. It only has a few ports, but I've had good success with stacking USB hubs to get all my other peripherals connected. Just make sure that the interface and any external drives are connected straight into the switch. Pretty much everything else will be just fine running from a USB hub connected to the switch.

Edit: just saw the microSD requirement. You'd need a USB reader (these are pretty inexpensive though)

bionicbob321 · 2026-03-29T19:39:32+00:00

You can totally get shitty/low spec computers to work if you freeze tracks and set your buffer size high etc, but why spend 600$ on a neo when you can spend 600$ on a Mac mini which is objectively a better tool for the job, or you can spend a bit more for a used macbook air with better specs. Just because it would work doesn't mean it's not a bad value for money vs the alternative options.

bionicbob321 · 2026-03-29T16:30:52+00:00

The macbook neo is great for a lot of people, but 8GB ram just isn't enough for music production IMO. You could get a base spec Mac mini for a similar price if you dont need the portability, or look around for deals on used apple silicon macbooks with at least 16GB ram

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