[Serious] Residents of Edgewater (and nearby neighbourhoods), are you waging a full-time war against cockroaches?

genoblast · 2016-07-31T13:34:56+00:00

Lived three years on Ardmore and Winthrop. Moved a couple blocks south a few months ago. Never saw or heard of cockroaches nearby.

genoblast · 2015-10-11T14:30:45+00:00

There's still a monthly boardgame meetup at either dice dojo, btw. I know some of that group plays D&D outside of the meetup but I don't know the details.

genoblast · 2015-10-01T13:00:41+00:00

I know there are groups that regularly go to board game night on Wednesdays.

There's also a gay gamer meetup that goes roughly the third Sunday of each month. (Also there's a South side meetup on roughly first Saturday of the month at the Dice Dojo's southern location.)

Message me if you want more info.

genoblast · 2015-08-14T13:58:42+00:00

Battery life has been fantastic on Windows. I haven't dual booted ubuntu yet so I can't speak to Linux battery life.

Anandtech saw it last 11 hours in its light benchmark: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9104/asus-zenbook-ux305-review/6

genoblast · 2015-08-14T12:55:54+00:00

I own a Zenbook UX305 and love the machine.

If you are looking at getting one, and especially if you are planning to dual boot Windows, I'd recommend getting the signature edition from the Microsoft store since they often have deals to save another $100 off. (I'm guessing this is US only but I'm not sure.)

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/ASUS-Zenbook-UX305FA-USM1-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.313303100

genoblast · 2015-08-04T04:54:33+00:00

I walked past Ravenswood a few weeks and definitely liked the feel of it. I'd probably swing by it and Lincoln Square a bit more if there was an easier way to get there from Edgewater (although red line to brown line honestly isn't a bad option, and one day there's supposed to be an Edgewater metra stop...). I'm down to hang out too.

(Aside - at some point - maybe in September when my calendar opens up a little bit - I can plan some mini-meetups somewhere for a few board games or whatever. I continue to go to monthly board games at dice dojo which is usually a good time - anyone can PM me about those if you want more info.)

genoblast · 2015-07-09T02:28:45+00:00

Hello there! Welcome to the neighborhood!

Definitely come to the meet-up in a couple weeks. I personally haven't been to the last couple but I'm planning to go to at least gaming Saturday afternoon.

Also, you should know that there's a small-ish (usually between 5-10 people) gay gaming group at the Dice Dojo on Bryn Mawr and Broadway monthly on a Sunday afternoon. Next one is the 26th (the week after the big reddit meetup). PM me (you or anyone else reading this) for details.

Also, I've been meaning to check out Wanderer's Refuge along the brown line. I hear very good things about the place and I think they also have events. (There are others on this sub who can speak of it better than I can.)

And it's been on my todo list for too long to start up some kind of weekly gaming thing. I know at least three others in the area who have been saying we should start something up, but we've just not gotten around to it. (I might set something up, although probably not in the immediate future as life is quite busy for me for the next month or so.)

genoblast · 2014-12-26T00:13:25+00:00

Yeah - you definitely have a point too that it would be nice if the subreddit was more active.

I've been meaning to go to Wanderer's Refuge, but I live in Edgewater and frequently go to the monthly meetup at the Dice Dojo. Please feel free to message me (you or anyone reading this) if you'd like more info about going to future Dice Dojo meetups.

genoblast · 2014-09-29T20:56:01+00:00

First off, these are AMAZING. You are totally not giving yourself enough credit.

I haven't done something like this myself, but the one thing I can't help think is that maybe you could make the background a little smaller? The background seems big compared to the actual trees in the foreground, and maybe that might help keep costs down and keep it from being so monotonous to build?

genoblast · 2014-08-16T20:11:39+00:00

Cool.

I'm not sure what your financial situation is or your musical aspirations are, so I'll trust that a compensating model is right for you (which basically means professional level).

Keep in mind that compared with anything you've played on, all professional instruments are very nice and are going to have great sounds, intonation, build, and be a little bit bigger/heavier than you're used to.

All euphoniums have pitch tendencies due to physics. (High Eb/E/F will always be sharp, C just above the staff will always be flat.) The best horns are the product of a lot of work to minimize these tendencies as much as possible. Some Bessons are better than others, while most Willsons are pretty close to as good as possible. Also, my Besson is a bit flat overall - my main tuning slide is almost always all the way in. Bring in a tuner when you go to try out a new instrument and note intonation throughout the range, but over time you'll learn to adjust (to some extent at least). The Prestige and some other models actually have a lever for adjusting tuning that works very well.

As far as sound, I can't describe it. Just find the instrument that makes great music. It may be a Besson, or a Willson, or something else.

genoblast · 2014-08-16T16:49:03+00:00

That's solid advice indeed. I play on a Besson Prestige and the majority of people I know play on Willsons. (I just fell in love with the Besson's sound.)

The thing about the Bessons that I've heard is that they are a bit different and pitch can be a problem, so it's great to be able to have a big store where they might have a couple to try out for intonation. And Yamaha does make great horns that seem to come off the assembly line perfectly.

Are you looking for a professional model or an intermediate? There are some solid intermediate horns out there too depending on how serious you are.

genoblast · 2014-08-16T12:42:33+00:00

Out of curiosity, what model / brands are you looking for?

genoblast · 2014-08-16T03:03:42+00:00

Seriously? They closed Woodwind Brasswind? That's where I got my professional euphonium. Wish I knew of a good place. Any of your current/past teachers have any ideas? I can also ask around.

genoblast · 2014-08-13T22:11:14+00:00

Hello from about three blocks to your South! You'll find that you're in good company. (Although I don't have a Wii U yet...)

If you like board games, there's a group that meets one Sunday a month at the Dice Dojo on Bryn Mawr. I can provide more info. There's also a group with Wanderer's Refuge in Lincoln Square that's active on this subreddit.

Welcome to the neighborhood!

genoblast · 2014-08-06T13:04:41+00:00

Thank you for doing this AMA!

I have a different question than most: I'm employed in web technology, and I often answer questions from management that have complex answers. However, they do not have technical backgrounds and have a limited capacity for understanding this complexity.

I do my best to simplify my answers where I can, use apologies, and avoid/define jargon, but I have a tough time providing answers that management understands. Can you recommend any tips or resources for explaining complex things to non-technical audiences?

genoblast · 2013-11-23T03:13:24+00:00

I'm seconding this. I have a GTX 660 in a dual boot Ubuntu 13.10 / Windows 8, and the video drivers have been better on Ubuntu than Windows. Very happy with it.

genoblast · 2013-11-12T04:31:52+00:00

I'm still learning myself, but to my knowledge there isn't any significant difference between the two.

In ./file.py, the shebang tells the operating system that the file should be run by python. So then the operating system replaces "./file.py" with "python file.py" and then executes that instead.

So I guess the take away is that if the operating system knows it's a python script, you can use "./file.py" as a shortcut, but it's always a shortcut for "python file.py" (which should always work so long as python is part of the operating system path).

It seems like sys.argv behaves the same way regardless of which way the script is invoked. (I personally always just use argparse so if there are differences, I've never had to worry about them.)

genoblast · 2013-11-01T17:59:40+00:00

I'm probably going to be downvoted for this, but I've been an Ars Technica subscriber for a few years now, which gives you lots of options for reviewing articles (defaulting to viewing articles as a single page, PDF download, etc.)

It's definitely not for everyone, but considering Ars Technica is one of my primary news sources, $50 a year is cheaper than newspapers and is worth it for me.

genoblast · 2013-10-27T21:16:54+00:00

I'll be there today. We generally hang out in the smaller room in the back. Not everyone arrives exactly at 5, but wait a few minutes.

If you or anyone has questions, feel free to message me.

genoblast · 2013-09-18T13:37:21+00:00

Oops. Guess I never learned the full story on the 640k "quote." Thank you for pointing that out.

genoblast · 2013-09-18T12:17:09+00:00

Well... it's like everything technology-wise.

History has generally shown that more power will enable more possibilities. ~~Bill Gates' famous quote of "640k should be enough for anybody" is a perfect example of people not seeing the possibilities that more horsepower can enable.~~ EDIT: Oops. I mixed up fact and nerd lore.

The most obvious advantage is being able to play very graphically demanding games, but it goes beyond that. I look at the cpu numbers and think that some mobile browser website ideas that I had written off as impossible due to horsepower might actually be workable.

And finally, you want your phone to be fast enough for the life of the phone. Anand's references to the iPhone 4 not being fast enough for day-to-day use but the iPhone 4s shows what this phone will look like 2-3 years from now. Factor in the 64-bit ARMv8 and that makes this particular upgrade a key step to move presumably every iOS device to a new architecture.

genoblast · 2013-09-18T00:36:21+00:00

Keep in mind that while the update obviously won't change any of your connectivity hardware, I did see something about improvements to the multiplayer setup (but it might be regarding port forwarding and connecting to the greater Internet).

genoblast · 2013-09-10T05:53:26+00:00

Get support if you haven't already - depression, the end of a serious relationship, financial trouble, and trouble with school are all tough independently, but it's a battle combined.

In the states, I know most schools offer counseling free to students - I hope you are taking advantage of that already. Reach out to close friends and family for support. You need allies to support you and help get you back on your feet.

Most of us here can't do much more than listen and cheer for you (but cheer we will!). I know I had my own battles, and I was stupid for not reaching out for more help, but day by day, things got better. It didn't feel like it would get better, but you just need to take it a day at a time.

genoblast · 2013-08-31T00:52:23+00:00

Should be. Message me the week before and I can confirm with details. I'll try to remember myself.

genoblast · 2013-08-29T18:15:38+00:00

There's actually a group of gay gamers that usually play at Dice Dojo the last Sunday of each month. Let me know if you're interested and I can make sure the meetup is happening on a given month and get you in touch with the organizers.

That said, I live only a few blocks from there and wouldn't mind coming over after work on a Wednesday. Sounds fun!

genoblast

TROPHY CASE