u/Space_Cucumber_User

Hello, for the last three years I've been thinking about buying and playing the lute, but I feel that buying a new instrument, which is expensive per se plus taking to learn to play it it's quite a difficult difficult decision, that's why I haven't take the step yet.

For more context, I am already a professional musician (I study double bass 10 years and piano 4 years in the music school and play in a couple of orchestras and also learned to play guitar by myself), and I am really keen into Renaissance music, but well, I feel that learning could be still quite difficult.

So I wanted to seek advice about these two things. Advice about buying a lute (I am spanish, no if someone doesn't know how it works in my country, don't worry, I understand, but I would like any advice that could be possible) and more important, anything that could be useful for me to learn how to play it.

Thank you very much. I wait for your answers.

El título se explica a si mismo, pero por si acaso, voy a intentar especificar un poco más y ya que estoy, dar mi opinión.

Cuando substack se comenzó a hacer popular tuve una sensación agridulce. Por una parte, la idea de que exista una plataforma donde poder expresar tus ideas con mayor detalle me resulta muy interesante en este mundo en el que las ideas se tratan de dar cada vez de forma más concisa y simplificada, pero por otra parte y esto puede que suene un poco mal, esta "democratización" del texto de largo formato me olía un poco a chamusquina. Explico porque.

Para poder hacer un ensayo más o menos largo (o MUY y excesivamente largo, que es uno de los problemas que con mayor frecuencia encuentro en substack, la falta de capacidad de síntesis), creo que hay que saber tener unas ciertas habilidades previas o sino solo hace falta ver la insistencia que se da en las asignaturas de lengua en el instituto y en general en toda la rama de humanidades en saber redactar.

El tema está en que mucha de la gente que escribe en substack no tiene estas habilidades, así que por mucho que pretendan escribir un buen articulo, acaba cayendo en esta cosa de darle vueltas y más vueltas a una idea que no es para tanto, en muchas ocasiones.

Luego, otro problema que tengo, relacionado a esto mismo, es el hecho de que la gente que hay ahí escribiendo se piensan que es, vamos, un lugar totalmente apartado de internet, cuando...la mayor parte de gente, COMO ES NATURAL, viene de otras redes sociales, así que esa especie de performatividad que hay me repudia bastante, la verdad.

Sin embargo, sigo leyendo ocasionalmente ahí y es que no todo es malo y el hecho de tener un lugar en internet donde exista la convención social de poder escribir sin limite de espacio y debatir sanamente, me parece una cosa muy positiva.

En fin, ¿qué opináis vosotros?

A few weeks ago, I made a decision that might sound a bit radical, but was really just something I’d been putting off for quite some time. That decision was to stop using AI for everything, because the truth is... I don't actually need it.

By "AI," I mean the kind we usually think of ChatGPT, Gemini, generative AI, and so on. I know AI has existed in many fields for years, and I don't have a problem with that.

The point I want to make is that I feel using AI, or rather, the fact that it’s so accessible and always right at hand, has flattened my life experience. It’s stripped away my curiosity and even my desire to debate with other people, since you can have that "debate" with AI and, on top of that, you’re guaranteed to "win."

To give a more concrete example: take Google’s AI search. At first, I used it to look up information on topics I knew would otherwise keep me online for a while. But the other day, aand this actually scared me a bit, I wanted to check the weather for a city I was traveling to, and instead of opening the weather app, I just asked the AI.

It also feels strange now to think about getting stuck in a dead end while searching manually, or how a search might spark new questions along the way.

On a broader level, if you share every passing thought or anything that’s bothering you with AI instead of communicating with other human beings, we’re heading in the wrong direction, and I feel like that’s sort of what was happening to me.

Obviously, after just a few weeks, I can't yet say what the results of this change will be, but at least for the moment, I’m sharing these reflections with other humans instead of ChatGPT.

P.S. Apologies if this text is chaotic or disorganized; it’s just a stream of thoughts as they occurred to me. On another note, English is not my first language, so I apologize for any potential errors.

I have two Russian tortoises, about eight years old, who live together peacefully in their terrarium.

They're from the same litter and have lived together since birth. When they were younger, they didn't get along very well, but as they've grown, they tolerate each other much better.

Since they didn't get along before, their terrarium has two separate areas for each tortoise, including a house for each one.

However, lately they both insist on going into the same house. I know it's not because it's cold (the minimum temperature is 15°C and the maximum is 30°C at this time of year), so I'm not really sure what's going on.

Are they fighting over territory or what? They aren't aggressive towards each other; they just huddle together and sleep as best they can.

Hi, I am a degree math student and I am struggling with passing my exams.

It's not that I don't study, or anything like that (I study a ton and learn the material perfectly), but when the exam comes around, my abilities suddenly plummet.

To give an example, yesterday I took a theoretical-practical analysis exam and I messed up very stupidly in each of the parts.

In the theoretical part I was doing the proof they asked me for and at one point you took two points x, y from a closed interval and you had to use the fact that their difference was zero, which you could do simply by saying that x = y.

Well, for some reason, my brain couldn't grasp that it could be like that at the time, and I went in a completely different direction, which wasn't right. Anyway, I messed up stupidly, and after the exam, I remembered what I should have written.

And then, in the practical part, I had to calculate the sum of a telescopic series, very difficult, to be honest, but I know how to calculate telescopic series, but at that moment even the initial step (decomposing into simple fractions) didn't cross my mind and then, after the examen, I was like "No way, I knew how to do this"

I've had ADHD diagnosed since I was 7, so that might have something to do with it, but I've never had big problems with it before, academically speaking, so maybe it's related with math?

What may be happening to me. Help.

Hi, good afternoon

I'm planning visiting the south of France (specifically the regions of Occitania and Aquitaine this summer with two friends (all of 20 years old), so I wanted to ask for advice.

We want to travel as cheap as possible, but with some considerations, like avoiding Airbnb and tourist flats in general (for ethical reasons), and tourist traps.

So, summing up, what advice would be useful for us?

Thank you

Hi, good afternoon

I'm planning visiting the south of France (specifically the regions of Occitania and Aquitaine this summer with two friends (all of 20 years old), so I wanted to ask for advice.

We want to travel as cheap as possible, but with some considerations, like avoiding Airbnb and tourist flats in general (for ethical reasons), and tourist traps.

So, summing up, what advice would be useful for us?

Thank you

I'm trying to do a social media detox, mainly because certain things that are happening (like this hantavirus thing) are causing me a lot of anxiety.

But I have a problem: my culture is internet culture (I mean, I was born in 2005, I'm a child of my time), my sense of humor is Twitter humor, my musical taste is partly based on the emerging artists I see on my TikTok feed, and I love posting photos on Instagram.

However, I'm experiencing what many people are going through: ever since big corporations have tried to be like everyone else (obviously performative), the internet has become a much more hostile place.

Any suggestions for how to fix this?