u/pocketrob

As a singer in a community chorus, a trusted friend recently shared "you're always flat".

I wear my hearing aids while singing (Jabra Enhance Pro 20s, receiver in ear style), and thought I had reasonable understanding of my own pitch, my voice section (Tenor 2), and the blend with the broader chorus, but now I'm doubting myself.

For those other singers with hearing loss, what tips, techniques, or other ideas might you offer that keep you in pitch? Things that work for you?

Thanks!

Howdy all! I'm not sure how to phrase this, so pardon my stream of consciousness:

Most LLMs degrade and hallucinate when a conversation runs out of context window space or the conversation goes long. In projects, Lovable doesn't (visibly) have a compact or "new conversation" mechanism.

How does Lovable address that degradation and performance issues, if everything is in one, long, continuous chat?

Howdy all - I'm looking to get a ceiling fan for my living area, which is an open floorplan style living and dining room. They're not separated by a door or wall, so I'm wondering:

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Would it be better to position the fan, centered, above one of the functional rooms (ex. Living room space), or could I get away with centering between the two spaces? Why or why not?

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Thanks!

Howdy all - the only coffee shops near me seem to be Dunkin' or the Starbucks inside the Safeway on Georgia. Are there any actual, hidden Gem Coffee shops nearby? Looking for someplace to relax or meet up with friends. Thanks!

EDIT: thanks for all the suggestions! You all nailed the ask, and now I've got a bunch of places to go. Much appreciated!

A few days ago someone here (or one of the AI writing subs) posted about finding "knuckles" 43 times across 50 chapters of their book. It stuck with me, so I ran the same search on my own draft.

I'm not going to pretend mine was better. My words were "filtered, noticed, and sat with" and I had 25 of them across a 42k word novella I'm writing for a friend.

Here's what I figured out staring at the list: it's not the word(a). AI knows about twelve ways to show that someone is tense: a tight jaw, white knuckles, straightening spine, darkening eyes, and it just rotates through them. So you ban "knuckles," and two chapters later everyone's jaw is tightening. Ban that, and they're all going still. The crutch doesn't die. It migrates.

What actually fixed it for me wasn't deleting body language. It was replacing it with something only that specific character would do.

Before:

> Elena's knuckles whitened on the door handle. Across the room, Marcus's jaw tightened as he processed what she'd said. His fists unclenched and reclenched at his sides. Her own jaw clenched in response. His spine straightened — the posture he used when he was furious and trying not to show it.

Six gestures in four sentences. The tension's technically there. But the writing isn't.

After:

> Elena kept her hand on the door handle. Marcus had positioned himself with his back to the window — the spot he always took before bad news. Outside, a car alarm started and stopped. Neither of them moved.

Same tension, less of the shuffle. We know where Marcus stood, and that one detail does more than the six gestures that repeat and restate without saying much of anything.

I'll be honest about what's still in there, because someone will point it out otherwise: "the spot he always took before bad news" still explains the gesture instead of letting it stand on its own merit, which is a different tell: over-explaining, and I haven't fully beaten it. Cutting the body-language clichés is the part I can do mechanically. That last bit is still me reading it out loud, cringing, and polishing it. But at least I can get further into my writing than ever before.

The way I find the clichés now is a search pass. Paste a chapter into whatever AI you use and run this:

Scan the chapter below for body language that appears more than twice using different words for the same gesture. Focus on:

HANDS: knuckles, fists, fingers, gripping, pressing, clenching

FACE: jaw tightening, eyes darkening, breath catching, nostrils flaring

POSTURE: spine straightening, shoulders tensing, going still, going rigid

For each category that appears more than twice:

- List every instance with its line

- Note the emotion the gesture is trying to show

- Flag whether that emotion is already named nearby in the text

Do not rewrite. Only report.

[PASTE CHAPTER HERE]

The useful part isn't the word count. It's the last line: when the gesture *and* the named emotion are both right there, that's the spot where you're saying the same thing twice and don't need the body at all.

So my question for the room: when you actually ran a search on your own output, what was the word? And did banning it fix anything, or did it just move somewhere else?

Edit: formatting

A few days ago someone here (or one of the AI writing subs) posted about finding "knuckles" 43 times across 50 chapters of their book. It stuck with me, so I ran the same search on my own draft.

I'm not going to pretend mine was better. My words were "filtered, noticed, and sat with" and I had 25 of them across a 42k word novella I'm writing for a friend.

Here's what I figured out staring at the list: it's not the word(a). AI knows about twelve ways to show that someone is tense: a tight jaw, white knuckles, straightening spine, darkening eyes, and it just rotates through them. So you ban "knuckles," and two chapters later everyone's jaw is tightening. Ban that, and they're all going still. The crutch doesn't die. It migrates.

What actually fixed it for me wasn't deleting body language. It was replacing it with something only that specific character would do.

Before:

> Elena's knuckles whitened on the door handle. Across the room, Marcus's jaw tightened as he processed what she'd said. His fists unclenched and reclenched at his sides. Her own jaw clenched in response. His spine straightened — the posture he used when he was furious and trying not to show it.

Six gestures in four sentences. The tension's technically there. But the writing isn't.

After:

> Elena kept her hand on the door handle. Marcus had positioned himself with his back to the window — the spot he always took before bad news. Outside, a car alarm started and stopped. Neither of them moved.

Same tension, less of the shuffle. We know where Marcus stood, and that one detail does more than the six gestures that repeat and restate without saying much of anything.

I'll be honest about what's still in there, because someone will point it out otherwise: "the spot he always took before bad news" still explains the gesture instead of letting it stand on its own merit, which is a different tell: over-explaining, and I haven't fully beaten it. Cutting the body-language clichés is the part I can do mechanically. That last bit is still me reading it out loud, cringing, and polishing it. But at least I can get further into my writing than ever before.

The way I find the clichés now is a search pass. Paste a chapter into whatever AI you use and run this:

Scan the chapter below for body language that appears more than twice using different words for the same gesture. Focus on:

HANDS: knuckles, fists, fingers, gripping, pressing, clenching

FACE: jaw tightening, eyes darkening, breath catching, nostrils flaring

POSTURE: spine straightening, shoulders tensing, going still, going rigid

For each category that appears more than twice:

- List every instance with its line

- Note the emotion the gesture is trying to show

- Flag whether that emotion is already named nearby in the text

Do not rewrite. Only report.

[PASTE CHAPTER HERE]

The useful part isn't the word count. It's the last line: when the gesture *and* the named emotion are both right there, that's the spot where you're saying the same thing twice and don't need the body at all.

So my question for the room: when you actually ran a search on your own output, what was the word? And did banning it fix anything, or did it just move somewhere else?