Yodeller

Our current DnD campaign has been going on for just a bit over 5 years now. There has been several occasions when it was already supposed to end. Yet here we are, still playing the same campaign.

This time it's different. We are actually going ro get a closure for the story and move on to the next campaign soon. The last session was supposed to be already this week, but we didn't manage to complete the final battle in time so we still need to continue that for yet another session. That should be the real end.

...or at least the end of our adventure. Our GM has planned one more session after that to have a recap of our adventure and give us an epilogue for the story. What things we missed, what could have happened, and most importantly what will happen after our final battle and the end of our adventure.

It will not be only the ending for these 5 years, but also function as a bridge to our next campaign he has been planning. Set 200 years after the events of the current campaign where our actions might have some long lasting effects that have changed the fate of the world during those centuries.

It's quite different going through an interview with a colleague I have worked for years than somebody completely new. There is no need for introductions or telling about the company. In many cases I also know very well how capable they would bee in the new role

We have new positions open within the company, positions where these new people would take some of my current responsibilities as it has been quite challenging being a direct manager for nearly 70 people. It's an old role where we have had 4 people (on the technical side) working in that position already for years. But with the added responsibilities we still consider all roles as new and will not automatically continue with the old ones. There is also one additional position offered at this time.

For those looking at the role as new position it's still easier to interview them compared to those who seek to continue in that position. At least there is something to tell them about the position. The old ones just want to know what changes.

This is also a new situation for me. Even though I have done some internal "recruitment" in the past building various teams they have usually been more direct with preselected candidates rather than having an open application available for everyone. So this time I have to also make the choice between the applicants rather than just hear whether they are interested in the role and willing to accept it.

As I've picked the art of creating music with the help of A.I. I have shared some of my songs with my colleagues in our company's Slack. We have a community channel for discussing music there and as many of my songs draw themes from the IT world I assume they would resonate with them if not by the music itself, but at least with the lyrics the tell about their daily work.

I don't really care whether anybody likes my music. I'm just doing it for my own enjoyment... or at least that's what I thought. The first few songs I shared there were created with not too much effort. They got a few reactions and comments and I was rather indifferent. Just glad that somebody else found them enjoyable as well, at least to the point of feeling enough to react to them.

Today I shared my latest creation, a song I worked several hours over the weekend. I put a lot more effort trying to be more creative and original, to create something truly new and unique. Something, which I was proud of at the end.

When my message got it's first like (well, it was 😍 actually) I was thrilled. Maybe I can create something after all and not just prompt the A.I. to hand me some artificial results that sound like a creative work.

I woke up at 3 am this morning due to massive pain in my neck. Didn't sleep much since then despite taking pain killers and doing some stretches. Haven't had such pain for a while.

I remember I used to have sore neck and shoulders years ago almost weekly. Sitting long days in front of the screen can be quite straining to that area of the body.

After a lot of effort in getting in shape, paying attention to my work ergonomics and forming a habit of regular stretching the pain was only a memory. Mostly.

Every now and then I still end up spending extended amounts of time in bad postures. Still, I can't think of that happening this time. Maybe it's just another sign of age. My body's tolerance to bad postures has started to decrease. I might need to start paying even more attention to keeping up with my habits of keeping good posture and stretch even more.

Doing music with the assistance of A.I. is fun and the results can be surprisingly good. At least if you just want some generic genre (or mix of genres) music. Just put in the lyrics and describe the generic isea what you want. If the results don't satisfy, just hit "generate more" to get another version until you are satisfied.

But actually making music - that's a different thing. If you want to have more control on the outcome there are advanced ways to control the generation. Also generating shorter clips helps to iterate and have more possibilities to steer the A.I. to the desired direction.

No matter how well you describe the outcome it's always more or less random. Results can wary greatly and getting exactly what you want might require quite many regenerations. Sometimes it feels that the machine just doesn't understand at all what you want and gives completely different outcomes no matter how many times you try. Other times you get almost the result you want, but there is just some small faults. Unfortunately there isn't a way (at least in the tool I use) to uae the generated result as a "seed" to more precise results and tey to fix those small faults. Often you just need to accept them and move on.