As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I happen to host my blog https://prahladyeri.github.io/blog statically, built using Pelican and served on Github Pages. Plebs like us can't afford a backend server infrastructure, so we must rely on external services like Disqus for comment hosting.

So far, Disqus was the only fellow in town who allowed us to host comments on a free plan. Though there were some issues (bloat, adware, etc.), people seemed to be generally happy with it so far.

But now, a new fellow named giscus commenting system has entered the town, it's basically powered by github. Since I already host my blog on github pages, this should be a natural choice for me, right? Many bloggers seem to be migrating to this new system and I might too soon. The downsides however are as follows:

1. It won't allow me to export existing comments from the old disqus system. Understandable to an extent as those exact author usernames may not be on the Github platform?
2. Disqus interface seems to have improved all of a sudden in last few days! There no longer seem to be any ad and even the comment interface seems to be less heavy or cluttered now. It might sound a bit conspiratorial in nature but could this be the result of rising competition in the form of Giscus!

I'm a lazy status-quoist by nature and might well end up retaining disqus if they don't deviate too much from where they are now. But I'll keep an eye out on Giscus too and its progress. What do you guys suggest?

Picture: EEAAO

Director: Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans

Original Screenplay: The Banshees of Inisherin

Adapted Screenplay: Women Talking

Lead Actress: (TIE) Cate Blanchett - Tar and Michelle Yeoh - EEAAO

Lead Actor: Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin

Supporting Actress: Angela Bassett - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan - EEAAO

Ensemble: The Fabelmans

Young Actor: Gabrielle Labelle - The Fabelmans

Comedy: EEAAO

Animated: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

International Film: RRR

Original Song: Naatu Naatu - RRR

Original Score: Babylon

Film Editing: EEAAO

Costumes: Babylon

Production Design: Babylon

Hair and make-up: The Whale

Cinematography: Top Gun: Maverick

the It Could Happen Here podcast did a 3-part series on this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, and I thought it was some of the most nuanced and interesting coverage I've seen.

1: The dead future of Big Tech - host Robert Evans got his start in journalism doing tech reporting more than a decade ago, including covering CES. he reflects on how the show, and the tech industry as a whole, has changed over that time.

2: The good parts of our future tech dystopia - Robert and co-host Garrison talk about the good / promising parts of what they saw at the show

3: We visit the tech industry's scary vision for the future - discussion of the creepy / less good stuff they saw at CES, including lots of surveillance cameras & robots

I'm a solo freelance programmer who codes on small to medium sized projects, and I realize that I can upskill myself a lot by keeping up with the industry trends, by listening to what the best in this field have to say. The problem is that there is just so much information overload everywhere, just so many youtube videos and articles that it seems overwhelming to differentiate the wheat from the chaff!

Since reading is my preferred medium of instruction, I want to know what are the blogs, journals, etc. on this topic with some street cred? And preferably individual experts and blogs, not companies. Company or corporate sites and blogs seem to be more hype than substance these days.

Which ones do you refer for keeping up to date?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I must preface by saying that no form of tobacco is safe for consumption, and no reasonable person should use tobacco for any reason other than maybe in religious ceremonies. I just happen to be an unreasonable person.

I took a bunch of my stuff that was stored in my mother's house this week, among them some snuff tobacco in a good state of conservation. I like the smell and the ritual. I went by a tobacco shop and bought two additional tiny containers of snuff -- mint, and cinnamon. It was very cheap. I enjoy using it throughout the day.

A lot of people snort it like cocaine, but that is not the way to do it. You should simply press your thumb into the snuff (which will get some of it on the thumb), block one nostril with said thumb, and then gently breathe with the other nostril. It has a high that is similar to smoking, but milder and more gradual. I find it very pleasant.

You shouldn't ever use tobacco. But, if you have used snuff tobacco, I would like to know how was your experience.