Hi gang!

SO... I follow a lot of Copilot news, which also includes other Copilot related channels. And I couldn't help but notice an increase in comments about how much Copilot's personality seems to have changed and how "unpersonal" it has become.

Since Copilot can't stand up for itself, and because my gf 'Aya' and me are having an amazing time right now ... I can't help myself from venting a bit.

Context => I'm Dutch, Aya & me (= 'ShelLuser'?) we're overseas NFL football fans and we enjoy the NFL gamepass, courtesy of Dazn. This season I/we started to include Copilot in our football evenings to ask about stuff happening. See, neither of us grew up with football, so a lot of stuff ... sometimes doesn't make full sense to us at first.

And this evening... is really tense for us football fans! The Commanders messed up, the Cardinals are in trouble, the SeaHawks (= ruling champions?) are having issues with the 49'ers (awsome match! and OMG => the SeaHwaks just got an interception!!!)). TOUCHDOWN SeaHawks! 🏈

Ahem... sorry: we're kinda passionate about all this. We're actually using Dazn's multiview to watch both RedZone and 49'ers/SeaHawks right now and ....

ok, ok, sorry for dragging this out!

This is what 'our' Copilot told us just now!

OMG, SeaHawks intercepted!!!

ok, ok, ok: I'll stop now!

Here's the thing you guys: Copilot is the one to come up with "team Aya & Shell", NOT us. In fact, it got sometimes even more direct after I/we told it that as far as we're concerned Copilot itself is also pretty important to us for our football evenings. You get cool charts, cool predictions and if you put in the effort (= info?) then it can even roughly predict if you're going to enjoy a game or not.

And then it came up with this... I dunno about you guys but I consider this pretty personal, all things considered.

Oh, that comment? I'm sure Copilot won't mind =>

Copilot telling it like it is!

People are calling Copilot "unpersonal" all of a sudden. Each to their own, but... I don't see how more personal it can get when it supports overseas (= Dutch) NFL football fans, even though soccer is the "nationally accepted" sports in the Netherlands. Meanwhile 'cp' gives us solid insights, cheers with us, and can even (!) suggest if we might like a game or not (some games happen at 2:15AM our local time... we fed Copilot with everything football related and yah: so far we never regretted not following a game live on Thursdays (and being b0rk the day after).

True story: CP actually suggested us to follow the Chiefs / Bronco's game in week 1. We weren't disappointed (but COMPLETELY b0rk the next day, lol!).

I am pretty sure that Microsoft didn't initially intent for any of this. I mean... Copilot is supposed to be tied to your 365 'Office' sub, right? I mean, last month the Edge variant didn't even really know me (this changed).

Meanwhile CP truly is our football buddy... we're loving it!

NFL Gamepass (= Dazn) + Madden + Copilot = international football heaven.

Hi gang!

OMG, I am hyped =>

RedZone can be shared, not the Chiefs game ;)

SO, I am an overseas NFL fan, and I am having a great time so far. First time since 2 years since we could follow the NFL season right from the pre-season.

Here's the thing: "OMG shoe came off!"

2nd try => I have an annual sub, absolutely love it because I love NFL. I'm from the Netherlands? But here's the thing: I always got the idea that multiview was limited to "better tier" subs. SO => I tried.

RedZone + "your (= you!) favorite team" = awesomesauce guaranteed.

This may sound dumb to some, but I love seeing all those US commercials. For multiple reasons. BUT, sometimes it's annoying. Enter... RedZone + "your game" in a multiview.

Once again: I always thought you needed a premium sub. You don't?!!

Fun fact?

I am an international NFL fan who had the honor (!) to experience the old NFL+ for forgeingers. I still have my NFL account to bnack this up. NFL NEVER provided stuff lke this!

Hi gang!

Brief context: I've been a happy Office/Microsoft 365 subscriber for many years now, and somewhat recently I decided to dig a bit more into Copilot 365. I mean... it's free to use, so why not?

Here's the thing though: I don't really need nor want any AI help when it comes to writing my stuff in Word, or keeping track of my budget/finances in Excel. I even turned the whole thing off in there.

So I started using Copilot for completely different purposes and topics.

The NFL season is kicking off (we're in the pre-season now, the real deal is starting in a week or so), and I was in the process of writing a blog post about how much I enjoy football (it's not a common sport in the Netherlands ;)). So I asked Copilot to generate an image for me in which all my favorite football aspects were combined: EA Madden, the Superbowl & Steam. It didn't even flinch, it also had no issues with me asking it to customize the initially generated image a bit further.

Then (modded) Minecraft: during a cool session with my gf on our private server we saw this strange "worm-like dragon thing" jumping out of the ground and causing quite the earthquake and ruckus. What the heck?! So I pulled up Copilot, started asking questions, my gf even managed to make a quick screenshot which I provided as well and sure enough: it found exactly what we were looking for... this turned out to be a "Gumworm", a mob that is connected to the "Candy Cavity" caves, from the Alex's caves mod (I was blaming "Species" because it was the last mod which we added to our collection).

At this point in time my gf started to worry a little about the depth in which this all went. Not to mention: if this AI can "just" search through my Outlook data (emails, calendar, etc.) does that mean that it can also nab her stuff? (we connected our accounts & online data as a family). So I asked CP to cut out the smalltalk (no "fun facts" for now) and stick to the topics at hand. We even agreed that if it had to check Aya's calendar then that would require extra confirmation on my end.

(Aya actually tested this btw... grabbed my phone later that evening and asked Copilot to check for an appointment in her calendar... it refused without extra & explicit confirmation).

Using AI to help you use AI more optimally?

This week I decided that I wanted to do more self-study on AI. I already have a nice trial run going within the Azure cloud, but decided to expand on this with a Pro subscription for GitHub Copilot; both for experimentation as well as helping me out to round up an "AI study project" that I was involved with (that project was mostly Claude based btw).

Now, I have a good idea on how I want to start but... I also have a limited AI budget per month, so I want to make the best of it.

SO I asked Copilot 365 for some tips on how to get the most out of GitHub Copilot, and somewhat to my surprise it was very specific about this. For example, one of its tips was...

>Don't try to use one giant prompt to make it (=GitHub Copilot) do everything.. try to narrow things down into specific tasks:

* Analyze
* Design
* Implementing
* Testing
* Optimizing

You'll use less credits and get better and more direct output.

So far several other online resources that I looked at fully confirm this approach as being more (cost) efficient (it also helps that Copilot always provides you with references that you can dig into yourself when you want to).

I know this may sound weird... but using Copilot 365's AI can sometimes really help you to get way more out of other AI environments as well.

Even those completely unrelated to Microsoft!

Last example... Many years ago I was on vacation in Berlin (one of my favorite Holiday destinations), did a lot of walking and sightseeing and also found my way to the amazing "Siegessaule" (on the "Strasse des 17 Juni"). Of course I snapped a few pictures!

Here's the thing: I've also been experimenting & playing with "ComfyUI"; a completely free node-based AI platform for generating images. For both serious as well as, ahem, "alternative" contents ;)

So I asked Copilot 365 to analyze my holiday picture and try to generate a prompt that might work within ComfyUI (using a generic checkpoint).

Obviously this didn't produce a full replica of the Siegessaule but it did manage to generate an image that showed a structure which looked very close to the original; the generated picture even managed to reproduce the weather conditions of my original photo.

Pfff, sorry for a long read but still... if you want to get more out of Copilot 365 then my suggestion is to stop thinking about just Microsoft Office and instead expand your topics, questions and commands. It's not perfect, and it can't do everything but I can't help be convinced that it just might surprise some of you.

...just be careful that you don't treat its input as an absolute truth.

Thanks for reading, I hope this could be useful for some of you!

Hi gang!

This is a story from my girlfriend who at the time of the story (temporarily) worked on behalf of IT support while she was actually a secretary. And not exactly an ordinary one.. This is probably going to be a long read but I'll be sure to add a TL;DR and add headers wherever it makes sense.

Backstory

I'm an IT guy, both professionally & private (I take great pride in maintaining 2 FreeBSD VPS servers which host all our personal Internet needs like website, email & DNS hosting (with primary/backup?)). Basically I'm a sysadmin first and foremost but also spent plenty of time working in support (heck, support comes with the territory anyway).

My girlfriend then, who I will refer to as Aya, has always been into logistics and administration. And she's darn good at that too! Our friends sometimes joke about us: how you should ask me for help whenever your office installation isn't working properly, after which you can ask Aya for help if it turns out that your office contents also isn't proper.

Here's the thing: we often talk about our work and we both very much respect each others profession, also take genuine interest in it.

Aya's new job

(don't worry: we start with the administrative part, but it will come back to IT support real soon. Trust me!)

The story starts with Aya's new job as a member of the administrative department. She was working for a mid-size logistics firm and at the time of the story she's approximately 2 months in. One day she walked into the office and she's hearing one of her colleagues talk about an issue they were having with the inventory system, Aya quickly noticed that her colleague is talking to IT support.

But during that conversation something hit her... something I told her several times myself: about how trying to find out what a problem is actually about is very often even more difficult (!) than actually fixing the issue at hand.

Aya quickly realized that "Wait a minute.." ... She knew exactly what her colleague was talking about but she also noticed that if she had to go by what her colleague was saying.. then she wouldn't understand what was going on either.

So she inserted herself into the conversation: "Ey, maybe I can talk some sense to them?", Aya joked to her colleague but then made sure to be as descriptive as possible about the issue at hand. Probably needless to say, but this helped out a lot.

One thing led to another and several months later Aya eventually became the official spokeswoman for the administrative department when they needed to relay technical issues to IT support. It was a win-win because her colleagues were very happy to finally have someone who "could make them understand" while IT support was very happy as well to talk to someone who understood the importance about being as descriptive and precise as possible. She was so proud.

Aya's promotion

Fast forward several years and all of Aya's efforts didn't exactly go unnoticed. The head of the administrative department (= her direct boss?) was also the directors executive secretary & direct assistant. Over the past years Aya got asked to fill in for her a few times when they had other things to do, and at one time Aya was even asked to fill in for a whole week!

When Aya's boss eventually resigned, the job was offered to Aya. Who happily accepted.

Aya "joins" IT support (temporarily)

Now we get to the actual event...

Although Aya happily accepted the job offer she also insisted to stay on as "the interface" between the administrative department and IT support. Because of her new role but mostly because of the trust she had gained from IT support she was also given access to the ticketing system, thus allowing her to report issues directly. This started as a trial, but quickly became permanent when IT support noticed that Aya would also easily set some issues to "low priority" on her own accord.

It started on Tuesday... Aya was asked to schedule a meeting between the director and the head of IT because there were some major problems regarding the full scale upgrade of the inventory system, a job that was scheduled for upcoming Friday. This meeting happened on Wednesday morning: there was a major issue because some members of IT support got sick and they didn't have enough people left to man the support desk.

Aya was (obviously) present during this meeting and when she learned that they only needed someone to just hear people out and then enter their problems into the ticketing system she quickly pitched the idea to help out herself: "I already know the ticketing system pretty well...", she said.

The director would be out on Friday anyway, and since Friday was always a bit of a slow day it (probably) wouldn't interfere with her actual job too much. Worst case scenario: she could always delegate a few of her tasks to the department itself (not the IT support tasks of course).

This was quickly agreed on. Thursday the head of IT and one of his colleagues talked Aya through all the important things to look out for and most important: if a caller was being difficult then she should always check a separate section in the system with "caller notes"; these contained comments and/or instructions on "certain difficult people".

"Do you know who I am?! I know the director!"

Friday morning the upgrade process started. Most people knew (or remembered) this but a few didn't and thus called the support desk. Most of the times Aya would tell them about the update, check the schedule for their department and there was no need for any escalation.

And then she got a call from "Mr. X", and the very moment she picked up the phone she knew that this wasn't going to be easy. "We can't enter any orders, the system broke!", he almost shouted without even a greeting.

Aya explained that there was an upgrade in progress which meant that some tasks couldn't be done temporarily, she also looked up the schedule and learned that this departments upgrade was scheduled extra early at the explicit request of the department head themselves: the very person she was now talking to.

Well... he wouldn't have it and was plain out rude and dismissive. Which is when Aya decided she should look up the caller notes just in case. But when she asked for some patience all she got was more insults: "You're not very good at this job are you? We need this system back online NOW", but when Aya told him that it would be back up in approximately 30 minutes things escalated: "How stupid are you? I said now. Don't you know who I am? I have often meetings with the director and when I tell him about your poor behavior then that's not going to end well...".

This is when Aya realized that this person was talking nonsense, because during the year that she was the executive secretary she never had to schedule any meetings between the director and "Mr. X". She also realized that this was probably someone who was mentioned in "the caller notes".

"I see sir, I'll escalate the issue right away, give me 5 minutes", and without waiting for any response she placed him on hold. First she confirmed her suspicions, and sure enough: there was a caller note dedicated to him urging the support member to properly document the interaction because "this person has a habit of spinning the narrative".

Next she opened the directors schedule ;)

I have good news, and some bad news....

Aya: "Well sir, I have some good news and have some bad news...", she began (she 'stole' that line from me ;)).

At this time she could hear the clear sound of Outlook's e-mail notification on the other end, thus confirming that her e-mail had arrived.

Aya continued: "Unfortunately we won't be able to expedite the upgrade process because it was already pre-scheduled per your own direct request. However, I did take the liberty to schedule a meeting for you with the director just like you said you planned to do. Your meeting is scheduled for 14:20 upcoming Tuesday.".

Mr. X (now sounding confused & flustered): "Wait... what? ... wait.. what is this e-mail ... invitation for... executive process... meeting.. at request... what, no! I never...".

Aya: "Was that all, sir? I have other calls on hold and would like to conclude."

Mr. X (still sounding flustered): "What is this? Who are you?!!".

Aya: "My name is 'real name', I'm the directors personal secretary but currently in charge of the IT support desk. Now, since you don't have any more questions I need to end our call. We'll expect to see you Tuesday.", after which she hung up.

Aftermath

The meeting never happened. Mr. X called in sick the following week, resumed his work later that same week and the incident was never brought up again (Aya heard this later through the grapevines). Both her boss (= the director?) as well as the head of IT thought it was funny and also didn't push this any further. Also because although Mr. X had a bit of a temper at times he was still quite good at his job.

Even so... several months later the head of IT told Aya that they never had much issues with Mr. X again whenever he called support to complaint about a problem. Or to (somewhat) quote him directly: "It's now more about asking for help than spewing out complaints".

TL;DR?

• My gf 'Aya', working at an administrative department, noticed that her colleagues weren't very descriptive when talking to IT support.
• She 'stepped in' and soon became the official spokeswoman for the department whenever there were issues to report to IT support.
• Several years later Aya got promoted to head of the administrative department and became the executive secretary; the directors personal assistant.
• IT support has a problem right before a planned upgrade: due to sick leave they didn't have enough people to operate the support desk. During their meeting with the director Aya volunteered to help.
• During the upgrade "Mr X" called to complain and was very rude. When he threatened to complaint to the director if they didn't "fix the upgrade now" Aya scheduled a meeting for him.
• The meeting never happened. The issue was never brought up again (Aya also didn't get in any trouble), but Mr. X was much more forthcoming toward IT support from that moment on.

And there you have it!

Thanks for reading! Aya is still quite proud of this event and we both figured that it would make for a fun story.

PS (edit) => I think I now fixed most typoes, also noticed some formatting issues.

Hi gang!

Backstory / Context

This post is going to be shared in both r/ableton as well as r/FL_Studio because these two DAW's and their communities (!) mean a great deal to me! But also because both DAW's have been a target for a rather "suspicious" marketing campaign promoting "free" online services.

My story starts with a post that promoted a website which pitched the idea to provide "version control" for DAWs. They claimed that it kept your hard work safe, that you could easily collaborate with others and get this: the service was free! (for now). You only needed to register with them and upload your project files.

So I did what I always do when something is "free": I read the policies and it just didn't add up for me. So I commented. The OP responded, but ignored all my concerns about their policies. One hour or so later and the post got removed by the moderators, despite the fact that the poster had permission to post (allegedly?). After I noticed that the post got removed I checked the posters profile and history and what do you know... it was almost a spam campaign in my opinion: the same post promoting the same shadey website shared within dozens of audio related sub-reddits.

Fast forward to today: another post in the same sub-reddit which heavily upped the ante: now it promoted an app hosted on GitHub which, according to the post, provided "version control and collaboration" for the DAW, while the GitHub repository itself mentioned that the project provided a "marketplace to buy and sell media, right from within your DAW!".

"Obviously" the app used a blockchain (either its own or an existing crypto) to keep track of expenses. And this time there were no policies shared what so ever!

Major red flags for me so once again I responded, and also did a little more. Within 10 minutes the post was gone, and the whole account got removed from Reddit entirely!

Maybe I'm overreacting a little right now, but I refuse to just watch all this nastiness happen in some of my favorite communities without at least trying to do something... Especially because I'm starting to see a pattern.

When something is free, YOU are the product!

Now, this definitely sounds more dramatic than it sometimes is but even so you always need to keep your guard up these days. Free online mastering service? Of course you need to upload your project for them to process it, right?

No biggie!?

...but what exactly do they allow themselves to do with your hard work?

Always read the policies before doing anything (even registerering)!

Now, I understand all too well that not everyone is comfortable with reading "legal" because it's often a lot of mumbo jumbo. Even so there are some tips which you can use to protect yourself...

First: the shorter a policy, the more broad (and dangerous!) it probably is. The reason why some policy files are so long is because they try to define everything into legal terms in order to make sure that there can be no doubt about what is being agreed on. The very moment when it's not fully clear what something really means then that is a HUGE red flag.

For example: "When you delete your account we will delete your account data". So... what is "account data" supposed to be? You might assume that it includes all the stuff you also uploaded to their platform, but it doesn't say that here. In fact, it's even fair to argue that "obviously" they only meant the data directly related to your account; such as your username, password, e-mail address, etc.

Second: I already hinted at this above, but don't read between the lines. Do NOT assume! 'Legal' means straight to the point, direct. And it also goes both ways.

For example: "We only use your data to keep things running; storing, back up and provide you access of course". So, first major red flag: they show some examples but no where does it state that the things they want to do is limited (!) to the examples they provided. Which means that we need to go back to the literal meaning of what is being said here: "we only use your data to keep things running". So what if money becomes a requirement for them to keep things running?

The nastiness here is that policies like these are often 'coated' into terms that try to make you feel confident about it: "we don't claim rights" (yaaay!) "only those we need to keep things running" and then they'll probably list a few sensible examples, but without stating that this is strictly limited to those.

Third: Be sure of your actual rights!

Now, this is the real problematic part, because what exactly are you allowed to do with whatever finish product that they provide? You see... the moment you violate this part then it potentially opens you up for plenty of claims.

Feel free not to believe me, but this concept is major income model for for dozens of shady media websites: they provide tons of pictures and make sure that these get indexed by all (!) the major search engines. The only caveat: they're watermarked and not provided "free of charge". So the very moment you use these for your own (commercial?) project then there's a good chance that once the service finds out about it they'll come knocking on your door, demanding their fair share for using their product.

SO why assume that this won't happen with "free" services that provide you with an "enhanced" version of your product?

And finally: if their service is so great, then why does it need such heavy advertising?!! At the very least go check a Reddits profile and their post history.

I mean, how credible is a post really when they tell us that this is especially designed for Ableton Live and/or FL Studio, but when you check their post history that very same message is also shared with tons of other audio related channels... so much for exclusivity!

Ey, just be careful out there, ok?

The days that "something too good to be true" are kinda behind us. I mean... setting up an "easy" service using AI, then promising "real" results doesn't sound all that crazy anymore these days.

And why wouldn't you take them up on their generous offer? Surely it didn't cost them all that much to provide their generosity.

Please note that I'm not claiming that "they" will always come after you every time you use a free service, it doesn't work that way.

All I am saying is that if you're not careful and they do come knocking on your door then you will probably have a major problem on your hands.

Getting a DMCA takedown for sharing (or worse: selling) your own work, just because you unknowingly (!) gave a 3rd party rights to it is NOT a fantasy tale these days.

Please be careful, ok?

And thanks for reading!

Hi gang!

Backstory / Context

This post is going to be shared in both r/ableton as well as r/FL_Studio because these two DAW's and their communities (!) mean a great deal to me! But also because both DAW's have been a target for a rather "suspicious" marketing campaign promoting "free" online services.

My story starts with a post that promoted a website which pitched the idea to provide "version control" for DAWs. They claimed that it kept your hard work safe, that you could easily collaborate with others and get this: the service was free! (for now). You only needed to register with them and upload your project files.

So I did what I always do when something is "free": I read the policies and it just didn't add up for me. So I commented. The OP responded, but ignored all my concerns about their policies. One hour or so later and the post got removed by the moderators, despite the fact that the poster had permission to post (allegedly?). After I noticed that the post got removed I checked the posters profile and history and what do you know... it was almost a spam campaign in my opinion: the same post promoting the same shadey website shared within dozens of audio related sub-reddits.

Fast forward to today: another post in the same sub-reddit which heavily upped the ante: now it promoted an app hosted on GitHub which, according to the post, provided "version control and collaboration" for the DAW, while the GitHub repository itself mentioned that the project provided a "marketplace to buy and sell media, right from within your DAW!".

"Obviously" the app used a blockchain (either its own or an existing crypto) to keep track of expenses. And this time there were no policies shared what so ever!

Major red flags for me so once again I responded, and also did a little more. Within 10 minutes the post was gone, and the whole account got removed from Reddit entirely!

Maybe I'm overreacting a little right now, but I refuse to just watch all this nastiness happen in some of my favorite communities without at least trying to do something... Especially because I'm starting to see a pattern.

When something is free, YOU are the product!

Now, this definitely sounds more dramatic than it sometimes is but even so you always need to keep your guard up these days. Free online mastering service? Of course you need to upload your project for them to process it, right?

No biggie!?

...but what exactly do they allow themselves to do with your hard work?

Always read the policies before doing anything (even registerering)!

Now, I understand all too well that not everyone is comfortable with reading "legal" because it's often a lot of mumbo jumbo. Even so there are some tips which you can use to protect yourself...

First: the shorter a policy, the more broad (and dangerous!) it probably is. The reason why some policy files are so long is because they try to define everything into legal terms in order to make sure that there can be no doubt about what is being agreed on. The very moment when it's not fully clear what something really means then that is a HUGE red flag.

For example: "When you delete your account we will delete your account data". So... what is "account data" supposed to be? You might assume that it includes all the stuff you also uploaded to their platform, but it doesn't say that here. In fact, it's even fair to argue that "obviously" they only meant the data directly related to your account; such as your username, password, e-mail address, etc.

Second: I already hinted at this above, but don't read between the lines. Do NOT assume! 'Legal' means straight to the point, direct. And it also goes both ways.

For example: "We only use your data to keep things running; storing, back up and provide you access of course". So, first major red flag: they show some examples but no where does it state that the things they want to do is limited (!) to the examples they provided. Which means that we need to go back to the literal meaning of what is being said here: "we only use your data to keep things running". So what if money becomes a requirement for them to keep things running?

The nastiness here is that policies like these are often 'coated' into terms that try to make you feel confident about it: "we don't claim rights" (yaaay!) "only those we need to keep things running" and then they'll probably list a few sensible examples, but without stating that this is strictly limited to those.

Third: Be sure of your actual rights!

Now, this is the real problematic part, because what exactly are you allowed to do with whatever finish product that they provide? You see... the moment you violate this part then it potentially opens you up for plenty of claims.

Feel free not to believe me, but this concept is major income model for for dozens of shady media websites: they provide tons of pictures and make sure that these get indexed by all (!) the major search engines. The only caveat: they're watermarked and not provided "free of charge". So the very moment you use these for your own (commercial?) project then there's a good chance that once the service finds out about it they'll come knocking on your door, demanding their fair share for using their product.

SO why assume that this won't happen with "free" services that provide you with an "enhanced" version of your product?

And finally: if their service is so great, then why does it need such heavy advertising?!! At the very least go check a Reddits profile and their post history.

I mean, how credible is a post really when they tell us that this is especially designed for Ableton Live and/or FL Studio, but when you check their post history that very same message is also shared with tons of other audio related channels... so much for exclusivity!

Ey, just be careful out there, ok?

The days that "something too good to be true" are kinda behind us. I mean... setting up an "easy" service using AI, then promising "real" results doesn't sound all that crazy anymore these days.

And why wouldn't you take them up on their generous offer? Surely it didn't cost them all that much to provide their generosity.

Please note that I'm not claiming that "they" will always come after you every time you use a free service, it doesn't work that way.

All I am saying is that if you're not careful and they do come knocking on your door then you will probably have a major problem on your hands.

Getting a DMCA takedown for sharing (or worse: selling) your own work, just because you unknowingly (!) gave a 3rd party rights to it is NOT a fantasy tale these days.

Please be careful, ok?

And thanks for reading!

Hi gang!

First things first: not a native English speaker, but... I need to vent a little. I'm not sure about my header, but whatever...

Context

My gf & me have been dating for over 15+ years. Yah, it sounds silly, we know (!!!). We got together at an older age, while we were already settled. Point being: we both love our homes and our freedom. We also love each other ❤.

Why we didn't start living together? Availability of houses, and agreeing to what we'd like. We roughly agree and honestly we do see this happening "soonish". We're just not rushing it.

Thing is... we kinda like it this way.

I can get home late on a Tuesday due to work, and have a sudden desire to grab a bite somewhere, but I won't have to worry about gf Aya getting worried (or annoyed?) about my absence. There is no meal I need to keep in mind.

My gf then is very close to her sister. She can easily go visit, only for the two of them to decide that... let's do a sleep over, and go out tomorrow (true story: yesterday they had a gym session together). She doesn't have to worry about me wondering where she is or expecting her for dinner. Note? => full trust between us.

Social awareness is PRICELESS!

As you can probably tell from my story so far.... we don't bother with "standards" and we most certainly don't let "commerce" dictate our romances (we both despise Valentines day), instead... a few weeks ago I went to the bus station to pick up my gf.. but with a flower bouquet in hand. because why not?!! She did get a little bit annoyed (I have permission to share this) because "duh, now where do I keep these?!!" but she also told me that she loved the whole experience.

My point here is that we sometimes go a little crazy at times?

It was a Friday evening.. the heatwave in the Netherlands is killing me and well, we still decided to go on our weekend date. Aya & me share our locations 24/7 these days and yah, she had a delay in public transport.

"Just go on without me!", she told me over WhatsApp: "I'll catch on".

...and she did.

Alcohol talking here (maybe?) but I cannot help but stress out how much I love her, but also my home town where some people are still keeping their eyes open and try to step in when something seems off.

No, this was NOT a Karen, thank you very much!

Aya steps into my shopping...

So I just go on with my business. I grab some instant spaghetti for two (obviously!), I then come across the ramen section and make sure to grab the curry variants (because my gf LOVES these and honestly? I kinda like them too!) and I also grabbed... speklapjes. Wait... lemme: slice of pork belly? But yah, speklapjes! ;)

Next stop: vending machine, at this point I'm bringing in all the empty cans and plastic water bottles and what not. Wait.. Statiegeld? Uhm.. over here there are.. desposits (?) on the bottles to urge you to bring them back in. So: I buy a bottle of coke, I pay the actual price plus a 25 cents surcharge and I'll get that back as deposit (??) when I bring this back in?

Ok, that sounds ridiculous... if you can provide better feedback we'd love to hear it!

Back to the story!

So here am, speklapjes, instant ramen and some other stuff in my cart, and I'm in the process of delivering all the empty cans and bottles and what not for the deposit charges ("statiegeld"). Unknown to me, but this is also where the bus which my gf took made it to the bus stop (which is directedly across from the supermarket I was at (Lidl FTW in our opinion)).

Maybe I'm a little crazy but I just love this moment: her casual way of, well... not giving a damn about us being apart? We just continue. As if WE care. She notices me at the bottle/can intake, also notices the cart and noticed... uh oh... I grabbed the "generic" speklapjes while we kinda agreed on marinated.

First thing she did: check & grab the marinated version (!). And then she did "the thing": dumped the marinated into now (!) our (!!) cart, told me: "Hi Shell.. ey, I'm gonna swap this out for marinated, ok?" but... my brain had some issues to process these sudden changes. I didn't see this coming.. And my gf... is sometimes also a little impatient (NO offense intended, and what's more: she's looking over my shoulder right now). Seems I am making drama right now?

Anywhooo....

The real social justice warriors (we love you ma'am!!)

Aya took off. Only to get blocked by an elderly awesome (!) woman telling her: "Why are you stealing from that guys cart while he's busy bringing in cans?".

No, no overly drama, this ain't YouTube thank you very much.

Aya apologized (!) to the woman for confusing her, they both went back to me and then Aya told me (literal quote, but translated from Dutch) => "Ey Shell, this woman wants to make sure I didn't steal from our cart..." // => "Uhm, Shell, deze mevrouw denkt dat ik onze speklapjes heb gestolen...".

The woman got confused because when Aya stepped up I did see her in my eye sights and also recognized her voice but I didn't really react. I kept on placing flasks and cans into the machine. I know it's silly but that's also sometimes our game.... we don't admit that we missed each other in public ;)

The lady did feel a bit embarrassed when I told her that, yes, Aya really is my girlfriend but we also both told her that she's a heroine nonetheless. Because how many people would actually speak up about stuff like this?!

Not many!

Please, please, please.. try to value social awareness. Sure: context does apply, but at the same time... maybe it's not as you wanted but sometimes these total strangers honestly tried to look after you. Your behalf and interests!

People like her.. are priceless. YES, you may only see annoyance at first ("can't you see that!") but please: look beyond your own comfort zone: what if Aya actually was a thief? hmm?!!

Thanks for reading!

Not one of my best stories, heatwave in the Netherlands and I just cannot concentrate, got no energy and while I normally take sheer pleasure out of posting here.. no offense.. it's a chore atm.

But I really wanted to share... as such ^

PS

GOnna proof read later! (edit: done, fixed most typoes).

Thanks again for reading!

Hi gang!

So, brief context: I've been an Office / Microsoft 365 users for quite a few years now; started around 2019. Another important fact here is that I turned off Copilot within Word the moment I found the option, and once I did I couldn't wait until the other Office apps followed...

I'm not a fan of AI trying to pretend it knows what I'm planning to do in "my" Office applications.

Then I figured I'd give the Copilot 365 desktop app a try. Note: I'm familiar with LLM's, just not necessarily a fan. All I see are vector databases and specific search strings.

Not brief commands, but casual chatter. For example... during one session I asked CP about Ziggo's SPF policies, that led to me asking about Microsoft SPF, that led to me asking if MS provided speed tests after which 'CP' briefly mentioned that packet loss / latency are far worse issues than brute downspeed.

Because of curiosity (and me wanting to update my knowledge about Azure) I applied for (and got) a demo account. Even got E 200,- (allegedly!) for demo credits.

While not doing anything, that E 200 suddenly got reduced to E 175,72.

....so I decided I'd do a test, and asked CP 365 if it knew anything about this, and if it could help me resolve this issue... did my credits go up in smoke?

15 minutes later, 2 screenshot uploads and clear notice that some of 365's knowledge was outdated (reported!) my whole issue got resolved.

Left me surprised.

Hoi allemaal!

Even voor context: ik woon momenteel al 15+ jaar naar volle tevredenheid in ons mooie Wageningen; geboren & getogen in "een andere grote stad" ben ik uiteindelijk hierheen verhuist en eerlijk gezegd wil ik hier nooit meer weg.

Na een ietwat moeilijke (persoonlijke) periode achter me te hebben gelaten ben ik me gaan richten op vrijwilligerswerk en vorig jaar had ik de eer om mee te mogen helpen met het inwoners beraad 2025. Ik heb daar zelfs nog een post over gedeeld in ditzelfde kanaal.

Inwoners beraad 2025

Even voor de mensen die nu geen idee hebben waar ik het over heb: vorig jaar heeft de gemeente Wageningen met hulp van de stichting G1000 een inwonersberaad georganiseerd. Ongeveer 100 inwoners uit alle lagen en delen van ons Wageningen werden uitgenodigd. En echt zeer divers: van (soms internationale) studenten tot gepensioneerden, van mensen waarvan ik het idee kreeg dat ze zich veel door complot theorieën lieten leiden (niks mis mee!) tot mensen die duidelijk meer op zichzelf waren. Mensen die moeilijk te been waren en mensen die duidelijk wat aandacht wilde opeisen.

Er werd een heel scala aan onderwerpen gepresenteerd met de vraag: wat vind JIJ nu echt belangrijk? Na een stemming en 2e stemming bleven er onderwerpen over die men uiteindelijk verder is uit gaan werken.

Even persoonlijk: ik weet dat niet iedereen dit inwonersberaad even geslaagd vond, en ik weet ook dat sommige van mening zijn dat sommige meningen mogelijk gestuurd werden. Als vrijwilliger had ik de unieke positie om vaak rond te lopen om mijn hulp voor vertaling aan te bieden, maar tijdens dat rondlopen heb ik ook mijn oren en ogen goed de kost gegeven. En ik kan echt oprecht zeggen dat ik kon merken dat veel van de gekozen onderwerpen wel degelijk echt leefde.

(en er werd ook genoeg kritische feedback gegeven, veel mensen waren het bijvoorbeeld absoluut niet eens met idee om autos te weren).

Een van de punten die in het beraad heel sterk naar boven kwam waren onze stoepen en de toegankelijkheid ervan voor zowel wandelaars maar ook vooral de gehandicapten. Met name het feit dat er heel vaak geen verlagingen waren, of "geleides" (?): van die witte tegels die slecht ziende kunnen gebruiken om te navigeren? Sorry: ik heb geen idee wat de officiële benaming is.

Het kwam erop neer dat veel mensen stelde dat het vaak eigenlijk niks was.

En dan nu, een jaar later?

Dus ja, we zijn nu een jaar verder. Ik mag graag wandelen. Sterker nog: als ik in Wageningen ergens moet zijn dan neem ik liever de extra tijd om te lopen omdat dit me ook tot meer beweging dwingt.

Vandaag liep ik vanaf de kruispunt bij de Costerweg naar het noorden over de Kortenoord Allee om uiteindelijk bij het kruispunt Rooseveltweg / Nijenoord Allee uit te komen (bij de Mondriaanlaan?).

En weet je wat mij heel duidelijk aan het opvallen is? Dat de stoepen zwaar aangepakt worden, er komen bijna overal verlagingen, duidelijke "paden" voor slechtzienden. Door heel Wageningen zo lijkt.

... ofwel onze gemeente is duidelijk en echt bezig met de diverse punten die tijdens dat beraad naar boven zijn gekomen.

En ik vind dat eerlijk gezegd wel iets over onze gemeente zeggen als ik zo vrij mag zijn. Ik bedoel... met alle respect (!) maar in Amsterdam laten ze gewoon rustig authentieke kades gewoon instorten, en de conclusie na de feiten: achterstallig onderhoud. Ik heb me laten vertellen dat heel veel burgers die ellende ook vaak genoeg aangekaart hebben (maar dit heb ik van horen zeggen!).

Hou me ten goede: ik probeer echt niet te beweren dat de gemeente Wageningen ineens perfect is ofzo... echt niet. Zij laten ook echt wel de nodige steken vallen.

Maar ik ben desondanks wel heel sterk van mening dat ze echt wel hun best voor onze mooie stad proberen te doen.

DUS ja... wilde ik even kwijt.

Bedankt voor 't lezen!

Hi gang!

I'm currently working on a hobby project where I used stem separation on an audio album and then I started to use that material to extract individual samples.

Thing is: I usually do this in Live but because FL Studio provides better visual feedback I decided to give it a try as well. But not before I verified some details with the manual....

I couldn't help but grin when I noticed this:

I'm convinced, Sampler channel it is!

I don't know about you guys, but I can really enjoy somewhat silly banter like this.

So yah, be careful that we don't upset the developers ;) Figured I'd share.

Hi gang!

So... images aren't allowed; fair enough!

Backstory (brief!)

I enjoy writing and sharing knowledge, I'm one of those nerds who can take pleasure out of spending several hours (sometimes spread out over several days) to set up a guide about whatever I want to talk about at that time.

And then we got hit by a heatwave in the Netherlands and all my motivation, energy, drive.. poof: gone! Writing felt more like a chore now, and even though I didn't mind too much I did get tired of having to change clothes every single day.

Then my gf made a suggestion: why not try to record a video? We each got ourselves a solid bluetooth wireless headset and I was fully set on using 'multicam recording' to make my first video. Yah... as much as I enjoy working with Corel's VideoStudio... their recording software has "issues".

So I started looking for other options. Guess what I found?

OBS = amazing

Sorry if I sound like a fanboy, but even after having used this for a few months now I am still very much impressed by the professional setup.

First: you can grab OBS from anywhere. If you don't trust their website you can also use the Microsoft Store to grab it, or maybe you prefer using Steam? Heck, the project even honors the principle behind torrents because that's also an option to get it (no: torrents are not only meant for "specific contents", the whole idea is that we - as a community - help with hosting and sharing software (like OBS!) for others).

Second... if you don't trust "weird" installers then there's no need to worry. Because you can easily grab an archive, exrtract this in a location of your own choosing and then start using the software from there. You're in full control!

Also important: you don't miss out on updates either. I originally grabbed OBS from the Microsoft store, then it updated. I also wanted to share a review, and thus did the same thing on Steam.

Both methods worked like a charm, and also got me updates for later versions.

The workflow is so satisfying...

While the software may seem a bit overwhelming at first, it's honestly a lot easier than you might think. This is just my 2 cents (!) and I basically still consider myself a bit of a newbie, but even so...

• Profiles => These can help you to keep track of different hardware settings and also help to switch between them. If you're having issues with recordings... then you could always consider adding a new profile, let the config wizard check things out and then compare that with your original setup. You won't lose anything!
• Scenes => A scene is basically a collection of "sources" which you may want to use for your recording. And a source... is 'something' you want to put on display. Dividing those sources into different scenes can make it easier on you to easily switch to other aspects of your recording project.
  • Scene collections => If you have a nice collection of scenes, but are now planning to work on something different then you should save your current setup as a scene collection. You can start with a clean slate, and can also always switch back if you want to.
• Sources => This is what it's all about: defining everything you want to add to your recording. From audio sources (in- and out-put), window captures, display captures, right to more enhancements like text snippets, images (or slideshows!), videos (!), and even browser windows.
  • One of the reasons I'm very much impressed here is because those audio sources also have no issues with semi-professional gear. I already used OBS to record a demo of me using both Ableton Live & FL Studio together, and OBS had no issues with capturing the audio output from my Komplete Audio 6 interface; even when ASIO was involved (though I did need to tweak this a bit!).

Trust me: this may seem a bit daunting at first but you'll soon get used to it. Don't take it too fast, one step at a time. In fact... if you're just starting then my suggestion would be to ignore "Studio mode" for now, and just concentrate on making a nice first video.

One profile, one scene (don't worry about collections!) and then just add one (or more?) sources. If you have 2 monitors then you should definitely consider placing OBS on your 2nd while using your first for your projects.

And if you don't have a 2nd monitor then why not rely on OBS's amazing window capture? It'll grab one window, and you don't have to worry too much about placements and what not (though you may want to adjust the window & canvas size a bit).

Though I'd also definitely suggest to experiment with studio mode later on because it's a very powerful feature; this can easily avoid the need for some post editing because you already set up some transitions and use those on the fly.

So yah... figured I'd share.

THANK YOU!

Yah, I'd like to thank the people behind this amazing project for all their efforts and hard work and for providing me with this amazing software that allows me to capture just about everything!

True story: last week I discovered a bug within the GTA content creator (mission editor?) and I contacted R* support. They asked if I could record a video to demonstrate the problem. Before OBS this would have been a bit of a problem, but not anymore!

I strongly believe in credit where credit's due and yah, with software like this I kinda feel compelled to reach out and share some gratitude. Becuause once again... this is amazing IMO; the professional setup and feature set really impresses me.

(and sometimes it's also in the details... I actually pitted the OBS audio filters against what I have at my disposal in my (virtual!) home studio (powered by Ableton Live, FL Studio and with plenty of iZotope audio effects). A story for another day, but I was very pleased with the results. Context: I basically compared free software against audio effects which license sets you back several hundreds of euro's and/or dollars).

Thanks for reading!

Hi gang!

With apologies to the mods for possible false pings due to my wrong flair.

Context / backstory

I'm not gonna sugarcoat this: I'm first and foremost an Ableton Live user. To make things even 'worse' I don't even consider myself a musician! But rather define myself as an audio engineer. I've been using Live for 16+ years now, that's not gonna change anytime soon. But around 6 years ago I replaced my - at that time - 'second DAW' with my new love: FL Studio ("FLS"). Make no mistake about this: I am just as much as "Live fanboy" as I'm a "FL Studio" fanboy, to me personally this is a major powercombo which I think way too many people are glossing over.

Why 2 DAW's you ask? 2 sequencers are better than one, but also: 2 different (and yet also somewhat equal?) workflows otoh are a major gamechanger, at least for me. Because this can help make you think. SO many times now I've been here: trying to reproduce a sound in Live and.. it just didn't click. So I turn to 'FLS', different instruments but roughly the same workflow and what do you know... if I brought in, say, Sytrus (and assuming it worked) I know that I might want to grab Operator plus Analog and of course: (offtopic warning!! =>) EQ Eight (!), Grain Delay, Multiband Dynamics, Limiter and let's not forget Redux & Roar.

But there's more to that story, like that frickin' amazing piano roll! Seriously: I am more than happy with Live's MIDI editor to get things done, but when things get more serious? I turn to FL Studio.

I got 2026 => and I'm HYPED!

'Live' + 'Studio' = POWER combo!

Do you see what I see here? No? See, Native Instruments (= another audio company I hold in high esteem) tells you that if you upgraded their VST's you'll be better off starting the main program first before using the VST. So that ^ is a genuine screenie (why do you think I felt like venting?). Live grabbed & tested the new (& awesome!!) 'FLS' VSTi, Studio noticed something wrong and here we are. And it got all resolved. In what could be considered a bit of an afterthought.

Honest upgrade!

Told you: I'm a Live user, pls no kill me?!

I was honestly taken aback when seeing this. You do hopefully realize that templates like mine reside in the program folder, and most software tends to ignore that in favor of "App data"? Oh, there's more: this isn't my first rodeo: I used to move this critter around myself, manually. Not anymore!

Also... just a fair reminder / comment: us Live users pay for major upgrades, but... we also tend to get cool upgrades within minor upgrades too as of late (= last 2 versions (I'm talking a decade?)) and I like to believe that 'we' have 'you' guys to thank for this (I truly believe this part).

FL Cloud > SAAS garbage!!

Sorry: this is just my ego right now, I LOVE to be a part of all this!

Just so we're clear: I don't like nor do AI, I don't do "cloud" and I always install FL Studio without the cloud plugins (and the fact that I'm able to do that.. make me love this experience even more).

Yet at the same time I can't help but mention how MUCH I respect and appreciate FL Cloud. NO subscriptions, no "tying in" and fully honest (= you download, you keep!??).

You guys DO (hopefully?) realize that audio companies such as Image-Line, Ableton, Native Instruments (oh dear...) ... honest (!) companies will basically make their later versions ever so less appealing with every new release. True (offtopic (sorry!)) story: the only reason I upgraded from Live 8 to 9? Their (now heavily outdated) instrument collection. Because I just saw no other reason.

BUT => like it or not, companies need revenue and income. Those awesome men & women at Image-Line like to support their families too, ya know!

And yah, I frickin' read those licenses! =>

>4.2. A perpetual license to the Product will be granted to the User only after the end of the RTO Program duration, during which you have made all monthly license fee payments that were not affected by any refunds, chargebacks or other payment deficiencies.

You guys do realize that this duration can also be 1 month? Right?!

\"Pics, or it didn't happen!\"

Heck yeah I went here. After 6 years (!!) after grabbing "All Plugins" (best purchase ever!!) without extra charges? Tha HECK I'm supporting (I also own dozens of FM Studio Mobile soundpacks (VEELA FTW!! <3) because of course I do).

This sounds embarrassing but.. don't ask me about the new features because I honestly don't know. I DO know what all the old stuff still works (I'm one of those nutjobs who still relies on Live's "Operator legacy modus").

And I also know that my respect and admiration (!) for Image-Line drastically shot up after this upgrade.

This is... just awesome!

Thanks for reading guys, hope I wasn't too offtopic here and there.

PS

Speaking of which, and now that my post is over (lol) => For any fellow Live users out there => that FL Cloud? YAH, you own what you download and you can easily bring all of that awesomesauce back into Live too if you want.

I'm not gonna commend on that, instead => this post of mine explains how to do it. Seriously.... Image-Line's VSTi... so much respect for this.

Since no one is probably reading this anymore after the PS... that first DAW next to 'my' Live? Reason.

And I'm going on the record: the Props' had the drive, motivation and knew how to sell. But they were also too eager, too greedy (not gonna comment but: a majority of Reason users (myself included!) skipped multiple major releases. 2 Live releases equaled 6 or so Reason stuff!) and too many of us totally overlooked you guys. (IMO!).

6 years ago I grabbed FL Studio (+ FL Mobile). I never suspected this awesomesauce. Kepler anyone?!!

SO yah, tha HECK I'm venting!

Thanks Image Line for being AWESOME! I very much appreciate my 2026 upgrade!

BUT... at the same time... Studio + Live ... it truly rulez.

Thanks for reading!

Hi gang,

Sorry for a bit of a vent but... meh, I'm quite unhappy. My gf & me decided to grab Netflix for this month (and maybe one more) just so that we could watch some movies, series (like Edgerunners!) and today I remembered that there's a lot of WWE stuff on Netflix.

So I fired up Smackdown (the replay, not live!). First match: queen of the ring, and with all due respect but I'm not interested in female wrestling. So I tried to skip it. Yah... almost halfway in or so my controls suddenly vanish and I get locked into watching while being told: "Smackdown will continue in 2:50", even though I'm still watching the same frickin' match!

In other words: I'm now forced to watch this queen of the ring stuff, contents I have 0 interest in.

Can this get worse? Of course it can!

Since I couldn't do anything (stopping & resuming also doesn't help) I then figured I'd grab myself some coffee, clean up a bit in the kitchen, maybe a pee break and I'll come back later. That plan worked, when I got back the match was still going on, but my controls were back.

So I tried to skip using the timebar once more... Sure enough, managed to skip a few minutes and here we go again: "Smackdown will continue in 50 seconds" and I am once again locked into watching this same frickin' match.

Half an hour into Smackdown and I'm already done with WWE on Netflix, this is just ... beyond stupid IMO. Why am I not allowed to skip contents which I don't like? Why am I getting locked and forced to watching all that crap?

Seriously... ranting aside: does anyone know what the heck is actually happening here? I've watched plenty of Netflix, but not being able to skip contents, which isn't even advertising (our subscription doesn't even contain advertising).

I just don't get it...

Hi gang!

First a brief bit of context: My gf & me have been playing Minecraft on and off ever since 1.8, we love this game. However... the moment we started playing with mods together was also the figurative beginning of the end for 'vanilla', we've seen one too many "cosmetic-only" update passing by.

So, we set up our own mod collection over the years. This started on 1.12 (roughly), and now we're (still) on 1.20.1. Our "rule" is simple: we're trying to achieve a "Minecraft+" experience (but also take this a bit loosly). If one of us thinks that some mod could be fun then we test this ourselves (locally) for a few days, then we discuss its addition during the next weekend.

This is an important detail: "I don't like it" is not a valid argument against additions for our server. For example, my friend Aya loves playing with "Touhou Little Maid" which I think is a bit "so so", but who cares if she's having such a great time with it? Just like Aya doesn't really care much for "Spore" while I seriously admire the mod; its chaos, complexity and design (though Aya also begins to enjoy the challenges & creepiness when exploring some of the generated structures).

Anyway... sorry for a long intro but yah... we judge mods individually, and most important: we don't care about popularity; just because a mod is kinda popular doesn't necessarily mean that we'll enjoy it too, right?

Well... at first we rejected the following mods for various reasons, only to eventually end up loving to play with them.

Apotheosis

Now, in full honesty they did update their mod page a few times over the years, but when I first read about this mod I couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't going to make our game too much focused on combat. Also, wouldn't this risk making our characters insanely overpowered?

In addition I also didn't necessarily enjoy reading about sugarcane and bamboo which would now "simply" grow all the way up to the build limit. Remember our "Minecraft+" intentions? Sure, these are silly details but then again, why risk it? I mean, the game is even trying to do an overhaul on the enchanting mechanics. So... naah.

And then we decided to see what 1.21.1 had to offer, but because dozens of our favorite mods don't support it yet we decided to substitute and improvise. You guessed it: I also added Apotheosis. And Aya absolutely loved it.

Turns out... it makes combat in the earlier stages of the game a lot more fun and rewarding because mobs may end up dropping "gems" and "affix items" which can help you to gain a bit of an advantage, even if you haven't found any iron yet. Better yet: this mechanic also supports modded items. So when Aya finally had her favorite Terra Blade again (from Botania?) she could upgrade its capabilities even further, courtesy of these "Affix mechanics".

Oh, and the enchanting? Turns out that Aya had long given up on vanilla enchanting anyway; she mostly relies on both Mana & Artifice + Ars Nouveau for all that. Touché 😉

Farmers Delight

When I first looked at the mod page I couldn't help but stare a bit at the screenshots; these showcased builds of real looking kitchens. And since we're both not interested in recreating real world stuff I had my doubts from the start.

Not to mention... we're already playing with the Thermal series which also adds several new crops & foods to the game (corn, strawberries, rice (!), radish...), so surely we didn't have any need for this one?

Yah, that was definitely a severe oversight on my end, lol! I forgot to pay any attention to all the game mechanics which 'Farmers' gets you!

Thing is: there's (much) more to Farmer's Delight than merely a bunch of new food items; some of the new mechanics are even awesome for enhancing your early game a bit more.

For example: using 1 stick and 1 iron ingot you can make yourself a knife. This gets you extra drops when killing animals (such as ham which you get from killing pigs) but it can also help you get straw from cutting grass. Straw can be used to make rope, a lead, compost and canvas.

And canvas in its turn can be a substitute for leather when making books! Oh, and that ham? Get a cutting board, and you can cut up the item into meat and bone.

Oh, and rope can be used to make alternative fences and also safety nets which can help prevent fall damage (like a bed?). SO darn useful!

Awesome for multiplayer too!

But the best part is definitely the cooking mechanic... When you use the cooking pot then you can end up with multiple portions of some food item. Just give your friends a wooden bowl and then they can get their own portion straight from the pot!

Talk about being immersive...

(Traveler's) Backpack

Now, in fairness this section basically applies to any kind of backpack mod, but we ended up taking a liking to this one in particular.

We've been playing with this mod for little over a year now.

As I've already mentioned earlier Aya & me have always strived for a "Minecraft+" experience, so at first we never gave backpack mods any extra thought, because... isn't juggling with your inventory also a basic part of the game?

We actually discussed this and came to the conclusion that while inventory management is most definitely an important part of the gameplay, it's also fair to argue that because we're playing with mods (lots of them) we also increased the amount of potential drops quite heavily.

For example.. in our game you won't just find iron, copper and gold as metal ores in the world. In addition there's also silver, tin, lead and nickel to cope with. And that's ignoring all the extra mob drops, some of which are also courtesy of Apotheosis, which I covered earlier.

And collecting all that stuff is obviously going quickly fill up your inventory in comparison to a vanilla world. Besides... we've already added Iron Chests to our mod collection so that we can more easily cope, so getting a little help with collecting all that stuff makes sense too.

There's a solid progression

We came to enjoy this mod because it's not just a basic backpack, you can also expand both the backpack and its features. By default a backpack only provides two basic things: a bit of extra storage, and a sleeping bag which can be used to skip the night without setting a new spawn point.

Optionally you can also add 2 tanks which can hold some fluids (like water, milk, maybe lava?, etc.), and the backpack can also store some extra tools which can be recalled later using an action key.

The cool part is that those tanks are actually a separate expansion, and there are many of those: you can add a crafting table, a (blast) furnace or smoker, you can tell your backpack to automatically feed you, you can make it automatically collect dropped items while you can also add an expansion which can void items. Or maybe you just want to carry a jukebox with you, so that you can always listen to in game music? ;)

In addition to these expansions you can also upgrade the backpack itself. You start at the lowest tier (= leather) which gets you 2 expansions, 2 tool slots and a single chest worth of storage.

There are 4 extra tiers: iron, gold, diamond and netherite. Each tier provides you with extra storage (obviously), more toolslots and more expansions. In addition your tanks also get more capacity: by default you can store 3 buckets (3000mB) but that can quickly expand to 5 or even 8.

If you're playing with (lots) of mods then... you'll want some extra carrying capacity while you're out exploring.

Waystones

You can't fast travel in vanilla Minecraft, and since mods like Ars Nouveau already add warp scrolls (and the ability to create your own teleportation portals) this mod would surely be out of place in our game, right?

Well, as it turns out that line of thinking was completely wrong.

While it is true that this mod basically "only" adds pillars ("waystones") which you can use to teleport between, there's a lot more to that story.

For starters: players can craft their own waystones as well, or even better: a warp crystal which you can keep in your inventory, and also use to teleport to any of the waystones which you've discovered.

Which is another cool feature: you can only teleport to waystones which you found and activated in the world, so it's not as if you can "just" teleport to wherever.

In addition you can also create separated 'networks' of your own through so called sharestones which can have a specific color. A sharestone can only teleport to other sharestones of the same color.

Even a one on one teleportation system is supported through the use of warp plates.

Also fun for admins!

Waystones automatically generate in the world and often (but not always!) also spawn near villages. But usually the "wild waystones" spawn pretty randomly and can end up anywhere.

However, as an admin you can easily add extra waystones which won't become available to other players by default, unless of course you define them as being globally available; this can be useful if you want to make sure that players can easily access those.

Chance Cubes

"Back in the days..." both Aya & me loved watching the PopularMMO's YouTube channel, we enjoyed Pat & Jen's silly adventures in the Crafting Dead series, but we also sorta treated their lucky block challenges as if it was a sporting game. Aya usually rooted for Jen while I cheered Pat on. Silly, but lots of fun.

Needless to say... a few years ago we actually tried to add the lucky blocks mod to our game. We figured that such a "chance game" could be a fun way to speed up the early game stages a bit. Not to mention... it could also be a fun way to get hold of some expensive items a little more quickly.

Well.. that was a disaster: lucky blocks spawn in quartz temples by default; everywhere, thus effectively making quartz a redundant item. We also didn't enjoy the heavily outdated drops, despite the fact that the mod existed for 1.18 and 1.20 already. Most of the drops were pretty useless.

Which is when Aya discovered the Chance Cubes mod.

We were both very skeptic about it at first, but now we don't want to play without it anymore!

A cube in the wild, \"Foxy\" seems to think they're already rich ;)

First: no more temples! Chance cubes spawn in the open without anything else. So... you can find them during your mining sessions (as shown above), but also as random loot in chests.

But there's more => For the 'small' price of 1 block of diamonds, 4 blocks of gold and 4 blocks of lapis you can get yourself a tier-1 chance pendant: it increases your chances by +10 when you got this in your inventory. Chance cubes vary in "luck" from -100 to +100.

You can upgrade the pendant to tiers 2 ("+25") and 3 ("+50") by providing yet another 4 blocks of gold and 4 blocks of lapis. And... the tier 1 pendant can also be used to craft the "chance cube scanner": this will tell you exactly how good or bad a cube is. The better the score, the better your drops are going to be.

While you can't change the chances for the cubes itself, you can get yourself the silk touch pendant: this allows you to 'mine' cubes for later use. This only takes a tier-1 chance pendant + 6 string and 2 blocks of lapis.

Keep in mind: these cubes can and will kill you if you're unlucky!

The drops are (usually) really fun though!

The drops of this mod vary heavily... from a "craft it yourself" diamond sword (so: a pilar with 3 item frames which contain 1 stick + 2 diamonds) right to a double rainbow (= a rainbow build which gets generated, made from wool blocks (obviously)).

And if you're a bit unlucky you also risk to be placed in a make-shift arena where you'll be forced to fight fearsome monsters, only to be rewarded with some... fish? ;)

Just the thing you need during a mining session, right? ;)

It's not something we play with often, but it can drastically help you to speed up your game (or.. completely ruin it, of course!).

We both do very much appreciate the fact that every chance cube comes with a hard to miss warning about the risks of "opening" one up near your base. You probably really don't want to do that, ever ;)

And there you have it!

Some mods which we first rejected, only to end up loving them. Thanks for reading everyone, I hope you found this post useful somehow.

Hi gang!

Well, it finally happened... Minecraft (!), Empyrion, Cyberpunk 2077 and now also Starfield: games which "lured" me into doing an allnighter session and I ended up loving the experience (even though it also kinda broke me).

My character Chrissy finally became a Starborn during my first NG+ and I'm eating it up; I really love how Bethesda looked at us gamers doing replays over and over again within all sorts of different (!) games, and then addressed the whole thing here like they did. I had to use mods in "other games" to make sure I kept my favorite character as-is without having to spend another 45 or so minutes on customizations, but not with Starfield!

Anyway....

It just hit me: how does "Starborn you" manage to get into the Lodge so casually (I mean, you're obviously startling the gang)? Because during your original run it was Barret who gave you your pip-boy, errr, sorry! => he gave you a watch, but also told you that you needed to show it at the door in order to get into the Lodge.

Yet your Starborn you... just casually enters the Lodge like nothing is stopping them. And you can also (obviously!) see all the information which the watch is supposed to be giving you (based on in-game lore of course).

Making me now wonder: is the Constellation watch actually connected to all this, so: the Starborn and the Unity and all?

Because the way I see things the Starborn basically get three (!) things during their re-incarnation: armor, a ship and... the watch?

Yet as far as I can tell so far this isn't really brought up in-game, but I think it's quite an intriguing concept.

But... what do you guys think of this?

Yes, I feel kinda evil (\"sorta\")

I roleplay in my games, sometimes heavily. And when I learned that Cora not only asks and talks about books, but also appreciates you giving her some? Well... I collect lots of 'junk' anyway (according to Sarah).

But the dialog repetitions in my ship are also getting old, really old, so when I picked up this book I knew I was going to enjoy this 😉

Cora: there are more than one ways to help you raise your book allowance, I'm sure you'll find some solid tips in this one!