WTF-Beta

@Piano-Dad said in My "final exam" for piano class this semester:

Glad you're continuing to play!

Yep! Sometimes I can barely get 15 minutes to practice, but those 15 minutes make it possible to continue, and then when I have, I can actually make meaningful progress.

You know, I remember a very long thread on PW about that Croatian Rhapsody and all of its variants many moons ago!

You have an excellent memory! I’m pretty sure I started that, and it was probably 20 years ago now! I think I sent some people physical copies of the piece in the mail even?? But I never got the piece playable, so even thought there are still some rough patches, it’s nice to be able to play it now.

@Bernard said in My "final exam" for piano class this semester:

Congrats on taking lessons! It's great that you've found a teacher that you like, so important.

She’s a PhD candidate in the piano performance program here. And she’s easily one of the best teachers I’ve ever worked with, which is. Saying a lot since I’ve had a lot of teachers over the years!

What an interesting piece you played. Who is the composer? I think you did a great job!

Thank you!! There are two places I really flubbed in this recording, and if I worked on it for another two weeks (both in terms of practicing and in terms of jus taking more recordings over several days) I think I could do much better, but there is a deadline and also I am ready to move onto other things!

The composer is Tonic Huljic, who I know exactly nothing about! The piece was made popular in/around 2003 by the pianist Maksim, who is a kind of cheesy “pop classical” pianist who got a lot of attention in Japan but I don’t think attracted much attention in the U.S.

My piano is being tuned Tuesday and I'm thinking of recording the piece I worked on this semester as well.

I would love to hear it if you do! Am I remembering correctly that you’re working on something Chopin?

I want to get my piano tuned as well, it also has a bit of work to be done. There’s a clicking noise in one spot in the action when I pedal, my tuner told me that the keyboard and the action behind it (if I’m remembering that right) both have to come out to fix it. He said it’s a half day job. It’s more noticeable when it’s drier, so he recommended waiting until mid-winter when the internal humidity has been consistent for several weeks. He’ll do that work and then tune it…

I think I might have mentioned that I'm taking piano lessons on campus this semester. It has been great! I love my teacher and I love the structure. We were supposed to have a "jury" (I would perform for three instructors) but the head instructor is on maternity leave, so I have to upload a video instead. I think I'm done, my piano teacher said it doesn't have to be perfect, and if I finish it this weekend, we can spend the last two lessons on Christmas music and other fun things, so I think I'm going to go with this:

@wtg Love it!!! What a beautiful car!

Also: 2500 hours worth of repairs — yikes!!

Congratulations @piano-dad !!!

@dougg what did you do now??

@Axtremus said in AI to take the job of spiritual media too:

Cannot think of anyone I know personally whom I want to see the AI version of.

I was thinking it might be fun to see a version of someone I know (who's still alive!) but the problem is that it's not benign, there's no way to be sure that the data for the AI version wouldn't be sucked up and sent into the ether, only to turn up somewhere else...

@Axtremus OMG I can’t figure out my reaction to that video… it’s terrifying, heartbreaking, sad… I feel like if that were me, it would make things worse.

My mother is 81, and we’re very close. I know she’s not going to be here forever, but I don’t think I could do that video thing….

My father passed away over seven years ago .. I miss him every day, sometimes it’s more painful, sometimes it’s less… and although I wish I could hear his voice again, I want to hear his voice, not a synthesized version of it.

@Bernard said in Windows 11:

not everyone is thrilled with Windows 11 being turned into an AI-agentic operating system

This is a huge pain in the rear for me. My work machine is a Windows 11 machine, and I have little control over most of.

Copilot (MS's AI) wants to insert itself into everything and it's hard to turn off. It's like Clippy. I mostly have figured out how to get it out of my way, but it still tries to get me to turn it back on periodically. It is hugely annoying.

Also, in MS Word, I feel like MS's grammar checker comes up with incorrect suggestions more than it used to. I ignore them, but I notice the inaccuracy more. I type fast and sloppy, so in the past the grammar checker + spell check were pretty helpful but much less so now.

Who’s decorating for the holidays?

We are!! I can share pics later as well. (Although it looks mostly the same as last year)

Mr SK put our two trees up before thanksgiving. And then I got them decorated over a period of a few days (since I’m less mobile than normal I spread it out a bit more).

We have a wreath on the front door and I’m hoping to add wreaths on the garage door carriage lights.

But no big yard lights. That’s the one thing I haven’t figured out yet. The lights of it, I mean. I love outdoor lights though so I would love to have some …

Thanks for posting that!

Self-training AI is a bit scary to me. We (or rather, AI trainers) already don’t fully understand how it does what it does. And quality control, checking for veracity etc. is already an issue. How will we be able to evaluate AI that’s self-trained?

@jon-nyc Indeed!!

@Piano-Dad said in Just my luck…(health update):

I'll try some PT to strengthen the area

P*D, somehow I missed this comment when you originally posted it (apologies!)

How is your knee these days? I have osteoarthritis in my knees, so my experience might not be relevant for you if your problems are due to a tear, but… if you can go to PT, I highly recommend it. My PTist gave me a series of exercises to focus on building strength in the legs around the knee and it has really been beneficial for me. You could also google around and find exercises to do on your own, but a few session with a good PTist can make a huge difference.

(Since I started PT in January of this year, I have been telling everyone I know to go to PT for practically every ailment!

I had another visit at the podiatrist’s yesterday. I had another x-ray of my foot and he confirmed that my toe is still broken but he did say the bone looks good and there isn’t any new dislocation — which is good bc the walk-in doc told me to do buddying taping and put a carbon insert in my shoe (to prevent the foot from bending). But I did neither of those things (bc I couldn’t get a shoe in with the buddy tape and the taping itself hurt, and I didn’t want to have a carbon insert to throw off my balance and mess up my heel/instep). So I was relieved to learn that my strategy of just shuffling around instead of walking was the right thing to do.

The doc also said that there’s some soft tissue damage (which the walk-in doc didn’t discuss). He gave me some info about care and what I can and can’t do (exercise bike is ok as long as it doesn’t hurt, yay!) and I’m supposed to go back in 7 weeks.

Oh and he said that contrast bathing doesn’t help healing, although it’s good for pain relief and relieving swelling. Then he talked about how it does help with circulation. I didn’t push back and ask more but it seems to me that helping circulation would help with healing, because everything I’ve read and heard from several doctors (including this one, the foot surgeon, and my PTist) says that one of the main reasons feet problems heal so slowly is because of poor circulation. My PTist said there’s not really research on things like contrast bathing because there’s no money in it (i.e., this kind of research wouldn’t result in new pharmaceutical or surgical treatment).

Anyway, I did the contrast bathing twice a day for about two weeks. I’m not doing it now, but if I find myself on my feet a lot and my pain increases, maybe I’ll add it in again. But I still have a hard time believing that it doesn’t help just beyond pain management. The bruising I had was so bad, and it’s almost totally resolved, which is a sign of good circulation.

Anyway, that’s my update, sorry for rambling!

@Bernard the indoor pic especially is lovely! Your wall looks perfect!

We got a little bit of snow during the night on Monday. Enough to make things pretty but not so much as to cause a lot of trouble. The public schools were closed yesterday, but I was able to get to my doctor’s appointment (thankfully!) I hastily snapped some photos before we left.

that's super interesting @steve-miller !!

Happy Birthday @mary-anna !!

@Axtremus said in Window heat pump:

Google's AI summary says heat pump is more efficient than central air HVAC system, and while the initial investment for heat pump is higher, it's not higher by a lot.

This is probably an aggregated summary of heat pumps in general, and, based on what I know about heat pumps (which is not a lot, but I used to live in a "heat pump" region and we owned one), missing a lot of information and details.

Also, this is exactly the thing I would avoid AI for, because it's not likely to include the most recent information. Like the new product @wtg linked.

@Axtremus said in Window heat pump:

Why is heat pump not more popular than it already is?

I think that's because most heat pumps really only work in certain geographic regions.

BTW:

I'm pretty sure my mom has this exact same chair.

/threaddrift

We're getting round two here tonight, and they're saying we're supposed to get accumulation over night. We didn't last time, despite predictions.

I have an appointment with a podiatrist tomorrow, arrival time is 8:05am which means I would need to leave the house at maybe 7:45 or 7:50am.... I hope the roads are clear, I really don't want to miss this appointment.

@CHAS Oh dear! Does that mean you can't see out of the eye that's missing the lens?

Hopefully they will be able to resolve this for you quickly!!