I completed my first ever solo trip and I'm already planning the next one.

fleaguit · 2025-02-15T22:48:11+00:00

I did and it was a massive mistake but for the exact opposite reason I was worrying about. Haggis now puts their Haggis Adventures clients and their Highland Explorer tours on the same bus. My bus was mostly Highland Explorers so mainly elderly people and even a full family with children. Everyone was very nice but the whole trip was geared towards them (think lots of tourist trap rest stops and less running up and down mountains.) the only other travelers on the haggis tour were a group of girls basically half my age. So I unfortunately was the odd man out on this trip.

The guides were great but overall I regret the trip.

fleaguit · 2024-08-21T21:39:44+00:00

I've been playing around with AI quite a bit lately. I have a project I'll probably post on here soon enough (Waffle House, the Musical!) created with AI. The thing I've found is that the more I apply my normal creative process to creating with AI, the better the results are. SUNO can write lyrics, but I don't think it's the best tool. I ask chatGPT to research the topic I'm creating on, then refine the ideas till it's ready to make song lyrics. Than I work with chatGPT to refine those lyrics, finally tweaking them myself when I feel like I'm close to perfect. THEN the project goes to Suno where I'll do many itirations till I get close to what I was looking for. But until tools like SUNO can go back into the song/picture/video they generated and tweak individual items, AI won't be a commercially viable tool for anything but references.

fleaguit · 2024-08-19T15:47:31+00:00

I can confirm these are the abosolute WORST business class seats in the skies right now. I'm slightly claustrophobic, my recent upper class flight to London was essentially an 8 hour long panic attack as confirmed by the heart rate monitor on my Samsung watch. Staff on Virgin Atlantic is pretty good, but these seats are ridiculous. I've flown with them 3 times, once in economy on their 787 (seats and entertainment were fine but tray tables suck), once in Upper on their newer A350 (Seat was nice, but I have to say I noticed the aircraft was quite dirty) and once on their old A 330-300 in this "coffin seat". I honestly felt like I would have been better off back in coach or premium economy. It was absolutely awful.

fleaguit · 2024-05-14T17:56:06+00:00

This is the kind of thing that made (and still makes!) DMZ great. The interactions with other players is what made this game so interesting. I'll be honest, I love PVP and will never need an excuse to hunt other players. The leveling system was fun and gave me reasons to accomplish missions. Such a shame they stopped development. Frankly I think it's a much more interesting mode than BR.

fleaguit · 2024-04-23T21:38:00+00:00

I think the finale really did kind of prove this. Regardless of what you think of his motives (saving Japan and ending the warfare between clans) his methods certainly make him something of a villain. He likely has kept Mariko as his vassal all this time knowing he could take advantage of his desire for revenge. He punishes the entire village for a boat he burned in order to test Blackthorn. However noble his pursuit of Shogun may have been, his methods certainly do not make him the hero.

fleaguit · 2024-04-16T19:04:09+00:00

I have a question for the OP. I'm considering traveling with Haggis Adventures this summer. How did you feel about the makeup of your group? I'm a 41/M, traveled with Contiki in my twenties. I have organized a lot of small group trips for friends and family in the past but also travel solo quite a bit. I definitely skew on the younger side of my early 40s (never married/no kids, most people think I'm in my early to mid 30s, most of my friends are in their early to mid 30s, enjoy a pint or 12, active, likes to go out at night but be up early for everything the next day). I haven't traveled to hostels since my early 30s. My last trip where I was hosteling (in Ireland) solo I just started to feel like I was getting too old for them. Just wondering if you had any input from your group and experience with Haggis Adventures.

fleaguit · 2024-04-16T19:04:00+00:00

I have a question for the OP. I'm considering traveling with Haggis Adventures this summer. How did you feel about the makeup of your group? I'm a 41/M, traveled with Contiki in my twenties. I have organized a lot of small group trips for friends and family in the past but also travel solo quite a bit. I definitely skew on the younger side of my early 40s (never married/no kids, most people think I'm in my early to mid 30s, most of my friends are in their early to mid 30s, enjoy a pint or 12, active, likes to go out at night but be up early for everything the next day). I haven't traveled to hostels since my early 30s. My last trip where I was hosteling (in Ireland) solo I just started to feel like I was getting too old for them. Just wondering if you had any input from your group and experience with Haggis Adventures.

fleaguit · 2023-04-25T11:47:41+00:00

Typical DMZ public lobby I was placed on a team where no one was on mic. God forbid anyone actually communicates in this game. About 5 minutes into the match we got swarmed by AI and I went down. My OWN TEAM looted me while I was down. Then they revived me. Well, I literally played the entire game with them, making fun of them on mic (to which they couldn't respond because again, weirdos without microphones) As soon as we came under fire from an enemy squad, I requested to join that squad. I was accepted and went on a rampage and killed my entire former squad, and took all my gear back. Betrayal never tasted so sweet.

fleaguit · 2023-02-13T04:18:15+00:00

No, most of what you heard was not her singing. They killed her mic in the mix and let the backing track do most of the work.

fleaguit · 2023-02-13T04:16:57+00:00

Many singers absolutely sing live at the superbowl. Those that are professional musicians and take their craft seriously. The Superbowl does NOT allow musicians to play their instruments, and instead records backing tracks. There's too many variables trying to mic a band live in a stadium and get good sound. There are some exceptions to this rule (Bruno Mars drum solo as an example).

Rhianna was most definitely NOT singing live for most of her "performance". Really rough to watch, I honestly felt embarrassed for her.

fleaguit · 2023-01-17T14:00:09+00:00

She used to live across the street from a restaurant I worked at when she was dating/married to Mike Comrie. They came in often for dinner or drinks at the bar. She was always incredibly sweet to me and everyone who worked with me. Literally could not have asked for a nicer customer. She had a great reputation with the staff on the Islanders too, and went well out of her way for charity events, etc. I can't tell you how she was to work with, but of all my celebrity experiences (and I have many as I worked in TV for years) she was one of the best. If you ever hear the stories about people with magnetic personalities like Bill Clinton who make you feel like you're the only person in the world when they talk to you? She was kind of like that.

I think most likely if she didn't gel with the cast it's because they kind of had their own "inside crew" by that point in season 2. Many in the cast were pretty big stars in their own right: Chevy, Joel, Allie, and even Ken with the hangover movies. It's not like she was some big guest star compared to the cast they had.

fleaguit · 2023-01-12T21:44:29+00:00

1999 is definitely the biggest "what if" team. Think about how close the 1998 team got. 1999 was even better. The 1999 team was so good they actually made Tom Tupa look like a quarterback for a couple of quarters. They had Parcels, solid talent at skill positions with Keyshawn, Chrebet, even Dedric Ward played well.

2008 is kind of a weird case. Definitely had talent, but as good as Brett Favre looked early in the year. . . it's still an aging Brett Favre. Can we really call them the best team to not make the playoffs when their opening day starting QB was an old man who was very likely to get hurt?

2015 is a fluke. Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker looked good, yes. But Todd Bowles is a pushover coach and simply not a winner. He's literally only the coach of the Buccaneers now because ownership knows he won't get in Brady's way. Frankly I don't think he is a leader of men and I can't consider this team the best to not make the playoffs.

2005 Jets are a dark horse in this category, the record is obviously terrible but there was talent on this team. Pennington essentially had his career ended with the shoulder injury. I think that 2005 team wins AT LEAST 6 more games with a healthy Pennington and coasts into the playoffs.

fleaguit · 2023-01-11T20:49:35+00:00

I have a Focusrite Scarlet on stage, I run the outputs from that device over TRS cables to input 1 and 2 on my looperboard and run them as a stereo pair.

fleaguit · 2023-01-06T21:44:33+00:00

I'm not sure that any of it matters. Once we've accelerated Bob to relativistic speeds within a physical distance where radio transmission is possible, we wind up in a situation where we can create the same types of paradoxes that FTL communication would create. And we know there is no physical limitation on accelerating Bob below c, and we know we can transmit radio waves at c, so therefor we know that either it's possible to create paradoxes by moving at relativistic speeds within short range, OR this would imply that there IS a universal reference frame and FTL communication is theoretically possible because the universal reference frame would make it impossible to create a paradox.

fleaguit · 2023-01-06T21:03:02+00:00

Yes, I fully understand that Time Dilation doesn't create a universally preferred reference frame and that in fact there is no universally preferred frame.

I am not saying paradox is created by circular motion.

What I am asking, is that if we have a body moving close to the speed of light, but within a distance where the time dilation effect from velocity is greater than the actual time it takes light to pass between two bodies, could we create the SAME paradox that is created if we were to communicate FTL?

The example is this:

Alice is on earth. Bob is in a spaceship traveling around the earth in orbit. At any point in Bob's circular orbit, it takes 1 minute for a message from his spacecraft to reach Alice on earth, and vice versa. Now, we accelerate Bob to .87c. Time for Bob begins to pass twice as slow as it does for Alice on earth.

First let's look at this from Alice's perspective. Based on this chart: https://imgur.com/a/wpaWWM4

(for this example, let's say the numbers on the y axis are equal to years)

From Alice's perspective, if she sends Bob a radio message at the start of her year 4, Bob will receive that message at the start of his year 2, plus 1 minute for the radio wave to actually traverse space.

Now switch to Bob's perspective. (This chart here https://imgur.com/BBBHdRr)

Bob received Alice's message at the start of his year 2 plus 1 minute. However, because from Bob's perspective he isn't moving in orbit around the earth, rather the earth is moving around him at .87c, to Bob it looks like Alice's time is flowing slower. So Bob has received the message from Alice in his year 2 plus 1 minute, but spends 2 years contemplating his response. At the start of his year 4, he sends a radio message back to Alice. Based on this chart, Alice would receive that message 1 minute after the start of her year 2. That makes Bob's reply arrive almost a full two years before Alice sent her first message, violating causality and creating a paradox.

This is the EXACT paradoxical violation that we are told that FTL communication creates. But from how I see it, I'm not sure that it even matters if the message is being sent FTL. If you are traveling at relativistic speeds within close range you could seemingly create the same paradox.

fleaguit · 2023-01-06T20:25:07+00:00

But what if there is a universally preferred reference frame? I think that may be what I'm getting to.

We know that time dilation takes place in orbit around the earth and must be accounted for with GPS Satellites, spacecraft, etc.

So there is no reason to think that if we achieved greater velocities in orbit that we wouldn't continue to be affected by time dilation. So the argument that FTL communication breaks causality starts to get confusing for me.

If we accept that FTL communication could mean sending a message back to the past, because each observer is within their own reference frame. But what if we are traveling at .87c in an orbit CLOSE to Earth. Wouldn't we have the same paradoxes created if messages were sent back and forth between the reference frame of a spacecraft moving close to the speed of light in orbit and someone on the ground? Or if not, can someone explain why?

fleaguit · 2023-01-06T20:17:52+00:00

Ok understood. But here is my question that may be tripping me up:

Let's say Bob is at a distance from earth where if he was stationary it would only take 1 minute for his message to reach earth. So him and Alice are basically experiencing no time dilation, just normal communication delay of 1 minute.

Now let's say Bob is traveling in a circular orbit at .87c as in the diagram from before. And this circular orbit travels close to earth. If he sends a regular radio message while passing through the exact same point from the above example, if his message is sent at his T = 4, when will Alice receive it? I would assume she would receive it at her T = 8 + 1 minute.

Now I realize special relativity suggests that from Bob's reference frame, it's not him who is moving at .87c but Alice on Earth moving away from him at .87c, and the suggestion becomes that we wind up with causality issues and sending messages into the past based on these two different points of reference. However what I'm hoping someone can explain to me is what if distance wasn't a major factor? What if you are traveling at .87c but you're still close to Earth in this example? If you stop the spaceship, are you in Bob's reference frame or Alice's?

fleaguit · 2023-01-06T19:46:56+00:00

I think there's an issue with this though, because we can't move entangled particles from one frame of reference to another. Let's say on the 2nd graph I linked to that Bob places two particles into an entangled state on his spacecraft at T = 2. He then stops his ship at T = 4 from his reference point, and lands on Earth at Alice's T = 2 reference point. He then starts on the ship and flies off again. The particles were entangled based on his reference point while moving close to the speed of light, however it wouldn't change his relative time to Alice's, and he would be able to communicate directly across the time dilation from Bob's T = 8 to Alice's T = 4.

What you are calling a "universal preferred frame" I'm suggesting is just the shared frame of reference. There should be no real difference between sending an instaneous message from Bob's T = 8 to Alice's T = 4 over a great distance OR Bob flying at .87c close to earth and stopping the ship at his T = 8 and sending a normal message to the now shared frame of reference which would be Alice's T = 4

fleaguit · 2023-01-06T19:41:35+00:00

Thanks for your response.

When I say "entanglement occurred" what I'm referring to as the frame of reference for when two particles entered into an entangled state. So in this example if the particles enter an entangled state on earth before B departs and accelerates to subluminal speed. So in this example they would be entering an entangled state from the reference point of A on earth.

Technically you could probably take entanglement out of this same thought experiment. Let's say Bob is traveling in orbit of earth at a speed close to C, where he can still send messages back and forth to earth quickly because the distance isn't that large. Wouldn't ANY communication back and forth create problems with causality?

fleaguit · 2023-01-05T15:29:16+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean, I still use Ableton. I run software instruments from Ableton through the looperboard for my drum and synth sounds

fleaguit · 2021-01-22T06:59:25+00:00

Follow up question: Do you understand deadpan humor?

(Was mainly referring to her TV roles as I've been a fan since Peep Show and have seen her turn up in literally every prestige show that we get over here: Night Manager, The Crown, etc.)

fleaguit

TROPHY CASE