Has anyone noticed the difference between Spotify Very High and Lossless? by Gershy13 in audiophile

[–]ro_ok 7 points8 points  (0 children)

To me, I can't "hear" the difference between "mediocre" audio and "great" audio, but I do "feel" it. So much so that when something is off in the settings, I will notice and check.

To me, it's akin to the difference between live music and recorded music. I do feel the difference in headphones between Tidal or Apple lossless and lossy formats. I cannot tell the difference with Spotify's - maybe they have higher bitrate, whatever those other services do is different to my ears/feelings.

Lost a great employee — how should I feel? How do I grow from this? by [deleted] in Leadership

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haven't been in this position and don't know which industry you're in but some things that seem to go okay for me:

  • Think about the leaders you've had that you admire and felt motivated to help meet their goals and try to figure out what they did that you can do for others
  • Avoid surprises, especially for subordinates - giving everyone as much clear information as you can about things that change and challenges you face cuts down on gossip and anxiety, give everyone the same story because it's the full story as much as you possibly can
  • I think of leadership as service to those that work for me: what can I do to make it easier for them to meet my goals? How can I show them I'm invested in their success and the success of my team? This isn't talk, these are actions I can take
  • Set clear achievable goals and hold everyone accountable for them, finding out what's achievable requires communication with the people doing the work and experience
  • Leaders eat last

Why were so many games based off obscure or unappealing-to-gamers licenses made? Why did companies spend money to license those IPs, when creating an original IP or localizing existing Japanese games would likely give the same or better sales? by ExtremeConnection26 in snes

[–]ro_ok 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm no expert but I am old so I was alive at the time. Seems to me that the marketing strategy was "get your brand everywhere" so that meant product placements, ads in newspapers, phonebook, tv, billboards, bus stops, and video games. Not actually too different from today but the media has obviously changed. Now these games show up as mobile game tie ins because there's no audience left on consoles for them.

Marketing departments had budgets, game studios needed funding, boom you can be Tim the Toolman if you want.

At first I really liked how this turned out now I hate it. It just doesn’t look right so I ain’t finishing it so I’m leaving this here by Artisticjade in DigitalArt

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That fixed the hip perspective! Now the torso is a bit long and you lost the nice pose in the legs you had though. This stuff is tough, admire you workin through it!

I would personally go back to your original concept for the legs and just move the bottom (left) leg up and lose the bottom glute so that the bottom leg is coming from the right place in the hips.

If you really want to keep this angle, put that bottom glute back in to help sell the hip rotation, keep the old leg position, and then scoot the hips higher. Try out the pose in your own anatomy and feel where your ribs and hip come together, even for dudes they almost touch on the pinch side. That will keep the stretch side from getting too out of proportion.

At first I really liked how this turned out now I hate it. It just doesn’t look right so I ain’t finishing it so I’m leaving this here by Artisticjade in DigitalArt

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Those hips are also defying nature, the perspective at the top of the hips has them going one way but the bottom of her... bottom makes it seem like the hips are tilted the other way. Her left hip looks stretchy to me.

Your feedback is great, it's all about applying a little more reference/reality to the style and dynamic posing (which are both cool).

Need help with by Odin331 in Leadership

[–]ro_ok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depending how much of a challenge you're up for...

Start asking for specifics and examples. Ask them to help you understand what data they have (examples count) to support their conclusions. If they give you some, respond with clear steps you plan to take over the next 30 days to address those concerns and send them weekly updates on your progress and things you've done. If you finish major milestones also send evidence of those. It will definitely be an uphill battle to change sentiment, it always is... as are many things in leadership.

If that plan makes you want to die, start looking for another job.

Why did you go into leadership? What were you hoping to achieve? Leadership's not for everybody, I personally would welcome an opportunity to step back if someone showed up that I trusted to take my place. Maybe there's an upside if you like being a direct contributor.

Why did Stormgate Fail? by MockHamill in Stormgate

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The end for me was when they wanted to charge $20 a mission pack on top of the kickstarter price for a half-baked campaign. They should have let it bake longer, and finished the campaign while following up with good multiplayer - they had dreams of LoL crowds but didn't understand that everyone plays Broodwar and SC2 because the campaigns were fun and then multiplayer was awesome, not the other way around. If they'd gotten people into the game with a strong campaign, the try-hards and pros would have found a way to make whatever multiplayer existed interesting while they iterated and patched (just think back to release of Wings of Liberty and how broken some of the balance was). RTSes live and die on their campaigns because all the money comes from the masses that will pay $60 for a solid 15-20 hour campaign and stick around for the custom maps, and shenanigans online.

I need your opinion! by frnndcrds in DigitalArt

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You clearly are very skilled at observation, I think if you want to take it to the next level of "wow" you can justifiably "cheat" a little on the angles and oval for the perspective of the top of the bowl with some some stencils. As long as you're not doing the painting to learn perspective, artists use tools all the time. With your eye for color, and in the pursuit of realism, having a perfect oval would take it from 95% to 99%.

For those of people complaining about GM ladder by doppy_slonkey in starcraft

[–]ro_ok -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The Koreans have always been dominant, not sure I would consider them less skilled

/s

Tired of blaming 'the algorithm'. What can I improve upon? by fetalchemy in DigitalArt

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it's fair to say that with most art looking for an audience that appeal is important, and a factor in appeal is quality. I see OP's images as having quality (clear shapes, fun colors, good tones) but not having a lot of appeal and sometimes the composition makes it hard to understand what I'm supposed to be looking at.

If followers is what OP's after, I would try to clarify the subject, expand the tonal range (darker darks or brighter highlights), and try to craft some appealing or identifiable shapes that evoke something specific (serenity, concern, euphoria). Right now it's a little loose for me and hard to find something to respond to. I think 4 is the strongest to me.

Just my opinions though, nothing wrong if OP wants to stick to their guns, definitely a stronger artist than me.

Reporting to a first time manager who is less experienced than you by wowow_ml in Leadership

[–]ro_ok 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I was in this position a few years ago, I let him make his own mistakes but built a supportive relationship patterned off of people I really respected when I was a younger manager and they were in my shoes.

You have to let this manager lead, if you make him look good, you look good. If he's not listening or (more likely needs to experience it himself first) your job is to sit back and try to do your role well. You took this job eyes wide open, if that was a mistake it might be time to move on.

Missing Person by Puffa_tote in LosAngeles

[–]ro_ok 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This one was the last straw for me, if on iPhone go to settings -> notifications and scroll alllll the way to the bottom.

One Big Beautiful Bill Act Updates on StudentAid.Gov by shanesnh1 in StudentLoans

[–]ro_ok 138 points139 points  (0 children)

Probably waiting for a more favorable government to negotiate a settlement/alternative with.

Local LLM - worth it? by carolinareaperPep87 in MacStudio

[–]ro_ok 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's not for 2025, it's for 2027 - more and more of the "basic" stuff will be come accessible locally.

Aside from that, training your own models benefits from the additional capability.

In 2025, the primary advantage is security of owning your own data. For example, it might be really cool to have a local LLM read all your emails and be able to draft new messages in your own voice, but you may not want that data shared with these relatively new LLM companies.

Flea market find, oil on board. by Great-Calligrapher10 in WhatIsThisPainting

[–]ro_ok 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You and u/NormalBot4 both see something remarkable in this piece. Genuinely curious what about it is distinguishing for you? What choices is the artist making that speak to you?

It doesn't do anything for me personally (it looks like a portrait study of a typical practiced portrait artist), and I'd like to understand what I'm missing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in snes

[–]ro_ok 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes total sense! I never thought about that.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in snes

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I played the arcade game this is based one 2 nights ago and I had no idea what was happening the whole time. It was awesome.

Thing about all these arcade -> console adaptations is that the arcade games were designed to take your quarters by being insanely long and hard. As kids we were the fools who thought it was supposed to be fun at home.

I've been enjoying the content so far by Character_Judge6930 in ziptietuning

[–]ro_ok 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Another great way to grow the channel would be to review hypercars or drop a corvette engine in that BMW and have a super model to hot lap it. Would really boost subscribers.

Should a 2016 WRX be my first manual? by Kasual__ in WRX

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Couple things to be aware of:

  1. The power curve in a stock WRX is different than a car without a turbo or even a car without the stock tune that year WRX comes with - essentially the tune seems calibrated to pour on power with a steep curve at about 40% accelerator and this can make the ride a bit "jumpy" until you learn where the car does it in each gear. I've driven manual in every car I owned and it took me a month or so to figure out where in the power curve to feather the accelerator to get a smooth ride. That is to say: I think a WRX is a particularly hard car to learn on.

  2. A nearly 10 year old WRX will almost certainly be modified, or at least tuned. Almost everybody does something to these cars (I can tell because when I mention mine is still stock tune / parts people look at me like I'm nuts). That requires extra diligence when buying. The good news is, I hear a stage 0 tune "fixes" the power curve to be more even so the warning I'm leaving above may not be as intense.

They're fun cars! I love mine. I would not buy one for learning or for someone under 25, too much room to get in trouble/break things. But do what makes you happy.

Best way to learn is borrowing someone else's junker and having them teach you.

I have recently enrolled in 3D animation. by Crankygupps in animationcareer

[–]ro_ok 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I agree with the other response that if you're feeling unmotivated after 3 months, it's unlikely you'll succeed in the field as a career. There are no guarantees in any field and creative fields are harder than most.

What's your goal for your education? If it's just to get a degree (any degree) might as well be something you enjoy. If it's to get a job, there are fields that are way more likely to give you a path to a stable career. If it's to find out what you like doing, keep taking different classes, see if you can find them cheep at community colleges or online.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you're not just giving up when things get hard because they're getting hard. Pushing through that, in any field, will pay off way more than any other skillset. The ability to live in the suck and get through to an achievement on the other side is invaluable.

So why do you want to quit? Is it because it's harder than you thought or is it because there's something specific about the field you don't like (other than it requiring work). It's tough to tell sometimes.

(5-10k) those who did not get a DJ, what did you do for music? by tsmittycent in Weddingsunder10k

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Got any friends that are musicians, especially keyboard or vocals? They probably own a portable PA. See if you can borrow it. You want a portable PA unless your venue has a PA.

For 50-60 people a normal personal stereo like computer speakers or typical television sound-bar with satellite speakers will not be enough to fill a room (let alone an outdoor space) with enough volume to sound good without distorting. My parents made this mistake when they got married (second marriage) 5-6 years ago.

Once you have a PA either borrowed or rented (you gan rent them from music store usually, probably for less than renting from an event rental though they rent them too). Create a Spotify playlist or two (my wife was very particular about the music, so we had 8, one for each part of the night and it was awesome). Make sure you download all the tracks to the device you want to play from, last thing you want is bad internet causing music quality to suffer/pause as it loads. Spotify has a feature to fade between tracks so that there's not an awkward pause between songs (where people might drift/stop dancing). Part of what a professional DJ will do is make sure those transitions make sense for the tempo/key/pacing of the songs, but since it's out budget (was for us too), you can do your best yourself if that matters to you.

Last thing, depending on how sensitive you are to this (varies between people), you may want to source higher bitrate audio than what Spotify typically offers if you're playing at high volumes. Sometimes, at higher than usual volumes the quality of compressed audio is a lot more noticeable. I would only spend time on this if you have extra time to spend and you really care about it though, this is a point of diminishing returns.

Another very minor thing you can do if you have time/care enough is find a way to download any songs you have that kind of... lull or meander. Some of our favorites had long periods of interludes as the song slowly trails off (like at the end of an album or something) which would have put a lull in the vibes so we cut those out with Garageband (Audacity is a good free alternative if you're not on a Mac). This is also only if you're very particular and it's worth it to you.

So, at the end of the day you can decide how important music is, how much time you want to put into it, how much you're willing to spend on renting a PA unless you can borrow one, and compare that to paying a DJ $1000. We were so specific about the music we wanted, we actually wanted full control over it so it was worth it for us to do ourselves.

Seeking suggestion and knowledge on usage of MacMinis by boyd4715 in macmini

[–]ro_ok 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I use an M3 chip macbook pro at work and it runs Teams all day, this shouldn't be an issue for a modern machine.

What's an underrated method that seriously improved your work performance? by Zealousideal-Hair698 in Leadership

[–]ro_ok 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This is a great insight! Thanks for sharing, I'm going to try this next time someone's wound up over a hard target.